Loss (17 page)

He can even heal his daughter. In his heart, he knows it. He believes it with all that he is.

He is rejuvenated; he is ecstatic. With the Crown he will cleanse his land and heal his kingdom. He will set it right, as Thanatos has promised, that and more: Mita will set the balance in his people’s favor/

/the pox has ravaged his kingdom, indiscriminate of poor or rich or old or young—

***

With a shout, Billy tore himself out of the White.
No more!
He didn’t want to see any more, not when bearing witness meant feeling compassion for the man who’d stolen his future. He didn’t want to understand the Ice Cream Man, to sympathize with him—to think he was a hero. No, not the terrifying monster that had hurt him, betrayed him, before he was old enough to know better.

“Let go!” he yelled, yanking against the stems of White wrapped around his arms and waist and legs.

But the tendrils held him fast, and they were already pulling him back down. After a lifetime of accepting the role of victim, Billy didn’t know how to fight back. Even so, he tried. He howled and thrashed, but the White claimed him and dragged him under. His last thoughts, before his thoughts were no longer his own, were of Marianne, and how he wished he’d had the courage to kiss her.

And this time, the White gave way to Black.

Chapter 16

The Blackness Wrapped Itself Around Billy . . .

. . . almost intimately. Embraced by shadow, he watched what happened as the world shifted.

***

/he holds her favor, even though he has not sought it. She’s looking at him boldly, this woman in black with her whip-thin smile and set of balances in her hand. The instrument of her office shines in the dim light, but it cannot compare with the hungry sheen of her eyes.

The Conqueror, as always, is struck by Famine’s exotic beauty. Her skin is darker than his and unflawed by any imperfection; it is the color of russet skies moments before sunset, and it is magnificent. Her eyes are ringed with kohl—a testament to her former mortal life, as is her long braided wig. She is swathed in a black pleated dress held in place by two broad shoulder straps; beneath her belted waist, the long skirt splits down the sides to allow for riding. As usual, she is barefoot.

And, as usual, she has shown up exactly where he needs to be. Whether that is due to famine naturally leading to pestilence, or due to the Black Rider’s whim, he can only guess. For whatever reason she is here, out of duty or out of desire, he is glad to see her.

She pats the black horse standing next to her, and then she turns her head away from the Conqueror, presenting him with her back. Had she been War, it would have been a sign of haughtiness, indicating that he was no threat. From Death, the gesture would have been dismissive. But from Famine, it’s an invitation to come to her side.

As the Conqueror dismounts, the white steed lets out a coughlike nicker. The black horse answers with a thin whinny, and then the eager sound of clopping hooves fills the air. He watches the white and black horses gently intertwine their necks in an equine hug, and he thinks of the closeness between the two animals, an intimacy that is so much more than the cautious distance the white steed always gives War’s horse or the respectful air it offers to Death’s. Not for the first time, he wonders if the steeds pick up on their Riders’ feelings or, perhaps, if it’s the other way around. But in the end, it doesn’t matter; whether Horsemen or horses, white and black work well together. They always have.

The Conqueror approaches Famine, who is standing near the docks of Alexandria, watching scores of men fill cargo ships with boxes. Between their work and the dense, dry fog that has overtaken the land, none of the humans notice the two Horsemen—although soon enough, all will feel the White Rider’s presence. He already senses the fever at work on at least three of the sailors, and it will be only a matter of days before they experience the telltale swelling in the groin, the armpits, the ears. It’s a particularly nasty disease, one that Pestilence feels a vague fondness for; it was his first plague, so it holds a special place in his heart.

Something about that thought nags at him, but the more he tries to examine it, the more abstract it becomes until he’s left with a faint discomfort, like a fading rash.

(
They died
, Billy thinks, quite horrified,
they all died, his daughter, his people, but he doesn’t remember that
.)

As the Conqueror stands beside the Black Rider, she inclines her head, setting her beaded braids clacking. “King White,” she says, her voice like honey.

