“Your old life, my prince. Returned to you.”
My old life, the pleasures of the flesh, and of the gaming table, and sometimes the first on the second. It had been shallow and balanced on Maeres’s knife edge, but sometimes shallow is more than enough. You can drown in deep. “I’ll sleep on it,” I had said.
Except that I couldn’t sleep. Instead I lay in the cold sweat that fear had wrapped me in and stared at the night. Snorri’s death, the monster’s destruction, the blood of the Silent Sister or her northern twin. None of them easy. Each hard in its separate way.
“Ask the king for the Norseman’s head,” Sageous had told me. “It’s the easiest way.” Aren’t you good at easy? That’s what the writing seemed to say—offered up on his palms. Aren’t you good at leaving?
If I were good at leaving I would know where the blasted door was. I normally kept good tabs on such things, plotted my escape routes, got the lay of the land. But when the heathen left the room, a great weariness wrapped itself around me and I fell into the bed like a stone into the deepest pool.
“Kill the Norseman.” It sounded more reasonable each time he said it. After all, it would save Snorri the discovery that his family were dead. All he had before him was a long trip to the worst news in the world. Didn’t he greet battle like an old friend, eager to meet his end? “Kill the Norseman.” I couldn’t tell if I’d said it or Sageous.
I had sat in the softness of the great chair, facing the heathen, listening to his truths. Had sat? Was sitting? I sat opposite him now as he stood behind the ladder-back chair, fingers running over its rungs as if they were a harp on which a melody could be played. “So you’ll ask for his head.” Not a question. Those mild eyes fatherly now. A father and friend. Though lord knows, not my father; he always seemed embarrassed by the whole business of father and son.
Yes. Sageous was right. I started to say the words. “I’ll ask for his—”
The point of a sword emerged from Sageous’s narrow chest, and not your common or garden sword either but one as brilliant as the dawn, bright as steel drawn from the white heat of the furnace. Sageous looked down at the point, astonished, and it advanced until a foot of gleaming blade stood from his chest.
“What?” Blood ran from the corners of his mouth.
“This is not your place, heathen.” Wings unfurled behind the man as if they were his own. White wings. White like summer clouds, eagle-feathered, broad enough to bear a man skyward.
“How?” Sageous gargled blood now, spilling it down his chin with the word.
The sword withdrew and a head unbowed, rising above the heathen, a face as proud and inhuman as those wrought in marble upon statues of Greek gods or Roman emperors. “He is of the light.” And in a flash the blade took the heathen’s head, shearing through his neck as a scythe takes grass.
“Wake up.” Not a voice from the angel that loomed above Sageous’s corpse. A voice that came from outside the castle, huger than sound should be, loud enough to break stone. “Wake.”
It made no sense. “What—”
“Wake up.”
I blinked. Blinked again. Opened my eyes. Instead of blackness, postdawn grey. I sat up, sheets still clinging to my sweat-soaked limbs. Behind the pale ghosts of lace curtains, the sky lightening in the east.
“Baraqel?”
“A lowly dream-smith thinking he could sully one of the light-sworn!” Baraqel sounded smug. Then in a more serious tone, “I see a hand behind him, though. With a more deadly touch . . . blue fingered. The L—”
“T-that was you? But, you’re so . . . well . . . such a pain.” I slid from the bed, each part of me aching as if I’d spent the night wrestling a Barbary ape. The room lay bare, the angel confined to my head again.
“I speak in the voice you give me, Jalan. I’m limited by your imagination, shaped by your conceits. Each of your failings diminishes me, and they are many. I—”
The last burning edge of the sun broke the horizon, turning a whole forest to gold. And the silence was golden. Baraqel had had his moment. I returned to the comfortable chair, pulling on my trews, but found I didn’t want to sit in it. I looked at the ladder-back and imagined Sageous there as he’d been in my dream, head severed and just starting to drop. He wanted me to have Snorri killed. His arguments had seemed sound enough, but although I lost more money at the card table than I won, I’d spent enough time there to know when I was being played.
