Prince of Thorns (12 page)

23

My book shifted again. I say “my” book, but in truth it was stolen, filched from Father’s library on the way out of the Tall Castle. The book lurched at me, threatening to snap shut on my nose.

“Lie still, damn you,” I said.

“Mmmgfll.” Sally gave a sleepy murmur and nestled her face in the pillow.

I settled the book back between her buttocks and nudged her legs slightly further apart with my elbows. Over the top of the page I could see the faint-knobbed ridge of Sally’s spine tracing its path across her smooth back to be lost in the red curls around her neck. I wasn’t convinced that the text before me was more interesting than what lay beneath it.

“It says here that there’s a valley in Gelleth they call the Gorge of Leucrota,” I said. “It’s in the badlands down below the Castle Red.”

The morning light streamed through the open window. The air had a chill to it, but a good one, like the bite on ale.

“Mmmnnn.” Sally’s voice came from the pillow.

I’d tired her out. You can wear even whores out when you’re that young. The combination of a woman and time on my hands wasn’t one I’d tried before. I found the mix to my liking. There’s a lot to be said for not being in a queue, or not having to finish up before the flames take hold of the building. And the willingness! That was new too, albeit paid for. In the dark I could imagine it was free.

“Now if I know my ancient Greek, and I do, a leucrota is a monster that speaks with a human voice to lure its prey.” I bent my neck to bite at the back of her thigh. “And in my experience, any monster that talks in a human voice, is human. Or was.”

My feet hung over the end of the bed. I wiggled my toes. Sometimes that helps.

I reached for the oldest of the three books I’d stolen. A Builder text on plasteek sheets, wrinkled by some ancient fire. Scholars in the east would pay a hundred in gold for Builder texts, but I hoped for more profit than that.

I’d been taught the Builder speech by Tutor Lundist. I learned it in a month and he’d gone bragging to anyone who’d listen, until Father shut his mouth with one of those dark looks he’s famed for. Old Lundist said I knew the Builder speech as well as any in the Broken Empire, but I couldn’t make sense of more than half the words in the little book I’d stolen.

I could read the “Top Secret” at the head and foot of every page, but “Neurotoxicology,” “Carcinogen,” “Mutogen”? Maybe they were old styles of hat. To this day I don’t know. The words I did recognize were interesting enough though. “Weapons,” “Stockpile,” “Mass Destruction.” The last but one page even had a shiny map, all contours and elevations. Tutor Lundist taught me a little geography as well. Enough to match that small map to the “Views from Castle Red” painstakingly executed in the large but dull
A History of Gelleth
whose leather-bound spine nestled in the cleft of dear Sally’s oh-so-biteable backside.

Even when I understood the Builder words, the sentences didn’t make sense. “Binary weapon leakage is now endemic. The lighter than air unary compounds show little toxic effect, though rosiosis is a common topological exposure symptom.”

Or, from the same page: “Mutagenic effects are common downstream of binary spills.” I could stretch my Greek to guess the meaning, but it hardly seemed reasonable. Perhaps I’d stolen an old storybook?

“Jorg!” Makin hollered through the door. “The escort’s here to take you to the Forest Watch.”

Sally started up at that, but I pressed her down.

“Tell them to wait,” I called.

The Forest Watch weren’t going to be much use to me. Not unless they had ten thousand friends that wanted to come along.

“Sweet Jesu I’m sore.” Sally tried to get up again. “Oh! It’s morning already. Sammeth will kill me.”

“I said still, damn it.” I found a coin from my purse on the table and tossed it up to her. “That for your damn Sammeth.”

She slumped back with a comfortable protest.

“Binary weapon leakage . . .” As if speaking the words would add meaning.

“You’re going to the Castle Red then?” Sally said. She stifled a yawn.

I raised a hand to slap her into silence. Of course she didn’t see it and
A History of Gelleth
blocked the best target.

“Say hello to all those little red people for me,” she said.

Rosiosis.

I lowered my hand to her hip. “Little red people?”

“Uh huh.”

I felt her wiggle under my palm. I gripped harder. “Little red people?”

“Yes.” A whine of irritation tinged her voice. “Why do you think they call it the Castle Red?”

I pulled myself to a sitting position. “Makin! Get in here!” I shouted it loud enough for the whole inn to hear. He came in sharp enough, one hand on his sword. A smile found its way to his lips when he saw Sally sprawled out naked, but he kept his hand where it was.

“My prince?”

Sally really did try to get up at that. She almost made it to all fours and
A History
went flying.

“Prince? Nobody said nothing about a prince! He ain’t no bleedin’ prince!”

I pushed her down again.

“That conversation we had yesterday, Makin,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Anything you’d like to add to the description? Anything about those nine hundred veterans?” I asked.

