by Kim Fielding
The prince stood there staring wordlessly, and for a brief second, Brute entertained the wild hope that he’d order his men to turn around and sail back to Tellomer. But then Lord Maudit hopped down from his horse with an oath. “This has gone on long enough,” he spat. “I’ll go look for Gray Leynham myself.”
The soldiers continued to look uneasy, but nobody stopped the lord as he stomped past the prince and then onto the porch and, without even glancing at Brute, entered the inn. But he came out again in a minute, his face sharp with anger. “Can’t see a damned thing in there. Get me a candle!”
It was unclear for whom his order was intended, and the soldiers exchanged looks. Then one of them fumbled in his horse’s saddlebag and produced a taper, while another found a flint and tinder. Mindful of the breeze, they didn’t try to light the taper immediately. Instead, giving Brute a very wide berth, the men joined Lord Maudit on the porch and, after a few tries, lit the wick.
As soon as Lord Maudit snatched the candle, the men scampered away, and no one followed him back into the building. The soldiers stood with their weapons at hand, Prince Aldfrid stared at Brute with a carefully expressionless face, and Brute tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder. Blood was soaking through his fine cloak, and he felt irrationally sad about that.
“I’m sorry,” the prince finally said. “About the arrow. I think my men were scared of you.”
“Of course they were. I’m a monster.”
Prince Aldfrid shook his head. “I’ve known that wasn’t true from the moment you climbed down that cliff to save me.”
And Brute was struck with a sudden certainty, one that would have occurred to him much earlier if he wasn’t so stupid. “You sent the key,” he whispered.
After a long pause, the prince gave an almost imperceptible nod. In a voice that wouldn’t carry to the soldiers behind him he said, “At first, I only knew that you were a good man. And brave. A man who had nothing much to lose, and who could probably be persuaded to come to the palace, and one who… who’d treat a prisoner well. I think… I think not all of the others have.”
Brute remembered the bruises that had marred Gray’s emaciated body when Brute had first arrived. “They haven’t,” he said.
Prince Aldfrid squeezed his eyes shut, as if he were the one in pain. When he opened them, he nodded again. “And I hoped you would stay with him for a while. It was all I could do for him.”
Anger flared in Brute’s chest. “You could have stood up to your father for him!”
“I did!” More quietly, the prince repeated, “I did. I yelled and argued and begged and…. My father’s not a cruel man, but he’s hard. Someone like me, one prince of many, I can afford to be soft. But a king can’t. And my mother’s death very nearly ruined him. My father wouldn’t budge at all, and sending you was the most I could do.”
Brute snorted. “Wasn’t much, was it?”
“But it was. I heard what people said about you around the palace, the way they regarded you so well, and I knew you’d be treating Gray as well as anyone could. Not long after you arrived, I told the exchequer to send word to me if you withdrew all your money. I thought that would mean you intended to abandon your post, and maybe I could get to you first and dissuade you. But you never did.”
“Until recently.”
“Until recently,” Prince Aldfrid confirmed. “I’d forgotten all about my orders to the exchequer by then, actually, but when he sent me a message….” He paused to run his fingers through his hair. “I hoped you were planning maybe something more than simply quitting.”
Brute was feeling slightly light-headed, maybe from blood loss or maybe just from exhaustion. “If you helped me then, why are you here now? Why not just let us go?”
“Because the king sent Maud, not me. And I thought maybe if I came along for your capture….”
“Then what?”
The prince shrugged. “I’m not sure. I guess I hoped I could make things a little easier on both of you. Make sure you weren’t hurt.”
Brute looked down at his bloodstained cloak. “That went well, didn’t it?”
“Dammit! You know, nothing much is ever expected of me, and that’s what I give. I don’t make decisions and plans, I don’t think much about the consequences of my actions, and I’m a damned coward. I’m not brave like you.”
Somewhat taken aback to hear an admission like that from a prince, Brute was silent for a moment. Then he sighed. “When you gave me the key, did you really expect we’d get away?”
