The Mapmaker's Sons (9 page)

A solitary figure crossed the threshold. Keegan, Garth presumed, though it took a moment to reconcile the actual man with his reputation. He possessed none of the attributes normally associated with evil: no horns sprouting from his skull, no sadistic leer, no bullying swagger. Instead, Garth saw a man of average height and build, graced with a darkly handsome face. He wore
a black fur cape and a black leather hat trimmed in matching fur; finely crafted riding boots reached to just below his knees. Aside from the obvious extravagance of his clothing, Garth noted nothing remarkable about the man until he drew off his gloves. His fingernails were impossibly long, so long they curved inward, and were as thick and yellow as a hawk's talons.

Keegan surveyed the room, his gaze narrowing on the new mother and the wailing infant in her arms. “Ah. I see the blessed event has already occurred. My congratulations.”

He glanced over his shoulder and made a brief motion with his head. Two of his men slid past him. The Watch. Garth's stomach tightened in revulsion at their presence in his home. Mindful of the babe tucked against him, he held his tongue as they ransacked the room, opening cupboards, rummaging through linens, poking their long swords through food stores, and knocking over neatly stacked kindling.

Pointedly ignoring the guardsmen, the nobleman greeted Keegan with a small but deferential bow. “My lord. What an astonishment. I'd hardly expect to find you out on a night like this.”

“Indeed. Imagine my dismay when I was alerted that you and your charming wife had fled in the middle of the night without so much as a word of parting.”

“Fled?” the nobleman parried lightly. “You make it sound as though we were captives, rather than invited guests.”

“Do I?” Keegan toyed with his fingers, rhythmically clicking his nails together and producing a noise that sounded to Garth like the scurrying of a dozen hungry cockroaches. “Captives,” he repeated. “What a fascinating turn of phrase.”

A heavy silence hung over the room. Having uncovered nothing in the search of the premises, one of Keegan's men moved to the bed where the nobleman's wife lay.

“Touch my wife and you die.”

The guard froze, Garth caught his breath, and the nobleman's men tightened their grip on their daggers.

Keegan arched one dark brow and turned slowly about the
room. “My, my. How very gallant.” He gave a careless wave of his hand, indicating that his man should remove himself from the bed. Then he fixed a cool stare on the nobleman.

“Where is the other?”

“Other what?”

“Come, now. Do you truly believe the rumors escaped me? The prophecy? The other babe?” A conspiratorial smile played about his lips. He lowered his voice to a soft hush. “I know it's a secret, for it's whispered everywhere.”

“Ah. That.” The nobleman affected a look of sudden understanding. “I'm afraid we disappoint. My wife bore just one son.” He sent her a loving smile. “Though a fine, healthy son he is.”

The midwife rose and gathered up the blankets, allowing Keegan a clear view of the new mother and her bed. “I'll get you and the babe some fresh linens, m'lady.”

Keegan frowned, left with no choice but to acknowledge the presence of only one infant. “It appears that your dramatic escape from my home was in vain.”

“If we were rude to leave so abruptly, the blame is mine, not my husband's,” the nobleman's wife interjected meekly. “I was racked by dreams that I would die in childbed, and wholly convinced I needed my mother at my side. I was quite hysterical, really. Finally, at my urging, William relented and agreed to take me to her.”

Keegan seemed to consider this, and finally to accept it. Dark displeasure flashed through his eyes. “I suggest in the future you take better care to control your wife,” he said to the nobleman. “All this tiresome drama, only to have your heir born in this dirty hovel, in a bed no better than a stable floor.”

The dark-haired babe, miraculously silent until this point, shifted against Garth's chest. Garth shot the nobleman a pointed look. They were both of the same mind. Though the child had been undetected, it was foolish to test their luck any further.

“Yes,” the nobleman said, mulling over Keegan's words as though seeing the cottage for the first time. Looking at Garth,
he said, “Shepherd, my wife will need a few days' rest before she and the babe can travel. There must be a village of some sort nearby. We require decent food, decent wine, fresh linens, all manner of things to make this hovel bearable for our company. Can you accomplish that?”

“Yes, Sire. It would be my honor, Sire.” Garth agreed dutifully. He pocketed the coins the nobleman pressed into his hand, and made for the door.

“Stop him.” Keegan's voice rang across the room.

The Watch stepped in front of the door, blocking Garth's exit.

“Come here, shepherd.”

Garth slowly turned. His heart slammed against his chest, then began beating at twice its normal speed. A tight knot of fear lodged in his throat. He crossed the room to Keegan, stopping just before him. Keegan's gaze moved slowly over his form. “Pull back your cloak.”

“My cloak, Sire? I don't underst—”

“Do it!”

With trembling fingers, Garth unfastened his cloak and drew it back. Keegan extended one long, talon-like finger and brushed it against Garth's vest. He scooped the coins the nobleman had given Garth from the vest's pocket and weighed them in his palm. “My cartographer is a trusting sort,” he said. “I, however, am not. Return with the goods he has requested or there will be painful consequences. Steal from him, you steal from me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

Keegan studied him a moment longer, then waved him away. “Go then. The stench of you sickens me.”

Garth moved to the door and opened it. Outside, the storm had reached its fury. Garth drew one hand protectively over the babe in his blanket cocoon, lowered his face against the lashing rain, and ran.

“A
nd then what happened?”

Tom leaned forward, watching Umbrey intently. For a moment, Umbrey appeared not to have heard, so lost was he in his thoughts. Finally he said, “Unfortunately, the storm washed away the bridge that lay between the shepherd's cottage and the tavern. Drenched and exhausted, Garth had no choice but to continue north, toward the city. Near dawn, the storm began to let up, and a merchant wheeled his cart down the road. Aware Keegan would grow suspicious if he didn't return shortly, Garth traded the nobleman's coins for supplies and entrusted the babe to the merchant's temporary care.”

