Prince of Thorns

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‘I hear birdsong. Skylarks.’ There it was, a silver chain of sound, dropped from on high, so sweet and light I’d missed it at first.

‘Deeper.’

I closed my eyes. What else? Green fought red on the back of my eyelids. The clack of swords, the grunts, panting, muted scuffle of shoe on stone, the song of skylarks. What else?

‘Fluttering.’ On the edge of hearing – I was probably imagining it.

‘Good,’ Lundist said. ‘What is it?’

‘Not wings. It’s deeper than that. Something in the wind,’ I said.

‘There’s no wind in the courtyard,’ Lundist said.

‘Up high then.’ I had it. ‘A flag!’

‘Which flag? Don’t look. Just tell me.’ Lundist pressed the baton harder.

‘Not the festival flag. Not the King’s flag, that’s flown from the north wall. Not the colours, we’re not at war.’ No, not the colours. Any curiosity in me died at that reminder of Count Renar’s purchase. I wondered, if they’d slain me also, would the price of a pardon have been higher? An extra horse?

‘Well?’ Lundist asked.

‘The execution flag, black on scarlet,’ I said.

It’s always been that way with me. Answers come when I stop trying to think it through and just speak. The best plan I’ll come up with is the one that happens when I act.

‘Good.’

I opened my eyes. The light no longer pained me. High above the courtyard the execution flag streamed in a westerly breeze.

‘Your father has ordered the dungeons cleared,’ Lundist said. ‘There will be quite a crowd come Saint Crispin’s Day.’

I knew that to be understatement. ‘Hangings, beheadings, impalement, oh my!’

I wondered if Lundist would seek to shield me from the proceedings. The corner of my mouth twitched, hooked on the notion that he might imagine I’d not seen worse already. For the mass executions of the previous year, Mother had taken us to visit Lord Nossar at his estates in Elm. William and I had the fort of Elm almost to ourselves. Later I learned that most of Ancrath had converged on the Tall Castle to watch the sport.

‘Terror and entertainment are weapons of statehood, Jorg.’ Lundist kept his tone neutral, his face inscrutable save for a tightness in the lips suggesting that the words carried a bad taste. ‘Execution combines both elements.’ He gazed at the flag. ‘Before I journeyed and fell slave to your mother’s people, I dwelt in Ling. In the Utter East pain is an artform. Rulers make their reputations, and that of their land, on extravagances of torture. They compete at it.’

We watched the squires spar. A tall knight gave instruction, sometimes with his fist.

For several minutes I said nothing. I imagined Count Renar at the mercy of a Ling torture-master.

No – I wanted his blood and his death. I wanted him to die knowing why he died, knowing who held the sword. But his pain? Let him do his burning in Hell.

‘Remind me not to go to Ling, Tutor,’ I said.

Lundist smiled, and led off across the courtyard. ‘It’s not on your father’s maps.’

We passed close by the duelling square, and I recognized the knight by his armour, a dazzling set of field plate with silver inlaid into acid-etched scrollwork across the breastplate.

‘Sir Makin of Trent,’ I said. I turned to face him. Lundist walked on for a few paces before realizing I’d left his side.

‘Prince Honorous.’ Sir Makin offered me a curt bow. ‘Keep that guard up, Cheeves!’ A barked instruction to one of the older boys.

‘Call me Jorg,’ I said. ‘I hear my father has made you Captain of the Guard.’

‘He found fault with my predecessor,’ Sir Makin said. ‘I hope to fulfil my duties more to the King’s pleasing.’

I’d not seen Sir Grehem since the attack on our coach. I suspected that the incident cost the former Captain of the Guard rather more than it cost Count Renar.

‘Let us hope so,’ I said.

Makin ran a hand through his hair, dark and beaded with sweat from the heat of the day. He had a slightly fleshy face, expressive, but you wouldn’t mistake him for someone without mettle.

