“Sit him up. Raise him, raise him sitting.” The voice sounded different from before—rougher and less musical, with a hard, close echo. Pain chewed on him and swallowed him. He heard an anxious woof.
His eyes slid open. Sunlight cut in a beam through a long, slit window, right across his face.
“Give him space. Let him breathe.” Someone held him by the shoulder, forcing him forward almost double. Jumble crouched whining between his feet, bandaged around the middle. He barked at Tom, making ready to leap on him, but a pair of rough hands seized him before he could move.
“It hurts.” Tom gagged from it. “It hurts.” He felt something digging, moving at his side.
“Quiet. Shhh.” Oriel wiped his brow with something damp. “Just a moment longer. Hold to us, hold to this room. You are sitting in bed, in castle Garafraxa. It is morning, it is autumn—Tom, look at me. Hold to me.”
“A bed?” Tom’s vision cleared. “I’m not allowed to sleep in beds. My master would beat me black and blue.”
Jumble barked loud, and then louder. “Now, then, doggy. None of that.” An old, square man held a wiggling Jumble tight—the bald-headed man who had shouted orders from the castle gate. “You let him be, now. Time for licking noses later.”
The pressure slackened on Tom’s back, and the strange digging feeling ceased. Someone moved behind him, letting go.
“Prop some pillows for him. Keep him sitting up.” The Elder hobbled off the bed, her mouth red-black in drips down her wrinkled chin. She bent and spat into a jar. “That’s all of it.”
“Oh, it hurts.” Tom retched. His skin felt like it crawled back and forth, ribbons of fire running with every pulse of his heart.
The Elder cupped his chin. “Don’t cry to me, you chose to feel pain again.” There was a twinkle behind the age-clouds of her eyes.
Oriel let her grip go slack on Tom’s arms. He sank backward, but she got a bolster in behind him before he could crash down to the bed.
“We must set watches over him in turns.” The Elder grabbed for her hip, then her walking stick.
“I’ll be first.” The old man dragged a chair beside the bed. “I’ve a good space of things to think about. Now, then, doggy, will you be good?”
Oriel tucked a linen sheet up to Tom’s chest. “Rest now.” She smoothed his sweaty bangs from his eyes.
The bald old man let Jumble hop onto the bed. Jumble padded up on the sheets, licked Tom’s nose just once, then lay down at his side.
“Help me, girl.” The Elder sagged over her stick. “I must rest.” Oriel moved to take her arm and led her through the open doorway.
Tom watched them go. He half expected the Elder to look back at him, but instead she staggered out, her breaths coming shallow and hard. He lay back and shut his eyes.
Dream and waking thought ran together.
His eyes snapped wide-open. He knew exactly what he had to do.
He looked over at the bald old man in the chair. He raised a hand. “My name is Tom.”
“Isembard’s the name. Earl of Quentara.” The bald old man nodded to the doorway through which the two women had gone. “I was the Revered Elder’s husband, years ago, if you can believe it.”
Tom hauled himself up on the bolster—weak and dizzy, but alive, awake. The sun had risen past the arrow-slit window. The pain that had wracked him was gone, leaving only a tightness on his left side, just under the ribs. He touched along it and felt the poultice set over the cut, a wet and heavy bandage filled with something that rankled his nose. He brought up his hand to sniff—he smelled bruisewort and clodderweed, crushed seeds of Gunda’s-glory and other things he could not place. Beneath it lay a cut so shallow that it should have been little more than a nuisance.
Jumble slept—his bandaged, fur-fringed belly heaving in and out—but as soon as Tom shifted, he snapped awake and raised his head. His yellow eyes roved, scanning Tom up and down, and only a fool would fail to call the look within them worry.
“It’s all right.” Tom scratched Jumble between the ears. “I’m in no danger now—and look, I have a bandage to match yours.” He swung his feet over the side of the bed and tried to stand.
“Now, now, there!” Lord Isembard caught his arm. “Didn’t you hear? You nearly died last night—you’re to rest.”
