“But what about ...” Simon looked at Qantaqa, embarrassed; he had been about to say “wolves,” “... what about wild animals? Are you sure they’ll be all right?”
“Horses can be defending themselves very well. And I have seen few animals of any kind or name in these lands.” Binabik patted Simon’s arm. “And also there is nothing we can be doing otherwise except risking a broken neck or other unfortunate crunching or snapping of bones.”
Simon took a breath and started off toward the barrows. “Come on, then.”
The seven mounds were laid out in a partial circle. Space had been left for others to share this place. Simon felt a twinge of superstitious fear as he thought about that. Who else would lie here someday? Elias? Josua? Or neither? Perhaps the events that had been set in motion meant that nothing expected would ever happen again.
They walked into the center of the incomplete circle and stopped. The wind stirred and bent the grasses. The hilltop was silent. Simon walked to the first barrow, which had sunk into the waiting earth until it was scarcely a man’s height, though it stretched several times that in length and was nearly equally wide. A verse floated into Simon’s head, a verse and a memory of black statues in a dark, silent throne room.
“Fingil first, named the Bloody King.”
he said quietly,
“Flying out of the North on war’s red wing.”
Now that he had spoken the initial verse, it seemed unlucky to stop. He moved to the next barrow, which was as old and weatherworn as the first. A few stones glinted in the grass, like teeth.
“Hjeldin his son, the Mad King dire
Leaped to his death from the haunted spire.”
The third was set close to the second, as if the one buried there still sought protection from his predecessors.
“Ikferdig next, the Burned King hight
He met the fire-drake by dark of night. ”
Simon paused. There was a gap between this trio of mounds and the next, and there was also another verse prodding his memory. After a moment, it came.
“Three northern kings, all dead and cold
The north rules no more in lofty Hayholt.”
He moved to the second group of three, the song swiftly coming back to him now, so that he did not have to search for words. Miriamele and Binabik stood in silence, watching and listening.
“The Heron King Sulis, called Apostate
Fled Nabban, but in Hayholt he met his fate
“The Hernystir Holly King, old Tethtain
Came in at the gate, but not out again
“Last, Eahlstan Fisher King, in lore most high
The dragon he woke, and in Hayholt he died. ”
Simon took a deep breath. It almost seemed that he was saying a magical spell, that a few more words might bring the barrows’ inhabitants up from their centuried sleep, grave ornaments clinking as they broke through the earth.
“Six kings have ruled in Hayholt’s broad halls
Six masters have stridden her mighty stone walls
Six mounds on the cliff over deep Kynslagh-bay
Six kings will sleep there until Doom’s final day... ”
When he finished, the wind grew stronger for a moment, flattening the grass and moaning as it whirled across the hilltop ... but nothing else happened. The mounds remained silent and secretive. Their long shadows lay on the sward, stretching toward the east.
“Of course, there are seven kings here now,” he said, breaking the silence. Now that the moment had come, he was tremendously unsettled. His heart was rattling in his ribs and he suddenly found it hard to speak without the words catching in his throat. He turned to face the last barrow. It was higher than the rest, and the grass had only partly covered the pile of stones. It looked like the shell of an immense sea-creature stranded by the waves of some ancient flood.
“King John Presbyter,” said Simon.
“My grandfather.”
Struck by the sound of Miriamele’s voice, Simon turned. She appeared positively haunted, her face colorless, her eyes hollow and frightened.
“I can’t watch this,” she said. “I’m going to wait over there.” She turned and made her way around Fingil’s barrow, sinking down out of sight at last as she sat, presumably to look out to the east and the hilly land they had just crossed.
“Let us be working, then,” said Binabik. “I will not be enjoying this task, but you spoke rightly, Simon: we are here, and it would be foolishness not to take the sword.”
“Prester John would want us to,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “He would want us to do what we can to save his kingdom, his people.”
