The Fatal Child (16 page)

‘You must be sad to have lost a companion who has been with you for so many years,’ said the King.

‘I have had many servants who have died,’ said the princess.

Melissa could not see her face. She had decided that the princess really was sad but would not say so to anyone – least of all to someone like the King. Melissa understood that. It was like not wanting to weep too loudly in case you were beaten again.

‘Astria,’ said the King, ‘you asked me for judgement on two matters. On the first, I said that I thought it would be wrong to take up your quarrel against Gueronius. I have considered my words and I am sure that they were right.’

The princess said nothing.

‘On the second, I admit that you have some case against my house …’

Melissa saw that the old knight beside him was looking away across the lake. His mouth was set in a short, straight line as if he knew what the King would say but did not agree.

‘… I cannot, of course, give you back the people who were lost. I cannot even offer blood-money, since I live myself by the charity of those who please to call me their lord. All I can offer you, for the present, is the freedom of the March, my protection, such as it is, and food and shelter so long as you choose to stay in places where I may supply them to you. Will you accept this?’

Still the princess said nothing.

‘Will you accept this?’ repeated the King. ‘If you do, there may come a time when I can offer you more. But if you do not, the only course I see for you is that you return to Tuscolo. And that I do not believe you want to do.’

‘I will accept it for now,’ said the princess.

‘That is good. And I think it would be best if for the time being you went somewhere where it will be hard to find you, at least until your journey from Tuscolo and the reasons for it have been forgotten.’

‘Where do you mean?’

‘My mother has agreed to take you into her home. She has a house in the mountains beyond Hayley. She left last night to prepare a place for you there. If you are willing to go to her, I will see that you are guided and guarded on the way. I will also let you have mounts, since it is a hard journey through the March and your new servant is still recovering her strength.’ His eyes fell on Melissa. He looked thoughtful.

‘Thank you,’ said the princess.

Melissa had thought she might be angry because she was not being given anything that she had asked for. But it did not show in her voice. Perhaps she was just glad now that someone was telling her where to find food and safety. Melissa was.

‘It is not a rich place, where I am sending you,’ said the King. ‘My mother, whose line is as good as yours, worked with her hands for many years to win her keep from the mountains. So did I.’

‘I do not care,’ said the princess. ‘I hate Tuscolo. And your lodging house has fleas.’

‘Very good,’ said the King. His eyes fell once again on Melissa. ‘May I speak now with your servant?’

The princess glanced over her shoulder. Her face said nothing, but Melissa guessed that she was surprised.

‘If you wish,’ she said.

‘Come forward, Melissa,’ said the King.

Melissa came forward and knelt without being told to.

‘You have taken service of your own free will?’ asked the King in a low voice.

‘Yes, lord,’ she said.

‘Why?’

Melissa shrugged. ‘Don’t know what else I’m to do, lord.’

‘Very well then.’ He glanced up at Atti, who was standing back a little. ‘Help her for me,’ he murmured, ‘because I care about her. But remember that I care about you, too. I have promised you that if there is ever anything you wish, and it is in my power, I shall give it to you. I will not forget that. Neither should you.’

‘I will not, lord,’ she said, although she could not think of anything to ask for from him.

‘Very well then,’ said the King, lifting his voice and addressing both of them. ‘For your safety you should go as soon as you can. Your escort is waiting for you among those trees, with mounts. Do not fear him. He is hard to look upon but he will keep you safe on your journey. Now Michael guard you and Raphael guide you on your way.’

And then they were alone, two girls walking across the open space towards the trees. Behind them in the ring another name was called. The sound of voices was diminishing with each step they took. The trees were coming closer. Melissa watched them loom up and
over her – great smooth green-brown trunks, a carpeting of dead leaves, moss gathering on fallen branches. She could see only a little way among them.

It was gloomy. The branches wove and rustled in the light air. Everything was green and orange and brown. She hesitated. She could not see any guide or mounts. The princess strode on.

Wait a moment, thought Melissa as she hurried after her. Wait up there! I’m supposed to be looking after you.

But it did not feel to her as though she were looking after the princess. She felt helpless, blind, as though she were walking into mist. She was walking into her future and had no idea what it would hold. She could not imagine the place that she was going to. Only the princess, walking a pace ahead of her, and the memory of the King’s voice, gave her any direction at all.

Deeper they went into the wood. The open space behind them was lost altogether. The ground was uneven and ran with roots. Something blew, hard, and Melissa jumped.

There! Behind a low bank she saw the back of a horse – a horse, and a mule beside it. They were saddled, with bags hanging from them. There seemed to be no one else. The two girls scrambled over the bank and stood by the animals. They looked around. Melissa wondered whether she should call out for the guide.

Then something lurched forward from the shadow of a trunk. Melissa screamed.

It was a monster – a terrible thing, half man, stooping, with long trailing arms and legs that bent the wrong way like a hideous bird’s. It was wrapped in shreds of grey rag that concealed half its face, but she saw its eyes and the sagging, drooling mouth that cooed at them like a dove. She saw, with the sudden clearness of a nightmare, how its limbs were covered in a film of water that gathered in dull droplets at its talons and yet did not fall to the ground.

She shrank back, crossing her arms before her to shield herself from the thing. The mule lifted its head and looked at her, as if to ask,
Why are you behaving like that?
And the princess stood before the monster.

‘You must take us into the mountains,’ she told it clearly. ‘He has said so.’

