by Glenda Larke
She had abandoned her pack at the pot-house, and so had Perie, but she still had her sword, her purse, her folded up maps of Ardrone and the Principalities and, fortunately, her lock picks. Anyone searching the belongings she’d left behind would find nothing that tied them to her. She bent to insert the metal pieces into the large keyhole in the door.
“Who taught you to do that?” the bearded man asked.
“A witan.”
“Is it wise to break into a building that apparently belongs to a society of writ-wrights? It feels a bit like trying to pet a bear with its foot in a trap.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Oh, good. You can argue my case when I’m arrested for breaking and entering.”
“If we are found, I don’t think anyone will be charging us with burglary. Murder, maybe, but burglary? I don’t think they’ll bother, do you?”
He tilted his head as if considering that. “Probably not. Anyway, thanks for intervening back there. I owe you.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’ve no idea, I’m sorry to say.”
The lock clicked. “Ah, that’s got it.” The door opened and she gestured them inside, quickly shutting the door behind them. As an added precaution, she slipped the bolt across on the inside.
The entry hall, with its streaked marble pillars and marble tiled floor, she’d always thought pretentious and cold. There was evidence that the building had been abandoned in a hurry – discarded files, a dropped shoe, a half-eaten apple on the floor – and signs that it had not been occupied for a long while. The apple was withered and rock hard, the floors were dusty, the walls had mould creeping down from the ceiling and spiderwebs festooned the corners.
“There’s a common room through there,” she said, pointing. “If there’s any wood, we can get the stove going so we feel a bit warmer.”
“We don’t have anything dry to wear,” Perie said and rubbed his arms.
She shrugged, indifferent. “We’re alive. We’ll manage.”
The bearded man looked around, taking in the murals on the ceiling and the gilded cornices and mouldings as they walked through to the common room, which was marginally cosier. The floor was wooden and someone had ripped up the carpet. The textured walls, once hung with portraits of past legal worthies, was now dotted with empty dark patches of unfaded fabric.
He eyed the crystal chandelier and the gold inlay of the walnut furniture and said, “I always did think writ-wrights were paid too much.”
“You remember what you thought about lawyers, yet you can’t remember your name?” she asked, not bothering to hide her scepticism. She lifted the lid to the brass studded box next to the equally ornate ceramic stove and peered inside. Good, there was plenty of wood. She pulled out the kindling to set the fire.
“He’s been ensorcelled,” Perie said. “Not recently, but I can feel the smutch on him. Maybe that’s why he can’t remember who he is.”
Her head jerked up and she scrutinised the bearded man more closely. He had drawn his sword and was emptying out a mix of river water and blood from his scabbard on to the floor with a look of disgust on his face. “You really don’t know who you are?”
“All I can recall is the last few days.”
“What do you remember?”
“Waking up on a roadside. I was standing there, talking to a farmer bringing turnips to the market in Beck Crossways.”
She picked up the flint and steel she found in the woodbox and used it to spark the tinder. “Go on.”
As he told his story and did his best to clean his weapon and dry its scabbard, she tended the fire. By the time he’d finished, the logs had caught. She closed the door on the stove and brushed the wood dust from her hands. “So you saw this woman in the marketplace in Beck Crossways. You don’t know who she is, or whose child she had, but the next day you followed her anyway. Did the lancers not notice you?”
He shook his head. “I’m more careful than that. I bought a horse in Beck Crossways and followed them for several days all the way here. As we came close to the city gates, I caught up a bit so I could see where they went. They entered the palace. After half an hour, the lancers rode out, but she and the boy didn’t. The men we killed were in that lot. I didn’t think they’d ever seen me before. I don’t remember it.”
“You were just sitting in the pot-house wondering what the sweet acorns you were going to do next.”
He looked sheepish.
“You are making about as much sense as a hedge-born moldwarp.”
“That’s about right,” he agreed, rubbing a rough hand over his head, ruffling his hair. “Hang me for a muckle-head, but there’s naught else I can tell you.”
