Heartseeker

by Melinda Beatty

  “Not sitting well with you, Everett?” asked Ingram, scraping the bottom of his bowl.

  “Remember the gut-twist from the chicken and dumplings a few months back?” moaned Everett, clutching his side.

  “Oh, don’t even talk about it,” complained another watchman. “I can almost feel it now.”

  A sweat broke out on Everett’s forehead. “I think this might be worse. I—” The man sprung up from his seat at the table, his chair upending behind him. “Mother’s teeth!” He broke into a doubled-over run, out the door, past the rain barrel, and into the darkness.

  “How close are the nearest privies?” I whispered to Gareth, trying to contain my sinful glee.

  “On the other side of the stable block,” he answered, pointing to a building a comfortable distance from where we were sat.

  Inside, three more men were on their feet, cursing Ralby, including Ingram. The youngest looked despairingly on his half-empty bowl and dropped his spoon to the table with a clatter as his fellow night watchmen went stumbling for the door. I could hear the squeaking and whining of their entrails as they stampeded past like a herd of spooked sheep, desperately clenching their backsides to avoid a shameful accident.

  The remaining guard winced, the herb beginning to work on his insides. “Someone’s got to stay at post! Quick, tell Hugin and Neale not to . . .”

  But it was already too late. Two helmeted heads appeared above the stairway’s walled banister, followed by the twisting, groaning bodies of the dungeon guards, who didn’t stop to so much as look at their mates before bowling out the door. “Oh, hells,” the older watchman groaned before he was forced to follow, his guts all in a wrench. The youth, left alone in the guardroom, looked around in horror. I thought for a terrible moment he’d not eaten enough for the herb to take hold, but then his face screwed up suddenly, and he pitched forward as if he’d been punched. His feet skidded on the stone floor at he stumbled out after the rest of the watch, a great trump of wind launching him across the wide lawn toward the stables.

  “That’s all of them, right?” I asked Gareth.

  “There are always eight on night watch at the cells, so . . .”

  The steward had hardly finished his sentence before I was out from behind the barrel, through the door of the watch house, and clattering down the long flight of stone steps.

  The stink of unwashed bodies and waste hit me hard as a fist as I burst into the cells. I covered my mouth with my sleeve as I swung my head round, on the lookout for any guardsmen that might have missed the fateful dinner. Lucky there didn’t seem to be anyone about except for me and the ragged men who’d gathered at the bars of their cells to jaw on their jailers’ sudden attack of whistle belly.

  “Only!”

  Jon’s lovely, dirty face pressed up against the iron between us. I didn’t wait but a second before running and jamming my arms through the metal to wrap round his too-thin body.

  “Sweet All, Pip!” His voice broke as he squeezed me back, pressing me into the bars. “How’d you . . .”

  I waved his question aside. “We ain’t got time. I reckon the watchmen’ll be tied up good for a while, but they might send others.”

  One of Jon’s cellmates joined us by the bars. “Beg pardon, miss, but I think one of them fellows had the cell keys on his belt!”

  My heart dropped to my boots, but a voice broke into the middle of my vexation.

  “I’m working on that.”

  I’d been so caught up greeting my brother, I hadn’t even noticed Gareth arrive, but the steward picked up the spoons Hugin and Neale had cast aside in their dash to the privy. From a dim corner, he found a chunk of crumbled stone and set to work bashing the spoon’s handles.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Making do,” he answered sternly, his hand curled tightly round the stone. When both the spoon’s handles were pounded thin and sharp, he dodged past me, jamming both of them into the keyhole of Jon’s cell. “Grab one of the torches, will you?”

  Quick to do as I was bid, I lifted a guttering torch off the wall and brought it closer. Tucking his tongue between his teeth, Gareth peered into the tiny hole and began to twist and jimmy the spoons into the lock’s tumblers.

  “You got more skills than just napkin folding, then,” I noted.

  “You know how I know where the smugglers’ tunnels are?”

  “You told me your brother showed you, but you were too white-feathered to go in.”

