by Glenda Larke
He looked scared, so she added, more kindly, “Never mind, I’m going there now, so I’ll take the animal for you. Saddle it up. I’ll take the saddlebags and anything else that belonged to the witan.”
If he thought her request odd, nothing of it showed in his face. He disappeared inside the stable with her lantern. She stayed outside, warming her hands at the brazier. When he reappeared, yawning, he was leading the dapple grey, already saddled and bridled.
“Keep the lantern,” she said. “I’ll pick it up when I return.”
Suddenly at a loss, she stared at the horse. She hadn’t ridden astride since she was a harum-scarum child of eight or nine, romping with her brother and his pony. As an adult woman wearing a riding habit, she’d grown used to using a mounting block on the few occasions she’d had reason to ride.
Fortunately, in the darkness the youth did not appear to notice her consternation. He handed her the reins and the crop, saying, “I’ve strapped on the witan’s saddlebags for you,” and went back to huddle over the brazier.
She spent a moment stroking the horse’s nose, then stuffed the things she had with her into the saddlebags: food she’d hoarded, a few personal items for herself, the meagre amount of money the Princess had been able to scrounge, the rest of Saker’s clothes and personal belongings. Reins in her hand, she reached up to the pommel and raised her foot to fit into the stirrup. It was a long way from the ground.
Don’t be silly, Sorrel. You’re not wearing a dress now. Of course you can do this.
She forgot she was wearing Saker’s sword, and the scabbard tangled with her leg when she tried to swing herself up. The horse sidled. Hopping clumsily, she hauled herself into the saddle. Sitting astride felt all wrong. Skirtless, she felt naked and shameless. She took a deep breath. You did this when you were a child; you can do it now.
When the night sky began to spit rain as she turned the horse out of the stable yard, she muttered under her breath, “Saker, you’d better be suitably grateful.”
At the palace gate, she told the guards she had a message for the Prime at Faith House in the city. One of them recognised her mount. “What are you doing riding the nullified witan’s horse?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.
“He’s a witan no longer. His belongings are the property of the Faith now, even if he survives the night.”
The guard grunted and waved her through.
At night, the streets of the city were unrecognisable. Gone were the crowds, the carts and carriages, the hawkers and hustlers. Shadows melted away into the darkness at the sound of her horse’s hooves. The occasional person out and about at that hour appeared just as nervous of her as she was of them. Nonetheless, her head swivelled this way and that in her anxiety. The dapple grey, taking its cue from her, was skittish. When a dog ran at its heels, barking, she was almost unseated. Her hands began to shake on the reins.
Va save me, calm down. You’ll be a quivering heap of milk curds by the time you get to the main gate if you can’t be braver than this. Remember what’s at stake. You must have courage. You can do this.
She halted the horse and, wishing she’d asked the stable lad if it had a name, stroked its neck and uttered soothing noises until it stood quietly. Only then did she urge it on once more.
Her confidence grew. She’d forgotten how secure it felt to ride properly balanced. She was relearning all she’d known as a child about using her knees. Instead of missing her voluminous skirts, she was beginning to enjoy the freedom of their lack.
At the outer city wall, she altered her story to say she was taking a message from the Prime to the Pontifect. Once again the dapple grey was recognised. “Yes,” she said before they could question her, “it was the witan’s and was forfeited. The Prime is giving it to the Pontifect, I believe.”
“Waste of good horse flesh,” the guard complained as he opened the side gate for her. “When will she ever ride it?”
She urged her mount into a trot as it started to rain in earnest. The city continued in a huddle of hovels and ramshackle buildings inhabited by the desperately poor, diseased or dishonest. Many lived by sifting through the city’s rubbish, or keeping pigs. Some worked in trades no longer welcome within the walls: the dyemakers and lyemakers, the slaughterers and tanners, the smelters and kiln-burners. Together they formed the midden-dwellers.