For a moment he looked as blank as idiot Maical.

“Something about the colour scheme?” I gave him a prompt.

“Oh.” He grinned. “The Blushers? Yes. They’re red as a cooked lobster, every one of them. Something in the water they say. I thought everyone knew that.”

Rosiosis.

“I never knew it,” I said.

“Sounds like your father should have hanged Tutor Lundist then,” Makin said. “Everyone knows that.”

Monsters down below.

“He’s never a prince!” Sally sounded outraged.

“You’ve been royally fucked.” Makin gave her a little bow.

Castle Red and all its red soldiers up above.

I got off the bed.

Weapons stockpile.

Leakage.

“So,” Makin said. “Are we ready to go?”

I reached for my trews. Sally rolled over as I laced them up, which didn’t help at all. I watched her nakedness, highlights courtesy of the morning sun. I wondered—should I gamble the Forest Watch and the brothers both on some wild conjectures and blind guesses at what obscure words meant . . .

“Tell them an hour.” My fingers flipped from lacing to unlacing. “I’ll be ready in an hour.”

Sally lay back on the pillows and smiled. “Prince, eh?”

Lying in seemed like a good idea all of a sudden.

24

“What ho! Captain Coddin!” I came down the stairs in remarkably good spirits shortly before noon.

The Captain gave me a stiff bow, his lips pressed into a tight line. In a far corner the younger brothers, Roddat, Jobe, and Sim, nursed hangovers. I could see Burlow under a table, snoring.

“I’d have thought you’d be back at Chelny Ford, Captain, protecting our borders from the predations of villains and rogues,” I said, all cheery-like.

“There was some dissatisfaction with my performance in the role. Certain voices at court maintained that I’d let a sight too many villains and rogues past my garrison of late. I’m assigned to escort duty in Crath City.” He gestured to the street-door. “If Prince Jorg is ready?”

I decided I liked the man. That surprised me. I’m not given to liking people as a rule. I blamed it on my mood. Nothing like a night of whoring to turn a man soft.

So Coddin and his four soldiers led us out through the West Gate. I had Makin with me of course, and Elban because old though he was, there weren’t many among the brothers with more than half a brain. I brought the Nuban along too. Not sure why, but he’d been sat by the bar eating an apple, with that crossbow of his across his lap, and I thought I’d have him along.

We took the Old Road toward Rennat Forest, twelve miles or so as the crow flies, and of course the Old Road flies like a crow, following the line laid down by men of Rome an age upon an age ago.

Coddin rode at the fore, flanked by his boys, us behind enjoying the day. Makin nudged Firejump up alongside Gerrod and the two of them exchanged whatever threats pass between stallions.

“You should have left me to Sir Galen, Jorg,” Makin said.

“You think you could have taken him?” I asked.

“No. He knew his swordwork, that Teuton,” Makin said, and he wiped a hand across his mouth. “I’ve never crossed blades with a better man.”

“He wasn’t the better man,” I said.

A silence fell between us for a moment. Elban broke it.

“Makin found a man he couldn’t beat? Sir Makin? I don’t believe it.” His lisp made a wet “Thur” of “Sir.”

Makin turned in the saddle to face Elban. “Believe it. The King’s champion had me cold. Jorg beat him, though.” He nodded toward the Nuban. “With a crossbow. You’d have been proud.”

The Nuban ran a soot-black hand over the ironwork of his bow, touching the faces of his pagan gods. “There’s no pride in this, Makin.”

I could never read the Nuban. One moment he’d seem as simple as Maical, the next, deeper than a deep well. Sometimes both at once.

“Maical,” I said, remembering. “What happened to our pet idiot in the end? Did he die? I forgot to ask.”

“We left him in Norwood, Jorth. He should have been dead, with that gut-wound, but he just hung on, moaning all the time,” Elban said. He wiped the spittle from his chin.

“Too stupid to die,” Makin said. He grinned. “We had to drag him off to a house at the edge of town. Little Rikey was all for finishing him off, just to shut him up.”

We had us a chuckle over that.

“Seriously though, Jorg, you should have left Galen to it,” Makin said. “If you had, you’d be sitting pretty at court. You’re still heir to the throne. You’d have got that saucy princess in time. The Castle Red is a death sentence for smashing that stupid tree. That and calling his wife a Scorron whore. Your father is not a forgiving man.”

“You’d be right in all that, Makin,” I said. “If my ambition were limited to ‘sitting pretty,’ I’d have let the Teuton do his worst. Luckily for you, I want to win the Hundred War, reunite the Broken Empire, and be Emperor. And if I’m going to stand any chance of that, then taking the Castle Red with two hundred men will be a piece of cake.”

