The Fatal Child (26 page)

They emerged one after another onto a narrow wooden gallery that ran along one wall of a huge vaulted room. Others were here before them but there was still a little space. Melissa pushed her way to the rail and looked down on the court of the King.

Below her was the crowd – knights and barons, nobles and ladies, packed against either wall so that the long aisle was clear. The air was warm with the press of bodies. Everyone down there seemed to be talking, lifting their voices so that their neighbour might hear them in the clamour. Guards in polished armour stood shoulder to shoulder at the front of the crowd, holding long weapons in their hands. They
lined the central path all the way from the double doors on her left to the throne itself.

And there he was, Ambrose, sitting on a high seat at the top of a short flight of steps at the right-hand end of the hall. There were banners above him and richly dressed men around him, and on the wall above the throne was a great golden sun, to which had been added, in fresh green paint, a giant leaf of oak.

He sat there amid all the clamour. He was wearing a tunic of blue edged with gold. His new little beard was trimmed to a point after the fashion of the capital. But the same simple circlet that she remembered was on his head, and there was the same thoughtful look on his face that she had seen on the knoll.

He hasn’t changed, she thought suddenly. He’s here to do just what he was doing before. All the rest of it’s fancy dress – no more than that.

He was waiting for something.

A trumpet blared. Melissa jumped. It had come from the door on her left. Armed men stood there, wearing yellow shirts over their mail, marked with a black bird flying over a black tower. The babble of the crowd was subsiding. Up and down the hall people were craning to see. And now other people were coming through the doors – ladies carrying garlands, and then …

And then came Atti herself, in her long pale dress, standing out among the bright colours of her escort like a diamond in a golden ring.

They had dropped that stupid veil over her face,
thought Melissa crossly. No one would be able to see all those jewels she had pinned into Atti’s hair that morning, or the whiteness of her skin or the fine lines of her brows that two of the others had spent all that time perfecting. Her head was the main thing after all. Why hide it?

Slowly Atti and her escort advanced down the hall. When she was ten paces into the room the last of the ladies carrying her train were still emerging from the door. When she was twenty paces into the room she stopped. Her escort stopped with her. Again the trumpet sounded.

‘The Lady Astria Anthea Aeris diPare diBaldwin, heir of Velis and of the house of Baldwin, Princess of the Realm!’ cried one of the men in yellow shirts.

And again they moved forward, pacing slowly down the room towards the throne. Before the steps they halted, and again the trumpet blew.

‘The princess will do homage to her King!’ cried the herald.

Atti walked forward and knelt before Ambrose. Her hands were between his. A man was reading words from a scroll. Atti was repeating them. Now Ambrose was replying. And now he was rising from his throne, taking her hand, raising her to her feet. They faced the crowd together. More trumpeters came forward. On their tabards they wore Ambrose’s arms, the moon quartered with an oakleaf. They sounded their brass down the hall. Another voice bellowed that the King now offered his hand to the princess, for the love that there was between them and for the peace of
the land. If the princess willed it they should be wed on the day of the King’s coronation and crowned together in the cathedral of Tuscolo.

Atti nodded to her own herald, who roared her reply.

‘The princess wills it!’

‘Hurrah for the King! Hurrah for his Queen!’

And all the crowd bellowed,
‘Hurrah! Hurrah!
’

One of the girls was pulling at Melissa’s arm. ‘They’ll leave now. We’d best be back before them.’

‘Coming,’ said Melissa. The others were already ahead of her, slipping quickly out of the gallery door.

Standing just inside the doorway was a woman in a dull cloak and hood. She must have come in after the serving girls to watch the procession from up here. Now the other girls were pushing past her, ignoring her in their hurry to be back at their posts before Atti returned to her chambers. The woman moved a little to be out of their way but there was not much space. Melissa looked up at her as she passed.

She stopped.

Then she put her hands together beneath her chin in the way the hill folk did, and said: ‘Thanks to Michael, lady, that he has guarded you, and to Raphael that he has guided your way, for you are safe come.’

And Phaedra of Trant and Tarceny, mother of the King, smiled sadly at her. ‘Thank you for your greeting, Melissa. I did not suppose that anyone in this place would know me or notice me. But you did.’

‘You come to see him betrothed, my lady?’

(In the hills she would never have called her
my
lady
. Here, it felt wrong to call her anything else.)

‘Betrothed and wed and crowned,’ said Phaedra. ‘What mother could miss it? I shall do my best to be happy for him.’

‘Wedding and crowning’s going to be another month, my lady. There’s so much to get ready.’

‘You will be busy, Melissa.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And are
you
happy?’

Happy?

Melissa shrugged. ‘I’m not sick,’ she said. ‘They feed me every day – as much as I want, pretty well.’

‘And now you know that isn’t happiness after all. Not after you’ve had a chance to get used to it. I was sorry to lose you from the mountains, Melissa. They are emptier places without you.’

Melissa said nothing. She did not feel comfortable talking about herself with Ambrose’s mother. She never knew what Phaedra did and did not guess.

Phaedra was looking down at the court again. So they both stood there and watched together as Atti and her attendants walked backwards, train leading, down the long aisle in the middle of the chamber. They were walking with their heads bowed out of respect for the King, but also so that they could see where they were putting their heels. They moved even more slowly than when first they had entered. The rear of the train had only just reached the great double doors. Atti herself still had twenty short paces to go. At the other end of the hall the King sat still. His eyes had never left his bride.

