The Cup of the World (38 page)

They were going to kill her. They were going to blow a horn three times and then take her somewhere and cut her head off Now the thing that she felt most clearly was
anger. Anger not because she had come in good faith to talk with them – they were armed men and enemies and might kill her if they chose – but that they should go through this mummery first, to give themselves the excuse, which would stand in no one's eyes except their own, that what they would do was both holy and right.

She looked around at the faces in the ring. A score, two score of them, crowded several deep on her left, strung thinly around behind her and to her right. On that side there was a young fighter with bowl-cut blond hair, and a tall woman, whose face recalled a shadow of a memory. The woman was frowning at what she saw before her. They were a beaten, sullen band. They would barely enjoy this little revenge.

The young man had finished speaking. Lackmere was not to be seen.

The horn blew. Tancrem and two others stepped up to the swords. The others were young, like him, and like the one who had read the charge. They were Tancrem's clique – a little sub-group in this desperate band. So Tancrem was the one behind this. He stood there, with his dark eyes burning with the memory of his brother, waiting to hack the head from the woman his brother had loved.

‘Should I not answer first?’ she asked, pitching her voice to carry clearly across to the ring.

She saw Tancrem frown.

‘Be quick,’ he said.

She paused, and looked around her. She must speak calmly, and keep speaking. The charges – she had barely been listening to them, except to register that her dark arts
were supposed to be behind their defeats, that she was the mastermind, urging her husband on to bring misery on the world. She could not let those idiocies go unchallenged. But even admitting that she had charges to answer seemed to play the game for her killers.

Another voice was in her mind: far back, in the sun by a well in Tuscolo.

‘She has nothing to say’ said Tancrem.

‘I was just thinking. I've seen something like this once before. After it was over, one of my friends said – what was it? That because some dog-knight from the back of nowhere was ready to fight, the woman who was on trial might be innocent. But if no one had wanted a fight with the cut-throats who had been put up against her, we'd have known she was guilty and had her killed.

‘What she meant was that any man who steps forward to fight, on either side, must think he can change the past, as well as the future. Which is more even than the Angels may do. And as she said – what do knights do
but
fight?’

She looked around at the ring, to make them understand that it was them she was talking to. The young fighter with the bowl-cut hair was bending to catch something that his hooded neighbour was saying. The woman beside him was turning away from the crowd. Perhaps she was disgusted with the scene. Others were listening. Phaedra knew she must keep talking – talking like the elder sister that she had never been. Now, as if to the young man who had read the charges: ‘I did not catch all you said. I don't think I needed to. Where did you get all that from? I have never conjured anyone – unless you count praying that my husband would come home. I have never
enslaved anyone, by any means. I have never killed or tried to kill anyone’ – she thought for an instant – ‘except myself. And for that I have been penitent before the Angels and a sanctified priest—’

‘That's enough,’ broke in Tancrem. ‘She has denied the charges. Blow the horn.’

As if she had not heard him, and still to the man who had read the charges, she continued. ‘… A sanctified priest.
You're
not a priest, are you? For a moment I thought you must be. You do know that justice must be blessed? Anything else would be a terrible risk. But I think it would be hard to find any priest within a hundred leagues of Jent who would do this without the bishop's permission. He is very firm against ordeals – he's told me so himself

‘That's enough. You've had your time and wasted it.’

‘Do you doubt me? You could ask the Baron of Lackmere. He was present at the time. So if you really want to press these complaints I suggest we had all better go—’

‘
No!
Blow again!’

Tancrem was in a hurry. He had not denied knowledge of Aun. So this was Aun's party. She should insist that she had come to see him. But Tancrem would know that. He was trying to get his bit of murder done while his leader's back was turned.

Think of something – anything!

‘A moment!’ she cried. The man who had read the charges hesitated, with the horn part-way to his lips.

‘I see you have not untied my men—’

‘They are dishonoured. Tarred with your brush.’

‘They are low-born, Tancrem,’ said someone else.

‘Low-born!’ he repeated.

