The Fatal Child Read online

  ‘You have not lost all your wits, then,’ she said.

  You have not lost all your wits. That was her mother, indeed!

  She was looking at him, thinking. He waited.

  ‘You realize that there is every chance she will die on her journey? Indeed that she may already be dead?’

  Another diversion. He shrugged it off. ‘Perhaps not. There is some hope. Her maid accompanied her. They stole provisions from the convent kitchens and a mule from the stables.’

  ‘So. But her chance of finding the one she is looking for is that of finding a feather in straw.’

  ‘I think – it will depend on whether her dreams were more than mere dreams,’ he said carefully.

  Silence.

  ‘Say what you mean, Thomas.’

  ‘Witchcraft, my lady.’

  He should have guessed it. The moment Atti had spoken of a dream that had not been one of her nightmares, he should have been alert. He should have put the thought of this Hidden King, who might be somewhere in Tarceny, together with the memory that in past days Tarceny had dealt with black evil. Vexed by the hundred daily urgencies of the King’s court, he had not – until it was too late. The thought of that failure was like a goad. It had burned in him all the way here, to the one person he could think of who might tell him what he needed. And she had leaped at him, not when she had heard that he had a mission but when she had learned what that mission was. That confirmed his thought. The Lady of Develin knew something that was dangerous to speak of.

  What do you know, my lady, and how? And how far will you trust me, Thomas Padry, whom your mother would have trusted to the death?

  Out in the passage he heard the murmur of voices, the shuffle of feet. Familiar sounds: councillors waiting to be admitted, swapping whispered guesses about what it was that had brought the lord chancellor so far to the south. Beyond them rose all the other noises of the castle: feet on boards overhead, horses in the courtyard, a harsh voice calling something to someone, the drone of the breeze in the open casement. Two hundred people had made their living under the old Widow’s roof. It did not seem to be less than that now. And he stood eye to eye with the Widow’s daughter, and the shadow of witchcraft was between them.

  ‘I think it possible that you are right,’ she said at last.

  ‘And this …’ She sighed. ‘This is what disturbs me most of all. Not for your sake or hers, but for his.’

  ‘Then you do know of him?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And yes, I suppose he may know where this child is.’

  Her fingers tapped the arm of her chair, once, twice.

  ‘I have your promise that you mean him no harm?’

  ‘Absolutely, my lady. My life on it!’

  ‘Good, Thomas. But have you a man you can trust for this? Someone you can trust as much as I am trusting you? I should warn you that the road may be harder than you would think possible.’

  He thought, and nodded. ‘I have. One, only. But yes.’

  ‘For you must not go, Thomas. That is my condition. You must return yourself to Gueronius. He is your duty. Each day that passes without you at his side is dangerous for all of us. Your conscience should tell you that, but if it does not prick you then let me be the other spur. This house has suffered enough from the whims of kings – as you know.’

  ‘My lady, I know. And I will go.’

  ‘As swiftly as you can, Thomas. I shall not sleep well until I know you are in Velis.’

  ‘Trust me, my lady,’ he said, and bowed.

  His conscience did prick him then. It told him that if he were truly the just man he thought himself to be, the man who trod squarely in the centre of the Path, he would draw breath, risk all, and tell her plainly that although he would join Gueronius as soon as he could, he would not do so at once. Because the man he had spoken of, the one man whom he would trust to go to the Hidden King, was himself. There was no other.

  He said nothing.

  IV

  The Haunted Knight

  elissa dreamed a wonderful dream of food.

  She could smell it: a beautiful stewy smell, steaming in the hut where Mam (yes, Mam alive and well and smiling) was stirring it with a ladle. Everything was warmth and bright colours.

  Can I have it now? she begged. I’m so hungry. Soon, said Mother, and smiled, and stirred the pot (thick with rich bits of meat and carrots and herbs!). It will be very soon.

  Please! begged Melissa, reaching for the ladle. There was fresh bread on the table, crusty and smelling like honey. Mam just smiled again.