‘Won’t you join us, Prince Jorg? A good right feint will serve you better in times of trouble than any amount of book learning.’ He grinned. ‘If your wounds are recovered sufficiently, of course.’

Lundist settled a hand on my shoulder. ‘The Prince is still troubled by his injuries.’ He fixed those too-blue eyes of his on Sir Makin. ‘You might consider reading Proximus’s thesis on the defence of royals. If you wish to avoid Sir Grehem’s fate, that is. It’s in the library.’ He moved to steer me away. I resisted on nothing more than principle.

‘I think the Prince knows his own mind, Tutor.’ Sir Makin flashed Lundist a broad smile. ‘Your Proximus can keep his advice. A knight trusts in his own judgement, and the weight of his sword.’

Sir Makin took a wooden sword from the cart on his left, and offered it to me, hilt first. ‘Come, my prince. Let’s see what you’ve got. Care to spar against young Stod here?’ He pointed out the smallest of the squires, a slight lad maybe a year my senior.

‘Him.’ I pointed to the biggest of them, a hulking lout of fifteen with a shock of ginger hair. I took the sword.

Sir Makin raised an eyebrow, and grinned all the wider. ‘Robart? You’ll fight Robart, will you now?’

He strode to the boy’s side and clapped a hand to the back of his neck. ‘This here is Robart Hool, third son of the House of Arn. Of all this sorry lot, he’s the one who might have a chance to earn his spurs one day. Got himself a way with the blade has our Master Hool.’ He shook his head. ‘Try Stod.’

‘Try none of them, Prince Jorg.’ Lundist kept the irritation from his voice, almost. ‘This is foolishness. You are not yet recovered.’ He shot a look at the grinning guard captain. ‘King Olidan will not take kindly to a relapse in his only heir.’

Sir Makin frowned at that, but I could see it had gone too far for his pride to let him take instruction. ‘Go easy on him, Robart. Really easy.’

‘If this ginger oaf doesn’t do his level best, I’ll make sure the closest he gets to being a knight is clearing the horse dung after the joust,’ I said.

I advanced on the squire, my head craned to look him in the face. Sir Makin stepped between us, a training sword in his left hand. ‘A quick test first, my prince. I’ve got to know you’ve enough of the basics not to get yourself hurt.’

The point of his blade clacked against mine, and slipped away, angled for my face. I slapped it aside, and made a half-lunge. The knight tamed my thrust easily enough; I tried to slide to his guard but he cut to my legs and I barely held him.

‘Not bad. Not bad.’ He inclined his head. ‘You’ve had decent instruction.’ He pursed his lips. ‘You’re what, twelve?’

‘Ten.’ I watched him return the trainer to the cart. He was right-handed.

‘All right.’ Sir Makin motioned the squires into a circle around us. ‘Let’s have us a duel. Robart, show the Prince no mercies. He’s good enough to lose without serious injury to anything but his pride.’

Robart squared up to me, all freckles and confidence. The moment seemed to come into focus. I felt the sun on my skin, the grit between the soles of my shoes and the flagstones.

Sir Makin held his hand up. ‘Wait for it.’

I heard the silver voices of the skylarks, invisible against the blue vaults above us. I heard the flapping of the execution flag.

‘Fight!’ The hand dropped.

Robart came in fast, swinging low. I let my sword fall to the ground. His blow caught me on the right side, just below the ribs. I’d have been cut in two … if it hadn’t been made of wood. But it was. I hit him in the throat, with the edge of my hand, an eastern move that Lundist had showed me. Robart went down as if a wall had dropped on him.

I watched him writhe, and for an instant I saw Inch in the Healing Hall on his hands and knees with the fire all around us and the blood pulsing from his back. I felt the poison in my veins, the hooks in my flesh, the simple need to kill – as pure an emotion as I have ever known.

‘No.’ I found Lundist’s hand on my wrist, stopping me as I reached for the boy. ‘It’s enough.’

