The Cup of the World (5 page)

So he was bound by word, by guard and by the threat of blood. But the very tightness of the grip upon him made him seem dangerous. And he would be fed in her house, and would rise from her table each day, an enemy and a rebel still.

Safe in Trant, Phaedra had been only half aware of the rebellion of the Seabord barons and their southern allies as it had raged around the Kingdom. She still understood little of the complex of disputes and rivalries that had made them league themselves against the crown, or how they had won their early victories over the odds, and so shaken the King's grip upon his throne. For her, the chief effect had been that Trant had been half-empty for months at a time, as Father and his knights answered desperate summons from Tuscolo. But the knights had brought back with them stories of an enemy whose strength was not in numbers but in war-skill and, they had said, witchcraft beyond nature. And in her few weeks at court she had listened to others, who had known a town burned or friends killed, or things so changed that they would never be the same.

Ambrose was also watching the baron, and frowning. He too must be thinking of the King's judgement. Only the King could give justice among the high lords, so that they might do the same among their knights and barons, who in turn might rule the manors and the people who gained their living from the land. But rebellion had to be stamped on. Father, like many, could have lost much if the fighting had gone the wrong way. He must fear that the
King had been too whimsical with this rebel; and maybe, on the evidence of other judgements reached at court, that His Majesty was being altogether less cautious than the times demanded.

‘A dismal affair,’ said the bishop.

‘I am of the same mind, Your Grace.’

They were at supper together at an inn. Baron Lackmere ate with them, at the little round table, carved with saints, that the bishop had carted with him all the way to Tuscolo and back. Phaedra sat with her face glowing from the sun and her limbs aching from twenty miles of bad roads. A part of their joint followings clamoured and drank together in the common room, the length of a corridor away.

‘But for another reason, Trant. You are a loyal king's man – no, do not shrug, sir, you are famous for it. So you remember only that the King had to go back on his word to Seguin to save a fool of a knight who didn't know better. Therefore, you think, the trial should not have happened. If the man had not come forward they would have knocked the woman on the head, shared out her lands – and you would have seen no wrong.’ He frowned. ‘I do not say that someone who attempts murder by whatever means does not deserve death. But witchcraft is no more for men to play their games with than fire is for children.’

At table the bishop wore no cap. It had been a shock to Phaedra to find that he was totally bald. His big, ringed fingers and his fine clothes were stained with food. He hunched in his seat at the end of the table, leaning forward, eyes protruding, his big voice rolling and teasing like one
who loved an argument but who loved most of all to win.

‘Not just murder,’ said Father. ‘Rebellion.’

‘Hah. As to that, I did not hear this woman was so guilty of it as others. Why does a man rebel against his lord, Lackmere?’

The baron had been taking little part in the talk. Perhaps he was surprised, now, even to have been spoken to.

‘Why does a stone fall to earth?’ he grumbled. ‘Must I own as lord one who would rule over me from afar and perhaps order my living to suit my neighbour rather than myself? And what if my neighbour then pays some bribe to the King or his courtiers before I am aware of it?’

The bishop grinned sourly. ‘It is a fallen world, where Good may be no more than the smaller of two Evils. Do not mistake me. I am a churchman, and like my fellows I will bless the King and his Law for what peace they may bring. But I do not suppose either to be perfect. Least of all when men cry witchcraft. I do not like this business— No, Trant, hear me out, sir. Let the King hazard his justice at the edge of a sword if his wits cannot help him better, but scripture tells me nothing of ordeal before Heaven.’

‘And what does it tell you of witchcraft?’ asked Phaedra suddenly. ‘Your Grace,’ she added.

She knew at once that she had spoken out of turn. Perhaps that was why the bishop stared at her, blinking, with a chicken leg halfway to his open mouth.

‘I mean – why must we be so afraid?’

‘Phaedra—’ said her father.

‘No, Trant,’ said the bishop. ‘She has seen fit to speak, so speak we shall.’

She suddenly realized how still the other men were, watching him.