We had our lunch at a milestone on the margins of the forest. Mutton, swiped from the kitchens at The Falling Angel. We were still wiping the grease from our fingers when we rode in under the trees—big oaks and beeches in the main—blushing crimson with the kiss of autumn frost. Riding under those branches, with the crunch of hoof on leaves, and the breath of horses pluming before us, I felt it again, that sweet hook sinking beneath the skin. They say a man can travel a lifetime and not escape the spell of the Ancrath valleys.

I yawned, cracking my jaw. It hadn’t been a night for sleeping. Warm in my cloak I let Gerrod’s gentle gait rock me.

I found myself thinking of smooth limbs and softness. My lips spoke her name as if to taste it.

“Katherine?” Makin asked. I jerked my head up to find him watching me, with an eyebrow raised in that irritating way of his.

I looked away. To our left a long sprawl of hook-briar writhed around the boles of three elms. I’d learned a hard lesson among the hook-briar one stormy night. It wasn’t just the beauty of the land that had its hooks in me.

Kill her
.

I turned round in the saddle, but Makin had fallen back to joke with the Nuban.

Kill her, and you’ll be free forever
.

It seemed that the voice came from the darkness beneath the briar’s coils. It spoke under the crunching of hooves in the dry leaf-fall.

Kill her
. An ancient voice, desiccated, untouched by mercy. For a moment I saw Katherine, blood welling over her white teeth, her eyes round with surprise. I could feel the knife in my hand, hilt against her stomach, hot blood running over my fingers.

Poison would be quieter. A distant touch
.

That last voice—it could have been mine, or the briar, they started to sound the same.

Strength requires sacrifice. All weakness carries its cost
. Now that was me. We’d left the briar behind and the day had grown cold.

The Forest Watch found us quick enough, I’d have been worried if they hadn’t. A six-man patrol, all in blacks and greens, came out of the trees and bade us state our business on the King’s road.

I didn’t let Coddin introduce me. “I’ve come to see the Watch Master,” I said.

The watchmen exchanged glances. I’m sure we seemed a ragged bunch, only Makin with any courtly touch about him, having polished up to see Father Dear. I had my old road plate on, and Elban and the Nuban, well, their looks would earn them a bandit’s noose without the tedium of a trial.

Coddin spoke up then. “This is Jorg, Prince of Ancrath, heir to the throne.”

His words, hard to swallow as they might be, had the weight of a uniform behind them. The watchmen looked dumbfounded.

“He’s come to see the Watch Master,” Coddin said, by way of a prompt.

That got them moving and they led us into the deep forest along a series of deer-paths. We followed in single file, riding until I got tired of being slapped in the face by every other branch, and dismounted. The watchmen kept up a stiff pace, showing little regard for royalty or heavy armour.

“Who is the Watch Master anyhow?” I asked, short of breath and clanking along loud enough to keep the bears from hibernation.

One of the watchmen glanced back, an old fellow, gnarled as the trees. “Lord Vincent de Gren.” He spat into the bushes to show his regard for the man.

“Your father appointed him this spring,” Captain Coddin said from behind me. “I gather it was a punishment of some sort.”

The Forest Watch made its headquarters by Rulow’s Fall on the plain where the River Temus meandered before gathering its courage for the leap down a two-hundred-foot step in the bedrock. A dozen large cabins, wood-shingled and log-built, nestled among the trees. An abandoned mill house served as the Watch Master’s keep, fashioned from granite blocks and perched at the head of the fall.

A few dozen watchmen came out to watch our column wind up to the keep. Not much entertainment in these parts I guessed.

The old watchman went in to announce us while we tied our steeds. He didn’t hurry out, so we waited. A cold wind blew up, stirring the fallen leaves. The watchmen stood with us, black-green cloaks flapping. Most of the watch held shortbows. A longbow will get tangled in the trees and you’ll never need great range in the forest. No Robin of Hood here, the watchmen weren’t merry, and they were apt to kill you if you stepped out of line.

“Prince Jorg.” The keep door opened and a man clad in ermine stepped out, his fingers hooked in a belt of gold plates.

“Lord Vincent de Gren, I’m guessing.” I gave him my most insincere smile.

“So you’re here to tell us we’re all going to die over some stupid promise a boy made to impress his father!” he said, loud enough for the whole clearing to hear.

I had to hand it to Lord Vincent, he certainly cut straight to the chase. And I like that in a man, I really do, but I didn’t like the way he said it. He had a screwed-up sort of face did Lord Vincent, as if the world tasted sour in his mouth, which was odd, because he had the sort of butterball shape that takes some serious eating to acquire and a few dozen extra stoats to cover in ermine. I took him to be about thirty, but it’s hard to tell with fat people: they’ve no skin spare for wrinkles.

