The Wizard (44 page)

free you, Sir Able." If Arnthor heard, he gave no sign of it. "You are a knight. A knight of my kingdom?" "I am." "You worked wonders in Jotunland, and only wonders will save us." "Strike off these chains," I told him, "and I'll try." He spoke, and my chains fell clanking to the floor.

___ My story has almost ended; before I end it, I want to say that had it not been for Org, whom Arnthor glimpsed in my cell and whose terror was such that even Arnthor retreated, I do not believe he would have freed me. I was bathed, dressed, and fed. "I'm to send you to His Majesty as soon as you can ride," the Earl Marshal told me. "Meanwhile, I'm to arm you. What would you like?" "For you to leave. I've my helmet and mail, which our king lets me keep. My sword he lost trying to regain the passes, when the army was overwhelmed." "Wait," the Earl Marshal told me, and hurried away. In his absence I plotted against himagainst Gaynor and Idnn, too. Plotted, and mocked myself for plotting, for I was too weak to stand. Days passed in which boys waited on me, pages scarce old enough to hold bows. Once they asked whether the Osterlings would conquer us, and what would become of them if they did; I told them I had no doubt they would, but if they wanted to escape I would take them to the dungeon, where they would be devoured at once. "It would be better for Celidon," I told them, "if it were left to the trees. There's an isle called Glas. There the great dragon Setr put lovely women to lure seaman ashore. The women died, killed by one another or the seamen they tricked. The last took poison, and it's a place of beauty, silence, and clear light. Have you poison?" Swearing they had none, they fled. The Earl Marshal returned, bearing the sword Baki had found for me. He was as fat as ever, with fear in his shrewd eyes. "It does me honor," he said, "to give you this." He bowed as he held it out. I took it and belted it on. "For this," I said, "we'll go to Aelfrice." He cannot often have been surprised; but he was then, astonishment that showed plainly in his face. "It won't take long," I promised him, "though time runs slowly there. Come with me." He would have argued for an hour. I drew the sword he had just given me and pricked him with it, and although he shouted for guards, none came. "The king has taken every man fit to hold a spear," I told him, "from the castle and the city too. Leaving you." "Someone must be in charge," he said. "Why, no. Where's Queen Gaynor, who sentenced me? The boys said she had gone, but they did not know where." "She's with the king." The Earl Marshal's voice shook. "There's no one left to protect her here." "Besides," (I urged him forward with my sword) "I'm free again, and he fears I'll lie with her. Move!" "Where are we going?" "To Aelfrice as you wished," I said. "To Aelfrice, as I promised. It's down those stairs, and you'll go quicker than your age and weight permit or feel my point." I took him to the dungeon, discovering in the process that I was more afraid of it than he was. It seemed to close around me like the grave. If the Earl Marshal's face was white, mine was whiter; I kept him moving, so he could not see it. Dandun had gone; Colle remained, locked in his cell. I freed him, and with his help freed such other prisoners as we could find until we had cleared the twelfth level. "They don't go down there," Colle said, as the Earl Marshal and I started down. "There's no one there." "That's not the same thing," I told him, and prodded the Earl Marshal with my sword. "Please," he said. "I'm twice your age, and there is no railing." "You're four times my age," I told him, "and there's no railing." "If I had known the conditions under which you were being held, I would have come to your rescue, believe me." "Sure you would have. You were careful not to know." There was a fourteenth level, and a fifteenth below that. After it, I did not count; but we soon stepped out onto a rocky plain where the breeze smelled of the sea. "There is a draft," the Earl Marshal said. "The dungeon must connect with caverns larger still." "There's a wind," I told him. "Didn't Lord Colle come with us?" The Earl Marshal looked behind us. "I thought he was coming, too." "Only as far as the twelfth level. Walk that way." "There are no more stairs." He sounded happy. He had been frightened as we descended and descended, and must have thought that having reached bottom we would go up again. "There must be more stairs." I was speaking mostly to myself, and I prodded him again with my point. "But there aren't!" "This is Aelfrice," I explained. "So there are worlds that are lower still, Muspel and Niflheim." "The realms of fire and ice." He sounded awed. "You wished to go to Aelfrice," I told him. "You are here. It will soon be day." We walked on and heard the lapping of