• • •
By the time I’d washed and dressed, the day had entered stage east, cocks crowed, people with jobs to do bustled about them, and below the Tall Castle Crath City shook itself awake. A timid tapping turned me from my contemplation at the window.
“What?”
“It’s S-Stann, Your Majesty.” A pause. “Did you need a dresser or should I—”
“Go get my Viking and bring him here. We’ll take breakfast where they serve the best stuff.”
He scampered away, the sounds of his retreat fading. I sat on the bed and pulled out my locket. A patchwork thing now, each gem I’d sold leaving an empty socket to stare at me in blind accusation. It seemed fitting. Justice is blind. Love is blind. Another gem would buy me back to Vermillion in the comfort of a fine carriage. One more would buy wine and company at every stop. Two more sockets to watch my passage, to watch me leave a friend in a pauper’s grave and return to the shallows. I wondered if Baraqel saw my soul when he looked at me. Did it look like this? Bartered away, a little each day, buying a coward’s path through the margins of life?
“Still,” I told myself. “Better a long ignoble life of shallow pleasures than a short stab at heroism, ending with a short stab. And just because one man plays another doesn’t always mean that it’s not the right direction for both of them.” I thought of the cold North, and the horror-laden stories Snorri told of it, and shivered.
“Jal!” Snorri filled the doorway and his grin filled his face. “You look worse after a night alone in silk sheets than after a night at the Angel wrestling with your friend who likes to bite.” Behind him Stann hovered in the corridor, trying to find a way past.
I stood up. “Come on. We’ll let the boy find us some breakfast.”
The two of us trailed Stann, matching his jog with an easy stride. “Food can be brought to your rooms, my lords.” He said it over his shoulder, catching his breath.
“I like to mingle,” I said. “And I’m a royal highness to you, boy. He’s a . . . hauldr. The correct address for one of that station is ‘Oi you.’”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
“Better.”
Another corridor, another turn, and we came through an arch into a sizable hall boasting three long tables. Men ate at two of the tables, guests by the look of them, or figures of some rank within the castle. None of them royalty but not common folk. Stann indicated the unoccupied table. “Your Royal Highness.” He eyed Snorri up, biting his lip, hopping from one foot to the other in his indecision, doubting now that the Norseman’s rank warranted a place at any of the tables.
“Snorri will eat with me,” I said. “Special dispensation.”
Stann breathed a sigh of relief and showed us to our chairs.
“I’ll have eggs, scrambled with a pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper, and then a fish. Kipper, mackerel, something smoked. The Viking will probably have a pig, lightly killed.”
“Bacon.” Snorri nodded. “And bread. The blacker the better. And beer.”
The boy ran off, repeating his orders as fast as he could.
Snorri leaned back in his chair and yawned mightily.
“How did you sleep?” I asked.
He grinned and gave me an appraising look. “I had strange dreams.”
“How strange?”
“I dream of Loki’s daughter each night. If a dream makes Aslaug’s appearances seem ordinary, then you can imagine
it to be very strange.”
“Try me.”
“A small man covered in scribble spent the night trying to convince me to kill you this morning. At least most of the night . . . until Aslaug ate him.”
“Ah.”
We sat in silence for a minute, until a serving man arrived with two flagons of small beer and a loaf of bread.
“So?” I asked, more than a little tense. A long knife lay between us, next to the bread.
“I decided against it.” Snorri reached out and broke the loaf in half.
“Good.” I relaxed with a sigh.
“Better to wait until we’re out of the castle, then do it.” He chomped down on the bread to hide his grin. “And you? How’d you sleep?”
“About the same,” I said, but Snorri had lost interest, his gaze drawn to the doorway.
