by Anna Kendall
Also by Anna Kendall from Gollancz:
Crossing Over
Book Two of the Soulvine Moor Chronicles
Anna Kendall
GOLLANCZ
L O N D O N
Copyright © Anna Kendall 2011
All rights reserved
The right of Anna Kendall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Gollancz An imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 575 09430 7 (Cased)
ISBN 978 0 575 09431 4 (Trade Paperback) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Typeset by Input Data Services Ltd, Bridgwater, Somerset Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc The Orion Publishing Group's policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Ebook conversion by Hydra House
www.hydrahousebooks.com
Map of the Queendom
1
It is old women who are most willing to talk to me.
Not all of them, and not only them. Sometimes an old man could be coaxed into talk, especially if I tripped over him. Occasionally a halfwit who did not know where he was. And twice I have talked to queens. But usually, in the Country of the Dead, it was old women who would come out of their eerie trances to prattle of the lives they had lost, some very long ago. But I was not now in the Country of the Dead. I only dreamed that I was, and the dream was even more terrible than the reality had been.
A flat upland moor, with a round stone house. There is the taste of roasted meat in my mouth, succulent and greasy. In the shadows beyond my torch I sense things unseen. Inhuman things, things I have never met in this land or in that other beyond the grave. Moving—
' Peter!'
— among them is a woman's figure, and the voice coming to me from the dark is a woman's voice, and I can see the glint of a jewelled crown. The woman calls my name.
'But—'
'Peter! Wake up!'
'— you're dead,' I say.
'Eleven years dead,' she says, and gives a laugh that shivers my bones. And—
'Peter! Now!'
I struck out, blindly, crazed with fear of that monstrous laugh. My fist struck flesh. A cry, and I came fully awake, and Jee lay sprawled against the wall of the sheep shed, his little hand going to the red mark on his cheek.
'Jee! I'm so sorry! Oh, Jee, I didn't mean to ...'
He stared at me reproachfully, saying nothing. Early-morning light spilled through the door he had opened.
The sheep – two ewes and three lambs – stared at me from their bed of straw.
'Jee ...' But what could I say? I had already apologized, and it changed nothing. The blow could not be undone
– like so much else in my life.
'Eleven years dead.'
I took Jee in my arms, and he did not resist. Under the fingers of my left hand his bones felt so small. Should a ten-year-old be so small? I didn't know, having so little experience with children. The village children avoid me, frightened perhaps of the stump where my other hand used to be. 'Peter One-Hand', they called me, not knowing how I lost the other, or that my name is not Peter.
Sometimes I think that even Maggie forgets the past.
But I never forget.
Jee freed himself from my clumsy embrace. 'Maggie says ye maun kill a lamb for dinner. The fattest one.'
I blinked. 'Are there travellers?'
'Yes. And their servants. Come!'
Travellers with servants. Our rough inn, perched above the village of Applebridge in the foothills of the Western Mountains, seldom gets travellers, and never travellers with servants. They must have arrived very early in the morning. I had slept in the sheep shed because two days ago a wolf had carried off Samuel Brown's only lamb, killed it right in the enclosure by his cottage. Maggie had insisted that I build a stout shed, and I had chosen to sleep in it. 'There's no need, it's completely enclosed and has no window,' Maggie had said, her lips tightening.
I hadn't answered. We both knew why I preferred to sleep out here, and that neither of us could bear to discuss it.
I raised myself from the straw, brushed bits of it off my tunic and leggings, and pulled on my boots.
Maggie and I have run this inn for two years. It is due solely to her that we, two seventeen-year-old fugitives and Jee, have been able to make a living. It was Maggie who bartered the last of our coins for the rent on a falling-down cottage in Applebridge. Maggie who hammered and nailed and scrubbed and drove me relentlessly to do the same, until the cottage had a taproom, usable kitchen, and three tiny bedrooms above. Maggie who cooked stews from wild rabbit and kitchen-garden vegetables, stews so good that local farmers began leaving their own cottages to have dinner and sour ale at the inn, talking through the long winter nights and glad for a gathering place to do it. Maggie who bought the ale, driving such a hard bargain that she won the grudging respect of men three times her age. Maggie who acquired our chickens, sewed our tunics, baked and boiled and roasted. Maggie who, just this spring, bought the two ewes from the Widow Moore with our carefully hoarded money. Maggie who had saved my very life, with Mother Chilton's help. I owed Maggie everything.
But I could not give her the one thing she wanted from me. I could not love her. Cecilia stood between us, just as if she had not died. Twice. Cecilia and Queen Caroline and my talent, which I had not used in over two years but which still festered within me, like a sore that would not heal.
The sheep gazed at me meditatively with their silly faces. Stupid animals, they irritated me constantly. They belched, they farted, they got soremouth and ringworm.
They fell on their backs and, when in full wool, couldn't get up without help. They chewed their cud until it was a sloppy wad and then dropped it on my foot. They were afraid of new colours, strange smells and walking in a straight line. They smelled.
