Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War) (21 page)

Somehow Snorri’s loudness had broken the tension and the Angel came alive. The staff relaxed, the girls came down off the stairs to ply their trade, and laughter ran more freely. I may have been the only man there still miserable. It’s in my nature to absent myself from danger whenever possible, and relaxed or not, this brotherhood we’d fallen in with sweated danger from every pore. Besides, Snorri’s magic hadn’t reached all corners of the room. I could still feel the giant’s hostile gaze searing across the back of my neck. I snatched up the ale set before me and knocked it back, hoping to deaden the sensation.

Relief came in the instant. An inviting softness squeezed against my neck to replace the feeling of being stared at, hennaed curls flooded over my shoulder, narrow hands massaged my upper arms, and the ridges of a whale-boned corset pressed the length of my back.

“Where’s your smile, my handsome?” She leaned around me, bodice offering her goods for display. Pale hands ran down across my chest, over the flatness of my stomach. I’ll admit that weeks of unwanted exercise and privation had stripped me of any padding. “I’m sure I could find it.” Her fingers slid lower. Years of experience in such situations kept my attention divided between the twin distractions of breasts served up on the bodice and the location of my own valuables. She leaned in and husked into my ear, “Sally will make it all good.”

“My thanks, but no.” I surprised myself. She still had her youth, and the good looks she’d been born with. Those had yet to be stripped by the bitter wind of experience that blows through the backstreets of such places. But I’m not at my best in a cold sweat, and every coward’s instinct I had told me I should be running. Under such circumstances my ardour grows softer.

“Truly?” She leaned in, breasts swaying, breathing the word into my ear.

“I’ve no money,” I said, and in an instant the warmth fell from her expression, her eyes dismissing me to seek out other opportunities. Snorri caught her attention, of course, but he was well wedged into his corner and attacking a slab of beef on the bone with such ferocity that Sally perhaps doubted she would be able to compete. In a swirl of skirts she was gone. Nervous or not, I still turned to watch her retreat and found myself the study of two veterans, grey heads, but lean and tough like old leather, the same dispassionate speculation in their eyes that I’d seen when Cutter John took my measure. I turned back to my plate, lacking appetite. Someone had called those two Brothers Liar and Row. I had no desire to find out how they came by their names. A roar of laughter from Snorri overwrote my fears, though I did flinch when he slammed his axe down on the table.

“No.
That’s
an axe. What you’ve got is more by way of a hatchet.”

As Snorri held forth about longboats, axe design, and the price of salt-fish, I glanced around with as much surreptitiousness as can be achieved over the rim of a beer mug. Aside from the trio of huge, fat, and deadly behind me, one other table seemed set on matters more serious than the emptying of barrels. In an alcove across the room, two men debated over a table. The few pieces of armour they still wore were far better quality than anything the Brothers had. Both were tall, both with long dark hair, one straight, one curled, the elder maybe thirty, a generous face perhaps not given to its current sombre look, the other young, very young, maybe not yet eighteen, but dangerous. If the rest of the Brothers set off my warning bells, this sharp-featured boy rang them off their mountings. He cast me a look the moment I found focus on him. A thousand-yard stare that told me to turn away.

Ale continued to flow and gradually my appetite returned, followed by my good humour. Ale has a way of washing away a man’s fears. Sure enough he’ll find them the next day, sodden and wrapped around his ankles, with a couple of new ones thrown into the mix and a headache fit for splitting rocks, but in the moment ale is a fine substitute for bravery, wit, and contentment. Before very long I was exchanging tales of wenching with the taciturn Brother Emmer wedged beside me. A fairly one-way exchange, truth be told, but I do warm to the subject once my tongue’s been loosened, as do most young men in good health.

By the time the next whore approached I was ready with a quite different answer to the one I’d given Sally. Mary had pared the corset-and-gown ensemble down to just corset, and the combination of her long dark hair, mischievous eyes, and the ample portion of recklessness the ale had lent me had me getting to my feet. At which point I noticed that the giant—the Brothers called him Rike—was inbound, his face heaped up over raw bones into a fearsome scowl. I sat immediately and suddenly found the bottom of my cup to be fascinating.

