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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.
‘I’m coming with you. In disguise. It’s a closely guarded secret that you’re to ensure leaks out,’ I said.
‘And where will we be really?’ Makin asked.
‘The Gorge of Leucrota,’ I told him. ‘Talking to monsters.’
25
We returned to the Tall Castle through the Old Town Gate, with the noonday sun hot across our necks. I carried the family sword across my saddle and none sought to bar our way.
We left the horses in the West Yard.
‘See he’s well shod. We have a road ahead of us.’ I slapped Gerrod’s ribs and let the stable lad lead him away.
‘We’ve company.’ Makin laid a hand upon my shoulder. ‘Have a care.’ He nodded across the yard. Sageous was descending the stair from the main keep, a small figure in white robes.
‘I’m sure our little pagan can learn to love Prince Jorgy just like all the rest,’ I said. ‘He’s a handy man to have in your pocket.’
Makin frowned. ‘Better to put a scorpion in your pocket. I’ve been asking around. That glass tree you felled the other day. It wasn’t a trinket. He grew it.’
‘He’ll forgive me.’
‘He grew it from the stone, Jorg. From a green bead. It took two years. He watered it with blood.’
Behind us Rike sniggered, a childish sound, unsettling from such a giant.
‘His blood,’ Makin finished.
Another of the brothers snorted laughter at that. They’d all heard the story of Sir Galen and the glass tree.
Sageous stopped a yard in front of me and cast his gaze across the brothers, some still handing over their steeds, others pressed close at my side. His eyes flicked up to take in Rike’s height.
‘Why did you run, Jorg?’ he asked.
‘Prince. You’ll call him Prince, you pagan dog.’ Makin stepped forward, half-drawing. Sageous took him in with a mild look and Makin’s hand fell limp at his side, the argument gone from him.
‘Why did you run?’
‘I don’t run,’ I said.
‘Four years ago you ran from your father’s house.’ He kept his voice gentle, and the brothers watched him as though charmed by a spinning penny.
‘I left for a reason,’ I said. His line of attack unsettled me.
‘What reason?’
‘To kill someone.’
‘Did you kill him?’ Sageous asked.
‘I killed a lot of people.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No.’ The Count of Renar still lived and breathed.
‘Why?’
Why hadn’t I?
‘Did you harm him? Did you hurt his interests?’
I hadn’t. In fact if you looked at it, if you traced the random path of four years on the road, you might say I had furthered Renar’s interests. The brothers and I had nipped at Baron Kennick’s heels and kept him from his ambitions. In Mabberton we had torn the heart from what might have been rebellion …
‘I killed his son. I stuck a knife in Marclos, Renar’s flesh and heir.’
Sageous allowed himself a small smile. ‘As you came closer to home you came under my protection, Jorg. The hand that steered you fell away.’
Was it true? I couldn’t see the lie in him. My eyes followed the scriptures written across his face, the complex scrolls of an alien tongue. An open book, but I couldn’t read him.
‘I can help you, Jorg. I can give you back your self. I can give you your will.’
He held out his hand, palm open.
‘Free will has to be taken,’ I said. When in doubt reach for the wisdom of others. Nietzsche in this case. Some arguments require a knife if you’re to cut to the quick, others require the breaking of heads with a philosopher’s stone.
I reached out and took his hand in mine, from below, his knuckles to my palm.
‘My choices have been my own, pagan,’ I said. ‘If someone sought to steer me, I would know it.’
‘Would you?’
‘And if I knew it … Oh if I knew it, I would teach such a lesson in pain that the Red Men of the East themselves would come to learn new tricks.’ Even as they left me the words rang hollow. Childish.
‘It is not I who has led you, Jorg,’ Sageous said.
‘Who then?’ I squeezed his hand until I heard the bones creak.
He shrugged. ‘Ask for your will and I shall give it to you.’
‘If there were a glamour on me I would find the one that placed it and I would kill them.’ I felt an echo of the old pain that plagued me on the roads, a pang from temple to temple, behind the eyes like a sliver of glass. ‘But there is none, and my will is my own,’ I said.
He shrugged again, and turned away. Looking down I saw that I held my left hand in my right, and blood ran between my fingers.
26
From my encounter with Sageous in the West Yard I went straight to mass. Meeting the pagan had left me wanting a touch of the church of Roma, a breath of incense, and a heavy dose of dogma. If heathens held such powers it seemed only right that the church should have a little magic of its own to bestow upon the worthy, and hopefully upon the unworthy who bothered to show up. Failing that, I had need of a priest in any case.
We marched into the chapel to find Father Gomst presiding. The choir song faltered before the clatter of boots on polished marble. Nuns shrank into the shadows beneath the brothers’ leers, and, no doubt, the rankness of our company. Gains and Sim took off their helms and bowed their heads. Most of them just glanced around for something worth stealing.
‘Forgive the intrusion, Father.’ I set a hand in the font by the entrance and let the holy water lift the blood from my skin. It stung.
‘Prince!’ He set his book upon the lectern and looked up, white-faced. ‘These men … it is not proper.’
‘Oh shush.’ I walked the aisle, eyes on the painted marvel of the ceiling, turning slowly as I went, one hand raised and open, dripping. ‘Aren’t they all sons of God? Penitent children returned for forgiveness?’
I stopped before the altar and glanced back toward the brothers by the door. ‘Put that back, Roddat, or you’ll be leaving both thumbs in the alms box.’
Roddat drew a silver candlestick from the grey rot of his travel cloak.
‘That one at the least.’ Father Gomst pointed at the Nuban, a tremble in his finger. ‘That one is not of God’s flock.’
‘Not even a black sheep?’ I came to stand by Gomst. He flinched. ‘Well maybe you can convert him on our journey.’