Still, I was not looking forward to killing the lamb. One of the ewes lay beside twin lambs, the other nursed a single offspring – which one did Maggie mean by 'fattest'? How many travellers were there, and where did they come from?
I should have been fearful of travellers, but I found I was not. Any change in the small, wearying, unchanging routine of Applebridge was welcome. And there should be nothing to fear: The Queendom had been at peace for two and a half years, ruled by Lord Protector Robert Hopewell for six-year-old Princess Stephanie. No one knew where or who I was. Travellers would be a pleasant break.
'I'm sorry,' I said to the larger and plumper of the twin lambs. It blinked at me and curled closer to its mother.
I left the sheep shed, carefully barring the wooden door, and walked the dirt path to the back of the cottage. The summer morning sparkled fresh and fair. Wild roses bloomed along the lanes, along with daisies and buttercups and bluebells. Birds twittered. The cottage stood on the side of a hill, backed by wooded slopes, and I could see the farms and orchards of Applebridge spread below me, fields and trees all coloured that tender yellow-green that comes but once a year. The river ran swift and blue, spanned by the ancient stone bridge that gave the village its name. Maggie's kitchen garden smelled of mint and lavender.
As I rounded the corner of our cottage to the stable yard, I stopped cold.
'Travellers,' Jee had said, 'and their servants.' But he had not told me of anything like this. Five mu
les, stronger than donkeys and sturdier than horses, were being groomed and watered by a youth about my own age – although I knew that I, with all that had been done to and by me, looked older than seventeen. The mules were fine animals but looked as if they had been pushed hard to pull the four wagons now drawn off the road. Three of the wagons were farm carts such as everyone used to take crops to market, but they were piled high with polished wooden chests, with expensively carved fur-niture, with barrels and canvas bags. The fourth was a closed caravan with a double harness, such as faire folk use to take their booths around a more populated countryside than ours. This caravan, however, had gilded wheels and brass fittings and silver trim. Neither wagon nor coach, it was a room on wheels, and probably as rich within as without.
Where had such visitors come from, and what had driven them to travel on a night lit only by the thinnest of crescent moons?
'Good morrow,' I said to the youth. 'I am—'
He snapped something I could not understand through his thick, high-pitched accent.
'What?' I said.
This time I caught enough words. 'Be ... halfwit? Tell ... hurry ... My lady's breakfast!'
Hot words rose to my lips: I was the proprietor of this inn and he but a stable boy! But before I could lambaste him, the cottage door opened and Maggie rushed out.
'Peter! I need that lamb butchered now if I'm to have stew for noon dinner! They leave by mid-afternoon!'
She stood with her hands on her hips, her fair curls drooping from under her cap, kitchen heat filming her forehead with sweat. A white apron covered a trim grey gown of her own making. Maggie will wear grey or red or brown, but never green nor blue, the colours of the two queens for whom she had been a kitchen maid. Her foot in its neat leather boot tapped on the ground. She looked pretty, and determined and very competent: Maggie as master and commander.
As always, this brought out in me a desire to resist, to not be ordered about. All my life I had been ordered about: by my stepfather, by a head laundress, by a queen. In my own cottage I would not be ordered and scolded.
'In good time,' I said testily to Maggie. 'I'm talking to this man here.'
The boy ignored me and went on feeding the mules.
'Peter, we must have—'
'In good time!'
Jee appeared at the door of the cottage. 'Maggie, ye maun come! They want—'
I didn't wait to hear what they wanted. Already my stupid fit of pique had passed. Maggie was working hard for both of us; the travellers were obviously rich and would pay us well; I was a fool to not do as I was told. I started back towards the sheep shed.
But then an old woman emerged from the door in the back of the caravan. She stumbled on the one step and I leaped forward to catch her. Her considerable bulk lurched against me and we both fell to the ground, me underneath. It was like being crushed by a very large, very dense mattress. 'Thank you!' she cried, in that same strange accent.
'Are you hurt, mistress?'
'No, but ... Catch my breath, lad ...'
I led her to the wooden bench in front of the cottage. She plopped heavily down. And then she began speaking.
It is old women who are most willing to talk to me. And once again everything in my world changed.
2
The old woman, a servant of some type, wore a simple brown dress and white cap not unlike Maggie's. The fabric, however, was richer than ever graced Maggie's back, and the white cap was embroidered with an intertwined C and S. Her broad, wrinkled face turned from red to white and back again as she answered my questions.
‘Are you certain you are not hurt, mistress?'
‘I ... am fine ... well-padded ... Just let me ...'
‘I can bring some water. Or ale.'
‘W ... wine?'
‘No.' Wine was too grand for the inn.
‘Then ... no.' Her breathing slowed.
‘I am Peter Forest, proprietor of this inn. Where do you come from, mistress?'
To my surprise, she groaned. ‘Gone! All gone!' She covered her eyes with her hands.
‘Gone? What's gone?'
A torrent of words gushed from her, of which I caught every third word. ‘Manor ... fire ... baby ... my lady ... all that be left ... baby ...'
