Straw Into Gold Page 3

  Then I stood on my toes to watch for the queen. And when I saw her, I knew that Da's misty vision had been just right. She rode on a piebald palfrey, and she too did not look at the crowd. Her eyes were always to her hands on the reins, and so quiet and small she looked after the golden king that the crowd stilled. She wore her ermine robes like a costume that did not fit, and the silver diadem that flashed from her hair seemed duller than it should be. I wanted to call to her, but I somehow feared to. I suddenly thought how beautiful she might look baking brown bread.

  She passed, and the crowd began to cheer anew.

  For behind her came the king's servants, themselves clothed in gold-threaded capes, bags of coins at their hips. They scattered silver and gold to the crowd as the cheers doubled, tripled, as hands reached to catch the king's coin. One fell at my feet, but before I could bend to grab it, those nearby had leapt at it and bloodied their knuckles with reaching.

  Then more trumpets, more foot soldiers—the king's guard this time, with red coverlets and lions rampant. The cheers were becoming throaty and hoarse.

  "It is grand. Isn't it grand, Da?" I called, but I did not look to see if he had heard. "The king must be the greatest, richest man in the world."

  But the procession was not yet over.

  Chapter Two

  A black horse creased through the crowd, his muzzle taut over yellow teeth. On his back the brawniest of men rode high, clothed all in black. A black hood draped over his head, but the steel of his eyes showed through slits, as cold as if he could have skewered us all before breakfast and then sat down to eggs and meat without washing the blood away. He rode like Fear, one mailed hand holding the reins tightly, the other grasping a coiled whip.

  Besotted soldiers came behind him, wearing dented and stained armor, mismatched and hugger-mugger in their marching. At first I thought that the boos and catcalls echoing down the way were for them, but they were not. The crowd was calling to those they led: the rebels.

  A hundred men and women staggered behind the soldiers, their faces looking down at their manacled hands, their feet fettered to a shuffle. Except for the clanking of their chains, the prisoners made no sounds. The men kept to the outside, shielding the women from the rubbish that the crowd threw. But they could do little to protect them. The crowd beside me cupped fetid mud from the rivulet and lashed it at them. Those watching from upstairs windows along the route spilled worse.

  "Scum to scum!"

  "Stinking rebels! Traitors!"

  They did stink. A stench moved with them in the close air of the street. A stench of contamination and of the blood their bare feet left on the road. The crowd hated them the more for the smell. They hated them for the blood.

  I stared, stunned, as the rebels trudged against their chains, some dodging the refuse being thrown, others with eyes closed, too exhausted to dodge. They were all gray and red and tattered. They moved hopelessly into hopelessness.

  Except one.

  At the very end of the crowd walked a boy who looked to be almost my age, his arms held protectively around two young girls. Most of his shirt was torn from him, and he was covered with filth. A rock had cut his forehead, and blood that he could not wipe away had dried across his face. The soldiers swaggering behind prodded him forward with bloodied lances, and though he stumbled, he walked as erect as he could, striding as far as his chains—and the young girls—would allow, ignoring the howls that flew at him like demons.

  And he was blind. Below the bloody dark hair that fell down his forehead, a terrible slash cut across his eyes and sealed them with scars.

  The inside of my gut wrenched at the sight, and I vomited into the rivulet, vomited until I could hardly breathe, hoping all the while that I would vomit out the sight of the blinded eyes.

  But I could not.

  The procession passed by, and the crowd surged onto the way, pushing me like a mountain avalanche, as irresistible as nightfall. "Da, Da," I sputtered, half panicked for myself, half panicked that Da would be crushed. But no matter how far I craned my neck, I could not see him, and with the roar of the crowd, I could not hope to hear him. So, shouldered and shoved, I was herded along, swears and curses louder than blaring trumpets in my ears, until at last the way opened up into a wide courtyard. There the castle, darker and more shadowed than I had first seen it, crouched under the clouds scuttling across the sky, the high wind tearing at the banners.

