Wolfblade (73 page)

“You’ve killed three house slaves for fun since you’ve been here in Krakandar, Lernen,” she reminded him bluntly. “And you know you can get away with it, because you’re the High Prince of Hythria. If you can abuse your position in such a manner just to satisfy your carnal needs, why would I think you have any conscience at all?”

“It’s not the same thing,” he objected. “And I’ll see you’re compensated for the slaves.”

“It’s not about the slaves, Lernen. 1 want to be
happy
and you’re denying me the only chance I’ve got for it. You owe me this. I married Laran and gave you the heir you needed. Damn it! You’ve still got your throne because I let you use me. Now it’s time to do something for
me
. I want you to let me marry Nash, and I want you to do it soon.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll find out who your worst enemy is and claim the child I’m carrying is his,” she threatened.

Lernen stopped walking and stared at her in shock. “You’re pregnant again?”

“Yes.”

“And Nashan Hawksword still wants to marry you? Even knowing you carry another man’s child?”

“I’m carrying Nash’s child, brother, not Laran’s.”

He frowned at her disapprovingly. “How long has
that
been going on?”

“That’s not the issue. Do I have your permission or not?”

He hesitated, chewing on his bottom lip uncertainly. “Kagan isn’t going to like this. I should probably consult with him—”

“Oh, no you don’t! You’re not consulting with anybody. I’m
your
sister, Lernen, not the High Arrion’s and not anyone else’s. This is between you and me.”

“But Marla—”

“I’m no good to you in this condition anyway, Lernen,” she pointed out, thinking he would understand lust, even if he couldn’t comprehend love.
“What man is going to be interested in a woman all fat and bloated with another man’s child? I’m not the prize you thought I was. Let me marry Nash, and I promise, if I ever become a widow again, I’ll let you dangle me all you want. I’ll marry a dozen times to help secure your throne. But just this once, let me be happy.”

“With my luck,” he grumbled, “Nash will live to be ninety.”

“With my luck,” she countered with a smile, realising she was on the verge of winning, “if my first marriage is anything to go by, I’ll be doing well if it lasts two years.”

“This is very inconsiderate of you, Marla,” he complained, “getting yourself pregnant like this. Didn’t that
court’esa
of yours show you how to take precautions?”

“Does that mean yes?” she asked hopefully.

He shook his head and sighed heavily. “Promise me I won’t regret this, Marla.”

“I promise, Lernen,” she said, kissing his cheek. “There is nobody in Hythria who loves you more than I do, right at this moment.”

“That wouldn’t take much, Marla. It’s been a long time since anybody in Hythria really loved their High Prince.”

“Don’t be absurd! Look at what Laran and the High Arrion and Charel Hawksword and even Glenadal Ravenspear did to secure your throne and give you an heir. They could have just made
you
marry, you know.”

“Their concern was for Hythria, not me,” he warned. “The Warlords want a High Prince they can mould themselves. And they will, you know. Your son will have more offers of fosterage than any other child in Hythria’s history as they all try to influence the boy. That’s why I’m really not happy with you marrying Nash Hawksword, Marla. This arrangement will give Charel Hawksword far more power over your son—and my heir—than is healthy.”

“Then I’ll refuse to live in Byamor,” she shrugged. “Would that make you feel easier about it?”

“You can hardly stay here,” he pointed out. “Not with Mahkas Damaran as Krakandar’s regent.”

“Then we’ll reside in Greenharbour,” Marla decided. “At least until Damin is old enough to be fostered. And I promise, I’ll not let him spend more than a year in any one province. In fact, that’s probably the safest way to do it, anyway. That way none of the Warlords can accuse you of favouritism or influencing Damin unduly.”

The High Prince smiled at her, looking a little puzzled. “First you solve the problem about what to do with Sunrise Province and now this. You know, you really have quite a good head for this sort of thing, dearest,” he remarked, making Marla swell with pride.

And then he spoiled the moment by adding, “For a girl.”