waves. "Winds are rare here," I explained, "but there's a breeze at dawn and at twilight, near the sea." "This is the air that I've longed to breathe," the Earl Marshal said; it seemed to me that he addressed me even less than I had addressed him. Night was gray as we strolled down the shingle to the water's edge. I sheathed my sword, for I had no more need to prod him. "Where will the sun rise?" he asked. I knew he was thinking of the sea of Mythgarthr, in which he must often have seen the sun set. "It won't," I said. "We are their light. You'll see." His silence told me he did not understand. "The worlds get smaller as you descend. Aelfrice isn't as big as our world, though I think it must be bigger than Celidon." "There is a geometric progression," the Earl Marshal told me, and tried to explain what a geometric progression was, a thing I could not understand and that I doubt anyone can understand. "The highest world, the world of the Most High God, is infinite. The world below his is one hundredth as large. But a hundredth part of infinity is infinity still, though so much smaller. The world below that" "Skai." "Yes, Skai, is a hundredth the size of that, and so a ten-thousandth the size of Elysion. Still infinite. May I sit on this stone?" "Of course, My Lord." "Very kind of you, Sir Able. Harrumph! Kindness to a prisoner. Knightly. You got little yourself." "I did the first time, My Lord, but not the second. I'd escapedso Her Majesty chose to take it." "We'd been defeated." The Earl Marshal wiped his face. "We have been, as I ought to say. They are less than human, those Osterlings." "I fought them at sea, My Lord, and they are not. The Angrborn often seem very human. King Gilling did in his love for Idnn. But they aren't. The Osterlings don't look as human as King Gilling, yet they're what we may become." The air grew brighter. There is no air anywhere like the air of Aelfrice. That of Skai is purer than the purest air we know in Mythgarthr, so pure no distance can haze its crystal transparency; but the air of Aelfrice seems luminous, as if one breathes a great gem. Day came, and we saw before us the sea that is like no other, as blue as sapphire and as sparkling, stretching to island realms unguessable. A league overhead Mythgarthr spread itself as stars do on a cloudless night. Jotunland lay north, wrapped in snow. Above us was Celidon, where green shoots peeped from tree and field. All around us, Aelfrice, white where it was not green, rejoicing in the silver light, forests of mystery and cliffs of marble. "I could stay here forever," the Earl Marshal muttered. "Give up fortune, castle, horseseverything. They're all lost anyway if the Osterlings prevail." "Maybe you will," I said, because I was thinking of leaving him there; but soon I said, "Follow me," for I had spied a crevice in the base of the cliff to our left. He did. "Where are we going?" "To look at that, and go down farther if we can. I haveyou don't understand my nature. I don't either, though I understand much more than you do. I can't use the powers my nature confers. I've given my oath. But I can't change this nature that neither of us understands. What do you smell?" He sniffed the air. "The sea, and I think these meadow flowers." "I smell sulfur, and I wish Gylf were with us." We descended into the crevice, I eagerly, he more slowly behind me. Fumes billowed about us at times so that we could scarcely breathe, at others vanished, leaving air that would have suited the desert, lifeless, dusty, and scorching. The Earl Marshal took my arm. "This is dangerous. We must be nearing Muspel." "We're there," I told him. I had glimpsed a dragon in the darkness. It seemed to hear the hiss of my blade and came at us, silent at first, then roaring. The Earl Marshal tried to flee and fell, rolling down the stony slope into darkness. The dragon struck at me, and I put my point into its eye. How long I searched for the Earl Marshal I cannot say. It seemed a minute or two, but may have been much longer. No matter which way I turned, the ground sloped down. It grew cooler, then cold, and air as clotted as phlegm held pitiless white light that drew the color from the gems on my scabbard and the skin of my own hands. "Able! Sir Able!" The Earl Marshal came waddling so rapidly that I knew he would have run if he could. "There's aa gianta monster . . ." He pointed behind him. "Wego. We must! Itit" I told him I wanted to see it, thinking it might be Org. "No, you don't! Sir Able, Sir Able, listen. III've seen it." He fell silent, gasping for breath. "Yes, you've seen it, My Lord. I want to see it, too." His fear had infected me, and I added, "and afterward go." "I'll go now." "And face the dragons alone? If you won't come with me, I'll go with you and save your life, if I can." We started up the slope, walking easily. After some