Blade Of Fire (Book 2)

by Stuart Hill

  The young Prince grinned happily and began to walk back to his desk, but he clumsily caught the edge of a stool, which fell over with a clatter like an avalanche of logs down a wooden mountain.

  Maggie snorted enormously. “Open your book at page forty-three,” he murmured, and sank back into sleep again. Charlemagne heaved a silent sigh of relief. He was always doing things like that: walking into furniture, falling down, or tripping over steps that had been there since long before he was born. It wasn’t really surprising, he supposed; he did have one leg that was weaker than the other, and it sometimes refused to do what he wanted it to. Most of the time he tried to pretend there was nothing wrong with his leg at all, but there were always those occasions when it let him down, usually when everyone was watching.

  He hadn’t been born with a “gammy” leg, as he called it. Ten years ago, almost to the day, a plague had hit the Icemark. It had arrived at one of the southern ports just after Yule and swept through the country, striking down children and paralysing them. In some cases, even the muscles that worked their lungs were seized in its terrible grip, and they died of suffocation. At the time, Charlemagne had been five, and even though his father had ordered that the city be placed in quarantine, the plague had still found its way into Frostmarris.

  Charlemagne remembered nothing of his illness, but Maggie had told him that his father, Oskan, had fought night and day to save him, calling on all his vast knowledge and experience as a healer to bring him back from the brink of death, again and again. And when Charlemagne’s lungs became paralysed, Oskan had breathed for him. He blew air into his chest while directing Maggie to hurry to the artisans’ quarters to fetch a bellows and something to make a mouthpiece, rigging them up so he could keep the boy breathing.

  Charlemagne had survived, and Oskan, as Head of the Order of Witches, had called his people to Frostmarris and explained how to use the new breathing device. Thousands of children were saved. But thousands also died, and many of those who lived were left with arms or legs permanently withered by the illness.

  “Polio Leg. Polly Leg,” Charlemagne muttered to himself as he limped back to his desk, making a chant of the cruel nicknames some of the palace youngsters called him. Overall, names were a major problem for him. But nothing was as big a problem as his leg. Thanks to his limp he wasn’t allowed to train with the Weapons Master, and the Horse Mistress would only let him ride a quiet mule, very like his father’s old mount, Jenny. He was a Prince of the House of Lindenshield, yet he couldn’t use a sword or axe, nor could he even lift a Royal Housecarle’s shield. He might be of a slight build, but so was his eldest sister Cressida, and she was heir to the throne and could throw a full-sized axe and hit the target nine times out of ten.

  But of all the Royal children, at least Charlemagne knew he was the favourite. Cressida might be the heir, Eodred a great horseman, Cerdic a brilliant swordsman, and Medea the inheritor of their father’s Gift, but he, Charlemagne, was loved by his parents above them all. Oh, they’d never admit it – not even to themselves, and certainly not to anybody else – but they cared for their youngest child with all the depth of love they’d had to call upon when his life had been in such terrible danger from the polio. But he never used this knowledge against his brothers and sisters. They were all close – apart from Medea – and they protected their “little snotling” like a wolf pack whenever he needed it. There’d been several nasty punch-ups when the Royal children found the other palace kids teasing him, but there was always so much trouble afterwards that Charlemagne now preferred to fight his own battles. Even if he did always lose.

  Maggiore Totus snorted again, and seemed to be waking up. His long grey beard swept a small clean patch in the chalk dust on his desk as his mouth opened in a cavernous yawn and he murmured something in the singsong native tongue of the Southern Continent. Immediately, Charlemagne opened his textbook and started to write notes. The ancient scholar coughed, sneezed, and then his finger found his ear and wriggled furiously in its depths. Finally, a sleepy eye opened and was instantly joined by the other.

  “Ah! Ah, yes! Where were we?”

  “I was just taking notes on the palace rituals of the Wolf-folk,” said Charlemagne innocently.

  “Were you? I mean, yes you were!” said Maggie decisively. “Have you finished yet?”

  “Not quite. Almost.”

