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

but at Edmund; and as though word had gone silently from heart to heart his eyes met hers. For a long moment they locked, then turned away.
    The sickness and tightness grew worse, and coldness was added to them. My legs shivered. I had to clamp my jaw tight to keep my teeth from chattering.
    I had tried to put aside all thought of what Jenny had said in the garden. If by chance the memory came to me I dismissed it. Now all flooded back. I heard the soft music again in the distance and heard her voice, hard with contempt: “Listen . . . Listen, blind Luke . . .”
    The play ran its course. I saw nothing in it but resemblances. Tristram was a skilled player of the harp and sang a love song to Iseult. I thought of Edmund playing his lute in the water meadows and singing: “Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight . . .” The Player King made Mark a man stupidly blind to what was happening, concerned only with the affairs of state, a dull and heavy creature. I saw myself riding away to Romsey, leaving the pleasant scene behind.
    And there rage supplanted sickness. Jenny had said: “Yours are the only eyes that do not see it.” Could that be true? Could the fact of my betrayal be as clear as Mark’s was? Was it the talk of Winchester?The Player King had said he had written the play himself. Were these things jibes at me?
    I had an urge to leap down onto the stage, to knock aside the wooden sword the Player King wore with my steel one, and spit him with it. But as always my mind worked coldly behind my rage. There might be killing needed yet, but this was not the time.
    The play ended somehow. Mark killed Tristram, I think, and Iseult stabbed herself. I was only concerned that it should be over. The players paraded for our applause and then the Player King came to me again, and asked if their poor efforts had met with my approval.
    â€œIt was entertaining,” I said, “as these things go.”
    He bowed stiffly, disconcerted. Blodwen said:
    â€œOh, it was good! We have no better players in Klan Gothlen. And the play was finely written. Luke, you must reward him well.”
    I saw her face, candid and eager, and could not believe her false. Behind her Edmund smiled at me, as he had done many times, over her enthusiasm. If they were not honest the whole world was a stinking ruin, broken and slimed like the village which theBayemot overran. And I had killed the Bayemot. I said to the Player King:
    â€œYou played well. Gold will be sent you in the morning.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    But in the night I woke, and having wakened did not sleep again. Scenes from the play came back to me; the words of the two lovers rang in my ears with Jenny’s mocking voice behind them. “Listen . . . Listen, blind Luke . . .” I tossed and turned and, rising early, took a horse and rode out of the North Gate, past the astonished watch.
    I rode hard and far, like a coward fleeing from a battlefield. But there was no escaping this battle; its blind and hateful warriors harried me without mercy, and a hundred swords pierced me. And I knew there was no medicine to heal these wounds.
    So I came back, tired and sick at heart, to the city which I ruled. I had become a slave to my own eyes and ears. I must watch them both, listen to every word that passed between them, interpret every gesture. While I did so, I must hide my misery.
    And in my slavery I was tossed to and fro. I would see her look at him and fill with anger. Thenshe would look at me, wide-eyed and smiling, and the anger would turn to love, and self-disgust. I had no interest in anything else. My Captains came to me, with news or questions, and I listened and spoke and a moment later did not know what they had said or I had replied.
    Days passed. I had no appetite but forced myself to eat, dully chewing and swallowing the food which like everything else but one thing had