‘Why do you laugh?’ asked Miri. ‘This I have on no less a word than that of my lord the King, who is the wisest man in Southguard. And probably the world.’
The girl giggled again. She said, ‘Yes, my Lady.’
‘Then may it not be true?’ demanded the Queen. ‘I have the parts of a Goddess, Atta, as you may perhaps have noticed. It follows I have something of her power.’ She sighed. ‘Lower, Atta, lower,’ she said. ‘Just there I’m
very
sore....’
The girl poured more oil.
‘What would you have me do, in earnest of my power?’ asked Miri. ‘Shall I call up a demon?’ She propped her chin in her hands, eyes vague. ‘Perhaps I shall raise a tempest,’ she said. ‘Like the ghost-wizards did in our fathers’ time. Do you not tremble?’
Atta grinned, but made no answer.
Miri pouted. ‘I have it,’ she said after a while. ‘Since I am not believed, and would have you worship me, I shall bring the lightning. Will you love me then, Atta? When you see the hilltops smoking, and every Tower split?’
For the first time a trace of uneasiness showed in the out-lander’s face. ‘My Lady,’ she said in an unsure voice, ‘these things should not be mocked.’
The Queen rolled over into her lap and seized her wrist, watching up with glowing eyes. She said,
‘I
do not mock.’
A little pause; then she lowered her lids sleepily, and smiled. ‘Kiss me, Atta,’ she said. She pulled the other’s head down, slowly; then took the sea girl’s lip between her teeth, biting until she pulled back with a gasp. She laughed then, composedly; sprinkled oil, and guided the other’s hand. ‘I shall do as I choose,’ she said. ‘And you will serve me; for a Goddess can do no wrong.’
II
The weather worsened toward the end of the year. First came gales from the south; winter gales, hissing and filled with sleet. They turned the sea to a smoking plain of grey, flung great waves crashing at the battered cliffs. Boats drawn high on the foreshore were smashed or swept away, thatch and tiles torn from cottage roofs. Later came torrential rain. It beat the last leaves from the trees, mashing them to brown pulp. The brook that flowed below the Mound became a racing flood while night after night Marck’s housepeople lay awake, feeling their beds shift under them and creak, hearing the boom and roar as the wind fought with the Tower. Shutters burst and the fastenings of doors, the oiled silk panes from the windows of the Great Hall. Torches streamed beards of flame, till they were extinguished in fear. Then the wind died away. It left the Tower dripping, silent, and fearful still. For a rumour had run, from the Serjeants to the gateporters, the porters to the grooms, the grooms to the mews servants and their wives. None knew how it began; but all took to walking carefully, and speaking in low tones. No fear, however, sustains itself for long; so that when nothing further chanced the bolder or less reverent members of the household began to do a much worse thing than huddle and talk. They began to laugh.
Of all these happenings, one man seemed unaware; and that man was King Marck. Through the wild weeks of storm, and through the dark, calm days that followed, he worked incessantly, copying out sheet after sheet in his angular, precise hand. At last, after so much heartsearching, his mind was calm again; and a new subject had come to him. He was writing, for his Queen, the tale of all the Sealand Gods; Athlinn and Devu Spearwielder, Gelt who forges the lightning and Scatha who sends the Runners of the Night.
It was on one such gloomy afternoon, soon after the turn of the year, that the royal scribe heard above him a familiar cough. He stared up, amazed; and on the beam, his thin legs swinging as of old, sat Usk. Rich living had fattened him, so that his tunic stretched tight across his belly; but he wore his cap and bells, and had twisted his face into his most unpleasant leer.
‘Now, King,’ he said, ‘I see a well-accustomed sight. What occupies thy royal wits now?’
‘Nothing,’ said Marck, troubled. ‘Nothing that concerns you, friend. Usk, why have you done this? You know it was my wish that, having no need of Jokemen, you should not humble yourself for me.’
Usk ignored the question. ‘Nothing?’ he said. He flung his heels up, cackling.
‘Nothing concerns the King,’
he mocked. ‘Well hast thou spoken, Lord; with Nothing hast thou concerned thyself, this many a day. And Nothing will be thy reward ...’
‘Come down from there,’ said Marck with some asperity. ‘Also, explain this nonsense. Or take it somewhere else; already I have heard enough.’
‘Come down from there’
said the Jokeman. ‘Kings may come down from thrones, Gods from the sky; scholars may take leave of truth, and wise men of their wits. But Usk, in all this jangling, holds his place.’
Marck flushed. ‘I said come down...’
