In the Eye of Heaven Part 36

"Boy," Berchard said, raising his eyebrows. "They say he's with his wife."

With a twist that surprised the one-eyed knight, Durand slipped past and shoved himself into the pavilion of his liege lord.

Lamoric perched on an oak chest, a surprised look on his face.

Deorwen sat in the young lord's cross-framed chair, her face frozen. Lamoric seemed ready to forgive a necessary intrusion, and they had been doing nothing more than talking. But Durand could no more breathe than fly.

"Durand?" Lamoric said.Durand managed to take his eyes from Deorwen.

"Well," said Lamoric gamely. "This is a happy chance. You have met my wife? She has told me of your courage in Hesperand."

Durand stood in the doorway. Lamoric knew nothing.

"Since our wedding day, we have been made to creep like adulterers," Lamoric said. "Now, in her father's domain, it is madness."

Deorwen-Lady Deorwen, daughter of Duke Severin of Mornaway-forced her eyes to her husband's.

"It was at our wedding that all this Red Knight business began," Lamoric explained. "My father's fault. My friends had insisted on celebrating on the eve of the great day. There was a great deal of drinking. There were women there, from an alehouse in the town. And though it was not my father whom I wronged-" He bowed to Deorwen. "-he was greatly angered."

Lamoric looked to Durand."I thought I would prove him wrong."

"Yes, Lords.h.i.+p," Durand managed. His finger fell on the knotted veil at his belt. The Lady of Hesperand would grant him a life.

"But there's little mystery to the Knight in Red with Lord Lamoric's wife at his side. Guthred's bad enough. Still, my lady has followed again-and through Lost Hesperand."

Durand understood that they had been arguing. Lamoric would have left her behind if she had let him.

When Lamoric looked away, Deorwen's eyes met Durand's, strained and edging on frantic. She thought he might say something: rail against her, or confess. Durand forced himself to croak a few words.

"Wanted to wish you good fortune, Lords.h.i.+p," he said. "For the morning."

"Ah, well, I-"

Durand could wait no longer; he ducked from the tent.

He left Berchard and big Ouen with their mouths open, reeling away to find his own tent-another thing stolen from Cerlac's belongings-and stumbled among his few possessions until he had cleared a s.p.a.ce where he could lie down.

She should have told him. Even if she could not tell him whose wife she was, knowing she was married might have been enough. His hand brushed the green veil knotted in his belt. He remembered Saewin and the Lost duke. He had stumbled into the same sin.

In all the time of their slow falling, she should have said something.

Perhaps an hour later, there was a voice at his tent flap, whispering "Durand." "Durand." It could have been the girl, but he did not answer, and she did not come in. It could have been the girl, but he did not answer, and she did not come in.

He wondered if this was what Heremund had foreseen.

20. Beneath the Ripples' Gleam

The time had come. A hush fell over three hundred souls as Lamoric's retainers stepped out. Music faltered and gossip stumbled. Banners switched in the wind. There was hardly room between the riverbank and the castle wall for another living thing. Above the stockade walls, Heaven was a heavy gray, laden with the threat of rain.

Faced with the sudden stillness, Lamoric nodded a shallow bow to the gawkers and led his men through the mob to the bank of the old Gla.s.s channel.

Durand shuffled along with the others as the silent throng allowed them to reach the riverbank. The first rank of peasants had their toes in the slime.

"Where are the lists?" muttered Coensar. "The island," Lamoric said, jostled as Guthred jerked at straps and buckles, cinching him in.

"There's hardly room to stand a horse, let alone ride," grunted Guthred.

"No horses," Lamoric answered. "Just a punt and boatman to get you there."

Guthred's nod was tense. The mounted pa.s.s gave every decent rider a chance, but foot combat had a way of squeezing luck and accident from a tussle. "You'll be fine," Guthred lied.