I put a reassuring hand – my only hand – on her arm. ‘A fire? There was a fire in your lady's manor house?'
‘No!' And again the spill of anguished words. This time I caught only three. ‘Destroyed ... army ... savages.'
Savages. A savage army.
I seized her arm so hard that the woman not only jerked her whole massive body, she also actually stopped talking. ‘An army? Of savage warriors in fur tunics? And you come from the west?'
‘Yes, lad . Don't!'
I let her go. She stood up shakily from the bench, glaring at me, and I stood too.
‘I'm sorry, mistress. Your news startled me. You are ... you are sure? A savage army is marching from the west, from over the mountains, and destroying settlements on their way? Do you know who they are?'
She shook her head, still glaring, until a sudden high wail came from the caravan. A baby. The old woman waddled away. Once more I grabbed her with my good hand.
‘Please, mistress, just one more question and—' But she shook me off and climbed into the caravan, closing its door behind her. I had a glimpse of a dim interior rich with rugs and embroidered pillows and a carved wooden cradle.
The nursemaid had not told me whose army marched from the west. But I knew.
For a long moment I stared at the closed door of the caravan, not seeing it nor anything else in the stableyard. Seeing only the past. Then my vision cleared and I pushed open the door to the inn and went inside.
Our taproom is small, with two long trestle tables neatly filling the space between hearth and door. Two men sat there. This fine summer morning no fire burned in the hearth, although of course there was one in the kitchen behind, and the two windows stood open to the light breeze. A narrow staircase led to the rooms above. A girl descended the staircase, one hand steadying herself against the wall, as if she might fall. The younger of the two men, both richly dressed in velvets creased and soiled from hard travel, jumped up from the table to help her.
‘Joanna! Be careful!'
‘I'm fine.' She smiled at him, a tremulous smile, full of love. Their accent was easier for me to understand than were the servants' outside. The girl was plain of face and very thin, dressed in a brocade gown worn too loose at waist and belly. She might have been pregnant, but I guessed instead that she had very recently given birth and had not yet fully recovered. Her young husband guided her to the table, where the older man sat tucking in to Maggie's bread, cheese and ale.
The young man said, ‘Is that all there is? Joanna can't eat that!'
Joanna quavered, ‘I could try some bread.' Sweat glis-tened on the woman's pale forehead, although the room was not warm. Her eyes shone too brightly.
The young man said desperately, ‘The innkeeper's wife promised us spring lamb. You could eat that, couldn't you, sweetheart? It's so tender. It would slide right down, and give you strength.'
‘Yes, Harry.' Maintaining her sweet smile was costing her tremendous effort. All at once she clutched the edge of the table. ‘If I could just step outside for a moment ...'
Harry helped her outside. The older man looked at me. ‘Go ask if—'
‘I am Peter Forest, the proprietor of this inn,' I said, as I have said so many times before, never without faint disbelief. He took me for a servant, and so I often feel.
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Lord Carush Spenlow. When will the lamb stew be ready? We must get back on the road as soon as possible.'
The lamb stew was still on the hoof. I said with as much authority as I could muster, ‘Stew takes time, my lord. And I was told that you need to rest both yourselves and your mules at least half a day.'
‘True, true.' Lord Carush stood, his sword clanking against the side of the table. He looked around,
sat down again, stared at his bread and cheese. Abruptly he blurted, ‘My daughter-in-law is not well. Is there an apothecary in the village?'
‘No, I am afraid not.'
‘Where is the closest physician?'
‘Probably Morsebury, two days' hard ride east.'
‘Have you a midwife?'
‘Yes. Mistress Johns. She is very skilled.'
‘Send for her at once, please.'
‘Yes, my lord.'
We looked at each other. Shadows moved behind his eyes. He knew, as did I, that if Lady Joanna had childbed fever, there was precious little even the most skilled midwife could do for her, nor a physician either. Young Harry Spenlow would be a widower soon enough, and the baby in the gilded caravan would be motherless. I said, ‘Sir, you are travelling hard by night. What news from the west?'
‘You haven't heard? I've tried to tell everyone we met along the way. There is an army marching over the mountains. They are pillaging estates as they go, slaughtering our animals for food, carrying off our goods, burning our manors. An army of savages – they scarcely look human in their furs and feathers – and they have terrible weapons they call guns. The weapons shoot bits of metal with great speed and force. Sir, you have never seen anything like it, or like them!'
Yes. I had.
Lord Carush continued, ‘They burned my manor to the ground, and we barely escaped with our lives. My unfortunate cook ... The savages burned out my neighbours as well, or so I heard, although we mountain nobles live far apart and only runners informed me. But don't look like that, sir. Everything I've heard says that the savages are not burning villages, nor harming common people. Only the nobility.'
‘Why?'
He shrugged with the frustrated helplessness of a man used to having his orders obeyed. ‘Perhaps they are all mad, or halfwits. But more likely they intend to send a warning to the palace: “We will destroy your nobility until we get what we want.”'