Anhaga

by Lisa Henry

  He knelt in front of Kaz, shuffled him back a few inches to put some slack in the chain, and put his hands on his shoulders to ease him into a more upright position. He stared over Kaz’s shoulder at the window, at the rattling shutters, and willed himself to believe it was nothing more than the wind.

  “Just the wind,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

  “The wind,” Kaz echoed back, his breath hot against Min’s throat.

  “The wind,” Min promised him, and how was one of his hands now at the nape of Kaz’s neck, fingers twisting elflocks into his dark curls? He eased his hand away, heart beating fast, and forced a smile. “Go to bed, Kaz. Get some sleep.”

  Kaz couldn’t quite meet his eyes. He nodded and shuffled on his knees back toward the bed. He climbed back onto the frame, chain clanking and straw in the mattress rustling, and tugged the blankets over him.

  “Good night,” Min said and then, seized by a rush of sudden dangerous affection for the boy, reached into his shirt to withdraw the rowan twigs Talys had given him and Harry. He still doubted their power. Certainly the wisps hadn’t liked them, but it had hardly driven them away. Still. Min crossed to the window and set the twigs on the latch of the shutter.

  “Thank you,” Kaz whispered.

  Min nodded and left the room. He closed the door carefully behind him.

  “WHERE THE hell have you been?” Harry muttered when Min finally crawled back into bed. Then he wrinkled his nose, and his expression softened into something like sympathy. “Oh.”

  Min ignored him.

  It didn’t stop Harry from giving him a consoling pat on the shoulder and curling up closer than he usually did.

  Min didn’t have the energy or the inclination to tell Harry that he had it wrong.

  Totally and utterly wrong.

  Chapter 9

  THE STORM broke sometime before dawn. The wind bashed at the doors and shutters of the manor house, and the rain lashed against the roof. Min, woken by a sharp crack of thunder that seemed to shake the house to its foundations, lay awake and watched as the black of night gave way fraction by fraction to a bleak, dark day. At last, when it became apparent that the day would grow no brighter anytime soon, Min climbed out of bed and dressed.

  Harry snored on, curled up in a lump under the blankets, his head wedged under a pillow.

  Min left the room and headed down the dark passageway toward the stairs. The day was cold too, colder than yesterday, and Min’s fears seemed to seek out all the shadowed corners of the house and multiply rapidly. The gloom was oppressive. Laden. Min half expected a knot of tangled little wisps to buzz out of the darkness, sharp little teeth and claws bared, or, worse, the Hidden Lord himself, his face terrible and beautiful in all its cold-blooded glory.

  He hurried down the steps, cursing his own imagination.

  Like any smart stray, Min was drawn to the warmth of the kitchens and to the smell of baking bread. A maid shooed him away, but not before he helped himself to a still-hot knot of bread. He ate half at once and, accustomed to putting something aside for later—or for Harry, if he was feeling charitable—slipped the other half of the roll between his undershirt and his tunic. He headed farther into the house, the bread cooling slowly between his clothes.

  The lamps in the library were lighted, tiny flames flickering away behind the small panes. Robert Sabadine, as immaculately presented as always, stood leaning over the table in the center of the room studying papers, like a warlord strategizing over a map.

  “Do we attack the Iron Tower at dawn?” Min asked.

  Robert looked up sharply.

  “A joke,” Min said mildly.

  “Treason is no joke.”

  “And a fish is no bird,” Min said agreeably.

  Robert straightened up and rolled his shoulders. “What the hell are you even talking about?”

  “Harmless nonsense,” Min said. “You should give it a try once in a while. It does wonders for the humors.”

  Robert looked him up and down. “I cannot decide if you are a snake or a fool.”

  Min shrugged. “And you would have had no reason to ever ponder such mysteries if your family hadn’t put a curse mark on my nephew.”

  Robert’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Your guttersnipe nephew was found in my daughter’s bedroom.”

  Min raised his eyebrows. “Well, perhaps your daughter shouldn’t have been so eager to open her—” He gave Robert a moment to bristle. “—window.”

