Thorn (18 page)

I scrabble to pull the stone door shut once more. The dream had been from Kestrin. I swallow down a wave of nausea. He had called me here, meaning to call the princess—I remember the confusion in his eyes when he had looked up at me from the basin of water. I clasp my hands together to still their trembling, take a deep breath, and then let them wander over the stone door until they encounter what they must: a well-disguised handle that has pulled the door shut countless times before.

I shuffle towards the mouth of the tunnel. I am but a pace away when I hear voices—men’s voices, the words unintelligible, thrown about by the wind. Instinctively I back away. Where to hide? I dare not return to the room. The tunnel itself offers perilous little cover. Still, there is a slight outcropping of stone between the mouth of the fissure and the turning point in the tunnel. I seat myself in the fold created by the stone, pushing myself back as far as I will go, knees to my chest, and spread the dark folds of my cloak over my skirt and boots. It is not much of a hiding place.

The voices echo into the tunnel. I tuck my hands behind my knees. A few more words, the sound of boots on the stone floor, and then a cloaked figure passes me. He walks confidently, looking neither to the right nor the left. Moments after he disappears around the corner, lamplight flowers, filtering out into the tunnel, then narrowing to a sliver as he shuts the door. I venture only one look towards the tunnel mouth—a figure sits on guard, blocking the entry.

The cold of the stone climbs up through my legs from the ground and wraps around my chest, sliding like a knife between my ribs. I think my blood must freeze in my veins. I cross my arms over my knees and rest my head on them, partly for the comfort of moving my back away from the stone, and partly to muffle the sound of my teeth chattering. Eventually, though, they stop of their own accord. I think that I have been waiting a hundred years; almost I cannot remember what for or why. I let my eyelids fall shut, listening to the half-heard sound of my heart.

“Lady.”

The word makes its persistent way through the foggy tunnels of my mind.

“Lady, wake up. Wake up.”

I have the distinct feeling of being shaken—a disjointed, unreal sensation, for I cannot quite remember the way of my body.

“Thorn.”

I force my eyes open, focusing on a pair of dark eyes. They are the gentle brown of a forest stream-bed, dappled with sunlight. I wonder if I am home again; if the darkness I have surfaced from has carried me to another time and place so that, when I step forth fully from the depths, I will find myself in woods once more.

“Here now, drink this.” A liquid pours into my mouth. I swallow reflexively. Water, deliciously warm, flows through my chest, cascading over my ribs to settle in a warm pool in my belly. When I look up again, I do not see his eyes anymore—I see him.

“More?” Kestrin asks. I nod wordlessly; it was the lamplight in his eyes that glittered gold. He moves away, going to a small brazier of coals with a pot over it. Kneeling by it is a second man, dressed in hunting clothes much like the prince. He looks vaguely familiar but I cannot place his name, staring blearily at his fine features, the dark hair curling around his collar.

I don’t know how long I remain there sipping water. The prince wraps my hands around the warmth of the mug and helps me to drink at intervals. I realize gradually that I am nearly dry, that I am wrapped in various layers—blankets as well as cloaks. I have begun to shake again.

“She is too weak to leave on her own.” The prince kneels beside his companion, though I do not recall him leaving me.

“It is not cold enough for her to have frozen,” the man says, his voice stirring echoes. Where do I know him from?

“No,” Kestrin agrees. “It is not the weather she fights.”

The man looks towards me. His face is too bright to focus on, the lamplight falling directly on him. “She has had a shock.”

Kestrin nods, dropping his voice as he answers.

I look around, observe bleakly that I have seen this room with its smooth walls and stone pedestal before, though the tables pushed against the walls, the candles and bookshelves and sheaves of scrolls seem strangely out of place. The room looks used now, has the feel of a study rather than an ancient, forgotten sorcerer’s room.

Sorcerer.

The word echoes in my mind, as if I had spoken it out loud. I close my eyes against it.

“Thorn.” Kestrin touches my hand. I start. How did I not notice him approaching? “We must get you to the city. Can you stand?”

I nod uncertainly, and Kestrin holds my arm to help me up. The other I use to push off the stone wall. It is an awkward process, but finally I gain my feet. The room twists around me, light streaked with darkness. I gasp, stumbling sideways against the wall. Kestrin has done with courtesies at that. He picks me up as one might a child: one arm beneath my knees, the other behind my shoulders.

Somehow Kestrin and his companion carry me to the top of the rift. I do not realize that the rain has touched me until I feel a cloth dabbing my face dry. I look up to find that I sit sideways, and that the man that holds me before him is not the prince at all.

“Where?” I gasp.

“Easy,” his friend says soothingly. I look around dazedly. “The prince returned to the hunt,” he explains. “I am taking you to the palace.”

“But I live—in the stables.”

“There are no fires in the stable to warm you. Softly now.”

I close my eyes, too tired to argue, and sink into oblivion.

“Awake?” A gray-haired woman leans toward me, meeting my bewildered gaze. She sits on a mat in a well-kept room with mosaics on the wall. I lie on a low divan, swathed in blankets.

“Good,” she says, though I have not answered. “The prince wants to see you. Let’s get you dressed.”

I sit up with the shock of my memories returning, but the woman gives me no chance to worry about them. She whisks me into my clothes with alarming efficiency. They have all been washed, fraying hems darned, and smell delightfully of lemon. There is a new sash as well, replacing the one I used to bind the wounded boy’s arm. Even my boots have been repaired and polished.

“How long did I sleep?” I ask as she surveys me critically. It has taken me that long to remember my Menay.

“A day or so,” she says, absently. “You’ll do. Come along.”

She sets a brisk pace from the room. My body aches, and I feel more tired than I would have thought possible. Have I really slept a full day? What must Falada think?

