Free The Widow and the King by John Dickinson

blanket but the unmeasurable darkness full of sounds.
    Aunt Evalia murmured to herself, and nodded. He could not remember her ever being angry or surprised before, but she seemed surprised now. Maybe she would be angry as well. Mother might have been angry, especially about the damage to his shoes. But he did not see what else he could have done. There had not been a donkey to ride this time. And he had had to keep going. He had kept going because he had known that he must find his way to Chatterfall.
    And he had known that he
would
find his way, because it was the only place there was to go to.
    ‘Vinney!’ Aunt Evalia called. ‘We will need more water, and bandages. And – yes,’ she said to Ambrose, as she rose to her feet. ‘I am afraid these must have salt. And salt!’ she called again.
    Vinney came back, bringing bread and fruit and water, and promised him broth when the pot should be ready. They washed his feet, and it smarted. Then Vinney took a palmful of salt from a small sack and Aunt Evalia put her hands around his ankles.
    ‘This will hurt,’ Aunt Evalia said. ‘But you must bear it.’
    It hurt more than anything Ambrose had ever known. He howled and tried to jerk his feet free. White stones fell from his lap and scattered over the floor as he reached down to snatch at her wrists, but she held him and spoketo him while Vinney rubbed the stuff mercilessly into his ragged soles. By the time they finished he was sobbing. Aunt Evalia lifted a bowl of dark liquid to his lips. It smelled strong, and sour.
    ‘What is it?’ he said, still wincing.
    ‘Wine. It will help the pain. Drink it.’
    He did not like the taste. And when he had finished his feet seemed to be stinging as badly as ever. But he could look around him at Uncle Adam's long hall, while Vinney began to load the pot with vegetables and herbs and – yes – bits of meat, to make his mouth water.
    ‘It will be a while before it's ready,’ Evalia said to him. ‘But there's bread and fruit on the tray.’
    ‘Thank you,’ he said.
    ‘We need Adam,’ said Aunt Evalia. ‘Where is he?’
    The bread and fruit were at Ambrose's elbow. But he did not reach for them straight away. He remembered that he was no longer moving, and what Mother had told him to do whenever he stopped to rest. He leaned forward, and began to place the white stones, which had scattered on the rushy floor, one after another in a circle around his chair.
    When he had finished, he looked up.
    Aunt Evalia was watching him. There was a new expression on her face, as if she had suddenly been told very bad news. He wondered if she knew what the stones were, and what it was they kept away. Then he remembered that it had been Aunt Evalia and Uncle Adam who had helped to hide him from his father, and that the room where the monster had appeared in his dream had been at Chatterfall.
    ‘What have you seen, Ambrose?’ she asked.
    He shook his head. ‘I haven't seen anything.’
    He hadn't seen anything. But he had heard things, on his journey out of the mountains: things that blundered in the nights around where he lay. He had listened with his limbs locked and his heart hammering, staring at the darkness for the shape that had moved in his nightmare; but nothing had come close enough for him to see. And nothing had stopped him getting to Chatterfall. So perhaps it had only been wild beasts after all.
    Anyway, he was here now.
    Aunt Evalia looked over her shoulder. The room behind her was empty. Vinney had gone out into the yard. She crouched down beside Ambrose and lowered her voice.
    ‘Ambrose, where is the Prince Under the Sky?’
    He looked away.
    ‘Ambrose,’ she said again. ‘I can see you are tired, and upset. You can tell me your story when you are ready. But I need to know this now. Where is he?’
    ‘I don't know,’ he mumbled. ‘He'll be out, but I don't know where.’
    When she said nothing, he added: ‘They can't get me. The stones keep them away.’
    She