“Show me your sword.”
He showed it to her, but kept a tight hold.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked, jabbing her thumb at the insignia on the hilt.
He stared at it as if he’d never seen it before, but said slowly, “That’s the Ardronese king’s coat of arms. House of Betany.”
“You’re a king’s man,” she said. “And I’ve no time for your logger-headed monarch who has led his land to ruin.”
He looked shocked at her lack of respect, but all he could say was, “I don’t remember whose man I was. A soldier, though? Yes, that feels right.”
“The woman – describe her. And how old is the boy she carried?”
“She’s right pretty. Tiny, though. Got a waist you could circle with your hands. Dark hair. Fair skin. Hardly more than a child. Wed young, I’d say. The tyke’s two, or thereabouts.”
“Was she well dressed?”
“Not at all. Like a farmer’s daughter. Although—”
“What?”
“Her shoes. Not the kind of thing a farmer’s daughter wears. Made for walking floors, not plodding fields.” He frowned, then shook his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled a chair up to sit close to the stove and held his hands out towards the radiating warmth. “Who are you two, anyway? Never met a picklocking writ-wright who carried a sword before, let alone one who could use it. And you speak of our king like you are Lowmian.”
“I am. Or was. My name is Gerelda Brantheld. I work – I used to work for Pontifect Fritillary Reedling as a Va-faith proctor.”
“Before the world as we knew it hopped the twig, eh?”
“Before the whole world fell off the branch,” she amended bitterly.
“How can you remember some things, and not others?” Perie asked him. “That’s rattle-brained.”
“Been mulling over it. Reckon it’s anything about me and my life that I don’t remember. Learned stuff? That I recall. I could find Throssel or Betany on a map; I could tell ye how to walk from the king’s palace to Faith House without missing a step – but I don’t recall walking them streets myself. I’m lost, lad. Worst of all, I’m not doing what I ought because I don’t remember what it is!”
“Those lancers back there at the pot-house,” Gerelda said. “One of them mentioned a Captain Fox.”
“Aye.”
He hesitated a moment, then dug into his belt and pulled out a leather pouch. “I lost my tote back there, but the money I was carrying I still have.” He opened the pouch and spilled the gold coins into his hand to show them.
Perie’s eyes widened. “Fiddle-me-witless, that’s a tidy nut-store.”
“Mistress Brantheld, I’m trusting you. You came to my aid when I was a swordpoint away from dying, for no good reason I could see – except that you got no love of Grey Lancers. My gut tells me this money is not mine. I’m supposed to be doing something with it, but whatever it is, Va only knows. Summat important. If you can help me discover that—”
“Anything I can tell you is only a guess.”
“I’ll listen to any twaddle right now.”
“You have a sword that bears the royal insignia. If I combine that thought with what you’ve told me… One of the nearest towns to Gromwell Holdfast, where Prince Ryce is besieged, is Beck Cr
ossways. We were there not long ago. The siege was still in place.”
“Go on.”
“Could the woman and child possibly be Princess Bealina and her son Prince Garred?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I’m wondering if you were sent by the king to fetch Prince Garred and return him to Throssel, with or without his mother. Prince Ryce might have agreed to it, believing Gromwell was doomed. Somehow, a Fox intervened…”
He looked at her, aghast. “Va help me, why can’t I remember!”
It was Perie who answered that one, even though the man was not expecting a reply. “A sorcerer can make people do just about anything he wants. Kill, fight when he doesn’t want to, make folk believe things which aren’t true. He could make you forget. Although I would have said he was more likely to kill you.”
The anguish on his face was clear and she was moved to pity. “So, Sir Nameless, where do you think your sympathies lie? With the king, or with Prince Ryce, or somewhere else?”
“I’m fobbing sure it’s not with anyone called Fox,” he said. “Every time I hear that name I want to spit.”