Relief sighed out of me as the giant’s shadow passed over us and moved on. The man was taller than Snorri by at least a hand’s width, his arms lacking the Norseman’s well-defined muscle but thicker than my thighs. Brothers scattered out of his way as he closed on Snorri: Young Sim literally slid under the table to avoid being caught between them—slippery that one, as I suspected. Mary also vanished with commendable speed. Snorri himself seemed unconcerned, placing his ale mug on the next table along and wiping the beard at the corners of his mouth to clean away any of the larger detritus from his meal.

Generally, even when a fight is inevitable, both parties take a short while to warm to the idea. A disparaging remark is aimed, the reply ups the stakes, someone’s mother is a whore, and an instant later—whether the mother was in fact a whore or not—there’s blood on the ground. Brother Rike favoured a shorter path to violence. He simply let out an animal roar and closed the final three paces at speed.

At the last moment Snorri shifted his considerable weight and the end of the hastily cleared bench shot up to smack Rike under the chin, then jam against his throat. Even with Snorri sitting on it, the bench scraped several inches along the floor before arresting Rike’s advance. Snorri stood, letting the bench fall as Rike reeled back, then in one quick stride seized the man behind his head with both hands and rammed him face first into the table. The impact sent my ale vaulting out of its cup and into my lap. Rike himself slid to the floor, trailing a long red stain across the beer-soaked boards.

The killer stood behind his fallen companion. Red Kent, they called this one. His hand on the hatchet at his side, a question on his brow.

“Ha! Let him sleep it off.” Snorri grinned at Kent and sat down. Brother Kent returned the smile and went back to sit with his fat companion.

Snorri returned to his place and reached across to retrieve his drink from the other table.

I felt much better after that. Rike’s sudden downfall filled me with no end of good humour. I snatched another ale from a passing serving girl, tossing a copper onto her tray.

“Well, Brother Emmer.” I paused to quaff—a style of drinking not dissimilar from swigging but which involves spilling rather more of the brew down your chest. “I don’t know about you but I’m in the mood for some more horizontal entertainment.” And as if on cue sweet Mary stood at my side, smile in place. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” I said, alcohol substituting for wit. “My father’s a cardinal, did you know that? Let’s go upstairs and discuss ecumenical matters.” Mary giggled dutifully, and with a hand on Brother Emmer’s shoulder I found my feet. “Lead on, dear lady.” I started a bow but thought better of it, most traces of balance having deserted me.

I followed Mary to the stairs, veering from one side to the other but thankfully not managing to spill a Brother’s pint or otherwise causing offence, and always drawn back on course by her tempting wiggle. At the bottom of the stairs Mary took a candle from the wall box, lit it, and led on up. It seemed I’d started a trend as someone else followed us up the steps, boots thudding.

A long passageway divided the second floor, doors to either side. Mary led the way to one of the ones standing ajar. She set the candle in a holder on the wall and turned. Her smile slipped away, eyes widening.

“Get lost.” For a moment I wondered why I’d said that, then realized that the voice had come from behind me.

Mary dodged aside and pattered back down the corridor whilst I wrestled with the business of turning around without falling over. Before I could manage it, fingers knotted in the hair at the back of my head and steered me into the darkened room.

“Snorri!” What had been meant as a manly cry for assistance came out more as a squeak.

“We don’t need him.” The hand steered me further in. Shadows swung as the candle moved behind me. “I—” A pause to deepen my voice. “I don’t have any money. Just a copper or two. The Viking carries for me.”

“I don’t want your money, boy.”

Even a skinful of ale only allows so much room for optimism. The edge of a bed frame pressed sharp against my shins. “Fuck that!” I swung round, fist flailing. The flickering light allowed me a glimpse of Brother Emmer before a two-handed shove sent me tumbling backwards. My fist found only air, and the candle went out.

“No!” It became a wail. The bedclothes engulfed me, lavender scented to obscure the stink of old sweat. I lashed out again but the blanket tangled my arm. I heard the door kicked shut. The weight of a body covered me.

“Emmer! I’m not like that!” A shout now. “I’m—” I remembered my knife and started to hunt it.

“Oh, shush.” Much softer tones, close to my face. “Just behave.”

“But—”

“It’s Emma.”

“What?”

“Emma, not Emmer.” An iron grip encircled my wrist as my fingertips found the hilt of my dagger. The body pinning me now stretched out on mine, hard with muscle but shorter than me, and at such close quarters, quite possibly female. “Emma,” she said again. “But let that slip outside this room, pretty boy, and I’ll cut your tongue out and eat it.”