“Who knows what the dead are wishing?” Binabik said darkly. “Come, let us work. Still we must be making at least some shelter for ourselves before night comes, for hiding the light of a fire if nothing else. Miriamele,” he called, “can you look to see if some of those shrubs there along the hill could provide some wood for burning?”
She raised her hand in acknowledgment.
Simon bent to John’s cairn and began tugging at one of the stones. It clung to the grassy earth so tenaciously that Simon had to put his boot on the stone beside it to help him pull it free. He stood up and wiped sweat from his face. His chain mail was too bulky and uncomfortable for this sort of work. He unlaced it and removed it, then took off the padded jerkin, too, and laid them both in the grass beside the mound. The wind clawed at him through his thin shirt.
“Halfway across Osten Ard we have been traveling,” Binabik said as he dug his fingers into the earth, “and no one was thinking to find a shovel.”
“I have my sword,” said Simon.
“Save it until there is real need.” A little of the troll’s usual dryness had returned. “Gouging at stones has a dulling effect on blades, I am told. And we may be needing a sword with some sharpness. Especially if anyone notices us at our work digging up the High King’s father.”
Simon shut his eyes for a moment and said a brief prayer asking Aedon’s forgiveness—and Prester John‘s, too, for good measure—for what they were about to do.
The sun was gone. The gray sky was beginning to turn pink at its western edge, a color that Simon usually found pleasant, but which now looked like something beginning to spoil. The last stone had been pulled out of the hole in the side of Prester John’s grass-fringed cairn. The black nothingness that lay beyond looked like a wound in the flesh of the world.
Binabik fumbled with his flints. When at last he struck a spark, he lit the end of the torch and shielded it from the brisk wind until it caught. Unwilling to stare at the waiting blackness, Simon looked out instead across the dark green of the hilltop. Miriamele was a small figure in the distance, bending and rising as she scavenged for the makings of a campfire. Simon wished he could stop now, just turn and go. He wished he had never thought of such a foolish thing to do.
Binabik waved the flame inside the hole, pulled it out, then pushed the torch back inside again. He got down on his knees and took a cautious sniff. “The air, it is seeming, is at least good.” He pushed more clods of earth from the edge of the hole before poking his head through. “I can see the wooden sides of something. A boat?”
“Sea-Arrow.” The gravity of what they were doing had begun to settle on Simon like a great weight. “Yes, Prester John’s boat. He was buried in it.”
Binabik edged in a little farther. “There is plenty of room for me to stand in here,” he said. His voice was muffled. “And the timbers above are seeming to me quite sturdy.”
“Binabik,” said Simon. “Come out.”
The little man backed up until he could turn to look. “What is wrong, Simon?”
“It was my idea. I should be the one to go in.”
Binabik raised an eyebrow. “No one is wishing to take from you the glory of finding the sword. It is only that I am being smallest and best suited for cave-wandering.”
“It’s not the glory—it’s in case anything happens. I don’t
want you hurt because of my stupid idea.”
“Your idea? Simon, there is no blame here. I am doing what I think is being best. And I am thinking there is nothing inside here to hurt anyone.” He paused. “But if you wish ...” He stepped aside.
Simon lowered himself to his hands and knees, then took the torch from the troll’s small hand and pushed it into the hole before him. In the flickering light he could see the great muddy sweep of Sea-Arrow’s hull; the boat was curved like a huge dead leaf, like a cocoon ... as though something within it was waiting to be reborn.
Simon sat up and shook his head. His heart was hammering.
Mooncalf! What are you afraid of? Prester John was a good man.
Yes, but what if his ghost was angry about what had happened to his kingdom? And surely no spirit liked its grave being robbed.
Simon took in a gulp of air, then slowly eased himself through the hole in the side of the mound.
He slid down the crumbling slope of the pit until he touched the boat’s hull. The dome of spars and mud and white root tendrils stretching overhead seemed a sky created by a feeble, half-blind god. When he finally took another breath, his nostrils filled with the smells of soil and pine sap and mildew, as well as stranger scents he could not identify, some of them as exotic as the contents of Judith the Kitchen Mistress’ spice jars. The sweet strength took him by surprise and set him choking. Binabik popped his head through the hole.