  Then – Melissa did not notice the change, but there must have been one – she was no longer in the hut. She was in a landscape of brown rocks under a dull sky. She could not smell the stew any more. Two people were watching her, a little way off among the stones.

  There, said one (a hunched figure, indistinct in robes and a great hood). By the path in the forest. The voice was so deep that the ground beneath her ear seemed to tremble with it.

  The other was a tall young man with a long face and dark, curling hair. Melissa thought she knew him. But he seemed so much older than she remembered.

  Who is she? he asked.

  One who is looking for you, the deep voice answered.

  The young man picked his way among the stones and knelt down beside her. He looked closely at her. You should eat, he said.

  I don’t have any food, she thought.

  Where is your home? he asked.

  I don’t have one any more.

  He frowned. He seemed to understand what had happened. He seemed to understand it better than she did.

  Please, she thought. I’m trying to find you. But I don’t know where you are.

  Who did this? the King said, still frowning.

  She could not tell him.

  Did they wear a badge? A sign?

  Red, she whispered. And she heard her own voice in her dream. Their things were red.

  The young man looked up at his companion. Bavar’s folk, he said. Again.

  The hunched figure loomed over them. It was not a man or a woman. A face like a mask peered out of the hood. A mouth, which seemed impossibly wide, moved to speak.

  She will die, said the deep voice. Do you want me to bring her to you?

  If she is weak, said the King, your journey might kill her anyway.

  Perhaps.

  In one swift movement the King rose to his feet. He seemed to fill the Heaven above her, a creature of tremendous lightness and power. She saw how his fists had clenched at his sides. She saw the lines of his face, dark and clear against the sky.

  I have a better idea, he exclaimed. Show Bavar to me instead!

  The companion bowed. Melissa looked up at the King and he looked down on her. Hold on, he told her. We are coming.

  Then they, too, were gone. And so were the brown rocks, and so were the sounds and warmth and smells. She was lying by the trackside where she had fallen yesterday. Her body was chilled to the bone. She felt too weak to lift herself. The pains in her eyes and head had come back again.

  She lay there because she could do nothing else. It had been days since she had run from her home. Days and days of wandering in circles from the smoking hut, where Mam lay stripped by the stream side and Dadda had been hanged by a rope from the tree.

  Padry dreamed of petitions, and the morning brought them for real. It brought them with the sound of hoofs in mud and a man dismounting. The door to the little pilgrim house opened and Lex – his own assistant Lex, who should have been thirty leagues away in Tuscolo – flung into the low room where Padry and his escort were having their breakfast.

  At once he banged his head on a beam and dropped to his knees, cursing.

  ‘Rise, my boy,’ said Padry peaceably. ‘Your sins are forgiven.’

  Lex dragged himself to the bench. ‘Am I bleeding?’ he asked, examining his fingers.

  ‘Not yet. For which we may be grateful. You have enough mud on you to displease my host as it is.’


  ‘Angels!’ groaned the young man, still feeling his head. ‘This comes of riding all night’

  ‘I am a little surprised to see you here, indeed. How did you find us?’

  ‘Hither and thither. At Develin they said you had returned to Tuscolo, but I had come down that road and knew you were not on it. So I looked further. I have woken every village between here and the river by banging on doors in the small hours.’

  ‘Hum. I am also surprised that you risk the roads alone and in the dark. What is the matter?’

  Lex opened a satchel and drew out a paper. He handed it across to Padry. ‘Lord Joyce demands an answer before the end of the week,’ he said. ‘And he will take no satisfaction from me.’

  Padry sighed. ‘Lord Joyce? I re-Joyce to hear from him,’ he said. ‘In return I bequeath you my breakfast, since I guess you have had none of your own.’ He pushed his half-finished bowl of broth across to his subordinate. His body groaned at him, That was mine! But he bridled his hunger as a just man should. The innkeeper might or might not have more to offer, but there was no doubt where the greater need lay.

