The Widow and the King Read Free Page A

because it is lonely here, and maybe because he reminded me of you. We gave him supper. He talked about the Kingdom, and the troubles that poor Septimus is having, holding onto the crown that you and I won for him …’
    You and I, you and I, she was saying: those days of broken meanings, ten years ago, when she had vanished, and joy had vanished, and left him a sour, rewardless man who beat his own sons: a man to whom laughter and her voice returned only in his dreams.
    But was he dreaming, or was she? The way she spoke made him feel as if
he
might be in
her
dream, a thing wavering on the very edge of her mind.
    ‘But when I woke …’ She was stammering now. ‘When I woke he was gone. The door to my house was open. I remembered – that it was to you that the book had been given when Tarceny was killed. Then I followed him. I saw him on the skyline. I tried to stop him, but he struck me. He let them out, Aun. He let them out!’
    ‘Who? What has he done?’
    She gave a helpless gesture, as if this were something she had already explained, or had thought he understood. ‘Them! Him!’ she said, pointing to the low wall. Then she put her hand over her face.
    ‘Ambrose fled,’ she said. ‘I had told him he should.’
    An ugly, hollow feeling was growing inside him. What was it Raymonde had done here? Witchcraft, no doubt of it! Bad enough to drive a boy from his mother – and to empty the village across the valley too, maybe. He had been dreading what his son might do with that book in his hands. Now it had begun.
    But what, exactly? What?
Them! Him!
What did that mean?
    Hold fast. He must not be distracted, even by her. She had seen Raymonde.
    ‘My son,’ he said, keeping his voice gentle as though he was talking to someone who was sick. ‘Can you tell me where he went?’
    She stared at him. Her face was so close that, even in this light, he could see the veins in her eyes, the shadows beneath them and the little lines upon her skin that ten years ago had not been there.
    ‘Can you tell me where he went?’ he repeated.
    ‘No, Aun!’
    He felt the breath of her exclamation, warm upon his cheek.
    ‘You must not look for your son,’ she said.
    ‘You must look for mine.’
    What? No! He jerked his head away. At once she laid her hand on his arm.
    ‘Aun! Ambrose is twelve years old – just twelve! They are hunting him …’
    He did not need this! To turn aside; let the trail go cold; leave Raymonde's wrongs unanswered, when he was so close? To chase after a boy who might be anywhere? Hopeless.
    ‘I cannot leave here, not yet,’ she was saying. ‘I – I am only beginning to learn how to move again. I cannot help him. You can. Aun, he needs … Aun, you
must
…’
    Must? Why must he?
    Why must this be put to him?
    He would not look at her. He set his chin on his handand thought of Raymonde, while the woman he had once loved pleaded at his elbow.
    ‘He is just twelve,’ she repeated.’
    ‘They are hunting him …
    ‘I cannot leave!’
    Again she was speaking as if in a fever or a dream, as if he were fading from her, and she was desperate to make him understand.
    ‘No!’ he said, and shook his head and shut his eyes. And again he said, ‘No.’
    Then he cursed and rose to his feet. He stood with his back to her, with his arms crossed in front of him and his shoulders hunched against whatever she might say next.
    ‘Raymonde's been here,’ he said. ‘That's what matters.’
    There was a long silence. He heard her let out her breath. In the quiet, his mind began to pick over what she had said, listening to her words for the first time. He turned.
    ‘Did he hurt you?’
    She shook her head. ‘There is nothing else you can do for me.’
    He looked at her; at her face in the moonlight. Her eyes were down. Dreaming or not, she had understood him well enough. He hated to see her so. With a sour feeling inside him he turned away from her again. After a moment he began to pace the courtyard. His mailed