The rain, she decided, would be her protection. Luck was with her. So far. Nonetheless, she pulled Saker’s sword out of its scabbard and laid it across the saddlebow. If someone made a grab for the horse’s bridle, she knew what she was going to do, and there would be no hesitation.
She’d killed before and she’d do it again, if she must.
“Your breakfast. Sorry it’s not more lavish, witan.”
“Not witan any more, Sergeant,” Saker said, not for the first time. Perversely, all the soldiers continued to address him that way. Apparently a guilty verdict for the crimes of apostasy and blasphemy did not rate high on the guards’ list of wrongdoings, and their attitude towards him was more comradely than condemnatory.
Horntail shrugged, indifferent to his protest. He handed over a wooden bowl of hot porridge and a spoon.
With his hands tied, Saker had to take the bowl in both hands, then balance it on his knees while he ate. He looked around the clearing where they’d spent the night. The guards were attending to their chores, rounding up the hobbled horses and filling their water skins at the nearby stream. No one was close enough to overhear his conversation with Horntail.
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in being a wealthy man, Sergeant? It is within my ability to make you so.” He still had Juster’s rubies, safe somewhere in his gut.
The Sergeant frowned heavily. “Would you be offering me a bribe now, witan?”
“I would, if I thought you’d take it.”
“Sorry. I’m a King’s man, Witan Rampion. Like my da before me, and my grandpa before that, and my son after me. My family has little but our honour, and we keep what we have.”
Saker sighed. “I thought as much. Pity.”
“You’re not the first offering money for your escape, neither. You’ve a friend in a certain seafaring lord as well.”
“And you turned him down too? Alas, suddenly there are too many honest men in the world to please me.” He finished the porridge and handed back the bowl.
“You’re a cool one, I’ll give you that. I’d’ve thought you’d too much stuffing in your noggin to have been charged with something like blasphemy.”
“So would I,” he said drily. “I wonder if you’ll do something for me, nonetheless.”
Horntail looked at him dubiously.
“Oh, it’s nothing shifty this time. I just want you to hear me out.”
“Words can’t hurt lest I let ’em.”
“Prime Valerian Fox keeps company with black-hearted men. Men who take orders from A’Va.”
When he fell silent, Horntail’s frown deepened. “Go on.”
“That’s it.”
“That’s all? And you expect me to believe it, just like that?”
“No, not really.”
“Then why gab it?”
“Sergeant, you head the men who guard the Prince, and you are a man of honour. One day, the Prince will be king. And perhaps, at some crucial moment, when it might make a difference, you will remember those words of mine.”
Horntail was silent, chewing on his lip.
Saker let him think, then said, “One more thing. That lascar dagger you bought from the mudlark?”
“What about it?”
“I don’t think you’ll have it much longer.”
Horntail snorted. “You going to steal it from me, then?”
“When I have my hands tied day and night, and my feet hobbled when I’m not mounted? Hardly. But I stand by that prediction.”
Horntail scrambled to his feet and threw his wooden bowl to one of his men. “Let’s get on our way,” he said grimly. “I want you left at the Chervil
Moors shrine before nightfall, and I want us at least an hour back down the track by sunset. It’ll be a cold night camped by the track.”
24
The Reluctant Pilgrims
When the landward gates opened for business at dawn in Throssel city, and for an hour or so afterwards, the gateway was chaotic. Farmers and midden-pickers and hucksters wanted to enter with their produce; travellers and pilgrims and traders wished to leave as soon as it was light. Checks on those going in and out were perfunctory, but the traffic was slow nonetheless.
Prince Ryce told himself that was a good reason to delay an early start, but it was just an excuse. He was desperately hoping Saker was going to die a natural death, so he’d lingered on in the city until the morning after Horntail and his soldiers had left with the disgraced witan. It would take them well over a day to reach the shrine, and Ryce wanted to be sure Saker had at least one night naked and alone in the cold before he arrived on the scene.
