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“Better than fresh meat?”

“They’re too much work for precious little meat. The birds that prey on them are a better bet. But even they’re scrawny.” The freemerchant scanned the sky. “They’re not often to be found in the middle of the day, though. I prefer to keep my head down and get across as fast as possible, without overtiring the horses.” The freemerchant hadn’t been silent for more than two minutes at a time since they’d set off.

“You travel these plains often?” Weaver still didn’t trust him, but he wanted Marten to think he’d won.

“Too often, lately. There’s better game to be had in the foothills and plentiful water. It all runs deep underground here. It’s no great wonder this place is known as the Blighted Sea.”

Weaver grunted noncommittally. This was one of the rare occasions when he agreed with Marten, but he saw no reason to admit it out loud.

“Have you travelled this far east before, Weaver?”

“Not by this route. Skirted the plains a few times.”

“I hadn’t taken you to be superstitious.”

“I’m not. Just fond of fresh meat.”

“Yes, I’d heard that was the case.” The freemerchant smiled lazily.

There were one or two close friends who might have got away with that joke. The freemerchant was not one of them. “A man with your experience knows not to set store by idle rumour.”

“Indeed.” The freemerchant grinned and kicked his horse forward, riding ahead to the front of the file of horses.

Weaver watched his retreating back. He’d find out what Marten was really after, one way or the other. Blighted Sea, indeed. The name suited the sere landscape well. But the unwelcoming vista didn’t bother him. What did make him uneasy was the sense that nothing good would come of this journey east. He couldn’t shake the growing conviction that he ought to be travelling in another direction entirely.

The conviction was so strong that he twisted round in his saddle – sending a searing pain through his ribs as he did so – to look back over the ground they’d covered. And he glimpsed movement, far off in the distance. Something was raising a cloud of dust. He halted his horse and turned it round, the better to study the movement.

A single rider, moving at speed, following the same line they’d taken over the arid landscape.

He called for Marten’s attention. “We have company.”

Marten rode back to his side, studying the distant figure with a frown. “So it seems.”

“Riding straight for us. Are you expecting stragglers?”

“No.” Marten’s frown deepened. “They’re riding fast.” He appeared more concerned by the rider than Weaver might have expected. “Any urgent news for me is likely to come from the east, not the west.” He glanced at Weaver. “We’ve time to push on to the top of this hill – that’s a good place to wait and see what this rider’s about.”

They didn’t have long to wait. By the time their horses had had their regular rest-stop the rider was climbing the hill in their wake. Minutes later he came clattering up to them, a skinny youth mounted on an expensive horse. Weaver recognised Drew with surprise. He signalled to the others where they lay in wait, arrows nocked. The horse’s flanks were heaving, but it was lean and fit, and clearly used to such arduous journeys.

“Hold hard, young Drew.” The rider halted abruptly, scanning the rocky ground. The horse sidled, still keen to keep moving.

Weaver stood, sheathing his sword as he approached Drew. “What’s this? You taken to thieving horses?” It was a quality animal, bred for racing unless he was much mistaken.

Drew grinned fleetingly. “No, it’s only borrowed.”

“From your new employer?” A wealthy man, if the horse was anything to go by. What had the lad said he did? A trader? Or had that just been another evasive answer?

“That’s right.” The youth nodded as he slid down from the saddle, looking more uncomfortable than the horse that had done most of the work. He led the horse towards Weaver. “I had to come find you.”

As he drew closer Weaver could see his face was drawn and he looked as if he’d passed a sleepless night.

“I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d help – and I was pretty sure you’d want to know. Even if–” He fell silent as he caught sight of the freemerchant.

Marten sauntered out of cover, hand on the pommel of the sword he now carried openly, quietly asserting his role as leader of the mismatched band. No, he was no ordinary freemerchant. Weaver would be glad of a chance to ask a few questions of other freemerchants about his new employer – he imagined they’d have some colourful views.

“Have we met?” Marten’s voice was quiet, but assertive.

“No, no I don’t think so…” Drew hesitated.

“Saw you with Jervin, didn’t I? A few nights ago, at the
White Ox
?”

Drew nodded. “You may well have. I– I have news for Weaver.”

