“How are you with a sword?” Daniel asked.
“Only fair,” Aisa admitted. Her slow progress at mastering a sword was a sore point.
“I went easy on you, girl, but not that easy, and I’m one of the best knifemen in the guild.” He considered her for a long moment. “Gifted with a blade, mediocre with a sword . . . you’re no Queen’s Guard, child. You’re an assassin. When you reach your full growth, you should quit this mausoleum and come talk to us.”
He touched the wound at his ribs, then raised a hand to the Mace, his fingers dabbled with blood.
“Thank you, Lord Regent. A good show.”
Aisa grabbed her armor and returned to her spot below the dais. Kibb winked as she went. Rebuckling her breastplate, she wiped blood across her front. After the meeting was done, the Mace would likely allow her to go and have Coryn doctor her arm, but not now, for she had asked for this fight. That was fair, but she was losing blood, and after a moment’s thought she looped the ripped lower half of her sleeve around her arm and cinched it tight.
“Our business here is done,” Christopher told the Mace. “We’ll return when the guild has an answer.”
“If the guild says aye, I can give you at least twenty Queen’s Guards to assist.”
“Refused. We want no amateurs involved.”
A murmur of displeasure went through the Guard, but the Millers had already turned and walked away.
Merritt chuckled. “I have no particular love for those three, Lord Regent, but they are good for your purpose. As for me, I stand ready to serve the Queen.”
He followed the other Caden toward the doors, and Aisa felt her muscles relax. Though she would not have admitted it to anyone, she was turning Daniel’s words over in her mind.
“That leaves Queenie, doesn’t it?” Arliss asked. He had remained at the table during the fight, which surprised Aisa; she would have thought that Arliss would be the first to collect bets. “What’s to be done?”
“We’re going to get her,” the Mace replied. “But she would kill me if I left the kingdom to fall apart behind us. Some triage is needed.”
Aisa felt a light touch on her arm, turned, and found Coryn examining her knife wounds.
“Ugly, m’girl, but not too deep. Get your sleeve out of the way and I’ll stitch these up.”
She tore the remaining fabric from her sleeve.
“That was a good fight you made of it, hellcat,” the Mace remarked. “But you allowed him to put you off balance.”
“I know it,” Aisa replied, gritting her teeth as Coryn began to disinfect her wounds. “He was faster than me.”
“The awkwardness of youth. It won’t last forever.”
Even another day seemed too long to Aisa. She felt herself caught in a terrible middle ground: too old to be a child, too young to be an adult. She longed to work as a grown-up, to perform a job and earn money, to be responsible for herself. She was learning to fight, but many of the Guard’s lessons were not taught but absorbed: how to conduct herself in public, how to think of the Guard before herself, and the Queen above all. These were lessons in maturity, and Aisa took them as such. Yet there were still times when she wanted to run to Maman, to lay her head against Maman’s shoulder and have Maman comfort her, just as she had when Aisa was a hunted child.
I can’t have it both ways.
Coryn’s needle pierced the flesh of her forearm, and she took a deep breath. No one in the Guard talked about these things, but she knew, somehow, that how one dealt with injury was just as important as how one performed in a fight. Looking for distraction, she asked, “What does cast out mean?”
“What?”
“Those Caden. You said they were cast out.”
“So they were, six years ago. They cost the guild a great profit and got thrown out as a result.”
“Ai!” Aisa yelped. Coryn’s needle had touched a nerve of some kind. “What did they do wrong?”
“There was a young noblewoman, Lady Cross. Lord Tare had an eye for her—and for her family lands as well—but Lady Cross had a secret engagement with a young man in the Almont, a poor tenant farmer, and she refused Lord Tare at every turn. So Lord Tare abducted her, took her to his castle on the southern end of the Reddick, and locked her in the tower. He swore that she would stay there until she agreed to marry him.”
“Marriage is stupid,” Aisa snapped, gritting her teeth as Coryn pulled the thread tight. “You’ll never catch me getting married.”
