Free The Widow and the King by John Dickinson Page B

had happened to Mother, yet. When he got up, he supposed they would. He hoped they would not ask too many questions about it.
    He dozed again, and again people came and spoke beside him. This time they were not speaking to him, but to each other. It was Aunt Evalia and a man, sitting together by the fire. They spoke in low tones, as if they did not want too many people to hear. The man had a soft, wheezy voice that Ambrose remembered. He sounded gloomy. Aunt Evalia sounded worried.
    ‘There's other news,’ the man said. ‘Velis and his rebels are at the gates of Watermane.’
    ‘Will they come this way?’ asked Aunt Evalia.
    ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said the man. ‘Watermane is strongly held. But certainly it is too close for comfort.’
    ‘This will be his doing, I suppose.’
    ‘His?’
    ‘The Prince Under the Sky.’
    ‘It's too soon, surely,’ the man protested. ‘The rising started weeks ago!’
    Ambrose realized that the man must be Uncle Adam. He wanted to lift his head and look, but for the moment it was too heavy.
    ‘One way or another he will have a hand in it now,’ said Aunt Evalia. ‘I know him. Chaos is what he loves. He will bring grief all across the Kingdom – the worst that he can, because the Angels have told him his time is short.’
    Neither of them said anything for a while. Ambrose thought that he should get up, because Uncle Adam was there. Uncle Adam had always been important to him. There was something very fine about the fat, balding man, Ambrose thought. He still remembered and treasured the few words that had passed between them on his last visit. But his head and limbs and shoulders all felt very tired, so instead he shifted on the pallet and let his body rest again.
    ‘He's waking up,’ he heard Aunt Evalia say.
    ‘Will that – Prince – know he's here? He'd have come by now if he did, wouldn't he?’
    ‘The stones may be hiding Ambrose from him. But the Prince knows our house. He may come here anyway. Or send – others.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Uncle Adam, sounding gloomier than ever.
    ‘I had thought we would repair the riverbank tomorrow,’ he said after a moment.
    ‘No one must go out of call of the house.’
    ‘Hmm.’
    ‘There is still fruit to pick in the clearing, if you wish to be busy.’
    ‘Me? Pick fruit? What will the men say?’
    ‘I am behind with my tasks, because of Ambrose andother things. I have thrown myself on your mercy. As ever, you have gallantly accepted and will come to my aid.’
    ‘We will have to tell them soon.’
    ‘I know. But I have not yet thought what to say. If any of our people take fright and run off we shall be worse placed than ever.’
    They were silent again. Someone else had entered the room and come up to the fireplace. Ambrose heard a stirring stick moving in a pot, so probably it was Vinney, who had come in to check on the supper. Perhaps that was why Uncle Adam and Aunt Evalia had stopped speaking.
    There was a cry from outside.
    ‘See what that is, would you, Vinney?’ said Aunt Evalia. Vinney mumbled something. Her footsteps receded across the floor. After a moment Aunt Evalia spoke again. Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
    ‘Adam. If the Prince has been loosed, it will be because the one who loosed him felled or moved at least one of the stones around his pool.’
    ‘And so?’ said Adam.
    ‘So if the stones can be raised, his powers may be trapped again.’
    ‘You mean us? Go into the mountains? All that way?’
    All that way, thought Ambrose.
    ‘Phaedra did,’ Aunt Evalia said.
    ‘Hmm. We'd need horses, chains, pulleys – what's the ground like?’
    ‘I don't know.’
    I do, thought Ambrose.
    ‘A week's journey? Ten days? Winter comes early in the mountains. Do you know the way?’
    ‘Ambrose does. But he needs to get stronger.’
    ‘Will the Prince allow it? Or whoever released him?’
    ‘Someone must do it, Adam.’
    She's right, thought Ambrose. That was what they had to do. And together they