  “When you’ve done that you may go,” said the old scholar, and noticing that all the sand had trickled through the hourglass on his desk, he grinned. The deep wrinkles on his face gathered in an intricate pattern of amusement around his eyes and mouth so that he looked like one of the comedy masks worn by actors from the land of the Hellenes. “You’ve let me sleep through the lesson again, haven’t you?”

  “Well, it seemed a pity to disturb you. You looked so peaceful,” Charlemagne replied, grinning in return.

  “There are times when you remind me so much of your mother,” said Maggie, his expression fading to a gently reminiscent smile. “Except that your mother would have crept out of the classroom, and I’d have found her practising battle tactics with the Weapons Master.”

  “That option’s not open to me,” said Charlemagne, his voice suddenly sharp. “And I didn’t particularly fancy going for a five-mile-an-hour jog on my mule, so I thought I’d stay here and listen to you snoring.”

  Maggie nodded sympathetically. The blood of the Linden-shield clan ran true in Sharley’s young veins; he was a warrior at heart, but his weakened body stopped him from fulfilling his true potential.

  “Perhaps you should see your . . . problem as a test of character,” said the old scholar. “A sort of endurance test, like the forced marches the housecarles subject themselves to. Rise above it, beat it, show you are greater than the limitations imposed upon you.”

  Charlemagne thought for a moment, his face a sullen, bad-tempered mask. “Nice try, Maggie. It would be a good way of looking at things. But eventually even the toughest housecarle will collapse from exhaustion and have to drag himself off to rest. But I can’t do that. I can’t stop being a cripple when I get tired. It’s with me for ever.”

  Maggiore Totus let the silence that followed stretch out into discomfort before he finally said, “Prince Charlemagne, you have a withered leg. Don’t let your natural anger about that cause your personality to wither too. You are more than your limitations, you are more than your inability to fight with a sword, or ride a cavalry stallion. I sometimes see a boy full of laughter and fun; at other times I see consideration and kindness lurking under the surface of your frustration. Let them out. Let the rest of the world see who you truly are. Or you’ll become known as ‘Prince Sour Face’, ‘Prince Misery’.”

  Charlemagne felt his eyes fill with tears, and he blinked them away angrily. “Do people say that of me?”

  Maggie ached with pity when he heard the small and vulnerable voice, but he hardened himself and replied simply, “Not yet.”

  The young Prince nodded, and retorted sharply, “But it’s just a matter of time. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Perhaps. But people still remember the bright-faced child who used to follow his brothers around so doggedly, and so hopefully. They’ve forgotten your disappointments – if they ever knew about them at all. They don’t understand why you’re so sullen. They only see a young boy growing up in comfort and privilege, when throughout the land so many go hungry, and others with disabilities like yours are forced to beg on the streets.”

  Charlemagne listened, feeling a turmoil of emotions. He knew a lot of what Maggie said was true, but he wasn’t being entirely fair.

  The old scholar seemed almost to have read his mind, because he added, “Perhaps I am being a little unjust. You’re carrying the burden of adolescence as well as your disabilities, something that many would find nigh on impossible. But if you can’t be a soldier of the Icemark, then you should prove your strength, and true worth, by surmounting your difficulties.”

  Charlemagne wa
s incensed. All of his problems had been dismissed as a simple case of teenage angst. He rose from his chair, and after bowing long and low to Maggiore, left the room. Once outside, he stormed along the corridor in a characteristic lope as he forced his withered leg to keep up with his furious pace. He had to get out of the palace, and get away from stupid people who would stop him and ask in their reedy, whiney, sympathetic voices if he was ‘all right’, and was there ‘anything they could do to help?’

  Almost without thinking he headed for the garden. On reaching the door that led into the small private enclosure, he burst through and slammed it behind him. There was nobody about as he stomped across the frozen snow to where the fountain stood, packed with straw and sacking to protect it from the vicious Icemark winter. The freezing air felt as if it was scorching his throat as he gulped down great lungfuls, but nothing seemed to calm his mood, and he continued to stomp around the small intricate pathways that radiated outwards from the fountain as though running a race. Just as he’d started his second circuit he slipped on a glaze of ice and crashed to the ground. For several long seconds he lay staring up at the brilliant blue of the frozen sky, then his eyes filled with tears and he wept like the child he desperately didn’t want to be.

