The Sword of the Spirits

  Anger rose in me. There was no mistaking the change in tone. I knew myself betrayed again and got to my feet. With my hand on my sword hilt, I said:

  “Do you challenge me, then, Harding? Does any man?”

  Harding shook his head. “I do not challenge you, Luke. There has been enough challenging, enough making and unmaking of Princes. I ask you to do this city a greater service than you have so far done. I ask you to abdicate from ruling.”

  I laughed. “So that you may peacefully take my place?”

  “No.” He looked not at me but along the table at the Captains. “Times change. The office of Prince was once a necessary thing, binding the citizens together. But the city has grown and will grow, and it unites us no longer. We are the city, gentlemen, we few. It is we who have the power to rule it, and the responsibility to exercise that power. Today has shown something: that what divides us divides the city. We no longer need one man to tell us what to do. Our wisdom joined together is greater than that of any Prince.

  “If one of us challenged Luke and took his place, what good would that do? Would the intrigue and dissension cease? I think they might grow worse. But if power is shared between us there can be an end to envy. What do you think of this?”

  The shout of approval from Blaine’s end of the table was only to be expected. But I heard others shout with them: Nicoll and Ripon, Becket and Grant and Barnes.

  Harding waited until they were quiet; then he said:

  “I ask you again, Luke, to do this service. Abdicate peacefully. Join us as a free and equal Captain. You will be welcome in our council.”

  Their faces swam before me; I was half blind with rage. I said:

  “You know your answer.”

  “Then I must put another proposition to the assembly,” Harding said. “That we dismiss this Prince, doing him no hurt, and exile him from our city. Raise your right hands, all who approve of it.”

  Their hands went up: Blaine’s, Edmund’s, Charles’s, Stuart’s and Turner’s. And with them Nicoll’s, Ripon’s, Becket’s, Grant’s, Barnes’s. At last, slowly, without looking at me, Greene raised his hand with the rest. Only old Wilson sat unmoving.

  “The majority favors it,” Harding said. “We rest the authority of Winchester in the council of Captains.”

  I said: “I claim the right of any Prince to challenge his usurper! Or will you make an end of honor?”

  “There is no usurper, Captain Perry,” Harding said. “And the word Prince has lost its meaning. Leave us, and go in peace into your exile.”

  I half-drew my sword. Their eyes watched me, my enemies and my false friends. There were enough who would be glad of the excuse to cut me down. I let the sword slip back.

  “This is not the end,” I said. “I am your Prince still, and the day will come when you know it. Remember today’s work well. There will be a bloody harvest from this sowing.”

  Harding smiled. “Go in peace, while you still may.”

  I turned and left them.

  SIX

  A WEAPON FROM THE PAST

  I SAW ANOTHER DAWN BREAK next day, for I left the city while it was still dark. I would not stay for daylight and accept the shame of pointing fingers and the jeers of the mob. And revenge spurred me on equally with shame. The sooner I was away, the sooner I could return. Harding’s head, I vowed, would sit above those of the rest.

  While I was in the stables, saddling my horse, I heard a sound from the shadows behind me. I turned swiftly, hand on sword. It was not impossible, not even unlikely, that for all the talk of doing me no hurt, an assassin or more than one had been put to seek me out and kill me. Both Blaine and Harding were capable of it.

  But the figure spoke as it came forward. “It is I, sire.” I recognized the dwarfish frame. It was Hans.

  I said: “How did you know I would be here?”

  “I did not,” Hans said, “but I knew you would need your horse. I was waiting until you came.”

  “All night?”

  He shrugged. “I dozed. We dwarfs are easy sleepers.”

  I took his hand. “It was a kind thought, to bid me good-by. I am glad of it.”

  “Not that, sire. I come to travel with you.”

  “No. That too warms me. But the journey I go I must make alone. Return to your home, Hans.”

  He said quietly, in his deep rasping voice:

  “I have no home here now.”

  I recalled what he had said a moment before: “we dwarfs.” He had left Dwarftown to serve me as a warrior. That was something which could not survive my going. He had lost everything as I had done, and it mattered as much to him as it did to me.

  “Then come with me,” I said. I laughed. “The High Seers must take us both together.”

  “The High Seers?” He was startled. “You go to Sanctuary, sire?”

  Dwarfs did not pay much attention to the Spirits, but it was a dread thought to envisage going to the place men said was their stronghold. I said:

  “You need not go there if you fear it. We will find a place where you can wait for me. In Salisbury, perhaps.”

