The Widow and the King Read Online Free Page B

am more anxious about this one than any of the others,’ she said. ‘But as you see, it is fast in its place.’
    ‘What are they for?’
    ‘They are a prison, my darling. And we are the jailers. Let us try the next.’
    They went on down the slope. It was difficult going – it always was on the mountainside, unless there was a path. In the still air of the dawn their voices and the clatter of stones under their feet echoed flatly from the far cliff. Ambrose kept glancing into the pit. The surface of the pool was nearer now. He could see nothing in it but the reflection of the sky.
    They tried stone after stone. Most were tall, like the first two. But others were lower, thin and flat like bladebones, and two were simply boulders that crouched likebeasts among the thorns. Ambrose was able to move one of the blade-bone ones just slightly – a hair's-breadth in the earth at its root. The rest might have grown straight from the mountainside.
    They were approaching the lowest point in the cliff, opposite where they had started. A huge stone rose there, like the tooth of an enormous beast.
    Pebbles rolled under Ambrose's feet. He swayed, and once more looked to his left into the pit.
    ‘There's someone there!’
‘Yes,’ she said, and did not turn around.
    There was someone there, standing among the low rubble that bordered the far edge of the pool: a thin figure, hooded in a grey robe, looking into the water.
    There had been no one a moment before.
    The figure was standing quite still. It made no sign as Ambrose stared at it.
    ‘He likes the sunrise, even now,’ his mother said.
    ‘That's why he shows himself at this hour. If we had come at another time there would have been nothing for you to see.’
    She was waiting by the next stone. He scrambled down to her and peered around it at the grey man on the far side of the pool.
    He was still there, still looking into the water. Ambrose could see him quite clearly, across the fifty or sixty yards between them, standing motionless like one of the big heron-birds that waited bright-eyed by the stream for something to kill.
    The rising sun was filling the bowl of cliffs with light. The pool held the reflection of the rocks, and of the grey figure, with barely a tremble on its surface.
    ‘Who is he?’ Ambrose whispered. His heart was still beating hard with the shock.
    ‘Who is he, indeed? He is our chief prisoner. But that is only the end of his story, not the beginning.’
    Her eyes were fixed on the man by the pool. Her jaw was set, as if she was looking at something foul or disgusting. Ambrose shivered.
    ‘I was born to a high house, Amba. But to the man you see I am no more than a daughter of farmers – so he once said. What kind of man could he be, do you think?’
    She drew breath, and spoke loudly so that her voice bounced among the cliffs.
    ‘Ambrose, tell me the names of the first princes.’
    She meant the seven sons of Wulfram the Seafarer, who had led the people over the sea three hundred years before, to conquer the land and live there. It was the very first story out of history, and he knew it quite well. But …
    But the figure lifted its head and looked at him. Under the hood, its face was that of an old man with deep-sunk eyes. Ambrose could almost feel those eyes, resting like a weight upon him.
    ‘Their names,’ she repeated, standing strong at his side.
    ‘Dieter, and Galen …’ he began awkwardly.
    ‘Louder.’
    She wanted the man to hear what he said. Ambrose didn't. He could still feel the eyes that watched him. But he filled his lungs and spoke out as he had been told.
    ‘Dieter and Galen. Marc …’ He hesitated. Then he went on: ‘Lomba. Hergest, Rolfe and Talifer.’
    Talifer,
echoed the cliff opposite. It was the name ofhis own ancestor: the prince who had founded the house of Tarceny.
    ‘Indeed.’ She smiled, as if between them they had won a small victory. Still speaking clearly into the air, she began to walk down towards the