She smiled slightly. “Given what happened back in the pot-house, I’m fairly certain you don’t much like Grey Lancers either. I’m sure we are all agreed that giving Valerian Fox access to Garred and his education is a very bad idea.”
The man nodded, frowning.
“So what do we do?” Perie asked.
“I think,” she said, “we’d better find out if the princess and her son are really inside the Pontifect’s palace, and if they are, then we do our level best to remove them.” She looked over at the man, whose clothes were now steaming from the heat, and added, “We still have a sorcerer to kill too, the fellow we’ve been following, who may well be the one who ensorcelled you. Does any of that interest you?”
His frown vanished into a beatific smile. “Now that sounds like my kind of scrap and tussle! When do we start?”
Confound it, she thought. We’ll all be on the City Watch’s list of criminals now. That was going to make everything that much more difficult.
19
The Darkest Hour
Another dawn. That was something, Prince Ryce supposed.
He had learned to live with the uncertainty of whether he’d see the next sunrise. Each time he glimpsed the first light of the day creeping across the waters of the estuary, he was both pleasantly surprised and – Admit it, Ryce – smugly gratified. The heralding of a new day meant those treasonous whoresons had again failed to blow him to beggary overnight.
He would never have predicted Gromwell Holdfast could have lasted that long, not when the enemy had cannon. He had not realised beforehand just how incompetent the Grey Lancers were.
You can’t make an army out of farmers by clicking your fingers and wishing it so, he’d thought gleefully. In his more sober moments, he determined that when he was king, he was going to make blistering sure all nobles kept a trained force of men for the Crown to call upon in times of need. If only his father had seen the danger of the Grey Lancers right at the beginning, none of this would have happened.
In fact, the miracle was how few of his men had been killed. The unknown architect who’d designed the holdfast had been skilled. The walls were stubborn and they endured still. True, they’d finally abandoned the outer bailey and the main gate, together with the landward tower, but in anticipation of that, they’d used much of the internal stonework to reinforce the inner bailey.
The well continued to supply them with sweet water, and rationing the food had extended their ability to hold on. Of course, they’d been aided by one of the cannon belonging to the besiegers exploding and killing some of them because they hadn’t fully understood how to handle it.
He didn’t doubt that sooner or later Gromwell would fall. Even as he stood there, watching the dawn, another cannonball came sailing towards the Seaward Tower. It missed and dropped out of the sky, ploughing into the middle of the inner bailey to create yet another hole in the ground. At least that ball had not been filled with anything explosive. Not many of them had lately, which he took as a sign that gunpowder was scarce.
Only a matter of time though…
He could have borne anything if he’d known for sure that Bealina and Garred were safe. Stupid, of course. Horntail must be dead, and Bealina was a prisoner. She wasn’t safe.
“Another day.”
He turned to see that Lord Seaforth had come up the steps to lean against the parapet next to him. “They seem to have trouble working out the correct elevation,” Ryce remarked.
“That was another solid ball,” Anthon said. “They don’t do much damage if they don’t hit a wall.” He had a tendency to express the obvious, but Ryce knew there was no better person than Anthon Seaforth to have at his side. He was uncomplaining, equable and unafraid. His indifference to death inspired the men. Certainly his unfailing good humour was a tonic to those he commanded.
“I think the time is nearing for us to try to break out of the hold-fast,” Ryce said. “I’ve been watching our besiegers and they are getting more and more careless. Their discipline is disintegrating. We have a chance of success. Besides, if we leave it much longer, we’ll lose our fitness and strength. The next cut we make in rations will be a savage one.”
“Whatever you say, Your Highness. I for one will be delighted to leave. First thing I’ll do is walk into a good tavern: order some of their best ale and a plate of griddle cakes heaped with honey and cinnamon.”
“The next wet night we get,” Ryce promised.
“Your Highness!”
He turned to see his page boy, Caddis, gazing towards the open sea and flapping a hand in excitement. “There’s a huge ship coming up from Port Spurge. Looks like it’s a three-master.”
