The Cup of the World (21 page)

Her thoughts bickered wearily with one another, and she could not feel that it mattered.

He was waiting for her.

She turned back to the letters, and leafed listlessly through them. Two of them seemed to say that such a one as my lady had written of was seen near their village on such-and-such a day, but no one knew where he had gone. The third wove the most credulous tales around some mountain hermit, and gave him names such as John o' Locklegs, Grey Matt and Prince Under the Sky.

They were meaningless. And there would more of them, many more. And all meaningless.

Caw stirred, and cleared his throat. ‘Must I hold the man who brought them?’

‘No.’ Even if replies were needed, she was not going to write them at once.

‘It was important then,’ she said. ‘Now that all this has happened – I do not know.’

‘All this?’

‘Father, and the King.’

He said nothing. But she thought that he tensed at her words, as if he were afraid of what she would say next. He must think she was about to weep. A man like this must hate women who wept. Perhaps he just hated women.

Father, and the King. And still he was waiting for her. And suddenly she knew she could not keep her voice level.

‘I don't see why!’ she said hoarsely. ‘I don't see what I have done!’

For a long moment it seemed that all of high, empty Tarceny was still around her.

‘It is not your doing,’ said Caw at last.

‘No.’ She put her hand on the letters and did not look up. At last she was able to say, ‘Thank you, Sir Caw. If there are more, you may bring them to me.’

He left her.

A long time afterwards, she wondered if he had said: ‘It is
not your
doing.’

She did not challenge Caw about the cases and complaints from the March, although she knew it was her task, not his, to hold court in Ulfin's name. She knew too that she, not Caw, should be touring the manors, shaking out the fighting men for her husband's war. But she rested at Tarceny watching the March passing below her walls. And every day brought bands of men from the north or west of the land to sound their horns at the gates, to pause and water before hurrying on down to the lakeshore; for Ulfin was calling the March to arms beyond Derewater. There were knights from Hayley under banners, foot soldiers from valleys beyond Bellisfell under rough standards, settlers with hooks and hunting spears. The castle garrison was stripped to twenty men. Caw stalked and fretted, but did not speak. All he gave to her were matters that concerned her directly: the merchant who came to talk of the silk for Ulfin's robe, and the letters that came in answer to her notice about the priest.

There were many of these, ill-written, useless. She could see in their rude scribblings the reeves and elders huddled together over the page, thrilled to receive a writing from the Lady of the March, jumbling together all they could think of to please her, and – where the manor lord was absent – adding all the things he might want her to
know about the running of their lands (or, in a few cases, a number of things he clearly would not). Many seemed to assume that there would be a reward of money for finding the priest. Phaedra thought that before long she would have the courtyard seething with all the beggars and mendicants of the March, and every one claiming to be the man she sought.

None appeared. Whether they stayed away because of the fearsome reputation of Ulfin's house, or they did come, and Caw conscripted them for the war, she did not know.

One letter was unlike the others. Somehow, as spring grew towards summer, it had found a way across the lake to her. The script and spelling were clear, the hand familiar, if unusually hurried and disordered.

It had been written by candlelight, she decided – perhaps after the house was asleep. And it had not come direct from Pemini. Maria must have sent it to some friend who was less likely to court danger or disapproval by sending messages direct to Tarceny She had spared Phaedra from telling her that. Re-reading the letter, Phaedra suspected that Maria had spared her a lot. She could not guess what ‘unholy things’ people were accusing her of, but the idea that she might be bewitched must be the very kindest of them. Eventually she settled herself to reply, trying to write like the brave woman Maria seemed to believe she was. She described the house and lands of Tarceny, and wished that Maria might one day come to see them. Then she put her letter aside, in the hope that a day might come soon when it would be safe for Maria to receive letters from Tarceny again.

Waiting, waiting. The weeks passed, and she could not fill them all with misery. When the silks for Ulfin's robe came, and with them the fine scissors and needles and threads that Tarceny had not known in a generation, she made herself begin on them. She told herself, with the first crisp cuts, that fears might fail too. Just because she could not believe in the future, it did not mean that good would not come. All she could do was pray and pray in the empty chapel for Ulfin to return.

And news came flying across the lake of victory.

∗ ∗ ∗

She greeted his homecoming with garlands and a welcome-supper. He laughed as he held her, and he laughed again over his food in the hall of Tarceny. He was calling for his chess set even before the tables were cleared, and when it came he slapped a handful of pieces onto the boards in front of him.

‘They came against us in three columns,’ he said. ‘From the north, under Baldwin; from the east and from the south-east.’ He set chess pieces in an arc around a goblet that signified Trant. ‘Say five or six thousand in all, to our fifteen hundred. We knew that the southern column was lagging, because Seguin had quarrelled with Develin and therefore was not pressing forward as hard as the others. So we were able to slip out to the south-east’ – a black piece hooked outward from the castle – ‘and come suddenly on Septimus and Develin from their southern flank. They collapsed at the first rush.’

His hand whipped a white knight from its place with a flourish. His tone was eager, almost boyish. His eyes were fixed on the pieces and his gestures were charged with the echoes of combat. Phaedra watched him with her eyes shining. It was so good to have him home – and safe, and in glory!

‘Then we rode north and were on Baldwin before nightfall. There was a stiff fight for the road, because unlike Septimus they knew we were coming. But they had not been able to close up, and we got between Baldwin and Bay. Bay broke back the way they had come, and that was that. My riders chased Septimus to Tuscolo’ – a white pawn skittered away across the tabletop – ‘and Bay to the north. We took Baldwin, for the place was lightly held and
the gate was open. We never even had to close with Seguin.’

