by David Wragg
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning, your highness, that if your brother commands, he must be seen to be obeyed. He lacks only the understanding of the wheels that turn against him, against your royal family, the kingdom and its people. He lacks only the knowledge of what he must command. And this is where you come in. Prince Mendel is the key to unlocking Vassad’s stranglehold, and you are the key to his rescue.’
‘I am?’
‘We must be swift and judicious. There is now a window to reach your brother, to alert him of your survival and collective peril, and move to rescue your father before we are discovered. We must secure Mendel before Vassad realizes our intentions, for I dread to consider what he might do should he become aware of the noose that tightens around him. As you found yourself, highness, once Primarch Vassad deems you disposable, prince or no, a knife in the dark soon follows.’
‘But, but … surely he wouldn’t dare try to kill Mendel? He’s the crown prince!’
‘If he realizes he is cornered, I doubt he would hesitate for an instant. He’s tried before, after all … Or do you still believe that bandits killed his elder twin, your highness?’
Tarfel paled. He placed trembling hands on the desk, visible sweat on his brow. ‘You’re lying!’
‘Consider, highness. The time of year, the location of the ambush, for ambush it was. Two dozen highly trained, well-equipped “brigands” set upon your brothers, enough to overpower their guard, enough to leave no survivors. It is a testament to your brothers that one should give his life that the other might live, even scarred.’
‘It was brigands! They—’
‘You have seen it for yourself, highness. The men who tried to murder you in the winter palace, were they not confessors disguised as Norts? Vassad has his favoured tricks.’
Tears were leaking down Tarfel’s wan cheeks. ‘You’re lying,’ he said in a sad, small voice.
Torht nodded, and tapped the attendant’s hand. ‘Founin.’
The attendant reached into his robe and produced a slim tube. From the tube slid a narrow scroll, which he unfurled onto the desk before the prince. Parts of it were stained very dark.
‘This is the order, highness. This is the order that Vassad gave to his agents, five years ago, commanding your brothers’ deaths. Look closely, and you will see the imprint of his signet upon it. I’m told.’
Tarfel stared. The room was too cramped for Chel to feel like he could offer any comfort. Rennic was staring at the ceiling, where a narrow-bodied spider bustled over an expansive web.
Torht reached out a hand to Tarfel’s shoulder. ‘Vassad killed your eldest brother, your highness, and has tried to kill you. Repeatedly. Mendel is not safe while he rules.’
Tarfel swallowed, then looked up, blinking tears from his watery eyes. ‘What must I do?’
‘Simply write a letter.’
‘Eh?’
‘Winter is nearly upon us,’ Torht said, his smile growing, ‘but before the great and good withdraw to their palaces for the feasting season, the Star Court will gather for one last grand occasion: the King’s Hunt in Talis. Your brother will attend; indeed, he will be expected to lead the hunt in your father’s absence. Scattered in the dark woods, away from the eyes of the confessors, here we may finally reach him. All he needs is a message, signed and sealed by his dear little brother, telling him that you are alive and are coming to free him. We can guide him to an arranged meeting point, and there spirit him away before Vassad’s thugs are any the wiser. You still have your signet?’
‘Will I be going to Talis?’
‘Do you wish to see your brother?’
Tarfel looked up and over and met Chel’s eye. He seemed to be looking for comfort, or confirmation. Chel offered him a nod.
The prince steeled himself, wet-eyed. ‘I do. What should I write?’
‘Hey, hey. Wait.’ Rennic was looking around the cluttered room, at each of the faces in turn, his eyes searching. ‘You can’t take my prince anywhere. I’ve not been paid yet.’
Torht raised his head from Tarfel’s ear. ‘You wanted greater payment, Master Rennic? Ensure that this endeavour is a success, and it can be yours.’
‘Now hold on,’ Rennic said. ‘This “endeavour” is, what, ride out into the woods and hope princeling’s brother shows? What if he doesn’t? Or what if he does, and Vassad’s fucking murder-boys are with him?’
