Crown Thief (30 page)

  It was the sight of dark shapes on the horizon, late in the day, which brought them back to the forefront of my mind. Whatever those shapes were, they weren't giants. My first impression was that a village had sprung up, but as we drew nearer and the dim forms resolved out of the afternoon haze, I realised it wasn't quite that. It was more like a shanty town – but a shanty town scaled for huge inhabitants. Out of poles driven into the ground, heavy sheets of oilcloth and windbreaks of twined twigs and reeds, a score of large structures had been built across the hillside, each just about sufficient to shelter a half-dozen giants.

  Now I knew where at least some of my gold coin had gone.

  Saltlick saw me before I saw him. He appeared from beneath one of the canopies and broke into a run. Careening to a halt just in time, he rumbled, "Alvantes, Damasco. Friends to giants."

  I grinned – partly to hide a lump that had swum unexpectedly into my throat. "Saltlick. Friend to Damasco."

  Saltlick returned a hesitant smile.

  "You're still here," I said.

  I wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question, or whether I said it for any good reason at all. Whatever the case, Saltlick didn't try to respond. He was clearly overjoyed to see us – but behind that temporary elation, I saw a depth of misery in his eyes I'd never have thought him capable of. He'd managed to stay cheerful through inconceivable hardship and suffering; more, he'd always remained hopeful. Now, it was as though all that optimism had deserted him.

  "Damasco hurt?" he asked, tilting his head towards my splinted arm. It was a clear attempt to change the subject – something else I'd never have expected.

  "Not so much," I said, wiggling my fingers to demonstrate. The truth was, Synza's diagnosis had been correct. With rest, however bewilderingly horrible that rest had been, my arm had healed better than I'd dared hope.

  "Friends make," Saltlick continued, taking in the hillside and its makeshift constructions with an expansive gesture. "Treat well."

  "I'm glad," I said. "Why don't you show us around?"

  Saltlick led the way across the hillside. As we drew closer, a few giants glanced up to acknowledge our approach. Were they less skinny than when I'd last seen them? They hardly looked healthy, but at least they weren't quite so wasted. However, they were quick enough to forget us, to return to staring at nothing. However well they'd been taken care of, it obviously hadn't been enough to shake them from their stupor.

  Meanwhile, Saltlick made a show of touring the encampment – though the shelters were all much the same and all equally unimpressive. Close up, it was evident they'd been thrown together in haste, with whatever materials lay to hand and no pretence of being more than a temporary measure. Our tour ended with a smaller dwelling on the outskirts of the camp. Where most of the others were ample for five or six giants, this was just big enough for one.

  As Saltlick came to a halt, I realised it could only belong to him. The hopeful thought flashed across my mind that such solitary status might be an honour, recognition of his courage in escaping only to return to rescue his brethren. But that was absurd. If Saltlick had been recognised as a hero, the giants would be long gone. His isolation was no privilege. More likely, it was a stark reflection of his new status amongst his people. He'd left without explanation. He'd returned with strange talk, strange ideas, strange claims they couldn't – or wouldn't – believe.

  So that was what he'd endured these last few days. Bad enough that his attempt to liberate his people had been a crushing failure. How much worse that he should be made an exile for his efforts? I dismounted and sat beside him, wondering if there was anything I could say that might possibly make him feel better.

  "I'm going to water the horses," said Alvantes. He caught my mount's reins and led it away downhill, not waiting for an answer.

  I was more than usually glad to see him go. I still had no idea what I was going to say, but I was sure of one thing: it was time me and Saltlick had a talk, man to giant.

  "Saltlick," I said, "you need to tell me what's been going on. We've been away for well over a week. Why haven't they left?"

  I could see he didn't want to answer. "Some might. Old chief says no. Old chief says wait."

  What a coincidence! The old chief, who'd lost the giant-stone to Moaradrid in the first place, happened to be the one arguing for perseverance when any fool could see that hope was long past lost. I'd seen the strange things guilt could do to men, the tangles it knotted them into. It seemed giants weren't so different. "But you're chief now," I said. "Haven't you told them that?"

