The Skeleth (27 page)

K
atherine huddled in the straw next to Indigo. Some of the boys kept to their tasks in the stable around her, stripping off tack and brushing down the horses, but they moved as though lost in unhappy sleep.

Indigo chewed on the hay in his basket. He drank from his trough—but twitched his ears, one eye cocked at Katherine. He turned his head and nosed her, his muzzle dripping wet.

Katherine raised her hand to stroke his mane. “You were never really mine.” She tried to stay calm but found that she could not help herself. She bowed her head and let the tears fall as quietly as she could.

A stable boy hobbled past the stall with a saddle in his hands—the saddle from Lord Aelfric's own hunting horse. “Who did it?”

Katherine got to her feet. “The shot came from up high, on the knights' side of the ravine.” She stepped from the stall. “It could have been anyone—all the arrows looked exactly alike.”

The stable boy trembled. “Was it . . . was it quick?”

Katherine shook her head. “Not especially.”

“I didn't really know him.” The stable boy hugged the saddle in his arms. “He was never kind to me. Why am I crying?”

“The world will change, now that he is gone, and maybe not for the better.” Katherine put an arm around the boy's shoulders. “That's one reason—you're crying for fear.”

The boy worked a nervous hand on the pommel of the saddle. “Is there really going to be a war?”

“The lady Isabeau!” The herald intoned the words from just outside the stable door. Katherine hardly had time to jump away before it opened. Lady Isabeau had yet to change out of her riding dress—the stains of her husband's lifeblood marked the sleeves up to her breast. Two of the castle guards followed close at her side, white to the jaws, hands gripped hard on the hilts of their swords.

“My lady.” Katherine curtsied to Isabeau. For one tilting instant she thought she might step forward to embrace her.

“The lords of Wolland, Tand and Overstoke,” cried the herald. “Make way, make way, there!” Footsteps approached the stable, men walking in hard boots.

Katherine shot a glance toward the door, then reached out. “Resist them, my lady.” She clutched Isabeau's bloodied sleeve. “You must yet resist.”

“Unhand me!” Isabeau wrenched her arm away. She bored a hollow, hopeless look into Katherine. “See where
resistance
has gotten us.”

Lord Wolland ambled into the stable with Wulfric at his side, seeming entirely unchanged by what he had just
witnessed. “My lady, we all grieve with you on this sorrowful day.” His voice grew round with florid lies. “Though death is our common lot, it is yet a blow to witness a death before its time, and to know that it need not have come to pass.”

The lords of Tand and Overstoke snapped their fingers. The stable boys looked to Lady Isabeau, but seeing no sign from her, they scurried off to prepare the horses once again, replacing the saddles and bridles they had only just removed.

“My lady.” Wulfric cut a sweeping bow before Lady Isabeau, then strode down the passage until he reached Indigo's stall halfway along. He glanced back at Katherine; she sank against the wall.

Lord Wolland drew on thick leather riding gloves. “Though I am sure he is now wounded in spirit as well as body, I thought perhaps we might have a word with the new lord of Elverain before we depart. Young Harold is now our noble peer, and we would wish to know his mind on a few small matters.”

Lady Isabeau moved toward Lord Wolland with such deliberate speed that the knights and lords around him closed ranks to block her way. “You will not see my son.” She shook— the whole of her trembled. “Take what you will, my lord, do what you will, but approach the keep of this castle on peril of your life.”

Lord Wolland did not flinch. He reached out, past his men, and with sudden speed cupped a hand under Lady Isabeau's chin.

“You dog!” A castle guard drew his sword, and then so did every other guard and noble in the stable, but Lady Isabeau raised a hand to stay them all.

A smile spread slowly across Lord Wolland's face. “Harm me and mine, my lady, and this castle will be stormed, your son's head will adorn a pikestaff, and not a man in Elverain will be spared.” His deep-set eyes flickered dark. “Not a man.”

“Take what you will, Edgar.” Lady Isabeau trembled and broke. “Do what you will.”

Lord Wolland leaned close—it almost looked like the beginning of a kiss. “And the river, my lady?”

“Cross it. Cross it, curse you, do what you will! Leave us in peace.”

Lord Wolland let go. “Good.” He tapped her cheek with gloved fingers. “Tell your son that there will be a place for him in the new order soon to come. We will welcome him in council when he is mended.” He turned from her, reaching for the offered reins of his horse.

