Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (2 page)

I keep my eyes fixed on the door ahead as I approach it, not looking at the soldiers on either side, doing my very best to seem bored, even a little vacant. Nothing special here, nothing worth paying any mind to. Just another villager, attending the assembly. To my immense relief they don’t even spare me a glance as I step out of the drizzle and into the run-down House of Justice, and I exhale slowly as I pass them, some of my tension easing.

It’s no warmer inside, and I pull my cloak tighter around me as I walk to the chamber where Chanse Unwin, self-appointed Justice of Almwyk, will brief us on the latest word from the Council of Tregellan. Rainwater drips from my hair, down my nose, as I look at the rows of wooden benches and chairs lined up to face the podium at the front of the room; far too many seats for the remaining villagers to fill. Despite how few of us there are, the room stinks and I wrinkle my nose at it: unwashed bodies, wet wool, leather, metal and fear, all creating a soupy, musty perfume. This is what despair smells like.

Those of us who are still clinging to life here are wet and shivering. Bitter air and autumn rain have seeped through our thin, threadbare clothes, and into our skin, where it feels as though they’ll remain for the whole of winter. The soldiers lined up neatly against the walls, on the other hand, are bone dry, and look warm enough in thick green woollen tunics and tough leather breeches, their watchful eyes roving throughout the room.

There is a scuffling behind me and I turn in time to see them stop the man behind me and force him against the wall, patting him down and examining his cloak and hood before releasing him. Heat rushes to my face as I look away, pretending not to have seen.

Ducking my head again, I slink along the back row, taking a seat on a bench a good six feet away from my nearest neighbour. She grunts, possibly a greeting, though more likely a warning, and her hand rises to touch a charm hanging on a leather cord around her neck. I peek at it from the corner of my eye, watching the gold disc gleam between her gnarled fingers before she tucks it away inside her cloak. I know what it is, though I doubt it’s real gold. If it were real gold someone would have had it off her neck by now – Gods, if it were real gold,
I
might have had it off her neck. At least if it were gold it would be worth something.

My friend Silas laughed when I told him the villagers were wearing charms to protect themselves from the Sleeping Prince, and I laughed with him, though I secretly thought it wasn’t all that strange to put faith in eldritch magic, under the circumstances. Crescent moons made of salt and bread are hung on almost every door and window in the village; medallions etched with three gold stars are tucked inside collars. The Sleeping Prince is a thing of magic, and myth, and superstition. If I’m generous, I can see why it seems natural to try to fight back with magic, myth and superstition. But I know, deep down, that no amount of cheap tin pendants will keep him from coming if he wants to. No salt-strewn thresholds, or holly berries and oak twigs hung over windows and doors, will stop him if he decides to take Tregellan. If a castle full of guards couldn’t stop him, a metal disc and some shrubbery isn’t likely to.

Before he came back, hardly anyone in Tregellan would have put their faith in something so irrational; it’s not the Tregellian way. There might be the occasional crackpot who still believes in the Oak and the Holly and paints their face and their arse red with berry juice every solstice, but that’s not how most of us live. We’re not Lormerians, with their temples and their living goddesses, and their creepy royal family. We’re people of science, and reason. Or at least I thought we were. I suppose it’s hard to remain on the side of reason when a five-hundred-year-old fairy tale comes to life and lays waste to the castle and the people in the country next door.

Be a good girl, or the Bringer will come, and then the Sleeping Prince will eat your heart
, that’s what girls in Tremayne were told. He was a fairy-tale monster, a story to make us obedient, a cautionary tale against greed and autocracy. We never dreamed that he’d wake up. We’d forgotten that he was real.

I turn away from the woman and begin my catalogue of who’s left in Almwyk, accidentally catching the eye of one of the soldiers, who nods at me, causing the ever-present tightness in my chest to squeeze a little more. I nod back curtly and break the eye contact, trying to stay calm, resisting the urge to pat my pocket and make sure the vial is still there.

I’m really not cut out for drug smuggling. I checked the vial at least six times on the way here, despite the fact I didn’t see a single other soul, let alone have someone come close enough to pick my pockets. Then again, you can’t be too careful in Almwyk.