  "Not chief. No stone."

  "You're just as much chief as the old chief. Neither of you has the stone. So why can't they listen to the one who's talking sense?"

  Saltlick didn't reply at all this time, just swayed his head with weary misery.

  I had to try to keep in mind how little sense factored into giantish politics. "All right. I get it. As far as they know, Moaradrid was the last one to have it, and the last one to give them an order. They'll follow that order if it kills them – which it will, once the winter comes. You giants may be tough, but you're not indestructible. So the whole chief, stone, tradition argument, that hasn't worked out so well. What
else
have you tried?"

  Silence again. Saltlick might not be the idiot I'd once taken him for, but there was no denying his mind ran in certain clear-cut channels. Ask his thoughts to flow outside those courses and they tended to get helplessly bogged down.

  "Don't you realise you can't always play fair? What about threats? Blackmail? Bribery? What if the old chief were to vanish for a day or two? What if we found another stone and someone who looked a bit like Moaradrid? How about if…"

  I couldn't continue. He looked too appalled.

  "Fine. But you have to do something – and soon. You understand that, don't you?"

  Saltlick nodded. Of
course
he understood. Whether the giants accepted him as their chief, he'd taken every iota of that responsibility on his shoulders – and it had been crushing him, that much was clear.

  Perhaps he'd passed the point where he was even capable of helping his people. Perhaps it was time someone with a little more flexibility in their ideas of right and wrong had a try. "We'll figure something out, Saltlick. I'm not leaving here again without you."

  It sounded very much like an empty promise to make him feel better – and it shocked me to realise I actually meant it. Yet didn't it make a certain amount of sense? Long weeks ago, I'd vowed to ensure Saltlick made it home, and the thought of having succeeded against absurd odds had been a thrill unlike anything I'd experienced. However, I could see now that it had been a job half done at best. Without his people, Saltlick could never truly go home.

  Anyway, what else was I going to do? I'd given away most of my money. My heart just wasn't in a return to my old life. And even if I gave half a fig about the fate of Altapasaeda, it was a lost cause with Alvantes drowning in his despair. I was tired of running around, of being pushed about, of doing what others thought I should be doing. I needed a direction, and I couldn't think of anything better than this.

  There was only one problem. I didn't have the faintest idea how to help Saltlick. My suggestions had been ridiculous. What could anyone threaten, blackmail, or bribe the giants with? They'd already lost everything, and even the promise of regaining it wasn't enough to get them moving. Now that I thought about it, I couldn't even speak a word of giantish.

  Maybe it
was
an empty promise after all.

  Later, as the sun was beginning to set, a man and woman arrived to feed to the giants. I was disappointed to see it wasn't Huero and Dura. This couple were elderly in comparison, and looked at me curi ously. We shared a brief greeting when they came to feed Saltlick, but I wasn't in the mood for conversation with strangers. I did notice that the portions had become a little more generous though, even stretching to a handful of what I took for chopped turnips – one more sign that my coin hadn't gone to waste.

  A small comfort. The money would run out. When it did, the food would follow soon after. The shelters wouldn't survive a single hard storm, never mind an entire winter. Gold had put off the problem, but it hadn't changed it. If the giants couldn't be persuaded to move, they'd die, and Saltlick with them.

  Yet later, as night began to draw down, Alvantes returned with the horses in tow and a small bundle of deadwood crooked in his abbreviated arm. He made a fire and produced three fish from inside his cloak, which he proceeded to spit over the blaze. I didn't want to wonder about how he'd caught fish with one hand and no weapons, but I was glad enough to take the share he offered.

  We ate in leaden silence, with Saltlick close by in the darkness. The air of hopelessness hanging over the three of us was thick enough that I could feel it on my skin, a stifling blanket wrapped close and barely out of sight.

  As we finished eating, Saltlick pointed to his shelter. "Sleep," he said.

  "We can't take your house, Saltlick."

