He took it but was not impressed. From stupidity again, I thought, and lack of imagination, but I misjudged him there. He said, with more cunning than I would have given him credit for:
“Who proposed your deposition in that council? Harding. So at the outset he speaks for the others. It is a council of Captains but one man is its voice. How long before he has a Prince’s power, and once he has that will he not take the name?”
It was something that had occurred to me also. Blaine would fight him to the end, but Blaine was no match for him in craft. Nor would Blaine’s arming of the Wilsh be soon forgotten.
I said: “This may be. But if such a pretext can be used once it can be used again. It sets the authority of Captains above that of Prince.”
“I do not think so, Perry.” My own name was an insult. He smiled complacently. “I am safe from challenge from my Captains.”
“As short a time since as yesterday morning, I thought the same.”
Impatience and anger had sharpened my voice. He frowned at that. There were tones to use to Princes, and this was not among them. His own voice turned hard.
“But I am not likely to lose my head over a wench,” he said.
He stared at me, weak blue eyes narrowed in a spite that must always have lain hidden behind the flattery he showed me at my court.
“Nor burn harvest crops. Nor call a dwarf warrior, offending warriors of true human stock. Nor take another Prince’s city as my own.”
He watched me. Anger burned my mind, forging bitter words to answer him. But I held them back. I had offended him already. Offending him further might well be enough to earn me a place in his cells. And once in them, the Great alone knew when I would be freed.
So I said: “You are right, sire. I am punished for my faults.”
His smile returned. He clapped his hands and a polymuf brought another dish to the table.
“Try this meat, Perry. We have done well for boar this year.”
I was shivering. “I am not hungry, sire.”
Matthew leaned forward. “But I would have you eat.”
There was no ally here but a Prince I must obey. I took meat and forced myself to eat it.
• • •
Tired though I was I had little sleep that night. My thoughts were baying hounds that leaped round me, their stricken prey, savage and merciless. I tried to kill them, but from each blow they rose and gave louder tongue. And the hounds wore mocking faces: Harding, Blaine, Greene. Most of all, Edmund and Blodwen. They laughed at me and at each other; but the first was the laughter of scorn, the second of joy and desire.
And with this I sweated and shivered. In the morning my limbs were heavy and my head ached with a pain that throbbed behind my eyes. The shivering would not stop. Matthew noticed it when I went to pay my respects on departure. He asked:
“Are you well, Perry?”
“Well enough, sire.”
“You do not look well. You are welcome to stay longer, and I can have my surgeon sent to you. Or at least one of his assistants.”
I gritted my teeth. My need to be clear of this man and his court put aside for a moment my other thoughts of hatred and revenge. I said:
“I am very well, sire. I will not trespass further on your kindness.”
Hans when he saw me was alarmed. He too urged me to stay in Andover, at an inn if not at the palace. We had enough gold to pay for a lodging. But I would not listen to him; I had to be out in the open.
He said: “Do we make for Salisbury now, sire?”
We had gone north, out of our direct way, to avoid Romsey land. I did not know what resentments lingered there and might be exercised against one who had conquered them as Prince but now was powerless.
“We ride that way,” I said, “but we will not enter the city.” He looked at me. “While I lack power I will stay away from cities.”
“And in Sanctuary the Spirits will give you power?”
My head was light and heavy at the same time. I laughed.
“If they do not, I think no one else will!”
We were riding down the main street that led from the palace. Three black-robed figures walked the opposite way: the Seer of Andover with two Acolytes. He saw me but affected not to know me, and I rode past with no salute. The Seers could do nothing for me at this point; and to have commerce with me would compromise them needlessly. Ezzard’s fate was still remembered. It was because of this that I had left Winchester without seeing Grimm.
I rode on to the West Gate. My head throbbed with pain and anger. The Seers could do nothing for me. The High Seers in Sanctuary were a different matter.
The day was windless but the cold bit savagely and deep into the bone. The sky was dark gray with a shade of pink in it: full of snow. Some was shed during the morning. Small flakes, scarcely more than white dust, floated slow, slow, and specked the frozen ground. By midday the snow had stopped, but the sky above us looked ready to burst with it.
We stopped to eat at an inn high up in the hills. I had no hunger but forced myself to take something; not this time to suit another’s whim but to keep up my strength. I knew now I had a fever. My forehead burned when I put up a hand to wipe it. I saw my Aunt Mary again, and heard her say: “Starve a fever, child . . .” All right for a child at home, I told her, tucked in a warm cot—a journey in this weather was a different matter. Hans said: “Sire?” and I realized I must have mumbled words aloud. “Nothing,” I told him, and returned to my dish. It was a game pie, foul looking and foul tasting. I felt sick but chewed and swallowed as best I could.
We rode again, and the snow came down more thickly. The flakes were bigger and began to whirl in dance as the wind got up.
Hans pointed. “Is that not Amesbury, sire?” I nodded. “It might be best to take shelter there. It will be worse before long.”
“No.” I heard my voice buzz and echo. “We will pass to the south of it. We can reach Sanctuary by nightfall.”
We came to the river and had to go south again, a long way south, to find a ford. The snow played a game with us, almost stopping and then blowing fierce in our faces. I felt giddy. My head at one moment was a bladder, which I feared might float off my shoulders and away among the snowflakes; the next a lump of aching lead.
I had been a fool not to do as Hans said. Snow covered the country all round us, obliterating landmarks. A fool in this, and in so many other things. Prince of Three Cities but two days since, and now . . . My teeth chattered in my burning head. Then the chattering and the burning and even the pain seemed to go far away, out into the flickering whiteness of the sky.
Hans cried: “Sire, are you all right?”
I could not answer him. I felt myself slipping from the saddle and tried to grip the rein, but my hand would not obey me. The whiteness all round turned to black.
• • •
The nightmare had many parts to it and many characters. Harding was there and I cursed him. I swore vengeance, and saw the vengeance taken. His head stared down from the palace gate and a crow plucked his eyes. Then that changed, and it was not the palace gate but the East Gate, and the head was my father’s. I wept, and beside me Harding laughed. Then in fury I killed him again and butchered his body with my steel. And the bleeding corpse got up, and mocked me still.
Edmund was there, too. I rode with him by the Contest Field, and pleaded with him, for our friendship’s sake, not to wrong me. He spoke me fair, but looked beyond me and smiled at someone else. I knew who it was that won a smile he had never given me.
Blodwen came to me alone. She stood on the stair above her father’s throne room, and said: “I will be my own woman always. Remember that, Luke of Winchester. I will be my own woman.” “Be what you will,” I cried, “as long as you are mine!” “I will be my own woman, Luke of Winchester . . .” “Be that, but not his, not his . . .” She smiled, and I cried: “Swear you do not love him!” She shook her lovely head. “No. That I will not swear.” “You are mine! Mine, and I shall have you.” She shook her head again. “No. You never will. But it does not matter. It does not matter because you are dying, Luke, in the snow. Edmund has me, and you are dying, dying . . .”