‘The wording in the letter will be most specific. Once Mendel is separated from his minders, he will be ours. And our party, in turn, will not be defenceless. For this journey, we will open our coffers. If, that is, Master Rennic, you are still interested in paying work?’
Rennic paused, swallowed, cleared his throat. ‘If I say yes, I want a proper contract this time. In writing. And back-pay for bringing the prince.’
‘You shall have it.’
‘My people are back at Wavecrest, no doubt honing their skills with each passing moment—’
‘They can catch us later. We must depart immediately, we daren’t delay.’
‘If I don’t like what’s in the contract—’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Now please excuse me, I must help his highness with his words.’
Rennic looked decidedly unconvinced. He shot Chel a challenging look. ‘I assume you’ll be following your man on this mad little jaunt.’
Chel’s eyes were still on Tarfel. On my oath, he thought. He nodded, and Rennic rolled his eyes. ‘You realize, if you’re going as his sworn man, you don’t qualify for a share of the job’s take? Is he even paying you? What does a sworn man make these days?’
Palo moved to open the door. Rennic caught her arm. ‘You going along with this, too, Palo?’
She shook him off without a look and pulled the door open. ‘Death to tyrants,’ she said, and marched out.
‘Fucking partisans,’ Rennic muttered. ‘Well, it’s not like I can let you go on your own, is it?’ he said to Chel. ‘You two could drown in a puddle.’
***
A line of wagons stood in the courtyard, each bearing the colours or pennant of the Merciful Sisters. Many were loaded, some with ale barrels, some with medical supplies, and a few with both. Torht and his attendant walked to the vehicle at the end of the wagon line, a great wooden hospital wagon painted in the Sisters’ colours, lashed to four thick-bodied oxen. Sisters milled around it. One of them moved with an evident strut, a long pole with a leather-wrapped end resting over one shoulder. Chel nudged Rennic.
‘Is that Dalim?’
The big man nodded, brows drawn. ‘And friends.’
Chel looked again at the figures and realized that Spider and Dalim’s two henchmen made up the wagon’s crew, all robed as Sisters. This mission of mercy travelled beneath a false flag.
‘So that’s where they went.’
Rennic grunted. ‘Our friend the Watcher seems to have banked on your prince’s assent.’
Torht and his attendant led Tarfel to the wagon’s rear while Palo climbed up to the driver’s bench. Tarfel was looking anxiously at the vehicle, almost recoiling from its bulk.
‘We’re travelling right away?’
‘Indeed,’ came Torht’s reply.
‘In this?’
‘Rest assured, it is more comfortable inside than it looks. I’m told.’
Dalim’s henchmen led out a string of pack mules, two spare for Chel and Rennic. Rennic eyed the mules with distaste. They did not look even-tempered. Rennic breathed deep through his nose, shook his head and wandered over.
A flutter of wings from above announced the flight of a dozen doves, soaring into the silver sky from somewhere deep beneath the Sepulchre. They wheeled and split, disappearing over the walls and out of sight in a dozen different directions. Chel watched them, wondering if each of them carried a different message, and to where. The partisans must have agents all over the kingdom. Everywhere …
Torht was beside him, his eyeless face beatific. ‘You hear the doves, Founin? Great wheels have begun
to turn.’
‘How are you getting the message to Prince Mendel?’ Chel kept his voice low, mindful of potential eavesdroppers.
Torht turned, dragging his attendant back half a pace.
‘Yes, Vedren Chel?’
‘If he’s watched by the Thorn at all times, how are you going to get Prince Tarfel’s message to him?’
Torht smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.
‘The crown prince escapes their notice on special occasions. For example, when he pays a moonlit visit to his betrothed, the confessors will maintain a safe distance, lest their sacred vows be tested.’
Chel frowned. The mention of Latifah, Mendel’s intended, had raised the hairs on his neck. People call her Latifah the Dim, sometimes to her face, poor lamb.
‘If,’ Torht continued, ‘we had, for example, an agent in the young lady’s retinue, I imagine it would be only too easy to slip a message into the prince’s belongings while he was otherwise occupied.’