“News travels fast, I see.” I wondered if my father wanted me to fail even more than he wanted the Castle Red. In a way it would be a compliment, implying he felt I had a chance. But no, this had a woman’s touch, maybe the touch of a woman still smarting over “Scorron whore.” A woman used to teasing out post-coital secrets. A woman who might send riders to Rennat Forest. Even to Gelleth.

I strode across to the man. “I wonder, my lord de Gren, would your men follow you to the death? I’m impressed that you’ve won their respect so rapidly. I hear that the Forest Watch are a hard lot, tougher than nails.” I put an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t like it, but you can do things like that when you’re a prince. “Walk with me.”

I didn’t give him a choice. I steered him downstream toward the glistening line where the River Temus vanished, replaced by a faint haze of mist. “Follow on,” I shouted. “This isn’t a private meeting.”

So we came to stand on a shelf of wet stone, fifty yards down from the mill house, where the waters leapt white over the rocks, gathering for their plunge over Rulow’s Fall.

“Prince Jorg, I don’t . . .” Lord Vincent began.

“You, come here!” I took my arm from de Gren and pointed to the old watchman who’d spat out the Watch Master’s name earlier. I had to shout above the voice of the river.

The old fellow came to join us by the edge.

“And who’s this proud example of the watch, Watch Master?” I asked.

Fat people’s faces are wonderful for emotion. Or at least Lord Vincent’s was. I could see his thoughts twitching across his brow, quivering in his jowls, twisting in the rolls around his neck. “I . . .”

“There’s two hundred of the buggers. You can’t be expected to know them all,” I said, all sympathy. “What’s your name, watchman?”

“Keppen, yer highness,” he said. He looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else, had his eyes open, looking for the out.

“Order him to jump, Watch Master,” I said.

“W-what?” Lord Vincent went very pale very quickly.

“Jump,” I said. “Order him to jump over the fall.”

“What?” Lord Vincent seemed to be having difficulty hearing over the roar.

Keppen had his hand on his dagger-hilt. Sensible fellow.

“If your men are all going to die over some stupid promise a boy made his father, well, it’s only sensible for the boy to make sure they’ll follow your orders when it means certain death,” I said. “And if you say ‘what’ again, I’m going to have to slice you open here and now.”

“W—But, my prince . . . Prince Jorg . . .” He tried to laugh.

“Order him to jump, now!” I barked it in de Gren’s face.

“J-jump!”

“Not like that! Put some conviction into it. He’s not going to jump if you make it a suggestion.”

“Jump!” Lord Vincent reached for some lordly command.

“Better,” I said. “Once more, with feeling.”

“Jump!” Lord Vincent screamed the word at old Keppen. The colour came back now, flushing him bright crimson. “JUMP! Jump, damn you!”

“Buggered if I will!” Keppen shouted back. He pulled his knife, a wicked bit of steel, and backed off, wary-like.

I shrugged. “Not good enough, Lord Vincent. Just not good enough at all!” And with a hearty shove he went over. Never a wail from him. Didn’t even hear a splash.

I moved quickly then. In two strides I had Keppen by the throat, with my other hand on his wrist, keeping that knife at bay. I took him by surprise and in another step I had him backed out over the edge, heels resting on air, and my grip on his neck all that kept him with us.

“So, Keppen,” I said. “Will you die for the new Watch Master?” I gave him a smile, but I don’t think he noticed. “This is the bit where you say, ‘yes.’ And you’d better mean it, because there are a lot worse things than dying easy when given an order.”

He got a “yes” out past my fingers.

“Coddin.” I pointed him out. “You’re the new Watch Master.”

I pulled Keppen back and walked back toward the keep. They all followed me.

“If I ask you to die for me, I expect you to ask when and where,” I said. “But I’m not in any hurry to ask. It’d be a waste. The Forest Watch is the most dangerous two hundred soldiers Ancrath has, whether my father knows it or not.”

It wasn’t all flattery. In the forest they were the best we had. With a good Watch Master they were the sharpest sword in the armoury, and too clever to jump when told.

“Watch Master Coddin here is taking you into Gelleth.” I saw a few lips curl at that. Lord Vincent’s long jump or not, I was still a boy, and the Castle Red was still suicide. “You’ll get within twenty miles of the Castle Red, and no closer. You’re to spend two weeks in the Otton forests, cutting wood for siege engines and killing any patrols that come in after you. Watch Master Coddin will tell you the rest when the time comes.”

I turned from them and pushed open the door to the keep. “Coddin, Makin!”

They followed me in. The entrance hall gave onto a homely dining room where the table was set with cold goose, bread, and autumn apples. I took an apple.

“My thanks, Prince Jorg.” Coddin gave another of his stiff bows. “Saved from escort duty in Crath City, I can enjoy my winter running around the woods in Gelleth now.” The faintest hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.