“Not a new recruit who missed us in Brigholm, then? Be quick, we’ve some distance to travel today.”

Drew glanced nervously over to where the freemerchant waited as he hurried to Weaver’s side. “I didn’t know what to do. Jervin loaned me the horse. I had to tell you…”

It was bad news. It could be nothing else. “Then tell me and get it over with.”

“It’s the Lady Alwenna. She’s in trouble. Terrible trouble. Last night…” Drew tailed off, a haunted expression crossing his face. He pressed his hands to his temples. “Goddess, I can hardly bear it…”

“What trouble? How could she–” They were to be married – when? Yesterday. The Lady Alwenna and her accursed cousin.

“That’s the worst, Weaver, I can’t tell. She’s trapped. In darkness. I don’t know what’s happened. But – it’s really bad. She’s terrified, in pain. And she’s calling for you.”

Weaver studied the lad’s harrowed expression. “How? How could you possibly know this?”

“She’s… in my mind. I can hear her, trapped in the darkness.” Drew’s voice shook. “I… I told you once how Gwydion planned to make me his heir? I have some of her gift, only the tiniest amount. But I know she’s in trouble. She needs your help, Weaver.”

Was the lad telling the truth? Weaver studied him. He’d never been able to lie to save himself. Whatever was happening, Drew believed Alwenna was in danger.

“How long? When did it start?”

“Yesterday afternoon.” Drew choked out the words. “I felt such a burst of rage… and then… at first I couldn’t tell what it was, but by nightfall I knew. And I set out to find you.”

“I can’t just drop everything and leave – I’ve signed to this company. I can’t help.”

Goddess, he might as well have kicked a puppy.

Drew gaped at him in disbelief. “But she’s calling for you.”

“So you say. If she’s in a dungeon at Highkell I won’t be able to get her out.” He’d sworn to protect her. Could he live with himself if he failed her again?

“But she’s not in a dungeon.” Drew’s eyes slid from side to side as he considered. “No, if she were, she’d not be so – she’s terrified. It’s dark, and she can’t move, I think, and – she needs your help.” If this was a trap for Weaver it couldn’t have been set more certainly.

Weaver turned to the freemerchant, who watched them with undisguised curiosity. Weaver suspected Marten would happily stick a knife in him simply to see his reaction – and probe his innards just to learn what manner of a creature he was. “The lad brings bad news from Highkell.”

“We have a contract, you and I. I hope you have not forgotten already.”

“I haven’t. Hear me out first.” Weaver led Marten further away from the group so they would not be overheard. “The news concerns your patron’s lady wife. She’s in danger. Would you have me ignore it, simply to bend my knee to my king a day or two sooner?”

The freemerchant tilted his head to one side, considering. “I think you mean to answer this summons, no matter what.”

“I swore to Tresilian that I would protect her. And when I believed him dead I swore the same to the lady herself. I can’t ignore her plea for help.”

“You would break your contract to answer it?” The freemerchant toyed with the cuff of his sleeve.

“If all is as you claim then I continue to serve my king as loyally as ever.”

Marten considered. “Then of course you must do what you may. Which is what, precisely?”

Weaver glanced at Drew. “She’s trapped, that’s all we know.”

“We?” The freemerchant turned his eyes to Drew, who blushed and shuffled his feet.

Weaver couldn’t spend time arguing with the freemerchant. Not now. “The lad has the sight.”

“Indeed?” Marten studied Drew more closely. “You have freemerchant blood?”

“Aye, I do. On my mother’s side… and… my true father.”

“Then we are well met, young brother.” Marten made the gesture of greeting and, after a moment of hesitation, Drew responded in kind. “Outcasts together. We will speak more of this later, I hope.” He smiled, before turning his attention back to Weaver. “You will rescue the lady and bring her to safety. How many men do you require?”

A good question. What did they face? “Let me take Blaine and Curtis. We are used to working together.”

The freemerchant nodded, his face giving away nothing. “Very well. When you return, follow this road east for a further six miles and you’ll come to an inn at a crossroads. Ask for me there by name and they will give you directions. And think on, Weaver. If you attempt to cross me now I will see you regret it.”

“I’ve never broken a contract yet.”