Almwyk, by and large, isn’t the kind of village where you’re friendly with your neighbours. Here asking for help or showing weakness of any kind is likely, at best, to result in being laughed at. At worst, it could mean a knife in your kidney if you ask the wrong person at the wrong time. Before the soldiers came it wasn’t uncommon for a body to be hauled into, or out of, the woods, and we all turned a blind eye to it. You learn quickly to be blind here.

The derelict cottages that make up Almwyk are the home to the desperate and the damned: those who lost their real homes and lives in other parts of Tregellan for crimes they’ll never, ever confess to. People always say that in times of great need, like war and disease, communities come together, support one another. Not in Almwyk. As the war has crept closer the cottages have slowly evacuated, and those remaining have descended on them, ripping out whatever they can for their own needs. I bet it’s a matter of time before occupancy isn’t an obstacle to the scavengers, when the instinct to grasp at anything that might make surviving easier will be stronger than basic courtesy. Even now I glance around the room, noting who remains, who is the likeliest threat.

It’s a game I like to play sometimes, trying to guess the crimes of the people still here. The worst criminals – murderers and the like – evaporated the moment the soldiers arrived, which leaves the middling dregs: the debtors, drunks, addicts, gamblers and liars. The poor and the unlucky. The ones who can’t leave because there is nowhere else for them to go.

This isn’t a place people come to live; it’s a place people come to rot.

I bunch my fists under my ragged cloak and watch my frozen breath hover in the air as I exhale, before it scatters, mingling with everyone else’s, adding to the damp fug in the room. The thick glass windows are rimed with condensation, and I hate the feeling that I’m breathing in my neighbours’ breaths, hate knowing that even the air I breathe these days is second-hand, or stolen. I can hardly breathe as it is.

When it seems everyone who’s coming has arrived, sitting dotted around the room like the last of the raisins in a sad plum pudding, Chanse Unwin – surely the realm’s most ironic Justice – strides into the room, chest puffed out, scanning every face. When his eyes land on me he half smiles a greeting, and my skin crawls as his smile rearranges itself into a concerned frown, or a parody of one. He looks so sweaty that I’m surprised the frown doesn’t slide clean off his face.

He’s flanked by the two grim-faced, green-coated soldiers who were manning the door outside, and they’re joined, unusually, by their captain, a red sash across his barrel chest. When six more soldiers follow them and position themselves around the edges of the space, the atmosphere in the room ripples and tightens.

Instantly I sit upright, alert as a hare, and around me every single one of my neighbours does the same; even the woman who grunted at me when I sat down unfurls from her crone-like hunch to glower over at Unwin. As my hand glides to my belt to check for my knife, I see other hands moving to boot tops and waists, all of us wanting the reassurance that we’re armed.

Whatever this meeting is about, Unwin clearly expects the news to be taken badly, and my heart sinks because there’s only one thing he could possibly say at this point that would make us mutinous. The already scant air feels as though it’s congealing in my throat.

Chanse Unwin looks around the room once more, taking us all in, before pressing his palms together. “I have news from the Council in Tressalyn,” he says, his voice unctuous and self-satisfied. “And it is not good. Three nights ago the Sleeping Prince’s golems attacked the Lormerian town of Haga. They destroyed the two temples there, and once again left no survivors. They slaughtered anyone who refused to bend the knee to him, some four hundred souls. This attack follows the sacking of the temples in Monkham and Lortune, and brings his army within fifty miles of the border between us and Lormere. Based on this pattern, the Council believes he’ll march on Chargate next.”

At this everyone turns to their neighbour with raised eyebrows, petty local arguments and generations-old feuds forgotten as they begin to murmur to one another. I don’t look at anyone. Instead I squeeze my fingers around the hilt of my knife and take a deep breath. Chargate is on the other side of the trees; it’s Almwyk’s Lormerian counterpart. It would put the golems merely hours away from us, the other side of the wood.

Unwin clears his throat, and the whispering dies away. “The Council concludes that its attempts to negotiate with the Sleeping Prince have failed. He has outright refused to sign a treaty of peace with Tregellan and will not deny that he plans to invade.” His gaze flickers briefly to the captain, who smirks and glances at one of the other soldiers, making me wonder how much Unwin truly knows of what he’s reporting, and what he’s merely been told to relate. “Because of this,” Unwin continues, “the Council has sat in emergency session, and unanimously decided that we have no choice but to declare a state of war in Tregellan.”