“There is no time.” Tom heaved himself to his feet. “I know that we have only just met, and it might seem very bold of me, but I must ask of you three favors.”
Isembard sat back in his chair, white eyebrows raised into his creased and hairless forehead. “Well, then. Ask away.”
Tom looked to Jumble. “The first favor that I ask, my lord, is that you take care of my dog.”
“That’s no hard asking.” Isembard patted Jumble’s head. “The second?”
“That you send out word to bring your people into your castles, but do not offer the Skeleth battle, whatever they try to do.”
“That’s harder asking, but I’ll wager you have your reasons. Done. And third?”
“Passage across the lake, and then a loan of the fastest horse you have.”
Chapter 30
Katherine huddled in the straw next to Indigo. Some of the boys kept to their tasks in the stable around her, stripping off tack and brushing down the horses, but they moved as though lost in unhappy sleep.
Indigo chewed on the hay in his basket. He drank from his trough—but twitched his ears, one eye cocked at Katherine. He turned his head and nosed her, his muzzle dripping wet.
Katherine raised her hand to stroke his mane. “You were never really mine.” She tried to stay calm but found that she could not help herself. She bowed her head and let the tears fall as quietly as she could.
A stable boy hobbled past the stall with a saddle in his hands—the saddle from Lord Aelfric’s own hunting horse. “Who did it?”
Katherine got to her feet. “The shot came from up high, on the knights’ side of the ravine.” She stepped from the stall. “It could have been anyone—all the arrows looked exactly alike.”
The stable boy trembled. “Was it . . . was it quick?”
Katherine shook her head. “Not especially.”
“I didn’t really know him.” The stable boy hugged the saddle in his arms. “He was never kind to me. Why am I crying?”
“The world will change, now that he is gone, and maybe not for the better.” Katherine put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “That’s one reason—you’re crying for fear.”
The boy worked a nervous hand on the pommel of the saddle. “Is there really going to be a war?”
“The lady Isabeau!” The herald intoned the words from just outside the stable door. Katherine hardly had time to jump away before it opened. Lady Isabeau had yet to change out of her riding dress—the stains of her husband’s lifeblood marked the sleeves up to her breast. Two of the castle guards followed close at her side, white to the jaws, hands gripped hard on the hilts of their swords.
“My lady.” Katherine curtsied to Isabeau. For one tilting instant she thought she might step forward to embrace her.
“The lords of Wolland, Tand and Overstoke,” cried the herald. “Make way, make way, there!” Footsteps approached the stable, men walking in hard boots.
Katherine shot a glance toward the door, then reached out. “Resist them, my lady.” She clutched Isabeau’s bloodied sleeve. “You must yet resist.”
“Unhand me!” Isabeau wrenched her arm away. She bored a hollow, hopeless look into Katherine. “See where resistance has gotten us.”
Lord Wolland ambled into the stable with Wulfric at his side, seeming entirely unchanged by what he had just witnessed. “My lady, we all grieve with you on this sorrowful day.” His voice grew round with florid lies. “Though death is our common lot, it is yet a blow to witness a death before its time, and to know that it need not have come to pass
.”
The lords of Tand and Overstoke snapped their fingers. The stable boys looked to Lady Isabeau, but seeing no sign from her, they scurried off to prepare the horses once again, replacing the saddles and bridles they had only just removed.
“My lady.” Wulfric cut a sweeping bow before Lady Isabeau, then strode down the passage until he reached Indigo’s stall halfway along. He glanced back at Katherine; she sank against the wall.
Lord Wolland drew on thick leather riding gloves. “Though I am sure he is now wounded in spirit as well as body, I thought perhaps we might have a word with the new lord of Elverain before we depart. Young Harold is now our noble peer, and we would wish to know his mind on a few small matters.”
Lady Isabeau moved toward Lord Wolland with such deliberate speed that the knights and lords around him closed ranks to block her way. “You will not see my son.” She shook— the whole of her trembled. “Take what you will, my lord, do what you will, but approach the keep of this castle on peril of your life.”