B
ordertown was the southernmost town in Medalon, located close to where the borders of Fardohnya, Hythria and Medalon converged. Brak and Wrayan arrived at the beginning of summer on a shallowdraughted barge, crewed by a dour Medalonian and his seven brothers, all of whom seemed to resent their elder brother, the captain, enormously, making for an unhappy time for everyone on board. Not having any money when they arrived in Testra, Wrayan had picked the pocket of a fatuous-looking woman in a blue robe who was, Brak informed him afterwards, one of the notorious Sisters of the Blade. There was enough in the purse for a good room at an inn, an excellent meal and two rather ordinary berths on the barge travelling to Bordertown.

Lapped by the broad silver expanse of the Glass River, the busy docks were north of the town and echoed with harsh shouts and muttered curses as the sharp smell of fish permeated the hot, still air. It was mid-morning when they docked and the wharves were thick with sailors and traders, riverboat captains and red-coated Defenders, all of whom seemed to have business there.

They walked towards the centre of the town, Wrayan’s head swivelling with curiosity, past wagons and elegant polished carriages, beggars and rich merchants, whores and fine ladies, all shoving for space on the cobbled streets. Bordertown’s buildings were almost all double-storeyed establishments with red-tiled roofs and balconies overlooking the shops below. Many of them were festooned with washing hung out to dry. The closer they got to the centre of town, the greater the number of rickety, temporary stalls with tattered awning covers set up in the gaps between the shops, selling a variety of food, copper pots and exotic Fardohnyan silks and spices. They were manned by impatient and obsequious merchants, who fawned over potential customers and screeched at the many beggars to move on for fear they would drive away business—often in the same breath.

Wrayan found the assault on his senses overwhelming. Two years spent sheltered among the gentle Harshini had left him unprepared for the raw verbosity of a place like Bordertown. ‘There was nothing gentle or soft here. No friendly smiles. No guarantee of a welcome. Everybody was a stranger. Nothing was certain. And nothing could be taken for granted.

Brak wanted to head for a good tavern and a nice long bath. They had shed their Harshini Dragon Riders’ leathers back in Testra, and they were now tucked into the bottom of their packs. Both men were dressed in ordinary clothes and boots, making them no different from any other travellers in the town. Wrayan’s accent marked him as Hythrun, but that mattered little in a town that seemed to have just as many Hythrun residents as it had Medalonian and Fardohnyan. Brak looked Medalonian—which wasn’t hard to understand, given his father was a Medalonian human—and he blended in as if born here.

Wrayan envied Brak his composure. But then, he’d worked out over the past weeks as they travelled together, that Brak was probably about seven hundred years old, although he looked barely thirty-five. One had plenty of time to work on one’s composure, he supposed, when one had lived that long.

As they jostled their way through the markets, Wrayan passed stalls selling just about anything he could name. He passed raucous chickens stacked in cages, bleating sheep, sloe-eyed goats and squealing piglets, their cries so pathetic and heartbreaking that Wrayan began to understand why the Harshini were so opposed to eating meat.

A tall fountain in the shape of a large, improbable fish, which spewed forth a stream of water from its open mouth into a shallow circular pool, dominated the town square. On the other side loomed the Defenders’ Headquarters, located in a tall, red-bricked building with a rather grand arched entrance that led into a courtyard in the hollow centre of the building.

“Is it my imagination,” Wrayan asked, as they watched a troop of smartly dressed, red-coated Defenders ride under the arch of the building, no doubt returning from a patrol, “or is this place crawling with an awful lot of Defenders?”

Brak nodded and looked around. “There do seem to be more than usual in the town. Maybe someone in the Dog’s Hind Leg will know why.”

“The Dog’s Hind
Leg?”
Wrayan repeated doubtfully.

“Great little tavern,” Brak assured him. “Good food, cold ale . . . and a few other enticements that set it above your average Medalonian establishment.”

“It’s a brothel, I suppose?”

Brak looked at him in surprise. “You’ve been there?”

