The Widow and the King by John Dickinson Page B

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    ‘There is war coming in the Kingdom,’ the man was saying as Ambrose came back into the room. ‘It is the same thing again: the house of Baldwin rising against Septimus. This time it is the Lord of Velis who makes the challenge.’
    ‘As though there had not already been enough,’ she sighed. ‘It was Baldwin's misfortune that the best of them were slain ten years ago.’
    The man did not agree. ‘Velis may yet prove a match for Septimus. A stronger king may be a good thing indeed.’
    ‘At each rising men say the same, and the land suffers for it. I had believed your house was loyal to Septimus?’
    The man looked at her, lazily across the table. Suddenly Ambrose thought he understood why she had called him a ‘young wolf ‘. Ambrose had seen a wolf not long before, while guarding his goats at pasture. It had been standing still in the cover of some thorns, with a careless slope to its head and shoulders as though it were not thinking of doing anything; and piercing eyes that gave out the lie.
    You always had to watch for the wolf.
    ‘Sometimes, sometimes not,’ the man said. ‘Everyone makes their choice, don't they?’
    ‘And they are judged for it.’
    ‘Judged?’
    ‘By men while we live, and after by the Angels,’ she said.
    ‘Hmm.’
    The talk had stopped for a moment. There was something else here that the two of them did not agree on. Ambrose wasn't sure whether it was about kings or angels or both.
    She looked up at him.
    ‘Ambrose, you may go to bed.’
    He bowed, saying nothing in case she realized that his mouth had fruit in it.
    ‘Goodnight,’ called the man over his shoulder.
    In the musty-smelly chamber that he had made into a temporary bedroom for himself and his mother, Ambrose unrolled his blanket and lay down. He could hear their voices, muffled by the wall. He wanted to hear if theywere still talking about kings and rebellions and exciting things like that, but he could no longer pick out the words. So he sulked, and his fingers played with the small pile of white pebbles he had made by his pallet, and he wondered why she had felt they might be needed all of a sudden.
    Then, because he was tired, he slept. He did not hear his mother bid their guest a good night and come to lie down in the room beside him.
    He did not hear the man rise and leave the house stealthily just before dawn. He knew nothing until his mother's hand was shaking him, urgently, frantically, in the grey of the morning that saw the end of his world.
    ‘You must not follow me, Amba,’ she said, in the last few moments by the hearth while she waited for ink to dry on a piece of paper before her.
    Ambrose was still struggling to dress. He understood, with a sense of loss and bewilderment, that their guest was gone. He had no idea where or why.
    She seemed to know.
    ‘You must go across to the village and wait for me,’ she said, as she knotted the paper into a little roll with twine. ‘If I do not come today, you must go to Chatterfall and give this to them there. Here is coin for a boat at the lake …’
    To Chatterfall? By himself ?
    ‘Quickly, now. Tie the purse to your belt. And you must take the pebbles.’
    His fingers fumbled with the string. By the time he had tied the knot, she had already left the room.
    The pebbles. He scooped them up from the windowsill,piling them in his hands because he had no other way to carry them.
    She was outside under the archway, pulling aside the goat-hurdle. He followed her. Because he was clutching the pebbles against his chest he could not pull it shut behind him.
    ‘Quickly, Ambrose,’ she called from the darkness of the gateway opposite.
    He hurried after her. She had the gate open. The path along the ridgeback was a pale thread, leading away in the darkness of dawn.
    She looked at him.
    ‘Untuck your shirt and carry them in the fold in front of you. Try not to lose them. And whenever you are still, place them around you. Now, Amba,’ she said, embracing