  “I will go where you go, sire. I do not fear it.”

  “Good!” I said. “But no ‘sires,’ Hans. ‘Sire’ is for Princes and I am Prince no longer. You may call me Captain: they have left me that.”

  Hans shook his head. “You are Prince to me, sire. And always will be.”

  It was strange that the loyalty of a single man, a dwarf, could mean more than a city’s acclamation. I turned my face away.

  “Saddle yourself a horse, Hans,” I said. “Take which you will. All are sound beasts. This was the Prince’s stable.”

  • • •

  We spent that night at the court of Prince Matthew of Andover.

  The last time I had been his guest had been on my journey south with Ezzard, after Peter called me back from Sanctuary. But we had met more recently, when he came to Winchester for the ball in Blodwen’s honor. I had had much flattery from him then.

  He was a stupid amiable man, with a thin dull face and scanty reddish hair. His chief concern, as far as one could see, was ceremony. The army of Andover might not do conspicuously well in battle, but no other city’s troops could match them in turnout and parade drill. The guard that saluted us at the gate wore a breastplate that he must have sat up all night polishing.

  The pigeons, I knew, would have brought news of what had happened in Winchester. People gathered in small knots as we rode through the streets, silent and curious. At the palace—not a large building but freshly painted in stripes of black and white—we dismounted, and I left Hans with the horses. I was admitted to Matthew’s council chamber, and he wasted no time in making the position clear.

  He remained seated as I crossed the room toward him. I bowed and said:

  “Greetings, sire.”

  He did not return the bow. With a stiff face, he said:

  “Greetings, Captain Perry.”

  But once he had established what we two were—himself a Prince and I a landless wanderer—he could permit some amiability to show again. He ordered a room to be prepared for me in the palace, and bade me join him that evening at his table. And I mustered the grace somehow to thank him for his hospitality.

  I told myself that I could spurn no possible ally, even this fool with his passion for putting things neatly in rows. At supper that night I talked of what had happened. This embarrassed him but he offered cold sympathy. I led him to the point I wished to make, putting it broadly enough to penetrate his narrow skull but delicately as befitted one who was no longer a royal cousin but a vagabond. The point was this: if one city could unmake its Prince and replace him by a council of Captains, others might do likewise.

  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 t
he 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 . . .”

  Then it was over. My spirit floated in air, without substance, without organs, but I saw and heard. She an
d Edmund walked together in the palace garden, their fingers linked. They whispered and I heard their whispering. “Poor Luke, dead in the snow. Poor Luke.” They laughed and, laughing, kissed.

  My spirit winged like a bird, high over the city walls and across the blind white land. I hunted for my body, with one end in view. A body had an arm and an arm could hold a sword, and a sword would cut them down . . .

  All this and more. Time had no meaning, any more than place or person. It went on endlessly, the taking and giving of pain. But at last there was quiet, and after the quiet, voices that neither jeered nor wept, but spoke evenly and with sense. I knew the voices, and knew this was no dream. I opened my eyes and there was whiteness here, too, but the whiteness of sheet and pillowslip. And I saw the broad wrinkled face of Murphy, the High Seer, clear in electric light.

  • • •

  He smiled. “How are you, Luke?”

  “Well enough.” I felt weak but the fever was gone. “How did I get here?”

  “You have that dwarf of yours to thank.”

  “Hans? Is he well?”

  “Yes. Since you were here last we have set up a television scanner on one of the standing stones. The barbarians press closer from the west all the time, and we cannot be sure they will recognize holy ground when they see it. We need to keep an eye open for visitors. But scarcely in a blizzard. Robb switched it on to make the routine test we carry out once a day. And to his astonishment he saw two horses coming up the hill through the snowstorm, with a dwarf mounted on one and a body strapped to the other. And as they neared the circle the snow cleared and he saw the body had a face he knew.”

  “Hans brought me here? That took courage.”

  “So I would think.” Murphy chuckled. “You should have seen his face when the earth opened up in front of him!”

  I thought of it. To have followed me to Sanctuary would have been a great enough thing. I remembered my own fear when I first saw the Stones, enormous in the empty hillside, and that had been on a fair day, with Ezzard the Seer guiding me. To have ridden up into the dread circle through a snowstorm, leading my horse with me unconscious or even dead on its back . . . I had been right to make him warrior. I did not think there was another in my army who could have done it.