The Uncrowned King (13 page)

In a moment the gate was winched open. Fyn watched, thinking that the village's defences would hold off the occasional brigand or small raiding party, but not a Merofynian army. What would become of these people then? His father could not protect every small village across Rolencia's rich valley.

'Apologies, master monk,' Lame Klimen greeted Fyn, giving him the title of master even though the old man would have known by his plait that he was still an acolyte. 'We did not understand the slave.'

'And you were being cautious which is understandable, grandfather.' Fyn gave him the honorific title, and slowed his pace so that the fisherman could keep up with them, despite his pronounced limp. On closer inspection, Klimen was not so old, just weathered by the sea and too injured to remain a fisherman. When the five youths had a good look at Dinni they mocked each other, shamefaced.

Inside the wall, each little house had its own vegetable plot, empty now of anything but snow. The path wound through these blanketed gardens to the village square. Not even a bow shot across, it sloped down to the wharves.

By the time most of the boys had reached the square all the villagers had gathered. Some carried fish-oil lanterns, bringing an early twilight as well as the oil's distinctive scent.

Recognising the village elders by their air of authority, and by the way they greeted Lame Klimen, Fyn bowed to honour them. After Klimen explained who Dinni was, he turned to Fyn. 'Why has the abbot sent Halcyon's boys and acolytes to us?'

'To save our lives. Last night Merofynians violated the sanctity of the abbey, killing everyone else.'

'No. Never!' an old woman objected. 'Never in all my days...'

The fisher folk muttered in dismay.

'But the warriors?' Lame Klimen asked. 'Surely they -'

'Lured away. Only the very old and the boys stayed in the abbey,' Fyn explained. 'We are all that remain of Halcyon's monks. We've walked all night and eaten nothing for a day.'

Lenny made a funny noise in his throat and pitched forwards.

'Oh, the poor bantling,' an old woman muttered, catching him before he could hit the ground. 'Enough talking. It's clear what these boys need.'

At her words the womenfolk stepped in, leading the boys off. There would not be enough beds, but at least they would be warm and fed. Fyn was grateful. He was so tired he could barely think and all the while there was the worry for Piro and the need to reach his father weighing him down. Lame Klimen stepped aside to organise the men, sending any male over the age of fourteen to the walls.

Lenny revived and protested as the woman tried to lead him away.

'I've got hot fish stew cooking on the hearth,' she told him.

'Go on, Lenny,' Fyn urged, then switched to Merofynian. 'You too, Dinni.'

She looked doubtful but, when the old woman smiled and nodded, she allowed herself to be led away even as Klimen returned. He gave Fyn a bow which felt wrong to him, especially in front of Feldspar and Joff, who knew he was nothing special.

'You're welcome to take your ease in my place, master monk,' Lame Klimen said.

'I'm no master,' Fyn insisted.

'If you've led these boys to safety, then you've done the work of a master,' the old fisherman told him. 'This way.'

'All I did was lead them here so they could take shelter in Sylion Abbey,' Fyn said.

'Only women and girls are allowed past the abbey's portals.'

'I think the abbess will put aside the old laws for now.'

Lame Klimen led them through the now-dark village to his home. A welcome light glowed in the single pane of uneven blown glass.

He thrust the door open and they hurried in before the warm air could escape. An incredibly ancient woman bustled about setting food on the scrubbed table. She smiled and bobbed her head.

'My mother,' he explained. 'She can't hear what you say but that doesn't stop her talking.'

They took folding stools off their hooks on the walls and placed them around the table. As Feldspar took the seat next to Fyn, he muttered, 'We're not safe yet.'

'No,' Fyn agreed and raised his voice. 'Tomorrow morning, Klimen, your people need to take the boys across to Sylion.'

'That we can do.'

'You're not coming with us?' Feldspar guessed.

'Not coming?' Joff placed the sacred lamp on the table. Its jewel-encrusted gold looked out of place amidst the wooden bowls and home-made bread.

'No. The abbot told me to get the boys to Sylion Abbey and then I -'

'You have to warn the king,' Feldspar finished for him.

Fyn nodded. 'You must tell the abbess how the Merofynians lured our warriors out and ignored the sanctity of the abbey. She'll see it's in Sylion's best interest to help Halcyon's monks to survive.'

Feldspar met Fyn's eyes. 'The Merofynians will kill you first chance they get. Take some of us with you.'

Fyn had already thought this through. 'One can escape detection more easily than several. I don't want anyone dying because of me.' No, the abbot had already paid that price. If his friends knew the truth they would not be looking up to him right now.

'Ah, food, at last. Thank you, grandmother.' Joff accepted a bowl of fish stew. 'Don't look so down, Feldspar. Fyn will get through to the king, who'll rout the Merofynians. You'll see. One day it will be Abbot Fyn. I'll be weapons master and you'll be mystics master.'

But Feldspar was in no mood for jesting. 'How can I become mystics master, when there is no one to train me?' He sighed. 'So much lost.'

'You can rebuild the abbey in all its glory. You have your lives,' Lame Klimen told them.

Both Feldspar and Joff looked to Fyn.

'Thanks to you,' Feldspar said.

He could not meet their eyes. Instead, he looked up at the single window, dark with snow, visualising his father's castle across the valley, directly opposite Sylion Abbey as the crow flies, but since he was not a crow Fyn would have to walk around the base of Mount Halcyon, borrow skates, cross Viridian Lake and thread his way along the canals to Sapphire Lake. 'The king must know of this treachery. If the Merofynians don't respect the sanctity of the abbey, who knows where they will stop?'

What if the unthinkable happened? What if Rolenhold fell? Would the Merofynians recognise the time-honoured right of royal captives to be held hostage, or would they simply execute Piro and his mother?