“No. But… it was the ghost of a chance, I guess. And he’s had at least a taste of freedom these past days, hasn’t he? Isn’t that something?” When Brute didn’t answer, the prince cocked his head a little. “Why did you do it, Brute? Why risk so much for him?”
“I love him.”
To Brute’s surprise, Prince Aldfrid wasn’t angry. In fact, he gave a sad little smile. “Good. I mean, despite everything, I’m glad he’s had that at least. Gods, he was… he was special.”
“He still is,” Brute responded evenly.
They remained silent a while longer. Brute wished he could sit down for a bit. He was pretty sure the bleeding had stopped, or at least slowed down, but his entire left arm was wracked with pain, all the way from the fresh wound down to the nonexistent hand.
One of the horses snorted impatiently, startling both Brute and Aldfrid out of their thoughts. “Where is he?” Aldfrid asked gently.
“Sanctuary.”
The prince frowned and opened his mouth, no doubt intending to demand clarification, but a tremendous crash came from the inn. Brute whirled around in time to see the inn’s frame wobble a little, and then there was a second bang, louder than the first. “What the hell?” Aldfrid exclaimed, and as he began to move toward the building, a muffled and incoherent cry sounded from inside. “Maud!” There was a strange intensity in the way Aldfrid called the name.
At that moment, Brute realized several things. First, that something within the fragile structure had collapsed, most likely trapping or injuring Lord Maudit. Second, that the prince and the lord were lovers—another fact that should have been obvious long ago. And third, that the best course for everyone was for Brute to risk his life again.
As the prince ran toward the door, Brute put out his good arm and grabbed him. The soldiers, who were already very ill at ease, surged forward. “Let me,” Brute said urgently. “You stay out here.”
Prince Aldfrid looked up at him, wild-eyed. And then he gave a short nod and stepped back. “Stand down!” he roared at his men, then turned back to Brute and gave him a pleading look. “Brute….”
“I know. Just stay back.”
The prince nodded again, but his head whipped up when he caught a whiff of the odor Brute had scented just a few seconds earlier. “Smoke! Oh gods, the candle!”
Brute didn’t wait for more conversation. He ran into the structure, ducking to avoid a ceiling beam that sagged just inside the doorway. The entire interior had shifted, chunks of ceiling fallen to the floor and one of the interior walls toppled completely. Footing was treacherous, but he hurried as quickly as he could, the acrid smell of burning wood already filling the air. Smoke made both breathing and visibility difficult. Like the idiot he was, Brute made straight for the source of the smoke.
It was with considerable dismay that he saw flames licking at the beams overhead. Evidently the night winds and morning breezes had destabilized the building and dried some of the timbers. Flames overhead. He realized that Lord Maudit was on the second floor. “Sir?” he called. “Your Excellency?”
He was answered with an urgent groan.
Even before the wind and the fire, Brute would not have chanced going upstairs. He hadn’t been at all sure the floor would support his weight. Now, of course, he was fairly certain it wouldn’t. But he didn’t see any other options, apart from endangering the prince and soldiers or allowing a man to burn to death. Swearing out loud at his own stupidity, Brute bac
ktracked until he found the stairs.
The staircase had certainly been sturdy and well made originally, but time and weather and insects had warped and cracked the wood, splitting the treads and risers and sending the frame out of true. Brute felt them wobble alarmingly with every step he took, yet he rushed upward anyway. The stairway didn’t collapse until he was nearly at the top, and he was just barely able to swing his arms forward—yelping at the fresh pain—and haul himself up onto the floor above. Assuming he survived, he’d need to find another way down.
“Lord Maudit?” he yelled.
The answering sound was weaker than the first, and it came from somewhere down the hallway to his left. Taking care to avoid the holes in the floor, and keeping as much as possible to the edges of the hallway where he hoped the structure was strongest, Brute ran. The smoke became so thick that it blinded him almost completely, and every breath became a choking cough. He could feel the heat of the fire even before he turned the corner; the flames roared like a living beast.
