Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire (18 page)

By mid-day,
Amberina could contain her curiosity no more. She went to shake him
awake. ‘What happened in the forest?’ she asked.

‘
I know
the answer,’ Jadrin said wearily, but it looked as if knowing it
hadn’t lightened his burden at all.

On the morning
of the third day, Jadrin and the six liveried guards took their
leave of the mill-house to return to the city. Jadrin said to his
sister. ‘Give me the other half of the quartz’ and she did so. He
kissed her goodbye, inclined his head to the silent Psydre and
embraced his father fondly. They spoke vaguely of reciprocal visits
in the near future.

In the
afternoon, some miles from Ashbrilim, Jadrin bid his companions
wait for him whilst he visited a cottage set some yards back from
the road amongst a snuggle of gnarled trees. The guards raised
eyebrows at each other and sniffed, although none of them spoke. It
was well known that the cottage was the home of a witch of less
than savoury reputation. Jadrin stayed within for maybe ten
minutes. When he emerged, he offered no explanation to the others,
but urged that they should hurry towards the city.

On reaching
the palace, without even pausing to refresh himself or brush the
dust of travel from his clothes, Jadrin went straight to the king’s
apartments. He threw open the doors and five of the king’s servants
looked up in alarm. Ashalan was playing a game with counters and a
chequered board with one of his courtiers.

Jadrin said,
‘Send them all away!’ and from the darkness in the boy’s face and
voice, Ashalan did so.

‘
What
has happened?’ he asked, once they were alone.

‘
You
must tell me the truth,’ Jadrin said, quietly.

‘
What
truth? What are you speaking of?’

‘
Of
Angeline...’

At the mention
of that name, Ashalan’s face fell dramatically. He was silent. He
turned away.

‘
I shall
be truthful with you,’ Jadrin said, ‘and my truth is that I cannot
spin straw into gold. Now I shall tell you who can...’

Calmly,
omitting no detail, Jadrin told the king how he had gone into the
forest on the previous evening. He had followed the winding, hidden
paths until he had come to the white, stone shrine, all covered in
creepers and moss. There, he had lurked among the ruins, waiting
for the spirits to gather. Eventually, two wavery beings had come
to sit upon the tumbled stones at the front of the shrine. They
were wearing forms that approximated human appearances, though
their faces were terrible and their hands merely sticks of bone.
Presently, others drifted through the misty ferns, coming to pluck
at their companions and chitter together as children do. Jadrin had
moved from cover a little. He noticed some of the shades were
inclined to hover apart from the rest. He wasn’t that conspicuous.
Eventually one of them had said, ‘One of our company is seeking
justice this moon!’ and another had replied,

‘
Seek
it? She shall have it dearest, have it, have it!’

Then another
had murmured, ‘Hush now, she is here.’

Jadrin could
barely differentiate between one spirit and another, but there was
something balefully familiar about the blade of light that had come
dancing into the centre of the glade. It danced and sang and
preened, cavorting with smug merriment.

‘
Are you
happy, dear one?’ cried the spirits.

‘
Indeed
I am!’

‘
And why
is that, beloved?’

‘
Because
Ashalan is to die in the arms of his whore!’

‘
But
why, lovely sister?’

‘
He has
my blood on his hands, my sisters, my brothers, and I desire to
live once more with his on mine!’

The spirits
swayed towards her like a fog. ‘And how shall you do that?’ they
asked together.

Here the
spirit grew into a great and pulsing flame. ‘Quite simply,’ it
replied. ‘Tomorrow night, I shall possess the boy, Jadrin. I shall
possess his body and, through that, experience all that was denied
me; the passion of the man I once loved. After that, my dears,
Ashalan will experience the true, keen blade of my revenge. As he
still penetrates the body that I possess, I shall take a knife and
kill him! It will be very easy. Naturally, after such a terrible
crime, Jadrin will have to flee the city, but then Jadrin, as he
lives and breathes on this earth, shall be no more. He is too weak
and no match for me. In Mewt, I think, I will discover a new and
rewarding life...’

‘
But are
you quite sure, my dear, that the boy Jadrin shall have no
defence?’ one of the other spirits asked.

