The occupants of all three fishermen’s rowboats stared silently at the burned wreck. It rolled a little with the waves, surrounded by an expanse of reeds incinerated to water level. The rowers propelled them closer.
“What boat is this?” said Mako with a short, disbelieving laugh. His startled glance went to Woliff. The High Priest and his men stared expressionlessly at the smoking remains.
“It is similar in size to ours,” said Woliff at last. “Does Rellant keep a guard out here on the delta?”
“We do not need to guard our delta. Our delta is our guard. Just consider the earthen hell of these swarms!” Mako brushed a cloud of insects away from his face, coughing as one flew into his throat.
“Then perhaps it is one of your merchants’ boats.”
“It is not a merchants’ vessel. Not one of ours, that is.” Silence fell among them, broken only by the lap of lazy wavelets, the cry of seabirds, and the whine of many insects.
“No need to go closer. Take us to our boat.”
“What is that on the island? You men go see.” Mako jerked his head toward the scorched isle with its skeletal trees.
The fisherman rowed Woliff to his boat, and two of his men climbed up via a rope ladder off the side. One ducked below and quickly came on deck again, giving a quick shake of the head.
“No one…” Woliff stared thoughtfully at the vessel bobbing a little with the water, but still stuck on the sandbar. He surveyed the burned-out remnants and the expanse of reeds in all directions.
“There is a corpse on the island!” came a shout from the man who had disembarked from the rowboat. “Burned to a crisp! Dead snakes too!”
Mako jerked his head again, and the fishermen rowed the other two boats closer to the island. Everyone stared at a man-sized lump of charred, unrecognizable remains. The stench of burned meat wafted past with the breeze.
“Watch those other snakes—they’re not dead!” came a warning. The soldiers hurried back to the boat and shoved it off as they got in. “Everyone—watch for snakes and don’t let any on board!”
There was a grim silence among the vessels as the fishermen rowed back towards the first boat.
“Do not take this the wrong way,” Mako called out as they drew closer. “But… I wonder why a boat that appears similar to yours was moored among the reeds behind the island. And also, where is its crew? It cannot have drifted from the sea by itself.”
“I make no accusations, nor accept them,” Woliff said harshly. “I myself have questions about what has transpired. I do not recognize the second boat. However, where are my sailors… and the crew from that boat? There should be more than just one!”
They traded another hard-eyed gaze that lasted a little too long. Finally Mako spoke.
“You soldiers, shove that boat off the sand if you can. Woliff, have your men pole it back up to the docks. Perhaps we can find some clues on board.”
Woliff put his head close to his secretary’s and they exchanged a few quiet words. Then he turned back.
“No need,” he said, with an unconvincing return to pleasantness. “My secretary tells me he feels a call to return to Gryor. If your men free the boat, we will pole off down the river and leave. Rather more abruptly than we had planned, unfortunately.”
“If you must,” Mako said, without more than a second’s hesitation. “What about your belongings left in your chambers?”
“There is nothing of importance. Package it up and have one of your wool merchants deliver it to me in Gryor next trip, along with any of the priests’ books you still have. Also, a coin of that gold for my chemists to inspect.”
Mako nodded. Several soldiers got out at the sandbar and waded to the boat, rocking it with the help of the soldiers poling from on deck. The slow current from the river tugged at it as it floated free. Woliff climbed the ropes to join the first two… as did his secretary with more difficulty. The remaining two men swarmed up the ropes as if they were used to it.
They poled the boat into the river’s lazy waves. Woliff stared down at Mako as the soldiers climbed back into the smaller vessels. He raised his voice as the distance between them widened.
“Chancellor! I recommend that you take our king’s offer seriously. And that you do not delay your response!”
“Our queen will not consider marriage for at least six months. I will attempt to encourage an earlier decision and, we hope, one that will please your king.”
“It is in your best interests to do so! Understand me, Chancellor…” He gave a curt nod of dismissal and Mako raised his hand in farewell.