Durand pawed hair from his eyes, not thinking of Moryn's suffocating speed and anger. Not thinking that this was their last chance to reach Tern Gyre. Deorwen must be out there among those teeming faces. She would be looking at him, and he could do nothing about it. As Lamoric's sworn man, he could never do anything about it. "

Firmly, he fixed his eyes on the thin gleam of the severed channel. With the Gla.s.s racing down its ancient course once more, the water around the humpbacked islet lay murky and slack. Peasants had supplied a weathered punt for Lamoric's use.

As Durand was wondering whether the thing could hold an armored man's weight, something stirred the crowd.

"That'll be them," growled Guthred.

Duke Severin tramped out in the midst of his barons. A heap of moss-green cloak balanced on his shoulders as he chattered at a stranger: the Herald of Errest, a man who had seen three centuries and walked the Halls of Heaven.

Like a figure of alabaster, Kandemar the Herald stood over six feet tall. His hair hung pale as ash over a bloodless brow. But, at his hip, Durand spotted the slender chased-ivory trumpet that had sounded before the walls of the Burning City. Ancient sigils traced its mouth in silver.

Mornaway's household guard opened an aisle through the crowd, conducting the procession to a reviewing stand at the stockade.

"I have kept it just as it was," the duke was saying. "Although the keep itself is perhaps small for our needs, there is adequate accommodation in the yard, and the few good beds provide something for my liegemen to squabble over." To Durand, the man seemed distracted, his eyes darting across the cut while he spoke.

The Herald, like some Power in a sanctuary frieze, hardly noticed. As the duke spoke, the ancient man's attention slid to the island and then-to Durand's horror-to Durand's face.

His guilt was scrawled as plainly as black letters on parchment. To be held in the ancient eyes of the Herald was almost to face the Throne of Heaven.

Before Durand could suffocate, a st.u.r.dy priest stood in the reviewing stand, shooting a pointed glance at Severin.

"I see it is time to begin," the duke apologized.

The murmurs of the crowd dwindled away under the rumbling Heavens.

The duke tried a smile.

"We are gathered once more, here on the banks of the Gla.s.s." He hesitated. "We have come to remember. In the Atthian Chronicle, is written the history of this place. Or so the priests explain." He looked to the st.u.r.dy priest, but found little encouragement.

"In this time of whispers and strange tidings, it is wise to remember that it was the king, Ceodan, son of Saerdan the Voyager, who commanded that the founder of Mornaway, Mircol the Hunter, travel to the Valley of High Ashes."

Ouen grunted, muttering, "And here I'd forgotten."

"Mircol came to put down the king's enemies. He pursued them with iron and fire until they turned at bay, on a meadow thereafter called the Barrow Isle, and met their doom at his hand." The old man raised his own hand, upturned.

"It was on this land Mircol fought. And, for his victory, the Voyager's son granted him this place. The Gla.s.s, it is said, was turned by his word to cover the remains of slaughter."

As the duke spoke, the wind rose, but Durand hardly noticed. Instead, he searched the crowd for any sign of Deorwen-the Herald be d.a.m.ned. He only wanted to look. Beyond it all, great volumes of cloud rolled against each other, churning like a summer storm.

"And now my own son, Lord Moryn, my heir and heir to ancient Mircol's domain, has come to High Ashes under the Blood Moon as once I did, and my father, and his father, knights and lords back to old Mircol's day. Here he will set his life at hazard in memory of the deeds of that first king's man to hold this land."

A sharp gust caught the duke's robe, causing an avalanche of green cloak from his shoulders.

Duke Severin raised his voice over the wind. "Most here will know the customs of this combat. Knight in Red, you fight on the Barrow Isle. You must go armed with sword and s.h.i.+eld and fight on foot. If you-or Lord Moryn-should be too sorely wounded to continue, you may yield without loss of honor. There are no spoils to be taken. The vanquished man must cast his arms into the Gla.s.s: sword and s.h.i.+eld." Some of Lamoric's men grunted at this. A good sword was nothing to throw away.

The wind lashed around the old man. His cloak struggled like an animal.

