The Eyes of a King (54 page)

R
eading this now, I see that I did not explain why I did it. I did not explain it at all. The more I tried, the less I understood. For a second I wanted Ahira dead, but I willed the bullet to miss. How can I explain why I did something evil? Why I did something that would ruin the rest of my life with guilt? There are many reasons, and there are none. I don’t want to make excuses, Aldebaran. I made a mistake. I’ll pay for it the rest of my life. It will never go away. If only someone had taken the rifle from me; if only Ahira had followed a different route that passed Citadel Street by …

But what else can I say? There is nothing.

I finished the story today. It has taken me five years. I am twenty now. Today I spoke again, for the first time. And I planned to show
you the book, but I didn’t. I couldn’t when it came to it. You didn’t ask me to. Instead, you asked me to go with you to the castle. A ball for the king’s guests, you said it was.

I thought I would refuse. But I suddenly said, “I will go with you.” My voice surprised me. It was not how I remembered it sounding when I was fifteen.

That’s where I am now. At the castle. As soon as I arrived, I wished I hadn’t come. I never much cared about parties and dancing, even when I knew how to smile, and laugh, and talk. But I came to please you, Aldebaran, because there are other things besides being happy. Other things to live for.

So I tried to stand in the room and speak to those strangers. But I suddenly thought I was falling. I really tried, Aldebaran, but I couldn’t. I thought I was going to burst out crying. I went and stood in the roof garden, where it was quiet. The music and the light were still spilling out the open door. I stepped away, into the shadow, and looked up at the stars.

They name the great ones after the stars, don’t they? Those trained in magic, who take a new name, take it from the stars. But I was already named after a star. Leo is a star; in England it is a whole constellation. When I looked at them from that roof garden, I didn’t know which one.

I remembered then that I used to want to see the view from the top of the castle. It seemed to me stupid to remember it, that I would care about seeing a view. How often I used to think about it. But I could see the highest balcony from where I was, and I could see the steps that led to it. I crossed to them and began to climb.

As I came through the door, I almost collided with a man with a
dagger drawn in his hand. The king. “Forgive me,” he said, with something like fear in his eyes. “Those stairs …”

“I came to look at the view,” I said. It concerned me nothing that he was royalty. He could see it.

“Leonard North?” he said. “Aldebaran’s great-nephew?” I nodded. He held out his hand. “Cassius. I have been wishing to meet you.”

I took it. “King Cassius,” I said. He laughed at that.

The final chords drifted up, resolute, on the violin, and then scattered clapping. “ You are not dancing?” he asked me. I shook my head. “I am not either,” he said. “I would rather stand up here and watch the stars.”

I nodded and looked out over the parapet again. You can see everything from there—every place I’ve ever been in my whole life. Below are the treetops of a walled roof garden; below that the towers drop to the yard, and the rock, down into the city. The city, farther on, drops to the river. “This is the highest point for miles,” said Cassius. “The stars are closer here.”

“They say the stars are the same in England.”

I don’t know why I said it; perhaps I was thinking about his story in that old book. He turned to me then but did not speak. “ Yes,” he said eventually. “ Yes, they are exactly the same.” He looked out over the city. “I always saw it as a kind of sign. Perhaps I am foolishly romantic.”

I just shrugged at that. Then I said, “People expect that of you. You know what this country was like under Lucien.”

“I don’t know. I never did.” He smiled, though he looked tired. “It is a disadvantage, and I don’t mind telling you.”

We stood there for a while in silence. Then he turned to leave. “Do you think that they will miss me? I will be back by one.”

I shook my head, though I did not mean anything by it. Then he turned again, and was gone. I heard his footsteps fading down the stairs, and then silence.

A while later you came and spoke to me. I thought about giving you the book then. But after you had gone, I decided that I would read it again, from start to finish, one last time. So I sat down there beside the lamp and began.

Standing here, on the highest tower, I realize that a lot of the things I have said or thought have been wrong. I shut the book. I’m not going to show it to you now—not yet. It’s too difficult. And there are some things that don’t need to be explained. I wrote this book for you, Aldebaran, but I wrote it as if it was for a stranger. When I thought of you reading it, I couldn’t write at all. And I’m frightened to show it to you, because you’re the only relative we have left, and I don’t want you to think ill of me. I hope if you read it someday, you’ll understand.

I said that Stirling’s life was like a book—a book cut off in the middle. But maybe it’s not cut off. Maybe he’s only skipped ahead to the next chapter. That’s what I think now. Because how could that be the end of it? Even in this world, he is not entirely gone.

I want to make this an ending, Aldebaran. I’ll write all of this into the book—all that I’ve thought now when I read it—and I’ll show it to you one day. So what is it in the end, my story? Shall I call it a happy ending or a tragedy? The sad endings are the real endings, where everything finishes and Nothing rises up like mold into what was once beautiful. The happy endings are not endings at all but beginnings—beginnings of something better than what came before. And this is both, because this isn’t a book, it’s my life. I can’t say my life’s not sad. I’ll still cry. I’ll still wish I was somewhere else. I’ll still count the days sometimes. Only I want to go on. I want Stirling to
look down on me as the brother he knew. To be the same Leo, for better or worse, that he left behind.

And I look up into the sky, the wide sky and the high, silver stars. And I can see the star called Leo now—I can see it clearly. It is the one that is shining the brightest of them all. That is what I think, just for a second.

The sun is rising in the east and all the guests have gone home. A maid is collecting empty glasses from the roof garden, and their quiet clinking is the only sound. Clouds are rolling over the sunrise, so that the balcony is troubled by their shadows. I can hardly expect them not to pass over me. But perhaps it is something to accept that they always will.