“But—”

“Just relax. I’ve saved you half a silver ducet.”

So I did.

“M
ired in sin!” The annoyingly judgment
al voice rang behind my ears and sent shards of white pain into my head. “Deeper in deed than in thought! I hadn’t considered it possible.”

“Oh God!” Someone had turned my stomach inside out and filled it with eels. I was sure of it.

“How dare you call upon him!” Baraqel’s anger carried a hint of delight, as if nothing pleased him more than finding good fresh sin to condemn.

“Just kill me!” I rolled over. All of me hurt. I must have slept with my mouth open because by the taste of it the rats had been using it as a latrine all night.

“How a creature such as you came to the light . . .” Baraqel’s imagination or eloquence failed him.

I cracked one eye open. Daylight streamed in like razors, slivers of it reaching through heavy shutters to illuminate a filthy chamber. I ran a hand across my chest, remembering somebody pushing me. Naked?
My locket!
I lurched up, my stomach lurched faster, and for a moment I struggled not to decorate the headboard. My clothes lay strewn over the floorboards, and an ill-advised lunge placed my hand over the comforting lump that the locket made in the shirt that I’d been wearing since Oppen. This time my struggle was in vain and I threw up what appeared to be everything I’d eaten the night before, along with a couple of other people’s meals and a bag of diced carrots I’d no memory of consuming.

“Cover yourself, man! There’s a lady present.” I winced at the angel’s voice, roaring like nails down the chalkboard of my soul.

“Uuuurgod,” proved to be my snappiest response. I wiped my mouth and hauled myself up so my head rose above the edge of the bed.

On the far side, across a wrinkled sea of soiled linen and grey wool, Emma was pulling herself back into a pair of worn leather trousers. Even in my delicate state I managed to admire the hard, if grimy, lines of her body before they were entirely hidden away. She turned, buttoning her jerkin over tight-wrapped breasts, her expression a mix of amusement and mild disgust. I took her to be somewhere in her thirties, towards the end of them perhaps. Even with her short hair and broken nose, I couldn’t understand how I’d not seen her for what she was before.

“My secret.” She grabbed herself between the legs, all traces of amusement dropping from her face. “Speak of it and I’ll cut you to look the same.” Suddenly I couldn’t see any trace of a woman in her at all.

“There’s no secret, Brother Emmer,” I said.

“That’s right.” She flipped a copper crown at me, pulled her knife from where it had been wedging the door shut, and left the room.

Alone in the unsavoury mess, I took a moment to reflect. “A helluva woman!” I crawled back onto the bed.

“Naked as the devil and clothed in sin!” Baraqel howled—or at least it felt as if he howled it. “Find a priest, Prince Jalan, and—” Somewhere the sun parted company with the horizon and shut him up. The daylight lanced ever more pointedly through the shutters and I pulled the blanket over my pounding head. The pounding got worse. After a few confused minutes of rolling about in misery, holding my temples, I figured out that a fair portion of the pounding was actually coming through the wall as a headboard struck against it repeatedly. I buried my head under my arms, then decided against it; the mattress was a long way from wholesome, several national boundaries away from it probably. Instead I just plugged my ears and hoped for the world in general to go away, and for whoever was having such a good time in the next room to run out of energy. Or die.

An indeterminate amount of time later the stink of the place drove me to stagger to the door, still reeling, half-drunk from the night before, wrapped in a thin blanket and clutching most of my clothes, my boots, my sword. I took Emma’s copper too. Waste not, want not. The shirt I left as a gift for the next occupant—minus Mother’s locket, of course.

“—royally fucked.” A man stood in the doorway to the next room, facing into it. From the back he looked a lot like the older of the two mercenaries in the alcove last night. “So, are we ready to go?” he asked.

“Tell them an hour. I’ll be ready in an hour.” A younger man, inside the room.

The other shrugged and turned to leave, pulling the door behind him. A woman in the room said something about a prince, but the rest of it was lost as the door closed. The man—it
was
the fellow from the alcove—strode past me, a slight smile twitching on his lips.

It occurred to me that I might wear my clothes rather than carry them. I dressed, somewhat gingerly, sore in all manner of places, and went down the stairs.