The fishermen rowed back up the river toward the village docks.
“May you rot in the earthen hell like your foul sailors, high priest,” Mako snarled, his narrowed eyes on Woliff’s receding boat. “We do not need six months for our answer… but you will wait six months to hear it!”
“Good riddance,” puffed the fisherman as he rowed. “Did you know… Chancellor… the Gryor sailors… were… torching the village?”
“Captain Coltic informed me of it after dinner. An excellent defense by all! Queen Scylla said we could not fail with our army of fishermen, villagers, and soldiers—and she spoke the truth!”
Mako and his soldiers retraced their path through the village streets. He nodded a greeting to each of the villagers he passed.
At the castle gate he gestured at the guards. “Unchain that gate and keep it open during the day, men! The wolves of Gryor have gone, at least for now. Also, I want this lock fixed—today—and the hinges on the kitchen gate. King Tobin may not have needed gates, but we are now living in a different time!”
He ran up the steps and entered the castle. A worried young soldier met him on the stairs.
“Chancellor Mako! Captain Coltic has collapsed!”
“Collapsed? Where is he?”
“In the king’s quarters… that is… the Guard’s quarters—I mean, yours…”
“Lead on, soldier!”
Coltic lay on his back on the floor just inside the chambers occupied by Mako and the Queen’s Guard. Several off-duty soldiers stood around him. They had placed a cushion beneath his head and covered him with a wool blanket. The usually bright-eyed, cheerful blonde captain was gray-faced and still, his cheeks sunken and eyes half open.
“Is he dead?” Mako stared in shock.
“No, Chancellor, he is breathing.”
“He appears to be dead!” Mako knelt beside him and felt his neck for a pulse. “No… not dead, as you say. Thank the Goddess. Captain… Coltic!” His eyes raked the unresponsive figure in desperation, and he put a hand on Coltic’s shoulder and shook him.
After a moment Mako rose to his feet.
“You men, find a litter… or make one! And you, go rouse Greyel the physician!”
“He is not here, Chancellor. He rode out to one of the villages yesterday or the day before.”
“Ah yes, he has not been in the castle recently, has he? Queen Scylla banished him. I will go to speak with our lady Minda.”
He crossed the hall and pounded on the heavy door, raising his voice. “Mako here!”
After a long moment, the door swung open a crack on its ornate hinges and Minda peered out. Written on her face was a tense question.
Mako suddenly recalled the commotion in the hall earlier and that Queen Scylla and her ladies had not been informed of the details. “My apologies! Woliff and his remaining men have taken their boat and gone… at least for now! However, we have another crisis—Coltic has taken ill and the physician Greyel is not here.”
“Where is the captain?”
Mako gestured back toward the door of the former king’s chambers, which stood open to reveal Coltic’s blanketed form on the floor inside.
Minda crossed the hall quickly and looked down. “He looks so poorly, I would almost not know him… are you sure…?”
“He is not dead!” Mako exclaimed. “Good Goddess, Minda, he cannot die!”
“He cannot lie on
that cold floor, Chancellor. Bring him into the queen’s chambers—it is still a sickroom of sorts, what with the queen’s injured ankle and Lady Sorrell still mending from her injuries. Have your men carry him in… I will prepare a bed and send for the healer from the medical house!”
5
Many miles away in the country of Gryor, a gray plains horse headed southward at a ground-covering trot.
The rider, an undersized youth of fifteen with brown hair and hazel eyes, could have reached his destination sooner if he had tried. But he had taken his time. It was now the third morning since he had ridden away from the wild horse herds on the northern plains, and the last two days had been strange and worrying.
Arrow—for that was the name he called himself—had seen clashes between villagers and soldiers, a few burned-out homes, and too many new graves.
The entire countryside buzzed like an angered bees’ nest. Grim, bitter faces were everywhere on farms and in villages, and the closer Arrow rode to the Walled and Unwalled Cities the more soldiers he saw.