He pauses dramatically, as if expecting us to make some protest. But we say and do nothing, remaining stony-faced and silent, saving our reactions until he gets to the crux of the matter, the part that affects us, and warrants fifteen of the newly mustered Tregellian army’s finest in a room where we barely outnumber them.

Realizing this, he continues. “Last night the Tregellian army sealed the border from the River Aurmere to the Cliffs of Tressamere. Including the East Woods.” He pauses and the whole world narrows to this room, to these words.
Don’t say it.
I concentrate as hard as I can.
Don’t say it.

“All trade and traffic between here and Lormere is prohibited from now on. The border is closed. Anyone caught trying to cross it will be killed on sight.”

We draw in our breath as one, taking all the air from the room.

“Given its strategic position, the village has been requisitioned as a barracks and base of operations for the garrison defending the border. Almwyk is to be evacuated. Immediately.”

No.
There is the tiniest fragment of a moment in which the news filters into the brains of the occupants of the room.

Then all hell breaks loose.

I found out about the meeting when Chanse Unwin rapped on my door before the sun had risen this morning. I’d finally fallen asleep an hour or two before dawn, and I’d been dreaming of the man again. This time we were standing on the bridge over the river, near my old home in Tremayne. It was summer; silver fish darted in the clear water beneath us, and the sun beat down on us, making my scalp warm. I was dressed in my old apprentice’s uniform. The dress was blue and clean, the many pockets of my apron full of small vials and plants and powders. I could smell them, the herby, pungent tang of rosemary and willow bark and pine: scents that meant home and knowledge, work and happiness. I reached into one of the pockets and let my fingers drift through dried leaves as I listened to him speak.

He was tall, thin, cloaked and hooded despite the warm weather, and he stooped as he spoke, his body curved towards me, making us a circle of two as he told me some tale, his hands moving gracefully through the air to illustrate his story. The words were lost immediately, in the way they often are in dreams, but the feelings they evoked remained, and I knew his words had been chosen to make me laugh – really laugh – deep, creasing belly laughs that had me clutching my stomach with the pain of so much joy. He smiled at my delight and it made it all the sweeter.

When I finally stopped laughing, I turned to him and watched as he rummaged inside his cloak. He pulled out a small doll and pushed it towards me, sliding it over the stone of the bridge. I reached out, taking it, my fingers brushing against his. I heard his breath catch and it made my stomach ache in a different sort of way.

“What is it?” I asked, looking at the tiny figure.

“It’s you,” he replied. “I like to carry you with me. I like to keep you close. To watch over you.”

Then he took the doll back, plucking it from where I’d held it cradled in my hand and replacing it carefully in the folds of his cloak, while I watched, my heart beating double time inside me. Though I couldn’t see his face, I could tell he was looking at me and I blushed, which prompted him to smile softly, his lips parting, his tongue moistening them.

The thumping of my heart grew louder as he moved closer, until suddenly it became the insistent banging of the front door, and I was yanked out of my summer dream to hear rain beating against the wooden shutters. The pain in my stomach wasn’t from laughing but from hunger, and the dream drifted away like a broken spiderweb. I was both heartbroken and relieved. It was bittersweet here in Almwyk, in winter, to think of Tremayne in the sun.

Stretching as best I could, I hauled myself up from the pallet on the floor, pulling one of the blankets around me as a makeshift cloak, and hit my knee against the table leg with a hollow crack that knocked me sick. I took advantage of the relative privacy to swear violently while the rapping on the front door continued, rhythmic as a pulse.

When I opened it, Chanse Unwin stood there, pale, fleshy lips split into a grin as he looked me up and down. My skin prickled as his eyes roamed over my blanket-draped body.

“Errin, good morning. Have I woken you?”

“Of course not, Mr Unwin.” My answering smile was all teeth.

His grin widened. “Good, good. I would hate to think I’d inconvenienced you. May I speak with your mother?”

“I’m afraid she’s not here.”

He peered behind me as if he expected to see her hiding there.

“Not here?” he said, nodding towards the sun peeping through the trees of the East Woods. “But the curfew is barely ended. Surely I would have seen her had she just left.”