Chel swallowed. You know, bit of this, bit of that. Making friends, keeping my eyes open.
‘Do you have such an agent?’
Torht’s smile affected insincere uncertainty. ‘Perhaps.’
I’m not a duckling, Bear.
‘And what would be her name?’
‘Dear Master Chel, I think you already know.’
PART IV
TWENTY-FOUR
The mule’s blanket saddle chafed against Chel’s raw thighs. Streaks of mud splattered the beast’s legs and flanks, and Chel’s boots were caked. The woods around them glistened beneath dark clouds, already thick with the promise of another storm. Chel was cold, he was sore, and he was angry.
‘How in five hells did I get here?’ he muttered. He glared at the great hospital wagon that rumbled on ahead of them, its iron-rimmed wheels leaving thick ruts in the squelching road. Dalim’s men rode either side of it, their robes hanging heavy in the damp. A glimmer of warm light spilled from within, and Chel shivered at the sight.
‘Hunted by red confessors,’ he grumbled, ‘almost blown up by witchfire. My shoulder ruined. Locked in a boat, shot at by Mawn, bitten by wolves. Nearly devoured by fucking cannibals!’
Rennic ignored him. His face and beard were spotted with a fine mist of mud, his knuckles on the rein rope cracked and filthy. He’d offered little conversation on their journey, lost in his own sour reverie.
‘And then this guy? This Watcher. He made it sound like we should have heard of him.’
‘Plenty have heard of the Watcher in the Wind.’
‘Not his title. His name. Did you know him?’
Rennic sighed but didn’t answer.
‘It sounded made-up. I don’t trust him.’
Rennic grunted, adjusting the roll of blankets that constituted his saddle. His mule flicked an ear in irritation as her feet splashed through a shining puddle. ‘This is still about your sister, isn’t it?’
‘Is it fuck. He’s basically kidnapped the prince, dragged him into some scheme against the Church, and for all we know old Watcher is planning to kill both him and his brainless brother out in the woods and blame the wolves.’ He paused. ‘Are there wolves out here?’
‘There are wolves everywhere.’
‘Right. Like I said then.’
Rennic sighed again. Chel found the sighing irritating. He wondered if this was how Rennic felt most of the time. ‘You don’t even know for certain that it’s—’
‘Of course it’s my fucking sister! How else would he know who I was? About my family?’ Thoughts of Sabina were uppermost in his mind, bubbling up to the exclusion of all else. For the duration of the journey he’d stewed, caught between simmering resentment toward those who’d use his sister for their political ends and his own hot shame at being so excluded. He should be the one putting himself in danger, not her …
Chel took a breath, tried to blink mud from his eyelashes. ‘I swore an oath, remember? Remember those? Dalim had plenty to say about your history with keeping pledges. Said you’d broken more vows than a rutting nun.’
The anger returned to Rennic’s eyes in an instant, his gaze fierce as a flash fire. ‘Watch yourself, little man. You don’t know a thrice-damned thing about me.’
Chel felt himself shrink back, and he coughed. ‘Yeah, well, whose fault is that?’ His shoulder was aching in the cold, as Lemon had said it might. ‘All I’m saying is we don’t know who this Watcher is.’
Rennic glared at him a moment longer, then up at Dalim, who sat hunched against the cold in Sisters’ robes at the wagon’s bench. ‘Fuck Dalim, the fur-palmed tool. The fuck would he know about swearing service? All he does is attach himself to whatever cause he thinks will get wenches mewling. Fat chance of that.’ He sat back for a moment, and the rage left him. ‘As far as we’re concerned, little man, that there Watcher is our client. He’s paying the fee, so we do the bidding.’
‘I’m not a mercenary, I’m—’
‘Yes, yes, you swore an oath. Save me from another anguished repetition. But you heard him, no harm will come to your precious princes. He needs them for his grand scheme, whatever the fuck that is.’
A flight of migrating birds went cawing overhead, bellies pale, on their northward journey.
‘Swear it, then.’
Rennic wiped his grubby face with his equally grubby hand, leaving grimy stripes like war-paint. ‘What?’