One part of him was gnawed by the cowardice of his decision; another part justified it on the grounds of secrecy. Father said no one must know, so I have to dodge Horntail and his escort. Saker, if we’re both lucky, you’ll die a quick death and I won’t have to slit your throat.
How had he, a prince who would one day be king, not realised what kind of man the witan was? He could have sworn that Saker was an honourable fellow. He’d spent more time with the man than he’d admitted to his father. They’d diced together and drunk too much and gone to see the latest plays. They’d shot arrows at the practice butt and fenced and played cards. How could he have been so blind? Damn the man! Va, he wanted to throttle the misbegotten son of a sow for what he’d done.
By the time he rode up to the landward gate of the city with his manservant and the four guards he’d chosen to accompany him on the early part of his journey, the morning crowd had cleared. Calling his two hunting hounds to stay with him, Ryce reined up in front of the Sergeant of the sentry detail. The hounds sniffed around the guardsmen’s feet, then sat, regarding the men with suspicious eyes and twitching noses. “What’s the latest word on the state of the road up towards Oakwood?” he asked.
“Good, your highness. But it’s already started snowin’ in the high country.”
“Any banditry lately?”
“None I’ve heard of.” The Sergeant smiled. “The most dangerous part is probably ridin’ through them pox-marked foot-lickers in the midden fringe. There was some trouble there early this mornin’; I was worried it might have involved the Prime’s messenger riding Rampion’s dapple grey. Runnin’ a risk he was, riding out alone after dark.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, one of the worst miscreants of the midden-dwellers got run down by a rider. He reckoned the horseman was a demon with horns, or some such daft tale. Anyways, he got his leg broke for his trouble. The midden is laughing ’bout it this morn. I figure the fellow tried to rob the horseman, and got what he deserved. Must have been as drunk as a ship’s rat that’s got at a cask. The only rider we let through last night was the Prime’s messenger, so I reckon he was the one who did the damage.”
Ryce gathered up the reins, uninterested. All he wanted was to reach the small town of Chervil by nightfall. It had a wayside inn, and he’d heard their wine was excellent. He whistled to his dogs, but they were already through the gate, delighting in the stench of the midden fringe ahead of them.
By the time Sorrel rode into Chervil, nestled where the road to Oakwood met the track from the high moorland, she knew she’d never had a more miserable, uncomfortable journey. She’d ridden further in a single day than ever before; she’d been attacked, rained on, chased by dogs and doubled up with cramp. Every muscle screamed at her. She was tired and hungry and scared.
Worse, night was approaching and she was still far from the Chervil Moors shrine. Her first question when she rode into the stables of the single wayside inn was how far away the shrine was. The answer, another four hours’ ride, was not encouraging. Afraid that Saker would not last the night without clothing, she asked to hire a hack, intending to continue on.
The stableman gave her a look that told her he doubted her sanity, and refused. He added sourly that there was no way anyone could ride the moorland track safely at night unless they wanted to kill either themselves or the horse, or both, and he was damned if he’d let her kill one of his jobbing mounts. She’d considered pushing on, but her horse was exhausted, and when the innkeeper told her she’d never find her way at night anyway, she gave up.
Saker is innocent of all the things they accused him of. Va and the unseen guardian will look after him, she thought, trying to convince herself. They cared for me at a shrine…
She pretended a competence she didn’t feel as she organised the hiring of an additional horse for the next day, checked on the ostler’s care of the dapple grey and arranged a room for the night. She forced herself to eat something, to order a ewer of hot water, to arrange with the cook for a packet of food to take with her the following morning, and finally to undress and wash away the dirt and dust – all before she fell into bed not long after sunset. As she pulled up the dingy feather-stuffed quilt, she barely noticed the absence of bedlinen and the scratchiness of the grubby straw pallet.