while I realized we were not walking up it, but down. I corrected our course. We reached a ridge, and had to descend or turn back. Great sheets of ice hung like curtains from a dark sky; the ground was hard as ice, and slick with frost. "This cannot be Muspel," the Earl Marshal gasped. A voice before, behind, and all about us answered him. "You call this Niflheim." It was weary, yet resonated with such power as no Overcyn possesses, not even the Valfather. Trembling, the Earl Marshal fell to his knees. "You wished to see me, Able. You have only to look." It surrounded me. I cannot write it in a way that will make it clear if you have not seen it. I was in it, and it scrutinized me from above as from below, huge and stronger than iron. Hideous in its malice. I tried to close my eyes, feeling that I walked in a nightmare. It was there still. "Call me God, Able." Pride woke in me; that pride did not still my fear, but shouldered it aside as the weak thing it was. I said, "Call me Sir Able, god." "You come near the secret that lies at the heart of all things, Able. Worship me, and I will tell it." The Earl Marshal worshipped, but I did not. "Learn it, and you will have power such as men and gods scarcely dream of, easily obtained." I said, "This lord is worshipping you. Tell him." "You behold me as I am, Able. It may be the sight is too much." As it spoke, it no longer surrounded me. Instead there sat before me upon a throne of ice a creature grossly great. Toad and dragon were in it. So was the Earl Marshal, and so was I. "Worship me now. You shall know the secret." I said, "I don't wish to know this secret, but to return to Muspel and from there to Aelfrice." "Worship me!" "Lord Escan is worshipping you," I repeated. "If you'd tell me, why won't you tell him?" It lifted the Earl Marshal before I had finished, held him close, and whispered; Niflheim trembled as it whispered, and a sheet of ice miles long fell with a deafening crash. "Now you know me," it said to the Earl Marshal, but his eyes were shut tight and would not look. "I know you, too," I told it. "This is the seventh and lowest world, the final world, and you are the most low god." "I will tell you, and you will worship me, seeing that it is right and good that you do so. Come nearer." I did not, yet the distance between us diminished. Its voice fell to a whisper, and that whisper was the worst thing I have heard. The voice of Grengarm was as pure as the wind beside it. "Know the great secret, which is that the last world is the first" Niflheim shook again. Its frozen earth groaned. "You stand in Niflheim, and Elysion." The tremors became more violent. A pillar of ice fell; and its ruin sent ice shards flying, and a cloud of sparkling crystals, like snow. The thing that spoke looked about it, and I glimpsed its fear. "You see my face," it whispered, and seemed to hear my thought. "If you could see my back, you would see the Most High God" Niflheim broke as it spoke. A crack opened between the place where it sat and the place where I stood. I helped the Earl Marshal rise; I cannot say why I did, but I did. Perhaps he could not have said why he rose. "For He is me" Ice and stones rained all around the thing that spoke. A stone as big as an ox struck it. "And I am He!" Even as it spoke it fled, with the frozen earth rolling under its feet like the sea, and stones, ice, and fire of Muspel nearly burying it. I saw its back then, and the back of its head, and they were covered with lumps and running sores. ___ When we regained Aelfrice at last, we sat surrounded by its beauty, we two, and Aelf came from the forest and the sea with food and gifts. We ate, and an aged Aelf whose beard was of those fall leaves that remain streaked with green drew me aside and whispered, "Our queen is waiting for you." "I know," I said. "Tell her that I'll come as soon as I have illustrated her message, as she and the kings wished." I returned to the Earl Marshal and sat with him, and ate an apple and a wedge of cheese. "You're wise," he said, "and I, who thought myself wise for so long, am a fool." "By no means." "I couldn't attain this world of Aelfrice. Harrumph! Not in thirty years. You did it easily, and followed the worlds to the end." I nodded. "I've never heard of anyone's doing that. No one but you. And I, because I came with you." I said that someday I would like to go to Kleos, the world above Skai; but it would be years before I tried. "I wish I could sit here forever," he told me solemnly "watching these waves and this sky, and eating this food." I paid little heed when he said it; but when we rose to return to Mythgarthr, I chanced to look behind us. There he sat with food before him, staring out over the sea, his face rapturous. I stopped to point, and he whispered, "I know." There are things in Aelfrice I still do not understand.