‘Would that I might,’ said the other mournfully. ‘But I am bound here, Lord. Within the shadow of a greater, the Jokeman’s, folly goes unseen...’ He craned his head. ‘What writest thou?’
‘You know very well,’ said his master angrily. ‘I finish my book; with the tale of Devu, and the singing bird of Midgard.’
‘Singing birds,’ said Usk. ‘Lord, of thy goodness, tell me another tale.’
‘What tale is that?’ snapped Marck.
‘Of Athlinn and the nymph Goieda,’ said the Jokeman. ‘That is a better story.’
‘You know it as well as I,’ said the King shortly. ‘The jongleur from Morwenton sang it, not two months since in Hall.’
‘Yet would I hear it from thy lips,’ said Usk winningly. A favour, Lord ...’
‘Hmmph,’
said Marck. He turned the pages before him, grumpily, casting suspicious glances at the other. ‘Athlinn, who was lord of Heaven, wooed the nymph,’ he said. ‘But Goieda refused him in her pride, cherishing the love of Basta, a Midgard King.’ Then it seemed that despite his annoyance the scholar in him gained the upper hand. ‘This is the version I have written,’ he said. ‘So it is set down in the Saga of Ennys, who was Arco’s bard. But in the Usgeard Goieda becomes a mortal girl and daughter of King Renlac, my great-kinsman. Which makes me wonder if ...’
Usk coughed, ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘the tale...’
‘Be still,’ snapped Marck. ‘Is there no pleasing you?’ But the thread of his discourse was lost; he frowned, scratched his head and resumed the story. ‘Athlinn carried the nymph to his great Hall,’ he said, ‘and there plied her with gifts. But Goieda mocked him, putting scorn on him, calling him greybeard and old man ...’
He stopped abruptly, as if realizing for the first time the Jokeman’s drift. He scowled; then his face cleared, and he shook his head. ‘This tale was told in Sealand in the times of Rand the Wise,’ he said. ‘Those days are done.’
‘Till on a day,’ said Usk, ‘the patience of the High One was exhausted. Those are thy words, my King. So Athlinn took a spear butt, and with it beat the nymph. Then when he wearied of the sport, he knew her. Then her blood flowed, even to Middle Earth; then the crops sprang; summer came, and the tribes of men rejoiced.’
‘Peace,’ said Marck wearily. ‘Peace, my friend. You do not understand.’
‘Then was Athlinn stricken in his heart,’ said Usk remorselessly. ‘Then for a year and a day the sun was hid; and the doors of Heaven gaped, for Goieda to go or stay as she might choose ...’
‘At the end of which time,’ said Marck, ‘Athlinn returned. And Goieda washed his hands and brought him bread, repentant. And on her Athlinn fathered all the Gods ...’ He raised his hands, half-laughing. ‘Usk,’ he said, ‘I am not King of Heaven, nor desire to be higher than I am. Under Atha I hold this country, between the hills and sea, and rule as justly as I may. What Gods might do is not in question.’
‘No,’ said the Jokeman bitterly, ‘but honour is. If thou put on thy cap and bells, King Marck, can Usk do less?’
The King’s eyes flashed. His colour rose; but his voice remained calm. ‘Enough,’ he said. *Usk, I have heard you for the love I know you bear me. Now say no more, but listen. I saw a Goddess, surely, in the hills; and she as surely spoke to me. But perhaps I did not hear her words aright. Later, when I thought I saw her in my Hall... but she is a child, my friend. A child who hourly brings me joy. One day she will hold this place and all it owns, my daughter under the Gods. As for this other; before you talk of honour, think on this, Rather men had stayed in darkness; rather the Earth itself remained unformed, than that one drop of innocent blood be spilled.’
‘To that I bow,’ said Usk. ‘For it is rightly said of Gods and men, to spill the blood of the innocent is a crime.’
His tone, and the look that accompanied the words, arrested Marck. He turned slowly, his eyes blue and bright. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘Nay, remember,’ said Usk. ‘A Jokeman can have no meaning. And such as attach great import to his words are needs more witless than he.’ He lolled composedly on the beam; took off his cap, spun it and whistled a tune.
The King rose, frowning. ‘None the less you will speak,’ he said. ‘You have said too much, or not enough.’
‘I will
say
nothing,’ returned the other. ‘But for a token, I will jest with thee.’ He caught the coin Marck flung him, bit it as was his custom and stowed it away. ‘Gold it was that brought King Altred down,’ he said, ‘more than the blow that joined his brother to the Gods. Life is an evil thing.’ He shook his head mournfully. ‘For that love I bear thee,’ he said, ‘I will tell another tale; of Scatha One-eye, Lord of Night, and Sceola, and the Horseman of Devu.’