Heavily asleep within minutes, she dreamed, dark nightmares rooted in her recent past. In the midden fringe earlier that day, a man had jumped out of the shadows waving his arms to stop her. Terrified, she’d changed her glamour into an ugly mask and ridden him down to escape. In her nightmares, he caught her. Then, in this dream world, she was saved by a naked Saker, who immediately spoiled the heroism of his rescue by shaking her for not bringing a flintlock. She tried to tell him she couldn’t afford to buy one, but he wouldn’t listen. He yelled at her, saying that Sorrel Redwing had stolen his clothes, so why didn’t she buy him some new ones.
The dream changed then, and she was surrounded by men shouting out for her to be hanged, accusing her of killing their children. They carried their battered offspring in their arms, dead, broken bodies held out to her, blaming her. Hunting dogs came to bare their teeth in her face, barking, snapping…
She woke to find herself sitting bolt upright. Outside, men shouted and dogs barked and growled. The room was cold. Shivering, she wrapped her cloak around her before going to the window. It had no glass, so when she opened the shutter, a blast of cold air swept in.
Directly below was the stable yard at the side of the inn. The smell of pitch rasped in her nostrils from a torch burning in a holder on the gatepost. The gate itself stood open. In the middle of the yard, two mounted men struggled to calm their horses amidst the yapping dogs and snarling hounds that milled around their feet.
One rider shouted over the top of the noise, demanding that someone get those scurvy curs under control or by Va he’d have the lot of them skinned. She thought she knew the voice, but couldn’t place it. The other fellow, dressed sombrely in a servant’s clothes, was mounted on a palfrey. Two of the dogs were fellhounds wearing collars, aristocrats compared to the mangy mongrels attacking them. Several more men, one of them the ostler and another she thought she recognised as the taproom boy, were nervously attempting to separate the animals, at risk to themselves. Dogs snapped, a horse shied, men shouted.
It was easy to guess the sequence of events. The two travellers had arrived with their own hounds, and the inn’s guard dogs had set upon the intruding animals. The rider was furious at having his prized dogs threatened.
She watched for a moment, growing progressively colder, and was about to close the shutter and go back to bed when the light cast by the torch fell on the horseman’s face.
At first she thought she must be mistaken. It couldn’t be Prince Ryce, surely. She leaned out of the window a little further, staring. When the horse edged closer to the torch, she was certain: it was the Prince. No wonder the voice was familiar.
Prince Ryce? With only an unarmed servant?
Her thoughts raced. He’d told Mathi
lda he was going on a hunting trip, but if that was so, he would have had a bevy of noble friends and attendants with him, several of his best hunters, his huntmaster and a whole pack of hounds. And he wouldn’t stay at a wayside inn. When a prince went hunting, he and his retinue stayed at some nobleman’s manor.
Aghast, she wondered if he’d been following her. Had her theft of Saker’s horse been discovered? No, that was ridiculous! Prince Ryce wouldn’t follow a horse thief and he wouldn’t follow Celandine Marten, either.
He wasn’t here for her, or the horse. It had to be Saker who’d brought him to Chervil. Anything else was too great a coincidence. But why? Did he intend to rescue the witan too? She found that hard to believe, especially when he thought the man had raped his sister. She remembered his words: It would be a pleasure to strike his head from his shoulders.
So, not to rescue him. The opposite.
To kill him.
The Prince had come to avenge Mathilda.
She continued to stand there, heart and mind in turmoil as she watched. The men beat the inn mongrels off and shut them out in the street. Ryce dismounted to speak at length to the ostler, who then led the horses away. With his dogs at his heels and his servant trailing behind him carrying the saddlebags, the Prince entered the inn. Only then did she close the shutters and return to bed.
She tried to convince herself her reasoning was wrong. After all, the Prince might have had a hundred different reasons to be on the Oakwood road. But…
He’d never have a legitimate reason to stay at an inn like a commoner, and he couldn’t possibly have come all the way from Throssel with only the servant; princes didn’t travel without an escort. His guards must be camped somewhere nearby. The Prince obviously wanted – needed? – to be alone, apart from one trusted lackey. Which led her back to the only answer that made any sense. He was alone because he didn’t want anyone else to know what he was going to do.