CHAPTER THIRTYSIX THE FIGHT BEFORE THE GATE

Even as time in Aelfice runs more slowly than in Mythgarthr, so time in Muspel runs more slowly than time in Aelfrice, and time in Niflheim slower still. We had been away half a day. When we returned, Kingsdoom lay in ruins, the red rag floated over Thortower, and the season was high summer. We found a woman begging food. We had none to give her, and our coins were worthlessthere was no bread to buy "The king's dead," she told us, "and Osterlings rule Celidon, eating those they don't enslave. I have a hiding place." She would not show it to us, saying there was room for one and no more. The Earl Marshal asked about his castle of Sevengates, but she knew nothing of it. "I'd like to go to Thortower," he told me. "Payn's my bastard. Did you guess?" He knew a secret way; and I told him I would go with him, hoping to find Wistan. He said, "I must have a sword. I won't see sixty again and was never a good swordsman. But I'll try, because I must." I said, "That's all swordsmen do, My Lord." We thanked the beggar woman, promised we would bring food when we had found some, and went to the inn. It was a grim business to walk, that fine summer day, and find cobbled streets choked with rubble, shops burned, and people gone. In a public square, the Osterlings had kindled a fire and dined on human flesh. Bones littered the fine paving blocks, gnawed and half burned. "I know of nothing more horrible than this," the Earl Marshal said. "I'd a servant," I said, "who did the same, though he didn't cook his meat. Thus I'm inured. Is it worse to kill a child, or to eat it before the worms do?" The inn was still standing, its windowpanes gone and its doors smashed. I called for Pouk and Uns. My shouts brought Uns to a fourth-floor window, but brought a patrol of Osterlings as well. Uns threw rubble from his window, and the Earl Marshal snatched the leader's sword as soon as I dispatched him, so we fared well enough. We went up when the fight was over, meeting Uns on the stair. (It was on that stair that a thought from Cloud reached me. Lonely and wild, joyous at the touch of my mind; but fearful, too.) Uns had my shield, he said, and my bow and quiver; we followed him to the lumber room where he had hidden them. " 'N dis, sar. Dis ol' hat. Ya fergit dis?" It was the helm, old, as he said, and rusty again. I put it on, and saw Uns sturdy and straight, the Earl Marshal older, knowing, and because he was knowing, frightened. "Pouk's gun hum ta see his wife," Uns told me. "On'y he's got some a' yar dings, ta. 'E's keepin' 'um fer ya." I asked about Wistan, but Uns knew nothing; nor had he more news of the war than we had heard from the beggar woman. We held a council then, speaking as equals. The upshot was that the Earl Marshal and I would go to Thortower as planned while Uns collected the beggar woman we had promised to help, fed her (for he had some food), and packed such possessions as we could carry. We would meet again at the inn and try to reach Sevengates, which might still be holding out. That decided, I drilled the Earl Marshal with his new sword. It was a saber whetted on the inner edge; he found it unhandy at first, but soon grew fond of it. I thought it too short and too heavy at the tip; but the blade was stiff and sharp, and those are the most important qualities. We slept, woke after moonrise, and went into the broken lands east of the city. Bushes hid an iron door in a cliff little taller than a lance; the Earl Marshal produced a key and we went in, I fearing we would find we were in Aelfrice. So it nearly proved. Hands snatched our clothes from the time we relocked the door behind us, and the thin voices of Aelf mocked and challenged us. When the end of the long, narrow tunnel was in sight, I caught one by the wrist; and when the Earl Marshal unlocked a second door and admitted us to the wine cellar, I dragged her into its lesser darkness and demanded her name. She trembled. "Your slave is Baki, Lord." "Who thought she'd have fun with me in that tunnel." I drew my sword. "T-to t-take you to Aelfrice where you w-would be safe." "Who abandoned me chained in a cell." I felt no rage against her, no lust for vengeance, only a cold justice that had pronounced sentence already. She did not speak. The Earl Marshal asked whether I knew "this Aelf." "She's declared herself my slave a thousand times," I told him, "and I've freed her over and over, and neither of us believed the other. Would you like an Aelfslave?" "Very much." "She'll swear fealty to you, if I spare her. And betray you at the first opportunity. Won't you, Baki?" "I was your s-slave because Garsecg wished it, Lord. I will be his, if you wish it." I spoke to the Earl Marshal. "We're going up, aren't we? It's obvious that neither of them are down here." Baki said, "There is a stair to your left, Lord." "Thanks. I could kill you here, Baki. Cut your rotten throat. I'm going to take you where I can see to make a clean thrust instead. Want