The Exiled King

by Sarah Remy

  It was Biaz, returned from feeding the bonfire. The housecarl’s cheeks were wet with tears. “For all their faults they were good lads, Rowan and Malachi both,” he said. “She’s lost them all now, her husband and her sons. Though she hides it well, I fear her heart is broken.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Avani said. “If there’s aught I can do to help—”

  Biaz shook his head. “It’s enough that you made the journey. If you’ll follow me, my lady, my lord. It’s time we’ll be taking him to the beach.”

  Brother Joseph and his attendants with their burden preceded them to the keep’s west gate, the Lady Selkirk on their heels. As soon as she passed without, the rest of the keep followed. Avani and Liam and Parsnip and the two lads took up the rear of the procession, boot heels crunching on the oyster shell spread over sand.

  Brother Joseph began to sing the high, thin burial chant reserved for lords of desert and sea and plain. Avani had heard the lay once before, at Kate Shean’s funeral. She had not thought to hear it at Mal’s. As the priest sang, the sigils painted on Selkirk’s burial shroud glowed first indigo and then star-shine pale. Theist magic throbbed in Avani’s bones. The priest’s chant grew loud and sweet, and the shroud burned brighter, illuminating the steep stairs that led to sand and wave below the keep.

  Selkirk perched upon a natural stack of rock. The peninsula jutted in crags and cliffs over the water. There were ordered steps cut into the rock made slippery by snow and sea spray. Thick rope was bolted into the stone for ease of climbing. Avani clutched at the guide ropes with one hand as they descended, eyeing the sheer drop with misgiving, and exhaled relief when at last they stepped from stone to sand.

  A long pier braved the restless sea at the foot of the stairs. Fingerling waves, turned pink by the sunset, lapped at the beach. Two tall ships were moored at the end of the pier; the bay, Avani thought, must grow deep quickly to allow for such large vessels. One of the ships wore ink-black sails instead of the usual white.

  When the front of the procession touched sand, it broke in two, spreading a single line north and south along the shore. Mal’s mother followed Brother Joseph onto to the pier. The Masterhealer’s song softened. In response the burial shroud dimmed to half-light.

  As those on the shore watched silently, the crew of the black-sailed ship disembarked one by one. They walked the pier, and took the bundled effigy on their own shoulders. The sky was the color of blood as they carried their burden onto the funeral ship. Lady Selkirk stood motionless on the plank while the ship was freed from its moorings. Gulls cried in the evening. The black sails were raised though there was no wind to fill them. Oars splashed in the cold, dark sea.

  The ship moved slowly into the bay, and it was done.

  “This way,” Liam said. “Only a little further.”

  The sun had set and the stars come up. Avani’s mage-light bobbed over their heads, lighting the stretch of northern beach. Bear frolicked in and out of the water, chasing imaginary prey. Jacob, less inclined to endure sea foam, scolded the hound from atop Parsnip’s shoulder. Avani was glad of the new wool cloak she’d brought with her from Stonehill. The wool kept the damp from her skin and from the contents of the pack she wore over one shoulder. She was doubly glad of the sword on her hip when she glimpsed the barrowman waiting for them at the base of the old monkey wood monument.

  “Ai, you’ve taken to keeping odd companions indeed.” She greeted Everin with an embrace, ducking to avoid the torch he carried for light. “Sand snakes and sidhe are more to your taste than good flatland stock?”

  He’d grown a beard again and wore an embroidered scarf in the desert manner to hide the scar on his throat. He smiled to see her and hugged her tight.

  “You are to my taste, black eyes,” he said. “I’ve missed you. When will you come to visit?”

  “Across the mountain divide?” she scoffed, amused. “I’m done with traveling, for the nonce. But I’m eager to hear tales of your new oasis in the desert.”

  Bear was growling at the barrowman. The barrowman was growling back. Jacob laughed from Parsnip’s shoulder.

  “Drem,” snapped Everin, releasing Avani. “Let the hound be.” He shook his head when Avani lifted her brows in inquiry. “Sidhe morality is not flatland morality. That one thought it was doing me a favor in keeping a promise made to Faolan.”

  “In keeping you alive,” Avani said. “No matter the cost to you or to others. And you understand its choices?” Watching the lesser sidhe and the brindled hound cavort, almost she also could understand.