“I can’t understand how you didn’t,” I said blandly. “She left a few moments before you knocked. In fact, I thought at first you were her returned, having forgotten something.”

“Hence answering in a state of undress.” He leered at me, taking the chance to drag his gaze up and down my form again.

I pulled my blanket cloak closer. I’d overheard enough gossip at the well to know Unwin has been in Almwyk a good twenty years. For all his veneer of respectability, the rumours say that he ended up here for the same reason we all did – he was out of options and unwelcome anywhere else. It’s said that he created Almwyk from the ruins of an old hunting village of the royals, and began to regulate it, first as a black-market hub, then as a village, to make it turn a profit for him. By the time officials came to investigate, he was doing his best impression of repentance and atonement, offering shelter to the needy for a pittance and keeping them in check. Justice of Almwyk.

“I’m surprised you opened the door; I could have been anyone. These are desperate times, people with nothing to lose … soldiers miles from their homes, their girls. Refugees out for what they can get.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t. But I suspect my face said everything I was too wary to say aloud.

“You might feel full of compassion for these people now, but when they’re cold, and starving, and then night falls…” Unwin leant in. “You have no protection.” He looked up at the empty lintel of the door, before pulling a handful of berries and a gold disc from his pocket and holding them out to me. “Against mortal men, or the Sleeping Prince.”

I didn’t believe that Unwin had faith in the idea of charms and amulets any more than I did, but I kept it to myself. “You’re very kind, but I wouldn’t like to leave you vulnerable.”

“I’d be happy to come inside and wait with you until your mother returns; that way we can both benefit from the protection I’m offering.”

It took a lot of effort for me to remain polite when I replied. “Thank you for such a generous offer, but I’d hate to steal your time and I have a few errands of my own to run this morning. In fact I really must get on. Goodbye, then.” I began to close the door, but he wedged his foot in the gap.

His eyes narrowed further, until they were slits above his florid cheeks, and he put his amulet away. “Everything is all right here, isn’t it?” he said slowly. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about your brother? You can trust me, you know. I am a friend to you. And your mother. I’d be happy to help, if you’d only ask.”

“It’s fine, Mr Unwin. Everything is fine. My mother likes to keep busy, that’s all.”

“Clearly. It’s surely weeks since I saw her last. Moons, even. Though I’m sure she’ll be eager to attend today’s meeting.”

My stomach cramped with dread. “A meeting?”

He clapped a hand to his forehead theatrically. “Have I not yet said? My, how you distract me! I’ve had word from the Council in Tressalyn. They’ve sent a messenger with an important announcement. I’m at haste to call everyone to the House of Justice to hear it.”

“Then you must let me keep you no longer.”

His face twisted into a grimace of annoyance and I knew I’d gone too far; I never have been much good at holding my tongue. But within seconds he mastered himself. The broken veins on his cheeks danced as he contorted his lips back into a grin.

“You’re too kind. Too diligent by far; it’s unusual in a young woman. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste. I admire it, though. I find your directness refreshing. I’m sure you value it in others, too, so I shan’t beat about the bush or offend you by being unclear. I’m also here for the rent. You still owe me two florins from last moon. I thought I’d save you the trouble of bringing it to me, seeing as I had to deliver my own message to you.”

“Of course,” I replied. “I’d not forgotten. As it happens, now I think on it, that’s the errand that took my mother away so early. It seems you’re at cross purposes here.”

“I fear so,” he said darkly. “Still, I trust I’ll see you both at the meeting, and you can give me the four florins afterwards.”

“Four florins? The rent is two.”

“Interest, Errin. Sadly I’ve had to borrow money to cover your late payment. I have obligations too, you know. So I’ll need a little extra from you this time. You understand, I’m sure. Not many landlords would let a tenant stay on without paying the rent. But, as I said, I’m your friend.” His smile was sickly with triumph. “I want nothing more than to aid you.”

I fumed. He was lying, taking advantage in the worst way because of the hole I’d dug for myself. He knew I could barely afford the two florins I already owed.

“That won’t be a problem, will it? Because you can talk to me if it is. We can negotiate.” He licked his lips, and immediately I was grateful for my empty stomach.

“It’s fine, Mr Unwin. I’m sure my mother has it under control.”

