Jadrin was summoned to the king’s apartments. He went there dressed in black and bound up his hair so as to appear courtly and civilised. There was a painful, fearful beat in his chest as he followed Ashalan’s servant into a small salon, where the king received visitors every morning. He sat down as he was bidden at the king’s feet and Ashalan said to him, ‘You must not do these things, boy.’
‘Do what, sire?’ he asked, in total innocence, confused as to how he’d misbehaved.
The king sighed thoughtfully. ‘The people here are not like you, Jadrin. What is right for you can actually harm them, because they do not have your strength. I know that some have sought your advice, and from what I have heard, the advice you gave them was straightforward enough, and little to do with magic, but they cannot understand it, you see. And what they cannot understand will never help them. What they desire is for you to speak a few words of mumbo-jumbo over a burning censer that will make everything right for them.’
‘I cannot do that, sire,’ Jadrin said, with lowered eyes and lowered voice.
The king leaned forward and lifted Jadrin’s chin with his hands. ‘I can see that,’ he said gently.
Jadrin thought: he is wiser than I imagined. He smiled gratefully and, from that moment, victim of one of the most intense magicks known on Earth, Ashalan the king lost his heart to him.
‘Let us speak together,’ Ashalan said. ‘I have troubles of my own. Is your advice to me to lie down naked in the wild forest? Shall I find myself there, perhaps?’
Jadrin detected a note of good-humoured mockery. ‘I would have thought, my lord, that you would find yourself best in the presence of all your gold,’ he said boldly.
The king laughed. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘After all, gold can be trusted. Its beauty never fades, neither can it become fickle...’
‘But it is cold,’ Jadrin said.
‘True,’ Ashalan agreed, ‘but at least it is an obvious cold and far less chilling than the coldness that may be hidden within a human frame.’
‘Then go to the forest. Take your gold with you. All of it. Lie down there with all the shining cold treasures. Eventually, you shall die, but if gold is all that you desire from life, then at least you shall die happy.’
Ashalan clearly still found this boldness amusing. ‘I have heard that true magic is nothing but pure and naked truth,’ he said. ‘Your words convince me further. You are an artless child and yet a creature versed in wisdom. I think I shall seek your advice more often.’ Laughing, he called in his secretary and ordered that refreshment be brought to them, wine and sherbets. ‘Tell me of the forest,’ he said and Jadrin sat at his feet and told him. ‘Your words must be saved for me alone,’ Ashalan instructed, ‘You do not have to advise any of the pampered hens around here any more. That is my word and you must obey it.’
Wary in the soft but strengthening grip of a new feeling, Jadrin gave his word that he would.
Perhaps more subtle in the ways of love than those of accruing treasures, Ashalan courted Jadrin discretely. So discretely that Jadrin hardly even noticed it was happening. The occasional brush of fingers, the glances that lingered just a second too long: all of this the gentle but compelling language of desire. Most days, Ashalan would summon Jadrin to his apartments in the late afternoon when they would sip cordials and speak together of countless different things. Maybe the king was surprised by Jadrin’s lack of knowledge in so many subjects, perhaps delighted by his innocence. Jadrin would listen, spellbound, as Ashalan spoke of far-flung corners of his kingdom. He learned about the Hell Mountains of Gashalore, those heartless crags inimical to humanity that smoked incessantly and vomited caustic showers of black ash. Reptiles with poisonous skin dwelt among the rocks, and basked in the steaming waters of the Lake of Insidious Sleep, whose toxic shores were forever wreathed in yellow fog. Jadrin, familiar only with the benign forests and hills of his childhood, was thrilled to learn of these dangerous and exotic places. And there was more. Ashalan told him about the white waters of the Fleercut further north, a treacherous torrent far removed from the lazy, feminine flow that divided the fields of Cos. In the wilder places, naked barbarians lurked beneath the spray, leaping out onto unwary travellers along the banks. Then there were the secretive desert people of Mewt, who moved their black tents with the winds. They might sell a horse to you if the offer was right, fiery, temperamental beasts that were cousins of the winds themselves, but there was always the whisper of deviltry around those people, so only the foolhardy and reckless ever approached them.