  “Aye,” Everin agreed. “Drem loved Faolan, in its own way. As I did. And I spent too many years in the barrows to discount sidhe logic. I might have done the same, were our roles reversed.”

  “Nay,” Avani said gently. “I know you would not.”

  “Avani,” interrupted Liam with a shout, pointedly ignoring both barrowman and hound, “come and look!”

  The beam had been part of an island dwelling, before cataclysm brought Shellshale down into the ocean. Avani rapped her knuckles on monkey wood; it was solid as stone but she knew also that it would be buoyant in the water. A trestle not dissimilar had kept her afloat as a child, saving her life as others drowned.

  “There’s a plaque,” Arthur cried. “Set in the wood. May I borrow your light, Lady Avani? I’d like to read what it says.”

  Avani sent her witch-light spinning near the lad but she needn’t have bothered.

  “‘All life springs from the waves. All life returns to the sea,’” Liam quoted from memory, looking not at the bronze plaque but out across the water.

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” Morgan said quietly. “For your loss.”

  “It was a long time ago.” Avani patted monkey wood as if it was Jacob in need of soothing. “I hardly remember who they were.” The realization didn’t hurt as much as she expected.

  “Kin is kin,” said the barrowman, creeping up against Avani’s side. The lesser sidhe’s nearness made the stone in Andrew’s ring flare amber. “We honor their bones in the dark places, even after we forget their names.”

  “That’s grim,” retorted Parsnip, glowering. The lass did not seem at all disturbed by Drem’s proximity. Which suggested Everin was not the only one spending time in the company of new friends. For all her barking, Bear seemed less impressed with the barrowman than the new smells around the base of the monkey wood beam. Nor had Avani missed the crock of honey Liam had left with Lady Selkirk as a Mabon gift.

  “Where’s Baldebert?” she asked, peering into the darkness. “We can’t do this without him.”

  “Late as usual,” Everin replied. “Granted it’s a bit of a ride from Low Port. We’ll wait. I have beer and Drem has caught us a brace of fish. Come and sup, and we’ll celebrate the end of this day as we should, in quiet companionship.”

  Baldebert did not arrive until well after sunrise the next day, but Avani found she did not mind the wait. Less Drem, who entertained itself by stalking night crabs in the tide, they huddled together high up on the beach, sharing bedding and drink and roasting fish over a fire much smaller than the one they had left behind in Selkirk. While they ate, Everin explained to them the complications of building trade between the desert and the flatlands, of teaching sand lords the intricacies of flatland etiquette and flatland merchants the importance of clean water in desert custom, and the difficulty of wiping out generations of prejudice and enmity on both sides of the divide.

  “But not impossible,” he mused. “Skerrit’s Pass proves my point. Sixty days the tower’s been staffed by Kingsmen and tribespeople together, and only the one instance of fisticuffs to speak of. It helps that the tinkers are eager to resume business on both sides of the mountain.”

  “What does the desert have of value?” Arthur wondered doubtfully. “Sand and cactus ain’t worth much to Wilhaiim.”

  “Steel,” Everin said. “Lighter than iron yet still useful against the sidhe. Textiles. Their needlework rivals even Roue’s. And mesqui
te beer. Whitcomb’s vineyards are gone. It will be years before the wine trade rises from the ash, if ever. Wilhaiim’s court will soon suffer the lack.” He winked in Arthur’s direction. “Already our mesquite beer is finding favor in a few prominent taverns; it’s far less costly now than Whitcomb wine.”

  Avani fell asleep smiling, the perfume of salt in her nose and the laughter of her companions a joyful noise in her ears. She slept deeply and without dreaming and roused midday to Baldebert’s shout as he galloped the stretch of beach between Selkirk and the monkey wood monument, waving a feathered cap in greeting. It was low tide, the sea retreated away across gleaming sand. Baldebert’s arrival stirred the children to excitement. They broke camp quickly while Everin admired Baldebert’s Low Port courser. Liam and Bear scouted ahead along the beach. By the time bedding was returned to journey packs and the last of the fish consumed, they’d returned, the dog filthy with sand and the young man looking hopeful.