  ‘My thanks,’ said Lex, and fell on it.

  ‘So,’ said Padry, scanning the paper, ‘it is on behalf of his man Delverdis, who claims rights over the market at Pemini, is that it?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And is there a counter-petition from Pemini?’

  ‘Not yet. No doubt it is on its way to us, citing ancient rights and freedoms and charters. You could write the sort of thing in your head.’

  ‘I could. I was born in Pemini. Didn’t you know that?’

  Lex shook his head vigorously. His mouth was full. When he could speak, he said: ‘I never asked myself where you came from.’

  ‘You thought I had sprung full-formed from a library bookshelf, I suppose. But I was a child of muddy alleys, just like you. Glad indeed to leave them. And yes …’ He frowned at the page. ‘Yes, Delverdis had some rights, as I remember. But this! This is pure theft!’

  ‘Will you say that to Lord Joyce?’

  Padry sucked his cheeks. ‘He will protest to the King, who will give him whatever he asks simply to be rid of him. We must be more cunning.’

  He knitted his brows over the petition, trying to think his way back to the chancery of Tuscolo and to the busy wharves of Pemini far beyond.

  After a minute or so he sat back and put his heels on the table. He had a theory that this tilted the blood to the brain and so helped him to think better. It was certainly more comfortable.

  Pemini, a town beginning to grow back to its former wealth. A greedy lord. A long history. Two years ago this would have been settled with knives. Now at least they were sending to the King first, to see if they could get their way without the trouble. But the knives were still there. They were everywhere, as the Lady of Develin had said. If either side thought it had lost too much in the judgement, or even if they grew tired of waiting, the iron would be out in an instant. And Thomas Padry, former schoolmaster, regretting his lost breakfast in a wayside inn, had the key to lock the iron away.

  He scratched his head. Well, he ought to have it. But he was badly placed, like a piece in the wrong part of a chessboard. He needed to be with the King when the judgement was given, to forestall any appeal. Right now Gueronius and he were almost at opposite ends of the Kingdom. And he was moving further away.

  ‘Nothing for it,’ he sighed. ‘We must play for time.’

  Lex, mouth full, raised an eyebrow. Yes, even that was dangerous. It needed just one young hot-head on either side to take matters into his hands and then the blood would be flowing. The parties could not just be told to be patient. They had to be given something to be patient for.

  ‘We will appoint a panel of “right men” to judge the matter. Of which I will be one. And we will set a date. Ho, there!’ he called over his shoulder to the kitchen. ‘Are there such things as pen and ink in this house?’

  Wordlessly, Lex produced an ink bottle and a quill from his satchel.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Padry again. He turned the petition over and began to write on the back of it.

  ‘I have paper, too,’ said Lex.

  Padry shook his head and went on writing. ‘Let us spare our king’s coffers another coin. He will need every groat for his shipwrights. Are there more matters like this a-waiting?’

  ‘They arrive every day. Some have already come to blows. But only Lord Joyce, so far, has put his dagger between my eyes to have me make haste. When will we have you back in Tuscolo?’

  ‘I must join the King as soon as I am done here.’

  ‘But at least you can pass by us. When will you be done?’

  ‘Oh, I should think …’ Padry looked at his thumbs. ‘Perhaps in a week.’

  ‘A week!’ Lex rolled his eyes.

  ‘You forget yourself,’ said Padry coldly.

  ‘Your pardon,’ said Lex. ‘If I forget myself, it is because I remember things as I have left them. May I at least ask what the business is?

  ‘You may ask, but I may or may not answer.’

  ‘It’s the Baldwin child, isn’t it? I know that much. But why does it have to be you, personally?’

  ‘Because I, personally, understand the importance of the case,’ said Padry harshly. ‘Also I have some idea how to pursue it.’

  ‘I see.’

  Lex’s eyes were full of questions. Padry clamped his jaw firmly shut.

  ‘Very well,’ sighed Lex, pushing the empty bowl away. ‘At least tell me where you go from here.’

