The Crown Tower: Book 1 of The Riyria Chronicles

by Michael J. Sullivan

  The night was cold and soon it began to rain. She first noticed it pattering on the roofs along Wayward Street; then the drops grew bigger, falling faster, and finally the patter became a constant hum. The porch was covered and the runoff from the roof made Rose feel like she was on the inside of a waterfall.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Gwen tilted her head against Rose. “Much better thanks to you. This tea is wonderful.”

  “Gwen…” She faltered. “What just happened? What did you do to Stane? Was that…”

  Gwen set the cup and saucer down on the arm of the bench and pulled the blanket tighter. She had a stern, almost angry look on her face. “I’m not a witch, Rose.”

  “Of course not. I wasn’t thinking that.” Rose turned to face her, careful not to disturb the fragile cup.

  “What are you thinking?” Gwen refused to look, staring instead at the rain, and though Gwen was enveloped in the blanket, Rose could tell her arms were folded.

  “I don’t know—that’s why I’m asking.”

  Gwen huffed. “I just looked in his eyes, okay? I looked and I saw … I saw his death. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Is it magic?” Rose asked in a soft voice. She knew magic was supposed to be evil. Her mother had said so. But if Gwen could do magic, then it couldn’t be evil because as far as Rose was concerned, Gwen was perfection, and Rose’s mother had been dimmer than a starless night.

  “No,” Gwen said quickly, still staring at the rain. “It’s a gift.”

  She finally turned to face Rose again. “That’s what my mother always said. She called it the Sight. Some women, mostly Tenkins from the deep forests who are blessed with the Sight, can look at a person and actually see their future. Palms are the safest, but the eyes … the eyes can be an open window to the soul. Peering too deeply, you just topple in and become lost. You see, hear, and feel everything.” Gwen took a breath. “My mother had the Sight and so do I.”

  There was a moment of silence that hung in the air.

  “What are you thinking now?” Gwen asked. “Are you scared of me?”

  Rose reached out and took Gwen’s hand. “No. I’ve just never seen anything like that before.”

  “What I did with Stane … I didn’t mean for it to happen. It doesn’t usually. Almost never really.”

  “It was good that it did,” Rose pointed out. “I doubt Stane will be back. Thank you, and not just for scaring Stane. What you did for me, for all of us really, is … well, you’ve given us a chance that we could never have had without you. You saved us all. You’re my hero.”

  “We saved each other,” Gwen insisted.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Sure we did. We’re like a family, and families take care of each other, support one another and—”

  “Like a family?” Rose almost laughed, but it really wasn’t that funny—not funny at all when she thought about it. “That’s not how families work—trust me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just saying that’s not how families work.”

  “That’s how it was with me and my mother,” Gwen said.

  Rose shifted, turning away. She didn’t like disagreeing with Gwen.

  “How was it with you?”

  “It’s not important,” Rose replied. “It feels like centuries ago. I was … Well, that’s too long ago to remember.”

  “I know the others’ stories,” Gwen said gently. “I know Jollin’s and Mae’s and Etta’s. You never told me yours.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Was it awful?”

  Rose thought a moment, then shook her head. That was the worst part; it wasn’t terrible. She hadn’t been beaten or locked in a closet. Her family hadn’t sold her into slavery, and they weren’t murdered by highwaymen. Nothing so vile as that had driven her into the gutter. “No,” she said at last. “Just sad.”

  “Tell me.”

  Rose felt awkward now. Foolish that the conversation had taken the turn it had. She shrugged as if doing so would assure Gwen that what she was about to say meant little to her. “My parents worked a bit of land just outside Cold Hollow—that’s a couple miles east, between the King’s Road and Westfield. Lots of rocks and briers but little else. I guess my father tried, but maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, or maybe the land was bad—it looked bad. Maybe the seeds were no good or the weather too cold. My mother made excuses for him. Never knew why, as the only thing I know he ever gave her was blame. Then one day he was gone. He just left and never came back. My mother said it was because we were all starving and he couldn’t take seeing us die. I guess she saw it as his way of saying he loved us. I saw it as just one more excuse—the last one at least.”