Brute climbed over a giant beam and crawled under another one, and that’s when he saw a man’s head and torso sticking out from beneath a pile of timber and plaster. The man was trying to scream but couldn’t seem to fill his lungs properly, and his hands scrabbled uselessly at the floor.
Brute dove forward. He couldn’t lift the debris one-handed, so he was forced to put his shoulders underneath and push upward. He dimly felt the arrow wound reopen but didn’t register the pain. He was too busy putting all his strength into his task—a strength that had carried boulders and heaved logs, that had pulled wagons and carts, that had rescued a prince and freed a prisoner. It was a giant’s strength.
The wreckage shifted. Not much, mere inches. But it was enough to loosen Lord Maudit, and Brute used his foot to shove the man out of the way. As soon as Maudit was free, Brute allowed the load to slip from his back, which made the entire building shudder warningly.
He couldn’t tell how badly Lord Maudit was hurt, but the man wasn’t making any effort to move. Brute scooped him up and threw him over his wounded shoulder, very glad that Maudit was a small man.
Getting back down the hallway was no small task, with the smoke roiling and fire burning, and his lungs and his left arm protesting every movement. Brute had to avoid the obstacles without causing further damage to himself, Lord Maudit, or the building, and he had to sidestep the holes in the floor, praying everything would hold under their combined weight. He passed the collapsed stairway, which was now nothing more than a hole, and moved as quickly as possible down the opposite hall. He was disappointed but not surprised when he found no additional stairs. But he did stumble into a mostly intact room with a large window, and that was going to have to be enough.
Looking out the window, he discovered the room was at the front of the building. Prince Aldfrid was not far away, pacing frantically, while the soldiers tried to hold the horses, which were whinnying and trying to back away from the fire.
A huge boom! shook the building as another piece collapsed. Even over the thundering of the fire, Brute could hear the building creaking ominously. “Hey!” he yelled, and then coughed. “Hey!”
Aldfrid came sprinting closer.
“I’m going to have to hand him down to you. Can you catch him?”
“Yes! But hurry!” A resounding crash punctuated his words.
It was a hell of an awkward thing, and Brute wished more than ever that he still possessed two hands. He had to grip both of Lord Maudit’s thin ankles in one fist and—hoping that the lord’s legs weren’t too badly injured already—dangle him upside down out the window. In the process, Brute leaned so far out and down that he was in danger of falling out himself. Fortunately, the window wasn’t too high, and one of the soldiers, perhaps the brightest of the bunch, ran forward to help. The two men were able to catch Maudit and bear him to the ground in a sort of controlled fall. Then the prince took the lord’s shoulders and the soldier his feet, and they carried him quickly away, out of range of the fire and the building itself.
Brute was just wondering whether he was ready to risk jumping to the ground when the fire gave a huge, triumphant bellow. The sound was so loud that Brute was deafened by it, and he didn’t even hear the deep, sustained rumble as the entire inn collapsed around him.
THUMP thump thump. His heart felt like a hammer in his chest. He was dimly aware that there was pain—a lot of it—but it didn’t seem to belong to him. It was very far away. He didn’t feel frightened, not even of the fire that was tickling at his boots or of the blood that was pooling around him. Mostly, he was sad, and his tears tickled as they ran down his face. His life was a fair price, one he’d offered to the gods himself, so he couldn’t complain. He just wished he could be certain that Gray would stay safe. “Gray,” he sighed.
He imagined he felt hands knocking against his shoulders and then slipping under his armpits. He imagined he heard a familiar voice made thick with smoke: “Idiot.”
He tried to find the breath to laugh. “You were wrong,” he whispered weakly. “It’s fire, not water.”
“I lied,” answered the imaginary voice, just before something gave Brute’s body a tremendous tug, and then everything went black.