‘I nursed him through the shadows,’ said Phaedra softly. ‘And through the mountain winters. He was my world for thirteen years. What does he remember of that? But he was a child then, with a child’s strength. He strove with an enemy of Angels and did not fail. Now he is a young man. His weakness is that of all young men. And he does not want for his mother.’

‘He does love her, my lady,’ said Melissa. ‘And she him,’ she added stoutly.

‘And I loved my husband when I married him,’ said Phaedra. ‘And I betrayed him to his death. Did you know that?’

‘No, my lady! No, you never said.’

‘It is not a story I tell. But one day maybe … Even before his whole court, if I must.’

Atti was still backing down the aisle. Melissa could hear the slight jingling of her jewellery as she moved. The doors stood wide like the mouth of a great frog. The train withdrew into it as if it were a silken tongue, carrying the pretty thing on its tip. All eyes were on Atti as she disappeared. Then the doors closed. A murmur of voices rose in the hall.

‘Um … Does he know you are here?’ said Melissa.

The question pulled Phaedra from her thoughts. She smiled ruefully. ‘He does not, yet. It is ironic, Melissa. I can see far and speak far and pass where no one should be able to pass. Yet in none of these ways can I approach my son. There are too many people around him. There is always someone to hear and see. And until he knows I am here I cannot even walk up to him like a supplicant. Truly I think that a king’s flatterers must be
the thickest and most impenetrable of all defences. Can you bring a message to him from me?’

‘I can give it to someone who gives it to someone who gives it to him,’ said Melissa. ‘That’s the way it works here. At least,’ she added, glancing at the doorway, ‘I can when I find my way out.’

The corridor was empty. The girls who had led her to the gallery were gone. Down in the hall the court babbled on, waiting for the next thing.

‘Do you not know the way?’ said Phaedra.

‘No, my lady.’

‘Neither did I when I last came up here. I was no older than you are now. Let us see if we can remember it together.’

She held out her hand and Melissa took it. Her skin felt very cool, almost damp. Together they felt their way forward into the dimness, and the trumpet blared in the court behind them.

did ask if we might speak in private,’ sighed Phaedra to her son.

Ambrose glanced around the chamber. And that, thought Padry, was the last straw.

It wasn’t so much Ambrose himself. Padry could work with Ambrose (albeit with gritted teeth), because when it was about lands or laws or charters, Ambrose was willing to listen to him. And so far Ambrose had not once referred to that disastrous episode in the mountains. So far.

But the presence of Phaedra shrieked at him. It transported him back to the very moment of his humiliation, two years ago, when he had stumbled out of that courtyard, knowing himself for what he was. He could not look at her. His eyes went to his writing table, to the window, to Ambrose – to anything but the woman in her drab, colourless gown who stood in the middle of the room. Waves of shame and self-disgust pulsed through him like a headache. It was as bad as when he had to be in the presence of Atti herself. Worse, because she had come without warning. And
because Atti had turned her back, that day in the mountains. But she –
she
had seen into his naked and quivering soul.

And they wanted to speak in private! These people – did they know nothing about kingship? Why, for this audience he had virtually emptied the room! He had almost been on his knees to the suspicious, jealous lords of the council, begging them for a half-hour’s indulgence while the King met with his mother, and assuring them that no matter touching the Kingdom or the royal estate would be decided in their absence. He had packed off all his assistants apart from Lex, all the guards bar two and all the servants except for one whom he had kept back to pour wine if that should be desired. Did they
know
what it cost the King’s authority?

‘This is as private as it’s ever been,’ said Ambrose.

‘Can it not be more so?’

‘That depends.’ His tone was wary, almost harsh. ‘Do you want to speak to me as mother, subject or counsellor?’

Phaedra lifted an eyebrow. ‘As mother and counsellor, if you like. I have not come to ask for anything for myself – since there is nothing you can give me.’

‘Is it about Atti?’ said Ambrose grimly.

‘It is not’

‘But you don’t approve.’

‘Does it matter whether I approve or not, since you did not ask me before you bound yourselves to one another? Nevertheless,’ she added, perhaps with some
difficulty, ‘I, too, made a marriage without my parents’ let. When I see you together, you shall both have my blessing.’

Ambrose let out his breath. ‘Thank you,’ he said, sounding a little more at ease. ‘So I suppose you want to scold me about becoming King?’

‘Do you think you deserve a scolding?’

‘No – and yes.’

‘And could anything I say persuade you that you should not be King after all?’

‘No.’

‘Then what use would it be for me to scold you? If you need a scolding, you may scold yourself. You remember as well as I what Paigan said about coming to Tuscolo.’

Ambrose swallowed and nodded. ‘I do.’

She looked at him with eyes that said,
Well?
But he looked back defiantly.

‘He was a liar. Always,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m here.’

‘So. And do you like being King?’

‘Like it?’ Ambrose laughed bitterly. ‘There’s never any time to think whether I like it or not. But we’ll do good things, Mother. We will re-settle Trant and restore the castle. Aun says I have to have lands east of the lake. At least this way I can have them without taking them from someone else. We’ll do the same for Baldwin and Bay if we can. After twenty years of war there’s a need for healing wherever you look.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I just had not realized that so much of it would be about money!’

Padry exchanged a long-suffering look with Lex.
Money? Of course it was about money! Almost everything a king did must be about wealth in some form or other – who got it and who should be deprived of it, and above all how the royal coffers were to pay the next fee when demand always exceeded revenue! Didn’t he understand that yet? He could do with some more house-training, this boy.

‘I sent for you as soon as I decided to come here,’ Ambrose said.

‘I know. But I was occupied with one for whom you have been waiting.’

‘And?’

‘I will bring him to you now, if you are willing.’