  Gareth didn’t take his eyes off his delicate work. “Well, that’s true. It was always Gable that went in, not me.”

  “Your brother’s a smuggler?”

  “My father died when I was four, and we had nearly nothing. Mother and Pryn took jobs in the palace kitchens and tried to prentice Gable to the stables, but he was too willful. He was supposed to look after me, and I guess he did in a way, because he took me with him when he started housebreaking.”

  I could scarce imagine a tiny, freckled Gareth as a thief. “And he taught you how to lockpick?”

  He gave the spoons another twist. “We were lucky we were never caught. And when I turned eight, I managed to get work as a steward, but Gable had gotten a taste for trouble. He’s been running goods ever since.”

  “I have to say, master, I’m much obliged to you, your brother, and his trouble at the moment,” Jon added. A chorus of agreement erupted from the men behind him.

  Closing one eye, Gareth gave a last, deft flick of his wrist and was rewarded with the clunk of the lock springing free. He jumped back as the cell door swung open, loosing the thankful Ordish. Jon caught me up in his arms while the rest of the men clasped the steward’s hand and kissed his cheeks.

  “You ain’t half brave, Pip,” my brother muttered into the top of my head.

  I didn’t feel so brave. My guts were all twisted up as if I’d eaten the stew, too. Gareth was already charging up the stairs, so I grasped Jon’s hand to follow.

  The watch room was still blessed empty of watchmen. The abandoned bowls of stew sat on the table, a tempting sight for hungry men. Two of the Ordish made a lunge for the vittles.

  “Don’t!” I shouted. They stopped, spoons in hand. “Unless you want a dose of what your jailers got.”

  “Val, Bannor, unless you want riverguts, I wouldn’t.” My brother chuckled. “Senarel, was it? Non’d have your hide for that.”

  “I reckon if it meant getting you out of jail, she’d’ve used something a lot less pleasant.”

  Sorry for the lost meal, the two grudgingly put down the spoons. Across the room, Gareth flung open a closet and was throwing soldiers’ tunics at waiting Ordish hands. “These won’t fool anyone on the grounds of the palace, but once we get into the city, they should at least stop anyone poking their noses too far into our business.”

  The tunics swamped some of the group and turned others into overstuffed sausages. But Gareth wasn’t wrong—in the dark streets of Bellskeep, it’d be hard to tell some ragged prisoners from a troop of royal guards out on patrol.

  Jon shrugged his tunic over his head and went to peer over Gareth’s shoulder in the closet. “Is there anything small enough for Only?”

  And, oh, that went through my belly like a knife. “Jon, I . . . I can’t go.”

  “What d’you mean? Of course you’re going!” Jon answered as he nudged Gareth to one side and began to dig through the togs himself.

  “Jon, I done this for you and for the orchard. I’m staying.”

  My brother turned to look at me as if I’d sprouted an extra head. “Have you gone soft? You can’t stay!”

  “I’ve got no choice! If I run, they’ll go after Mama and Papa. But I might be able to do some good here, Jon, for you and Maura and Barrow! I can’t say no more, so don’t ask, but . . . just trust me, can you?”

  Jon’s face twisted. He wasn’t a fool, but he
didn’t have to like the hand he was dealt. I thought I’d more fighting to do, but instead, he turned to Gareth. “I don’t know you, master, and I know I already got a great debt of kindness to repay, but can you make sure she don’t get into any more trouble?”

  The steward nodded solemnly. “I know what it is to want to protect your family, Master Fallow. I’ll do the best I can.”

  “We’re losing the dark, lads!” called one of the men cautiously, peering out the window for any stirrings.

  Gareth led the way outside into the night. The men’s quick breaths plumed in the air, which was still, but for some faraway howling, I noted with a grin. It wasn’t a long way between the barracks and the nearest gate, but that space of grass might as well have been a mile when I thought about trying to get all of us across it without being seen. I only had to hope that Hal hadn’t been late on his rounds.