“Lady Black,” he replies with a nod. The titles are something of a joke between them, for he has not been king for more than five hundred years, and it has been two thousand years since she was the vizier of Upper Egypt and called the Lady. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” A smile spreads across Famine’s face. It’s a subtle thing, that smile; it begins with a twitch of her lips, and then with every breath the corners of her mouth tug just a little farther until there is the barest sliver of teeth. She is not one given to excess, and even her mirth is measured. He treasures every hint of delight she reveals to him as the most precious gift.

They stand close enough to be holding hands as they watch the dockworkers laboring. The Conqueror knows there are odors twining through the air, smells that capture the essence of humanity slaving by the riverside, but his senses are dazzled by Famine’s perfume of cinnamon and sweet wine.

“They wear cloaks,” Famine says.

The Conqueror regards the men as they go back and forth between ship and dock, storing their cargo. “It is much colder than it should be,” he replies. “They have to keep warm.”

“It’s so odd to see. Winter in the desert.”

“It’s not yet winter.”

“It might as well be. Krakatoa erupts, and the world shivers from a volcanic winter. Ash falls, sunlight fades, and bread fails. That’s what some call it: a failure of bread.” The Black Rider smiles again, tightly. “Humans can be so poetic in their understanding of destruction. Have you noticed that?”

“It’s a way to ease their pain.” He thinks of the Furies of old, of how mortals appeased them with the name “Kindly Ones,” and he adds, “Or maybe it’s a way to soothe our Pale colleague. Lull him with poetry, and maybe he’ll be too charmed to ride.”

“Only humans would dare to think they could control one such as him.”

“Not control,” he says. “They beseech. People have discovered that he has an appreciation for the arts. It’s his soft spot.”

She arches a kohl-painted brow. “You call
him
soft?”

“We Four have our affinities,” says the Conqueror. “We simply show them in different ways.” He smiles wryly. “Say, for example, Egypt’s crops being spared, while the rest of the world has ‘a failure of bread.’”

The Black Rider laughs softly. “Am I that obvious?”

“Only to one who knows you.”

Thin fingers brush against his arm, a touch and then gone. A sip of affection, but rather than slake his thirst he finds himself parched and desperate for more.

Time ripples—

(and Billy feels dizzy)

—and the Conqueror is in Athens and Famine is by his side. The two Riders share a look as around them Romans fall victim of famine and plague. He hardly notices the bodies littering the streets; he’s enamored by the swirl of the Black Rider’s pleated skirt around her shapely ankles. Something about this woman calls to him, stirs his blood and upsets the balance of his sanguine humor—

He blinks—

(and Billy stumbles)

—and the Conqueror is back in Egypt with Famine, who is looking at the doomed dockworkers.
Memory
, he thinks, restraining himself from placing a hand upon his brow.
Merely a powerful memory
. He knows he is lying to himself, but that doesn’t matter. He won’t think of diseases that affect the mind, not now. Standing next to the Black Rider, he imagines what it would be like to crush her to his chest and seal his mouth upon hers and steal her breath away.

(And Billy thinks of Marianne, of kissing Marianne, of finally being brave enough to kiss the girl.)

“I saved them,” Famine says, her black gaze locked on the sailors and their cartons. “But it won’t matter. I spare their harvests, yet here you are.”

“Here I am,” the Conqueror agrees, wanting to kiss her and knowing he will not. His chest aches. How could he feel loss for something he never had?

“Grain,” she says with a sigh, and the Conqueror hears a wealth of meaning in the word. “The same grain I spare feeds the mice, and the mice bring disease.”

It’s true; the rodents are already boxed in with the cargo, feasting on wheat—and plague-carrying fleas bloat themselves on the rodents. “If starvation didn’t lead to illness,” he says, “it would lead to war.”

“It already does. It always does.” Her mouth twists as if she’s bitten something sour. “Except when starvation follows in the wake of bloodshed.”

While he doesn’t care for War, what passes between the Red and Black Riders borders on hatred, and has ever since he first took the Crown. The Conqueror has never asked about the cause of their animosity, and Famine has never offered to tell him. “Black and white and red, intertwined. And it all leads to death,” he says.

