The Charnel Prince

by Greg Keyes

  As he stepped across the line of corpses again, something terrible tore loose and leapt from his throat. The world shattered like glass, and he fell into the night before the world was born.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE HOUNDS OF ARTUMO

  WHILE THE ARROW WAS still quivering, two men stepped into the road, and Neil guessed there were at least four in the bushes by the side. A faint scuff told him there was one behind him.

  The two in front were dressed in faded leathers, and each bore a long-hafted spear. They also had kerchiefs pulled up to conceal their faces.

  “Bandits?” Neil asked.

  “No, clergymen,” Vaseto responded sarcastically.

  One of the men called something out.

  “Of what saint?” Neil asked.

  “Lord Turmo, I would think, patron of thieves. They’ve just asked you to dismount and strip off your armor.”

  “Did they?” Neil asked. “What do you advise?”

  “Depends on whether you want to keep your things or not.”

  “I’d like to, thanks.”

  “Well, then,” Vaseto said, and gave a clear, high whistle.

  The man shouted something again. This time Vaseto shouted back.

  “What was that all about?”

  “I’ve offered them a chance to surrender.”

  “Good thing,” Neil replied. “Try to keep low.” He reached for his spear.

  At that moment, furious motion erupted on the side of the road. Neil wheeled Hurricane and caught a glimpse of something very large and brown in the undergrowth. Leaves were flying, and someone shouted in anguish.

  Confused, he turned back to the men on the road, just in time to see them go down beneath the paws of two huge mastiffs.

  “Oro!” one of them screamed. “Oro, pertument! Pacha Satos, Pacha sachero satos! Pacha misercarda!”

  Neil looked around. There were at least eight of the huge beasts.

  Vaseto whistled again. The dogs backed up a pace or so from their victims, but kept their teeth bare.

  Neil glanced at Vaseto, who was dismounting.

  “Why don’t you keep that big sword out,” she said, “while I take the weapons from these fellows?”

  “Have pity!” one of the men in the road said, in the king’s tongue. “See how I speak your language? Perhaps a kinsman am I!”

  “What sort of pity would you have from me?” Neil asked, keeping one eye on the dog that was guarding the fellow as he took his spear and two knives. “You meant to steal from me, yes? Perhaps even kill me?”

  “No, no, of course not,” the man said. “But it is so hard to live, these days. Work is scarce, food scarcer. I have a wife, ten little ones—please, spare me, master!”

  “Hush,” Vaseto said. “You said it yourself. Food is scarce. If my dogs eat a sheep or goat, I’ll get in trouble. If they eat you, I’ll only get thanks. So be quiet now, thank the lords and ladies you’ll feed such noble creatures.”

  The man looked up. Tears were rolling from his eyes. “Lady Artuma! Spare me from your children!”

  Vaseto squatted by him and tousled his hair. “That’s disingenuous,” she said. “First you molest a servant of Artuma, then you ask forgiveness of her?”

  “Priestess, I did not know.”

  She kissed his forehead. “And how is that an excuse?” she asked.

  “It’s not, it’s not, I understand that.”

  She searched at his belt, came up with a pouch. “Well,” she said. “Perhaps a donation at the next shrine will help your cause.”

  “Yes,” the man sniffled. “It might. I pray it might. Great lord, great lady—”

  “I’m tired of your talking now,” Vaseto said. “Another word, and your throat will be cut.”

  They disarmed the rest of the bandits and remounted.

  “Shouldn’t we take them somewhere?” Neil asked.

  She shrugged. “Not unless you’ve got time to waste. You’d have to stay and wait for a judge. Without weapons, they’ll be harmless for a while.”

  “Harmless as a lamb!” the man on the ground seconded; then he screamed when the dog lunged at him.

  “No more talk, I told you,” Vaseto said. “Lie there quietly. I leave my brothers and sisters to dispose of you as they see fit.”

  She trotted her mare down the road. After a moment, Neil followed.

