The Broken World (7 page)

Errol went straight to the stables. He had no luggage other than his purse, no belongings other than his horse. The stable lad was nowhere to be seen, so he saddled up himself.

Out on the open road he felt a little safer. The rider may have been one of Dondal's soldiers, but he looked like a man who needed ale and rest. Errol doubted he would move beyond the tavern much before morning. Still, if there was one looking for him, there would surely be others. And soon the word would be out, his description in every tavern, with every noble between here and the capital.

Errol pressed on, riding slowly through the night. The
road was good and easy to make out in the dark, but every so often there were potholes waiting to catch out the unwary. It was bad enough being tipped off his horse, but if the poor creature injured itself he would be lost. Once he could no longer see the lights of the tavern and village behind him, he dismounted and led the horse instead.

It was a warm night, and the moonless sky was clear, the stars bright overhead. He knew he ought to stop somewhere, hobble the horse and try to get a few hours' sleep, but the thought of the rider kept him going. Only when the road dipped into another gully, lined on either side with scrubby trees, did Errol feel safe enough. He found a spot away from the road, tethered the horse to a tree and settled down against the trunk to sleep.

Dozing fitfully, he slipped in and out of dreams in which Isobel and Poul looked at him in dreadful disappointment. If he had told them the truth, they said, then they would have taken him in, protected him. Then he saw Melyn riding at the head of an army of warrior priests. Only they weren't warrior priests but dragons, and behind them the ground burned, black smoke boiling up into the sky. He tried to turn back to Lord and Lady Gremmil, but they weren't there any more. And this wasn't Castle Gremmil either. He knew where this was. It was Gog's palace.

Almost as if he flew, he sped along the corridors, looking for the long winding stone staircase that would take him up to the top of the highest tower. Errol knew he was dreaming, which added another layer of unreality to the dream. At any moment he might wake, might lose this opportunity, and knowing that made it all the harder to stay asleep.

He moved from the corridors to the tower room in a blink of an eye. Somehow that seemed more natural than anything he had experienced so far. The room was much as he remembered it from his previous visit, only this time he was seeing it from the air rather than the perspective of a young lad. His attention was firmly on the golden cage, still hanging from the rafters like some absurd aviary, and he soared up to it, past it, turning to see inside.

Martha lay huddled on a narrow mattress, asleep. She had rigged up a structure within the cage from bits of stick and blankets to give her some privacy, and to Errol it looked like she had stumbled into the nest of some vast bird. Her face was thin, her long hair ragged and matted. As he watched her, she shivered, drawing her knees up to her chest for warmth. He looked around the huge room, saw the fireplace empty and black, the desk strewn with papers blown about by gusts from the open window. How high up were they here? How cold would it get? Would she freeze to death here, abandoned? She mustn't sleep; he knew that much about the cold. You had to stay awake.

‘Martha!' Errol tried to shout, but his voice sounded distant and muffled.

‘Martha!' She rolled over, eyes still tightly closed, arms wrapped around her legs, head tucked in over her chest. Still his voice was too quiet, almost mumbled.

‘Martha!' This time he shouted with all his might, and at the same instant he realized he had been bodiless, his muscles contracted, pitching him forward. For a moment too terribly short he saw Martha open her eyes, look up, see him. And then he was awake, back in the woods, gasping for air as his horse looked on placidly.

Errol tried to get back to sleep. He slumped back against the tree and closed his eyes tight, but his heart was racing, his mind fully awake. He gave up, full of anguish for Martha's plight, more determined than ever to find Benfro and the other dragon that might or might not be Sir Trefaldwyn.

The air glowed with pre-dawn light as he led his horse back to the road and mounted. Not a mile from his resting place he came upon a series of low buildings, labourers' cottages for a nearby farm. They were still shut up at this early hour, not even a dog or a goose running out to chase him as he rode slowly past. Some even had the look of being unoccupied, but at the last cottage a line of washing was strung between two gnarled apple trees. Shawls, blouses and skirts hung in a row, dry save for the lightest of morning dews. He was reminded of how his mother would sometimes leave clothes out when she knew there would be no rain in the night. ‘It makes them softer,' she had always told him, though sometimes he wondered if it wasn't just that she had been too tired to bring it all in and fold it up.

