King and Emperor

princeps huius mundi, whom even the true God could not entirely set aside in this his proper realm.

As they hurried down the hillside the terrible screams that began from behind them urged them on. Screams in a voice familiar to the other boys, even in its agony.

Chapter Nineteen

So we lost Maury,“ Richier concluded. A wail of grief broke from one of the women in the listening ring: his mother, it must be. Anselm made no reply, still staring uncertainly at the emblem and holiest relic of his faith, now displayed in the open for the lay-folk and the heathen to stare at. He seemed to have begun to realize that rescuing his graduale was only the start of his problems, Shef thought grimly. He slid with the familiar pain in his thigh-muscles from the back of the horse he had stolen.

“Who did you lose?” he asked, staring at Cwicca, at the front of the Wayman gang. “We saw someone go down.”

“We lost two of them. Tolman got back, but he's hurt.”

“Two? We only saw one go down.”

“That were Ubba,” broke in Steffi. “We don't know what happened, but before they gave Tolman the poppy to knock him out he said it was very hard lighting the flares and dropping them without them catching on something, with the kites pitching and all. Ubba must have set fire to himself. He didn't have a chance after that.”

“And the other one, what was his name? Helmi?” Helmi the orphan, the small pale child.

“He came back well enough, but he was going too fast, much too fast. Slammed into the rock ledge below where we were. Kite broke up and he fell two hundred feet. We couldn't find the body.”

Depression began to settle on Shef, together with weariness and delayed shock from fear too long suppressed. He had come to save Svandis, and save her he had—but from what? These people had had no intention of killing her. If he had not followed they would have turned her loose. And in saving one he had killed two. Two of his own. As for the graduale or the graal or whatever they wanted to call it, maybe Maury had died willingly to save it, but it seemed little enough to buy at such a price. Still clutching the old wooden pole, Shef tossed it absently to Anselm, who caught it automatically, and then stared as if he had clutched a viper. They had sought to bribe him with knowledge of the Greek fire too, but what had he learnt after all? That saltpeter made a fire burn more brightly, that flame could be colored. None of that was Greek fire.

“Tolman ain't too bad,” put in Cwicca, seeing the look on his master's face. “He just came down a bit hard, rolled over and over on the rock. We put him to sleep till the cuts start to heal.” He hesitated. “But he flew, master. Even over land and at night. No silly feathers nor nothing, either.”

Shef nodded. It was an achievement of sorts.

“What do we do now?” Cwicca went on.

“I'll tell you.” Shef looked round at the ring of listening people, Waymen and heretics mixed up together, in the tiny central square of the mountain village.

“First, Anselm. The Emperor is bound to have found out where Maury came from and even who he is. And what we took. You can be sure that his whole army will move from Puigpunyent and come after you.”

“We are high in the mountains, they do not know the paths…”

Shef cut him off. “You do not know the Emperor. Whatever are your safest places, take everyone to them. You will lose your animals and your houses.” He kicked one of the packs of gold lying ignored on the ground. “If I were you I would use these to replace them once the Emperor has left.”

Anselm nodded reluctantly. “The caves, the bat caves, we can hide there for…”

“Start soon.” Shef pointed at the wooden grail. “Take that. Your Grail was bought with a life, with three lives, I hope you find it worthwhile.”

Shef changed direction, changed speech as well. “As for us, Cwicca, remember what Brand said about coming down the mountain faster than we went up? Get our animals together, load 'em up, don't forget Tolman, and we're heading back to the ships as fast as ever we can go. He'll have cavalry out already, and I want to outdistance them.”

“And once we get to the ships?”

“Out to sea as fast as Hagbarth can rig sail.”

The groups dissolved as Anselm and Cwicca began to call orders. Shef walked over, sat wearily by the edge of the village well, groping for the dipper he had thrown to the ground only two days before. After a few moments he found Svandis, her ragged white dress now stitched into respectability, by his side.

“So,” she said. “What has the heretic God given you for the boys' lives? A wooden ladder? Or have you and the old fool just thrown them away for nothing?”

Shef wondered dimly why people felt they were helping by asking that kind of question. As if he had not thought of it already. For if there was no such thing as a god, as Svandis insistently proclaimed, yes, the whole thing had been pointless. Anselm was approaching, having given his instructions. He knelt down before the younger man.

“You saved our relic and we should give you our thanks.”

“I saved it because you stole her. I think you still owe me something.”

Anselm hesitated. “Gold?”

Shef shook his head. “Knowledge.”

“We have told you everything we know about fire.”

“Besides the gold, and the Grail, we brought out books. The true gospels, Richier said. Why have you not given them to the world, as the Christians do with theirs?”

“We believe knowledge is only for the wise.”

“Well, maybe I am wise enough. Give me one of your books. The Jews, and the Christians, and the Mohammedans, they all laugh at us Waymen and say we are not People of the Book. So give me one of your books, the one with the true teaching of Jesus in it. Maybe after that people will take us more seriously.”

It is only for initiates, Anselm thought. The teaching not only must be read, it must be explained so that the ignorant do not understand it wrongly. We have only three copies, and are forbidden by our law to make any more. The barbarian king has thirty men here, armed with strange weapons. He could take them all and the graal as well, if he had a mind. We killed his boys. Best not to provoke him.

“I will bring you a copy,” said Anselm reluctantly. “But will you be able to read it?”

“If I cannot, Solomon can. Or Skaldfinn.” Shef thought of a saying in his own tongue. “Truth can make itself known.”

What is truth? thought Anselm, remembering the saying of Pilate in the gospel of the Christians. But he did not dare to speak the words.

“So we lost the da—the holy thing, when it was right under our noses,” snarled the Emperor. He had passed a tense night, disturbed not by the screaming from the tent where Erkenbert did his work, but by his own thoughts. All the morning after he had been pursued by reports of failure and desertion, his levies scattered half way across the county by fear and confusion.

“Yes,” replied the black deacon. He did not fear the Emperor's moods. He knew that even in the worst of them the Emperor retained an ability to see things fairly. That was why his men loved him.

“All right. Tell me the worst.”

“The thing, the holy graal as the boy calls it, was here, deep down. We had almost reached it. Your rival the One King was here as well. The boy described him unmistakably. The lights in the sky— they were as I said, a distraction only.”

The Emperor nodded. “I have not forgotten my promise, and Wulfhere's see is still vacant. Go on.”

“They worked. While the sentries were engaged with frightened Frenchmen they got in through some secret passage. Retrieved the relics of their heretic faith, including the graduale—and it is a ladder, just as you supposed. The boy does not know why it is holy.”