“Of course not,” the Mace replied with a chuckle. “But Lady Cross, not being a warrior, did want to marry, and she wanted to marry her young man. She sat in Lord Tare’s castle for two months and wouldn’t budge an inch. So then Lord Tare had the excellent idea of cutting off her food.”
“He starved her to get her to marry him?” Aisa grimaced. “Why didn’t she just marry him and run away?”
“There’s no divorce in God’s Church, child. A husband always has the right to drag his wife back home.”
Da had done that, Aisa remembered. Several times during her childhood, Maman had made them pack their few belongings and steal away, but the journey always ended up back at home with Da.
“Then what?”
“Well, Lady Cross was wasting away, still refusing to budge. It became quite a matter of contention in the kingdom.”
“Didn’t her fiancé do anything?”
“There wasn’t much he could do. He had offered Tare the few pounds he had. Lady Cross’s family tried to ransom her as well, with no luck. Lord Tare was in the grip of something by then, you see; his pride had become wrapped up in making the woman submit. Many nobles applied to the Regent on Lady Cross’s behalf, but the Regent refused to send in the Tear army for what he deemed a domestic matter. Finally, when it was clear that Lady Cross would die in that tower before anything changed, the Crosses pooled their money and hired the Caden to get her out.”
“And did they?” Aisa asked. She found herself enchanted; it was like listening to one of Maman’s fairy tales.
“Yes, and a slick piece of business it was too,” Elston chimed in. “James posed as the lady’s cousin, come to beg her to relent, and Christopher and Daniel his two retainers. They met with the lady for an hour, and when they came out, she agreed to marry Lord Tare. He was overjoyed, and arranged the wedding for the very next week.”
A feint, Aisa thought. Sometimes she thought that all of life could be reduced to the fight.
“In the week before the wedding, Lord Tare kept Lady Cross under heavy guard, but the entire kingdom thought she had truly given in. The Captain, here, insisted that she had not”—Elston saluted the Mace with two of his fingers—“but the rest of us were fooled, and we thought no less of Lady Cross for it. Starvation is a terrible death.”
“Then what?” Aisa asked. Coryn had gone to work on her bicep now, but she barely noticed.
“The day of the wedding, and Lady Cross was dressed and in her best. The Arvath sent the local bishop to perform the ceremony. Lord Tare invited half the kingdom to witness his triumph, and the church was stuffed with his guards and guests. The Crosses refused to attend, but the rest of the nobility were there, even the Regent himself. Lady Cross went up to the altar and followed the bishop through the ceremony, every word, two hours of it, until they were married.”
“What?”
“The wedding concluded peacefully, and I tell you, the minute it was over, Lord Tare’s worries were done. He had her lands and title, and that’s all he wanted. He stayed downstairs to get drunk with his house guard while Lady Cross went upstairs to take off her wedding gown. An hour later Tare went looking for his wife, and she was gone, snatched easily. By the time he had mustered a recovery party, she was already halfway across the Reddick.”
“But she was married.”
“Seems so, doesn’t it? Lord Tare pitched a fit, went after the Caden with bloodhounds and such, and when he couldn’t find them, he appealed to the Regent. It took two days for anyone to even
think of consulting the bishop, but when they did, they found him bound in his palace, along with his guards. The bishop was starving and furious, and certainly a very different man from the one who’d performed the wedding.”
“This is the clever bit, hellcat,” the Mace cut back in. “I don’t speak Latin, but I know several people who do, and they told me that the marriage ceremony was gibberish. There was a long sermon on the virtues of garlic, another on the rules of rugby, God knows what else. Lady Cross promised to love and serve beer all of her life. She spoke Latin, you see, and Lord Tare did not.”
Aisa considered this for a moment. “What about the people in the audience?”
“Plenty of people at the ceremony spoke Latin, and a few of them were even Lord Tare’s friends. But none of them said a word, not until later, when they bore witness that the marriage had been a sham. Those three Caden took a gamble, but a good one. By the end, the entire kingdom sympathized with Lady Cross. The only people who truly wanted her brought to bay were the sadists and woman-haters, and the Caden bet high that none of them spoke Latin.”