  Rose felt Gwen’s hand rubbing her arm under the blanket, those dark, almond-shaped eyes looking so soft and kind. Gwen was being so sympathetic. She expected a horrible tale, and Rose felt bad she had nothing awful to give—nothing but the harvest stupidity brings.

  “We had nothing after that,” she went on. “My father, who loved us so much, took the mule and the last of the copper. We survived on roots and nuts that winter. My mother liked to joke that we lived like squirrels, but by then I had forgotten how to laugh. She wouldn’t beg and refused to ask for help. She would say things like, ‘He’ll be back. You’ll see. Your father will find work and come back to us with bags of flour, pigs, chickens, and maybe even a goat for milk—you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ I was chewing bark for my dinner when she said this.

  Gwen squeezed her hand, and Rose felt even more embarrassed that she was showing her so much concern. Rose also didn’t know why she had started to cry. She didn’t like crying in front of Gwen. She wanted to be just as strong, and crying over something so small and foolish was just weakness, and she hated weakness.

  “My mother loved me,” Rose explained. “She was stupid, but she loved me. She gave me what food we found and lied about having eaten. The following winter when we couldn’t find any more nuts or roots, we ate pine needles.

  “My mother died from a fever. By then she was not much more than a skeleton.” Speaking about it brought back her face, the sunken cheeks, lips drawn back showing her gums. “It wasn’t the fever that killed her. It wasn’t starvation either. My mother died of pride—stupid, foolish, asinine pride. She actually died of it. Too proud to ask anyone for help. Too proud to admit her husband was a lousy, miserable bastard. Too proud to eat her share of the…”

  She lost her voice. It stalled in her throat, which had closed without warning, as if the taste of what was coming up was far too bitter to suffer on her tongue. She took a breath that shuddered its way in and wiped the stripes of tears flowing down her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “She was too proud to eat her share of what little food we had. She told me she had. She swore she did. But every time I complained about being so hungry it hurt, she always offered me a nut or a partially rotted turnip, claiming she had just found two and already ate hers.”

  Rose sniffled and wiped her eyes again.

  “After she was gone, I left my pride in that little hut and begged my way to Medford. I’d do anything. Once you’ve spent an afternoon chasing a fly around your house for dinner, once you’ve eaten spiders whole and drooled over worms found while burying your mother with your bare hands, there’s nothing beneath you. All I wanted was to live—I’d forgotten everything else. A clod of dirt doesn’t have dreams. A bit of broken stone doesn’t understand hope. Each morning, all I wanted was to see the next dawn. But you changed that.”

  Gwen struggled to sip her tea, as she, too, had wet streaks on her cheeks.

  “You aren’t like my mother,” Rose told her. “And you aren’t like me. You stand up for yourself and for others. You make the world be the way you need it to. I can’t do that. Jollin can’t. No one can—no one but you.”

  “I’m nothing special, Rose.”

  “You are. You’re a hero and you can see the future.” They
sat for a time listening to the rain drum overhead. The shower had turned into a full-on pour and the runoff a curtain of water. Somewhere a metal pail was making a muffled set of pings, and the road was filling with water as puddles joined together to form rivers and ponds.

  “Why don’t we talk about Dixon instead?” Rose offered a sly smile.

  Gwen peered at her over the beautiful new cup with a suspicious squint. “What about him?”

  “Rumor has it he proposed.”

  Gwen looked shocked. “He did not.”

  “Etta says Dixon offered to make ‘a proper woman out of you.’”

  “Oh … that.”

  “So he did!”

  Gwen shrugged.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him we would be good friends, always. He’s a very good man, but…”

  “But what?”

  “He’s not … him.”

  “Him? Who’s him?”

