The Still (28 page)

He sighed, eased himself into sitting, made no effort to free his hand. His other reached out, stroked my forehead. “Be easy, Roddy. Genard, pull up his loincloth, there’s a boy. Be gentle. Breathe deep, my prince.”

Wishing I were dead, I passed the night into day.

The wagon jounced, and lying on my side atop a bed of boxes, I felt each rut, each stone.

I’d made an effort to mount Ebon, and actually managed it. A few paces convinced me that it was impossible to ride this day. My genitals were swollen and tender. I let Rust help me down, hobbled to the wagon, climbed aboard with painstaking care.

I shifted position, gritting my teeth against the constant throb. As if it weren’t enough, my healing back itched. Hester’s was the only hurt not given with intent. Well, she’d intended to hurt someone, but not me. Perhaps she wouldn’t have cared, had she known. Or perhaps she knew. Wallowing in my woe, I wasn’t sure it mattered.

Chela spurred her nag, came alongside, her face full of spite. “Well, you came between us as you desired, Prince. Now he’ll have none of me.”

“Leave him be.” Rust, his tone sharp. He clicked to Santree, guided him alongside the creaking wheel. “If you’d ride with us, remember what I said.” Stone-faced, he waited until Chela had dropped away.

I pounded my bedroll into a softer pillow. “What was it you told her?”

His nose went up. “That’s between us, my prince.” After a moment he relented. “That I’d find her a place at an inn, and this time she’d stay.” Santree snorted, waved his head at a fly.

“You’d leave Chela, after—”

“I’m bound to you, and anyone who impedes my duty I must set aside.” For a moment he looked pained. “Even her.”

I hated to take her side, but he spoke nonsense. “You swore service, not celibacy.”

“You cannot abide my dallying with her, so it’s the same.”

I groaned, as the cart rocked from side to side. “May women know such pain as she gave me.”

“I think they might, in childbirth.”

“You’ll be in her bed by the morrow.”

“I will not.” His tone was cold. “That much is settled.”

I felt vague satisfaction, but another jounce returned me to more pressing matters. “I’ll never be good for a woman again.”

“Again?” He smiled, but without malice. “It will pass, Roddy. Next time—after you’re done wielding the Still—wait for consent.”

“With the Still, I won’t need consent.” I said it under my breath.

I dozed through the day in the rear of the wagon, while Ebon trotted behind the board. Elryc, Hester’s favorite, was at her side. They ignored me, which left me undismayed. I didn’t feel up to civil conversation.

My contretemps with Chela seemed to revive Rustin’s spirits. He put aside his own sadness, at least for the time. When at last we stopped, he helped me down, brought my food, sat with me, understanding and patient.

Afternoon found us on a desolate plain, high in the hills. We stopped to ease ourselves. Gone by myself to piss, I examined myself closely. I was swollen and aching. I handled my affected parts tenderly. She might as well have gelded me, the whore. It would have hurt less, and left me no less fearful. How ever could I lie with women, if they could do such to me, without warning? How could any man?

I thought to ask Rustin, realized I could not. In the last weeks, I’d revealed far more to him than ever I’d expected, or he had right to know. Some things, a man must bear alone. Wiping my eyes, I returned to the wagon.

While I was gone Rustin had resettled my blankets, and sat alongside. I slipped wearily under the cover. A time passed. “Rust, don’t laugh.”

“I’ll try not.”

My voice was tremulous. “Does life get better? Will it always be this wretched?”

Silence. Then, “Oh, my prince.” His hand groped for mine.

As the day lengthened Hester sent Elryc aft to keep me company. He went protesting, sat reluctantly across from me.

I wasn’t sure how to make amends for whatever had offended him. “Do you hate me, little brother?”

“Sometimes.” His candor shook me, but he went on, “Not at this moment. You are what you are. Can a crow be a lion, or a daisy a rose?”

“Such philosophy, for one not yet twelve.” I reined in my scorn; it wasn’t what I’d had in mind. “Elryc, help plan our course.”

“We’re running away. What plans would you lay?” He glanced, saw I expected more. “I know, you’re for jumping on Ebon and riding off to do something bold, but let Uncle Mar and Tantroth fight it out. Gather men, and see what passes. Don’t weaken Mar, or the castle may fall.”

I was impressed despite myself. “Go on.”

“When they’re done, you’ll know who your enemy is, and you’ll be older. Men will follow you more readily when you’re full grown.”