After buying clothing to replace his outgrown rags, and food and lodging, he hoped his remaining coins would last him through the next few days. Instead, he found sentries at makeshift tollgates along the roads, and they all demanded money. He had avoided the last two tolls, but only by time-consuming detours through woods and pastures.
“T’wasn’t like this before,” he muttered to the gray horse, whose ears twitched back and forth in response. “Don’t know what is going on now… They didn’t have all these tolls before.”
Before...
Almost three years before, he had been a starving waif staggering along a coastal road (and how he came there was a whole other story). A horse trader came upon him and tossed him aboard his wagon. Carelessly kind, the trader gave him scraps of food and a tattered wool blanket. Arrow rode every horse or pony he was told to. Some were easier than others, but they were always better after he’d ridden them for a while. For a few months his master traveled Gryor’s roads… training, buying, and selling horses among the farms and villages they passed through.
Then the horse trader bartered Arrow as part of a deal for three well-started plains horses. His new master, whose camp was on the northern grassy plains among the wild horse herds, called him Boy. As his abilities became apparent, the old horseman began to call him Horse-boy.
The old horseman had spent his life taming and training the fleet plains horses. The exceptional horses drew exceptional buyers, including even the young King Joff of Gryor—a fine horseman but vicious with people. And Arrow, for his own reasons, stayed in the background when buyers came to visit.
As the seasons passed, Arrow marked them in scratches on the wall in the stone hut where he slept. Day after day, his skills increased until his master no longer called him Horse-boy, but merely Horse. But the old man was failing. One morning Arrow woke to a long silence in the horseman’s wagon—he would never wake again. Arrow hauled the remains to a nearby ridge and built his master a cairn of stones. Then he slung his belongings in a bag tied across his back and headed south on the gray horse.
Unfinished business was calling. It was time to move on.
But two days on the road showed him that the countryside was different from what he recalled… it was unsettled and dangerous. By the third morning, as he neared the Cities, he had learned to travel with a new caution.
Suddenly, as the road curved past a thicket of lilacs, the gray horse spooked sideways and broke its flowing gait. Arrow went with the movement, his eyes shifting warily as he dropped a reassuring hand to the horse’s shoulder.
The bushes had screened an unpleasant view. A stocky young man, wearing clothing that had cost far more than Arrow’s third- or fourth-hand tunic and leggings, stood beside the road staring down at an unmoving horse. As well-groomed and well-fed as its owner, the animal lay dead from mortal wounds.
The gray blasted through its nostrils at the scent of death. Arrow urged the horse on by, but he was not quick enough. The stranger turned his head and glared, his face livid.
“You, lad!” the young man snarled. “Sell me that horse!”
“Ay!” blurted Arrow, pretending he was more startled than he was. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you! I am Haddon of Dyers Keep… Sell me that horse!”
“Yi!” Arrow’s eyes widened, but his brain was working quickly. “Yi! This is a plains horse, master!”
“I can see that! D’you think you’re looking at a simpleton? I need a horse… the Protector’s scoundrels slaughtered mine.” He gestured in fury down the road. There was a visible cloud of drifting dust, indicating something moving fast… hopefully in the other direction. Arrow cast a worried glance from road to man and back.
“Can you ride a plains horse, master?”
“I can ride anything! Anything but a dead one, that is!” Haddon whirled back to stare again at his unmoving animal. “I need a horse—I carry a message…”
Arrow, who had found the plains horse attracted more attention than he liked, thought fast. Once he got to the Unwalled City, he would have to find stabling he couldn’t afford or sell the horse. On foot, it would take longer to reach his destination—but it would be easier to hide if it became necessary.
“How long to walk to the Cities?” he whined.
The other brushed off the question. “Half a day… you’ll be there by dinner.” If you could afford dinner, said his expression. “How is it you have a plains horse anyway, you…?” His voice trailed off and Arrow filled in the words silently… you impoverished half-wit…
Since it suited him to appear dull-witted and of no importance, the attitude did not bother him.