  “It’s there,” he reported, “exactly as Russel said it would be. An old fisherman’s cottage, more driftwood than plank and grown all over with Selkirk rose but the thatching on the roof looks new and there’s the smell of smoked meat. Someone’s about the place.”

  “Someone.” Baldebert pursed his mouth. “We well know who.” He slanted a glance in Avani’s direction. “Will we be welcome?”

  She shrugged. “Your ivories make it impossible to tell.” Settling her pack more comfortably on her back, she grabbed up a length of driftwood from the beach to use as a staff, testing the weight of it in her fist. “There’s only one way to find out, ai. Jacob’s lit off. I imagine we’ll find him there ahead of us.”

  The raven waited for them on the roof of the fisherman’s cottage in a tangle of thorny vine and black rose hips. He called out raucously as they approached. The man standing with him outside the cottage snarled a rebuke.

  He did not look at all as he used to, and though Avani expected the change, it was disconcerting. Cleena’s spell had added the illusion of height and bulk to delicate bones, turned green eyes to brown, repaired the broken nose. His hair was disconcertingly straight, pulled back in a knot at his neck. Gray bristles roughened his cheeks and chin. He wore fisherman’s togs beneath a tattered red Kingsman’s cloak and desert sandals on his feet.

  He watched them approach without speaking. Bear, barking again, raced to meet him, then circled eagerly about the cottage. Everin put his hand on his sword but knew better than to insult Avani by drawing it. Liam whistled, a thrush’s call, and to Avani’s relief Mal whistled back.

  “In his right mind, mayhap,” Baldebert murmured. “Here, lad.” He tossed Arthur his mare’s reins and jumped from the saddle into the sand, landing lightly on his toes. “Where’s the barrowman?”

  “Here.” Drem appeared as if out of thin air, carrying a spear and a length of bulbous seaweed. The horse spooked. Arthur cursed roundly but managed not to let go. Drem grinned.

  “More trouble than it’s worth,” Baldebert told Everin. “You should have killed it when it showed up again in the desert.” He flapped his hat in the air, an invitation. “By all means, you first, my lady.”

  But Avani was already striding ahead. In her eagerness she wanted to run but, for fear of frightening the man turned hermit, she measured her steps carefully, as casually as a beach comber spending a pleasant afternoon searching for treasure on the sand. Drem capered at her side. Baldebert followed at a slug’s pace.

  “Hello,” Mal said when she reached the cottage. His voice was the same, but rough with disuse, more broken even than Everin’s hoarse whisper. “I didn’t expect you or I’d have put water to boil for tea.”

  She laughed, made light-headed with joy. “Do you really have tea?” she asked, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  That unfamiliar mouth curved upward at one corner. “Nay. But I have water and a pot and I’m handy with the flint. And I imagine you’ve brought leaf with you.” He arched thick brows at the heavy pack on her back, then turned his attention to Drem and Baldebert. “You’re my first guests,” he confessed. “It’s close inside but you’re welcome.” He lifted his gaze, considering Everin and Liam and the children. “Afraid to come too near, are they?”

  “Not afraid,” Avani said. “It’s only caution. Until we can be sure—”

  “That I’m safe?” Mal guessed. “Ah, well. Come inside and we’ll see.”

  “Not inside,” Drem said, baring fangs. “Here. I’ll do it here. It stinks of iron inside.”

  “As you wish.” Mal inclined his head, waiting.

  Drem scuttled across the sand. The lesser sidhe sniffed about Mal with the same enthusiasm Bear had shown the cottage moments earlier.

  “Sidheog are very clever,” it said, prodding Mal with its claws, peeking beneath the red cloak, poking fisherman’s togs. “And Cleena more than most. She would have hidden it where you cannot find it for your sake and for ours—ah.” It paused, pointed chin buried in the back of Mal’s neck, beneath his hair. Avani shuddered in sympathy but Mal did not seem disturbed, although it was difficult to read illusionary features. Drem walked its fingers beneath the knot of bundled hair on the nape of Mal’s neck, then yanked viciously. Mal grunted. Drem came away with a broken length of colorful thread.