Katherine backed away from them all and bolted for the door. She raced across the courtyard, up the stairs to the keep and around the bewildered guard, then through the great hall past a solemn cobbler trying to console a sobbing charwoman. She took the stairs in a bound, knocking a page boy back onto his cot before he could shout a warning, and found the rangy young guardsman she had seen the night before standing at attention in front of the sickroom. She did not slow her pace in the slightest; she wondered what she would be forced to do if he refused to stand aside—but then he did.

“My lord.” She burst in, then staggered at the sight of Harry, pale and drawn upon his bed, his sandy hair slick and wet across his brow.

“Katherine.” He reached up—so weak that she had to
snatch for his hand before it dropped again. “I called for you. Many times.”

“They wouldn't let me see you.” She kissed his fingers. “Oh, Harry, why? Why did they kill him?”

Harry coughed—the tremors shook him. “Father. Father, forgive me.” He let his arm drop back to the bed and closed his eyes. “I must save what I can.”

Shouts and calls drew Katherine to the window. Through it she saw Lord Wolland's party assembled on their steeds and wagons, surrounded by knights and guards in close ranks. She turned in a blaze back to Harry. “The body of your father is not yet in the ground.” She pointed outside. “There stand his murderers—avenge him! Say the word, my lord, and I will take up my sword and avenge him in your name.”

“And risk open war with a land more than twice our size, on a charge of murder against its lord I cannot prove?” Harry raised himself from his sickbed, grimaced, and dropped back again. “Oh, Katherine, Katherine, you do not know of what you speak. We are beaten. We are beaten before we begin.”

A clanking rose from outside, the sound of the gates winching open, then a roaring whinny that seemed to stop Katherine's heart. Before she knew what she was doing, she had leapt from the sickroom, past the guard, past a surprised Goody Bycross with a bundle of fresh linen and past a screeching, weeping Isabeau, then back through the hall and out into the courtyard.

“Indigo!” She screamed it—too late. The inner gates rose to let Lord Wolland's party pass through. Indigo tossed his head and bellowed, dragged on a thick rope lead behind a
trundling wagon. The households of Wolland, Overstoke and Tand spurred their steeds to depart in haste.

“Indigo. Indigo.” Katherine collapsed. Sobs rose through her in waves. She raised a trembling hand, knowing that Indigo could not see it, then lay down on her side in a ball of hopeless tears as he disappeared with all the nobles through the gates.

A single figure came through in the opposite direction, a short figure dusted by the road, his head crowned by a mass of red curls. He dodged aside from the passing horses and entered the courtyard, ignored by the bitter and distracted guards. Geoffrey Bale looked all about him in dismay, then spied Katherine from across the courtyard and came running.

“Katherine—Katherine, help!” He started his breathless plea before he reached her. “It's Edmund, Katherine. It's Edmund—he's gone!”

T
he Voice came again:
Edmund. Edmund Bale.

Edmund plugged his ears. “Go away. Please, please go away.”

What have we discussed about that word? My dear child, I will never be away. I will always be with you.

There was nowhere to go, nowhere even to look, for all was utter darkness. Edmund had scratched and scrabbled around the walls of King Childeric's tomb a dozen times and more. He had found only the door through which he had been kicked—sealed shut and barred—and a crack, a wide-split fissure in the floor between the empty slabs meant for king and queen. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide from the voice of the Nethergrim.

Edmund—child.
Even when the Voice paused, Edmund felt it there, felt impressions on his mind that almost resolved into the features of a face.
We are going to talk for a while. We are going to talk until you understand.

“No. No, no, no.” Edmund scrabbled on the floor. Even though the Voice seemed to be speaking in his mind, without echo, without real sound, somehow it also seemed louder when he drew near the fissure in the floor. The air above it felt terribly cold.

“Katherine, Katherine.” Edmund curled onto his side. “Help me. Find me.” His body kept trying, by twitch and by jerk, to move him away from the torment he felt. He gripped the edge of the fissure, and for a moment he wondered whether he should just fling himself into it. Maybe that would be better, just to make it stop.

The pain you feel is of your own making. Soon you will crave my voice. Soon you will find the world empty without it.

Edmund hit up against something made of stone, a slab marked with bowl-shaped depressions in its surface. He dug his fingers into it, ripped his skin against it just to have something else to consume his thoughts for a brief moment, something other than the Voice.