Marck’s frown deepened. He said, ‘I have not heard of this.’
‘Then do thou compose thyself, Lord,’ said Usk. ‘And a Fool shall increase the tally of thy wisdom.’ He cocked his head, gravely. ‘Sceola, you must know, walked ever on her master’s right,’ he said. ‘This being the side that Scatha King was blind. Till one day Methleu came, who was Athlann’s dwarf and the, Jokeman of the Gods. "Scatha", said he, "tell me the tale of how you lost your eye." So Scatha told of the winning of the Sword, by whose power the Night Hounds are held in check, or made to run at bidding. "That is a good tale," said Methleu when he had done. "Yet I say this, Lord; that glory and defeat are like death and life, the two sides of one coin. The Hounds give thee safety in the night, and power over giants and shadows; yet on thy right side thou art blind. Who guards thee there?"
‘Then Scatha said, "The Horsemen given by my Lord Devu; and their Captain, whom I greatly honour." Then he remembered how his wife walked to his right. Then he remembered... ‘
He said no more; for an alarming change had come over Marck. He raised his hands, the fingers crooked; then his eyes, glaring round, lighted on a heavy knife that lay before him on the trestle. He snatched it up, and threw. A thud; and Usk stared down in turn, face paling. Then he reached with shaking fingers to free the slack of his sleeve, where the blade held it pinned fast to the beam. He waited for nothing further; but scuttled to the floor, and ran.
Nothing more was heard from the King’s high chamber all that day. The folk of the household moved about their affairs, casting troubled glances upward to the Tower, the slitted windows set beneath the eaves. But they remained dark; and the food that was sent, by a trembling servingwoman, was left untouched. But long after the last lamps were extinguished, and the Tower got to its uneasy rest, a listener at Marck’s door would have heard, mixed with his groans, one endlessly repeated word.
‘Briand. . .’
The dawn light lay grey across the Heath when the King rode to the outer gate. He returned no answer to the muttered greetings of the guards but sat hunched and still, his pale face shadowed by a heavy cloak. The hooves of the horse clattered on the bridge, drummed on the turf beyond; and he was gone. An hour later a second rider passed beneath the towering gantries of the gatehouse. Like his lord, he was muffled in a cloak; and he too set his horse at the Heath, not looking back. The guards exchanged glances, but spoke no word. Nor were many to be found bold enough to voice their thoughts. The day passed gloomily; and by nightfall Marck had not returned.
The fire roared brightly, fed by fresh billets; and round it a ribald company had assembled. Two stablehands, in the grubby green and yellow of the House, seemed somewhat the worse for beer; beside them a porter fondled the youngest and least prepossessing of the kitchenmaids. But the most drunken of the group, by far, was Maia. As ever, her hair straggled from beneath her cap; she stood swaying and giggling, her plump legs spread, her feet bare on the flags. Her bodice was unlaced; and over her ample breasts she gripped two cups. ‘Why, thus it would be,’ she said, ‘were I a Goddess, and thou a noble Captain.’
The stable boy thus addressed guffawed with pleasure; the kitchenmaid shrieked.
‘Marry no, good Captain,’ said Maia. ‘Not till my will permits. For as thou knowest, I am a Goddess. Not till my will permits.’ She attempted a curtsey, and all but overtoppled. ‘For if thou
force
me, Captain,’ she said, ‘thy fingers will drop from thy hands. Or some other part ...!’ She screamed with merriment; then became aware, by degrees, of the appalled stares directed past her. She turned, slowly, her own face blenching; and the cups fell and shattered. She put her hands before her, and began to whimper.
In the doorway stood the master of the Gate. He wore a robe of dull homespun; such a garment as his people had once grown used to when he rode abroad. His face was white; his eyes glared, it seemed with all the wildness of his Sealand forebears. His tongue-tip ran across his lips before he spoke. He said,
‘You mocked her ...’
Somebody whispered, ‘My Lord. . .’ But the words were cut short by the scream of Marck. The hand he jerked into sight held a knotted flail. He raised it, struck; and the screaming was redoubled. The first blow fell across the woman’s forehead, the second on her upflung arms. She scuttled, wetting herself in terror, for the shelter of a table; but Marck laid his hand to it, and the table was flung aside.
It was Thoma, dragged to the place by the incoherent porter, who took the weapon from his master, Thoma who gripped him till the thin shoulders ceased their jerking. The seneschal stared down then, unbelieving. ‘My Lord,’ he said heavily, ‘what have you done?’