  “You might have told me about the dogs,” Neil said after a few moments.

  “I might have,” she agreed. “It amused me not to. Are you angry?”

  “No. But I’m learning not to be surprised.”

  “Oh? That would be a shame. It fits you so well.”

  “Will they kill them?”

  “Hmm? No. They’ll stay long enough to give them a good scare, then follow us.”

  “Who are you, Vaseto?” Neil asked.

  “That’s hardly a fair question,” Vaseto said. “I don’t know your name.”

  “My name is Neil MeqVren,” he said.

  “That’s not the name you gave the countess,” she observed.

  “No, it isn’t. But it is my real name.”

  She smiled. “And Vaseto is mine. I’m a friend of the countess Orchaevia. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Those men seemed to think you are some sort of priestess.”

  “What’s the harm in that?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not by vocation.”

  Which was all she would say in the matter.

  Midday the next day, Neil smelled the sea, and soon after heard the tolling of bells in z’Espino.

  As they rode over the top of a hill, towers came into view, slender spires of red or dark yellow stone rising above domes and rooftops that seemed to crowd together for leagues. Nearer, fields of darker olive green contrasted sharply with golden wheatland and delicate copses of knife-shaped cedars. Beyond, the blue sliver of the sea gleamed beneath a pile of white clouds.

  To the west of the city stood another jumble of buildings, this one more somber, with no towers and no wall. That would be z’Espino-of-Shadows, he reckoned.

  “It’s big,” Neil said.

  “Big enough,” Vaseto replied. “And too big for my taste.”

  “How can we ever find two women in all that?”

  “Well, I supposed we’d have to think,” Vaseto replied. “If you were them, what would you do?”

  Hard to say, with Anne, Neil reflected. She might do almost anything. Would she even know what had happened to her family?

  But even if she didn’t, she was lost in a foreign country, pursued by enemies. If she had any sense, she’d be trying to get home.

  “She would try to reach Crotheny,” he said.

  Vaseto nodded. “Two ways to do that. By sea or by land. Does she have money, this girl?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then I should think it would be easier to go by land. You ought to know—you just came that way.”

  “Yes, but the roads are dangerous, especially if those men are still hunting her.” He shifted in his saddle. “The countess said something about a man who had his head cut off, and was yet still alive.”

  “She told you about that, did she? And you’ve waited this long to ask me about it?”

  “I want to know what I’m up against.”

  “I would tell you if I knew,” Vaseto said. “Not the usual sort of knight, but that’s obvious. As the countess said, the fellow was still alive, after a fashion, but not exactly in a condition to speak.” She wrinkled her brow. “Don’t you object to this at all? You seem all too eager to accept a most absurd notion.”

  “I have seen shinecraft and encrotacnia enough this past year,” Neil said. “I’ve no reason to doubt the countess and every reason to believe her. If she told me they were the eschasl themselves come back from the grave, I would credit it.”

  “Eschasl?” Vaseto said. “You mean the Skasloi? You Lierish can certainly mangle up words, I’ll give you that. In any event, the men we’re
talking about are human, or started that way. We did find the more ordinary sort of corpse, as well. If I had to guess, they’re from your country, or some other northern place, for several had yellow hair like yours, and light-colored eyes. They were not Vitellian.”

  “Which leads me to wonder how they came so deep into your country on a mission of murder.”

  Vaseto grinned. “But you already know the answer to that, or at least you have some suspicion. Someone here is helping them.”

  “The Church?”

  “Not the Church, but maybe someone in the Church. Or it might be the merchant guilds, given your Sir Quinte’s attentions. Or it could be any random prince, who knows? But they have aid here, of that you can be sure.”

  “And have they aid in z’Espino?”

  “That’s likely enough. A copper minser could corrupt most any official in this wicked town.”

  Neil nodded, looking with fresh eyes at the landscape that lay between him and city.

  “What’s that down there?” he asked, pointing to where the road they were on joined a larger way. Along it, numerous tents and stalls had been set up. Just past the joining, the road crossed a stone bridge over a canal, and there was a gate on the city side.