Why will you not converse with me? Do you fear that when you do, you will find out how wrong you are?

It hurt less to talk back to the Voice. Edmund knew that was what it wanted, but he could not help it. “Do you get lonely?”

Do you?
The Voice seemed to gather itself in the corner.
Child, have you ever met anyone who understands you as I do?

Edmund could not find an answer—and because he could not, he knew he had answered anyway.

You are surrounded by folk who could be your
servants, your vassals, your slaves.
Impressions so vivid came to Edmund that he could almost see a form sitting on the slab across from him, invisible hands folded in an invisible lap.
Why do you seek to unlock the hidden powers of magic, and yet still shackle yourself with the morals of those who cannot even understand what you do, what you think, what you are?

Edmund clutched at his head. The Voice seemed to go everywhere, seemed almost to merge with his own thoughts. It took an enormous effort to distinguish what he was thinking from what the Voice was telling him to think.

It is a simple idea, Edmund, one that I know you are well able to consider. Either the knowledge and power you seek do not matter—or they do matter, and so by gaining them you increase yourself compared with others. Which is it, child?

“What I have the power to do does not make me better than other people,” said Edmund. “It's how a person wields power that really matters.”

What came next felt like laughter, like a landslide.
Oh, child. Did Tom tell you that? He would. How tiresome.

“You've never mentioned Tom before,” said Edmund. “Do you not like him?”

The lesser always has its excuses, always has its reasons why the greater should abase itself to remain equal.

“I don't think Tom is less than me.” For the very first time in Edmund's life, he tried to picture Tom's face. He found that he could not quite remember it.

Do not seek to lie, Edmund. I know what you truly think of Tom.
Every time Edmund had ever thought Tom a nuisance and a bumpkin came back in perfect memory.
I know also what you know—that when you can call fire to your hand, when you can shape the earth and break the minds of other men, you will have no use at all for a boy who only knows how to plow a field and nurse a calf, and how to take a whipping without crying too much.

“He's my friend!”

You know that you will not need him.
The Voice kept a terrible, knowing calm.
You know, as I do, that you will rise in this world and he will not, that he has nothing that you want. You know, deep inside yourself, that you only pretend to be his friend because he is Katherine's friend, and that if Katherine had never been born, you would not have bothered to speak two words to him in the whole of your life.

Edmund pounded on the door—he had done it so many times, and with so much force, that he had bruised up and bloodied both his hands.

The Voice made him wait, drew out a silence until he found himself longing for its presence in his mind.
You will not leave this place until I give you leave to go.
He had no idea how long it had been since it last had spoken.
You will not leave until we understand each other. You will not leave until you let me in.

Edmund rolled back on the floor. “Stay out!”

You hold me at the surface of your thoughts.
The Voice grew closer and closer until it seemed to surround him.
Let me in. Let me in deeper, Edmund.

“Please, no.” Edmund clutched his head. “No.”

You will not leave until you let me in. Even if that means you never leave.

Edmund hummed songs he knew, but such was his agony that it seemed as though the songs were false. He told himself stories he had loved all his life, but could not make himself believe that the hero would win at the end of them. He curled on his knees, head down on his crossed arms, but found that he could not even make himself cry.

I know what it is that you did.
The Nethergrim thrust the image of Harry lying bleeding on the jousting field into Edmund's mind.
You used your power in anger.

“I didn't mean it,” said Edmund. “I didn't mean to hurt him.”

Are you so very sure of that?

Edmund stared into the void. He found it staring back at him.

Do not feel shame at it, child. You were only following your desires where all desires lead. If something blocks your way, then that something must be removed. It is simple.

“No.” Edmund shook his head. “No, that's wrong. That's evil.”

Another useless word that you must learn to forget. There is no evil, Edmund, only having what you want, or not having it. You already understand this. That is why you did what you did.

Edmund tried to hide inside his favorite daydream. He let
his reverie run, turned the dirty floor into a mattress and the door into a headboard. Katherine, his love—his wife—lay in bed beside him. The day had been long, their labors hard, but they were together at the end of it.

You tire me with this girl.
The Voice turned cold.
She is not what you think she is. She never was.

“Yes, she is,” said Edmund. “I love her.”

Here, then. I will show you what my faithful servant has seen.