It came to him in a flash, an idea so daring and yet so obvious he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. A few dozen paces past the row of houses, where he was hidden from view by the trees that surrounded the small hamlet, he stopped and dismounted, then walked quietly back to the washing line. There was no fence separating the road from the garden, and it was a matter of seconds to help himself to what he needed: one skirt of heavy tweed, a pair of canvas trousers of the sort he had seen farm girls wearing, one white cotton blouse and a shawl.
Errol counted out coins from the bag Lord Gremmil had given him, more than enough to compensate for the purloined clothes, and placed them in the pocket of one of the remaining dresses, careful not to let them chink against each other.

By the time he made it back to his horse, the clothes rolled up under one arm, his heart was pounding. And yet he felt a thrill of excitement. He'd got away with it. Only once he had hauled himself back into the saddle and ridden away from the houses did Errol realize just how much he was shaking. What if he had been caught? How would he have even begun to explain to some burly farmer why he was stealing women's clothes?

He rode on, fretting that someone would come galloping up from behind. It could be the rider from the tavern, or the farmer, or Duke Dondal and the king's army. It could have been Inquisitor Melyn come to drag him back to Emmass Fawr. Shaking the fear from his head, Errol kicked his horse into a trot and scanned the horizon for the next copse.

After the incident at Lord Gremmil's grain stores when one of Dondal's soldiers had mistaken him for a girl, Errol had thought of taking a knife to his hair. Not having a knife, he had resorted to tying it in a long ponytail and tucking it down the back of his cloak. Dark as it was, it had gone unnoticed, or at least unremarked in all the places he had stopped since. Now he untied his hair and let it fall over his shoulders. He stripped off the clothes Lady Gremmil had given him, stowing them in his saddlebags along with the skirt, then pulled on the rest of the stolen garments. His cloak already looked like something
a young woman might wear, but he brushed the worst of the road dirt off it before flinging it once more over his shoulders.

He would have liked a glass to check his appearance in, but as Errol rode into the next town he was confident the people glancing up at him would see not the fugitive boy wanted in two countries, but an apprentice healer heading to the city to buy exotic herbs for her mistress.

The killing didn't bother him, but Melyn could never get used to the smell of burning flesh. It hung over the town long after the smoke had cleared, clogging the nostrils and clinging to clothes. Normally it wasn't a problem for him. The villages, with their tiny populations, succumbed to the Grym, the people burned away without smoke or ash. Larger towns he put to the flame, but always he had been able to ride away from the stench.

This place was different. There was little point clearing the northlands if no one knew. He needed word of his army to get out, to draw a large part of King Ballah's army away from the southern border. So at least some of the women and children would be allowed to flee. His warrior priests had met stiffer resistance here than anywhere else too. There had been Llanwennog regular soldiers billeted in the castle, some of King Ballah's personal guard among them. Melyn was glad he had encountered them in a town rather than open country. They had been mostly in their barracks and, far from the border, had not been primed for battle. He was lucky that none of them had been on gate duty either, since the town was well fortified. The alarm hadn't been raised until it was far too late. Even so, it had been their hardest test so far, and he had lost valuable warrior priests in the fight.

Now he sat in the main hall of the castle, trying not to taste the greasy smoke from the pyres. A frightened middle-aged lady stood by the window, staring out across a courtyard slick with blood, still piled with the bodies of the dead. She was pale-skinned for her race, probably a half-breed from one of the earlier vain attempts to bring
the two nations closer together by arranged marriages between the noble houses.

‘You need not fear for your life, Lady Gremmil. Nor for the safety of your serving girls. My men have orders not to harm them.'

‘But they can do what they want to the men. To my husband. Will you leave any man alive?'

Melyn reappraised the woman. It wasn't fear that made her shake, but rage. ‘This is war, my lady,' he said.

‘War? Invasion more like. And just why do you need to wage this war anyway? What did we ever do to your precious Twin Kingdoms that you have to murder innocents?'

‘There have been three separate assassination attempts on Queen Beulah since she ascended to the throne less than a year ago. All of them can be traced directly back to King Ballah. If your king wasn't so keen on toppling our rightful monarch and putting his puppet in her place, we wouldn't have to do everything in our power to stop him.'