I turned to see a young woman approaching: tall, slender but not weak, not a conventional beauty but she had something about her that filled me with unconventional thoughts. I watched her advance with sure steps. High cheekbones, expressive lips, dark red curls frothing down around her shoulders. I stood, ready with my bow. Snorri kept his seat.
“My lady.” I held her gaze. Extraordinary eyes, green but giving back more light than they took in. “Prince Jalan Kendeth at your service.” I waved a hand at the table. “My man Snorri.” Her dress was a simple thing but made with a care and understated quality that said she came from money.
“Katherine ap Scorron.” She looked from me to Snorri, back again. Her accent confirmed Teuton origins. “My sister, Sareth, would like the pleasure of your company for a light lunch.”
A grin spread across my face. “I’d be delighted, Katherine.”
“Well and good, then.” She ran an eye over the length of me. “I wish you a good stay and safe travels onward then, prince.” And she turned with a swish of skirts, making for the corridor. Nothing in her tone or pale face had suggested she thought my company might be a pleasure for her sister. In fact, a redness around her eyes made me wonder if she had been crying.
I leaned down to Snorri. “I sense sisterly conflict! Big sister got to dine with the prince and little sister’s pretty nose is out of joint about it.” My instincts in these matters are seldom wrong. The dynamics of sisterly rivalry are well known to me. Snorri frowned—a touch of the green-eyed monster himself, no doubt. “Don’t wait up for me!” And I made to follow the girl.
A big hand caught at my wrist, snatched back at the sharp crackle between us. Enough to stop me, though. “I don’t think that was an invitation of that sort.”
“Nonsense. A highborn lady doesn’t deliver messages. She would have sent a page. There’s more than one message here!” I could forgive the barbarian for his ignorance of court subtleties.
Katherine reached the doorway. It’s true that her retreat lacked the swaying come-on one sees in places like the Falling Angel. I found it tempting even so. “Trust me. I know castle life. This is my game.” And I hurried after her.
“But her arm—” Snorri called after me. Something about an armband.
I had to smirk at the thought of a hut-born Norseman trying to instruct me in the ways of castle women. She’d come without chaperone or champion, bolder than brass, taking a good look at all the prince on offer.
“Katherine.” I caught her in the corridor, yards from the hall. “Don’t run away now.” Lowering my voice into a seductive growl. I took hold of her backside in my cupped hand through the layers of taffeta. Smooth and firm.
She turned more swiftly than I thought possible in such a garment and— Well, the next eternity or so I spent in a blind white place full of pain.
I’ve always felt that the placement of a man’s testicles is an eloquent argument against intelligent design. The fact that a slight young woman can with a well-placed knee reduce the hero of the Aral Pass to a helpless creature too full of agony to do anything but roll on the floor hoping to squeeze the occasional breath past his pain—well, that’s just poor planning on God’s part. Surely?
“Jal?” A shadow against the white agony. “Jal?”
“Go. Away.” Past clenched teeth. “And. Let. Me. Die.”
“It’s just, you’re blocking the corridor, Jal. I’d pick you up, but . . . you know. Stann, get a guardsman to help you haul the prince back to his room, will you?”
Some dim awareness of motion penetrated my misery. I knew my heels were dragging over stone floors, and somewhere behind them Snorri was trailing along, engaging in cheerful banter with the people towing me.
“A misunderstanding, I expect.” And he chuckled. Chuckled! It’s in the code—when one man is wounded so ignominiously, all men must wince and show sympathy, not chuckle. “They probably do things differently down south . . .”
“Losing my touch.” I managed to gasp the words.
“I think you probably touched too much, knowing you, Jal! Didn’t you see the black armband? The girl’s in mourning!” Another chuckle. “Might have given him a proper beating if she hadn’t been! She’s got spirit, that one. Saw it the moment she arrived. Norse blood probably.”
I just groaned and let them haul me to my chamber.
“Damned if I’m going to see the sister. She’ll be a monster.” They lifted me onto my bed.
