by Karen Miller
Asher dragged his hands over his face. Well, hadn’t this turned into a fine mess of fish guts? Bloody Borne and his damned bloody meddling … He bit his lip. Took a step closer to the dining table and cleared his throat.
‘Gar. I never said this job was for good. I never said that.’
Gar savoured a bite of the fish. Explored the second chafing dish: roast duck. In the third, garden fresh vegetables swimming in herbed butter. He helped himself to both.
‘My meal is getting cold.’
Asher scowled. So the prince was going to sulk, was he? Spoiled, stupid pillock that he was. Trying to make out he was the injured party. Conveniently forgetting – and oh, wasn’t that just like royalty – that other people had lives and plans and promises that mattered just as much as theirs.
‘You sure the servants’ hall ain’t too grand for the likes of me? Maybe I should go out to the kennels, eh? See if the hounds have left some bones for chewin’? Would you like that better? Sir?’
Gar speared a mushroom on his fork. Chewed. Swallowed. ‘It seems to me, Asher, that what I like doesn’t interest you in the slightest. I suggest you please yourself. It appears to be what you’re best at, after all.’
Asher slammed the parlour door behind him so hard it was a wonder the hinges didn’t spring free of their housings. Stamped back into his boots and banged his way along the corridor, down the stairs and back out to the stables where he knew he’d be welcome. He didn’t care about dinner. He’d lost his appetite. For food, for friendship, for everything else except getting home … and leaving all things Doranen behind him, once and for all.
Once the parlour door closed and he was alone, Gar pushed his laden plate away. His stomach was churning. If he ate another mouthful he’d be sick.
That his father could do such a thing. Could conspire behind his back with Asher like that. That Asher would keep such a secret. It was so demeaning. So patronising. So painful.
In his mind’s eye he could see them: heads bent close together as they plotted his unnecessary protection. ‘Poor Gar,’ they must have whispered. ‘He’s the only choice for the festival, we have to send him, but Barl knows it’s a risk. So let’s not tell him you’re leaving, shall we? He might get all upset and ruin everything. We’ll keep it our little secret.’ ‘Certainly, Your Majesty. Anything you say, Your Majesty.’ ‘Excellent, Asher, and here’s a little something extra for your trouble …’
How could they do this to him? How could his father do it? Treat him like – like a cripple?
In silence he stared at the dining table and its burden of abruptly unwelcome food. The old inn creaked around him, settling for the night, and the fire slowly crumbled into glowing cinders. But still he sat there, because it occurred to him that Asher might come back to argue some more or state his case or beg for pardon or hurl abuse, or even plates. Barl knew they’d had their disagreements over the past year. Loud, long and heated disagreements, some of them. But in the end they’d always worked things out. In the end they managed to find their way back to common ground and even laugh about whatever it was that had set them fighting.
They’d never walked away without shaking hands, even if it meant agreeing to disagree.
But Asher didn’t come back. The food grew cold, then colder, then congealed into pig food. The fire went out and the candles burned down to their sockets.
Eventually, he went to bed.
Standing by the touring coach the next morning, waiting for the signal to leave, Willer glanced left and right, made certain no underling’s flapping ears were close enough to hear, and said eagerly to Darran, ‘Well? What did you find out?’
Darran looked down his long nose. ‘Really, Willer. You make me sound positively clandestine.’
‘No!’ he protested. ‘No, not at all, Darran. Discreet. Politic. Tactful.’
Instead of answering, Darran snapped his fingers at a passing servant and nodded at the coach door. The servant opened it, pulled down the little steps then stood back so that his superior might enter. Darran acknowledged the courtesy with a nod and took his place inside. Willer, ignoring the servant, climbed in after him.
Seated in safe silence within the coach, Darran arranged himself comfortably against the cushions. Unfolded his working desk from the panel in the coach siding, extracted a sheaf of papers from the cunningly hidden pocket beneath it, perched his glasses on the end of his nose and began reading.