Lady Gremmil turned away from him, not answering his accusation. He gazed at the back of her head as she stared out the window again. His captains would start reporting in soon. The town was taken; it was just a matter of mopping up.

A scuffle in the hall outside dragged both his and Lady Gremmil's attention to the door. It was kicked open, and Captain Osgal strode in, dragging another man by the scruff of his neck. He paid no heed to the lady, but hauled his captive up to the table where Melyn sat, then threw the man to the floor.

‘I found him hiding in the stables. Thought you might want to talk to him before I cut off his head, sir.'

Melyn looked down at the cowering figure. He had grey hair and wore an expensive cloak. His fingers were covered in fine jewels, which flashed in the pale light from the window as he held his hands over his head.

‘Well, this is a surprise. I didn't think to see you again so soon.'

The grey-haired man looked up at Melyn's voice. Duke Dondal had managed to avoid injury so far, which only confirmed the inquisitor's low opinion of him. Unlike Lord Gremmil, who had led his men against an army of shadows, trying to buy time for messengers to escape the city.

‘Inquisitor Melyn? But how—' Dondal struggled to his feet, but Osgal floored him again with a well-placed boot.

‘You stay on the floor in front of His Grace.'

‘I had hoped we might run into each other eventually, Dondal. I'm anxious to hear how you managed to keep your head after plotting against your king. After introducing an assassin into his royal palace.'

‘I had no choice, Melyn. The plot was uncovered before I even arrived in Tynhelyg. My only option was to persuade Ballah my plan had always been to hand the boy over to him.'

‘How very convenient for you. And I suppose you gave Ballah all my gold as well. That might have convinced him of your loyalty. Not much consolation for poor old Errol though. Mind you, he fooled us all.'

‘Errol? Errol who?'

Melyn looked up in surprise. He wanted Lady Gremmil
to witness all he did in the castle, so that she could report back to Ballah, but he hadn't anticipated any questions from her.

‘He's of no concern to you. Just a spy.'

‘Oh, so not the Errol Balch we found near death on the king's road then. Only he was a spy, of sorts.'

‘Errol … Balch?' Melyn looked straight at Lady Gremmil, picking out images and memories from her mind. She was remembering a young man with long black hair and an earnest expression. She cared about his well-being for some unaccountable reason. So he had passed through Gremmil. Melyn wondered what had become of the dragon. ‘He's calling himself Balch, is he? How amusing. I wonder if he knows. Tell me, when did you last see him?'

‘It must have been a week ago. Just before Dondal arrived. He said he was carrying a message to the king about a possible invasion from the north. It would seem he was right about that.'

‘The boy's still alive? I thought Queen Beulah had killed him,' said Dondal, first staring at Melyn, then at Lady Gremmil, then back at Melyn.

‘So did she. But Errol's proved himself quite hard to kill on more than one occasion now. We can talk about him later. Right now I want to know how Ballah has deployed his armies in the south.'

‘And why would I tell you that? Assuming, that is, I know anything about it.'

‘Oh come now, Dondal. Why do you do anything? To save your scrawny neck. Osgal.' Melyn nodded at his captain and felt the telltale surge in the Grym as Osgal conjured his blade of fire. It cast an eerie white light
over the room, harsher by far than the smoky daylight outside.

‘Inquisitor, please. I can be of great use to you alive. Ballah would—'

‘Ballah would sell your neck for a handful of beans, Dondal. Why do you suppose he's sent you upcountry when all the important things are happening in the south?' Melyn focused on the duke. He was easy to manipulate; his fear was real and intense. It was a shame he probably didn't know very much about the king's battle plans at all. Still, Melyn was determined to extract every last nugget. He built up an idea of what it might feel like for a blade of fire to burn its way through skin, cauterizing blood vessels as it bit its way down towards the spine, searing through bone.

‘I only know what they discussed at the council of war before Ballah sent me here to recruit more men.' Dondal's words spilled out like water from a broken dam. ‘Geraint was to take the main force to Wrthol to guard that pass. Tordu was in charge of the smaller garrison at Tynewydd. That should have been my command, but—'

‘But Ballah couldn't trust you not to let me in without a fight. He's wise. That's why he's king and you're begging for your life. What of Dafydd? Is he in his father's army, or has Ballah put him in charge of the city defences?'