  Gwen looked embarrassed and shuffled her feet under the blanket. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?”

  She shook her head, then covered her face with the blanket. “Maybe he doesn’t even exist. Maybe he’s something I’ve invented, pieced together over the years. Maybe I’m just trying to convince myself he’s real and isn’t just my hope of what is possible.”

  “You’re turning away a good-living, hardworking, breathing man for the idea of an imaginary one?”

  She peeked out from the folds. “Foolish, huh? Some hero.”

  “Well … it’s very romantic, I guess, but…”

  “You can say it—stupid. That’s what I’m being.”

  “What if this white knight doesn’t ever show up?”

  “He’s not a knight. I’m not sure what or who he is, but he’s definitely not a knight. And if he’s not just a figment of my imagination, then he’s coming.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I sent Dixon to bring him.”

  “What? How did you—”

  “I read Dixon’s palm and saw that he would be the one to bring him here.”

  “Wait. I thought this man, this not-a-knight, was just a dream, a fantasy of yours.”

  “He might still be.” Gwen paused and looked as if she might stop there, but Rose was not about to let her quit now, not after being forced to vomit up her whole life story.

  “Explain, please.”

  Gwen frowned. “On her deathbed, my mother made me promise to come here … to Medford. And I received those gold coins from someone telling me the same thing. That’s why I was given the money. To help … him.”

  “To help who?”

  “Him.”

  Rose shook her head, frustrated. “Make sense, will you?”

  “I can’t, because it doesn’t. I don’t know why I was supposed to come to Medford. I don’t know who this man is—or anything about him. I just know that I have to be here when he arrives. I have to help him and…”

  “And what?”

  Gwen tilted her head down, hiding her eyes.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just been waiting so long, thinking about him, you know? Wondering what he might be like. Who he really is, what he looks like. Why I have to be the one.”

  “Are you saying you’ve fallen for a man you’ve never met?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But that’s okay because you’re supposed to, right? The two of you are meant for each other, yes?”

  She shrugged. “No one said anything about that. It’s just what I want to believe. He could be married for all I know.”

  “Did they at least give you a name?”

  She shook her head with an awkward smile. “I’m ruining my reputation with you, aren’t I?”

  “Are you kidding? You can do magic and have a mysterious destiny. I want to be you.”

  Gwen smiled self-consciously. “Everyone has a destiny.”

  Rose looked at her hand, then thrust it out. “What’s mine?”

  Gwen stared a moment. “You’re not afraid? Even after seeing what happened with Stane?”

  “I said I wasn’t afraid of you, didn’t I? And this proves it. Go ahead, look into my future. Maybe I have a mysterious stranger coming my way too. Only don’t tell me about my death. I think I’d rather not know, okay?”

  Gwen sighed. “All right, let’s take a look.”

  Rose watched as Gwen opened her fingers and spread out the skin of her palm.

  “This is interesting. You are going to fall in love. He’s handsome, too, a kind face. You’re going to fall in love and—” The tight grip she held on Rose’s hand relaxed and while she continued to stare at her palm, Rose could tell she wasn’t focusing on it. Her sight shifted to the decking of the porch.

  “With who? Who will I fall in love with? Do you know his name?”

  Gwen let go of her hand and reached for her tea. She lost control of the saucer and the beautiful porcelain cup slipped, fell, and shattered.

  Gwen gasped as she stared at the broken shards of pure white scattered on the porch. “I’m so sorry.” When she looked up at Rose, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Rose offered. “We can get another one.”

  Gwen hugged her. Not like before, not like when Stane left. This time she squeezed as if Rose was all that kept her from being sucked away in the storm. She continued to cry, repeating, “I’m so sorry.”