“War and plague and starvation, all centered around a box of grain.” Another sigh. “What gives life also brings death.”

“And now we’re back to poetry.”

That coaxes a small smile from her. “Indeed.” A long moment passes before she speaks again. “You are so very different from your predecessor.”

In all their time together, she has never spoken of Conquerors past. “Who was he?”

“Just a man, wearing a borrowed crown.”

“As am I.”

“Wearing a crown, no matter how potent, does not make one a king.” She’s gazing at him now, her eyes telling him things that her voice does not. “But you, White, are a king. Take the crown away, you still would be king.”

The words squeeze his heart, and a lump forms in his throat—a different sort of sickness than he is used to. For a reason he cannot name, he thinks fleetingly of plums.

Perhaps she senses his distress, for she steps away from him and lifts her scales high. “I must go bear witness to the great failures of bread. Until next time, King White.”

“Wait.” He doesn’t know what else to say, only that he doesn’t wish her to leave. And so, he scrambles for conversation. “How long do you think the sun will stay dark?”

“Months. Years.” She shrugs, and her beaded braids clack musically. “If you really wish to know, ask our Pale colleague.”

“He knows the future?”

“He knows
everything
.”

It’s not her words that chill him, but the easy way in which she delivers them. He thinks of Thanatos’s bottomless eyes, how they hold the secrets of life and death, and he fights back a shiver. “ ‘He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before.’”

“More poetry.” Famine smiles again, broadly, as if she’s forgotten the notion of restraint. “I did not realize you housed such an artistic soul.”

“It’s from Homer.” His voice is heavy with phlegm, and the name comes out sounding strangled. “
He
once told me he prefers Homer to Hesiod.”

She considers him, studying his face, reading each line and pockmark, searching his eyes for hidden meaning. “Maybe humans aren’t the only ones who try to appease him.”

He’s so cold, it’s a wonder his breath doesn’t frost.

(He sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white.)

“It’s a careful balance we Four must keep,” says the Black Rider/

—and the world shifts—

(and Billy lurches)

/and the Black Rider tells him the Four are out of balance and he must return, but he will not listen to her. She may wear the mantle of the Black, but she is not his Famine.

Instead, he takes aim at a distant ash tree. The weight of the drawstring feels good in his hand, and he enjoys the way the fletching tickles his cheek. Mortal bows need real strings and arrows. In his seventy years playing at being a human outlaw, this has been a constant joy: truly feeling things the way mortals do. He’d been too long a leper—numb inside, his heart withered and half-dead.

He releases the shaft. The arrow slices the wind and lands true.

“White,” the woman in black says. “Are you listening to me?”

To tune her out, he opens himself up to the majesty of the Greenwood. His senses sharpen; sounds and smells and colors become dizzyingly crisp. He can make out each leaf fanning the trees, every thorn tangled in clusters of underbrush. The air is so fresh that it sears his nostrils when he inhales. A blue jay shouts from above, and the distinct
rat-a-tat
knocking in the distance announces the presence of a woodpecker questing for food hidden in a tree’s bark. Beneath the leaf carpet under his feet, he feels bugs and earthworms as they scuttle and writhe and dig; farther away, he feels the moisture trapped on the strands of spider silk threading along thin branches, hears the angry buzz of an unfortunate insect fighting to break free from the web. He senses all this and more, so much more that he can’t help but smile as the thrum of the forest works its way though his bones and plays along his skin. Here in the Greenwood, he is alive in a way he never has been before.

Here in the Greenwood, he is safe from the world. And the world is safe from him.

He takes another arrow from his quiver and nocks it.

“White,” the woman in black says again.

His smile falls away. “I am Robert Hode,” he says curtly, refusing to look at her. “No more. No less.”

“You are the White Rider of the Apocalypse. And I have come to return you to your senses.”

“I never took leave of them.” He pulls back on the drawstring and takes aim.

The rustling of leaves in the wind doesn’t quite cover her snort. “You abandoned your responsibility to parade in mortal form and forester’s clothing. How is that not insane?”