  Gradually, the sobs slowed, subsiding into an occasional gulp or sniff, and he hauled himself to his feet using the stonework of the fountain as an impromptu crutch. Things, he knew, would have to change. There was nothing he could do about his leg. He would just have to rise above it all, as Maggie had said. It was bad enough being denied the normal rights of a Lindenshield Prince, but to also lose the respect and liking of his family and the populace of the Icemark would be too much to bear. A surge of determination thrilled through his frame and, climbing to his feet, he headed for the doorway.

  At the classroom window, Maggiore heaved a sigh of relief as he watched the small figure limping along the pathway. He’d witnessed everything, and when Charlemagne had fallen he’d almost called for one of the housecarles to run and help. But the young Prince with the flame-red hair had eventually stirred and climbed to his feet. Even so, Charlemagne was young and vulnerable enough to need watching, and the ancient scholar seized his stick and banged it rapidly on the wooden floor. Within seconds two young housecarles appeared in the doorway.

  “Ah! Canwulf and Aelthric. You’ll find Prince Charlemagne coming in from the garden. Keep an eye on him, will you? I’ve been brutally honest with him, I’m afraid, so he’ll need some friendly support.”

  The two soldiers saluted and hurried off. Maggiore raised his head and listened intently to a faint howling that was spreading itself across the frozen sky beyond his window. A werewolf was relaying a message. It was probably only a routine report, but with the Queen away and Bellorum’s troops moving beyond the border, any news could be important.

  Out in the garden Charlemagne stopped in his tracks and listened. As the final drawn-out syllables became clear, he grinned. His parents would be home within a few hours. Giving a yelp of joy, he leaped into the air despite his leg, and hurried back into the palace.

  Maggie rapped on the window with his stick, but Charlemagne didn’t hear. The old scholar sighed. Now he’d have to wait until someone thought to come and tell him the news.

  His thoughts were cut short by a loud thump on his door, and Charlemagne himself burst excitedly into the room. “Get your glad rags on, Maggie. Mum and Dad are coming home. They’ll be here by tonight!”

  The old scholar smiled, then asked eagerly, “Any news of the Ice Troll war?”

  “Well. We already knew they’d won that days ago. What more do you need to know?”

  “Numbers, dispositions, tactics, casualties . . .” Maggie listed.

  “That sort of detail you’ll have to get directly from Mum tonight. They’re not going to risk information like that on a relay that can be heard by anyone.”

  Maggie shook his head in tired amusement. Youth always assumed the whole world had access to its skills. “Not everyone speaks the language of the Wolf-folk, Charlemagne.”

  “No? No, I suppose not. Well, whatever, there were no details in the report.”

  Just then, a member of the werewolf guard arrived, and saluted smartly. Maggie listened in fascination as he and the Prince spoke rapidly in the strange snarls and guttural grunts of the Wolf-folk tongue.

  “Captain Blood-Lapper wants to know if a full guard of honour will be needed tonight,” Charlemagne translated, after politely waiting to see if Maggiore had understood.

  “Yes, I think so, Captain,” the old scholar answered, in his capacity as Senior Royal Adviser. “After such a fabulous victory the Queen should be greeted with full ceremonial.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” the werewolf replied in the language of the Icemark, his voice booming around the small room. Then, with a final salute, he withdrew to pass on the order to the human housecarles and his own warriors.

  Maggie sighed in sudden contentment. Charlemagne’s mood had changed for the better, and he also seemed to have forgiven his old tutor’s earlier bluntness. “Well, there are enough of the Yule supplies left to make a scratch feast in honour of your parents’ return. Though I wish they’d given us a little more warning. What’s the point of setting up an efficient werewolf message system if they don’t use it?”

  “I suppose they were preoccupied and just forgot,” Charlemagne said. “They have just fought a war, you know.” Then, grinning, he added, “Mum was right. She warned me you can be a bit of an old woman when you get going.”

