Thorn (21 page)

I shake my head. “Your debt is repaid.”

He chuckles. “It is
not
repaid, though if I had no sense of honor you would have long since convinced me that I have repaid it ten times over.”

“You have trusted me with your name, guarded me when I was alone, and are helping me to do what I wish. Surely you are free of your imagined debt.”

He eyes me with disbelief. “Imagined? Had those soldiers caught me, as they surely would have even if I had not stumbled into your horse, I would be dead by now. Instead I am alive and well. My sending men to walk you home when nothing threatens you, or helping you to apprentice one of my own street boys—for that is all you ask—hardly equates.”

“Then I don’t know how you will get yourself free,” I tell him. “I can’t think what else you can do.”

“We will just have to wait and see.”

Falada and I walk out to the snow-buried meadows together; there is something in that part of my day I do not want lost. The road has been traversed by both horses and wagons; their passing has churned the snow to mud. It is the Plains that steal my breath. Here is the reality of white plains running out till they blend with the gray horizon. The wind whistles in my ears, catching at the hood of my battered cloak and slicing through me to numb my bones. Only a few trees grow here, small copses at the corner of meadows or a straggling line along a pasture wall; they greet me like old friends, their branches laden with snowscapes and icicles. Strangely, I find my eyes growing blurry, tears running in icy tracks down my cheeks.

We return from our walk just past noon. I rub Falada down, the work bringing warmth back to me, needling my fingers and toes. Hooves picked and horse blanket draped, Falada follows me into his stall. I settle on the straw, watching him watch me, and can’t think what to do.

“Bored?”

I throw a handful of straw at him. “It isn’t funny. I’ve a whole winter ahead of me.”

“Then you’d better find something to do.”

“Yes, well,” I grumble and trail off, having nothing else to say. Falada huffs softly and turns to put his head over the door, his ears swiveling to catch the sound of a conversation from the common room. I look at him, then at the opposite wall, then at my stained and ragged skirt. What was it I used to do every day for the first fifteen years of my life? I loved to go for walks or rides, but it is too cold for that. I used to read what books I could find, but here I have none. What else? Surely I did more than read and walk?

I close my eyes and breathe in the damp horse smell of the barn. I suppose I used to watch people—during receptions and hearings and meals, and in the laundry room and kitchen, and even in the village. Read and walk and watch. They are not even enough to count off on one hand.

But for all my watching, I had never dreamt that my mother dabbled in sorcery. Nor had the court, I expect, or I would have heard it mentioned among the servants.

“Falada?” He flicks an ear towards me. “When I left home my mother cast a spell on me. Have I told you that?”

Falada swings around. From the look in his eye, it is clear I have not; I had assumed he had seen the pouch—and understood what was in it—that day at the stream. So I’d never thought to mention it. Falada stamps his hoof, waiting.

“My mother called me into her room the morning of our departure. She … pricked her finger with a needle and recited a spell while the blood fell on a napkin. Three drops. One was for her love of me, one for her knowledge, and the last … it had to do with strength. I’m not sure if it was hers or mine that she bound to the blood.”

“What happened to the cloth?”

“I lost it.”

“
Lost it?
”

“At the river.”

“The Lady has it,” he murmurs.

I nod.

Falada lifts his head and pokes his nose out, looking about carefully, then turns back to me. “It is of no great concern, I expect.”

I swallow a laugh. “That’s a change of heart! I thought you were going to kick me.”

“Your mother put all that she cared for you into that cloth. Had you let Valka write those letters in your stead, I doubt your mother would have noticed. She gave up her knowledge of you.” He hesitates. “It was for the prince, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say as his words sink in: if only I’d spoken to Falada sooner, I would never have had to write those letters for Valka. Then Kestrin would have had no reason to suspect me. Or at least, not as much—there would have still been the cloak. But he may never had had my belongings searched.

“Would you have used it?”

I shake my head, trying to focus on the conversation. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“It is the kind of magic that can easily backfire.”

“I really hadn’t thought about it.” Falada nods and glances out the door once more. “What about the bit about strength? What did that mean?” I prod.

“What strength you gained from being your mother’s daughter was bound into that blood. Had you used it on the prince, he would have held power over you, just as he would have known you better than you might have wished.”

“Is that how,” I pause, the cord about my neck pressing firmly down. It is a feeling I have not experienced in many weeks, and my hand goes to my throat. Falada understands at once.

“The Lady needed some hold over you: much of magic is a question of power and strength transferred. Whether you willed it or not, you had given her some part of yourself. That chain about your neck is likely your own creation.”

“
What?
”

“Your strength was in silence. She bound you by it.”

I consider this, my hand absently massaging my throat. “She only held it,” I say, the last word clipped off as the choker tightens further. I clench my jaw shut, holding my breath until the pressure eases.

“She took it from you in the water, didn’t she?”

I nod.

“Then she did more than hold it.”

“How do you know?”

Falada’s ears flick to the hallway and he turns away. I hear footsteps and then Joa steps up to the door, offering his hand, slightly cupped, to Falada. Joa, I have learned, is not just another hostler, but the head hostler of the first stables. He will be the next Master of Horses when the current Master retires. Falada considers Joa carefully before reaching out and blowing lightly into the cupped hand. From where I sit I can see the smile that touches Joa’s lips.

“He likes you,” I observe. Joa blinks once into the darkness of the stall before he sees me.

“He’s a hard one to win,” Joa replies, leaning against the door.

“You’re winning him.”

“I’ve a long way to go to get where you are. How are the geese?”