Just barely, Willer stopped himself from screaming. It was a game, Darran’s favourite game, Tease the Assistant, and he’d kiss Asher’s fingers and call him ‘sir’ before he’d give Darran the satisfaction of another question. Instead he poked around in his own satchel of papers and pulled out the order of events for the festival. He’d already memorised it, of course, but it was just another part of the game. The more eager he appeared, the longer Darran would wait before sharing what he knew. But his eyes, skimming over the notes, scarcely saw them and his mind was filled with things other than the Great Gathering and the Sea Harvest hymn.
Through the carriage’s window, he watched as Asher had scowling words with a groom, all the while tugging at his horse’s girth straps and waving his hands about. Temper hung on him like a mantle, thick and black and red.
Movement from the inn’s rear entrance caught his attention. The innkeeper, that provincial rustic Greenhill or Grimfulk or some such name. And His Highness. Looking, Willer saw with dawning delight, as mantled in bad humour as Asher. So perhaps the gossip was true. The prince and his ill-chosen personal assistant were at odds. At last, at longest, longest last, the first cracks in that Barl-forsaken alliance were beginning to show.
The urgency of preparations escalated sharply as the bustling servants caught sight of their royal master. Willer, all pretence at reading forgotten, leaned forward to better see the look on Asher’s face. At first sight of His Highness the upstart froze, mid-complaint. His spine stiffened and his chin came up, all arrogant defiance, no proper humility, no deferential awe. Just pride and consequence and him nothing but an uneducated pedlar of fish carcases when he’d first arrived in Dorana, to fall into luck and attach himself to His Highness like a leech from Boggy Marshes.
Heart pounding, hands clenched, Willer waited for the prince to notice the scullion. When their eyes met it was like the clashing of boulders, the grinding of ice floes in winter River Gant. Asher was the first to look away. Throwing his reins at the chastened groom he busied himself elsewhere as His Highness showed his back to the courtyard, pretending an interest in whatever the innkeeper was squittling about.
Pleasure, warm and liquid, bathed Willer’s skin in a languorous, golden glow.
‘You’re being obvious, Willer,’ said Darran, chilly with disapproval.
Caught, Willer felt his cheeks burn, and his hands scrambled on the forgotten paperwork. ‘No, you misunderstand, I—’
Darran raised sparse eyebrows. ‘I rarely misunderstand anything. Do cultivate a little self-control, dear boy. The man who controls himself controls the world.’
‘Yes, Darran,’ he muttered, and smoothed his creased paperwork back into its carry bag.
‘Come, come,’ Darran chided, thin lips curved in a smile, eyes alight with an unfamiliar fire. ‘This is no time for sulking. Our patience has at last been rewarded, just as I said it would be.’
After a long moment’s puzzling, Willer shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Darran, but I don’t know what you mean.’
Darran’s smile broadened, revealing crooked teeth. ‘Asher has resigned.’
The shock of it stole his breath, so that for several heartbeats all he could do was gape like a country halfwit, mouth slack with disbelief. ‘No,’ he managed at last. ‘No! I don’t believe it! There must be a mistake!’
Darran looked at him. ‘I am not in the habit of being mistaken. I had it from His Highness himself who, I suppose you will allow, has some inkling of his own business.’
Resigned? Asher had resigned? But that wasn’t the
plan. That wasn’t it at all. Asher was to be found out, brought down, revealed to all the world and reviled by it. He wasn’t supposed to just … just … walk away. Not unpunished. Not whole. How could that be?
Darran said, clearly put out, ‘He will remain behind in Westwailing once the festival has concluded.’ And when Willer could still do nothing but stare, snapped, ‘What is the matter with you? Our dearest wish has at last been granted! Asher’s ruffian, unseemly influence will soon be gone from court. He will rapidly become nothing more than the memory of a bad taste in the mouth, and I, for one, am highly pleased by this turn of events. If you are wise, Willer, you will be highly pleased too!’
‘Yes, Darran,’ said Willer, discarding with a sharp pain between his ribs his daydreams of Asher’s public downfall. ‘Of course, Darran. As you say. It’s for the best. Of course I’m pleased. I’m very pleased.’ And he smiled, a brave smile, as though he weren’t sick with disappointment at all.