  Robert stared at him, the moment taut with tension, and then shook his head. “You will find my humors more balanced than you think. I am not so easy to rile as you suppose.” His gaze was steely. “And you, sir, are a fool.”

  Wrong, Min thought. I am a snake. But he smiled and bowed slightly. “We leave for Amberwich today, then?”

  “I would rather wait and see if the weather passes.”

  “Indeed,” Min said. “But I would rather return home a drenched rat with a living nephew than bone-dry and bereft.”

  Robert’s mouth tightened like a cat’s bum. “There is still over a sennight until the full moon.”

  “Yes,” Min said, “but I would rather the skein runs out of thread at the end of the matter, not the middle. In my line of work, sir, I like to press what advantages I have. And I have so few in this case that I would prefer not squander that of time. Particularly when time means nothing to the Hidden Lord.”

  Robert held his stare for a moment. “I have not met many men who can say his name without flinching.”

  Min shrugged. “Perhaps you have not met as many men as you think.”

  Was that a hint of a smile that twitched at the corner of Robert’s mouth? Doubtful. It was probably indigestion. Men like Robert Sabadine were most likely prone to all sorts of digestive ailments. A side effect of being so uptight they couldn’t unclench their sphincters in order to take a shit. It was bound to lead to intestinal distress.

  “Perhaps.” Robert shrugged. “If you wish to leave today, then I will not object.”

  “Thank you,” Min said, and the sentiment was even genuine.

  “Make yourself ready, then,” Robert said, and turned his attention back to the papers he had been perusing before Min’s interruption.

  Min knew a dismissal when he heard one.

  He turned on his heel and headed for the stairs again.

  He ate the rest of his bread roll on the way. Harry could beg for his own.

  IF MIN had thought riding a horse a wretched enough experience in good weather, then the misery of it was multiplied a thousandfold when it was pissing down rain. He was cold and wet. His cloak had barely managed to keep the rain off him for a few minutes before it was soaked through, and now it was just an added weight dragging at him. His ass made a squelching sound against the saddle every time the horse took a step forward, and every one of Min’s muscles was tense. His seat felt twice as uncertain as it normally did with the leather slippery underneath him, and the horse, surefooted as a mountain goat in dry weather, skidded every few steps as the road did its damnedest to wash away under the assault of the rain.

  Somehow, Kaz was riding next to him. His balancing act was even more precarious than Min’s: the boy’s wrists were lashed to the reins. If he were to fall, he’d be dragged. It also left him unable to brush the rain out of his eyes. His hood was pulled forward, the fabric stuck to his forehead, and the water ran off the tip of his nose and the bow of his mouth as if he were a gargoyle perched on the roof of a shrine. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head every few moments, trying to shake the water free.

  Min looked away.

  It was very easy to hate himself for his part in relieving Kaz of his freedom, but it was even easier to hate the Sabadines. Poisonous as vipers, the lot of them.

  The rain grew heavier. It fell around them in a thick, gray shroud that hid the world. Even the sound of the horses’ hooves splashing in the mud, and the grunts and the coughs of the men riding them, were muted b
y the rain. It was dark. It felt more like night than day. Min twisted around once in the saddle to see if he could tell how far they’d ridden from the manor, but all he saw was rain. It was impossible to tell if they’d ridden half a mile or several leagues. Harry, his horse keeping close behind Min’s, was wearing a saddle blanket over his head like a shawl, for all the good it did him. As far as Min could tell, he was as soaking wet as the rest of them. Talys was riding beside Harry, something Min was sure her father would disapprove of if he weren’t currently attempting to lead them on this miserable slog through the mud. Her wet hood was plastered to her head, and her mouth was pressed into a thin line. She appeared more stoic than peevish, unlike Harry. She rode with her spine straight and her shoulders back. A soldier’s stance, Min thought, like her father’s. He could imagine her holding her own in a battle.

  Min had grown up surrounded by women. He wasn’t enough of a fool to underestimate them.

  A few of Robert Sabadine’s household men brought up the rear—a sodden little vanguard. They appeared to Min as insubstantial as ghosts, fading in and out of the curtains of rain.