Four evenings a week, Jadrin was dismissed at sundown, whilst on the other three, Ashalan would bid Jadrin accompany him down to the Great Hall, where he would sit on a black marble throne. Dancers and musicians would come to entertain, sometimes gypsy fortune-tellers and most nights, gentlefolk would bow to seek an audience with the king himself. Haughtily, Jadrin would sit at the king’s feet, his dark hair curled and perfumed, his ears, his throat, hung with black jewels, his body adorned with splendid clothes of dark, rich colours, and he would think himself content. He was not exactly sure what his role was, for he did not like to ask, but it was easy to forget about the three days he had spent in the dismal, turret room and the deal he had made with a certain spiteful spirit. Ashalan was very kind to him, and gradually the boy came to realise that the king was not the greedy, lustful fool he had once thought him to be. He was a lonely, frightened man, surrounded by sycophantic idiots, half of whom probably conspired against him. Slowly Ashalan began to trust Jadrin. ‘You have brought a little peace to my life,’ he said.
One evening, when the warmth of the day was being gently nudged east by a frivolous breeze, Jadrin and Ashalan walked together along the high tiled terrace that overlooked the gardens. Urns against the wall sprouted riotous haloes of yellow flowers, ivy swung in the breeze. It was an idyllic time marred only by the sound of revelry coming from the Great Hall below them, the high spiteful laughter of women, the responding drunken, male guffaws. Jadrin sensed Ashalan wince and he thought, ‘In some ways you are a very weak man’, and felt sorry for him.
‘I do not think I was meant to be a king,’ Ashalan said.
‘Mmm,’ Jadrin replied, non-committally.
They had come to the wide bowl of a fountain; the water was turned off. Ashalan sat down on the brim of the pool, shredding an ivy leaf he had picked along the way. ‘I will tell you,’ he said. ‘My father died when I was too young to understand what power meant. He thought I would be fit to follow him. I was his only son after all. There was no one else. For years, he had been trying to groom me for the role. He had me instructed in hunting and fighting and reasoning. My brain was filled with the words of kings from great times; their heroic lifetimes filled me with dread. “You must have a wife,” my father said. I did not want to marry. My father ignored my protests. He procured a young wife and a set of noble, upright young men as friends. It was not enough.’
Jadrin had never heard of the young wife before, neither was she in evidence about the court. He made a carefully worded enquiry.
Ashalan sighed. ‘Poor girl,’ he said. ‘It was no secret that she had harboured a kind of obsession for me for some time. We had virtually grown up together, for she was my second cousin. It was a liaison doomed to tragedy, I’m afraid.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry Jadrin, but I have no wish to speak of it further.’
The king looked so forlorn that Jadrin went and put his arms around him, not caring whether it was a disrespectful thing to do or not. At that moment, he would have dearly loved to have taken Ashalan far from the palace, far from the city, back to the quiet mill-pool and the high, stone house; a place of dark and healing. It was the first time they had embraced.
‘Jadrin, I love you,’ Ashalan said, a whispered confession.
Even as he savoured these words and wondered, in fact, what they meant to him, Jadrin felt the piece of quartz, still carried about his neck in its little bag, jump and grow quickly hot. The king bent to kiss him and
he backed away, eyes wide.
Ashalan looked mortified. ‘I have offended you. Forgive me,’ he said.
Jadrin shook his head. ‘No, no you haven’t. It wasn’t that.’ His hand strayed to the pouch at his throat and he found that it was no longer warmer than usual; there was no hint of movement. Perhaps he had imagined it. Could the spirit have forgotten about their agreement? It seemed so long ago that it was made. He sat down beside the king, confused and perhaps a little afraid. He reached up with shy fingers to trace the smile on Ashalan’s mouth, and then he kissed it, absorbed it, examining the rush of pleasure this new contact initiated. In its bag around his neck, the quartz remained still and cool. Jadrin sighed and smiled.
‘What is it?’ Ashalan asked him and Jadrin shook his head.
‘Nothing. It is nothing.’