  CHAPTER 19

  FLIGHT

  Dawn rose gray over Lake Morgan. Only the lap of water and the honk of geese broke the stillness that, with the rising sun, had replaced the roar of rain. Drifting in the river, the showers made it hard for Royce to see. The splashing surface threw water, making him blink. Most of the time he left his eyes closed. At least he didn’t need to worry about being soaked. They couldn’t get any wetter. He and Hadrian had drifted the remainder of the night, clinging to the box like rats as behind them the peal of bells faded. Both had fallen asleep or passed out—it was hard to tell which. The river had ushered them along at a fine pace, but with the morning light they and their box bobbed in still water amidst a silent world of mist.

  “You alive?” Hadrian asked.

  “If I were dead, I don’t think there’d be geese.” Royce tilted his head up to catch the arrow of birds heading south. “But maybe they’re evil geese.”

  “Evil geese?”

  “We have no idea what goes on in the water fowl world. They might have been a gang that stole eggs or something.”

  “I’m guessing you have a fever.” Hadrian looked around, and when he spoke he sounded both surprised and happy. “This is Lake Morgan. That tavern we were in is along this bank somewhere.”

  “It’s right there.” Royce pointed to the cluster of buildings to their left. The slight movement jolted him with pain.

  “All I see is a hazy clump,” Hadrian said, squinting.

  “Remind me when we get back and I’ll see if Arcadius will lend you his spectacles. And we can’t go to the tavern, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Dougan will help us.”

  “Did you hear the bells last night? The roads will be filled with soldiers, and they’ll be swarming that tavern.”

  “We could go to Lord Marbury’s home. He invited me last time. He’d help us. He hates the church.”

  “Where’s Marbury’s home?”

  “I don’t know … but Dougan would.”

  “We can’t go to the tavern.”

  “Only for a minute. We just need to ask. Besides, no one will be there at this hour.”

  “You’re being stupid again.”

  “Like I was when I came back for you? Like when I hauled you down the rope, and when I insisted we jump in the river?”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  “We need to get dry. I need to wrap your wounds better.”

  “Is that your belt squeezing the life out of me?”

  “You wouldn’t have lived the ni
ght without it.”

  “I can barely breathe.”

  “Better than bleeding to death.”

  Hadrian’s shoulders were covered only by his wool shirt.

  “Your cloak?”

  “Part of it,” Hadrian replied. “Hey, if we’re going to survive, we need food, dry clothes, and proper bandaging. So we’re going to the tavern, unless you know someplace else we can get those things?”

  “Normally I’d steal them, but normally I can walk.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “I like being able to walk.”

  “Okay, just hang on.” Hadrian began to swim, jerking the box, dragging Royce. Each pull sent bolts of pain through Royce’s stomach. He was thankful for the buoyancy. He let himself hang limp and felt his legs drag and sway as Hadrian splashed and panted.

  The village looked dead. The only sounds came from a barnyard where sheep bleated and a goat’s bell clanked with a lonely sound. Hadrian crawled out of the lake along a rocky beach across the street from the tavern. It was daylight, they were in the open, across the way from the village common, and they were conspicuous. Anyone looking from a window, alley, or distant hill would notice them.

  “I don’t think I can carry you,” Hadrian said. “So I hope you can walk with some help.” He unhooked the harness that had tied them together and slowly lifted Royce to his feet. The water had been cold, but as soon as he was out of it, the air hit him with a gut-wrenching blast that cut like ice. He shivered, sending dizzying stabs of pain through his body. His head grew hazy again. The darkness crept in, but he managed to hang on to both Hadrian and consciousness. He had little strength in his legs. They refused to work properly so that his toes often dragged. Almost all his weight was on Hadrian, who favored his own left leg as together they scraped across the gravel road toward the door of the pub.

  Hadrian pushed on it. “Damn it. Locked.”

  “Push me up against the door, and I’ll fix that.”

  “No, we’re not breaking in. We’re looking for help.” Hadrian pounded on the wood, his fist making a soft muffled sound. They waited with Hadrian propping Royce against the doorframe. He pounded again. Behind them came the lonesome call of a loon. Hadrian turned to look out at the lake. “I hear they have good fishing.”