“Are you well? Is there badness to the air?”
Simon regained his breath. “I’m well. I just ...” He swallowed. “Don’t worry.”
Binabik hesitated, then withdrew.
Simon looked at the side of the hull for what seemed a very long time. Because of the way it was wedged in the pit, the wales rose higher than his head. Simon could not see a way to climb with one hand, and the torch was too thick to be carried comfortably in his mouth. After a moment in which he was strongly tempted to turn and clamber back out again and let Binabik solve the problem, he wedged the butt of the torch in beside one of the mound timbers, then threw his hands over the wale and pulled himself up, kicking his feet in search of a toehold. The wood of Sea-Arrow’s hull felt slimy beneath his fingers but held his weight.
Simon pulled the top half of his body over the wale and hung there for a moment, balanced, the edge of the boat pushing up against his stomach like a fist. The sweet, musty odor was very strong. Looking down, he almost cursed—biting back words that might be unlucky and were certainly disrespectful—when he realized that he had placed the torch too low for its light to reach into the boat’s hull. All he could see beneath him were ill-defined lumps of shadow. Of course, he thought, it should be simple enough to find a single body and the sword it held, even in darkness: he could do it by touch alone. But there was not a chance in the world that Simon was going to try that.
“Binabik!” he shouted. “Can you come help me?” He was proud of how steady his voice sounded.
The troll clambered over the lip of the hole and slid down the incline. “Are you trapped somehow?”
“No, but I can’t see anything without the torch. Can you get it for me?”
As Simon hung over the dark hull, the wooden wale trembled. Simon had a moment’s fear that it might collapse beneath him, a fear that was not made less by a quiet creaking that drifted through the underground chamber. Simon was almost certain that the noise came from the tormented wood—the king’s boat had been two years in the wet ground, after all—but it was hard not to imagine a hand ... an ancient, withered hand ... reaching up from the shadowed hull....
“Binabik!?”
“I am bringing it, Simon. It was higher than I could be reaching.”
“Sorry. Just hurry, please.”
The light on the roof of the barrow changed as the flame was moved. Simon felt a tapping on his foot. Balancing as carefully as he could, he swung his legs around, pivoting until he was lying with his stomach along the length of the wale and could reach down and take the torch from Binabik’s upstretched hand. With another silent prayer—and his eyes half-shut for fear of what he might see—Simon turned and leaned over the void of the inner hull.
At first it was hard to see anything. He opened his eyes wider. Small stones and dirt had worked loose from the barrow ceiling and covered much of Sea-Arrow’s contents—but the detritus of the grave had not covered everything.
“Binabik!” Simon cried. “Look!”
“What!?” The troll, alarmed, rushed along the hull to a spot where the boat touched the wall of the barrow, then clambered up, nimble as on a high Mintahoq trail. Balancing lightly atop the wale, he worked his way over until he was near Simon.
“Look.” Simon gestured with the shaking torch.
King John Presbyter lay in the bosom of Sea-Arrow, surrounded by his funeral gifts, clad still in the magnificent raiment in which he had been buried. On the High King’s brow was a golden circlet; his hands were folded on his chest, resting on his long snowy beard. John’s skin, but for a certain waxy translucency, looked as firm as the flesh of a living man. After several seasons in the corrupting earth, he seemed to be only sleeping.
But, terrifyingly strange as it was to see the king whole and uncorrupted, that was not all that had made Simon cry out.
“Kikkasut!” Binabik swore, no less surprised than Simon. A moment later he had clambered down into the hull of the boat.
A search of the grave and its effects confirmed it: Prester John still lay in his resting place on Swertclif—but Bright-Nail was gone.