  ‘I must be in Lackmere tonight.’

  ‘Lackmere? Do you know the way?’

  ‘Is it hard?’

  ‘It is thorn-forest. Easy to lose the path.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Padry. ‘Can you lead us there?’

  ‘I can. I will, if it means we get you back sooner. What about Lord Joyce?’

  ‘We will send three of my men back with this. That will leave us another three for the rest of our journey. It is not many, I know. But while we are so near to Develin, the roads should be safe. After that we must put our trust in the Angels.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Melissa was still lying beneath the tree. Her world had shrunk to the few square inches of ground that she could see with her eye, and to the aches of hunger and cold. A beetle heaved itself over a dead twig and was lost to sight behind her fist. An ant, or something, was crawling across her cheek. She lay still. In her fingers she held a leaf, dropped from a branch up above. It was broad and green, and the edges were crinkled. Some time after her hand had closed on it she realized that it was an oak leaf. She went on holding it even though it seemed to be difficult for her fingers to grip anything any more.

  She was lying with her ear against the ground. So she heard the horse long before she saw it. She heard it like a steady, dull thudding in the earth, which slowly became louder and clearer and crisper, so that she could hear the edges of the sound, the click of pebbles and the squelch of mud. Her hearing was so much better than her sight now. She could pick out the squeak of leather and the jingle of harness, the blowing of the horse, the flap of a pennant in the wind.

  She saw it.

  It was a great brown animal with a man on its back, pounding up the narrow path along which no one had come for days. What were they doing here? The horse was caked with dried sweat, like flecks of stale foam.

  It stopped, blowing hard. The rider must have stopped it. He looked up and saw the oak. He looked around. He was searching for something. It seemed to be very important to him to find it.

  His eyes fell on her. She knew him.

  Him!

  She knew the big blond beard, like a spade. She knew the red vest over his armour and the red pennant on the end of his lance. This was one of the men who had attacked her house. This was the one who had stood at the edge of the woods with his bow, shooting arrows after her and laughing as she dodged between the trunks, while the others had hauled Dadda into the tree.

>   Her brain yelped. Urgent messages went to her legs and hands, begging them to get up, to push her off the ground, to run, run, run, as she had run all those days before. Nothing happened. Her limbs were heavy and barely stirred.

  Again she tried. He’s getting off his horse. He’s coming over!

  Her arm moved, a fraction.

  He was standing over her. He was fumbling at his belt. She turned her head, just a little, to look up at him. There was a knife in its sheath.

  ‘N-n—’ she said.

  He frowned and knelt down beside her. There was nothing she could do.

  Maybe she would see Mam again now.

  Something popped – a bung, coming out of a bottle.

  ‘Drink,’ said the man.

  He was holding it before her lips – a water bottle. She could smell it. Suddenly she knew how thirsty she was.

  ‘Drink,’ said the man, more urgently. ‘You must drink.’

  I can’t drink while I’m lying down, she thought.

  He seemed to see that. Setting the bottle on the earth, he took her by both shoulders and propped her against the trunk of the tree. Then he lifted it again and poured it gingerly at her mouth. Water splashed on her lips and down her front. She caught a gulp of it and choked.

  ‘Not too much,’ grumbled the man.

  She put a trembling hand on the bottle, steadied it against her lips and drank some more. Again she choked. She lost her hold and between them they dropped it. The man muttered angrily and returned the bottle to his belt. He stood up, looking down at her. She wondered if he would get out his bow and arrows again and tell her to run through the trees. She knew she could not run. She did not think she could even crawl.

  He reached up to his shoulder and undid the brooch that held the red cloak. He put it round her. It was warm from his body. He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

  ‘You stink,’ he said.

  So do you, she thought, with her head hanging down against his back.

  He carried her to his horse. Again she felt herself lifted, up and across its shoulders. Her face was against its hide. Her head, upside down, seemed a horrible distance above the ground. The man climbed up behind her.