“A good gamble,” Arliss grumbled. “I lost a fortune on that wedding.”
“What did Lord Tare do when he found out?”
“Oh, he swore up and down the Tear that he would have his revenge on all of them: Lady Cross, the Caden, the false bishop—who was never found. But he had no legal claim on the lady, and by the time the matter was sorted out, she was already with her farmer.”
“Did she marry him?”
“Yes, and was disowned by her family as a result. That’s where the Millers got into trouble; they were supposed to return the lady to her family, but they took her to the farmer instead. The Crosses only paid half the price on the job. The Caden were furious, and kicked the brothers out of the guild. They were also excommunicated by God’s Church, though I doubt they cared about that.”
“But they did it,” Aisa mused. “They saved her.”
“Yes, for a good return.”
“What about Lord Tare? What happened to him?”
“Oh, he still sits up there in his castle, bitter as winter beer,” the Mace replied. “He’s taken to plotting away at the Queen’s downfall, and if I could prove he was in the Argive in the spring, his neck would already be stretched. But for now, I leave him be.”
That was disappointing. In a real fairy tale, the villain would have been punished.
“Do they always work together?” she asked. “Those three brothers?”
“Yes. Many Caden work in such small groups, particularly when they have complementary skills. But they can also work in concert. All Caden working toward a combined goal would be quite a sight to see.”
“But why the Creche, sir?” Coryn asked. “I thought the Queen was the priority.”
“She is, but she’d never forgive me if I made her the only priority. She charged me, you see.” The Mace blinked, and for a moment Aisa thought she saw the sparkle of tears in his eyes. “I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but she charged me to fix this place. She charged me to look after the defenseless as well as the great, and that task can’t wait until she comes home.”
A fist thudded against the great double doors of the Queen’s Wing, making Aisa jump. The Guard drew in to surround the Mace. Devin and Cae opened the doors a fraction, but the only person who entered was a Keep servant, dressed entirely in white. Aisa could not make out her words, but their babbling, hysterical tenor was clear from across the room.
“What’s that, Cae?” the Mace called.
“There’s a problem downstairs, sir. With Thorne’s witch.”
“What problem?”
The Keep servant stared at the Mace, her eyes wide. She was not a young woman, and her face was cast in white.
“Speak up!”
“She’s gone,” the woman croaked.
“What of Will? Her guard?”
But the woman could not answer. Cursing, the Mace jumped down the stairs and strode out of the Queen’s Wing. Aisa followed him, down the corridor and three flights of stairs that led to Brenna’s makeshift prison. She feared Brenna; they all feared her, even the bravest of the Guard. A visit to Brenna’s rooms was a dangerous thing, but Aisa was unable to stop thinking of the Caden’s words.
When you reach your full growth, you should come and see us.
They rounded the final corner and the Mace came to a dead halt, ten feet from Brenna’s chamber. The door was wide open, but it was guarded by a puddle of blood. The smell hit Aisa like a slap. Flies had already gathered around the puddle in a swarm, and one of them buzzed around Aisa’s head until she waved it away.
The Mace began to move forward, but Elston placed a restraining hand on his chest. “Sir. Let us go first.”
The Mace nodded, though Aisa could feel him chafing at the restriction. Elston and Kibb went into the chamber and Aisa trailed a few feet behind them, wanting to see but not wanting to. She peered around Elston, then recoiled as she spotted a bright red mass in the corner.
“Is it safe?”
“Yes, sir,” Elston replied, but his voice was strange, and he backed away as the Mace approached, giving Aisa a full view that she regretted. Will was lying on the floor, his throat mangled, as though an animal had been at him. Aisa had never seen a dead body before; she expected to feel sick, but her stomach took the unpleasant sight in stride. The Mace had never allowed Aisa to be alone with Brenna; for the two occasions she had come down here on rotation, she had been paired with Coryn or Kibb. Will had been a decent guard, but the witch had clearly been too much for him. Perhaps they should have been working in pairs all along.