“Bah.” Disappointed, I waved away a horsefly. “Delay is the counsel of old women.”

“Roddy, your voice still squeaks when you get excited. You have no beard. Will men risk their lives for you?”

“Think you they’d risk their lives for a beard?” In my disappointment I made no effort to wipe the contempt from my tone.

His voice was quiet. “No. It takes something more.”

I sighed. What was it about Rustin, that all showed him respect? Rarely had he to raise his voice. Girls such as Chela, even my royal cousins, fell over him.

Was I such a mean, degraded thing? All that I’d done was justified. Yet here I was, Prince of the blood, to whom no one gave deference. I was satisfied with myself, yet it seemed others were not. Would Elryc know why, if I asked? Could he help fashion me into what I wished?

I dared not ask. Self-doubt was a weakness, and if he learned of it in time he’d use it against me. Such were the ways of power.

I pretended to doze.

It was well toward evening when we rolled onto a ridge overlooking a rich valley, dotted with forest and fields. A swift river bubbled down from the sheer hills across the vale, and had cut a channel through the loam. Nestled among the steep bank was a sleepy hamlet, perhaps two dozen dwellings, no more. I looked up. “What’s this place?”

For the first time Hester’s voice held an eager note. “Fort. We’re near home.”

I gawked. “It’s not even a—Lord of Nature, what a desolate—” Words failed me.

“Oh, I forget.” Hester’s voice was laden with sarcasm. “The sophisticate from Stryx. Our world traveler.”

“This
is our destination?”

“My cottage, I said, not the town. The millkeeper’s been tending it. I’ve sent him pay, these many years.”

“And for the night? Another inn?”

“Look at the place; you expect an inn? Bah.” She glanced at the sky, judging. “There’s time to be home, if we hurry. Water the horses.”

Grumbling, clutching myself where it hurt, I tried to help Elryc and Genard tend our mounts. “Where’s Fostrow?” I asked.

“He rode ahead, to buy hens for our dinner.”

“He’s liegeman, and I the Prince. Why doesn’t he tend the horses?”

No one responded.

When we continued on our way I elbowed Elryc, made room for myself on the high seat. Even if I wasn’t up to riding Ebon, I refused to be carted to our sanctuary like a piece of baggage.

Our road wound us down the hill, into the village. Though the sun shined bright, recently it had rained, and the gap between the houses that constituted the road was a mess of mud. Gaping peasant faces, devoid of intelligence and respect, peered as we passed rude hutments, a communal granary, a ramshackle mill along the rushing river.

Fostrow rode up grinning, with two live hens, feet pinioned, tied across his saddle. He tossed them into the wagon, joined Genard and Chela.

I asked Hester, “You came from this place?” It might explain her.

Her visage softened. “Once, when the world was young, Lord Tryon passed through, from a hunting trip. I was youthful, and charmed him.”

My jaw dropped. “You were—were my grandfather’s—”

“I don’t doubt he had that intention. He bade me join his train, and I was glad to go. I bade farewell to my mother and sister, rode off to better. Barely had we got to Stryx Castle when word came the Norlanders had massed at Cumber, and off he rode again. I had naught to do, and even wondered if they’d turn me out to starve. But chance intervened.”

A long silence, broken only by the clop of the horses through mud and muck. I knew enough to be patient.

“Washerwomen’s children they were, a pair of ragamuffins, but crying because their ma was too busy to tend them. I played with them, upon a rock near the stream, when your grandmother Seldana found me with the brats, and she liked what she saw. When came the time, I became her nurse, and raised Elena.”

“Seldana trusted her child to a peasant, a—”

Hester’s chin rose. “I’m free-born, and can read far better than you. Poverty is no bar to gentility.”

Rubbish. How could a nobleman hold his head high without servants, gamekeepers, a fortified place? My distant relative Freisart of Kant, who’d lost throne and castle, wandered pitied and disdained from noble to noble, living off charity. I’d throw myself from a cliff before I’d do likewise.

Rustin drew near, and my eyes fell upon his purse. I flushed, resentful of my dependence. It wasn’t my fault the malevolent forest had attempted my life, seized my goods. Were it up to me, I’d be strong and secure at Stryx, not wandering with a half-mad old woman, a lecherous servant girl, and the son of a traitor.

“What ails you, my prince?”