to talk about the blood I drank when I was hurt? Let's hear you." Perhaps she shook her headit was too dark to see. The stair opened into a pantry, the pantry into a wide hall hung with shields and weapons. Night had fallen while were in the tunnel, but candles guttered at either end of the hall, more than enough light for a good thrust. "May I speak, Lord? I know you will kill me, and it will be no use to defend myself. But I would like to say two things before I die, so you will understand when I am gone." Perhaps I noddeddoubtless I did. I was looking at her through the eyes of the old helm, a thing like a woman molded of earth, blazing coals, and beast-flesh. "You have refused me a hundred times. I have been bold, and you have refused. I have been shy, and you have refused. I have helped you over and over, but when my back was broken you would not mend me yourself, bringing a boy to do it. I knew that if I came to your cell and freed you, you would refuse again. I hoped that if I left you there until you were nearly dead, you might feel gratitude. I would have come before you died. I would have demanded oaths before I fed and freed you. That is the first thing." The Earl Marshal said, "I don't know whether I should envy you or laugh, Sir Able." I released Baki and removed the helm; I had seen her too well, and the sight sickened me. "Would it help you to know I'm just a boy playing knight, My Lord? I've seen you as you are and Baki as she is, and if you saw me the same way you'd know. Men don't mock boysor envy them either." "Then I'm no man," the Earl Marshal told me, "for I've envied a thousand." I turned to Baki. "Why don't you bolt? You might save your life." "Because I have more to say. We pinched and tweaked you in the tunnel. How many of us could you catch?" I had heard the soft steps of scores of feet; I made no reply. "Only me, because I was trying to draw you to Aelfrice and safety while the others only wished to tease you." I believe I might have stabbed her if I had been granted another second; Osterlings burst in, and there was no time. Baki snatched a sword from the wall and fought beside us, an Aelf a maiden, and last a living flame. The sword Uri had stolen sifted our foes and drew me on and on, but Baki was always before me, cutting men as harvesters cut grain. When the last had fled, she confronted me, her stolen sword ready. "Who carried the day, Lord? You?" "No." I had on the helm but would not look at her. "Will you meet me? Sword-to-sword?" "No," I repeated. "I'd kill you and I don't want to. Go in peace." Her sword fell to the floor; she had vanished. "We'd better not stay here," the Earl Marshal said; I agreed, and he showed me a narrow stair behind an arras. Describing our search of Thortower would be weary workindeed it was weary work itself. We had to stop more than once to rest; and in the end I searched alone, and returned for him (hidden in his library) when I was sure that neither Payn nor Wistan were to be found. "They are dead, I suppose." He rose stiffly. "I was trained with the sword as a boy. It had been twenty years and more since I'd handled one." He held his out although I had seen it earlier. "Do you know how many men I had slain with the sword?" I shook my head and dropped into a chair, exhausted. "None, but I killed four today. Four Osterling spears, with one the Aelf and I killed together. How long can such good fortune endure?" "Until we reach Sevengates, I hope, My Lord. East?" "Five days ride." "Then three or less if we hasten." I was hopeful, for I thought Cloud might rejoin me soon. "We'll be hurrying into the teeth of the army the Caan will send to recover the Mountain of Fire." The Earl Marshal wiped his face and stared at the ceiling. "If we take the direct route, that is. You know the north?" "Tolerably well." "So do I. It might be better for us to turn north at first, then east, then south." This we set out to do, tramping away from Kingsdoom unopposed, although we had left Thortower in an uproar. The first night, while the Earl Marshal, Uns, and the beggar woman Galene slept, I lay awake staring up to Skai; once I believed I glimpsed Cloud among the stars, and sent urgent thoughts to tell her I was below. They cannot have reached her, for there was no thought from her. Next day we encountered Osterlings everywhere. Twice we fought them. We had to leave the road, and when we returned to it, to leave it again. They had striped the countryside, burning every village and farm, and devouring people and livestock. That night we finished the bread and bacon we had carried; and although we continued to feed our fire when they were gone, we would much rather have fed ourselves. "I have dined well throughout a long life," the Earl Marshal remarked. "I'll die now with an empty belly. It seems a shame. Do they eat well in the Lands of the Dead? Queen Idnn told me you spent some time there." "Only as a visitor. No, My Lord, they do not." "Then I won't go, if I can help