Lord Wolland did not flinch. He reached out, past his men, and with sudden speed cupped a hand under Lady Isabeau’s chin.
“You dog!” A castle guard drew his sword, and then so did every other guard and noble in the stable, but Lady Isabeau raised a hand to stay them all.
A smile spread slowly across Lord Wolland’s face. “Harm me and mine, my lady, and this castle will be stormed, your son’s head will adorn a pikestaff, and not a man in Elverain will be spared.” His deep-set eyes flickered dark. “Not a man.”
“Take what you will, Edgar.” Lady Isabeau trembled and broke. “Do what you will.”
Lord Wolland leaned close—it almost looked like the beginning of a kiss. “And the river, my lady?”
“Cross it. Cross it, curse you, do what you will! Leave us in peace.”
Lord Wolland let go. “Good.” He tapped her cheek with gloved fingers. “Tell your son that there will be a place for him in the new order soon to come. We will welcome him in council when he is mended.” He turned from her, reaching for the offered reins of his horse.
Katherine backed away from them all and bolted for the door. She raced across the courtyard, up the stairs to the keep and around the bewildered guard, then through the great hall past a solemn cobbler trying to console a sobbing charwoman. She took the stairs in a bound, knocking a page boy back onto his cot before he could shout a warning, and found the rangy young guardsman she had seen the night before standing at attention in front of the sickroom. She did not slow her pace in the slightest; she wondered what she would be forced to do if he refused to stand aside—but then he did.
“My lord.” She burst in, then staggered at the sight of Harry, pale and drawn upon his bed, his sandy hair slick and wet across his brow.
“Katherine.” He reached up—so weak that she had to snatch for his hand before it dropped again. “I called for you. Many times.”
“They wouldn’t let me see you.” She kissed his fingers. “Oh, Harry, why? Why did they kill him?”
Harry coughed—the tremors shook him. “Father. Father, forgive me.” He let his arm drop back to the bed and closed his eyes. “I must save what I can.”
Shouts and calls drew Katherine to the window. Through it she saw Lord Wolland’s party assembled on their steeds and wagons, surrounded by knights and guards in close ranks. She turned in a blaze back to Harry. “The body of your father is not yet in the ground.” She pointed outside. “There stand his murderers—avenge him! Say the word, my lord, and I will take up my sword and avenge him in your name.”
“And risk open war with a land more than twice our size, on a charge of murder against its lord I cannot prove?” Harry raised himself from his sickbed, grimaced, and dropped back again. “Oh, Katherine, Katherine, you do not know of what you speak. We are beaten. We are beaten before we begin.”
A clanking rose from outside, the sound of the gates winching open, then a roaring whinny that seemed to stop Katherine’s heart. Before she knew what she was doing, she had leapt from the sickroom, past the guard, past a surprised Goody Bycross with a bundle of fresh linen and past a screeching, weeping Isabeau, then back through the hall and out into the courtyard.
“Indigo!” She screamed it—too late. The inner gates rose to let Lord Wolland’s party pass through. Indigo tossed his head and bellowed, dragged on a thick rope lead behind a trundling wagon. The households of Wolland, Overstoke and Tand spurred their steeds to depart in haste.
“Indigo. Indigo.” Katherine collapsed. Sobs rose through her in waves. She raised a trembling hand, knowing that Indigo could not see it, then lay down on her side in a ball of hopeless tears as he disappeared with all the nobles through the gates.
A single figure came through in the opposite direction, a short figure dusted by the road, his head crowned by a mass of red curls. He dodged aside from the passing horses and entered the courtyard, ignored by the bitter and distracted guards. Geoffrey Bale looked all about him in dismay, then spied Katherine from across the courtyard and came running.
“Katherine—Katherine, help!” He started his breathless plea before he reached her. “It’s Edmund, Katherine. It’s Edmund—he’s gone!”