They continued their walk in silence, going down the sweeping, white steps at the end of the terrace and into the shadowed, rustling gardens. ‘I am twenty-six years old,’ Ashalan said, ‘I am ten years older than you, Jadrin. Perhaps I am wrong to want to love you.’
‘Go down to the forest,’ Jadrin said lightly. ‘Lie down naked in the damp leaves and perhaps the answer to your troubles shall come to you.’
Ashalan laughed sadly. ‘You are oblique and rude. Only your loveliness allows you to get away with the things you say to people.’
‘I am sixteen years old,’ Jadrin replied. ‘I am ten years younger than you, and perhaps it is wrong for me to want to love you, Ashalan, but in all frankness I do not care about what other people think is right. Most of them are fools whose behaviour would make a demon blush. Why should we consider their opinions?’
Ashalan smiled. He shrugged. Together, they returned to the palace.
Jadrin sat on a stool in the ante-chamber to the king’s bedroom and combed out his hair. He could see himself shining like pearl and jet in the mirror before him. His flesh tingled with the presentiment of a delicious fear. His nervousness tasted like wine. Then, interrupting his private reverie, something cold touched his shoulder. It cast no reflection in the mirror before him. He gasped and turned round quickly on the stool. There, behind him, hovered the spirit from the turret room, malicious glee scrawled across its indistinct features. ‘Now!’ it hissed. ‘Now! Let me in! Let me into your soul!’
Jadrin stood up. ‘No!’ he said, flinging out his arm. ‘I will not. You must ask something else of me.’
‘You gave your word!’ shrieked the spirit angrily.
Jadrin denied this vigorously. ‘I was in no position to make such a bargain. Ashalan is not an evil man. I will not let you harm him. Tell me, what else do you want in payment?’
‘Nothing,’ the spirit spat petulantly. ‘I will taunt you and haunt you until you do as I ask.’
‘Then you will have to taunt me forever, for I never shall.’
‘Hah!’ the spirit snarled. ‘That is where you are wrong, foolish boy. You have three days; that is all. At the end of that time, I am quite within my rights to force myself into your helpless, mortal brain and destroy you and the king together. We made an agreement, Jadrin, there is no going back now. You are bound by cosmic law.’
‘And surely cosmic law is no friend of evil.’
The spirit pulsed with angry light. ‘You are hardly more than a child. You know nothing of evil.’
‘Perhaps not much, but enough to know it when I see it. I am young, I know that, but don’t underestimate me. I know for a fact that it is always possible to wriggle out of situations like this, and I shall find the way, you can be sure of that.’
The spirit laughed. ‘Brave words for a catamite, Jadrin. But I concede that you are right. You cast aspersions upon my character, but I shall prove my honesty and integrity by saving you the trouble. As you have guessed, there is a way to release yourself from our bargain and it is this. If, within three days, you can learn who and what I was on this earth, you can consider yourself free of our agreement. However, I think it extremely unlikely that you’ll be able to do so. In my opinion, you are far too stupid.’ It laughed again, a cruel and spiteful sound. ‘See you in three days, my little friend.’
In a whirl of light, it disappeared, leaving only a trace of lingering laughter, an unpleasant smell and a cold spot in the room. Jadrin sat down again, his heart thumping madly. He stared at himself in the mirror intently for some moments before appearing to come to some inner decision. With tremorless hand, he picked up the brush once more and ran its bristles through his hair. By the time he rose and passed softly into the next room, the cold spot had gone completely.
In the morning, Jadrin awoke in Ashalan’s arms, his body trembling to the echo of a hundred delightful pangs. The caress of mouth, the nip of teeth, the probings of tongue and fingers, and, above all, the invasion of spirit and body that is the most magical of all human activities if they could but know it. Jadrin knew. He said, ‘Ashalan, I would like to visit my family,’ and the king replied,
‘Whatever you wish. I shall give you a white stallion to ride home upon, a retinue of six liveried guards, gifts for your kinfolk. Promise only that you will return to me.’
‘Within three days, I promise.’ Jadrin answered.