The bar was largely deserted—just a handful of Brothers slumbering at their tables with heads on folded arms, and Snorri in the midst of it all attacking a pewter plate mounded with bacon and eggs. The dark-haired man from the corridor sat beside him.

“Jal!” Snorri shouted, loud enough to split my head, and waved me over. “You look like hell! Get some food inside you.”

Resigning myself to his good cheer I sat at the table, as close to his breakfast as my stomach would allow.

“This is Makin.” He jabbed a loaded fork at the man beside him.

“Charmed,” I said, feeling anything but.

“Likewise.” Makin nodded politely. “I see they have fearsome bedbugs in this establishment.” His gaze slid to where my jacket hung open, exposing chest and belly.

“Christ on a bike.” Something had bitten me all right. Emma’s tooth marks left me looking like I had some kind of giant pox all over.

“One of the women said you had some trouble with Brother Emmer last night?” Snorri shovelled half a sliced pig into his mouth, tucking in stray ends of bacon with a finger.

“That Emmer’s a tricky sort,” Makin said, nodding to himself. “Lightning fast. Some smarts too.” He tapped his forehead.

“No.” I avoided squeaking the denial. “No trouble.”

Snorri pursed his lips around his mouthful, peering down at my bites. I clasped my jacket closed over them. “I’m not judging,” he said, one eyebrow elevating.

“Man’s free to choose his own path.” Makin rubbed his chin.

I shot to my feet, immediately wishing I’d taken more time over it. “Damned if I’m sitting here watching you stuff down pig like a . . . like . . .”

“A pig?” Snorri suggested. He lifted his plate and scraped several fried eggs towards his mouth.

“I’m getting some decent clothes and a bath, and a meal at some half-civilized establishment.” My headache appeared to be trying to split me down the middle and I hated the world. “I’ll meet you at the castle gates at noon.”

“It’s noon now!”

“Three hours!” I called it from the doorway and staggered out into the sunshine.

 • • • 

T
he sun watched from the west as I climbed the long hill to the outer gate of the Tall Castle. I’d soaked off the road stink at a bathhouse, leaving the waters black; had my hair cut and tamed; and calmed my head with some powders the barber swore were good for the easing of pain, also beneficial in cases of plague and dropsy. Finally I had purchased a fresh linen shirt, adjusted to my size with a few well-placed stitches; a cloak of brushed velvet, trimmed with something claimed as ermine and probably squirrel; and a silverish clasp mounted with a piece of rubyish glass to round it off. Not quite princely garb, but enough to pass muster as gentry on casual inspection.

Snorri hadn’t turned up. I considered going on without him but decided against it. Apart from the show of having a bodyguard, I’ve always been in favour of having one, for guarding my body. Especially a maniac over six and a half foot tall, packed with muscle and with a vested interest in not letting me die.

It took perhaps another half hour before I saw the Norseman on the broad street below. He had Sleipnir and Ron in tow but at least hadn’t managed to have any of the Brothers tag along.

“You should have left the nags where they were.” I knew better than to upbraid him for being late. He would just grin and slap me on the back as if I were joking.

“I thought only beggars arrived on foot in these flat countries.” Snorri grinned and ran a hand through Sleipnir’s mane. “Besides, I’ve grown fond of the old girl, and she’s carrying all my stuff.”

“Better to let them think I’ve a decent horse stabled somewhere nearby than to march up to the gates with this mangy pair and suffer the pity of guardsmen.”

“Well—”

“Look, never mind, just pretend they’re both yours.” I walked on, letting him follow at a respectful distance.

I presented myself at the appropriately named Triple Gate to the most senior of several chain-armoured guards standing to vet potential visitors. There’s a certain arrogance expected of aristocracy, and a life of service had trained men such as the ones before me to respond to it. My brother Martus had a marvellous way of looking down his nose at even the tallest of underlings, and I do a decent job of it myself. I summoned my reserves and radiated disdain. Snorri would of course assert, and frequently did, that I’d never let go of my royal superiority—though his turn of phrase would run something along the lines of “still got the sceptre up your arse”—but he’d yet to see me in full flow.

“Prince Jalan Kendeth of Red March, scion of the Red Queen, heir deximal to Vermillion and all its domains.” I paused to let the “prince” sink in. “I’m travelling north and have detoured from the Roma Road to pay a courtesy call on King Olidan. In addition to the normal pleasantries, I will be offering to bear back to the Red Queen any diplomatic correspondence subsequent to the recent visit of my brother, Prince Martus.” For once in my life I had cause to be thankful that Martus and I looked so alike.