The woman ushers me through a narrow door at the end of the hall, down a servants’ corridor, and into a private library through the servants’ entrance. Kestrin sits alone at a table, intent on the book before him, three more piled beside him.

He looks up at the sound of my entrance and smiles. There is neither mockery nor flattery nor cruelty in it. It is the quick, instinctive smile of a man whose gaze alights on something he likes. It shocks me to my core.

“Thorn,” he says, rising. “You are feeling better?”

I nod mutely, still unnerved by that look.

“Will you return to the stables?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” What else would I do?

He hesitates. “I thought you might consider a position here, in the palace.”

He knows.
I feel the blood drain from my face and it is all I can do not to flee. No no
no.
Panic churns in my stomach. I won’t. I won’t.

“Lady?”

“No.” I clench my jaw to keep the other words in:
Please. I don’t want this. Leave me alone.

A silence draws out between us. I train my gaze on the table, afraid of what he might see if he looks in my eyes. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps he means only to offer a distressed servant a change in employment.

“What were you running from?” he asks, surprising me. “On the plains?”

I open my mouth and then close it again, unsure what to tell him. Would he punish Corbé, or bring the blame back to me? I cannot let myself trust his smiles or the tenor of his voice. I know that he can play games.

“Or were you running
to
something?”

“No,” I say quickly. “Away.”

“You might be safer in the palace,” Kestrin suggests.

“I doubt it,” I say. And then, belatedly, “Your Highness.”

I risk a glance at him. He watches me, dark eyes shrewd. If he knows, wouldn’t he force the question?

“As you wish,” he says. “If you need anything, you will let me know.”

I bob my head and retreat to the servants’ door, grateful to escape him.

The woman tries to usher me back to my room. When I tell her haltingly that I wish to return to the stables she raises her eyebrows and then acquiesces, as if I had requested a great favor. She leaves me at a servants’ exit onto the side road skirting the palace, nodding towards the gates before striding off to other duties.

The walk to the stables is longer than I remember. I stop at intervals to rest against the buildings, my legs weak beneath me. By the time I reach the temple, I have neither breath nor balance to take me farther. I stagger through the door and sink down on the mats, my cheek pressed against the coarse straw. I’ll let myself rest a little and then go on.

Something scuffles against the straw. I open my eyes to see a young boy looking down at me, hesitating just within the temple door. He is a slight, bony creature with great brown eyes and stringy hair. I close my eyes; when I open them again he is gone.

Voices wake me, echoing into the little temple from the street. The temple is shadowed now, filled with evening gloom. Gradually, I become aware of a second presence: a man sits against the opposite wall, wrapped in a cloak, unmoving. I watch him, and some part of me tells me I should run, that this might be Corbé or another like him, but I have not the strength to fight this.

“Are you awake?” the man’s voice rumbles from the depths. I consider not answering, but if he meant me ill he would have acted by now. I lever myself up. The temple tilts as I move. I take a gasping breath, my eyes trained on the straw mat. I do not want to be ill here.

He stands up, a fluid rippling of cloak and shadow, and crosses the temple to me. “I will escort you home,” he tells me, putting a hand under my elbow. I stumble to my feet with his help.

Outside, the men whose voices I heard straighten from where they lean against the opposite wall. Two head for the street, the other two watch us leave: a quad that has nothing to do with the king’s guards. I lean heavily on my companion, keeping my gaze on the cobblestones. As we near the stables, the two men who had left before us pause to speak with a cobbler, allowing us to pass. I wonder if I could spot the other two if I looked back.

My companion stops at the edge of the road. “Can you go the rest of the way on your own?”

I consider the distance: I will have to walk the length of two practice rings and the first stable between them to reach my room. Falada’s stall is much closer. I look up at the hooded face of my helper and realize I know him, know the scar that runs from lip to chin. He would not want to set foot in the king’s stables.

“I will be fine,” I assure him. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.”

I start forward, striving to walk steadily. By the time I reach Falada I have only the strength to pull the stall door closed before I sink into the straw in the corner.

“Alyrra, are you well?” A great brown eye regards me from barely two hand spans away. I reach up a hand to run along his cheek.

“Fine, Falada. Just tired.”

“Where have you been?” His voice is gruff with worry.

“Is it safe to talk?”

“You may speak with impunity,” he replies. “Only I must beware.”

“Yes.” I lean my head against the wooden wall, breathing in the smell of horse and sweat and sun-sweetened hay. “I went out to watch the geese as usual,” I tell him. “Corbé had taken them to the lower pasture. When I got there he came over to me and—I spooked as a colt might, I suppose. I hit him with my staff. And then I ran and lost myself and part of the hunting party found me and brought me back.” I gasp as I finish, as if I have not breath enough left in my life for this short story with its shadow truths.

Falada sighs, and in that simple exhalation I hear the rest of my story. “Child,” he says softly, and that is all.

***

I wake with a jerk from murky dreams to a grim realization:
Filadon.
It had been Filadon who had kept Kestrin’s watch, and returned me to the city. I scrub my face wearily. So. He must know Kestrin’s secrets, or at least the prince’s study of sorcery. Does he know about the Lady as well? Regardless, now I know why Filadon was chosen to meet us at the border: he may not have great holdings or a fine title, but he has the confidence and trust of the Family.

I force myself up, for it is near dawn. My chest aches and my throat is raw; thrice during the night I woke coughing. Still, I feel more rested than I was. I had better not miss any more work.

Laurel smiles when she sees me standing in the common room doorway and hurries to bring me a bowl of porridge. I sit at the table, watching her pretend not to watch me eat. Her brow is furrowed, and her eyes when they meet mine are anxious. She puts my lunch in a new cloth bag and sits opposite me.