The spirit
glowed red. ‘Quite sure!’ it said. ‘There is only one way he can
defeat me but, as he will never know by whose shade he is to be
possessed, there is no chance of his victory. Tomorrow night,
Ashalan shall die and I shall live again. I who was once Angeline
Hope DeVanceron. I who am the murdered, slaughtered, butchered,
dead queen of Ashbrilim!’

Ashalan’s
expression of disbelief as he listened to this tale gradually
changed to one of pale horror. At the end, he said, ‘I did not kill
her,’ which Jadrin had expected and also dearly wanted to
believe.

‘
Then
tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘Who was this woman and why is she so
bitterly seeking revenge from beyond the grave?’

Ashalan looked
at the floor. It was clear he was considering memories best left
forgotten. ‘She was my wife,’ he said.

Jadrin sat
down beside him. ‘Then how...?’

‘
I did
try to dissuade her,’ Ashalan butted in, slamming a clenched fist
into his cupped palm. ‘I told her marriage to me would be a barren,
joyless venture, but she would not listen. She was obsessed. What
could I do? She was a strong-willed creature and clearly intended
to try and change my nature, even make me love her. A fruitless
task!’

Ashalan told
of how he and Angeline were married to the delight of Ashalan’s
father and those who had previously considered Ashalan to be a weak
and sickly creature. Surely the strong and tempestuous Angeline
with her fiery beauty would fill him with life and strength?
Unfortunately, their relationship, which had started off badly,
never came to anything. Ashalan found Angeline terrifying: a
succubus of a creature, hungry and grasping. He knew his nature and
refused to go anywhere near her bedchamber at night, never mind
share it. This behaviour only served to stoke Angeline’s pain and
grief into a vicious rage. She tried to win Ashalan over, but
eventually, exhausted by her efforts, resorted to extreme and
desperate measures. A boy of whom Ashalan was particularly fond was
found poisoned, his flesh black and burned. Ashalan knew who was
responsible, but had no way of proving it. Angeline stalked the
battlements crying out her marriage vows, shrieking of fidelity and
the painful fate awaiting those who discredited those vows. In
numerous ways, Angeline sought to cause trouble for Ashalan,
especially with his father, the king. She knew Ashalan had no
desire to rule, so in some undiscovered way, persuaded the old king
to abdicate in favour of his son. Then she was queen and for a
while the power of that position put a binding over her wounds, but
it did not last. Ashalan’s original indifference towards Angeline
had developed over the years into an abiding aversion. He wished
her dead a thousand times a day, longing only to be free of her
obsessive vigilance, her troublemaking, her carping demands. What
she saw in him, he could not fathom. He was powerless to end her
pain. She would not listen to reasoned argument. She would tolerate
no compromise.

One night, as
she had done many times before, the queen followed Ashalan to the
high tower on the north wall of Ashbrilim. She knew that Ashalan
was friendly with a captain of the guard there, and through her spy
network had discovered the two men had arranged to meet that night.
Ironically, it was not a lovers’ meeting. Ashalan and the captain
were good friends, yes, and with similar tastes but had never been
physically close. In fact, since the episode of the poisoning,
Ashalan had not been close to anyone. Angeline did not believe this
for an instant. She followed Ashalan up the winding, yellowstone
steps to the battlements and concealed herself among the shadows of
the buttressed wall. She must have watched them for a long time,
perhaps becoming disappointed, for all they did was share a bottle
of wine and talk together. However, as Ashalan got up to leave, he
bent and kissed his friend on the cheek. That was enough evidence
for Angeline. She waited until Ashalan had gone back to the palace
before leaping out of hiding. All that the captain saw was a
frenzied, shrieking shape, hidden by robes, rushing towards him,
brandishing a long, curved knife. He rightly presumed it meant to
murder him.

Angeline did
not have much time to regret her reckless behaviour. She did not
think about how the captain was one of Ashbrilim’s best warriors,
well trained in self-defence. She had no chance. He did not know
who she was. Perhaps he thought she was a mad woman from the town.
After a brief scuffle, he disarmed her, but still she would not
give in, frenziedly tearing at his face with clawed hands, her face
unrecognisable with the insanity of her rage. Afterwards, the
captain said he could not recall exactly what happened, but during
the struggle, Angeline fell or was pushed over the city wall.