  As if in response to my thinking, a clamor rose in the gatehouse, not two hundred paces away. The Ordish startled and we all flattened ourselves against the barracks as six more soldiers stumbled out, groaning and clutching their bellies. The man Jon had called Val gave a low whistle. “Remind me never to get on your sister’s poor side, Fallow.”

  “I hope Rowan don’t catch any bother for this,” I whispered to Gareth.

  “Everyone knows you’re playing dice with your insides if you eat what Linus Ralby makes. Nobody’ll think twice about the kitchen boy.” He poked his head round the barracks. “It’s all clear!”

  On feet lighter than fae, we flew across the open field, expecting the wrath of the king, or even the Mother herself, to fall down on us at any moment. But cross we did, and tumbled into the gatehouse like rabbits down a warren. Now possessed of the idea they might actually be free men with a journey ahead, the Ordish fanned out in the room, gathering bits and pieces in a thrown-away sack—hard bread, a hunk of cheese, a few short swords, and a hatchet.

  The moment of their going was on me. I wished I could have a few more in the company of my brother, but time was trickling away. One of the men tapped me timidly on the shoulder.

  It was none other than the thin villain who’d so frighted us in the coach. A goose egg stood out still from the back of his head where I’d cracked him with my nameday chest.

  “I’m Wash Blackrudder, miss. I ain’t sorry I came on this ill adventure, ’cause if there were a chance of getting my Ora back, there was nothing I wouldn’t’ve dared. I don’t deserve it, but I must beg your pardon and the pardon of this good master here for my behavior in the Wood.” The man, close to tears, bowed his head in shame. “It’s been near five turns of the wheel. She’s almost a woman grown now . . . please forgive me.”

  “My non says anyone can look like a villain if you judge ’em on their worst day. I reckon the day in the Wood wasn’t your best,” I told him. “If I see your Ora . . . I’ll tell her there’s nothing her papa wouldn’t do to bring her back.”

  Blackrudder couldn’t speak, but nodded.

  “Master Blackrudder, did the man at the Southmeet tell you I was in the coach?”

  “Told me how to get in and all. Didn’t want me to tell anyone else, though. I was supposed to bring you to a clearing not far from the battle where he said he’d meet us.”

  The man from the Southmeet was in the forest on the night of the battle. Waiting for me. Another thousand questions piled up on my tongue, but the wary look on Gareth’s face told me I didn’t have time to ask them.

  Jon pulled me to him once again. Under all the dirt and stink was the smell of the orchard, and I squeezed him so hard, I could near feel his ribs crack.

  “This ain’t right, Pip. Me going and you staying behind.”

  I put on my most fearless face and thought on what needed to be said. “Jon, the fella at the meet . . . I think maybe he just wanted the Ordish to look bad. What with the grain stores being burnt and all, maybe the king’s looking for an excuse to do something worse to the river folk. Maybe you can pass the word on not to do anything more foolish?”

  “Grain stores?”

  “The Ordish have been burning grain stores, and—”

  “Says who?” Jonquin puffed up. “Why would we do that?”

  Why would we do that? My brother was still my brother, but part of him belonged somewhere else now. “I don’t know, but—”

  “No, Pip, you don’t understand. Food ain’t taken for granted on the river. I mean, no one’s starving, but everything’s hard come by. There ain’t a man, woman, or whelp of us who’d put a torch to a grain store, even for the satisfaction of striking at the king.”

  That made me feel even more unsettled. “Something ain’t right, Jon.”

  My brother frowned. “I’ll say. If we manage to make it back to Farrier’s Bay, I’ll ask round after the man from the meet.”

  “You sure you don’t know anything else about him?”

  “Oh, aye! I remembered something just after we met by the fire.” Jon pulled up his sleeve. “He’s got a wine-stain mark on his forearm, just here. He kept his cuffs buttoned, but a water fly came and took a bite of him while we were jawing. He couldn’t help pulling it up to scratch.”

  I bit my lip. It’d be near impossible to go round the court trying to find reasons to ask gentlemen to hoist their sleeves. But it was better to have one clue than none.