Unwin’s smile faltered and an ugly expression flickered across his face. “The meeting starts at three sharp. Until later, then.” He reached for my hand and pulled it to his lips, bowing to me.

Giving my body a final sweep with his eyes, he turned away and I closed the door, leaning heavily against it as I listened to him walk away, unable to suppress a shudder.

Four florins. There was one still hidden in the pot. The last of what we had, kept back for emergencies. Thank the Holly for Silas, I reminded myself. I’d have to find him before the meeting. With luck he’d have another order for me and offer payment up front.

But the temporary relief was cut short at the sound of more banging. This time at the other door. The one that led to the bedroom.

When I opened the bedroom door, I narrowly missed being hit in the head by the object flung at me from the dark room. I ducked, but not quickly enough. The enamel chamber pot had hit me in the shoulder and urine had soaked the blanket still wrapped around me, seeping through it into my tunic. My mother was crouched on the bed, her teeth bared, her eyes feral, tinged with red as she poised to leap at me.

“Mama?” I said quietly.

I barely closed the door in time. The second the lock clicked, she slammed against it. I leant against the door as she started pounding it, then walked shakily into the kitchen.

Too close.

I waited until the sun was fully up before I returned to my mother. I found her wedged between the bed and the wall, curled up and staring silently out past me.

“Mama?” I said softly, moving slowly towards her, keeping a clear path to the door in case she was still mostly beast; I’ve been fooled by her before.

I lifted her gently until she was standing, trying not to wince at how insubstantial she felt in my arms. The rushes on the floor rustled softly as she dragged her feet through them, and I made a note to seek out the soiled ones and replace them. In truth they all needed replacing, but money is as thin on the ground as the rushes on our floor. I braced her against the battered rocking chair and collected fresh water and a cloth.

It doesn’t matter how many times I do it; it always feels strange to clean her. Her skin was papery, shifting as the cloth dragged over it, fragile as a moth’s wing. The scratches on her forearms are healed, leaving a map of silvery scars that gleam in the candlelight. Those I dabbed at with extra care, even as I tried not to look at them.

When I raised her arms to put a clean nightgown on her she held them up obediently, allowing me to move her as though she were a doll.

I prefer it when she’s violent.

Once upon a time there was a young apprentice apothecary who lived on a red-brick farm with a golden thatch roof, surrounded by green fields. She had a father who called her a “clever girl” and gave her a herb garden all of her own, and a mother who was whole and kind. She had a brother who knew how to smile and laugh.

But then one day her father had an accident and, despite her efforts to save him, he died. And so did all of her hopes and dreams. The farm – the family’s home for generations – was sold. Her mother’s brown hair greyed, her spirit dulled as she drifted towards Almwyk like a wraith, uncomplaining, unfeeling. And her brother, once impulsive and joyful, became cold and hard, his eyes turned east with malice.

If someone had told me six moons ago, before I watched my life slip through my hands like water, that my mother would be cursed, locked away, and drugged by my own hand, I would have laughed in their face. Then I would have kicked them for the insult and laughed again. I would have sooner believed in fairy tales coming true. Of course, we all believe in fairy tales now. The Scarlet Varulv has slunk out of the pages and lives with me in this cottage. The Sleeping Prince has woken and sacked Lormere, an army of alchemy-made golems behind him as he murders his way across the country. Stories are no longer stories; characters run rampant through the world these days. All I’m waiting for is Mully-No-Hands to knock on the window, begging to come in and warm himself, and my life will be complete.

Actually, no, that’s not what I’m waiting for.

The newly declared king, Merek of the House of Belmis, was killed before he had the chance to put the crown on his head, as were all those who refused to swear fealty to the Sleeping Prince, all those who tried to stop his march to the throne.

I saw King Merek in the flesh, a little less than a year past, when he was still a prince. He’d been riding through my old home of Tremayne with a retinue of equally shining and proud young men. Lirys and I exchanged impressed glances, our cheeks flaming so red that my brother scowled at us, and then at the prince atop his white horse. Prince Merek was handsome, almost too handsome, his dark curls framing his face, bobbing as he nodded here and there to acknowledge those throwing flowers and coins into his horse’s path. Tregellan might have done away with its own royals, but we were happy to celebrate the future king of Lormere. He looked how a prince should look.