The Fatal Child (47 page)

The south wind brought them – the warm south wind, loved by the lake-sailor, which was now a means of war. On it carried them, with a power that no iron or man could prevent, and their sails swelled and their hulls crept into sight beneath them, and the water broke white under their bows and the red-and-white-chequered pennants flew from the wide forest of their masts.

So the Woman of Develin came to Bay, with six hundred spears for her King.

elissa lay among the other servants on a blanket spread over cold earth. The air around her was shaped with the soft ripplings of canvas. She was in the tent of Gueronius, in his camp before the walls of Trant castle. She was more used to sleeping in a tent now than she had been when they had first set out from Tuscolo. Hard ground was nothing new for her bones. And she had become accustomed to the sense of men lying close by, and others, many others, standing to guard with weapons and lit torches beyond the thin canvas.

She was even used to the cannon now. There were six of them, sited further along the ridge at a point a few hundred paces from the castle walls. Each of them fired roughly four times in an hour, night or day, and kept firing so long as they had powder and the balls of iron or stone that they could fling against the castle. They fired with a horrid loud bark, which Melissa thought was hard in the middle but blurred at the edges. They made her head
ache and her ears ring. If the wind was in the right direction she could smell the smoke from them, faint and sweet as it trailed through the camp. And by night, if she peered under the taut canvas wall of the tent, she could see the white flash they made, flattening the shapes of the tents into clear black shadows in the instant before the sound came.

She hated them, and she hated the bearded, chuckling Outlanders of Gueronius who walked among them, peering along each barrel before they fired. But it was not they that kept her from sleep tonight.

As she lay there, just below the surface of a doze, she knew that she was waiting for something. She had forgotten what it was but she knew that it would come and that it might be tonight. She could not have said how she knew – whether there had been some little sign that had shown itself in the day (a glance, a drawn breath, a hesitation?), to be noticed and forgotten at once, leaving only its warning behind. She only knew that she was waiting.

Then Atti screamed in the inner tent, and Melissa remembered what she had been waiting for.

She sat up, wide awake. Other people were rousing sleepily around her – guards and servants of Gueronius, jerked from their slumbers. She could hear Gueronius cursing.

Atti screamed again.

‘What is it?’ mumbled Gueronius’s voice. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘No!’ shrieked Atti. And: ‘Get away from me!’

‘Angels’ Blood! What…?’

‘Get away!’

Melissa was on her feet, groping for the flap to the inner tent. In the gloom she collided with Gueronius, who stumbled out of it cursing. She saw the paleness of his chest and shoulder and knew that he was naked except for a robe or cloak that he had thrown around his waist.

‘She’s having a nightmare,’ he snarled. ‘Get me dressed. Get me some wine!’

Melissa ignored him and slipped into the darkness of the inner tent.

She found Atti by the sound of her breathing, loud and shaking in the night. She took her gently by the shoulders and held her, rocking her and at the same time murmuring to her to bring her into wakefulness. A few feet away, beyond the flap, Gueronius was being surrounded by his attendants. She heard cloth rustle and wine being poured. Gueronius was still cursing softly under his breath.

First time it’s happened to you, isn’t it?
she thought.
Knew it would
.

‘Atti,’ she whispered, still rocking the tense body that she held. ‘Atti. You hear me?’

‘Yes,’ sobbed Atti softly.

‘It was the dream again, wasn’t it? It’s back, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

She dropped her voice even lower. ‘Was it …
him?’

Him. Gueronius. The one behind the curtain. The man who had once really destroyed her house. The man with whom she had been lying skin to skin.

Atti sobbed again. The outer tent was in uproar. Gueronius kept an armed guard close at all times for fear that Ambrose might send the demon-princes to seize him again. Now they had come barging in through the flaps, weapons out, searching for the sudden enemy. Gueronius was cursing everyone for their stupidity. Outside, voices were calling, more armoured footsteps running. Men inside the tent were shouting,
‘All’s well, all’s well,’
and others were saying,
‘Nightmare,’
and
‘It’s the Queen.’

But all was not well. She could tell from their voices. A nightmare? To the Queen? What did it portend?

She took Atti by the shoulders and shook her gently. ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’ she said.

Atti went very still.

‘That’s who it’s been all along,’ Melissa insisted softly. ‘He’s the one who did it, after all. Don’t you see?’

Atti shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No.’

‘It’s got to be him! Don’t you see?’ Melissa shook her gently by the shoulders. ‘Think! If it had been Ambrose he’d have done whatever he was going to do to you when he had you in prison. But he didn’t. And whoever-it-is is still after you. Who else could it be?’

‘Melissa … I
need it
to be him! He’s crawled to me! If it was him I’d know what to do. But it’s not! It’s not!’

Melissa looked at the shape of her head in the darkness. ‘That’s why you love him, is it?’ she said brutally. ‘Him, and not Ambrose?’

‘I don’t love him,’ said Atti in despair. ‘It was
just – knowing it was him. Knowing I could … That’s what I need!’

More feet, running in the night outside the tent. The jingle of armour. A man’s voice calling: ‘Your Majesty! Your Majesty!’

‘Who wants me?’ said Gueronius.

‘It’s
someone else
!’ whispered Atti.

‘Your Majesty …’ The newcomer, whoever he was, was breathing hard. ‘Your embassy to Inchapter and Lackmere—’

‘Returned?’ said Gueronius eagerly. ‘What did they reply? Is it peace?’