  Min was wet and cold and miserable. He thought longingly of his bed back at the manor house and then cursed himself for his lack of imagination and thought even more longingly of the attic room he and Harry shared back in Amberwich. The old bed was lumpy and the mattress sagged into the middle, which always led to Min and Harry rolling into each other and subsequently fighting with elbows in the middle of the night, but it was warm, and it was free of bugs and lice, which was more than a lot of people had. And each minute now, however miserable, brought Min closer to home. That seemed like a thought worth holding on to.

  Home.

  It was hard to think of the word without forcing down the unasked-for flash of guilt that accompanied it. Because while Min was looking forward to being back in Amberwich, master of his own fate and king of his own grubby little quarter, Kaz was facing a much unkinder future in Amberwich, wasn’t he? He would be bound in iron the rest of his life probably, forced into a marriage with his own uncle, and both of them ground under the heel of Edward Sabadine.

  Min stole another look at Kaz, guilt stabbing him when he discovered Kaz looking back. Min turned his face away and stared into the dark shroud of the rain.

  Then, in an instant, the world was torn apart.

  A burst of light and a crack of sound louder than the crash of iron on iron. Blinding. Deafening. The scream of a horse, although Min wasn’t sure if he heard it or if he felt it, and then he was falling, thrown to the muddy ground. A flash of hooves above him, but he rolled away, sliding down into a shallow ditch before scrambling to his feet.

  It took a second lightning strike hitting the ground—this one a little farther away—for Min to even realize what had happened.

  It was chaos.

  His wasn’t the only horse that had panicked and unseated its rider—

  Shit.

  Min darted forward to where Kaz was being flung back and forth like a puppet in the mud. He had fallen, but his wrists were still bound to the horn of the saddle. He was wrenched wildly every time the horse bucked, his cloak and hood flapping around him. He couldn’t get his feet under him to remount, and Min was afraid the panicked horse would bolt and drag him, or tumble and crush him.

  There was a scrambling throng of men and horses on the muddy road now, and as the ringing in Min’s ears slowly faded, he heard Robert Sabadine bellowing orders as he attempted to impose order on the chaos. Typical fucking nobleman.

  Min tugged his knife out of his boot, caught Kaz around the waist, and slashed.

  He really, really hoped that was rope his blade was hacking through, and not muscle and tendon.

  Something gave—again, Min really hoped it was rope—and then he and Kaz were tumbling backward into the ditch. Min was blinded for a moment by muddy water. He struggled to sit, one arm still wrapped around Kaz, his hand pressing against his chest. He could feel Kaz’s frantic heartbeat and his heaving ribs.

  Last time Min had held a boy in his lap like this, the circumstances had been a lot more pleasant. That boy, though? Nowhere near as interesting as this one.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, pressing his mouth close to Kaz’s ear to make himself heard above the rain.

  Kaz turned his head, leaning into him. “Min, I….” He closed his eyes and shivered.

  Min wanted to smile at the idea that the little necromancer was frightened after a brush with death, but he was too cold and too wet and too shaken.

  A hundred feet down the road, the lightning-struck tree burned in the rain.

  Min was soaked and jittery and cold. He was more scared than he wanted to admit to any man, even to himself, and he just wanted to go home.

  It wasn’t until Kaz twined his shaking fingers through his that Min realized his wrists were still bound. He caught the rope, the ends ragged where he’d hacked through with his knife, and unwound it slowly from Kaz’s wrists. His skin was ripped and abraded and slick with blood. He flexed his hands, though, and then rolled his shoulders, so perhaps nothing was snapped or torn out of place.

  Boots splashed down into the ditch, and Min squinted up.

  Harry.

  A wave of relief flooded over him, followed by a short, sharp burst of recrimination. Harry was family, and Min’s first thought should have been of him. But it wasn’t enough to make him release his hold on Kaz.

  Harry squatted in the ditch beside them while Talys hovered close by. Min didn’t trust his shaking legs to stand, and fuck getting back on the road anyway. Let Sabadine and his men kill themselves trying to catch the horses. Min would rather drown in the mud than get close to another mad horse.