  Gareth raised his voice. “Most about the city round third bell like to keep themselves to themselves, so if you look like you’re meant to be out on patrol, people should give you a wide berth. If you follow and do what I say, I promise I’ll get you out unharmed.”

  The men’s faces set grim and determined as he lifted the hood of his cloak and heaved the iron bar before the door up in order to swing the latch.

  I didn’t want them to go. Not Jon. Not Gareth. It wasn’t right I was staying behind. Tears spilled down my cheeks as the Ordish filed out into the cold street, leaving just the steward and my brother alone in the gatehouse.

  “You . . . you take good care, now,” I said, hiccuping at Gareth. “Find me . . . in the morning? To let me know you’re safe?”

  “I will, I promise,” he answered, giving me a freckled smile before stepping out to let me and Jon say our fare-thee-wells.

  “I’d worry for you more,” Jon began, putting a hand to my cheek, “if I hadn’t just seen you take out fourteen of the king’s watchmen single-handed.”

  “It wasn’t single-handed. Lark and Rowan and Gareth helped, too.”

  “Even better. You already got those around you willing to stick their necks out and you only been here a day!”

  Gareth poked his head in through the door. “We need to move.”

  My brother, now with a foot in two worlds, caught me up in a last embrace and sang soft and sweet in my ear.

  Look to the river

  When we take our leave,

  When round the sun we go once more.

  We’ll meet again,

  We’ll meet again.

  30

  When trials beset you, one following another, do not lose faith.

  She will strengthen bone with iron.

  She will fill spirit with resolve.

  She will make in you a heart of fire.

  Call loud unto your Mother and She will stand with you in your hour of need.

  —Fourth Lesson of Loren

  It wasn’t till I heard the nearby rumble of cart wheels did I realize I’d gotten lost.

  The only thing holding me together had been the errand I still couldn’t believe we’d pulled off. It ain’t over yet, I chided myself, they still gotta make it out of the city. And I still gotta make it back to my chamber without . . . wait, I didn’t see this on the way out, did I?

  A small mountain of crates near as big as me stood in my path, just to the left of a cobbled yard. I was sure I’d’ve noticed such a thing if I passed it. Fo
r certain my nose would have twigged the smell, which was ripe with onion and garlic. I was near the kitchens, but not where I’d come out.

  I didn’t have much time to stew on that when the sound of an approaching wagon on the cobbles drifted into the courtyard.

  I nearly didn’t have it in me to do anything for my own sake. I didn’t want to do any more running or hiding. Whatever keeping me going had been all used up.

  But Jon and Gareth are out there, and you can’t tell a lie to save your life! If you’re taken, they’re taken.

  The grinning faces of the steward and my brother gave me the poke I needed. Next to the full crates, a few empty ones sat, discarded and waiting to be taken back to the fields. Without thinking, I scrambled into one, shutting the hinged lid behind me. Through the slats, I could still see the courtyard, but it was through a haze of tears. Onions! Sweet All, why’d I have to pick an onion one? It was the one thing I always picked out of stews and roasts, though Mama’d always tell me off. Now it felt like every one of those picked-out bits had come back to have their satisfaction.

  As I blinked furiously against the whiff, the cart rounded the corner into the courtyard. It was hard to make out from between the tight boards of the crate, but it didn’t look like an ordinary delivery. There were no boxes in the back of the wagon, no crates like the one I was squeezed into. No logs, no game, and no bricks for the new ovens. What there were, were people.

  A single torch burned outside the kitchen door, so I could only half see the driver’s face when she came forward to thump it with her fist. She was a solid older woman in hunting leathers and many days’ journey written all over her. Cross that she wasn’t answered directly, she pounded again.

  “All’s guts, open the door!”

  There was a chink of bolts thrown to, a squeal of hinges, and a fed-up voice I recognized from the morning as Mistress Abbot, the head of the kitchens.

  “What on earth are you doing here, Margot? At this hour?” she asked.