  “‘Old woman’! What do you mean?”

  “Always fussing and nagging.”

  Maggiore sniffed and drew his dignity about him like a large protective cloak. “I’ll treat that remark with the contempt it deserves.”

  * * *

  Charlemagne had been standing on the battlements of the citadel for almost an hour listening to the werewolf messages coming in. Despite several layers of furs and the blazing brazier beside him, he was freezing. Even so, there were compensations. Not only would he be among the first to see the Queen and her army come into view, but the sight of the near-full moon rising over the frozen land of the Icemark was achingly beautiful. Its subtle light reflected off the snow and diffused through the myriad ice crystals suspended in the frigid air, so the entire world seemed steeped in misted silver and smoky shadows.

  “‘A night for magic,’” Charlemagne murmured, remembering the times from his early childhood when his father would conjure little images from the ‘muscle and texture of light itself’ and set them skipping and dancing on his bed-covers just before he went to sleep.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the lonely sound of another werewolf howling into the cold night air. It was nearer than the last couple of calls, which was hardly surprising – the Wolf-folk were reporting on the progress of the Royal Army, and each time they passed a lookout point another message was sent.

  An acknowledging call was relayed back from one of the werewolves at the main gatehouse. And judging by the average marching pace of one of Thirrin’s expeditions, Charlemagne quickly calculated it would be twenty minutes before the army came into sight. He beckoned a nearby housecarle.

  “Tell the kitchens the army’ll be here in less than an hour,” he instructed. “Then tell Maggiore.”

  The soldier saluted and hurried away.

  A noise on the spiral stairwell behind him told Charlemagne that his brothers and Cressida were on their way up. All of them spoke some werewolf and would have understood the relay, though none were as fluent as Sharley.

  Cressida was first to emerge through the narrow doorway of the turret. “Ah, there you are, Sharley,” she said, smiling. “I knew you’d have heard the werewolves. How long before Mum and Dad get back?”

  “Another hour or so. But they should start coming out of the forest in about twenty minutes.”

  His twin brothers, Cerdic and Eodred, struggled through the narrow doorway. At sixteen they were already larger than
most housecarles, and Maggiore said they took after their granddad, King Redrought, except that they both had jet-black hair. Redrought’s hair had been as flame-red as Thirrin’s, and as that of Cressida and Charlemagne. But, as if to compensate for the difference in hair colour, both twins had inherited their granddad’s inability to say anything quietly. They boomed and bellowed and laughed with the volume of a thunderstorm in the mountains, added to which they also had Redrought’s slapstick sense of humour, and when they laid aside their axes and swords, they were as boisterous and fun-loving as kittens. Even now, as they stretched their huge frames after climbing up the confined spiral staircase, they were nudging and shoving each other, trying to make one another slip on the ice. Cerdic scooped up a double handful of snow from the battlements and stuffed it down Eodred’s neck and the following squawking and giggling echoed over the silent citadel as if a pack of manic hens had been released into the night.

  “Stop it, you two!” Cressida said with all the authority of her seventeen years and her position as heir to the throne. “We won’t be able to hear the Wolf-folk messages if you keep mucking about.”

  The twins immediately settled down, despite the fact that they towered over their slightly-built elder sister. But they continued to poke and nudge each other slyly whenever she wasn’t watching.

  “Hiya, Sharley!” Eodred boomed, as if only just realising he was there. “When will Mum and Dad get back?”

  “I’ve already asked that, thickhead!” said Cressida. “They‘ll be here in about an hour. Where’s Medea?” she suddenly thought to ask.

  Charlemagne shrugged. “Who knows? Doing whatever it is our sister does so much of the time. She’ll turn up when she’s ready, I suppose.”

  Cressida frowned. “She could at least make the effort for Mum and Dad.”

  “Do you think they’ll bring us something back from the Icesheets?” Cerdic asked excitedly. “Perhaps a troll’s warhammer, or maybe a piece of those falling stars Tharaman told us about last time he visited?”