I said that the clinking of glasses was the only sound, but there is a small bird too. On the parapet, close by, this bird is singing. It’s been singing for some time, but I didn’t notice. I think that I’d notice only if it stopped. I reach out my hand to touch it, but it flies away just before I can. But only a second before, and it doesn’t fly far.

There are a lot of things in my head, and some of them don’t make sense, but it doesn’t mean I’m losing my mind. I’m not happy like I was before. But happiness isn’t everything. The stars are fading. I know which one is Leo. I thought, only a couple of hours ago, that there are some things that you just know. You can never prove them. Perhaps uncertainty makes you all the more certain. And proof was something created by humans, but it’s easy and natural to know things in your heart.

I also thought that there was no magic in the world. And I think that now, perhaps, the magic is harder to find than it was when Stirling was here and Ahira was just a face on the newspaper. But sometimes I glimpse it. Times like now I glimpse it. Just for a second.

I wonder if the magic is beauty, or truth. Or the little bird’s song.
Or happiness. Or maybe it’s love. One of those distant things. I wonder as I go down the stairs. I wonder as I walk through the deserted streets. I wonder as I go into the church. I kneel down and pray. “Forgive me, Ahira,” I whisper. Perhaps it’s stupid, but I imagine that he does.

When I get back to the dismal apartment, I can feel the magic slipping away again. I brush some of the dust off Stirling’s overcoat. It’s funny, because that coat is the size of an eight-year-old, but he’d be thirteen now. But really, he’s beyond thirteen. He’s beyond an overcoat. He’s not in this dimension anymore. He’s beyond these calculations we place on things to keep ourselves sane.

The rain is falling like steel. I open the window and watch it. Then I think that the magic is all those things that I thought of, and more than that. The magic is heaven. It’s beyond my explaining. I used to think that beyond meant far away. Unreachable. But it’s not. It’s over a stream that can be jumped, or through a doorway into the next room. That’s all beyond is. Beyond is a line—like magic, like madness. That’s all.

Because heaven’s not high above us, beyond the stars. It’s everywhere; it’s close; it’s all around us. All around us, in another dimension. And in some places the barrier wears thin.

A
woman sits at her dressing table, leaning her head on her hand. She stares in the mirror at her own blue eyes, at the tired bulges under them, and at her forehead, which is creasing already. Then she winds her fingers through the chain of her necklace and watches the light glitter on the single jewel.

A boy runs into the room, holding out his arms. Anna lifts him onto her knee. “Your dancing was lovely tonight,” he says, looking up at her.

“Did you think so, Ashley angel?”

“Yes.” His face is serious. “You’re the best dancer in the world.” She laughs at that. He holds out a newspaper to her. “Grandma read it to me. She said to show you. You’re in the newspaper, Mam!”

It’s only the village newsletter, but he wouldn’t know. Anna takes it from him and reads the headline. “ ‘Local Hero’?”

“That’s you,” Ashley says, grinning up at her.

She runs her finger along the lines as she reads. “ ‘After the repeat performance on Saturday, Miss Ariana Devere is planning a tour with the Royal Ballet.’ ” Before the laugh has escaped her lips, she sighs instead.

Ashley looks up at her. He has his father’s eyes, she thinks. It has become a habit, thinking that, and she hardly notices it. “Mam, can we go for a walk?” says Ashley.

“It’s late! You should be in bed, Ash.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You won’t be able to get up early tomorrow if you stay up late tonight.”

“I don’t want to get up early tomorrow. I want to go for a walk.”

“No. It’s too late.”

“Please.”

She shuts her eyes. “A short walk, then. Where do you want to go?”

“Up to the stones on the hill.”

“All right. It won’t take long.”

“I used to want to be a dancer once, you know,” she says as they walk.

“You are a dancer,” says Ashley.

“No, only for fun. But I used to think I would be a famous dancer. I even started at dance school, for a few weeks.”

“You could be famous, like the newspaper said.”

“It’s a joke,” she tells him. “It’s because people wouldn’t expect
me to be good at ballet—because I work in a hotel, you know. And because of how seriously everyone takes the village talent show.”

“I don’t understand. You are good at dancing. You won it. You could be a famous dancer. You are good.”

“Not good enough,” she says.

“Why don’t you practice, and get good enough, and then be a famous dancer?”

“I don’t have time.”

“Uncle Bradley said you should. He said so yesterday, on the phone. He said you can always find time.”

“Uncle Bradley says a lot of things that he really shouldn’t.”

“How can you find time? How can you lose it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You know Uncle Bradley talks a lot of rubbish sometimes. It’s best not to listen to him.”

After that he is silent, jogging beside her, every so often looking up to see if the frown has left her face.

Dusk is falling when they reach the top of the hill, hand in hand. Anna turns and looks down at the lights of the houses. There is a stillness resting over the valley like mist, but they are above it on the hill, and there are restless sounds all around as the night creeps in. She stands still, with Ashley beside her. The farthest lights are the windows of the Lakebank Hotel, Monica’s place, and the dark hill above them is where the old chapel is. And the sliver that reflects the moonlight is all that can be seen of the lake from here.

When they turn to the stone circle, they both see the difference in the stones. There is an extra one where there used to be a space. And then it moves, and they see that it is actually a man standing a little way off with his back to them.

A tall man, with black hair already fading, standing in the shadow between two stones so that the moonlight does not reach him. Ashley grips Anna’s hand and presses closer to her. They are both frightened to step into the circle, as if it is enchanted.