Once Jadrin could see the sparkle of the river in the distance, which signalled the proximity of his old home, he experienced a small, sad thrill. If only he could live here forever beside the tumbling water with the man he loved. That would be a life, showing Ashalan the mysteries of this beautiful land, benevolent mysteries that he felt the king had never experienced. However, Jadrin knew, that in becoming Ashalan’s lover he had certainly bid farewell to his old life forever. Ashalan would probably never see the mill-house.
Amberina was waiting for her brother upon the road, half a mile from the house. ‘I knew you were coming,’ she said.
Jadrin dismounted and walked beside her, leading his horse.
‘You have such fine clothes now,’ Amberina said.
‘Yes. I have brought you a gown of crimson linen, sashed with gold rope.’
‘Thank you, Jadrin. Are these men your servants?’ She gestured towards the six liveried riders following behind them at a respectful distance.
‘Indeed they are. And do you see the girl riding behind them on the grey pony? She is Psydre, the daughter of a witch from a far land. She was bored of life at court, so I have brought her here to be your companion.’
‘Thank you, my brother.’
‘She carries a small chest of jewels to adorn your throat and wrists.’
‘You are too generous, Jadrin.’
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him slyly. ‘If only you had not had to leave such a large part of yourself in the city.’
Jadrin looked at her sharply, but her eyes were twinkling with merriment.
‘I am glad to see you so happy,’ she said.
‘My happiness is not yet complete,’ Jadrin replied. ‘I think I may need your help, Amberina.’
‘Ah,’ said she.
Jadrin had brought gifts for the entire household. Excitedly, they gathered around him in the large, warm kitchen, crying out in pleasure as the rich colours of silks and jewels spilled out over the table. Psydre, a gregarious creature, danced around the room, flinging the shining bolts of cloth around the servants’ shoulders. Within minutes, they had taken her to their hearts.
Jadrin beckoned his father aside. ‘This is for you,’ he said, and took from his jacket a jewelled, white gold pin, which had been found deep beneath the ground and was far more valuable than all the rest put together.
Skimblaze looked at it thoughtfully as it lay in his son’s outstretched palm. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I cannot take it, Jadrin. I virtually sold you, my only son and the first-born of she whom I loved above all things, to pay off the miserable debts of my weakness. You owe me nothing but scorn.’
‘On the contrary,’ Jadrin replied smoothly. ‘I owe you everything, father.’
Skimblaze smiled ruefully, but let Jadrin pin the jewel o
nto his jacket. ‘And did you spin the gold?’ he asked.
‘In a fashion.’
‘Oh, my son!’ Skimblaze, unaware of all that had happened to Jadrin in Ashbrilim, drew him close, but one thing he was sure of in his heart; the boy he held belonged now, wholly, to another man.
In the evening, Jadrin and Amberina stole away from the impromptu party that was raging in the house in celebration of Jadrin’s visit. Neighbours had materialised from miles away to congratulate Jadrin on his good fortune. Now, brother and sister walked hand in hand down to the riverside, where the long shadows fished the water’s surface and balls of flimsy flies hung, dancing, in the dusk.
‘You seem taller,’ Amberina mused aloud.
Jadrin did not answer. He lifted the velvet bag from around his neck and tipped out the quartz onto his palm.
‘Ah yes,’ Amberina said, ‘I still have mine. Was it useful?’
Jadrin told her just how useful it had been, and also the situation he had got himself into because of it. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘if I’d refused the spirit’s offer, Ashalan would have come to love me even though I couldn’t spin straw into gold.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Amberina asked dryly, in a voice far wiser than her years.
Jadrin shrugged. He did not really know. ‘Now, I have to learn the spirit’s name, its identity, but how?’
‘Perhaps in the forest...’ Amberina gestured across the lazy water.
Jadrin wrinkled his nose. ‘That is why I have come home, I suppose.’
‘There is a place in the forest,’ Amberina said, ‘where the spirits gather, they that will not leave this earth or who are held here by the cruelty of their souls and their love of carnal things. You must go to this place, all pathways lead there, to see what you can learn, but it will not be easy. They can smell a living heart from miles away and will scatter if they sense you or, worse, attempt to possess you.’ She sighed. ‘It’s not much, but I don’t know how to advise you other than that. Naturally, I will come with you if you want me to.’