He had to get home.

Chapter Eight

Piro longed to ask her mother's advice, but Cobalt was sure to have spies watching the queen. If he had remembered a little detail like Piro's love for her foenix, he won't have left any avenue open for her to reach her mother or father.

Even so, after she had eaten, she found her feet taking her to the mourning tower, where her mother was captive. The tower's courtyard was filled with animals, which the townsfolk had penned in hastily rigged shelters. Chickens and goats had settled for the night, making the area smell like a farm yard. And there, at the top of the steps to the tower's first floor, was one of the king's honour guard.

That reminded her of Sawtree. She knew of a window where she could look down into the stable courtyard. She'd go there next and see what she could do for the old guard.

The guard in front of her was one of the young ones loyal to Cobalt, lord protector of the castle. That role should have gone to Captain Temor...

That reminded her of Temor and his stand at the last gate. A sob caught in her throat.

Furious, she pressed the pads of her fingers into her eye sockets until she saw swirling patterns of rage. No point in crying. No point in feeling sorry for herself. Feel sorry for Sawtree instead. Maybe there was something she could do for him... sneak him food, since she had saved some from her last meal. Or, if she was really lucky, she might slip him a knife and he could free himself when he had the chance. How had Cobalt punished him, by crippling him? She hoped it wasn't something permanent.

One more grubby maid amongst so many, Piro made her way to the wing that overlooked the stable courtyard. It housed the castle hospice, packed now with injured townsfolk. Many had loved ones with them, nursing them, so there was a constant coming and going, with children crying and grown-ups bickering over space.

From a narrow window in the hospice she saw a man in the centre of the courtyard with his arms tied above his head, toes off the ground, head slumped. There was an ominous dark patch in the snowy ground under his feet. It was only as he slowly swung around that she saw the arrows in his chest. Stunned, she found it hard to credit what she saw.

It appeared as though, at Cobalt's orders, Sawtree's fellow men-at-arms had used him for target practice.

Impotent anger rose up in her, threatened to choke her, and hot tears ran down her cheeks as she left the hospice. Cobalt would pay for this.

Miserable fury raged through her as she wandered her home, recalling the many dreams where she had run down the corridors chased by wyverns, the Merofynian symbol. She should have heeded those dreams instead of trying to quell them with dreamless-sleep.

Halcyon must have been watching over Piro, for she found herself near the goddess's chantry with no memory of how she got there. She had slept under the nave last night. With the wardess dead there was only the healer to serve the temple and both Halcyon and Sylion's healers had been caring for her father. So the chantry would be empty of nuns.

As Piro had suspected it was empty of church officials, but thick with the scent of burning votive candles and full of desperate townspeople, praying to the goddess to bring them to safety. Piro entered, just one more desperate penitent. She ignored her royal family's private box and found a dark corner where she prayed, then dozed.

Not the cold, not the hard stone or the crowding, nothing could not stop her from falling into the deep sleep. Tomorrow was another day. Things would be better.

She had to believe this.

Fyn should have been asleep on the stone hearth in front of Lame Klimen's fire but he could not rest. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw himself fleeing down the abbey's stair while the others held off the Merofynians on the landing above.

He knew it was illogical to feel guilty about leaving the old masters and his fellow acolytes to die - without him, Lenny and the rest of the boys would have been trapped and killed. But this did not stop the sick rush of emotion.

It had been the kind of critical tactical decision the weapons master had been training him for all this time and he understood it, even if he didn't like it.

What really ate away at him was the knowledge that, if he hadn't frozen, the abbot might still be alive and able to rebuild the abbey.

Why had he seized up? He'd never failed in practice.

That was practice, this was nothing like the bouts with the weapons master.

Oakstand had taught that sometimes it was necessary to kill to save an innocent life. But when Fyn had imagined enemies they were faceless warriors with bad hearts, not ordinary men like his father's loyal men-at-arms, whose misfortune it was to serve the wrong king.

He rolled over and tried to think of something pleasant. At least Piro was safe in Rolenhold. But this didn't make him feel any better. He felt a niggle of worry every time he thought of her.

Feldspar jerked awake, alert and troubled, hand pressed to his heart.

'Bad dream?' Fyn asked, lifting on one elbow.

Feldspar inhaled sharply and sat up. 'Don't you feel it? My Affinity is itching like a -' His eyes widened and he glanced down to where his hand pressed to his heart. No, not to his heart. He pulled the Fate out from under his vest.

The seashell-shaped stone glowed fiercely, bright as a captured star. Fyn swallowed.

'It's beautiful,' Joff marvelled, as he, also, sat up. 'Perhaps the goddess herself has seen our plight and seeks to comfort us.'

Feldspar's hand closed over the stone, trapping the light so that only a deep orange seeped through the crevices between his fingers. Fyn wondered if it felt as hot as it appeared. As he watched, his friend's beatific expression faded and a sheen of sweat covered his skin. Feldspar's breath caught in a gasp and, when another breath failed to follow, Fyn grabbed the hand that held the Fate intending to prise it free, but...

...the instant he made contact with the Fate, a vision swamped him.

Cold leached into the very marrow of his bones. As good as dead, he lay wedged between bloodied corpses. Above him on the edge of a rocky ledge, torch-wielding men tossed another body over and it plummeted down, landing on top of him, burying him alive. His heart tried to climb out of his throat.

An imperative came to him.

Run. Leave the abbey. Flee for your lives. We are betrayed!

Fyn tried to run but his body wouldn't obey. His legs felt strangely stiff and disjointed. He recognised that terrifying dream sensation, where every movement takes incredible effort and happens too slowly. Yet he knew this wasn't a dream. It was a vision, and it was imperative he escape. It felt as if his heart would burst with the effort.