“Gently, lads,” Snorri said. “Gently!” Though he still sounded far too good-humoured about the whole thing.
“Damnable Scorron bitch. Ahh!” Another wave of pain shut me off. “Countries have gone to war for less!”
“Technically you are at war, aren’t you?” The chair creaked as Snorri lowered himself into it. “I mean, those men you heroed over at this Aral Pass, they were Scorrons, weren’t they?”
He had me there. “I wish I’d killed fifty more of them!”
“Anyway, the sister’s even prettier.”
“How the hell would you know?” I tried to roll over and gave up.
“Saw them both on a balcony yesterday.”
“Yes?” I managed to roll. It didn’t help. “Well, she can go hang.” I gave him the dirtiest look that would fit through my squint.
Snorri shrugged and bit into the pear he’d stolen off my side table. “Dangerous way to talk about the queen if you ask me.” All through a full mouth.
“Queen?” I rolled back to face the wall. “Ah shit.”
NINETEEN
I hobbled behind Stann as he led the way to Queen Sareth’s personal chambers. I wondered that the meeting had been arranged for her rooms but didn’t doubt that her virtue would be well guarded.
It struck me as peculiar that our path led through the underbelly of the castle, down steps and into a long corridor where kitchen stores lay stacked ceiling-high in stockrooms right and left, but I had told Stann to lead me by the shortest route owing to the delicacy with which I needed to walk. We ascended by a narrow stair, surely a servants’ passage for the delivery of meals to the royal quarters.
“The queen asks that you be discreet if questioned about any visits,” Stann said, holding the lantern high in a long windowless passage.
“Do you know what discreet means, boy?”
“No, sir.”
I harrumphed at that, not certain whether he was displaying ignorance or discretion.
Stann tapped at a narrow door, a key turned in a heavy lock, and we entered. It took a moment to realize that the queen herself had unlocked the door. I thought at first it must be a lady-in-waiting, but when she turned back to watch me emerge there could be no mistaking her. A lady-in-waiting would never have worn so fine a gown, and Sareth shared too many of Katherine’s looks to be anyone but her sister. I judged her to be in the midst of her twenties, a touch shorter than her sister, her face softer and more classically beautiful: full lips, waves of deepest red hair. She had green eyes too but without the peculiar inner light of her sister’s.
The other thing to notice about Queen Sareth, a fact that no gown short of a pavilion would be able to disguise, was that she had either recently swallowed a piglet, or she was quite pregnant.
“You may show Prince Jalan to his chair and pour his wine, Stann, then scuttle off.” She made a shooing action with her hands.
The lad plumped a cushion for me in a large chair acceptably far from the queen’s, which is to say in the opposite corner. In truth a properly acceptable distance would be one that put me out in the corridor, for no queen should be alone with a strange man in her private chambers, especially if that strange man is me.
I walked carefully to the chair, moved the cushion, and lowered myself onto it.
“Are you well, Prince Jalan?” A look of genuine concern furrowed the smoothness of her brow.
“Ah, just . . .” I settled. “Just an old war wound, my queen. It plays up from time to time. Especially if I’ve been too long without a good fight.”
Beside me Stann pressed his lips tight together and filled the silver goblet on the service table from a tall ewer of wine. His job done, he retreated through the servant door and the patter of his feet diminished into the distance. It occurred to me that if I were found here, unattended, then my life might well depend upon whatever story the queen decided to tell. It seemed unlikely that she would admit to extending an invitation, and I’m sure her vicious younger sister would paint an unflattering picture of my earlier advances if the whole matter were brought before Olidan. I resolved to extricate myself from the situation at the first opportunity.
“And how are you enjoying Ancrath, Prince Jalan?” Sareth’s accent kept more of the Teuton edge than her sister’s and recalled to mind the cries of the Scorron patrolmen who had tried to ride me down in the Aral Pass. It did little to calm my nerves.