  The glamour dissolved as the thread snapped. Mal as Avani knew him stood there instead in the fisherman’s togs. Without the disguise they were too baggy about his bony hips and shrunken torso. His dark curls were a riot of tangles and salt. The bristle on his face was dark, patchy. She was surprised he’d managed to shave at all; his body shook all over with fine tremors. Baldebert’s ivory manacled his wrists. He stank of Whitcomb wine and sour sweat. He had the reddened eyes of a man who hadn’t seen sobriety for much too long, but his irises were vivid green once again.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Whoever he was, I’d grown deeply sick of living in his homely skin.”

  “A Whitcomb refugee who didn’t survive the breaching of Wilhaiim’s walls,” Baldebert said while Drem dug a hole in the sand with one foot and dropped the bit of thread within. “It was his corpse, in your guise, that Tillion and Renault burned as magus in Wilhaiim’s bailey. So mayhap show the man a little gratitude, for saving your life.”

  “Cleena did that,” said Mal. He swayed and set a hand on Avani’s shoulder for balance. “And Russel and mayhap even Orat. Why?”

  “Because Renault asked them to, you stupid man,” said Avani. She tilted her head at Baldebert. “We can finish the rest of it inside.”

  “Finish,” agreed Jacob irritably from a nest of thorns and rose hips.

  “It was Rowan’s cottage, before he died,” Mal said as they settled on a floor of old rugs and older pelts. “My brother. He built it when he was a boy. No one dares come near it now for fear of his haunt. There’s no ghost here,” he added when Avani glanced around. “There never has been. He died at sea, went down with his ship. My mother blamed me for his death. As the eldest, he was supposed to take the title. It was supposed to be me on the sea. I was meant for the merchant fleet. Until they discovered I was magus.”

  Avani contented herself with looking about the square room as Mal fought vertigo and Baldebert battled misgivings. It was comfortable, if sparse. A large fishing net hung on one wall, a pile of heavy iron weighs on the ground beneath it. A barrel of fresh water sat in one corner next to a large Whitcomb cask. There was no bed for sleeping and as far as she could tell no chamber pot for pissing, but the rugs and pelts were comfortable and she’d not used a chamber pot on the Downs, either. There were advantages to living alone on a stretch of desolate land.

  “You can’t go back,” Baldebert said. “You can’t ever go back, to Wilhaiim or anywhere near. In fact, I wouldn’t show your face in any keep or hamlet were I you, for Renault’s sake if not your own. Roue’s out, for the sea journey, but Everin says you’d be welcome in the desert. The Black Coast—no one would know you that far south. Or mayhap Stonehill—only Avani lives there willingly.”

/>   “I like it here,” Mal said mildly. “No one comes down this stretch of beach willingly, either. If the monument doesn’t turn them away, my brother’s cottage will.” He looked, not at Baldebert, but at Avani. “Russel said you would come to take them off, but I did not believe her. You know what I am without the ivories. In all good faith, I should not allow it. In fact, I’m certain it would be a bad idea. They make me weak and sick, lesser than I was. Given the opportunity, I do not think I could resist . . .” He flushed slightly. “I’ve a hollowness needs filling.”

  “I cannot help you with that,” agreed Avani. “You must learn to live with that emptiness—you owe Renault that.” Her heart broke a little at his stricken expression. Did he still hope he could be magus again? “There is another option, a prison still, but one less invasive than ensorcelled ivory.”

  He narrowed his eyes, understanding already. “The wards,” he guessed. “The shining cage that kept me from your head even before these bloody bangles. I never taught you that. I did not know it could be done.”

  “Not so much a cage as a net. I think I can do the same for you, if you consent. Internal wards, to keep you in and temptation out.” Determined to be forthright, she added, “My spell in your head, not so different from Baldebert’s bracelets around your wrists, although I am hoping the side effects will be less painful.”

  “Your wards in my head, constraining my power and my freedom. Keeping me from mischief, is that it? Side effects or no, my dignity will suffer.” He gazed down at old ivory. “A prison without walls, no end in sight.”

  “Ah, drama! You still have the Curcas seeds,” retorted Baldebert. “I know Russel left that poison with you here. You haven’t used it. Mayhap life alone in your head is not so bad as you pretend. After all, most of the world gets on just fine trapped in our own skulls and with no more than the usual side effects of loneliness and self-absorption. And I expect Avani will be a sympathetic jailer.”