“No. I’m just starting to figure you out, that’s all. You’re not the same person at all that you were in Sanctuary.”

“That’s because when I’m in Sanctuary, I’m Har—” Brak hesitated, looking around the crowded street, where it seemed every third man was wearing
a red jacket, and changed what he had been going to say “An evil creature of the night,” he amended with a wry smile. “Out here in the human world, I’m human.”

“Doesn’t that get confusing?”

“Sometimes.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just decide to be one or the other?”

“I tried it once. Didn’t work. How much of that money have you got left?”

“Not much, why?”

Brak pointed to a corpulent man who had stepped out of a shop a few paces ahead of them. His brocaded waistcoat was stretched over a belly that it must have taken years to construct. Hanging from his belt was a fat purse that clinked with the weight of coin in it. “Our friend there looks like he could lose some weight.”

Wrayan smiled and stepped sideways as they passed the fat man, bumping into him. He apologised profusely, helped the man pick up his hat and then scampered after Brak, who had kept walking as if nothing had happened.

“Not bad,” Brak remarked when Wrayan produced the stolen purse for his approval. “You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?”

“Not as good as my pa,” Wrayan replied without thinking.

“You remember your father?” Brak asked.

Wrayan shook his head, desperately wishing he could recall more of his past. These odd, inexplicable flashes were driving him crazy. “Not really. I don’t even know why I said that. This is
so
frustrating, Brak! It’s like it’s all there—everything that makes me who I really am—but it’s just out of my reach!”

“It’ll come back to you, Wrayan.”

“I wish it would happen sooner.”

“These things always take time,” the Halfbreed assured him. “You just have to be patient.”

Brak arranged for rooms and a bath for them both at the Dog’s Hind Leg and then announced he wasn’t going to budge until he’d soaked away the top few layers of skin. Too restless in this new and strange place to relax, it was less than an hour before Wrayan had washed away the grime of the past few weeks, changed into clean clothes and headed back into the town for a proper look around.

He learned the reason for the increased Defender presence from one of the whores working in the Dog’s Hind Leg. The First Sister was in town, she explained. Something to do with a treaty she was negotiating with Hythria. The whore had little interest in politics and no time for the Sisterhood, apparently,
since she followed her news about the First Sister with a tirade about the taxes one had to pay these days and how if the First Sister thought she deserved thirty per cent of every trick the whores of Medalon turned, then perhaps she should get on her back, open her legs, cop the odd black eye, and find out what it felt like to earn some of it herself.

Wrayan escaped the righteous indignation of the
court’esa
—which was what Medalonian whores called themselves, although they were nothing like the trained professionals in Hythria and Fardohnya—and went for a walk.

Now the streets were, unexpectedly, a lot less crowded—almost deserted, in fact—which seemed strange for the middle of the day. He stopped a young boy hurrying past carrying a faggot of firewood and asked him what was going on.

“Everybody’s gone to the East Road to see the Hythrun princess,” the boy explained, barely halting his hasty pace.

“Hythrun princess?” Wrayan asked, but the boy hurried on and didn’t answer him. Curious, Wrayan wondered if they meant Marla Wolfblade. He couldn’t recall if there were any other Hythrun princesses around, but he knew of her, thanks to Brak’s update about what was happening in the real world when he had first returned to Sanctuary. Something about her name had tugged at a long-buried memory. Perhaps, if he saw her again, it might come back to him. Perhaps the sight of her would lift the veil that surrounded his life before waking up among the Harshini.

When the boy had said “everybody’s gone to the East Road to see the Hythrun princess”, Wrayan hadn’t realised he was telling the literal truth. Every one of Bordertown’s seven thousand or so residents seemed to be lining the eastern approach to the town to watch the long line of Hythrun Raiders escorting the princess to the negotiating table with the First Sister. There was a large pavilion set up on the open ground outside the town and close to a thousand red-coated and very smartly turned-out Defenders arrayed around it, both to protect the First Sister and hold back the curious crowd.