In the courtyard Asher’s voice rose above the general hubbub. ‘Right-ho! Mount up, climb up and all aboard! We got ourselves a hefty stretch of travellin’ yet and the sun ain’t standin’ still.’
Willer settled himself more comfortably against his cushions and pulled out a book. It was, he discovered with faint surprise, some small comfort that from the sound of it Asher was just as unhappy about impending unemployment as he was about his lost hope for revenge.
Good, he thought, and snapped over the page with a vindictive thumb. And what’s more, after all this riding I hope he gets piles.
The journey continued in silence. Word had spread, as word always does, that there was something seriously amiss between the prince and his assistant. Even if it hadn’t, the chilly unaccustomed silence, their haughty, aloof faces, and the way they rode apart and alone would have shouted as much to anyone who knew them even a little. The grooms, the cooks and the pot boys all exchanged swift, eloquent glances, raised their eyebrows, shrugged their shoulders and in the shorthand of discreet employees everywhere said: What’s up with them, then, eh? Dunno. Mind yer step, though, for himself’s in a temper and no mistake.
The subdued day dragged on. They reached the Coast Road and got their first look at the ocean an hour and a half after leaving Minching Town. At any other time the breathtaking sight would have stopped them all in their tracks, had them gasping and pointing and begging stories from Asher to match the heart-stopping, impossible stretch of ceaseless blue water.
But Asher was hardly even looking at it and neither was the prince, so that was that. The cavalcade trundled on: overheated, overtired and unhappy.
Luncheon was a brief and acrimonious affair on a sparse stretch of salty open heath land. Strange, ugly bushes writhed low to the ground as far as the jaded eye could see; agonised outcroppings of deep purple and red rock clotted the barren landscape. The horses were unhappy, lashing their tails at stinging flies and snapping yellowed teeth at anybody daft enough to stand too close. Gar ate in solitary splendour beneath a parasol. Asher savaged a heel of bread and a hunk of cheese in the shade of the supply wagon and was wisely left alone. From the look on his face, the horses and flies weren’t the only creatures in a biting mood.
They didn’t rest for long; Darran had them back on the road within the hour, fussing about punctuality and reminding all and sundry that they would have to stop again before reaching Westwailing so that everyone could change into the fresh clothes kept aside for their official arrival and welcome.
After two interminable, buttock-bleeding weeks on the road, the journey was nearly over.
Westwailing welcomed them with open arms, smiling faces and a raucous brass band, whose five burstingly proud members were crowded at the foot of the mayor’s beribboned dais, strategically placed at the top end of the High Street. All the gathered fisherfolk of Lur were there, lining the long, downward-winding thoroughfare, perched precariously in trees and on rooftops, dangling daring from open windows, and every one eager for a glimpse of the flaxen-haired prince from that unimaginable place, the City. The air was brisk and laced with salt, flavoured with fish. There was a speech from the mayor, mercifully short, and then the brass band played in earnest as His Royal Highness Prince Gar and his royal party minced their recently washed and meticulously reclothed way between the cheering spectators. The mayor and his wife and various other local dignitaries tucked in behind, basking in royalty’s reflected glory.
Face schooled firmly into an expression of gratified pleasure, hand raised and waving impartially left, then right, Gar slid his gaze sideways to his scowling companion and said, ‘Smile. You owe me that much.’
Asher manufactured an obedient, empty smile.
Smothering the hurt, Gar looked to the crowd again. Released a sigh, soft as the briny breeze. All these people. All this excitement. They meant nothing. Nothing. They’d cheer a dancing bear just as hard. Cheer harder if it fell on its fat, moth-eaten behind. Would he fall on his tomorrow, during the Sea Harvest Festival? And would they cheer if he did?
Dear Barl, if you can hear me, he said to the vaulting, cloudless sky, lips pressed hard to his holyring, don’t let me fall. Please. If you love me … don’t let me fall.
