Prince of Thorns (22 page)

43

“Explain it to me again.” Makin leaned forward in the saddle to be heard above the rain. “Your father stabs you, but it’s to Count Renar’s castle we’re going so you can cut yourself some revenge?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not even the Count we’re after. Not him that sent your sainted mother on her way, but some old charm seller?”

“Right.”

“Who had you and the Nuban at his mercy when you first ran from home. And let you go without so much as a beating?”

“I think he put a spell on the Nuban’s crossbow,” I said.

“Well, if he did, it must have been to prevent it missing. The Nuban could stop an army with that thing. Given the right spot.”

“There wasn’t much that the Nuban missed, true enough,” I said.

“So?”

“So?”

“So, I don’t understand why we’re out here in the pissing rain on stolen nags, riding into the worst kind of danger.”

I rubbed my jaw where he’d hit me. It felt sore. The coldness of the rain did little to ease it.

“What’s the world about, Makin?”

He looked at me, eyes narrowed against the wetness of the wind.

“I never had time for those philosophers of yours, Jorg. I’m a soldier, and that’s the end of it.”

“So you’re a soldier. What’s the world about?”

“War.” He set a hand to the hilt of his sword, unconscious of the action. “The Hundred War.”

“And what’s that about, soldier?” I asked.

“A hundred noble-born fighting across as many lands for the Empire throne.”

“That’s what I always thought,” I said.

The rain came down harder, bouncing off the backs of my hands with a sting as if it carried ice. Ahead, at a place where the road forked, I could see a glow, three of them in fact, three patches of warm light.

“Tavern up ahead.” I spat water.

“So aren’t we fighting for the Empire then?” Makin kept pace, though his horse slipped in the mud torrent at the roadside.

“I killed Price here,” I said. “Outside this inn. They called it The Three Frogs back then.”

“Price?”

“Little Rikey’s big brother,” I said. “You never met him. Made Rike look like a gentleman.”

“Oh right, I remember the story. The brothers told it around the fire once or twice when Rikey was off on some private whoring.”

We reached the inn. They still called it The Three Frogs if the sign was anything to go by.

“I’ll bet they didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“Brained him with a rock, didn’t you? Now you mention it, none of them was too keen to talk about it.”

“Me and the Nuban had come down out of the highlands. We didn’t speak the whole time. I had Corion in my head, or the touch of him, like a black hole behind my eyes.

“We didn’t expect to see the brothers. We’d arranged to meet a week earlier on the other side of Ancrath. But I’d called the Nuban on his debt, and off we’d gone.

“Anyhow, there they were. A score of horses on the road, the flame just starting to lick the thatch. Burlow over by that tree, there, with a keg of ale all to his-self. Young Sim, axe on high, chasing a pig. And out comes Price, bending low to fit through the door, smoke billowing around him as if he was the devil himself, and dragging the landlord, one hand round the man’s neck, not choking him, mind: Price could get his mitts all the way round a man’s neck without so much as pinching.

“Price sees me and it’s like something explodes inside him. He knocks the landlord against the doorframe, and there’s brains everywhere. Keeps his stare nailed to me the whole time.

“‘You little bastard. I’m going to open you up.’

“He didn’t shout it, but there wasn’t one of the brothers who didn’t hear him. Me and the Nuban were thirty yards off still, and it was like he’d hissed it into my ear.

“ ‘With a big crossbow like that, I bet you could hit him between the eyes from here,’ I told the Nuban.

“‘No,’ he said. Didn’t sound like the Nuban though. Sounded like a dry voice I’d heard before. ‘They have to see you do it.’

“Price came on at a stroll. I didn’t have any illusions that I could stop him, but running wasn’t an option, so I thought I might as well have a go.

“I picked up a stone. A smooth one. Fit my hand like it was made for me.

“ ‘David had a sling,’ Price said. He had an ugly smile on him.

“ ‘Goliath was worth one.’

“He was only strolling, but thirty yards never seemed to vanish so fast.

“‘What’s got you so riled anyhow? You missed the Nuban that much?’ I thought I might as well find out what I was going to die for.

“ ‘I . . .’ He seemed foxed at that. Had a distant look, like he was trying to see something I couldn’t.

“I took the moment to let fly. With a stone like that you can’t miss. It hit him in the right eye. Really hard. Even a monster like Price notices that sort of thing. He made an awful howling. You’d have shat yourself if you heard it, Makin, if you’d known he was after you.

“So, I crouched down, and my hands just found another couple of stones, each as perfect as the first one.

“Price is still hopping about, with a hand pressed to his eye and a goo leaking past his fingers.

“ ‘Hey, Goliath!’

“That got his attention. I crack my arm out and let go a second stone. Hits him in the good eye. He roars like a mad beast and charges. I put that last stone through his front teeth and down the back of his throat.

“I tell you, Makin, they were all impossible throws. Not lucky, impossible. I’ve never thrown like that since.

“Anyhow, I step out of his way, and he blunders on for ten yards before going down, choking. I’d put that third one right into his windpipe.