Chapter 31
The Voice came again: Edmund. Edmund Bale.
Edmund plugged his ears. “Go away. Please, please go away.”
What have we discussed about that word? My dear child, I will never be away. I will always be with you.
There was nowhere to go, nowhere even to look, for all was utter darkness. Edmund had scratched and scrabbled around the walls of King Childeric’s tomb a dozen times and more. He had found only the door through which he had been kicked—sealed shut and barred—and a crack, a wide-split fissure in the floor between the empty slabs meant for king and queen. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide from the voice of the Nethergrim.
Edmund—child. Even when the Voice paused, Edmund felt it there, felt impressions on his mind that almost resolved into the features of a face. We are going to talk for a while. We are going to talk until you understand.
“No. No, no, no.” Edmund scrabbled on the floor. Even though the Voice seemed to be speaking in his mind, without echo, without real sound, somehow it also seemed louder when he drew near the fissure in the floor. The air above it felt terribly cold.
“Katherine, Katherine.” Edmund curled onto his side. “Help me. Find me.” His body kept trying, by twitch and by jerk, to move him away from the torment he felt. He gripped the edge of the fissure, and for a moment he wondered whether he should just fling himself into it. Maybe that would be better, just to make it stop.
The pain you feel is of your own making. Soon you will crave my voice. Soon you will find the world empty without it.
Edmund hit up against something made of stone, a slab marked with bowl-shaped depressions in its surface. He dug his fingers into it, ripped his skin against it just to have something else to consume his thoughts for a brief moment, something other than the Voice.
Why will you not converse with me? Do you fear that when you do, you will find out how wrong you are?
It hurt less to talk back to the Voice. Edmund knew that was what it wanted, but he could not help it. “Do you get lonely?”
Do you? The Voice seemed to gather itself in the corner. Child, have you ever met anyone who understands you as I do?
Edmund could not find an answer—and because he could not, he knew he had answered anyway.
You are surrounded by folk who could be your servants, your vassals, your slaves. Impressions so vivid came to Edmund that he could almost see a form sitting on the slab across from him, invisible hands folded in an invisible lap. Why do you seek to unlock the hidden powers of magic, and yet still shackle yourself with the morals of those who cannot even understand what you do, what you think, what you are?
Edmund clutched at
his head. The Voice seemed to go everywhere, seemed almost to merge with his own thoughts. It took an enormous effort to distinguish what he was thinking from what the Voice was telling him to think.
It is a simple idea, Edmund, one that I know you are well able to consider. Either the knowledge and power you seek do not matter—or they do matter, and so by gaining them you increase yourself compared with others. Which is it, child?
“What I have the power to do does not make me better than other people,” said Edmund. “It’s how a person wields power that really matters.”
What came next felt like laughter, like a landslide. Oh, child. Did Tom tell you that? He would. How tiresome.
“You’ve never mentioned Tom before,” said Edmund. “Do you not like him?”
The lesser always has its excuses, always has its reasons why the greater should abase itself to remain equal.
“I don’t think Tom is less than me.” For the very first time in Edmund’s life, he tried to picture Tom’s face. He found that he could not quite remember it.
Do not seek to lie, Edmund. I know what you truly think of Tom. Every time Edmund had ever thought Tom a nuisance and a bumpkin came back in perfect memory. I know also what you know—that when you can call fire to your hand, when you can shape the earth and break the minds of other men, you will have no use at all for a boy who only knows how to plow a field and nurse a calf, and how to take a whipping without crying too much.
“He’s my friend!”
You know that you will not need him. The Voice kept a terrible, knowing calm. You know, as I do, that you will rise in this world and he will not, that he has nothing that you want. You know, deep inside yourself, that you only pretend to be his friend because he is Katherine’s friend, and that if Katherine had never been born, you would not have bothered to speak two words to him in the whole of your life.
Edmund pounded on the door—he had done it so many times, and with so much force, that he had bruised up and bloodied both his hands.
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