The Sword of the Spirits by John Christopher Page B

opposite way: the Seer of Andover with two Acolytes. He saw me but affected not to know me, and I rode past with no salute. The Seers could do nothing for me at this point; and to have commercewith me would compromise them needlessly. Ezzard’s fate was still remembered. It was because of this that I had left Winchester without seeing Grimm.
    I rode on to the West Gate. My head throbbed with pain and anger. The Seers could do nothing for me. The High Seers in Sanctuary were a different matter.
    The day was windless but the cold bit savagely and deep into the bone. The sky was dark gray with a shade of pink in it: full of snow. Some was shed during the morning. Small flakes, scarcely more than white dust, floated slow, slow, and specked the frozen ground. By midday the snow had stopped, but the sky above us looked ready to burst with it.
    We stopped to eat at an inn high up in the hills. I had no hunger but forced myself to take something; not this time to suit another’s whim but to keep up my strength. I knew now I had a fever. My forehead burned when I put up a hand to wipe it. I saw my Aunt Mary again, and heard her say: “Starve a fever, child . . .” All right for a child at home, I told her, tucked in a warm cot—a journey in this weather was a different matter. Hans said: “Sire?” and I realized I must have mumbled words aloud. “Nothing,”I told him, and returned to my dish. It was a game pie, foul looking and foul tasting. I felt sick but chewed and swallowed as best I could.
    We rode again, and the snow came down more thickly. The flakes were bigger and began to whirl in dance as the wind got up.
    Hans pointed. “Is that not Amesbury, sire?” I nodded. “It might be best to take shelter there. It will be worse before long.”
    â€œNo.” I heard my voice buzz and echo. “We will pass to the south of it. We can reach Sanctuary by nightfall.”
    We came to the river and had to go south again, a long way south, to find a ford. The snow played a game with us, almost stopping and then blowing fierce in our faces. I felt giddy. My head at one moment was a bladder, which I feared might float off my shoulders and away among the snowflakes; the next a lump of aching lead.
    I had been a fool not to do as Hans said. Snow covered the country all round us, obliterating landmarks. A fool in this, and in so many other things. Prince of Three Cities but two days since, and now . . . My teeth chattered in my burning head.Then the chattering and the burning and even the pain seemed to go far away, out into the flickering whiteness of the sky.
    Hans cried: “Sire, are you all right?”
    I could not answer him. I felt myself slipping from the saddle and tried to grip the rein, but my hand would not obey me. The whiteness all round turned to black.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    The nightmare had many parts to it and many characters. Harding was there and I cursed him. I swore vengeance, and saw the vengeance taken. His head stared down from the palace gate and a crow plucked his eyes. Then that changed, and it was not the palace gate but the East Gate, and the head was my father’s. I wept, and beside me Harding laughed. Then in fury I killed him again and butchered his body with my steel. And the bleeding corpse got up, and mocked me still.
    Edmund was there, too. I rode with him by the Contest Field, and pleaded with him, for our friendship’s sake, not to wrong me. He spoke me fair, but looked beyond me and smiled at someone else. I knew who it was that won a smile he had never given me.
    Blodwen came to me alone. She stood on the stair above her father’s throne room, and said: “I will be my own woman always. Remember that, Luke of Winchester. I will be my own woman.” “Be what you will,” I cried, “as long as you are mine!” “I will be my own woman, Luke of Winchester . . .”