‘In the eyes of Heaven, does that matter?’ She must be careful about this. No farmer put in a mail shirt would stand a chance against a war-trained knight. ‘If they were to choose my side, and my side was right, then—’

‘Enough! Blow.’

The horn rang through the forest. Its harsh tone blotted her train of thought. It was one more step closer to death. She could feel her control slipping. She wanted to grab one of the swords and fight. But they would love that, these sweaty bullocks. It would give them everything they wanted. They would chop her up like butcher's meat.

Someone had walked up to stand at her left. It was another youngster – the boy with the bowl-cut hair. He stood at the hilt of a sword that pointed from her.

‘Chawlin!’ Tancrem's voice mixed scorn and exasperation. ‘Get back.’

‘No.’

‘Chawlin!’ the others cried. ‘You idiot!’

He shook his head stubbornly. He must be a misfit here, part suffered, part mocked by the main band, with little to commend him but a mind of his own. Still, his appearance at her side made no sense. And now one – two of her men were on their feet beyond the ring, calling hoarsely for their bonds to be untied so that they might stand for the swords too.

‘Chawlin, for Michael's sake, this is
serious.’

‘I'm
serious.’

The moment of farce was a gift. She exclaimed loudly and marched towards the gap he had left in the ring. Tancrem yelled, but she kept walking. They were not stopping
her. The show was falling apart. There was no one in front of her but the old man in the hood, who lifted his eyes as she approached.

Cold eyes, and a cold smile that she had seen before.

She must have halted. Someone's hand had closed on her wrist. Somebody gripped her shoulders. Behind her the men were scuffling. She saw the priest turn and vanish, and no one else had seen him. They were herding her back towards the middle of the ring, where the boy Chawlin was on his hands and knees, trying to rise as others pinned him. A voice called. The fuss stilled. Three newcomers had appeared from the forest, pushing their way into the throng. One was the tall woman whom she had seen earlier. Beside her was Aun of Lackmere. And the third was a plump young man whom she also knew.

‘The Prince.’

People around her were kneeling.

‘What's this, lads?’ His voice was round and jovial, as if he were scolding a pack of truants. ‘Holding a court? From whom did you have your licence, in this our realm?’

No one replied. The crowd remained kneeling, heads bowed.

‘Law is a thing for debating,’ Aun was saying. His voice sounded harsh after that of Septimus. ‘But I would speak with the one who let off a horn in this camp for all the world to hear.’

The woman was at Phaedra's elbow, pulling gently at her arm. Phaedra found her feet were unsteady. She had to lean on her companion's shoulder. They made their way towards one of the awnings, where a few big logs were set on end for stools.

‘Thank you. I can manage,’ she was saying, even as her knees trembled and made her lean more heavily.

The priest! What part had he played in all this?

‘Are you all right?’

‘I'm not hurt. Just shaken. Dear Angels!’

‘Can I bring you some water?’

‘In – in a moment. That would be kind. One thing …’

‘What is it?’

‘I thought I saw – is there an old man among you? He's someone I have met before.’

‘Jan Brig? He's not very old—’

‘No.’

‘With a scar on his face? That's Jan Brig.’

‘No scar, and much older. I thought he wore a pilgrim's or a priest's dress.’

The woman was puzzled. She looked around. ‘I can't think who you mean. I'd know if anyone new had come to us—’

‘No matter. I
–
I must have been mistaken.’ Phaedra eased herself down onto the log and buried her head in her hands.

The priest. He had been talking to the boy who had taken her side. Then the boy had come forward to fight for her, as Adam had done. What did it mean? The bird-song of the forest mingled with her bewilderment. The wind stirred the branches but there were no answers in the blowing of the leaves.

What did it mean?

She had been expecting the woman to go and fetch water. She had not moved. After a moment Phaedra looked up at her, wondering what was wrong. The woman
was watching her, with her head cocked and her brow furrowed.

‘Do you know I've been hating you?’

Phaedra stared at her.

