The Exiled King

by Sarah Remy

  Now, standing under orange branches, Mal decided to bring the diversion to a close. He left the Mabon tree, circling back into the woods, verdant shadows conjured close, further cloaking his shape. He reversed his track. Sunlight filtered through the canopy above his head. A pheasant, long tail bobbing, dashed across his path. It did not notice Mal.

  He heard the faint thump of wood on brush before he saw the man. He thought he knew then. He breathed air through his nose, testing, and scented temple incense. The flicker and fade of his opponent took on new significance. He stepped out into the open, let the concealment spells drop, met Brother Tillion in a widening patch of sunlight.

  “Oh!” Tillion gasped. He froze midstride, one bare foot lifted off the ground, and would have toppled had not Mal grasped his shoulder. “Oh. You startled me.”

  “Surely not,” replied Mal. “You’ve been following me since I left court. You must have supposed I’d take notice eventually.”

  Tillion gathered his dignity. He stepped away from Mal, leaning instead on his ever-present staff. The theist was sweating although the day was mild and it was cool within the woods. He stared everywhere but at Mal’s face, blinking owlishly as he considered his bare toes, a nearby thicket, a squirrel watching from an overhead branch. Mal, who had seen the priest address rapt crowds from atop his makeshift pedestal, could not quite equate the frightened man before him with the vivid preacher in the bailey.

  Despite himself, he felt a pang of empathy. Tillion might be a self-proclaimed enemy of the throne, but it was apparent he suffered adversity of his own.

  “What can I do for you, Brother Tillion?” Mal began again, this time with as much gentleness as he could muster. “You’ve walked a distance to find me.”

  “Aye.” Tillion’s agitated gaze came to rest on Mal’s hand where beneath Hennish leather he wore the vocent’s stone. The theist swallowed audibly, then straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. Almost, he met Mal’s eye.

  “My lord,” he proclaimed over the top of Mal’s head, “I’ve come to bring you word of the one god’s displeasure.”

  Mal’s patience evaporated.

  “I assure you.” He stepped around Tillion, already dismissing the priest from his thoughts. “I am quite aware of your god’s unfavorable regard toward the throne and the throne’s current policy. How could I not be, with your trap flapping outside His Majesty’s windows all the day long? Good afternoon.”

  “Magus.” Tillion darted after Mal with unexpected speed, blocking his retreat. “You misunderstand.” The priest straightened, regard newly hawkish. Mal caught a glimpse in his changeable expression of the impassioned preacher. “This chastisement is for you alone and you alone will suffer the consequences if I cannot make you take heed and reform your transgression.”

  Mal scoffed. “Transgression?”

  “Oh, aye, Lord Malachi. My god knows a thief when it’s his own cupboard emptied.”

  “You’re not making any sense.” Mal choked back irritation. His headache had returned with a vengeance. He’d run a fool’s errand to the Mabon tree when that time was better spent on more pressing matters. Avani, like Jacob, had flown the nest without any concern for consequence. And by now there was, most certainly, a corpse in his bed. “Get out of my way.”

  “The dead belong to the divine, my lord. It’s your duty to send them on, not feed on their vitality to bloating.”

  Mal felt cold. “I said, get out of my way.” He shouldered Tillion aside, making the taller man stumble. But Tillion recovered at once. He hurried after Mal, staff thumping on the forest floor. Birds startled from the branches at their passing, and the fox woke under the gorse. Mal walked faster, spurred on by rage, and eventually Tillion faltered, but he did not give up.

  “‘From the one god we are born and to the one god we must return!’” he boomed, preacher’s voice at odds with his lurching step. “The spirits of the dead belong to the one god, Malachi, and are not your playthings. ‘A man who thieves just one sheep will give up four in final reckoning.’ Reform, magus, or he will have his retribution.”

  Mal stretched his pace near to jogging.

  Loud with derision, Tillion called after: “No one escapes my god’s wrath indefinitely; you can’t run forever. He is watching you, Malachi! You cannot hide!”

  Chapter 11

  “The falconer said it wasn’t broken,” Liam assured Avani. “Just wrenched. She’s seen a few like it in her time at the royal mews. Rest and time, she said, for the healing.”