It’s never enough. Words in my head, spoken by a voice not my own, a voice remembered from the briar and the fever-bed.

For several moments we watched the lad choke on the floor, and turn crimson.

The strangeness left me. I picked up my sword and returned it to Sir Makin.

‘Actually, Proximus is yours, Captain, not Lundist’s,’ I said. ‘Proximus was a Borthan scholar, seventh century. One of your ancestors. Perhaps you should read him after all. I’d hate to have nothing but Robart here, and his judgement, between me and my enemies.’

‘But …’ Sir Makin chewed his lip. He seemed to have run out of objections after ‘but’.

‘He cheated.’ Young Stod found the words for all of them.

Lundist had already started walking. I turned to follow him, then looked back.

‘It’s not a game, Sir Makin. You teach these boys to play by the rules, and they’re going to lose. It’s not a game.’

And when we make a mistake, we can’t buy our way out of it. Not with horses, not with gold.

We reached the Red Gate on the far side of the courtyard.

‘That boy could die,’ Lundist said.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Take me to see these prisoners that Father’s to have killed.’

Chapter 12

Four years earlier

More of the Tall Castle lies below the ground than above. It should be called the Deep Castle, really. It took us a while to reach the dungeons. We heard the shrieks from a level up, through walls of Builder-stone.

‘This visit is, perhaps, a bad idea,’ Lundist said, pausing before an iron door.

‘It’s my idea, Tutor,’ I said. ‘I thought you wanted me to learn by my mistakes?’

Another scream reached us, guttural with a hoarse edge to it, an animal sound.

‘Your father wouldn’t approve of this visit,’ Lundist said. He pressed his lips in a tight line, troubled.

‘That’s the first time you’ve called on Father’s wisdom to resolve an issue. Shame on you, Tutor Lundist.’ Nothing would turn me back now.

‘There are things that children—’

‘Too late, that horse already bolted. Stable burned.’ I brushed past him and rapped on the door with the hilt of my dagger. ‘Open up.’

A rattle of keys, and the door slid inward on oiled hinges. The wave of stench that hit me nearly took my breath. A warty old fellow in warder’s leathers leaned into view and opened his mouth to speak.

‘Don’t,’ I said, holding the business end of my dagger toward his tongue.

I walked on, Lundist at my heels.

‘You always told me to look and make my own judgement, Lundist,’ I said. I respected him for that. ‘No time to get squeamish.’

‘Jorg …’ He was torn, I could hear it in his voice, wracked between emotions I couldn’t understand, and logic that I could. ‘Prince—’

The cry rang out again, much louder now. I’d heard the sound before. It pushed at me, trying to force me away. The first time I heard that kind of pain, my mother’s pain, something held me back. I’ll tell you it was the hook-briar which held me fast. I’ll show you the scars. But in the night, before the dreams come, a voice whispers to me that it was fear that held me back, terror that rooted me in the briar, safe while I watched them die.

Another scream, more terrible and more desperate than any before. I felt the hooks in my flesh.

‘Jorg!’

I shook Lundist’s hands from me, and ran toward the sound.

I didn’t have far to run. I pulled up short at the entrance to a wide room, torch-lit, with cell doors lining three sides. At the centre, two men stood on opposite sides of a table, to which a third man had been secured with chains. The larger of the two warders held an iron poker, one end in a basket of glowing coals.

None of the three noted my arrival, nor did any of the faces pressed to the barred windows in the cell doors turn my way. I walked in. I heard Lundist arrive at the entrance and stop to take in the scene, as I had.

I drew close and the warder without the iron glanced my way. He jumped as if stung. ‘What in the—’ He shook his head to clear his vision. ‘Who? I mean …’

I’d imagined the torturers would be terrifying men with cruel faces, thin lips, hooked noses, the eyes of soulless demons. I think I found their ordinariness more of a shock. The shorter of the two looked a touch simple, but in a friendly way. Mild I’d call him.