‘You have spoken an obscenity, child – as you should know. Witchcraft is abomination. I do not mean that a man slain by potion or rune or some such is any more wronged that one whose brain-pan has been opened by a sword. Nor simply, as some of my brethren would say, that the act of witchcraft is damning to the soul. If that woman repents not of her witchcraft, then damned be her soul and good riddance, sir …

‘But see the world as the Angels see it. See Man, sitting at a table, a round table such as this one. To his right’ – the bishop gestured towards the Warden – ‘are the virtues: justice, loyalty, honour, and so on brighter and brighter each one until we reach the chairs of Courage, Compassion, Glory and Truth, behind which stand the Angels themselves …

‘To his left’ – the baron grunted a half-laugh as the bishop waved dismissively in his direction – ‘war, cruelty, falsehood, and then the little magics – the love-philtres, the potions, the crones who run as lithe hares in the meadow, the words of the dying and of the dead, the images of wax and the blood of cockerels. Beyond them, the dark places where the devils born with us whisper promises that bring the soul to rot.’

He leaned across the table, and his stubby finger pointed at Phaedra's heart.

‘And there is a place where truth and witchcraft touch. There may the Angels help us! For we live by truth. Never doubt it. What should justice be, but the exercise of truth? Yet the truth that borders those places is bent. There, the
best-kept oath is that which is broken at once. If it is not, it twists the oath-maker to falsehood and treachery. It spreads from doer to the very ones that would bring him to justice. Foul things are done under every day's sun, girl, by men in iron who are held noble. But never more foul than they will do with the scent of witchcraft on the wind.’

He paused for a heartbeat. Then: ‘Girl, do you know of anyone who does, or talks of doing, witchcraft?’

She met his look. ‘No, Your Grace.’

‘As the Angels are my witness,’ added Father swiftly. ‘She speaks the truth as I know it, Jent.’

The bishop sat back, eyeing them both. He said nothing. Surely he did not doubt Father? Phaedra and the Warden watched him as if he were a bear that might charge.

At last the bishop grinned. ‘Did you ever meet that woman, Lackmere? The one they tried?’

The baron looked up from studying his fingers. ‘The Luguan? No. I think she was with Calyn of the Moon Rose for a while.’

‘Oho! One might say, then, that she had almost invited her trial by the company she kept.’

‘Of that I do not know. He was a deep man, but true to his friends, whatever men say of his house or line.’

‘And I have already said a few words on truth this evening. Witchcraft or no, a man who is true to rebels such as these may be himself the very worst of all falsehood. What became of him?’

The fire hissed, and the baron did not answer. Perhaps he too was feeling assaulted.

‘What became of him, Lackmere?’

‘He died of a plain fever before Hallows,’ growled the baron. ‘No witchcraft helped him there.’

The three men sat up long after Phaedra had retired. From where she lay in her room she could hear the rumble of voices rising from the chimney, mingling with the muffled, sentimental chorus from the common room.

The bishop's voice echoed up through the stonework. ‘Fine daughter you've got there, Trant. Credit to you.’

Father said something in reply. Perhaps he was mollified now. Perhaps – battered by the bishop's efforts at tact – he was ready to suggest that the exchange about witchcraft had been her fault after all.

‘No! Gabriel's Wings, Trant. Be proud! She thinks. She'll make a handsome woman.’

‘Thinking?’ cried the bishop again. ‘The greater the merit, the greater the fall – be it man or woman. And the greater the redemption. But a man who looks for a stupid wife is himself a fool. What dowry do you offer for her?’

Three manors and six hundred silver marks, thought Phaedra.

‘Small! Ah, you're a clever man, Trant …’

‘The land stands clear of other claim,’ came Father's
voice. ‘And if I offered not a blade of grass, still the foppoons would be round us …’

‘As thick as moths!
They
know what will come. And she has looks. Half the Kingdom will be at your door after her. Damn me – I would myself, if I were not a priest.’ His laugh rang among the stones. ‘And if my other fair acquaintance would let me!’