Chapter 25
HE RECOGNIZED the tingling warmth of a healer’s touch, so he knew he must be alive, but there wasn’t much solace in the realization. Assuredly, the entire past year must have been the product of a brain addled by a fall from a cliff. Everything—the adventure, the friends, the love—had been a wishful hallucination, and soon he would open his eyes and look up at Hilma Gedding’s ceiling. And then he’d be nothing but an ugly, mutilated freak with nowhere to go.
So he kept his eyes closed for a very long time.
But then the healer began to sing, and the awareness slowly filtered into his mind that the song wasn’t what he expected. “That’s not a healing chant,” he said, all rusty-voiced.
The response was full of good humor. “The lullaby’s been working better. So has the Ballad of the Silver-Tongued Rogue. Want me to switch to that instead?”
“You’re not Hilma Gedding.”
“I most certainly hope not.”
Brute finally pried his eyelids open. Gray Leynham was hunched over him, warm palms pressing lightly against Brute’s bare chest and a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Brute blinked a few times, but Gray didn’t disappear. Bright relief rushed through him like the sun cutting through clouds—until he realized what must have happened and gloom settled back in. “Oh gods, they took you anyway!” He was suddenly furious—had Kashta lied about sanctuary, or had Prince Aldfrid violated it?
“I’m not taken, and you need to stay still,” Gray answered calmly. His hands made little soothing motions, and Brute didn’t know whether that was part of the healing or if Gray was just trying to calm him down.
“But you’re— I don’t….”
“I told you to stay still! You’ve used up every bit of my healing skill as it is, Aric. I don’t want you to reinjure yourself.”
With considerable effort, Brute relaxed. “I don’t understand,” he said, and he sounded pathetic even to his own ears.
“You ended up with a burning inn collapsed on your head, love. Even a giant can’t walk away from that unscathed.”
Nothing that Gray said after “love” registered. Brute felt a little loopy and a lot confused, and he was beginning to suspect that he really was delusional after all. But when he reached up to grab one of Gray’s wrists, that certainly felt real. He could even feel the little ridge of scarring from the manacles Gray had worn for so long. He tried to focus his eyes on his surroundings. “Where is this?”
“The Vale of course. It’s fortunate that the Vale is mostly downhill from the inn—I think the horse would have given up if he’d had to drag you uphill.”
“Drag?”
“They made a litter for you. And one for Maud too. I wish I could have seen it. We must have looked like quite a para
de.”
Before Brute could formulate his next question—and really, he had so many he didn’t know where to begin—Gray gently pulled his hand away and reached for a small pottery cup. He wormed an arm under Brute’s head and raised it a little so he could drink. The tea was lukewarm but tasted bright and tangy, like berries, and it slaked the thirst Brute hadn’t realized he had.
When the cup was empty, Gray set Brute’s head gently back down on something soft. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are you in much pain?”
Brute did a quick self-inventory. He ached from head to toe—with his hips giving a particular twinge. His lungs felt scratchy, and he was weak. But there was nothing that he would call pain. “I’m all right. Did… you fix me up?”
“Turns out I’m a better healer than I thought, at least when someone I love is dying.”
There was that word again, the word that made everything else fade in comparison. But then something else that Gray had said finally registered. “You said we. When you were talking about the parade from the inn to the Vale, you said we. You were at the inn?”
“He’s the one who rescued you.”
Brute startled to hear another voice—he hadn’t noticed that anyone else was in the hut. But Kashta was standing off to one side in his old purple robes, gnawing on a green apple. He gave Brute a little wave. “I am very happy that you have survived,” the priest said.
“Um, me too. But what did you mean about Gray rescuing me?” Even as he asked the question, Brute remembered hands seizing him and tugging him away. He turned to glare at Gray, who of course couldn’t see, and said, “You lied about your dream!”
Gray didn’t look the least bit repentant. “I thought I could keep you away from the pond in the Vale if I told you it was water. I should have known you’d be too big of an idiot to keep clear of your death.” Now it was his turn to frown. “I underestimated your idiocy, though. You left me here! What in all hells did you think you were doing?”