“Fine. We aren’t taking them out anymore so it’s just the cleaning in the morning and an extra feeding at night.”

He nods, studying Falada who has moved to the back of the stall and is snuffling some hay, the picture of equine detachment. “Why don’t you help out around here in the afternoons?” Joa suggests casually.

Why not? I shrug. “Okay.”

“We’re short a hostler,” he explains, swinging the stall door open for me. I scramble to my feet. “It’ll be good to have an extra set of hands in the afternoon, and of course I’ll see you’re paid for it.” I follow after Joa as he explains to me what I have just gotten myself into. It is in some ways exactly what I have been doing since my first day of work: mucking out stalls. It is back-breaking, palm-blistering work, except that now, having been broken and blistered by the geese, I find I am only achy, callused, and inordinately proud of myself.

 
“One would think you’d discovered how to turn lead to gold, the way you strut around grinning,” Falada comments a seven-day later as we take our daily walk. Joa and I have struck a bargain: between cleaning the goose barn and lunch I take my own time, which typically includes a walk out to the pastures or up to the temple. After lunch, I become a full time mucker.

“I have found my calling in life,” I explain with mock seriousness. “I have finally discovered the one thing I excel at—”

“Shoveling horse dung?”

“Quite,” I say loftily. “As a Horse, I cannot expect you to understand.”

“Mmm.”

“In the first place, horse dung is far superior to goose dung, being of larger size. In the second, it is of greater import, being of significantly magnified stench. In the third,” I break off as Falada butts me with his head. “Hey!”

“Spare me, O Lady of the Shovel.”

“Don’t forget the pitchfork,” I reply tartly.

Falada snorts, then shakes out his mane. “Really, though, I am amazed.”

I kick a clump of snow. “My happiest moments at home were either with Jilna or out riding Fleet Wind.” I think of the little dell where the Wind would visit, and then of Redna and the many afternoons I spent with her. “I used to envy his hostler for the time she had with him and the other horses. Now I’m in her place, doing the work I’ve always only watched.”

We return to the city in silence, following the road up to the temple. As we turn into the now-familiar alley, I spot Tarkit. He huddles in the doorway, as sallow and scrawny as ever, dark hair hanging in rat tails over his eyes. He jumps to his feet now. “Lady!”

“Tarkit,” I return, my voice warm.

The boy flushes slightly. “Did you really see me those times?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Oh.” He looks down glumly.

“But I had to look for you,” I amend.

He brightens at this. “Really?” I nod. “Well, my mother wants to meet you. Could you visit tomorrow?”

“Your
mother
?” This cannot possibly be a code name for the young man I’d helped—Red Hawk.

“She can’t walk much,” Tarkit explains. “Or she would have come herself.”

“I would be honored,” I assure him, recovering myself.

Tarkit looks at me oddly.

“I’d like that,” I clarify.

“Can you come earlier tomorrow? Without your horse?”

I agree and Tarkit departs with a wave, pelting down the alley. I smother a smile, ducking into the temple to pray. I do not stay long for the days are cold, making the stables a much more comfortable place to make my devotions. Falada agrees, and it has only been because of Red Hawk’s promise to send Tarkit that we have come so often to the temple.

On our way back to the stables, a group of riders passes us, drawing the street’s attention. Falada and I press ourselves against a building, turning to watch as the riders approach from behind us. I count two quads; in their midst rides the prince. The people recognize Kestrin as well, and many bow or curtsy to him. He rides silently, wrapped in a cloak, one gloved hand holding the reins, his eyes running over his subjects. I wait, standing straight against the wall, and just when I think that he will not see me, he glances to the side, his eyes meeting mine. I look back at him and he nods, a nearly imperceptible dip of his chin, and then they are past.

I am still thinking of the prince after mucking out stalls for Joa all afternoon. I stow my pitchfork in the tack room and pause, looking down at myself. My clothes are all stained and faded to a nondescript mixture of browns. I raise my arm and sniff hesitantly, grimacing at the smell. Even with a weekly wash, it is impossible to keep the stench of sweat and manure at bay.

I let myself into my room, a bucket of water in hand for a quick wash. On the threshold lies a small white square. With a sinking feeling, I set the bucket down, close the door, and retrieve the envelope. From the dust on it, I know it must have lain nearly a week—since my last wash. Inside I find a short message written in my language. It is an invitation to a private dinner to be held in two days’ time. It takes a moment for the signature to sink in: Lord Melkior, High Marshall of Menaiya.

After my bath, my water-logged braid hanging heavy as a stone down my back, I take the invitation to Falada’s stall and read it to him.

He considers me thoughtfully. “Will you go?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you know?”

I stare down at the bright envelope with its elegant script. Kestrin knows who I am. He must. And I don’t want to see him if he does. I take a breath, but all I say is, “I’m not sure about the politics of the court. I’d rather not get Valka angry, and I’m not sure if this invitation is from Kestrin.” I twist the end of my braid, thinking of Kestrin, of his discreet greeting as he rode by.

“Aren’t you curious why you’ve been invited?”

“Curiosity doesn’t seem like a good reason to court trouble.”

“Melkior is one of the king’s closest vassals,” Falada observes, unperturbed.

“Yes.”

“And he hasn’t shown any particular interest in you till now.”

“Filadon showed more, which is to say we had above two conversations while traveling,” I respond wryly.

“Then the invitation is either from the king or Kestrin,” Falada concludes. “The only question is why.”

I sigh and run my finger over the dark ink, turn the envelope over, touch the broken wax seal. “I’ve still two days to decide. No need to hurry.”