11
Heartbeats
“Just because Varellan is my brother does not mean I will suffer stupidity,” Duke Benigaris snarled at the knight who kneeled before him. He smacked his open palm on the arm of his throne. “Tell him to hold firm until I arrive with the Kingfishers. If he does not, I will hang his head from the Sancellan’s gate-wall!”
“Please, my lord,” said his armorer, who was hovering just to one side, “I beg you, do not thrash about so. I am trying to measure.”
“Yes, do sit still,” added his mother. She occupied the same low but ornate chair she had when her husband ruled in Nabban. “If you had not been making such a pig of yourself, your old armor would still fit.”
Benigaris stared at her, mustache twitching with fury. “Thank you, Mother.”
“And do not be so cruel to Varellan. He is hardly more than a child.”
“He is a dawdling, simpering halfwit—and it is you who spoiled him. Who talked me into letting him lead the troops at the Onestrine Pass, in any case?”
Dowager Duchess Nessalanta waved her hand in airy dismissal. “Anyone could hold that pass against a ragtag mob like Josua’s. I could. And the experience will do him good.”
The duke jerked his arm free of the armorer’s grasp and slammed it on the chair arm once more. “By the Tree, Mother! He has given up two leagues in less than a fortnight, despite having several thousand foot soldiers and half a thousand knights. He is falling back so fast that by the time I ride out the front door, I will probably trip over him.”
“Xannasavin says there is nothing to fret about,” she replied, amused. “He has examined the skies carefully. Benigaris, please calm yourself. Be a man.”
The duke’s stare was icy. His jaw worked for a moment before he spoke. “One of these days, Mother, you will push me too far.”
“And what will you do—throw me into the cells? Cut off my head?” Her look become fierce. “You need me. Not to mention the respect you owe the one who bore you.”
Benigaris scowled, took a deep breath, then turned his attention back to the knight who had delivered young Varellan’s message. “What do you wait for?” he demanded. “You heard what I had to say. Now go and tell him.”
The knight rose and made an elaborate bow, then turned and walked from the throne room. The ladies in colorful dresses who were talking quietly near the door watched him go, then huddled and began discussing something that caused them to giggle loudl
y.
Benigaris again tugged his wrist free of the armorer’s clutch, this time so he could snap his fingers at one of the pages, who trotted over with a cup of wine.
The duke took a draught and wiped his mouth. “There is more to Josua’s army than we first thought. People say that the High King’s brother has found a mighty knight who fights at the head of his army. They are claiming it is Camaris. Seriddan of Metessa believes it, or at least he has joined them.” He grimaced. “Traitorous dog.”
Nessalanta laughed sourly. “I didn’t give Josua as much credit as he deserved, I admit. It is a clever ploy. Nothing arouses the common folk like the mention of your uncle’s name. But Seriddan? You ask me to worry about him and a few other puny barons from the wilderness? The Metessan Crane hasn’t flown from the palace towers in five hundred years. They are nobodies.”
“So you are quite sure that this talk of Sir Camaris is just a ploy?” Benigaris’ words, intended to be mocking, came out a little hollow.
“Of course it is! How could it be him? Camaris is forty years dead.”
“But his body was never found. Father always agonized because he couldn’t give his brother an Aedonite burial.”
The duchess made a noise of dismissal but kept her eyes on her needlework. “I knew Camaris, my brave son. You did not. Even if he had joined a monastery or gone into hiding, word would have leaked out: he was so madly honest he could never have lied to anyone who asked him who he was. And he was so self-satisfied, such a meddler, that it is not possible he would have stood by while Prester John fought the second Thrithings War without leaping in to be Camaris the Magnificent, Camaris the Holy, Camaris the Great.” Nessalanta pricked her finger and cursed under her breath. “No, this is no living Camaris that Josua has found—and it is certainly no ghost. It is some tall imposter, some oversized grassland mercenary with his hair whitened with powder. A trick. But it makes no difference in any case.” She examined her stitchery for a moment, then put the hoop down with an air of satisfaction. “Even the real Camaris could not unseat us. We are too strong ... and his age is gone, gone, gone.”