‘Swear that no harm will come to the princes.’
‘I’m not the fucking Shepherd, little man. The absolute power of life and death eludes me yet, despite my tireless questing.’
Chel gave him the most level stare he could manage, given the wobbling gait of the mules along the rutted mire of the road. ‘Then swear you’ll protect them, if it comes to that.’
‘Shepherd’s cleft, you’re serious.’
Rennic was quiet for a while, staring straight ahead.
‘Very well. I give my oath as a man of the north that I will let no harm fall to your dear princes, should it fall within my power so to do. Happy?’
‘You’re from the north?’
‘You don’t get a nose like this by accident, man-boy. Now be quiet.’
Rennic was upright in the saddle, alert, eyes darting around the trail. All Chel heard was the slushing of the wagon’s wheels, the creak and jingle of its structure, the squelching plod of the mules’ hooves.
‘You think it’s bandits?’
‘No shortage of arseholes in these parts, but in this case, no.’
Something white fluttered out of the slate-coloured sky, wheeling around the wagon before settling on the perch behind the driver’s bench. Palo’s robed form scooped up the bird, then banged on the wagon-side.
‘Good news, little man,’ Rennic said with a bitter grin. ‘This eternal mule-ride may yet have an end.’ He rubbed at his face again, the fresh rain loosening some of the surface mud. ‘Lemon and co had better be right behind us, or they’re going to miss all the fun.’
***
‘This is a bit much, isn’t it? He’ll be on his own, that’s the whole point.’ Chel cast a suspicious eye over the arms and armour Dalim was distributing to his men from the barrels they’d carried up the hill on the mules’ flanks.
Rennic leaned over and rummaged in the nearest barrel. ‘Maybe. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Where the fuck is Lemon? She’s got all our tools.’ He pulled out a rusty mail shirt and a battered-looking short sword, then pushed them into Chel’s arms. ‘You’ll be needing these.’
Rays of weak sunlight had fought their way through the clouds, casting the hilltop fort in pale yellow light. They’d left the road at dawn, Torht and the heavy wagon with them, and travelled into the woods in the company of a local tracker and two companions. For the day’s first hours their guide steered them through thicket and cloying, sodden brush, until they reached a sparsely wooded hill, proud of the surrounding woodland and the curtain of grave-grey peaks that lurked at the horizon. At the hill’s cleft summit stood a ruined f
ort, its rugged stonework battered and dilapidated by the elements but still intact on three sides. A slender sister tower, twisted and leaning, jutted from the hill’s second crest, connected to the main structure by a narrow gantry on chipped pillars.
Rennic looked up at the horizon, squinting in the hazy glare. Behind them, Spider shrugged his robe into the mud and set to work climbing the pitted exterior toward the tower-top, while the three local archers clambered up the ruined stairway inside. Dalim and his men were already taking up positions in the ruined courtyard at the tower’s base.
‘Let’s hope the Watcher got Tarfel’s message to his brother in time for the hunt,’ Chel said, staring out over the woods. ‘Or we’re going to spend a whole day sitting around in this crumbling crap-heap for a whole lot of nothing.’
‘At least it’s a good day for hunting,’ Rennic murmured. His eyes were distant, and Chel felt a sudden and growing sense of isolation. Had the whole court travelled to Talis? Would his sister be among them? Would she have some part in the hunt?
‘Why haven’t the others caught us up? It’s not like that wagon was a racer.’
‘Because we went halfway down the coast in the boat, little man, then four days inland from there. Give them a chance. Now collect your princeling from Palo and get him up that tower. Keep him out of sight until she signals it’s time to come down, and keep an eye out for the others while you’re up there.’
‘You really think they can find us?’
‘Whisper’s with them. She could find you underwater.’
Above their heads, the pennant of the Merciful Sisters unfurled from the battlements.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘Why do we need all these people?’ Tarfel fidgeted with irritation and anxiety, peering over the rutted crenellations. ‘And why are they all so armed? Mendel will be on his own, I was very clear in my letter.’