That night there was a banquet, and the whole town was invited. The Westwailing market square was reserved for the mayor and his important guests but the streets belonged to Lur’s fisherfolk. Coloured lanterns draped the trees, hung from windows and shop signs, lit the shiny cobbled streets in garish rainbows. Trestle tables and benches marched end to end between the pavements and the air was soaked to the gills with the smoky smells of roasting meat. Hogsheads of wine and ale stood open on every corner, and on this one night alone it was no shame to be merry with grog. Laughter was music, and music was music, with the warring shrill and pipe of a dozen different strumming bands and voices raised in discordant song.
The daily grind of life had been packed away in its battered box, not to be looked at or sighed over for a day, or even two. For now only merriment counted, and ale, and fat roast pork, and the cheerful gossip of those lucky enough to have a caught a glimpse of the Prince from Up Yonder.
In the market square the celebrations were more refined but just as enthusiastic. The same brass band played valiantly in the centre of the square, the edges of which had been lined with trestle tables covered in donated best tablecloths and garlanded with scentwax and ruby gloss-glows and pale purple bugles.
The official table stood above the rest, as was only fitting, and was waited on by the self-important few who’d been honoured and schooled and reminded and teased and resented on it until they were thinking that mayhap their friends and relations carousin’ in the streets had the better bargain after all. For certain, serving the likes of that bossy long streak of cat’s piss in black who called hisself ‘sir’ when he caught sight of his face in the mirror, most like, and went by the name of Durgood or some such, well, servin’ the likes of him weren’t a minute of fun … nor the fat, overdressed little creature who followed him around like a bad smell.
But take no never mind of them. There were the prince and the Mayor and Mrs Mayor and the seven other town and village leaders, and they were gracious enough. Oh, aye, and that other fellow. The Olken. Used to be a local, someone said, vaguely recognising him, and how had he managed to climb so high above the rest of them? Sitting there in his fancy clothes, with a fancy gewgaw in his ear and silver rings on his fingers flaming blue and red and purple fire in the guttering torchlights. And not hardly speaking a word, neither, black thunderclouds in his face. Who was he? Who were his kin, and what village or town did he once call home?
Busier than seagulls among fish guts, the serving lads and lasses scurried from table to carvery to wine barrel to bread bins and back again, and looked and wondered, and raised their eyebrows at each other as the banquet continued beneath a crystal clear vista of stars.
Asher buried his face in a fresh mug of ale and cursed himself for the greatest fool breathing. They were all st
aring at him, sink ’em. Even when their heads were turned or they gobbled a plate of food or swallowed an ocean of wine, still they were staring. The minute he opened his mouth he’d branded himself a local, and what a fool he’d been not to have thought on that possibility.
Aye, he had a City accent now, though he’d never noticed it creeping up and would be glad to lose it fast enough, but still he was one of their own and they knew it. And of course Ole Sailor Vem, Restharven’s village adjudicator, had took one look at him and nearly fallen over backwards with shock. He was fair worn out with the effort of avoiding the ole codger. Last thing he wanted was to have to tell Vem what he’d been up to. Turned out protocol was good for something after all. Vem would never get up from his table before Gar, and Gar was too busy troughing to be going any place any time soon.
In his ear a familiar voice, laced now with unfamiliar spite. ‘Stop sulking,’ Gar advised, a lying smile on his lips. ‘Did I say you couldn’t stay? Stay, if that’s what you want. Stay and be damned.’
Dumbstruck, he could only stare. What did Gar want him to say? Never mind, it was only a joke, of course I’m coming back to the City with you? Got no life of my own, no plans, no ambitions. The only promise that counts is the one I made to you. So I’ll just tag along at your heels until I be old and grey and all my teeth be in a jar. Was that what the prince expected?
Then more fool him.
He opened his mouth to say so but was drowned by the renewed vigour of the band, striking up a lively dance tune.
Gar turned away, offering his arm to the lady mayoress. She blushed and dimpled, the silly cow, as though royalty wouldn’t tread on her toes just like her husband, and accepted his invitation. As they ponced their way to the clear space in the middle of the market square other couples joined them, and soon the cobblestones rang beneath jigging feet and stamping heels.
Sailor Vem, safe on the other end of the table, put aside his crumpled napkin and stood.