Umbrey released a sigh and eased himself off the barrel. He stood with his back to Tom and Porter, gazing out the large, splintered window to the street below. “But the merchant, fool that he was, ignored the shepherd's instructions for returning the babe to the tavern, choosing instead to deposit the child with his widowed sister and spend his newly found coin on a drunken binge.”

“Wait,” Tom said. “How do you know all this? You were one of my father's guards?”

A rueful smile flickered across Umbrey's face. “Aye, lad. Back then I stood on both my legs. I was there the night you came into this world, one of the few men your father trusted to keep you safe from Keegan. But I failed.”

Porter, who'd been impatiently listening to the tale, filled in. “Weeks went by, and you were gone, lost. In the meantime, Keegan learned he'd been duped. His oracles assured him that twin sons had in fact been born.”

“Eventually Garth and I found the wine merchant and traced him to you,” Umbrey said. “But by then it was too late.”

“Too late?” Tom echoed. “What does that mean?”

“Your parents couldn't risk bringing you to them, not with Keegan watching night and day, so your father provided a map and instructions for me to take you out of Keegan's reach. Somewhere you would be safe until he could come get you. It was only meant to be temporary.”

“But he never came,” Tom said, unable to disguise the note of resentment that crept into his voice.

“It was too dangerous, lad. For you, your brother, your parents—for everyone. He couldn't risk it.”

“And now?” Tom tilted his chin from Umbrey to Porter. “You're here. He's here. My parents? Where are they?”

Porter raked his fingers through his hair. He stood and turned away, but not before Tom glimpsed the sadness on his face. “Illness swept the region last winter. They died of fever within days of each other.” He shook his head, and in a voice choked with emotion, continued, “They never knew you. They never knew us, together, what we might be. What we might do. They lived and died under Keegan's rule, too afraid to test Father's map and try to change things.”

Umbrey surged to his feet in protest. “Too afraid of losing both of you if they did try,” he shot back. “You were safe; Tom was safe. Maybe that's all they could dare hope for.”

Porter's eyes glittered with quiet rage. “Maybe
safe
wasn't good enough.”

Tom turned away from his brother's brooding resentment,
from Umbrey's shrill outrage. He needed to digest everything he'd heard. Umbrey's tale told him some of why he was there, but there were too many questions still unanswered. He needed time to sort through it all.

But Umbrey, glancing out the window, suddenly stiffened. “We may have a problem, lads.”

Tom and Porter shot to his side, their gazes locked on the scene unfolding below. Porter's mount was in the hands of The Watch, his cloak hanging limply over the saddle. Two of Keegan's men knifed through the leather straps Porter had tried so desperately to tug free. Digging inside, they lifted thick sheets of paper, bags of what looked like foodstuffs, and assorted equipment Tom couldn't begin to identify.

“Congratulations,” Porter bit out, glaring at Tom. “Now Keegan has no doubt I've gone after the sword. You've just signed my death warrant.”

“Steady, lads. It's not over yet. We still have the map.”

“Which will do us no good at all without those Letters of Passage,” Porter retorted. “You think Keegan won't station extra men to guard the gates now?”

He began to say more but stopped abruptly, his face going pale. A lone man wearing a black fur cape wordlessly edged his mount into the circle of The Watch. Though Tom had never cast eyes on Keegan before, there was no question it was him. It was evident in the man's air of cool authority, in the deferential way his men immediately passed him the papers they'd retrieved from Porter's saddlebags. It could only be him.

Keegan scanned the documents and then lifted his head, searching the rows of dilapidated buildings. Before Tom could step back from the window, Keegan's gaze locked on his. Their eyes met and held. A shiver of dark foreboding shot through Tom, as though Keegan had just drawn one of his talon-like fingers down his spine.

He stood frozen in place until Porter grabbed his arm and jerked him back. “Don't let him see you.”

He shook off Porter's grip. “He already has.”

“If he had, you'd be dead by now.”

Confused, Tom risked another glance at the street below. Sure enough, Keegan had turned away from him, scattering his men into small search parties, beginning with the buildings on the other side of the street.

“Not that it matters,” Porter continued grimly. “It's over. We're trapped.”

“No, you're not,” a small voice countered. “I know a way out. A way Keegan and his men don't know about.”

Tom pivoted around to see the small, scrawny boy he had saved from the butcher. The boy stood alone in a corner of the storeroom, his innocent features worked into an expression of bold defiance.

“How'd you get in here, boy?” Umbrey demanded.

The boy shrugged. “I can slip in most any place. Guess I'm too small for people to pay me any mind.”

“What do you want?” This from Porter.

The boy pointed to Tom. “I saw the butcher was after him, and I had to make sure he was all right. He helped me, so I help him. I don't turn my back on my friends.”

The fact that Tom had made a friend was news to him. But he certainly wasn't going to turn away help when it was offered.

Neither, it seemed, was Umbrey. “You say there's another way out, boy?”

The boy nodded. “Willa knows a way. She goes into the Dismal Swamp at least once a month for herbs and such. She says if you go far enough, you'll reach The Beyond.”

Porter gave a harsh laugh. “The thief lies. No one who goes into the Dismal Swamp ever comes out again.”

The boy puffed out his scrawny chest. “I don't lie! And I'm not a thief! I was hungry, that's all!”

“Quiet, both of you!” Umbrey snapped. He pulled off his peg leg and removed the map, spreading it open over the barrel top. The Five Kingdoms were all there, drawn in lush detail, as well as the dark expanse of land that made up The Beyond.
”The Dismal Swamp, you say?” Umbrey traced his finger along the rough parchment, his lips moving silently as though making calculations. His face suddenly brightened. “Porter, Tom! Come look!”