"Make your peace with the King of Heaven both of you," the old man said. 'The time is upon us." Durand had not found her face.

Heralds blasted a fanfare against the wind, and it struck Durand that he had not seen Lord Moryn either. Just then, like a fiend summoned by his thoughts, a shape slid from beyond the island, standing in the bows of a low boat: Lord Moryn, tall and straight as an icon in procession. Waer worked a heavy pole to thrust his master from the far bank.

Blade drawn, Lamoric stalked into the prow of the gray punt, almost as if he meant to walk to the island. Hands caught the gunnels. And the Host Below fanned a black hope in Durand's heart: What would become of Deorwen if Lamoric were to die?

Just then, the young lord turned, and, raising his sword, picked Durand from all the people crowded round. The sword's point winked at Durand's breast.

"If he's bringing that Waer, I'll have you, Durand," Lamoric said and grinned.

And there, were hands slapping Durand's shoulders and muscling him into the teetering stern. Ouen set a pole in his hands. He caught sight of a blade glinting at one end. Then, with a shock like lightning, his glance fell on Deorwen-her face a pale oval in a dark hood.

"Steady, Durand," Lamoric said.

Durand felt a crawling chill. He wanted to swat the Knight in Red off the prow-the pole had the weight. Instead, he clamped his jaws, stabbed the pole down, and shoved the sh.o.r.e away.

Lamoric had to catch his balance.

As Durand dug the pole in, he eyed the gray Heavens as if the Silent King were leering down. He was in no mood to play Lamoric's s.h.i.+eld-bearer now. And, with the wind kicking up, poling the boat was no easy feat. The pole stuck and slid under the river's skin, sliding over hard surfaces in the bottom slime.

Lord Moryn had alighted. Waer sneered from the back of his lord's boat while Durand wrestled to keep his own punt straight. A last shove rammed the bow against the island's scales for Lamoric to leap ash.o.r.e.

The Red Knight's hop sent the punt bucking like a headstrong pony, but Durand poled off as Waer had done.

On the island, Lord Moryn and the Red Knight sank into guard positions, waiting while Severin stood on the sh.o.r.e. It took both Durand's fists to hold the boat steady in the wind. He wondered if, next time, they would fight on stilts. Or up in trees. The Herald watched. This was the end of a hundred leagues' wandering.

At the duke's nod, trumpets brayed over the water, and the two knights were in motion.

Lamoric started a crab-wise circle of the island, his boots slithering on the stones of what looked like a treacherous battlefield.

Lamoric leapt and swung. Lord Moryn countered. Back and forth they went. Moryn had the better footing, but both knights scrambled. Each stop or start pitched one man or the other to his knees. Quickly, great fingers of mud spread over Moryn's diamonds and Lamoric's crimson. Cross-guards smacked the rock. s.h.i.+elds clopped in rolling dodges. Everything had a desperate edge.

And Lamoric was getting the worst of it Moryn moved with savage economy, throwing tight shearing swings. A bad lunge cost Lamoric a blow across the back. A slip brought the iron down over his head. Moryn's blade punished every mistake.

Durand winced, hunkered in the boat High overhead, the clouds were rolling now like mountains, while iron lightning flashed on the Barrow Isle.

Moryn's sword whipped down. Durand's liege lord was fighting for his life. For his every probe to claw a mailed shoulder, Lamoric caught a thunderbolt of steel over collarbone or forearm. Moryn's sword"-even blunted by iron rings-fell like an axe. Lamoric lived, he was even brave, but bones could break or red helms fold. Any slip could be the end, and the hopes of many would end with their lord.

Lamoric fought Then Moryn caught him. A blow flashed down, nearly das.h.i.+ng Lamoric against the earth. He reeled, and, as he staggered, Moryn stalked him.

Lamoric tried to keep his s.h.i.+eld in play, but Moryn swung, and a second great blow landed.

With the crowd hissing, Durand found himself crouched in the boat as if he would rush over the water.