The freemerchant studied him. “I don’t doubt it. But have a care, nonetheless.” He returned to his horse and took a bag of coin from his saddlebag and tossed it to Weaver. “You may need this to ensure the lady’s wellbeing. I shall expect you to account for every coin when you rejoin us.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY

The girl settled her porcelain-faced doll on the carriage seat. “How much further? It’s nearly dark.” She started swinging her legs back and forth.

“Not far.” Her mother glanced at the man dozing beside her, his arms folded, legs stretched across the floor to the opposite seat. “Don’t wake your father.” She tucked the folds of her travelling cloak closer about herself.

Alwenna sighed, then spoke in a stage whisper. “Will there be–?” With a crunch the carriage pitched sideways. Outside the coachman shouted and horses’ hooves scrambled as the vehicle lurched, flinging the girl against her mother. The floor tilted, creaking as the horses struggled outside against the weight. Then with a crack of snapping wood the body of the coach lurched sideways and it rolled over, flinging its occupants against wall then roof then wall, over and over. Soil and stones cascaded down the bank in its wake, clattering against the roof of the upturned vehicle. A great weight pressed down on Alwenna. Woollen fabric smothered her face and she clawed it free, fighting to breathe.

Alwenna woke to stillness. The crumbling, falling nightmare had ended. The same old nightmare, yet still so vivid, so real. The imagined weight of her father’s broken body pressed down on her legs. She could almost taste the loosened earth, the grit in her mouth, the dust caking her lips. Her eyes stung with grit when she opened them and tears streamed unbidden.

Dust? Grit?

She raised her hand to rub her eyelids, but something hampered the movement. She jerked her arm reflexively and freed it. Her action set something in motion with a tiny skirling hush that stilled after a moment or two. What? It sounded like pebbles. Or sand. The smell of mouldering plaster rose up around her. She blinked, looking for the chink between her bed curtains where moonlight or firelight always shone, but the night was too dark. Disorientated, she tried to push herself up into a sitting position, only to find one foot was pinned by tangled bedcovers. Impatiently she tugged it and pain ripped through her ankle. She yelped out loud and subsided. More cautiously she explored the darkness with her free hand. She was covered not by woollen blankets, but by a blanket of grit and small stones, crumbled plaster and mortar. This was not her old nightmare. Not now. It had propelled her into a new, waking one.

She could feel a jumble of stone to one side. When she reached up – at least she believed it was up – her fingertips found a slanting rib of smoother stone. Her fingers dislodged a fall of mortar which cascaded onto her face, stinging her eyes anew. She pushed her hand against the stone rib. It did not move at all. She probed around the uppermost side of it and her finger pricked on a sharp, cold edge and came away sticky with blood. Glass.

Window glass.

The twisting, shaking floor. The collapsing masonry, the terrible rumbling slide as the dust cloud engulfed them. She had scrambled to the doorway by the window and now she must have been pinned beneath it. The keep of Highkell had swallowed her whole.

Her limbs began to tremble and she tried more desperately to free her foot from the weight that crushed against it. It wouldn’t move. She couldn’t even feel any pain in it now. She thrashed wildly, trying to tug it out by throwing all her body weight against it. Something shifted, then bit deeper into her ankle and she screamed aloud, until the pain overwhelmed her and she slid into darkness.

The next time she woke she could hear voices. Many voices. Some sobbed, some shouted, some cried out for help, some whimpered. In the blackness she could not even tell if they were next to her, somewhere just beyond reach of her fingertips, or if they were only imagined. Too many voices. She couldn’t make out the words. They collided with one another in her mind, ran up against the barricades surrounding her and trickled away in the darkness before she could make any sense of them. But she finally understood. At some point in time, every one of them was, had been or would be real. And she had no way of knowing which were echoes of things past, which were things yet to happen and which belonged here and now. She was a revenant pinned there between the layers of darkness, suspended between past and future yet denied the present in this nightmare made real. Her head ached and her eyes stung, whether she held them open or closed. The dust on her face was encrusted by her tears, dragging her skin tight across her cheekbones. She was going to die there, parched with thirst, weak and hungry. Inside her womb the baby kicked. They were both going to die there.