‘My lord … Raymonde diLackmere—’

‘Damn it, man! What’s got your tongue? What was his answer?’

‘My lord,’ said the man, fighting for control of his voice. ‘He has sent you … He has sent the head of your emissary Cravaine!’

Melissa felt Atti’s shoulders shrink under her arm. And she held her hard, tense because they were both tense, and Melissa’s rocking became awkward and less gentle. She was thinking not of Atti beside her but of the bird-like face of a boy, suddenly solemn as she had never seen him before in the chamber of his King.

So Puck had got through. He had got all the way. That was something, Melissa thought. That was something, in all this mess. He was alive still. Maybe they would see each other again after all. Although just at the moment she could not think how.

‘My emissary?’ Gueronius was repeating. ‘He killed my
emissary?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Yes, thought Melissa. Because mine got there first. Puck got to him first, with the letter and the mark of the father’s blood.

Puka halalah
. Mister Gueronius, I think we’ve done for you now. And if anything happens to Puck I swear I’ll push the knife into you myself.

‘So,’ said Gueronius at length. ‘So. No quarter. No peace. I can send him no other until one of us is dead.’

‘My lord.’

‘Damn it! Why? I offered him half the south!
Why?’

‘I suppose … His father, my lord.’

‘But that was fortune of war! And they were sworn enemies!’

‘Even so, Your Majesty …’

‘All right,’ said Gueronius, pacing. ‘All right. There’s no use weeping about this. But if Lackmere and Inchapter are out against us as well, we must press hard. Bring me my commanders – now! Drag them from their tents if you have to. And bring me the captain of the guns. That wall
must
come down before the week is out…’

His voice was fading. He was marching out into the open with his men around him. The two women were alone in the tent. Melissa still had her arm around Atti’s shoulders. Atti was weeping gently.

‘Ambrose,’ she whispered. ‘I could have loved him. I tried. I tried. But everything was already ruined.’

She could not love anyone. She never could have done, because she knew someone was going to destroy
her again – someone close, who would bring her house and life crashing down upon her.

It could even be me, thought Melissa suddenly.

Me. I chose the King and not her. I was the one who sent Puck into the south.

And now the house was falling.

The south wind brought another sail up the lake – a fish-boat from Trant, crewed by men of the garrison. They came to Ambrose’s tent and spoke to his captains there. They told of the demonic battering of the cannon, day and night, and of the way the old walls were crumbling under this witchcraft from Outland.

‘First we feared it, lord,’ said their leader, a grizzled knight who held one of the new manors that Ambrose had caused to be settled around his mother’s childhood home. ‘Then we laughed when we saw how little each ball did. But day and night, one after another, without ceasing – the stoutest hearts cannot bear it for ever. I have seen our men weep, lord. And the stones crumble. The north-east tower will fall soon. Twice now Gueronius has called upon us to surrender and twice we have refused him. Now he swears he will kill all inside the walls. And we are loyal, my lord, but we are not many. We have families. There are women and children with us, whom we brought to your lands at your call. If Gueronius is not stayed they will suffer. And you shall have lost Trant.’

Ambrose looked around the ring of faces.

‘Before all else, we must join with Lackmere and Inchapter,’ said Caw, the flint-faced marshal of
Develin. ‘We cannot do that at Trant, with Gueronius standing between us.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it would be foolish!’ said Caw harshly. ‘It is what Gueronius wants. He is a war-fox, that one. He does nothing without purpose. If we come within his reach, he may overwhelm us before the southern columns can help us!’

‘His strength is not much more than ours,’ said Lord Herryce, who spoke for the northern knights. ‘Who is to say he will win?’

‘Who is to say
we
will? It is more sure to wait. With Lackmere and Inchapter we shall be two to three times his number.’

‘And yet still we must find a way past Gueronius, or they must. Why not find it at Trant?’

‘We do not need Trant. We need time.’

‘We do not have time,’ said Ambrose.

‘Why not?’

‘Because …’ said Ambrose, pale-faced. ‘Because Trant will fall.’

‘But—’

‘Lackmere will be told to hurry,’ said Ambrose. ‘It can be done quickly. You know that.’

In that ring of eyes they met each other’s look: the grey-faced Marshal of Trant and the young, wasting King with the sweat glistening on his brow.

Caw drew a deep breath. He glanced to his mistress, Sophia of Develin, who sat in her black gown among the commanders. But she said nothing.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said Caw at last.

ow the King drew upon his men-of-war. They surrounded him in a bright glitter of arms and the gay cloths of their tabards and pennants: Caw and Hob, the Marshal and Steward of Develin; Lord Herryce; the brothers of Saltar and other loyal knights of Tuscolo and the north; and the captains of Pemini and Watermane. Padry found himself more and more an observer. He put on a padded jacket and a coat of mail but they only made him feel ridiculous. He said little. When the King told him that such and such must be paid, or agreed, he shrugged his shoulders and wrote the papers with the necessary promises. There was no room for argument. Later, perhaps, he – or someone else – would count the cost.

He found himself more and more in the company of Sophia of Develin. She, too, walked and sat with the fighting men but spoke little. Sometimes in the debates they would catch one another’s eye and a flicker of understanding would pass between them. The two of them were creatures of peace: of justice,
judgements, politics and taxes. They had racked their brains and spent their purses to bring these men together. Now they must watch the dance of war.