Again, Lamoric pitched across the island, barely able to keep his feet. The watching mob was so silent, every brush and slide could be heard under the wind.

Lord Moryn waited for Lamoric to catch his balance, then hauled back and sent a third blow shuddering down on his stricken victim.

Lamoric dangled like a hanged man, skin torn under steel like flesh from a stewed apple. Yet still, he stood. To save his life, he must yield; the Red Knight game was over. They had lost, and it would be back to the road for all his men. Everyone on the river saw it, but some mad will held Lamoric upright. His knees would not buckle, and Lord Moryn hesitated in the face of it.

As Moryn watched in horror, Lamoric dragged back his sword, low and two-handed like a reaper with his scythe. Durand wondered how much blood the red knight garb hid. Lamoric wavered there, half-slumped for a moment. A good shove would have knocked him down, but Moryn held off. Then, with all his might, Lamoric heaved his blade into one great oafish swing, sure to miss.

And it would never have landed. Moryn would have slipped it. He would have twitched his s.h.i.+eld. He would have done a hundred other things more clever than Durand could conceive of. But, just then, Creation shuddered.

In the instant of that swing, the bells bawled out, sobbing. The roiling sky flashed flat, as vast rings swung from horizon to horizon like a pond swallowing a great stone.

The punt shuddered under Durand's hipbones, and the black scales of the island slumped, pitching into gray water. And, back on the island, there was something moving: bowel-slick flesh, pale and gleaming, bulged under the Barrow Isle.

And, in the midst of all this, the arc of Lamoric's wild swing came down: one iron bite behind the ear that knocked Moryn sprawling.

Durand had an instant's stab of elation. Lamoric had won.

But Lamoric reeled after the weight of his swing, and the bowel-and-bellies gleam under the island erupted in his path.

Durand saw a livid face, broader than a s.h.i.+eld, and a vast taloned hand, and then the boat flipped.

He was under in an instant, s.n.a.t.c.hed by the weight of his armor. He scrabbled at a boat that spun like a barrel under his nails. Water shouldered every other thought from his skull. No man can swim buckled into fifty pounds of iron. Each firm hold he got on the punt seemed to pull it under. Then, like a living thing, the boat popped loose, and he was down. It was all he could do not to haul in a breath.

He hit the bottom, his skull fit to explode.

Through the quicksilver flinch of water overhead, Durand could still hear the madness of the Heavens. It roared in his ears.

He fought to master himself. He was drowning. His fingers curled in the slime. He made himself understand: The water could not be deep. He had not fallen in the sea. He'd been poling. He could fight.

With that resolve, Durand thrashed, kicking and dragging himself, trying to get his feet under him and fighting in the direction of the island. He slid on rounded forms, slick as grease. Some were s.h.i.+elds. His fingers caught on k.n.o.bbed shapes: skulls, long bones, rusting blades. He understood then that he crawled through an upturned grave. More importantly, he knew that he had found the island's flank.

He tore into the air, sliding and splas.h.i.+ng onto a sh.o.r.e that pitched like a living thing under his hands. Half-erupted from the heaping s.h.i.+elds and helms and bones, an abomination thrashed: an ogress, a troll, a giant mockery of woman. Even caught and pinned by the weight of the barrow, the Banished fiend was larger than horses. And it screamed in spasms that convulsed the barrel-hoops of its ribs fit to burst its blue vellum skin. Creation itself seemed to shudder with its screams.

And Lamoric flailed in the talons of the thing's free hand.

As the water poured from Durand, he spotted Waer. Moryn's comrade, too, stood on the pitching island, but he had already seized his master by the collar and was pulling Lord Moryn to their boat.

With time and s.p.a.ce for a heartbeat in the thunder, Durand knew he should strip off his armor and swim for it. He should lunge past Waer into Moryn's boat. He looked to the screaming ma.s.ses, and-right off-saw Deorwen and the two wide circles of her eyes.