  Together they looked up at Jacob where he perched in the rafters of the pages’ dormitory. The raven was pretending to be asleep, beak tucked away under glossy feathers, eyes closed. He did not appear to notice Avani at all, but Liam thought he was shamming. Jacob, he knew, wasn’t the sort to let anyone creep up unnoticed.

  “Ai, well.” Avani’s grin was relieved. “Thank you for taking care of him. He’s a stubborn fellow, prone to ignoring misfortune.”

  “’Twas Parsnip’s idea.” Liam winked at the lass. Parsnip hid her blushes by examining the toes of her boots. For all she’d recently grown bolder, it was apparent she held Avani in very high esteem. “The falconer, I mean.”

  “He came down from the tree all on his own,” Parsnip demurred. “I think he wanted the help. He must have been hurting.”

  “He’d never let you know it, if he were.” Avani left Jacob to his pretext. Returning to her cot, she went about the business of unpacking. “When we were first living on the Downs, one of my ewes kicked him for getting too close to her lambs.” Unwinding silk from around the Goddess statue she carried with her always, she set the idol on the floorboards between the cot and the window, in a patch of sunlight. “It was days before he’d let me peek at the wound, and even then, he was mulish about the whole thing.” She took a small bowl from her pack and laid it at the statue’s feet. “Animals, like people, prefer not to show any weakness.”

  Parsnip crouched, watching with interest as Avani filled the offering bowl with smooth round river pebbles taken from a leather pouch.

  “Is it magic?” the lass asked. “The bowl and the stones and the gold lady?”

  “It’s not magic.” Liam snorted. “It’s religion.”

  “Oh.” Parsnip’s mouth collapsed in disappointment. “My mum made us do religion, in the temple. I don’t see the point. All the prayers about the Red Worm and everyone still died.”

  “You didn’t.” Liam thumped Parsnip on her shoulder. “Time to go. Riggins is expecting you, and I’m wanted in the stables.” The recollection threatened to sour his joy over Avani’s company. He tamped worry down.

  “Are you certain it’s no problem?” Avani glanced about the room. “My staying here for a time, I mean?”

  “No one will notice,” Liam promised. “With Lane gone, no one comes up here but us.”

  “That will change.” Parsnip predicted, scratching her nose thoughtfully. “Now that His Majesty has signed the draft and sent Kingsmen to villages west and north. The plague can’t have reached everywhere. Soon this place will be full of conscripts, and I’ll be glad of it.”

  “Farmers and seamen and outcasts make shift as far away from the city as possible to avoid forced service,” Liam grumbled. “Riffraff and rabble.”

  “Liam.” Avani widened her eyes in rebuke. “Have you already forgotten where we come from? It’s a lovely new tunic you’re wearing, but you’re a Stonehiller underneath, and just as valuable for it.”

  “Don’t go belittling farmers,” Parsnip added. “Those that work the land will spill blood to keep it safe.”

  Liam threw up his hands in mock defeat then surprised himself by leaning in to kiss Avani’s cheek. “Doesn’t matter. It will be weeks yet before the conscripts show. Stay. I’ll keep you safe.”

  Avani’s lips twitched but she did him the favor of pretending his promise held weight. “Thank you.”

  Liam left Avani to her puttering, Jacob still feigning sleep in the rafters, and deli
vered Parsnip to Riggins in the barracks’ schoolroom for her daily struggle with reading and writing. The lass was determined to someday become an officer like her father, but a soldier who couldn’t read would not travel far up the ranks. Captain Riggins was a patient man, but Liam could tell by the man’s subdued greeting that Parsnip’s inability to make sense of letters was a growing frustration.

  Or mayhap the captain’s sour mood was because of Morgan and Arthur, whispering together over their open books. The schoolroom was windowless and drab, and possibly the last place any young lad or lass would choose when the weather outside was at last turning fine.

  “Sir!” Morgan sat up straight. “Parsnip, you’re late. Captain said we couldn’t learn Ra’Vadin’s Five Verses until you came.”

