Read Online The Sword of the Spirits by John Christopher - Free Book Online

need telling.”
    It was true. In such a catalogue of lies there could only be one name. I said:
    â€œEdmund?”
    She stared in silence and the silence gave assent. I let go her arm.
    â€œSo you charge your own brother with this. You disgust me. Without a single jot of evidence.”
    My contempt provoked her again.
    â€œListen,” she said, “listen, blind Luke. Do you remember a day when we picnicked in the water meadows, and you were called away to Romsey? Edmund took her back in your place. Not to the city only but to her apartments. And stayed there after.”
    â€œAt my bidding. I told Blodwen to give him his supper, in return for the rowing.”
    Jenny said: “They dined late that night. I went to his room after eleven, and he was not there.”
    â€œYou speak out of narrowness and ignorance. The Wilsh love talking late into the night. In Klan Gothlen Edmund and I have sat with Cymru till two of the morning. Eleven is late by our standards but not by theirs.”
    She said nothing. In the distance the music stoppedand the chatter of voices swelled up. I said:
    â€œExile would be better than whipping. I would rather not see your face again. But to take any action would injure Edmund. So go your way, Jenny, and keep out of mine.”
    She went without speaking by the path that would take her from the palace. I walked, willing myself to calmness, back to the Hall of Mirrors. Another dance had struck up as I got there. Edmund stood opposite Blodwen. They saw me look at them, and smiled.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    A troop of players came to us that winter. They were not the ordinary strolling players, who acted their parts in any room large enough, or in the open air, and sent one of their numbers round with a greasy cap to collect money off their audience. These were more ambitious. In Salisbury they had had what they called a theater, and they took a disused malt-house to make a similar place in our city. It was in the River Road, not far from my Aunt Mary’s house.
    This was one more sign of how Winchester’s importance was growing in men’s eyes. Players, like thieves and tricksters, will always flock where thereare full pockets to be emptied, and they had heard talk of our wealth and prosperity. But it was not just a question of money. Their chief player and manager, a lean arrogant man in his thirties with a black pointed beard and showy dress, let it be known that they had come because it was fitting that the greatest city should have the greatest company of players.
    This swaggering was typical of him. When he paid his respects to me and to my Captains, he brought his hat down in a bow that caused the feather on top of it to sweep the floor, but the gesture was empty. He made it plain that in truth he thought little of warriors or nobles, or anyone who did not belong to his own seedy profession. And that in that profession he believed that no other could come near him. I had never met even a Prince with such overweening pride.
    Of my own inclination I would have sent him packing back to Salisbury. But his reputation had traveled ahead of him. The people were anxious to see these players, and it was true that if they were any good they would help relieve the winter’s tedium. Blodwen spoke for them also. She had been used to plays and theaters in her own city, and missed these diversions.
    So they set to work to turn the malt-house to their ends, and dwarfs worked busily under the direction of this man who called himself, in further illustration of his modesty, the Player King. At last it was finished, and news of the first play cried in the streets. His messenger came to the palace, humbly inviting me and my court to be present at the opening.
    We arrived as a gray evening was turning into a hard black night. Snow which had threatened all day had not yet come, but the frost was sharp. A knifing wind blew from the east.
    Inside braziers had been set up