“I pick up the biggest rock I can from that drystone wall over there, and I follow him. He’d probably have choked to death by himself. He had that hanged-man purple look by the time I got there. But I don’t like to leave things to chance.

“He’s half-crawling, blind. And the stink of him, soiled most every way there is. I almost felt sorry for the bastard.

“I didn’t think his skull would break first time. But it did.”

Makin, stepped off his horse, ankle-deep into mud. “We could go inside.”

I didn’t feel the weather any more. I felt the heat of the day I killed Price. The smoothness of the small stones, the coarse weight of the rock I’d used to end it.

“It was Corion that guided my hand. And I think it was Sageous who set Price on me. Father reckons the dream-witch serves him, but that’s not the way of it. Sageous saw that Corion had sunk his hooks into me, he saw he’d lost his new pawn’s heir, so he infected Price’s dreams and fanned the hatred there just a little bit. It wouldn’t have taken much.

“They play us, Makin. We’re pieces on their board.”

He had a smile at that, through torn lips. “We’re all pieces on someone’s board, Jorg.” He went to the tavern door. “You’ve played me often enough.”

I followed him through into the warm reek of the main room. The hearth held a single log, sizzling and giving out more smoke than heat. The small bar held a dozen or so. Locals by the look of them.

“Ah! The smell of wet peasants.” I threw my sodden cloak over the nearest table. “Nothing beats it.”

“Ale!” Makin pulled up a stool. A space began to clear around us.

“Meat too,” I said. “Cow. Last time I came here we ate roast dog, and the landlord died.” It was true enough, though not in that order.

“So,” Makin said. “This Corion just had to click his fingers on your first meeting, and you and the Nuban keeled over. What’s to stop him doing it again?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“Even a gambler likes to stand a chance, Prince.” Makin took two glazed jugs from the serving wench, both over-running with foam.

“I’ve grown a bit since we last met,” I said. “Sageous didn’t find me so easy.”

Makin drank deep.

“But there’s more. I took something from that necromancer.” I could taste his heart, bitter on my tongue. I swigged from my jug. “Bit off something to chew on. I’ve got a pinch of magic in me, Makin. Whatever runs in the veins of that dead bitch who did for the Nuban, that little girl too, who ran with the monsters, whatever kept her glowing, well, I’ve got a spark of it now.”

Makin wiped the foam from his dungeon-grown moustache. He managed to convey his disbelief with the slightest arching of a brow. I hauled up my shirt. Well, not
my
shirt, but something Katherine must have selected for me. Where Father’s knife had found me, a thin black line ran across my hairless chest. Black veins ran from the wound, reaching out over my ribs, up for my throat.

“Whatever my father is, he isn’t inept,” I said. “I should have died.”

44

They call the castle “The Haunt.” When you ride up the valley of an evening, with the sun going down behind the towers, you can see why. The place has that classic brooding malice about it. The high windows are dark, the town below the gates lies in shadow, the flags hang lifeless. It brings to mind an empty skull. Without the cheery grin.

“So the plan is?” Makin asked.

I gave him a smile. We nosed the horses up the road, past a wagon creaking beneath a load of barrels.

“We seem to have arrived in time for tourney,” Makin said. “Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

“Well, we’ve come for a test of strength haven’t we?” I’d been trying to make out the pennants on the pavilions lining the east side of the tourney field. “Better to keep incognito for now though.”

“So about this plan—” The scattered thunder of approaching hooves cut him off.

We looked back over our shoulders. A tight knot of horsemen was closing fast, half a dozen, the leader in full plate armour, long shadows thrown behind them.

“Nice bit of tourney plate.” I turned my nag in the road.

“Jorg—” It was Makin’s day for getting cut off.

“Make way!” The lead horseman bellowed loud enough, but I chose not to hear him.

“Make way, peasants!” He pulled up rather than go around. Five riders drew alongside him, house-troops in chainmail, their horses lathered.

“Peasants?” I knew we looked down-at-heel, but we hardly counted as peasants. My fingers found the empty space where my sword should hang. “Who might we be clearing a path for, now?” I recognized their colours, but asked by way of insult.

The man on the knight’s left spoke up. “Sir Alain Kennick, heir to the county of Kennick, knight of the long—”

“Yes, yes.” I held up a hand. The man fell silent, fixing me with a pale eye from beneath the rim of his iron helm. “Heir to the Barony of Kennick. Son of the notoriously blubbery Baron Kennick.” I rubbed at my chin hoping that the grime there might pass as stubble in the half-light. “But these are Renar lands. I thought the men of Kennick weren’t welcome here.”

Alain drew his steel at that, four foot of Builder-steel cutting a bloody edge from the sunset.

“I’ll not be debated in the road by some peasant boy!” His voice held a whine to it. He lifted his faceplate, then took the reins.

“I heard that the Baron and Count Renar made up their differences after Marclos got himself killed,” Makin said. I knew he’d have his hand on the flail we inherited with the horses. “Baron Kennick withdrew his accusations that Renar was behind the burning of Mabberton.”

“Actually it was me that burned Mabberton,” I said. I had to wonder, though. I might have been the one to put torch to thatch. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But whose good idea was it? Corion’s perhaps.