Kibb had squatted down next to Will, and now he lifted one of the dead man’s arms, examining his hands, which were covered with blood.
“Tissue under his fingernails, sir.” Kibb looked up. “I think he did it to himself.”
Aisa returned her gaze—not without some dark fascination—to the ruin of Will’s neck. Why would a man claw out his own throat?
I am stronger now than I used to be, she realized, staring at the corpse. I can bear it. One day, maybe, I’ll be able to bear anything.
“Get some servants with strong stomachs to clean this up,” the Mace commanded. “And make sure Ewen doesn’t come down here.”
“Should we send a party after the witch?”
“No. Put out a reward, sure; she’s a distinctive woman. But it’s unlikely to accomplish anything. Coryn only snatched her by purest luck last time.”
“But I’ll bank my sword we know where she’s going,” Coryn murmured. “Jesus, look at that.”
Aisa shook herself from the bloody wreck on the floor. Brenna’s room was clean and comfortable, not luxurious, but with plenty of space and several decent pieces of furniture. The remains of a meal, some hours old, sat on the table, drawing its own share of flies. But it was the far wall that Coryn meant, and the sight of it made Aisa draw a deep, pained breath. The wall was covered with strange symbols that seemed to dance over the stone, a constellation in sickly orbit around a single word, all of it drawn in blood.
GLYNN
Chapter 2
The Town
The group of committed utopians who made the original Crossing with William Tear shared a grand dream of a great society, peaceful and egalitarian. Numbering nearly two thousand, they settled in the shadow of the Clayton Mountains, on the bank of high foothills that would become modern-day New London. They learned to farm, voted by town meeting, and took care of each other. In this idyllic setting, the town grew by leaps and bounds; the population exploded, nearly doubling in the generation after the Crossing. Religion was a strictly private matter, and violence was forbidden. To the outward eye, William Tear had brought his grand vision to life.
—The Early History of the Tearling, as told by Merwinian
The trip up the hill was a slog.
Katie Rice had made this journey times without number, up the winding path that switchbacked the hillside, all
the way from the river to the Town. She knew each landmark along the path: the broken rock whose face greeted her like a signpost after the third turning, the stand of young oaks just beginning to hunch over the curve halfway up, the spot on the windward side where the path had eroded after years of taking the brunt of the winds that blew off the plains. At meeting last week, William Tear had talked about this spot; he said that they would have to shore it up, fortify it somehow. He had asked for volunteers, and a hundred hands had shot into the air.
Katie knew this path, but she still hated it. She hated the long walk, nothing to do but think. But the sheep farm was at the bottom of the hill, and Katie loved wool as much as she hated walking. She had been three years old when Mum first put a pair of knitting needles into her hands, and now, at fourteen, in addition to being the finest knitter in the Town, she was also one of the best spinners and dyers. To make and dye her own wool, this walk was the price.
She emerged from the treeline and there was the Town: hundreds of small wooden houses covering the gently rounded hilltop. The spread of houses dipped into the depression between hills as well, coming right up to the edge of the river where it curved in toward town before wending away again, south and then west. Mum said they had originally found this place by following the river up from the ocean. Katie tried to picture how it must have looked to Tear’s settlers: just a group of hills covered in trees. Sixteen years had elapsed since the Crossing, which seemed like a long time to Katie, but she understood that it was really very short.
She turned around to walk backward, for this was her favorite view: the rows of trees carpeting the hillside, then the bright blue river fronting the green and gold of the farming plain. From here, Katie could see the growers, some fifty of them, working the wide rectangle of planted rows on the far side of the river. The growers would work right until sunset, and if the work wasn’t done, they would continue by lamplight. Before Katie was born, there had been a terrible couple of years: the starving time, Mum called it, when the settlers couldn’t figure out how to make crops grow. More than four hundred people—nearly a quarter of the population—had died. Now farming was the most serious business in the Town.