An ocean-going vessel? That was odd. It could only be on its way to Twite, which was a small town, usually only a port of call for bilanders, the cargo ships plying the coastal ports. No, wait… Maybe Caddis had spotted a two-masted cargo hulk, the clumsy vessels that carried timber from East Denva to Throssel and the shipyards of Hornbeam, returning up-estuary laden with textiles and fancy goods.
“Put the spyglass on to it, there’s a good lad.”
Caddis obliged happily, and Ryce exchanged an amused glance with Seaforth. More sombrely, he reflected that they had come to a pretty pass when the mere sight of a large ship provided high entertainment.
When he stepped up to have a look, surprise made him give a sharp intake of breath. An ocean-going vessel indeed. It was Lord Juster Dornbeck’s Golden Petrel. He would have recognised it anywhere, even if the spyglass had not shown him the flag flying from the mainmast.
He almost wept with gratitude.
“Who is it?” Seaforth asked.
“Someone who might just be our salvation,” Ryce replied.
“A sloop-of-war dead ahead,” Grig Cranald said, poking his head around the door to the officers’ wardroom. “Flying the king’s colours.”
They all turned to look at him. Saker felt excitement stir and placed his drink down on the table, thinking ruefully that when you weren’t a sailor, you welcomed anything promising an end to on-board tedium. Beside him, Sorrel, who had been mending a tear in Mate Finch’s coat – as a panacea for her own boredom – hurriedly shoved the needle, coat and scissors away into the tailoring box.
Juster, who had been tilted back in his chair with his feet up on the wardroom chart table and a goblet of brandy in his hand, let his feet thump back to the floor. “Who’s at the helm? And how far are we from Gromwell?”
“Forrest, cap’n. He reckons we’re approaching it now. Ardhi’s up in the crow’s nest on the lookout.”
“Right. Give the order to man all guns, but keep the gunports closed. We want to look peaceful, while primed for anything.”
Cranald withdrew and Juster reached for his sword belt. “Sorrel, would you mind taking charge of the sick bay in Barklee’s place? Saker, the eag
le, please. I want to know what there is to be seen.”
Saker nodded. He’d already made the connection to the bird. It was spiralling into the sky above the ship and images of what it saw were flicking into his mind. As he ran up on to the weather deck with Juster, he said, “Good views of what I assume is the holdfast. Half-ruined, but inhabited. You ever been there?”
“Yes, once, when I was about twenty.”
“It looks like they’re holed up on the seaward side. Was there more than one tower? Because there’s only one now, near the cliff. There’s a heap of rubble that could have once been another. Men on the walls, armed. No cannon that I can see in the holdfast.”
“Get us as much detail as you can on the number of besiegers and their weaponry.”
Grig Cranald handed over the ship’s spyglass to Juster, saying, “Ardhi says the flag the holdfast is flying is a red stag.”
“Prince Ryce’s emblem.” Juster gave a low laugh. “Who would have thought he could hold out this long? There must be more to Ryce than we once thought.”
“If that’s all we have to believe the prince is still alive, I wouldn’t rely on it,” Saker said. “Flags can lie.”
Juster focused the spyglass on the ship ahead of them. “That sloop looks to be anchored.”
“Why would it be here?” Saker asked.
“To make sure nobody supplies the holdfast from the sea. I seem to remember there was a landing at the foot of that cliff there and they had some sort of winch rigged to bring goods up from boats.”
Saker sent the eagle in a wider circle to spy on the besiegers. Sorrel, clutching her shawl tight as the wind whipped around the deck, asked, “How dangerous is that sloop to us?”
Juster, still gazing at it with the spyglass, said, “Sloops-of-war are small, less than twenty guns, carronades rather than cannon. Shallow draught, manoeuvrable, don’t carry much in the line of supplies and don’t have large crews. We could blow that one out of the water without them being close enough to send a ball that would even splash us. Her name’s Dragonfly. Daft name. Easy to tear wings off a dragonfly.”