  “That’s where the merchant guilds take their taxes,” Vaseto replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because if I were looking for someone entering or leaving z’Espino, that’s where I might place myself.”

  Vaseto nodded. “Good. I’ll make you a suspicious man yet.”

  “They might be looking for me, too,” Neil said.

  “Good boy.”

  He felt she might have been talking to one of her dogs. He glanced at her, but she was staring intently at the travelers who were cueing up to cross the bridge.

  “I have an idea,” she said.

  Neil pressed his eye to the crack in the wagon wall. Through the narrow slit, he saw mostly color—silks and satin and brightly dyed cotton swirling like a thousand flower petals in the wind. Faces were nearly lost in it, but he caught them now and then.

  The wain jounced to a stop. He tried to find the view he was after, by half crouching and gazing through a knothole.

  A group of men in orange surcoats was talking to the drivers of wagons and those on foot or with pack animals. They examined cargo sometimes, sometimes let the travelers pass with little comment. A few arguments erupted, ending when coins changed hands. Beyond all that, at the gate, were more men, these armed, and he could see the archers in the towers above the gate.

  He kept looking, cursing the knothole for affording such a small field of vision. The guildsmen were moving toward the wagon he sheltered in. Soon, he would have to—

  It wasn’t his eyes that gave him the clue, but his ears. The cloud of unintelligible Vitellian surrounding him had become transparent. Now, through that clearness, he heard a language he recognized. A language he loathed.

  Hanzish.

  He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew the cadence of it, the long vowel glides and throat-catching gutturals. His hands clenched involuntarily into fists.

  He moved to another crack, bumping his head in the process.

  “Hiss, back there,” a voice whispered furiously. “There’s no bargain if you don’t lie still, as you were told.”

  “A moment,” Neil replied.

  “No moment. Get in your place, now.”

  A face pushed through the curtain, and light flooded in. Neil saw only the silhouette of a broad-brimmed hat and the faint glint of leaf-green eyes.

  “Do you see anyone with light hair out there?”

  “The two Hanzish with the guildsmen? Yes. Now lie down!”

  “You see them?”

  “Of course I see them. They’re watching people, watching the guildsmen do their work. Looking for you, I’d guess, and they’ll find you if you don’t lie still!”

  Another face pushed through, this one Vaseto’s. “Do it, you great idiot. I’m your eyes here! I’ve marked them. Now play your part.”

  Neil hesitated for a moment, but realized he had no choice now. He couldn’t fight all of the guildsmen and the Hanzish, too . . .

  He lay back, pulled the cloth up over his mouth, just as someone thumped on the back of the wagon. He tried to slow his breathing, but with a start realized he’d forgotten something. The coins! He found them and placed them on his eyes, just as the back wagon flap rustled.

  He held his breath.

  “Pis’es ecic egmo?” someone asked sharply.

  “Uno viro morto,” A heavily ironic voice said. Neil recognized it as that of the Sefry man who spoke for the rest of them.

  “Ol Viedo! Pis?”

  Neil felt fingers grab his arm. He fought the instinct to leap up.

  Then he felt fingers brush his forehead. His breath was going stale, and his lungs began to hurt.

  “Chiano Vechioda daz’Ofina,” the Sefry replied. “Mortat daca crussa.”

  The fingers jerked away. “Diuvo!” the guildsman shouted, and the flap closed. There followed an argument he could not make out. Finally, after long moments, the wagon started moving again. After an eternity of wooden wheels grinding and stopping on stone, someone tapped his boot.

  “You can get up now,” Vaseto said.

  Neil took the coins from his eyes and sat up. “We’re through the gate?”

  “Yes, no thanks to you,” Vaseto grumbled. “Didn’t I tell you it would work?”

  “He felt of me. In another instant he would have reckoned I was still warm.”

  “Probably. I didn’t say it was without risk. But the Sefry played their parts well.”