  There were a hundred ways to justify his crazy dash to save Kaz. What the hell did Min know about horses? Not enough to have a healthy respect for how deadly they could be, probably. And if he hadn’t darted in to save Kaz, then where would Harry be? A dead Kaz meant a dead Harry, so of course Min had acted. What other choice had he had? And there was his professional reputation to consider as well. Min was the best thief in the eastern quarter.

  A hundred ways to justify it, without once admitting the truth. Min would go to his grave denying it, for what good it did. He was trapped as well. And the truth was, it hadn’t been Harry he’d been thinking of when he’d leapt in to save Kaz.

  “Cousin,” Talys said above the sound of the rain, reaching down a hand toward Kaz. “Let me help you up.”

  Kaz’s fingers twitched in the loose cage of Min’s, and Min released him.

  Talys drew Kaz to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Harry asked, wide-eyed.

  Min nodded.

  A horse backed down the road, rearing up, with a man wrenching at its bridle. He pulled it to a halt at last and turned, and Min saw that it was Robert. His hair was plastered to his skull, beaten flat by the rain. His hood hung from his back, water running in a stream from the sodden peak.

  “Back!” Robert bellowed above the rain. “We go no farther today!”

  Min wanted to hate him for forcing this delay on them, but not as much as he wanted to turn tail and get back to the manor house. They couldn’t continue in this weather. It was not only miserable, it was dangerous.

  The rain had defeated them.

  They had no choice but to head back to Pran.

  THEY MUST have made a wretched sight, Min thought, struggling back up the road toward the manor house in the teeming rain. He spared a brief thought for the men who had to see to the horses, but his sympathy wasn’t deep enough to volunteer to stay and help them. Fuck that. Min never wanted to see another horse again, after his close encounter with Kaz’s.

  Talys was whisked away upstairs, leaving a series of wet boot prints puddling behind her.

  “Come.” Robert gestured to Min and Harry, one hand on Kaz’s shoulder as he led them toward the kitchen.

  Min balked when he saw the large tub set up on the stone floor, the water ho
t and steaming as a boy poured another kettle into it.

  “No,” he said, even though he wanted nothing more than to dive in headfirst.

  Robert, unlacing his sodden tunic, paused. “Excuse me?”

  “You may be a soldier, sir, but I am not.” Min didn’t care if Robert thought him arrogant, petulant, a beggar demanding to choose. Really, he couldn’t sink any lower in Robert Sabadine’s opinion anyway. “I prefer privacy when I bathe. Unless I’m with a companion of my choice, naturally.”

  Robert’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to put the servants to the trouble of making you a separate bath?”

  “Yes,” Min said imperiously. He glanced at Kaz, and then back at Robert. Raised his eyebrows. “I think I’ve earned my small luxuries today, don’t you?”

  He swept out of the kitchen without waiting for a reply, Harry trailing behind him, and strode toward the stairs.

  They headed for their room, stripped off their sodden clothes, and huddled under blankets until a tub was brought and a succession of annoyed servants trudged up and down the stairs until the tub was half-filled with hot water.

  Harry had the first bath. He sat in the tub and hugged his knees, grumbling slightly when Min scrubbed a cloth across his shoulders and down his spine, but eventually uncurling a little. When it was Min’s turn to wash, Harry repaid him by scrubbing his back in return and taking the time to dig his fingers into the knotted muscles of his shoulders and neck.

  “I’m not sorry we’re out of the rain,” Min said, “but I wish we were in Amberwich.”

  Harry hummed in agreement.

  The room was gloomy, lit by only a single candle that did very little against the darkness brought by the rain. It felt like night. Maybe it was; Min had no way of telling. Min closed his eyes briefly and tried not to fixate on the flicker of unease in the corner of his mind that whispered to him they wouldn’t make it back to Amberwich in time. That Harry would never again climb the steps to their dusty attic room, or eat porridge at the Footbridge Tavern, or flirt with the girls who worked there.