it." Galene looked at Uns, but he only grinned and said, "Ya feed dem Os'erlin's, if'n ya die, sar. Yar belly be emp'y, on'y not deirs, nosar." "May I speak openly of the last place in which we were well fed, Sir Able?" I nodded. "Might we not go to Aelfrice again? All of us?" "Are you asking if I could take so many? Yes, I think I might. But food is uncertain there, and we might lose a year while we ate." "Better to lose a year than to lose our lives," "We might lose those too. You didn't see the dangers, My Lord, but there are many. Dragons come there often, and there are many others, of which the worst may be the Aelf themselves. Don't you remain there?" He nodded. "Let that be enough." Galene muttered, "You know nothing of hardship." Uns corrected her. "Sar Able do." "A knight, with servants? I don't think so." The Earl Marshal told her to mind her tongue; I said that if I could endure the swords and spears of our enemies, I could surely endure anything a woman might sayprovided she did not say it too often. "I don't know what you might have gone through, that's fact. Wounds and all. Fighting's a knight's trade, but the rest shouldn't act like it's just a trade like a butcher's. I been poor my whole life and what I had was taken 'cause you knights didn't fight enough. I'd a man. We'd a baby . . ." "Many of those knights paid with their lives," the Earl Marshal muttered. Uns put his arm around Galene and held her hand in his, which seemed more sensible. Looking into the fire, I saw Baki's face. She mouthed a word I could not catch, pointed to my left, and vanished. Excusing myself, I rose. Deep in the shadows, a woman with eyes of yellow flame wrapped me in such an embrace as few men have known. I knew her by her kiss, and we kissed long and long. When at last we parted, she laughed softly. "The wind is in the chimney." I agreed that it was. "I had better go, before the fire burns too bright." I stepped back and she vanished, although her voice remained. "News or a promisewhich would you hear first?" "The promise, by all means." "Unwise. Here is my news. Baki says you were looking for your squire and the fat man's clerk. If you still want them, they are defending a little place called Redhall. We last met near there." I nodded, unable to speak. "There are two hundred attacking it, and more coming. It is already full of women and children who fled them. You may know some of the women." I asked who they were. "I paid no heed to them, and would not have known the fat man's clerk if I had not spoken to the boy. Toug?" "Wistan," I said. "Toug's Sir Svon's squire. Or he used to be." "I doubt it matters. Do you care about the big women more than you care about me?" "I care for no one as I care for you." She laughed, delighted. "I enthrall you. Wonderful! My reputation remains intact. Are you going?" "No! I'm going to Aelfrice with you, forever." She stepped into the moonlight, naked and infinitely desirable. "Come then." Her hand closed on mine. "Leave the others to their deaths. They die soon in any case." Until then I had not known we stood upon a hilltop; the ground ahead fell gently; jeweled air shimmered not far down the slope. "I can't," I said. Disiri sighed. "And I cannot love you as you love them. Will you come if I promise to try? To try very hard?" "I can't," I repeated. "Not now." "I will tire of you. I know you know. But I will come back to you, and when I come back we will know such joy as no one in either world has ever known." She must have seen my answer in my eyes, because she vanished as she spoke. The hill vanished with her, and I stood on level ground. Uns and Galene were sleeping when I returned to the fire. "Wistan and Payn are at my manor of Redhall," I told the Earl Marshal. "It's besieged. I'm going to help them." The old helm stood before the fire in the place where I had been sitting before I left it. I sat beside it, put it on, and removed it at once. "How do you know?" the Earl Marshal asked. "Disiri just told me." He said something else then, but I did not answer and I no longer recall what it was. I tapped the old helm. "I wasn't wearing this." The Earl Marshal raised an eyebrow. "Of course not." "I'm glad I wasn't. Very glad. Are you going?" "To Redhall with you? The queen said specifically that Payn was there?" I nodded. "Then I am. I must." I had hoped he would not, and had planned to send Uns and Galene away with him. I made it clear that I had no reason to believe Payn and Wistan were there beyond Disiri's assertion, and warned him that no Aelf could be trusted. "I loved his mother," the Earl Marshal said. "I loved her very much. I couldn't marry her. She was a commoner, one of Mother's maids. I've never told anyone this." I said he need not tell me. "I want to. If I die and you find Payn alive, I want you to know. She became pregnant and hid in the forest, half a day's ride from Sevengates. I gave her money and bribed my father's foresters to bring her food. Sometimes I went to see her." His