  “What did they tell him?”

  “That you died of the bloody-pus plague.” She smiled. “The makeup helped.”

  Neil nodded, scratching at the counterfeit welts the Sefry had made of flour and pig’s blood.

  “He’s probably off praying right now,” she added. She jerked her head. “Come on.”

  He poked his head out the back of the wain. They were in some sort of square surrounded by tall buildings. One, with a high dome, was likely a temple. People bustled everywhere, as strangely and colorfully dressed as the caravaners at the bridge.

  They went around to the front of the wagon, where three Sefry sat under an awning, swaddled thickly against the sun.

  “Thank you,” Neil said.

  One of the Sefry, an old woman, snorted. The other two ignored him.

  “How did you get them to help?” Neil asked Vaseto as she led him across the square.

  “I told them I would reveal the hidden space in their wagon where they were carrying their contraband.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “Not for certain. But I know a thing or two about Sefry, and that clan almost always carries contraband.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “They also owe me a few favors. Or did. We just used up most of them. So don’t waste this chance. Keep that wig on. Don’t let your straw mat show.”

  Neil plucked at the horsehair mummer’s wig that had been pulled over his own close-cropped hair. “I don’t care for it,” he muttered.

  “You’re a true beauty with it on,” Vaseto told him. “Now, try not to talk too much, especially if someone speaks to you in Hansan or Crothanic. You’re a traveler from Ilsepeq, here to visit the shrine of Vanth.”

  “Where’s Ilsepeq?”

  “I’ve no idea. Neither will anyone you tell. But Espinitos pride themselves on their knowledge of the world, so no one will admit that. Just practice this: ’Edio dat Ilsepeq. Ne fatio Vitellian.’ “

  “Edio dat Islepeq,” Neil tried experimentally. “Ne fatio Vitellian.”

  “Very good,” Vaseto said. “You sound exactly as if you don’t speak a word of Vitellian.”

  “I don’t,” Neil said.

  “Well, that explains it. Now come, let’s find your girls.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

&
nbsp; AMBRIA

  I LIKE THAT ONE,” Mery said absently. She was lying stomach down on a rug, her legs kicking up behind her.

  “Do you?” Leoff asked, continuing to play the hammarharp. “I’m pleased that you like it.”

  She made fists and rested her chin on them. “It’s sad, but not in the way that makes you cry. Like autumn coming.”

  “Melancholy?” Leoff said.

  She pinched her mouth thoughtfully. “I guess so.”

  “Like autumn coming,” Leoff mused. He smiled faintly, stopped, dipped his quill in ink, and made a notation on the music.

  “What did you write?” Mery said.

  “I wrote, ‘like autumn coming,’ ” he said. “So the musicians will know how to play it.” He turned in his seat. “Are you ready for your lesson?”

  She brightened a bit. “Yes.”

  “Come sit beside me, then.”

  She got up, brushed the front of her dress, and then scooted onto the bench.

  “Let’s see, we were working on the third mode, weren’t we?”

  “Uh-huh.” She tapped the freshly noted music. “Can I try this?”

  He glanced at her. “You can try,” he said.

  Mery placed her fingers on the keyboard, and a look of intense concentration came over her face. She bit her lip and played the first chord, walked the melody up, and on the third bar stopped, a look of sudden consternation on her features.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I can’t reach,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Do you know why?”

  “My hands aren’t big enough.”

  He smiled. “No one’s hands are big enough. This isn’t really written for hammarharp. That bottom line would be played by a bass croth.”

  “But you just played it.”

  “I cheated,” he said. “I transposed the notes up an octave. I just wanted an idea how it all sounded together. To really know, we’ll have to have an ensemble play it.”

  “Oh.” She pointed. “What’s that line, then?”

  “That’s the hautboy.”

  “And this?”

  “That’s the tenor voice.”

  “Someone singing?”

  “Exactly.”

  She played the single line. “Are there words?” she asked.