  “I said after mathematics.” Riggins tapped the pages of Arthur’s book with the flexible wand he used both as pointer and incentive. “Which you’ve barely started. Get back to work, young man. Liam, are you staying? I seem to recall your understanding of geometric equations is shaky, to say the least.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’m wanted in the stables,” Liam told Riggins, ignoring Arthur’s muffled amusement. Morgan, the young earl Wythe and the only remaining child of the king’s constable who in turn headed the royal cavalry, became immediately somber.

  “Very well.” Riggins dismissed Liam with a wave of his baton. “Tomorrow, then, and no excuses. When I said your understanding of geometry is shaky, I meant nonexistent. And what, my lord Wythe, is one of the uses of geometric equations on the battlefield?”

  “To direct the siege engines, sir,” Morgan replied promptly. “Or the canons.”

  “Exactly,” Riggins said as Liam fled. “And furthermore, once the elephant guns arrive as promised . . .”

  Liam took the stairs down from the schoolroom two at a time. He didn’t mind learning, when he had the time for it. Reading history in particular could often be entertaining and, to Liam’s mind, beneficial. A man learned from the mistakes of his forefathers and was better for it in his own time. That Liam understood.

  But he’d seen Roue’s elephant guns in use, been knocked off his feet with the force of the gigantic canons. He didn’t believe geometric equations had anything to do with that destruction. As far as he’d been able to tell, the gunners had simply chosen a target, pointed the canon, and set the flare. There had been no time between attacks for mathematical calculations.

  The royal stables were located behind the barracks, between the north-most tower and castle’s rear bailey. It was possible to reach the stable shed rows through shallow tunnels that ran beneath the towers, but Liam—like Morgan and Arthur—preferred fresh air over confinement. He stepped out of the barracks into the practice courtyard and took a lungful of evening to settle a rising attack of nerves. Bear woke from where she’d been dozing under a nearby archway and came to join him. Liam took comfort in her warm, wedge-shaped head under his hand. She was a good dog, and seemed to have survived her separation from Holder without any lasting side effects.

  He stroked her ears, recalling Avani’s speculation: Animals, like people, prefer not to show any weakness.

  “You’re a brave lass,” he told the hound. She wagged her tail. “I’d do well to take your example.” To Bear he could confess what he hated to admit to himself, the worry he’d held close to his heart since receiving the constable’s message upon rising. “She won’t send me away; she can’t afford to.”

  But he knew the Wythe didn’t trust him, for the scars on his body and the whispered rumors that followed him everywhere he walked. With Lane dead, and Avani having fled the palace, there was no one left to champion his cause. If Wythe had at last convinced the king that Liam was in fact a sidhe spy, he doubted Mal would care to intercede on his behalf. And drumming out was the least of his worries. He’d seen what happened to the last barrowman captured.

  “No weakness.” He gave Bear one last pat. “I won’t be afeared of a wicked old hag. Whatever happens, I’ll stand tall.”

  Countess Wythe did not at all resemble a wicked old hag when she met Liam in the hay barn just inside the royal stables. She’d traded her uniform and shining boots for dungarees and villeins’ clogs. There was mud and worse on her hands and on her face. She smelled of horse shit and hay, and her cropped hair and dirty knees made her look nearly as young as Parsnip.

  “You’re late,” she said, sounding just like her son. “I expected you before supper.”

  “Apologies, my lady.” Liam essayed his best courtly bow. “Something unexpected came up.”

  “Did it? With me, also.” She gestured behind her at groomsmen working through stacks of hay. It was a large barn, sturdily built to withstand summer’s heat and winter’s cold. Grain barrels and empty buckets lined one wall but most of the vaulted space was taken with new-cut hay. “Rot’s got in, and before the rainy season. Some fool packed damp grass in with the good, and now it’s spread.” Absently she knocked manure from the bottom of her boots. “The bad needs to be carefully picked out, or we’ll have colicky horses come winter.” She left the barn, crooked a finger at Liam. “Follow me. Can you pick rotted grass from good, boy?”