  He lay back in the grass where he'd been sitting. "Sleep."

  I had no rejoinder to so concise an argument. "Thank you, Saltlick," I said. "Sleep well."

  Alvantes set himself up against one wall of the shelter, which – having been designed with one giant in mind – was more than ample for the two of us. I curled up at the other side and tried to make myself comfortable.

  I resisted the temptation to take my cloak from my pack. The risk of Alvantes seeing the crown was too great. Reasoning that it was a mild night and that the shelter did a surprisingly good job of keeping the wind out, even for someone not giant-scaled, I tucked the pack beneath my head instead and hoped it would make an adequate pillow.

  It worked well enough at first. I even flirted with sleep. But the cold, little by little, crept into my flesh, finding its way through every slight gap in my clothing. It teased around my collar and sleeves, sneaked up round my ankles. My makeshift pillow was no better. Just as I was sure I'd found a comfortable position, an edge of crown found a way to press against my ear. Fidgeting to rearrange it exposed some new part of me to the cold. Tucking my shirt to cover that chilled spot of skin somehow rearranged my pack by the fractional degree needed for the crown to push against my cheek.

  I tried to assure myself I could take my cloak out now, when Alvantes must undoubtedly be asleep. Except what if he woke? What if he was feigning? Given his recent state of mind, maybe he no longer slept at all. Then I thought about simply shoving my pack aside, doing my best with the thick grass. But I couldn't escape the fear that in the morning Alvantes would see it, observe a peculiar bulge, decide to investigate and happen upon my treasure.

  Would losing the crown be so terrible? As the night wore on, as the cold settled into the ruts of my spine, I wondered what good it had done me. What good, in fact, had it done anyone? It hadn't helped Panchetto keep his head. It hadn't done Alvantes any favours. All right, it had allowed me to distract Synza, not to mention its brief success as an improvised weapon, but I doubted a similar situation would arise any time soon.

  The truth was, I'd stolen the crown from my magpie instinct towards anything shiny and valuable-looking. There was little real hope of anyone giving me money for it, not with the state of affairs in Altapasaeda. The only ones who might take it off my hands would be more likely to do it with horrendous violence than the exchange of coin.

  The crown was a useless hunk of metal and stone. Panchetto's ridiculous ornament was every bit as worthless as the giant-stone had been. Once again, I'd managed to steal something without the slightest practical value. Once again, I'd made off with an empty, worthless symbol.

  A symbol. Empty, worthless.

  Like the giant-stone.

  My heart missed a beat. Another. A shudder ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

  I had an idea. I had my answer.

  The rest of the night passed with mocking slowness. I knew I'd have only the briefest window in which to put my plan into action. I drifted through brief fits of sleep, waking each time convinced I'd missed my opportunity. On the fourth occasion, I was startled into wide-awakeness by the realisation that I almost had. The hillside round about had lightened to a deep, formless grey. At any moment, the first flush of morning would break above the eastern mountains.

  Quiet as I could manage, I goaded icy muscles into life, stifled a groan, and crept from the shelter. I kept one eye fixed on Alvantes, but he didn't stir. Neither did Saltlick as I tiptoed by.

  Careful not to miss my footing in the near blackness, I found a space away from either of them where I could prepare.

  Between uncomfortable bouts of half sleep, I'd been grappling with the practicalities of my idea. Of the components I needed, one was readily at hand. I'd agonised over a way to produce the other. With a knife, it would have been easy. Without one, it seemed more or less impossible.

  In the end, with much effort and the aid of a sharp stone, I managed to hack three strips from the lining of my cloak. Tied together and rolled twice over, they made a long, thin pad of cloth that would just about fit my purposes.

  I crept over to Saltlick. I knew he slept soundly, and despite his exposure to the raw elements, it appeared this morning was no different; he lay on his side, head lying upon one arm, his snores sending trembles through the grass. If he woke, the plan would be up. Never in a million lifetimes would he agree to what I had in mind. Which was why I had to make the decision for him – for his own good.