‘I am sorry for Baldwin,’ Phaedra remembered to say. ‘And for the men who died with him.’

‘It is a pity Still, Phaedra, such a death is a part of the life. Baldwin was ageing, and for him at least it came with honour. Develin was thrown from his horse and crushed in the press before any of mine even came near. If my hour must come, I would me a death as Baldwin died.’

‘
No
, Ulfin! Don't speak of that. There must be no more of this! Let there be peace now. It has already gone beyond all reason.’

‘It is not in my gift, Phaedra. There will be a pause, for the hot weather is on us and Septimus must re-gather. Whether he will now take charge, or Faul or Seguin, I do not know. But they have lost much honour. They will be at us again after the harvest.’

‘Then I shall pray to Michael that you are wrong.’

Ulfin stayed for two weeks, in the hottest time of the summer, when men might die from heat in their armour and all campaigning ceased. They did little but sit together in the cool places, waiting for the sun to pass. He was silent much of the time, and seemed only to pay attention to the doings of the March when he saw a way to win more men or treasure for the campaign. She watched him looking out on the grand scape of the hills, with his mind turned inwards, unseeing. She saw Caw waiting to catch his master's attention, and being ignored. There was some coldness there. She thought Caw was hoping for release from his stewardship, but could not ask for it, and that
Ulfin was not prepared to let him go. When she tried to ask Ulfin about it he answered shortly and off the point.

He spoke with Phaedra on this and that, but even as he talked his mind was on other things. He seemed to think there was little use in trying to find the priest of the knoll. He was surprised that her pregnancy was making her sick (although she was able to assure him that it was better than it had been, and that indeed she was becoming stronger). And he would not talk about the coming child. She wondered whether he was superstitious, or embarrassed – or whether, like her, he was dreading what the birth would bring.

One morning he was gone; risen and out of the gate before she could drag herself from sleep. He left messages and keepsakes, but took most of the coin and all the men he could muster down the road to Aclete. She was hurt that he should let it seem to her – even if she did not believe it – that silver and mail meant so much more to him now than the woman who carried his child. She would have given years of her loneliness for a few more days of his company. She could not have them. All there was left that morning was the castle, the household, the child, and Caw.

Caw was, if anything, grimmer than before. It was clear he did not enjoy his post. He was hard to talk to. He seemed to think of little beyond war and the affairs of the month, and in his short way would speak of them if she wanted him to. She did not want to ask about those things, which were part of the present that imprisoned her. And Caw would not speak of the past at all. When she asked him about Ulfin's childhood his face hardened; he said
only that his own father had broken his head and sold his marriage for a window of glass, but that he had never heard of any who had such a raising as old Tarceny had given his sons.

The afternoon she tried to talk to him about her father he got up and left the table with something that sounded like a curse.

The evenings after supper were empty places. She and Caw were the only two of rank at table. The household would clear the trestles and go about their duties, leaving them together, and they would look past one another until she could reasonably dismiss him. But Phaedra found that he did indeed play chess, and that this let them bear each other's company without the difficulties of conversation. By the middle of September they were playing every night. Caw always chose black. He was reluctant to make the first move, even in the opening dance of the chessboard. His positions were crabbed, tight and defensive. Phaedra had to do far more of the attacking than she was used to. Her mind was tired in the evenings, and although her sickness had eased, her thinking never quite had the focus that she expected of it. The games grew longer as the days shortened. The pieces moved
clip-clip
upon the board, separated by the long silences in which Caw thought and the air of the big hall hissed softly in Phaedra's ears. She would look up and see their reflections in a glass across the hall. The knight, in his dark tunic and his belted sword. The woman in the pale dress with the swelling belly. White flagstones and black, breaking into black irregularity at the hearth. Black pieces and white. Death and Life. And still Life lost.

Another evening, and the game was ended. It was late. Caw left her with a grunt that might have been a goodnight, and went to walk the walls. Phaedra rose too, frowning. She climbed the steps to the gallery and passed into the half-lit corridor that led to the empty living quarters. Her chamber was dusty and a little untidy. Patter was on other duties, now that Ulfin had carried away most of the younger servants to the war. However, Orani had left a bowl of fruit for her on the low table. She mumbled to herself, picked up an apple and bit it. It crashed into juiciness in her ears, and at that moment she thought she heard something else. She turned her head, wondering whether someone had stood for a moment in her bedroom doorway.

‘Orani?’

There was no one there. Watching the door, she finished her mouthful, trying to chew without obliterating her hearing. Nothing moved. She picked up her light and walked softly to the doorway. There was no one in the corridor. From a little room a few paces away she heard the rumble of Orani's snore. The maid was supposed to remain awake to help her mistress retire, but she did not always manage it.

Phaedra closed the door as softly as she could. After a moment's thought she reached for and drew the old bolts, which were stiff with dust and disuse. They clacked home. Then she undressed and sat in her bed, finishing her supper and watching the door. She wondered whether it was something in the way she had bitten at the fruit that had sounded so like the scrape of a foot, and the sibilant rustle of a robe.

∗ ∗ ∗

And now she was heavy with the child. It had woken in the late night, and its squirming had woken her too. She sat in Ulfin's library, wrapped in blankets in the October dawn, telling herself that there was nothing to be done about her discomfort. She could only distract herself until it eased. So she had come here to read by lamplight from Ulfin's books and Ulfin's manuscripts, while her stomach and bladder were crushed in turn by the shifting bulk of his child inside her.