I rubbed a hand over my scowl. “I’m tired, is all.”

“From sleeping too much.” Rust rode on.

The village petered out behind us. “Now what, Hester?”

“Hold your water, boy.” She flicked at the drays. “A league, no more.”

“That’s hours, in this lumbering—”

“Then walk; you’ll be faster and I’ll have peace.”

Glumly, I pulled a twig from a branch that brushed the cart as we passed. “What was my grandfather doing in a place like this?”

“Hunting, they said. He’d been in Cumber. It’s not so far from here.”

“Another world.” It was years since I’d seen Cumber. I was but a boy, and Father still lived. He’d held my hand, walked with me along neat-groomed garden paths. Robins chirped, and one had landed almost at my feet

I shifted in the seat, willing away my aches. Even without my new ills, such a journey as we’d made would inflict pains enough. I wondered how Hester’s back tolerated her seat day after day, even with the cushion she favored.

The road, little more than a path, twisted down a curve, both sides curtained by a dense mass of underbrush. The fall of night lent a brooding nature to the place. I waved away gnats, for a moment alarmed. But Hester had said the forest was benign.

“It opens out, beyond this hill. Our cottage is shaded, but surrounded by our fields.”

The last pinks were fading into gray as we emerged.

Alongside the road, a rotting fence sagged, down in many places. An untended field disappeared in the dark; I couldn’t tell its length.

Hester shook her head, pursed her lips.

We jounced on. Brush gone wild overran the fence. I squinted; the first stars had appeared. Rust drew alongside. “Shall I ride ahead to find it?”

“We’re near.” A moment of doubt, while she studied the fence. Abruptly she reined in, peering at the road. A faint outline of a rutted path, gone to weeds and brambles. She muttered, “Don’t say this is ... Help me down!”

For a moment Hester steadied herself against the wheel, then lifted her skirts, picked her way through the brush. We followed.

In the last dim light of day, we came upon the cottage.

Of hewn logs it was built. A plank door sagged half-open, under a rude and rotting overhang that served as a porch. The boards below were half-gone. Even as we watched, a small creature darted from within, scurried under a bush.

“Hester, look!” Elryc pointed.

I raised my eyes to the thatched roof. Weakened by snow or neglect, it had fallen in, leaving a gaping hole from chimney to front wall, about half the width of the cottage.

Hester made a noise, which sounded like stone against stone.

I said,
“This
is home?”

Rustin caught my arm. “Leave her, Roddy. Can’t you see ...”

“Halfway across Caledon she’s dragged us, for—for what?”

Fostrow said, “We’ll repair it.”

“How? And where do we sleep the night?”

“The field?” He looked about, dubious. “A bit overgrown. On the road.”

“A mud pit!”

“In the wagon, then. Leave it, laddie!”

I was so astonished at his impudence that I gave way.

Hester emerged from the hut, her mouth grim. “It’s too dark to seek the millkeeper. Drive the wagon back to that high spot, a hundred paces or so. Set the canvas, it will hold the mud away for sleep. We’ll unload part of the wagon, if some of you must have better.”

I’d have given her my opinion of where things stood, but Rustin grasped my arm, vehemently shook his head. Reluctantly, I subsided. We did as she asked.

Fostrow, with cheerful urging that set my teeth on edge, did the most to organize our camp. It was he who handed half our goods down to Rustin, set the blankets, traipsed into the brush-land to gather kindling, dug us a firepit, set going our campfire. Resentful of his taking charge, I did as little as I could, but of the fire I was truly glad. After dark, the hills grew chill. In the days we’d dawdled at the rustic inn, summer had gone.

I went into the brush to relieve myself, apprehensive of night sounds, but neither imp nor beast molested me. It was dark enough that I examined myself more by feel than sight. The swelling had abated, to a degree. Thank Lord of Nature for that. I fingered my dagger. Could I slit the girl’s throat without Rust hearing, and blame it later on robbers? Surely she deserved no less.

When I got back, Chela was under her covers below the wagon, between Fostrow and Genard. Rustin patted the place he’d set for me, near his own. I sighed. Chela would wait.

M
ORNING CAME, AND HESTER
set us to clearing brush. Genard and Rustin pulled it with their hands; smarter than they, I hacked at weeds with the sword Rust had given me, until his glower grew so menacing I sheathed it. At times there was no talking to him. Why roughen your hands, if a blade would suffice? Nicks could be honed.