  Here the soldiers stretched out in a double line, their lances holding the crowd back. The rebels leaned wearily against one another, shivering. Some fell to the ground. But the blind boy still stood and still held the two girls close to him, his bare back taking the brunt of the wind.

  Above them—above us all—trumpeters marched to the edge of a high parapet. As one, they lifted their brassy horns to the dark sky and sounded a single clear note. When it died away, the golden king stepped forward. Though he had dismounted, he looked somehow even larger. The Great Lords moved into a half circle around him, and just outside the circle the queen waited. The king paused until they were all in place, like an actor waiting for a cue. We all felt the moment. The crowd fell to an absolute silence. The clouds stopped their scuttling. And then he spoke, and the wind sprang up to carry the frost of his breath.

  "Is there a greater crime than to rebel against one's king? Is there a greater crime than to rebel against the one appointed by God himself to rule? As there is one God, there is one ruler. As there is one God, there is one king. And if lords loyal to that king rule over you, is not obedience to the lords obedience to the king? And is not rebellion against them rebellion against him? And when those rulers are beneficent, caring, and wise—when the king watches over his subjects as a father watches over his children—how much worse is it to rebel? How much worse to leave what is ordained, as unnatural as a river leaving its proper bed?"

  The light waned from the sky as the clouds sucked it into their darkness, but still the golden king glowed. The light seemed to come from inside him, but it shone on no one else.

  "To rebel against Lord Beryn, to rebel against any of my Great Lords, is to rebel against me, your God-appointed sovereign. A rebellion so unnatural can lead to only a single just sentence. As a flooded river must be stemmed, so also must rebellion. And you—you loyal people of Wolverham—you must pronounce the single just sentence." He held his golden-mailed hands out over the courtyard as if to bless us, and in the quiet that followed, the wind dropped as if it too would hear the sentence of Wolverham.

  Then, just behind me, the first voice cried out: "Death!"

  "Death to the traitors and rebels all!"

  "Hanging! Hang the rebels!"

  The golden king stood with his arms outstretched, and he drew the words out of our guts and into our mouths. The cries grew louder and then joined together, a stampede of wild sound trampling through the courtyard, pummeling through the air with horrid bluntness. I felt it square against me. I opened my own mouth, felt the words rush into it, and ... and then I saw the face of the blind boy turn to me. Through his scarred eyelids he looked at me, and my words charred before they were spoken.

  But all around me the terrible cry went on and on until the sky itself must crack.

  "Da," I called,"Da," but he was not there.

  Another single trumpet note and the king lowered his hands, the cries lowering with them. "Death, then. You, the loyal people of Wolverham, have decreed it, and your king bows to your will. Death to all traitors. Death to all rebels."

  Another blast from the trumpets, answered by screams that struck the ear like tongs.

  The king raised his hands again."But God is a merciful, charitable God. I am a merciful, charitable king. And you are a merciful, charitable people. Is there one among you who would hinder the death of these rebels? Is there a voice among you that would plead for mercy? Are there any that would cry for this brood of—"

  "No. Not a one," came a voice from behind me.

  "No one. No one," echoed the crowd,
louder and louder, faster and faster, until the words were lost in a cataclysm of sound.

  The darkness of the clouds was almost complete, matted to a fuzzy thickness torn at the edges. Then one loosed its hold and snow fell, white and dry, falling with a stillness that stilled the crowd.

  And in that stillness the queen stepped forward toward the golden king."Majesty," she said quietly,"I will plead."

  Silence in that great courtyard. Absolute silence, as if there had never been a single word spoken in all the world.

  The king stared long at the queen. Then he turned to Lord Beryn, who had moved closer to him, his hand hard upon his sword. The other Great Lords glowered, and one swore with words that should never sound near a queen.

  Slowly the king faced us again, the golden light still bright. But when he spoke, I knew beyond all doubt that he was afraid. I saw terror clutch at him like a vampire.

