Dark Mist Rising (34 page)

‘Mother Chilton spoke of a “web of being”. But I do not see how—'

‘Of course you do not see how – you are only a
hisaf
, and not a particularly able one. Just
listen
, Roger Kilbourne. Your crossing over does not, in and of itself, disturb the web of being, no. Your father told you true on that. But you did not confine your crossings to yourself, did you? When you brought back others, and their objects, each occasion upset the balance of the web. Pulled at its delicate threads, tore some loose. I do not say you caused this war, because it began before you were even born. But you have aided the enemy, oh how you have aided them!'

‘It is not only I who have torn threads loose. Who sent Fia back over, and Shadow and Shep and the other dogs?'

‘Neither Fia nor the dogs are our doing. Do not attempt to accuse me, Roger. You do not know everything and I shall not tell you more – you, an ignorant boy who has already profoundly helped the enemy. Don't you understand? Soulvine Moor is destroying the web that weaves together life and death. Both have tremendous power, and that power flows along the strands of the web of being, which holds it in balance. Even your ill-begotten sister is part of that web. The rogue
hisafs
are using her, in league with Soulvine Moor. Your father's
hisafs
hope to kill her. Neither group must succeed. If the flow of web power – the strongest force in the world – should be so abruptly and greatly disturbed, what do you think might happen to the living? Or to the Dead, waiting so trustfully for—'

‘For what?' I struck in. Her words dazed me. Could the barrier between living and dead really be destroyed? ‘For what do the Dead wait in their circles? Tell me!'

She said simply, ‘For the sword.'

I shook my head in the darkness. And then I remembered. Slowly I said, ‘There was something bright and terrible, coming from the sky in the Country of the Dead—'

Alysse gasped. ‘You saw the sword?'

‘I don't know ... only for a moment. I'm not certain.

It was the moment I brought back the Blue army, and something rent the sky, but it was so bright I couldn't look at it. Then I crossed away.'

She groaned. ‘You should not have seen it at all. No one should see it except— I will not tell you more. You have no right to know. Roger, you must not cross over again for any reason.'

‘But you admitted that my crossing over does not by itself disturb anything.' Why was I arguing about this? I was afraid to cross over.

‘It is not just what you might happen to you, Roger. It is also your sister. She was – is – at the centre of the web. The power that Soulvine Moor seeks to take from the Dead and allocate to themselves, that power flows through her, the unnatural living presence among the Dead. Do you not see why she is mad? That would drive any child to madness. And unlike other
hisafs
, faithful or faithless, you are linked to her by blood. If you remove that centre of power while you are in the Country of the Dead – if you think you must kill her to defend yourself, for instance – it could do immense harm. That must not happen. And neither must she harm you.'

‘Why not?' I said bitterly. ‘If I have caused so much havoc already in the Country of the Dead, if I have aided Soulvine Moor so much, if I have done such evil, why go to such lengths to protect me so? Here or there? Why not just let my sister destroy me?'

‘It is not you we are trying to protect.'

‘Not me? Then whom? Princess Stephanie? My sister is appearing in her dreams and—'

‘Stephanie too is part of the web, and it would have been better had that poor child been shot by Tarek's soldiers. Then she could have rested quietly in the Country of the Dead. Instead she is being tormented by your sister, and she is so closely guarded that we cannot get to her to help except at prohibitive cost. But the princess cannot cause any real disruption to the Country of the Dead, and she is not the reason I am here. Not the reason I have risked so much to talk to you.'

Her voice held so much apprehension that my own chest tightened. It was difficult to breathe. But whatever I had expected, it was not what Alysse said next.

‘If you somehow escape from here, Roger Kilbourne, if you do not die at Tarek's hands, then you must not go home to Maggie. She is with her kin in the village of Tanwell, but you must
not
go there. Your sister does not know about Maggie, but if you go to Tanwell, she may find out.'

‘I ... I don't understand. Not go home? Mother Chilton told me to go home to Maggie. She did!'

‘I know,' Alysse said. Her voice dropped so low that I had to lean into the bushes, close to her ear, to hear her at all. Twigs tangled in my hair. ‘When Mother Chilton told you to go home to Maggie, we did not know what we know now. I have come here, through dangers you cannot possibly understand, in order to tell you that under no circumstances, for no reason, can you go back to Maggie.'

‘Then is Maggie the person you are trying to protect?

That you have taken all these risks for? The person that Fia—'

‘No. Not Maggie.'

‘Then who?'

It was a long time before Alysse spoke. I had the eerie impression she was listening to something, there in the starlit night. Finally her voice came, slow and reluctant from the darkness.

‘Your child will be a son.'

Then she was gone, and a rabbit hopped away from the bushes into the cold night.

Tom and I shivered beside the grave, uncertain what would happen next. Silently Jee slipped in beside me. The air was very cold and low grey clouds pressed down from the sky. Morning bustle in the camp was muted by the trees. I was having trouble keeping my thoughts on Lady Margaret, or on anything except what Alysse had told me last night. Two factions contended for power over the web of being: Soulvine Moor with the faithless
hisafs
, opposed by my father's
hisafs
and the web women, and the latter two could not work together nor even share information. ‘
Your child will be a son
...'

Tom said grudgingly, ‘At least the savages are burying the lady. They might have ...' He waved his hand to indicate that savages might have done anything.