“My old master died,” he sniffled. “What’ll you give me for ‘im?” He slid to the ground, feeling regret. He offered a silent apology to the gray.
“Here—it’s all I have left. The soldiers didn’t find that… or the message!” Haddon muttered under his breath. “Thank the Goddess! I will travel cross-country to avoid the tolls… they won’t catch me on a plains horse!”
Arrow put out his hand, and the young man slapped a few coins into his palm.
For a moment he looked at Arrow. “What’s your name, lad?”
“Horse-boy,” Arrow whined, cringing. “My master died… d’ye need a stable lad?”
Haddon gave a harsh laugh. “Not this minute! But… go to Dyers Keep in a week or so and ask for me. If I make it back, that is! Wish me well! Here, Horse-boy…” he went on, impatient to go. “Get my saddle off my horse… I don’t want your old wreck.”
The gray would not go near the dead horse, so the other man had to haul his saddle free himself. Arrow stripped the gray and threw on the newer saddle. “Not an easy ride, he isn’t!” he warned the new owner. “Hasn't been under saddle long.”
“Pah! Here’s my bridle—put it on!” As Haddon’s agitation made him impatient and rough, the gray pulled back, rolling his eyes. Arrow calmed him, held him so Haddon could mount, and silently sent his apologies again. “Till I see you again…” he said with his mind, looking into the horse’s startled eyes. “Sorry…”
He let go of the bridle and dodged aside as the gray’s new owner pulled him around to go north again. Haddon urged the horse into a gallop for a few strides and then leaped the ditch to head off across a bitten-down sheep pasture.
“May your journey go well… or at least better than thus far, Haddon of Dyers Keep,” Arrow said aloud through the dust blowing back into his face. “Wherever that may be!… Well, what now?” He stared at the battered saddle and bridle the man had rejected. They were too much to carry, although he might have been able to sell them.
Arrow memorized the location as best he could. He hauled the saddle and bridle off the road and hung them on a branch in a thicket. If no one else found it, if the weather was kind, if no animals chewed it, and if he could remember where he had left it… perhaps it would still be useable if he came back. Perhaps.
Resigned to
his sudden change in circumstances, Arrow stashed his new coins and resettled his sparse belongings in the bag across his back. Then he started walking south.
“Eeee! Eeee! Smoke on the water! Smoke on the water!” The trellets screamed as they swung through the leafy boughs of the willow. They had been silent so far this morning. River had no idea where they spent the night or how much they slept at all.
She had eaten a few bites of the cheese and apple pie after she woke up, just because it was there. Now with the sun up and promising a bright day, she stashed the remaining food in the basket at the back of her nest. She peered out past the curtain of swaying twigs to see what the trellets were shrieking about and spotted the distant blackened section of the marsh. Smudges of smoke drifted from it.
“Fire! T’wasn’t lightning,” River thought back. “Didn’t hear a storm last night, only that little rain that didn’t even get through my roof… What was it?” Maybe the priests had thrown their magic again and started the reeds on fire.
Bew leaped across the branches and stared at her with sly, beady eyes.
“Don’t you wish you knew, tree baby!” he jeered.
“I’m not a baby!” She glared back.
“Sleeping like a baby while the earthen hell yawned wide!”
She tried to shake the branch he was on, incensed at the implication they had watched her while she slept. Bew hopped back out of reach, showing his sharp little teeth in a snarl.
“And don’t you dare touch my basket!”
“We don’t eat giant’s food,” he shrieked back. “But we will watch over it as we watched over you all night!”
River bared her own little teeth in return. Both trellets burst into shrill giggles and swung through the branches in glee. “Tree baby! Tree baby!”
River abandoned her peculiar companions, descending via the willow’s branches. It was a path as familiar to her as the path through the orchards. She was off to the market. Whatever had caused the fire on the delta, the village would be abuzz with it.
The Queen and the Mage Page 10