  "The voice of one against so many," he called out, his voice quavering just a little."Is there another of you, people of Wolverham? Is there another who would stand with the rebels, linking himself to that unnatural crime?"

  The boy's closed eyes were still upon me. Upon me! The scar across them seemed no barrier.

  "Another who would plead for rebels?"

  I moved before I even thought of moving, as if I were in a dream. It felt as if I were simply taking on my own part, like another actor stepping onto the stage to perform his appointed role. The crowd fell away, and in the quiet of the snow, I walked across the courtyard and up the steps to the edge of the parapet. The king stared at me with such surprise and, I realized, such hatred, it might almost have been better had he struck me down. But the invisible vampire was still clutching him.

  I hardly knew what to say, what part to play. With every eye in Wolverham upon me—and with the face of the blind boy turned toward me—I lowered my knees in front of the king, bowed my head, and felt a hand grip my heart.

  "Your Majesty," I said quietly,"I plead for them."

  A long silence. I waited to hear the call of Da, but it never came.

  "You plead for them?" came the king's voice instead, icicles in every word. "You plead for them? Who are you to move my just anger, or the decrees of all Wolverham?"

  "Tousle, Majesty."

  "Tousle," spat the king. "Tousle. Your plea suggests that you yourself are one of them—a traitor to your king."

  "Majesty," I said slowly, looking up while the cold pricked the back of my neck, "I am not. I know they have rebelled against Lord Beryn, and so against you. I know that I have nothing to exchange for your mercy. But I plead for it anyway."

  At that moment the queen took a step forward, so that she was in front of the Great Lords. Her eyes locked onto mine, as though she might tie me to her. And she had. I wanted to leap up and run into her arms, like one who suddenly knows that he has missed something for a very long time, without knowing what it was he missed.

  "Good sir," she said to the king, though still looking at me, "the boy pleads for nothing but mercy for others."

  "For rebels."

  "Majesty is never diminished by grace," she replied.

  Da's words. Da's very words. As if the queen had heard them too and was speaking them out as her part in the play. But she was no actor, and this was no play.

  "Grace and pleas are misplaced when given to traitors."

  "They are pleas that you yourself invited."

  "You play with words, lady. It is beneath you."

  "A peasant's trick," said Lord Beryn, stepping beside her.

  "Then I will play no more. I plead with the boy." And her hand reached out, quivering, to touch my shoulder. I felt its weight and heat.

  The world halted. The king, the Great Lords, the rebels—all the world was frozen except for me and the queen. We lived in the heat from her hand. Nothing else was real, and if the world had never moved again, I would have been content to hold still for that eternal moment.

  But the world did move again.

  "Lady," the king's voice rumbled low, "you stand here at my behest, and at my behest only." His eyes glanced back to Lord Beryn. "It is not your place to plead with the boy." Reluctantly she withdrew her hand from my shoulder, and I grew colder. "Your place is to do my will, and that will is your return to Saint Eynsham Abbey within the hour."

  Slowly the queen stepped back, but her eyes never left mine.

  The king turned to me again.

  "You say you have nothing to exchange for my mercy."

  "Nothing, Majesty."

  "And I will not give you freely the life of a traitor—assuming you are none yourself."

  "I am not, Majesty."

  "So you must find something in exchange. Something of equal or even greater value."

  The sense that this was all a play came upon me again. And I would act the part.

  "Majesty," I said loudly,"tell me what it is you wish."

  At my reply a single cheer came from the crowd, a woman's call startling in the stillness of the growing snow. And then another came, and another.

  With a sweep of his armored hand, the king struck me across the face. I fell backward, tumbling down the stairs to the courtyard.

  "No, lady, you will stay there," I heard the king yell. Murmurs rose from the crowd like smoke."Let it be understood now," the king called loudly, "that no one is to assist this boy on his journey to the gallows. Noble, peasant, freeman, or slave. No one, on pain of taking his place."

  I looked back above me; the king stood poised, one arm pointing to me, the other to the crowd. The snow was now falling thick and heavy, and when I spat the blood that had sprung into my mouth, the red of the spittle was bright on the whitened ground. I rose to my knees.