  “Nay.” Liam glanced back at the groomsmen working in the barn, puzzled, before hurrying to keep pace. “I only know sheep, my lady, and on the Downs they grazed out no matter the weather.”

  Wythe made an inelegant noise. “Sheep are not horses. A horse is a delicate creature, Liam. Mess with his gut and you’re like to lose the rest of him.” Wythe led Liam into the shed rows. Covered box stalls lined either side of a wide, sandy walk. Horses of differing colors and sizes stuck their heads out over half doors, nickering and blowing or watching without comment. It was apparent many of the animals knew the constable by sight; most pricked their ears in greeting. Several pawed their stall floors in a bid for attention. The throne owned several hundred head, every animal trained to battle, although none had seen war in their lifetime.

  Wythe stopped to acknowledge a rawboned bay gelding. Liam recognized the horse.

  “My son’s courser,” Wythe confirmed. “Called Wilde. He’s worth his weight in silver; he’ll take care of Morgan come the desert.”

  Liam searched for a response and found none. He’d seen Morgan ride the horse across Holder’s fields and knew the young earl had a solid seat, but he couldn’t image delicate Morgan charging into battle with much success. Morgan, who knew his equations and could pierce a straw man through with his sword so long as it was secured in place, and who always fell hard beneath the quintain.

  Wythe fished in the pocket of her dungarees, retrieving a carrot. “Can you ride?”

  “Aye.”

  “More than a carthorse, I mean. Have you learned the tilt?”

  Liam was hardly better at the quintain than Morgan, but he wouldn’t admit it in the face of the constable’s keen attention. “Aye,” he hedged. “I’ve been practicing.”

  Wilde nickered. Wythe handed Liam the carrot. “Go ahead,” she said. “The yellow ones are his favorite.”

  It felt like a test, but Liam couldn’t grasp the rules. He fed Wilde the carrot, smiling despite the knot in his gut when the horse smacked lips and tongue together in appreciation.

  “He likes you.” Wythe crossed her arms. “I can count on one hand how many people this horse tolerates. I’ve seen you with the hound and the raven. You’ve a knack. Animals like you.”

  “The sheep always did,” Liam replied, hoping he didn’t sound as defensive as he felt. “And the Widow’s old cat, Tom.” He shrugged. “I’m kind to them, is all.”

  “Everyone knows neither horse nor hound will tolerate the barrow folk. Birds grow silent when they pass. Even the fish in the lakes and ponds retreat before their shadows. I wager even sheep on the Downs would shun their unnatural company.”

  “I’ve heard no such thing,” replied Liam, the challenge come clear. He refused to shout or stomp or punch Wythe in the nose as he had Baldebert for once implying the very same thing
. He bit the inside of his cheek instead and let the pain of it cool his shame.

  “Good lad.” Wythe awarded him a quick nod. “Got a hold on your temper, have you?” She reached into her pocket, fed Wilde a second carrot. “People ask you about it a lot, I suppose.” She nodded again, this time at Liam’s scrolling scars. “Whether you’re sidhe or mortal man or something in between. What those scars are all about.”

  “A few ask. More just stare and whisper. My lady, if you’ve brought me here to prove I’m barrowman, you’ve wasted both our time.” He started to turn away, dread making his steps heavy. “If you’re planning to drum me out, my lady, just say so. I can’t prove to you I’m not a threat, and I won’t try.”

  Wythe stopped him with a click of her tongue. Wilde, startled, pulled his head back inside the shed row.

  “You don’t know, either,” Wythe realized. She put her hands in her pockets and pushed off the stall door. “What you are. And you’ve got more self-confidence than I expected. Well. I can work with that.”

  “My lady?”

  Wythe looped her arm in his. She was taller, but not by much. Liam froze, dismayed by the breach in station. If Wythe noticed his discomfort, she gave no indication. The constable started walking, and Liam was forced to keep stride. Groomsmen, soldiers, and stable hands were busy in the shed rows, but none paid Wythe or Liam any attention.

  “I’ve worked around animals all my life,” Wythe confided. “They never lie. Men and women, not so forthright, although Renault’s witch doesn’t seem the sort to equivocate. She said you are a good man, and I am inclined to believe her.”