They would part company with the bishop in the morning, and go their separate ways. (Twenty miles today, thirty tomorrow in the hammering sun. She ached.) She was glad, both because it marked a further stage on their journey home, and because she was in a hurry to get away from this questioning, leering prince of the Church who browbeat men at table and then thought he could flatter them back into friendship with him again. What must the Angels think of such a man in their service!

She turned her head on the pillow. Through the gauzy hangings around her bed she could see her maid Dilly lying by the hearth, a sleeping shadow lit by the last of the embers. From below came the sounds of the priest, the baron and the king's man, wining together into the small hours. Father and the bishop were probably both drunk by now, as they talked on about the misfortunes of the great, and sniffed like dogs at witchcraft on the wind. And the baron – was he quietly drunk too, or was he plotting? Outside, horses shifted and stamped in the long picket lines, disturbed by something in the darkness. Moonlight shone and faded as the clouds passed. Mail clinked under her window where the armed watchmen paced in the night.

Take me back to my love
.

Phaedra dreamed.

She was walking in a heavy brown landscape. The light was dim. Around her reared the hills that she knew lay across the lake from Trant. She felt the heavy clod-clod of her boots on the dry stones. She was trying to find her way home.

So the bishop would marry you if he were not a bishop
, said the man at her side.
You should be pleased
.

I do not want to marry him
, she said.

Then be thankful that he is, after all, a bishop
.

He scared me. And Father. He meant to
.

You might find he was better than many a younger man they would wed you to indeed
.

No!

You are a woman, now
.
Your father would not have taken you to court if it were not so
.

I am going home
, she said.

They walked on together, picking their way among the brown rocks. Far away the horizons rose to the sky as if all that place lay in a vast circle of mountains. Two great lights, smaller than the moon but larger than any star, hung together on the rim. The air was thick with the rumble of some sound that was too deep to hear.

They had met here before, many times.

She could look at him, because she was dreaming. He was tall, and walked with his head bowed. She could see clearly his lean face and short black hair, despite the dim light. He wore black, and as he went he carried the stone cup before him in both hands. She watched the line of his face against the sky as they walked together. She wanted him to talk, and he did not. She wondered what he was thinking.

At last she said,–
Are we going to drink again?

He stopped, and did not answer immediately. Then he lifted the cup.
If you wish
.

There was water in the bowl, dark, like jet, like a deep pit. And yet at the same time it was clear. It moved slightly as she watched it. She put her hand to the rim. They held it between them.

You first
, she said.

Her fingers rested lightly on his glove.

The secret is not to have fear
, he said.
You will be what you will be if you do not fear anything
.

Stones clattered among the rocks to her left. Something eyeless was moving there, grunting, groping its way: a hooded, toad-headed thing. Small rocks broke beneath its feet, and the long claws of its forelimbs trailed as it went. From the corner of her eye she saw it turn its head towards her as she took the stone cup from him. She did not regard it. She did not fear anything.

She drank, turning the cup clumsily so that her lips might touch the same spot as his had done.

Phaedra's pony was a chestnut called Collen. He was friendly and safe, if not very clever. He had plodded through strange, sun-blasted fields and picked his way along the coarse-bouldered roads more competently than some of the grander animals in the cavalcade. Now, as they crawled up the broad slope of Redes Hill in the heat of the late afternoon, he seemed to notice that he was nearing home. Hullo, his ears said as they went up. Haven't I been here before? Let's go and see.

Phaedra let him take her ahead of the party, and on
up the slope. The track curved to the right, through olive trees where goats scuffed and nickered at the thin grass. After half a mile it rounded the shoulder of the down, and the world changed.

There, Collen seemed to say as he tossed his head. What did I tell you?

Derewater lay before them. Suddenly, after the days of dry grasslands, the great lake stretched away to left and right until it blended with the sky at the opposite horizons. Its level face wrinkled a deep blue in the late afternoon. Below her, fishing boats crept upon the water, with their sails like little diamonds, curved and pale upon the dark surface. She could see the further shore clearly today. She could make out the shadow of woods and the paleness of grass on the hillsides. Far beyond, the mountains loomed.