‘I've not seen Dafydd for months. Nor his wife either. Ballah sent them to Talarddeg to get them out of the way. The boy kept coming up with wild schemes that would only end up getting him killed.'

‘So who's guarding the city then?'

‘Guarding it against what? Any attack would have to
get past Tordu or Geraint. And even then it would have to march for two weeks at least to reach Tynhelyg. Ballah would have plenty of time to prepare the city for a siege.'

‘How many soldiers are garrisoned there now?'

‘A thousand maybe. Plus two hundred of Ballah's palace guard.'

‘So few?' Melyn probed Dondal's mind as he spoke the words, looking for the lie. But it wasn't there.

‘Geraint wanted to leave five thousand men, but Ballah shouted him down. Said if he didn't want them they could go with Tordu's army. Then he sent most of his guard out with the army too.'

‘And what of your own efforts? If the army that met us here is anything to go by, you've not been too successful in drumming up more men. When were you going to slink back to your master and admit your failure?'

‘King Ballah wanted me back in time for the festival. And I've already sent three thousand men to the front, so I don't think he'll be too upset.'

‘The King's Festival? I'd have thought with war looming that would have been cancelled. But no, I suppose that's not Ballah's style.'

Melyn settled back in his chair, digesting the information. If it was true that Tynhelyg was largely unguarded, neither Llanwennog army could ignore his threat. If there were just a way to isolate the king from his palace guard … They were the problem. A thousand men with iron swords were no match for even a hundred warrior priests, but two hundred well-trained magicians would ruin everything. Then again, if the king was outside the city, and with thousands of people gathered for the festivities … The
elements of a plan even more daring than his strike through the forest and into the northlands began to form in Melyn's mind.

‘Lady Gremmil, I said you needn't fear for your life. I'm sorry, but I lied.' He concentrated on the Grym, summoning it to him, channelling it. Lady Gremmil turned at his words, but she scarcely had time to respond. With a mental flick he unleashed a surge of pure energy at her. She let out a tiny ‘Oh' and crumpled to the ground, dead.

‘You …' Dondal's eyes bulged in fear and anger. ‘Did you have to do that?'

‘Regrettable,' Melyn lied. He had rather enjoyed himself. ‘But yes. I had hoped to draw the army from the passes by torching the northlands, but what more tempting a prize than Tynhelyg itself. Osgal.'

‘Wait. Melyn. I can help you. I can—'

Contrary to the image the inquisitor had put in the duke's mind, this blade of fire cut without heat and didn't cauterize as it went. Dondal's blood sprayed wide over the wooden floorboards as his head clattered to the floor, separated from his neck by Osgal's swift stroke.

‘Come on, you old nag. You can do better than that. Call yourself Magog? I've seen more convincing lizards.'

Benfro winced as each crack of the whip hit the old dragon's shoulders. He still couldn't call his companion in misery Magog, even though that was how he referred to himself. The mad old beast was running around the makeshift ring, his skinny wings held wide, flapping like a cockerel about to crow. Every so often he would leap up and glide a short distance before crashing back down to
the ground, stumbling, and running some more. Plainly it was no longer enough of a show for Loghtan.

‘You can fly higher than that, you useless wyrm. Put some effort into it.' Loghtan let fly the whip again, and Benfro imagined himself getting up, ripping out the post to which he was chained, striding over to the circus master, taking him by the throat and squeezing until there was no life left in that hated body. But he stayed where he was, held still by the stupor of the drugs he was forced to eat.

‘What is it now? Run, damn your hide. Ah, this is useless.' Benfro looked across to see the old dragon had stopped and was leaning against the nearest wagon, trying to catch his breath. Loghtan jumped down off his box and walked over to him.

‘Right, you. Back to your cage. And don't think you're getting a feed tonight. You know the rules. If you don't work, you don't eat.'

But the dragon didn't move. Benfro could hardly believe it. Whenever Loghtan gave him an order, it was like his body was completely in the circus master's control, yet here was Magog – and suddenly he was Magog, Son of the Summer Moon – not so much defying the man as ignoring him completely.