  The king turned to the queen. "You, madam, will make the preparations for your return to Saint Eynsham. See to it that they are made quickly, or your next holiday will find age stooping your shoulders." He motioned at me. "Bring the boy."

  One of the king's guards left the rebels and gripped me above my elbow. Half shoving, half lifting, he thrust me back up the stairs, onto the parapet, and into the wake left by the king and the Great Lords, a wake that drew me into the mouth of the castle.

  The cobblestones of the courtyard gave way to stone slabs. Through a door, and then we were crossing on blood-red marble. Another door, and we were on filigreed rugs thicker than the thickest moss. Each of the hallways grew brighter and brighter, each boasting more and more curious gilt devices and decorated with gold urns and plates and statues burnished to a brightness. Yet another door, quite heavy this time, and the guard tossed me lightly into a room bright with fire. Braided ropes and coils of thin gold hung in loops from the walls, like whips ready at hand. A great blaze burned in the center of the room, the flames reflecting in the coils. The gold dazzled, and I shut my eyes against it.

  We waited there for a long time, as the fire burned low, the room chilled, and the golden coils grew darker. Servants came to set lanterns on the walls, and still we waited, the guard standing wordlessly with his hand on his swordhilt, and me crouched by the waning fire, wondering how it was that I had come here, and thinking, strangely enough, of brown bread and hot cider, of the Dapple and the Gray, of the home on the hillside. Of Da.

  A hoarse call, and the guard pulled me up and shoved me on into a grand room, warmer and brighter than any I had been in before. Here the walls were paneled with gold, and the ceiling mosaic glowed with the metal. The lanterns shone from golden brocades, and even the floor was inlaid with gold and ebony squares.

  The king stood behind a long trestle table crowded with golden platters of steaming meat and stew, with golden flagons of wine, with golden bowls that spilled fruit. The Great Lords sat on either side of the king, most of them gesturing to the servants, who were coming from behind tapestries and scurrying about.

  The guard pushed me to the front of the table, then stepped back so I was alone, facing the king. He stared at me, and I saw then that his eyes were so pale they were al
most white.

  "Boy," said the king, "you have nothing you might exchange for the life of these rebels?"

  "Nothing, Your Majesty."

  "And do you regret that you meddled in affairs that were not yours to meddle in?"

  The Great Lords had now turned to me, some for the sport but at least one with interest.

  "It is too late for regret, Majesty," I said.

  Guffaws from the Great Lords.

  "So it is," said the king. "Much too late."

  "Majesty," said Lord Beryn, "there is no gain for us in dealing so with this boy. Have him whipped and thrown from the castle, and we will turn to more important matters." He held up a great shank of meat, and at this the other Great Lords laughed.

  "Lord Beryn," answered the king without looking at him,"let us give this boy something to exchange." He leaned forward over the table, and when he spoke, there was a sudden earnestness to his voice. "Boy, I give you a riddle. Its answer is the life of the rebels. And your own. Do you understand?"

  "I do, Majesty."

  "Then listen well: What fills a hand fuller than a skein of gold?"

  Again the Great Lords laughed. They seemed no longer to be the lordly statues who had processed to the castle; now they were red and fleshy, their jowls leaping with their merriment, two or three sputtering out the wine from their mouths.

  But Lord Beryn was not laughing. He stared at the king, and his face was hard and thoughtful. With one hand he twirled the rings on his fingers.

  Nor did the king laugh. He stood leaning toward me, and I saw that this was no mere riddle for him, that there was more here than he would say. In the midst of the gold and the laughter, I saw in his pale eyes a strange and even urgent pleading, as if the vampire were still in the room. As if he hoped that I could save him.

  "Majesty," said Lord Beryn, "this is folly. The boy is a lunatic. Send him away, or dress him in motley and have him play the fool for us." More laughter from the Great Lords. More red wine poured into gold flagons, some spilling on the white damask cloth.