I was surprised too. Despite what Tarek believed, even his senior captain thought that Lady Margaret's death had involved witchcraft. Based on their treatment of Jee, the soldiers would have been reluctant to even touch the corpse. Nonetheless, Tarek must have given the order that Lady Margaret should have whatever death rites were usual for her people, and his soldiers had obeyed. Discipline.

We stood there while the sky darkened even more and a few stray drops of rain fell. Just slightly colder, and the rain would become snow. Tom muttered, ‘What are we waiting for?'

Jee said, ‘Her.'

‘Who?' Tom said.

‘The princess.'

Of course. Jee had grasped that more quickly than I. Lady Margaret had been Princess Stephanie's senior attendant. To Tarek, neither childhood nor hysteria would be a bar to the royal duty of attending the death rites. In his own way he was behaving decently. I hated that.

Tom said, ‘Don't be daft, Jee. Nobody would bring a little girl to—'

The princess emerged from the woods.

She clutched her nurse's hand, and her little face was as bloodless as the stone I had given Tarek. Panic filled her eyes. Behind her walked her guard and six or eight of the palace folk. Tom craned his neck, looking for Alysse. She was not there.

When Stephanie reached the edge of the hole and looked down, puzzlement crossed her face. It was replaced by realization, and she opened her mouth to scream.

Instantly Jee ran towards her. ‘No, it be all right!' he cried, and she turned to see who had shouted. Before Jee could reach her, the princess's guards seized him and threw him against a tree. Immediately he was on his feet, shaking his head and starting again towards the princess.

‘No, Jee!' I called, and ran towards her myself. So the savages
would
touch him if he approached the princess. They would kill him. But not me. These men had seen Tarek permit me into Stephanie's tent last night. They let me go to her, kneel beside her, be clung to by her trembling little arms.

‘Your Grace, do not scream. I mean it. You must be brave.'

‘Here, lambie,' the nurse said, trying to take Stephanie from me. She clung harder. Blood streamed down Jee's face, twenty feet away.

‘You are not alone, Your Grace. Don't scream. I am here.'

She nodded. I picked her up with my one good hand and the stump of my other wrist. The nurse scowled at me jealously and the guards glanced at each other. But they permitted it. Their expression said that these death rites, whatever they were, had nothing to do with them. Let the slave folk of the conquered country complete this quickly so that the march home could resume.

Then no one did anything, and I saw that it was going to be up to me, the
antek
.

With a princess's head buried against my shoulder, I walked to the edge of the grave and said loudly, ‘We commend the soul of Lady Margaret to the ... the sky, and we ... uh ... commend her body to the earth. She was a gracious lady. A good woman, who helped many and was loved by all. Lady Margaret, farewell. Nurse, take the princess away, and you others follow.
Kevel bik
ben tekir, semak
.' ‘You two there, cover the body with dirt.'

The two soldiers I pointed to with the stump of my wrist looked startled, then glanced at each other. But they moved towards the shovels leaning against a tree. The palace folk, equally startled to be ordered about by someone who had once been the queen's fool, nonetheless obeyed. The nurse took Stephanie from me, even as I whispered, ‘Be brave. I will come to you later.' Jee followed her with his eyes. In a few moments only he, Tom, I and our two guards remained in the clearing, watching the savages shovel dirt over Lady Margaret's body.

Then Jee moved towards the grave. The guards edged away from him. The boy leaned over and threw onto the dirt a twig pulled from a holly bush. There were no flowers this late in the season, but the bright red berries and glossy green leaves glowed on the mound of fresh dirt.

There was a moment of silence. Then Tom said, ‘By damn, I wish I'd thought of that. But why didn't you give the proper graveside speech, Peter?'

Because I had never heard one.

It began to rain.

Not so the folk from The Queendom. Servants, now slaves, trudged beside the one remaining pole-conveyance. Tension stretched every line of the servants'

faces as they bent their heads against the rain.
What is this
place we go to? What will happen to us there
? For me, the question was more immediate: What would happen to me tonight, when Tarek sent for me for the instruction he no longer seemed to believe in?

‘You are quiet, Peter,' Tom said. He walked beside me, the length of rope between his ankles shortening his stride, Lady Margaret evidently already gone from his thoughts. ‘There's Jee disappearing every ten minutes and Alysse not walking with the women and you with a face like a crushed potato and ... Peter!' His face, rain running down it from his yellow hair, brightened and he leaned towards me conspiratorially. ‘Is tonight the night? Will you – you know?' He pantomimed drinking ale and then, with a theatricality that should have put him in a playhouse or a gaol, pretended to choke and die.

‘Stop that, Tom!'

‘Yes, all right. But
is
it? Is tonight the night?'

‘I don't know.' True enough words. I knew nothing for sure. Although one thing I suspected: It was not Tarek who would be next to die.

‘But do you think that—'

‘Oh, hold your tongue, Tom!'

He scowled and adopted an injured tone. ‘Just as you say. Here comes Jee – you'd probably rather tell
him
.' Tom moved away, all wounded dignity and dripping sodden hair.

Jee slipped into step beside me. The blood had congealed on his face into a fresh scab, vivid and clean in the rain. ‘I saw,' he said to me now.

‘You saw Princess Stephanie?'

‘Yes. She pushed aside the cloth and looked out. She still be crying.' And then, very low, ‘Her nana be dying next, yes?'

‘I don't know,' I said. But I did know.

‘Then after the nana, ye will die in yer sleep?'