“Welcome to the Tall Castle, Your Highness.” The man, a sturdy fellow with steel-grey hair escaping his helm, took a step towards me. He ran his beady black eyes over my attire and peered pointedly behind me as if looking for my retinue.

“I’m travelling in haste. This man here is my personal guard. We’ve rooms down in the Old Town.” I left hanging the suggestion that more retainers might be occupying those rooms.

“Of course, Prince—” He frowned. “Jalan?”

“Yes. Jalan. Now tell Olidan I’m here and be quick about it.”

That got his attention. There aren’t many who’d lose King Olidan his title when face to face with his guards. Even fewer who would want an audience with the king under false pretences. By all accounts King Olidan was not the nicest of men.

“I’ll send a messenger immediately, Your Majesty. Perhaps you would like to wait in my chamber in the gatehouse. I can have a man stable your . . . horses.”

I considered waiting in the shade of the wall. It promised to be a nice night, but if he kept us waiting too long we’d be standing on our dignity to the amusement of gawkers. “Lead on,” I said. It’s always better to sit on your dignity in private than to stand on it in public.

We followed on beneath the gates to a small door in the thickness of the wall. The stairs behind led upwards. The Captain of the Triple Gate had himself a garret above the entranceway, tucked behind the fearsome winding gear and the recesses in which the three portcullises rested when not keeping people out. It proved clean and boasted a table and chairs. I doubted many foreign princes had been entertained there, but probably rather few arrived unannounced and all but unaccompanied.

Snorri squeezed his knees in under the table. “A beer wouldn’t go amiss.”

The gate captain raised a brow at that and looked to me. I nodded. Not that I was going to touch the stuff. I’d sworn off it for good that morning. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and went out the door. We heard him bellowing in the stairwell a moment later.

“Seems to be going all right.” Snorri reached out for the hunk of bread at the table’s centre and started filling his beard with crumbs.

“Hmmm.” He had no worries. The risk would all come my way. I had to trust that Olidan would know I wasn’t important enough to rank as a hostage and that even a man as cold and ruthless as the King of Ancrath was reputed to be would think twice before earning my grandmother’s displeasure. Grandmother was my best chance. There were plenty of stories about how she had made Red March feared amongst its neighbours, and some of them, whilst hard to believe, were the sort that give a man nightmares. In any event, I judged the risk of Ancrath’s court worth the chance that I might be released from the chains that bound me to Snorri and set free to scuttle away south once more.

The beer arrived with a jug and two pewter tankards. I watched Snorri savour his while my stomach attempted various feats of acrobatics. Despite the Norseman’s easy way, I could see the impatience banked behind his gaze. He ached to be back on the road, riding for the coast with all haste, and I could only delay him in Ancrath so long.

The captain returned an hour or so later to say that we were to be given quarters in the keep and most likely summoned to court on the afternoon of the next day. Better than I’d hoped.

We trailed down the narrow steps once more to the entrance, where the captain gave us into the care of a velvet-clad page boy, and we finally emerged from the gate tunnel and went on into the Tall Castle.

You could tell at once that the keep was Builder-work; it was ugly, angular, and resilient. The Thousand Suns had scorched the earth all across the Broken Empire. In many places the soil had burned to the bedrock and the bedrock had melted into glass. But the Tall Castle had survived. The fact that the Ancraths made their home here said a lot about their character and intentions.

The curtain wall set about the compound and the various outbuildings—barracks, a smithy, stables, and the like—were all three or four centuries old, but the keep, that was stone poured a thousand years ago. I recall from my lessons that the Builders seldom held on to buildings long. They threw them up, then tore them down as if they were no more than tents. But for things not intended to last they did a damn good job of it.

The page boy led us on towards the keep under the watchful eyes of various guards at station, men patrolling on the walls, and passing knights. It was Snorri who drew their attention, of course: not the blasted prince of Red March deigning to grace their mean halls, but some freakishly large Norseman with ten acres of slope to his name. Something about the braids in his hair, or the arctic flash of his eyes, or perhaps the bloody great axe across his back, is apt to make any castle dweller think for a moment that their defences have been breached.