What came next was something Edmund had dreamed against his will on many nights. The Nethergrim showed it to him, put the vision in his mind and held it there—Katherine and Harry in the castle stables, entwined in each other's arms, their lips pressed together.

“I don't care.” Edmund bit his lip, shaking his head, trying to dispel the vision. “I don't care, I don't care! I still love her.”

Katherine snaked her hands behind Harry's neck and pulled him in. The bliss on her face was a knife in Edmund's heart, a knife that grew spines and spread in his flesh, tearing through him without leaving him even the peace of death.

Do you love her? Or do you only want there to be some such thing as the love you profess?
The Voice seemed to swirl up in the cold air above the fissure, to reach for him in a kind of pity.
You cling to what you think is solid. Child, let go. If you indeed think that magic is worth learning, if that wish in you to grow in wisdom is true, then let go, and find out what this world really is.

“What is it that you want of me?” Edmund had tried and tried not to say it, for all the unknown time he had been
trapped there in the tomb. He knew that it was an admission of weakness.

What is it that you want from the world?
The Voice patterned itself before him and almost seemed to be crossing its arms.
Can you answer me that?

Edmund reached within himself. “I want to change things, to make the world a better place than it was.”

So. You want power.

“I want Katherine to love me.”

You lust. What man does not?

“I want to be happy.”

You seek pleasure and want to avoid pain. So do cows.

“I want to know what the world is, what it's made of, what it's for.”

If you truly do, then stop resisting me. If you truly love learning, then that love must eclipse all other loves. You must stop pretending that you can become Edmund Bale, the greatest wizard of this or any age, and at the same time remain Edmund Bale, peasant and innkeeper's son, good friend and honest boy.

Edmund had no defense for that. The greatest wizard—it struck too true.

Would I waste my words on you if I thought you were anything less? Know this, child—you can stand as far above Vithric as he stands above other men. You are greater yet than you know. If you turn with the current, you may travel very far indeed.

The image of Katherine and Harry in their embrace flashed
back into Edmund's mind, placed there by the Voice. He fell and fell within himself, unable to find anything to grip.

If you like, you can make the sword-girl love you. With a thousand subtle tricks, with half a moment's attention to the problem every day, over the course of several years you can turn her to you, turn her your way until she sets her life by you, needs only you, thinks of other things only as they relate to you. Then, when she trembles with longing at the very thought of you, you can make her yours.

Edmund stopped falling. He raised his head. “No. I would not like that.”

Yes, child. You know you would.

“I would not.” Edmund found that much in himself, and when he did, it made him strong. “I want her to love me freely, or not at all.”

You must learn to rise above such thoughts. If you truly want knowledge, you must be prepared to let it change you. If you want to know, you must follow that knowing where it leads—or else remain always half knowing, bound by emotions that chain you to your smaller, former self, always in torment within, your feelings and knowledge at war—indeed, always just as you are now, writhing on the floor, afraid to let me all the way in.

“No.” Edmund dug his fingers into the slab. “No. Stay out!”

It will stop hurting, once you let me in. I promise.

Edmund kept his eyes wide-open. He pretended that he stared into Katherine's face. They were so close that he could
feel the flood of her breath along his ear. He opened his mouth in the darkness and formed silent words: “I love you.”

But you do not.

“You are in all of my dreams.” It sent a thrill through him. “I love you more than I know how to say.”

These are nothing but the idle fancies of a boy.

Edmund dared to shift an inch closer, and in the dark almost made Katherine real. “I want us to have children, to watch them grow together in a happy home.”

My time is your time, Edmund.
The Voice grew angry.
We are meant to be together, you and I.

“I know that I want you to be mine.” Edmund reached out, as though he could touch Katherine's forehead with his fingers. “But if you cannot be mine, I still want you to be. I want you to find peace and joy, no matter what.”

Images poured in a torrent through Edmund's thoughts: Harry kissing Katherine's neck, Edmund grown tall and in command of thousands, Katherine alone and yearning for him. They buffeted against him, seeking for cracks in him, seeming to get louder and louder, a flood, a roar.

Edmund lay on his back. He shut his eyes. “Stay out.”

LET ME IN.
If the Voice had made sound, it would have broken his ears.
We have all the time in the world. Let me in.

Edmund could not think. He could not think. He was Edmund Bale, that was all he knew. He knew he loved Katherine, knew he wanted to know about the world—and knew that he believed it good.