At about noon Padry emerged from the oak-wood and found a little hut at the foot of the northern slopes of the knoll. There was a landsman sitting at the door binding an axe-head to a shaft. Yes, he had seen two girls this morning. They had come out of the wood on horses and taken the road to the north. No, he had not spoken with them. Matter of fact, he had had to go indoors as soon as he had seen them. He couldn’t remember why.

And had the girls been alone?

Maybe, maybe not. The landsman couldn’t say, somehow.

Padry tossed a coin onto the earth. The man looked at it, but made no attempt to pick it up. No, sir. He couldn’t remember.

‘I see,’ said Padry, and looked up at the sky.

Noon. It was time to go.

It was past time. Even if he set sail the moment he returned to Aclete, he would barely finish the crossing before dark. Somewhere in Aclete bay was a fisherman whom Lex had engaged to wait for him and carry him across the lake. The man must be impatient already. Perhaps he would even shake his head and say the crossing was impossible now and they must wait until tomorrow. He would say it to wring more money out of Padry, in addition to whatever it was that Lex had paid him to stay and wait.

And beyond the lake was the journey to Tuscolo – a good three days of it, travelling like a tinker in whatever gaggle of pilgrims he could attach himself to for safety. Perhaps Lex, if he reached Tuscolo unharmed, would have an escort sent back along the road to look for him. And then the piles of the King’s business that he had been neglecting in his absence, and the journey north to Velis to talk sense into Gueronius. How long before that wretched ship was ready? They might even be loading it now. He was running late, late, and he knew it.

He knew it was urgent. If he did not go, then none of it would be done. But – but it could wait just a little longer, surely. He could look just a little further. That was what he had to do now.

They had not let him speak with her! They had guarded her, taken her up to the hilltop and then spirited her away! He had been there, muffled carefully in his cloak and hood, to see her second
appearance on the knoll. He had watched her, willing her to look his way in the hope of passing some sign to her. He had a cold, depressing feeling that she had known he was there and still had not looked. (Wilful child –
just like
the twelve-year-old he had led from the smoking garden!) And perhaps the Lord of Tarceny and his men had known he was there also. He had felt the need to be careful, and in being careful he had delayed too long. By the time he had slipped away she was gone. There had been no sign of her among the oak trees. She was on her way to the mountains beyond Hayley.

He had heard the King say she would have a guide. But would that be enough in this wild country?

And what sort of guide was it that this landsman was insisting he had not seen? Padry thought he could guess. He did not like his guesses at all.

At least she was travelling by the ordinary roads of the world. That was good. No child should walk in the place of brown rocks. No one should go there at all unless in the most desperate need. Ambrose understood that.

And they were going to Hayley. Padry had a vague idea that Hayley was a keep in the far north of the March. The Kingdom had never stretched beyond that point, so far as he knew. The mountains were peopled by no one but the wretched, heathen hill tribes. Atti was being sent to the very edge of the known world. And why?

To keep her out of his reach! It was unfair! Unjust!
They did not trust him when they should. What were their feelings for her, beside his?

What hurt most was that she had gone willingly. And that he had not had the chance to speak with her before she went.

If he had …

He gripped the staff and prodded the dusty earth at his feet.

His boat was waiting. The man would have been waiting all morning while Padry first went to the hearings, then searched the oak woods and then sat on a root with his head in his hands. He would go on waiting while Padry walked back to his hut to gather his belongings. And when Padry finally appeared on the quay the man would spit, say it was too late, and they would begin the long haggle for a passage all over again.

Maybe it was indeed too late. The sun was inching past noon. The man could not land his boat in the dark, surely? So Padry might now have until tomorrow to spend on this side of the lake.

How many roads were there to Hayley from here? And how far could a child, even mounted, have travelled in a morning?

He prodded the dust again with his staff.

He had no food with him, of course. He had his purse but no food. Perhaps – perhaps the sensible thing would be to …

No, not sensible. He was tired of being sensible. There was only one thing he wanted to do. Even if it came to nothing.

With a strange lightness in his heart he turned his back on the Kingdom. He turned his back on his King, dreaming crazy dreams of adventure across the sea. He followed the path to the north.

The path ran along the lakeshore. The ground was hard. But where it dipped to cross the mouth of the stream, Padry found hoofprints in the mud of the far bank. And with them he found something else: a curious, trailing mark, more like the print of a huge bird’s foot than of any animal he knew.

Casting along the path on the far side of the stream, he found the mark again. He found it sunk in a broad, flat stone: a long, clear stroke, with smaller ones at angles on either side of it. The depressions in the rock were damp and stained a brown colour. There was a strong, watery scent to it, which screamed at once to him of the gateway at Lackmere.

A little way further along the path he found another.

With his heart in his mouth now, he began to hurry.

fortnight later he was in the mountains beyond the last borders of the Kingdom. He had eaten little more than berries for two days. There was still some dried fish in his pack but he was saving that. Down in the wooded March, on the road to Hayley there had been little huts or hamlets where people had accepted his coin for food and a night’s lodging. (He had developed a trick of pretending to count out his last coin each time, just in case his hosts were tempted to murder him for his purse.) Up here the people were even fewer. He did not trust them. These were the hill folk, traditional enemies of the Kingdom: poor enough, he guessed, to kill a man for the clothes on his back. Besides, he did not know if they had any use for coins. He avoided their settlements when he could. He had nothing to guide him but the marks of that awful foot and the rare, blessed sight of old horse-droppings by the path.