She did not
die at once. The captain, remorseful for using violence against a
woman, no matter how crazed, ordered his men to look for her body.
They found her still alive, crawling brokenly among the filth and
offal of the city that was thrown regularly over the walls at that
point. It was the rubbish that had arrested her fall somewhat,
although both her legs were ruined. Because her face had been cut,
they found her with rats clinging to her head, devouring even as
she crawled along, head wagging to dislodge them. She was clearly a
mad woman, some poor wild soul, tormented by demons. It was also
clear that she was dying, beyond the help of any physician. The
soldiers carried her back within the walls. They never expected
anyone to claim her, but made her as comfortable as they could and
sat with her, waiting for her to die. No one recognised the ruined
figure as Angeline Hope DeVanceron. No one, until a priest passed
the lodge and the soldiers called him in to bless the dying woman.
The priest lifted her hand and there, on a ring, he recognised the
symbol of the house of her parents, which the soldiers had not
known. A frantic search was organised and it was discovered that
the queen was missing from her rooms.

She died
before they could carry her home, in discomfort and filth, halfway
down the main road to the palace.

‘
The
whole business was tragic and sordid,’ Ashalan said, which Jadrin
thought was rather an understatement. ‘None of us had realised the
depths of her feelings, nor how they had dragged her into
insanity.’

Jadrin thought
this was rather stupid. Angeline must have had these tendencies
from the beginning and in Ashalan’s position, he was sure he would
have identified them.

Ashalan rubbed
his face. ‘My father tried to persuade me to have the captain
executed, because, no matter what the reason, he had killed the
Queen of Ashbrilim. Perhaps I should have ordered this execution.
Perhaps it was my duty, but I couldn’t. You see, in the depths of
my heart, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel grief for her
death. Secretly, I felt I owed that captain a favour, not the death
sentence. Do you see, Jadrin? Do you see how terrible a creature I
am?’

‘
You
were caught in a difficult situation,’ Jadrin said carefully. He
was unsure how he felt about these disclosures.

‘
Ultimately,’ Ashalan said, ‘I had the captain posted to the
border of Cos, where he was out of harm’s way. My father never
understood me, or sympathised with me at all. He made sure I was
punished for what had happened in small, subtle ways until the day
he died.’

‘
Angeline’s spirit must have been waiting for the chance to
wreak its revenge,’ Jadrin said, unwilling to comment on Ashalan’s
story. ‘Unwittingly, I gave it that chance. I gave it power: my
breath and my warmth. Oh, to live those few days again!’

‘
You
sound bitter,’ Ashalan said. ‘I have disappointed you and it has
killed our love. She has won.’ He put his head in his
hands.

Jadrin stared
upon the king, caught in a maelstrom of conflicting feelings. In
his view, the main tragedy of the story was that Angeline had
obviously been very ill: no sane woman would have behaved and felt
as she had done. No one had helped her. She had suffered alone, and
for that Jadrin felt very sad. Still, despite the wretchedness of
the story, he thought there was no excuse for the queen’s spirit to
continue her obsessive vendetta beyond the grave. He knew now at
least that he was dealing with a mad ghost, and in some way, that
gave him courage. ‘Do not crumble, my lord,’ he said in a cold
voice. ‘Angeline has not won yet. Perhaps you are to blame to some
degree, but who among us acts always in complete wisdom? The fault
is not entirely yours.’

Ashalan made
an anguished sound. ‘It is certainly my fault that she has this
advantage over you. If I had been content after the first night of
your spinning, this would never have happened. All she wanted of
you then was a kiss. Oh, I was blind to the true gold that was in
you all the time!’ He put his head in his hands once more.

‘
Do not
punish yourself with guilt any further,’ Jadrin said. ‘What is
done, is done. Now leave me to resolve this matter, once and for
all. I shall go to the bedroom. Wait here for an hour and then come
after me, but no sooner, mind.’