“You?” Alain snorted.

“I had a hand in Marclos’s death too,” I said. I kept his eyes and edged my horse closer. Without weapon or armour I didn’t present much of a threat.

“I heard that the Prince of Ancrath turned Marclos’s column with a dozen men,” Makin added.

“Did we have a full dozen, Sir Makin?” I asked in my best court voice. I kept my eyes on Alain and ignored his men. “Perhaps we did. Well, no matter, I like these odds better.”

“What are—” Alain glanced to either side where the hedgerow seethed with possibilities.

“You’re worried about an ambush, Alain?” I asked. “You think Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath and the captain of his father’s guard can’t take six Kennick dogs in the road?”

Whatever Alain might think, I could tell his men had heard their fill of Norwood stories. They’d heard of the Mad Prince and his road hounds. They’d heard how ragged warriors burst from the ruins, stood their ground, and broke a force ten times their number.

Something grunted in the gloom to our right. If Alain’s men had any doubt that they were already targeted by bandits in the shadows, the grunt of a small forager hunting grubs was enough to convince them otherwise.

“Now! Attack!” I yelled it for the benefit of my non-existent ambush party, and flung myself from my saddle, dragging Alain off his horse.

The fight went out of Alain as soon as we hit the sod, which was good because the fall knocked all the wind out of me, and a clash of heads set me seeing stars.

I heard the whack of Makin’s flail and the thump of retreating hooves. With a heave and a clatter I disentangled myself from Alain.

“Best get out of here quick, Jorg.” Makin was heading back after the briefest of pursuits. “Won’t take them long to work out we’re alone.”

I found Alain’s sword. “They won’t be back.”

Makin frowned at me. “Head-butting a helmed knight scrambled your brains?”

I rubbed at the sore spot, fingers coming away bloody.

“We’ve got Alain. A hostage or a corpse. They don’t know which.”

“He looks dead to me,” Makin said.

“Broke his neck, I think. But that’s not the point. The point is that they know they’re not getting him back in one piece, so they’ll be looking to their own escape. There’s no going back to Kennick for those lads now. No welcome in The Haunt either. They’ll know Renar won’t want any part of this.”

“So what now?”

“We get him off the road. That beer wagon is going to come by here in a few minutes.” I threw a look down the road. “Hitch him to his horse. We’ll drag him into the wheat field.”

We took the armour off him in the gloom, amongst the wheat still wet from the day’s rain. It stunk a bit—Alain had soiled himself in death—but it was a good fit for me, if a bit roomy around the waist.

“What do you think?” I stepped back for Makin to admire me.

“Can’t see a damn thing.”

“I look good, trust me.” I half-drew Alain’s sword, then slammed it back into its scabbard. “I think I’ll give the jousts a miss.”

“Very wise.”

“The Grand Mêlée is more me. And the winner gets his prize from Count Renar himself!”

“That’s not a plan. That’s a way to get a death so famously stupid that they’ll be laughing about it in alehouses for a hundred years to come,” Makin said.

I started to clank back toward the road, leading Alain’s horse.

“You’re right, Makin, but I’m running out of options here.”

“We could hit the road again. Get a little gold together, get some more, enough to make lives somewhere they’ve never heard of Ancrath.” I could see a longing in his eyes. Part of him really meant it.

I grinned. “I may be running out of options, but running out isn’t an option. Not for me.”

We rode toward The Haunt. Slowly. I didn’t want to visit the tourney field yet. We had no tent to pitch, and the Kennick colours would inevitably draw me deeper into the charade than my acting skills could support.

As we came out of the farmland into the sprawl of houses reaching from the castle walls, a hedge-knight caught up with us and pulled up.

“Well met, sir . . . ?” He sounded out of breath.

“Alain of Kennick,” I supplied.

“Kennick? I thought . . .”

“We have an alliance now, Renar and Kennick are the best of friends these days.”

“Good to hear. A man needs friends in times like these,” the knight said. “Sir Keldon, by the way. I’m here for the lists. Count Renar places generous purses where a good lance can reach them.”

“So I hear,” I said.

Sir Keldon fell in beside us. “I’m pleased to be off the plains,” he said. “They’re lousy with Ancrath scouts.”

“Ancrath?” Makin failed to keep the alarm from his voice.

“You haven’t heard?” Sir Keldon glanced back into the night. “They say King Olidan is massing his armies. Nobody’s sure where he’ll strike, but he’s sent the Forest Watch into action. Most of them are back there if I know anything!” He stabbed a gauntleted finger over his shoulder. “And you know what that meant for Gelleth!” He drew the finger across his throat.

We reached the crossroads at the town centre. Sir Keldon turned his horse to the left. “You’re to the Field?”

“No, we’ve to pay our respects.” I nodded toward The Haunt. “Good luck on the morrow.”

“My thanks.”

We watched him go.

I turned Alain’s horse back toward the plains.

“I thought we were going to pay our respects?” Makin asked.

“We are,” I said.

I kicked my steed into a trot. “To Watch Master Coddin.”