‘You don't remember me, do you?’ the other said. ‘Amanthys diGuerring – although that was not my name then. We sneaked up and watched a witch trial from the King's balcony in Tuscolo, and it all went wrong, like this one did. And afterwards you and I fell out over something silly that one of us said.’

‘I – remember.’

‘I've often thought about you since. And just now I heard you quoting poor Maria at them – as if I were seeing the past played out for me again, and all my sins with it. I knew the baron and the prince were walking by the stream, and I had to find them. You were lucky. I might have been looking yet. Water, was it? Nothing stronger?’

‘I'm all right. I just need time. In fact, I need talk. Can you stay a little? Tell me what you're doing here.’

‘Very well.’ She settled on a log beside Phaedra. ‘It isn't happy, but I'll tell you if you like. I am the camp master, I suppose. I don't fight. I just see that there is food for the men, hay for the horses, water, that the camp is clear of filth, that the fires don't give us away, that we pack and go in the right order – oh, all the things that they don't have the sense to do for themselves. In a moment I should go over and see that your men are comfortable. We can't untie them, I'm afraid …

‘Why am I doing this? That's the unhappy bit. I got angry. About eighteen months ago, I think.’

She stopped, and looked at Phaedra. ‘You have a child, don't you. Alive?’

‘Please Heaven.’

‘I lost mine. I was pregnant when my new husband joined the host that was coming to clear yours out of Tuscolo. I rode in a litter most of the way to see the fun. Well, you know what happened. My horses were taken by all those brave squires and soldiers in their hurry to get away. I was staggering in the mud with all the others. By nightfall I had lost it – and my husband too, although I did not know about that until later. He was not a bad man. I remember lying all bloody in the back of someone's wagon with six wounded men and thinking what a horrible, horrible incompetent mess it had all been …

‘That's why I hated you, for a time. We all did. And the men go on hating. It's what keeps them going after all the defeats. It's been bad since they heard about this last one, and those knights your husband had beheaded because he claimed that they had changed sides. Sometimes they do stupid things, or try to – like Tancrem just now. We make all the mistakes in this war. Your side doesn't. But they won't give up.’

The fair-haired boy walked past. He barely noticed them. He had a bruise on his soft, round face and a faraway look in his eyes, as if he had been talking with Angels.

After a little Phaedra said: ‘It is not my side any more, Amanthys. That is why I came to speak with Aun. I will talk to Septimus too, if he will hear me.’

It was Amanthys's turn to digest what had been said. ‘I'm sure he will. He probably intends to come over
anyway, when he has finished cracking heads. I'll see if I can fetch him.’

The crowd was still on its knees, heads down while the prince scolded them. He had authority, that man, after all his disasters.

‘What is he doing here?’

‘He's trying to get back to his friends. Your husband's soldiers cut him off from Develin. So he crossed the lake to give them the slip. Lackmere went to meet him, which is why he wasn't here when we got news of you coming south. If Tancrem had realized they were back he might have thought twice before launching his bloody little play.’

‘One more thing,’ said Phaedra, as her companion rose.

‘Yes?’

‘You said “poor Maria”. What happened?’

A shadow crossed Amanthys's face. ‘She was in Pemini when it fell. You know that your people sacked it. That was six months ago, and I have heard nothing since then.’

The priest had sent that boy to stand for her; as he had sent Adam diManey to stand for Evalia before the steps of the King. If he had sent Chawlin, then it was he who had roused Martin from his camp and led him among the dark rocks to find her. Did he think she was his pawn, or did he merely want her to live to see her son taken at last by the dark things that surrounded him? She could not guess what twisted reasons had moved him. But she had trusted Ambrose to two men who thought this deadly enemy was a sending from Heaven, and to one flawed
woman who had once been in his power. Now there was nothing she could do.

Amanthys had gone. On the flat hilltop people were moving around the camp. Phaedra sat and stared unseeing across the trampled grass, like a player at a board who has seen that all her pieces are in check.

letter came a few days after her return to Tarceny. In the bare writing chamber Phaedra looked closely at the seal. The brown wax, set with the Dancing Hound, had not been tampered with. And when she broke it she found that Evalia had been careful.