The Briar King (13 page)

The maid bowed.

“You may go, Unna.”

“Thank you, Majesty.”

Erren poured some wine and tasted it. After a moment she nodded and poured some for Muriele.

“What is all of this about age?” Erren asked. “Have you been watching your husband and his mistresses again? I should never have shown you the passages to his room.”

“I have
never
done such!”

“I have. Poor puffing, panting, pungent man. He cannot keep pace with the young Alis Berrye at all.”

Muriele covered her ears. “I do not
hear
this!”

“And to make matters worse, Lady Gramme has begun to complain about his attentions to Alis.”

Muriele dropped her hands. “What! The old whore complaining about the new one?”

“What do you expect?” Erren asked.

Muriele exhaled a shallow laugh. “My poor, philandering William. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Do you suppose I should start my own fuss again? About Gramme's bastards?”

“It might make things more interesting. Alis wears his body thin, Lady Gramme chews his ears off, and you do away with what remains. It shouldn't be difficult.”

Muriele shrugged. “I could task him. But he seems … For a moment, watching him in the Hall of Doves today, I thought he might collapse. He looked more than weary, he looked as if he had seen death's shadow. And if a war really is coming with Hansa … No. Better I be the one that he can count on.”

“You've always been that,” Erren pointed out. “Ambria Gramme wants to be queen, and is spectacularly unsuited for it. Alis and the lesser young ones are hoping for a … shall we say,
pensioned
? … position such as Gramme enjoys. But you—you are queen. You aren't maneuvering for anything.”

Muriele felt the humor rush from her face. She looked
down at her wine, at the light of the nearest candle wriggling in it like a fish.

“Would it were true,” she murmured. “But I do want something of him, the bastard.”

“Love?” Erren scoffed. “At your age?”

“We had it once. Not when we married, no, but later. There was a time when we were madly in love, don't you think?”

Erren nodded reluctantly. “He still loves you,” she admitted.

“More than he loves Gramme, you think?”

“More deeply.”

“But less carnally.”

“I think he feels guilty when he comes to you, and so does so less often.”

Muriele plucked a small smile from somewhere. “I mean for him to feel guilty.”

Erren arched her eyebrows. “Have you ever thought of taking a lover?”

“How do you know I haven't?”

Erren rolled her eyes. “Please. Don't insult me again. You have already made note of my advanced age. That's quite enough for one night.”

“Oh, very well. Yes, I have considered it. I consider it still.”

“But will not do it.”

“Considering, I think, is more fun than doing, in such cases.”

Erren took a sip of wine and leaned forward. “Who have you considered? Tell me. The young baron from Breu-n'Avele?”

“No. Enough of that,” Muriele said, her cheeks warming. “You tell
me
. What mischief did my daughters find today?”

Erren sighed and squared her shoulders. “Fastia was a perfect princess. Elseny giggled a lot with her maids, and they made some rather improbable speculation as to what her wedding night will be like.”

“Oh, dear. It's time to talk to her, I suppose.”

“Fastia can do that.”

“Fastia does too much of what I ought to do already. What

else? Anne?” “We … lost Anne again.”

“Of course. What do you think she's up to? Is it a man?”

“A month ago, no. She was just sneaking off, as usual. Riding, getting drunk. Now, I'm not so sure. I think she may have met someone.”

“I must speak to her, too, then.” She sighed. “I should not have let things go this far. She will have a difficult time, when she is married.”

“She need not marry,” Erren said softly. “She is the youngest. You might send her to Sister Secula, at least for a few years. Soon, your house will need a new …” She trailed off.

“A new
you
? Do you plan to die?”

“No. But in a few years, my more …
difficult
tasks will be beyond me.”

“But Anne, an assassin?”

“She already has many of the talents. After all, she can elude
me
. Even if she never takes the vow, the skills are always useful. The discipline will do her good, and Sister Secula will keep her well away from young men, of that I can assure you.”

Muriele nodded. “I must think on it. I'm not convinced something so drastic is needed.”

Erren nodded. “She has always been your favorite, Anne.”

“Does it show?”

“To some. I know it. Fastia does. Anne certainly does not.”

“Good. She
should
not.” She paused. “She will hate me if I send her away.”

“For a time. But not forever.”

Muriele closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the chair. “Ah. I hate these things,” she whispered. “I will think on it, Erren. I will think on it close.”

“And so now what? More wine?”

“No. You were right. Let's go to the sunroom and play nines.” She smiled again. “Invite Alis Berrye. I want to watch her squirm a bit.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
TOR SCATH

STEPHEN DARIGE COMPOSED A TREATISE in his head as he rode along, entitled
Observations on the Quaint and Vulgar Behaviors of the Common Holter-Beast.

This pricker-backed woodland creature is foul in temper, mood, and odor, and on no account should it be approached by men of good or refined sensibility. Politeness angers it, civility enrages it, and reasonableness evokes furious behavior, like that of a bear that, while stealing honey, finds a bee lodged up his—

“Stop your horse a moment,” the holter said gruffly.

It communicates mostly in grunts, growls, and trumpeting farts. Of these, the last are the most intelligible, though none could be confused with speech—

“I said, stop him.” Aspar had halted his own mounts and those with the captives, as well.

“Why?”

Then Stephen could see why. The holter was clearly listening to something, or for something.

“What is it?”

“If you'll keep quiet, maybe I'll find out.”

Stephen strained his own ears, but heard nothing but wind hissing through leaves and branches chattering together. “I don't hear anything.”

“Me neither,” Pol, one of the men who had kidnapped Stephen, grunted.

“Shut up, you,” Aspar White said to Pol, kicking his own
horse to a trot. “Come on. I want to make Tor Scath before sundown.”

“Tor Scath? What's that?” Stephen asked.

“The place I want to reach before sundown,” the holter replied.

“Someplace y'can bugger a bear?” Pol asked.

For that Pol got a cuff and after a brief stop a gag in his mouth.

Stephen liked horses, he really did. Some of his fondest memories were of the horse he'd had as a child, Finder, and of rides across his father's estates with his friends, pretending they were the knights of Virgenya, storming the fortresses of the Skasloi.

He liked horses when they ran, the rushing of it. He liked it when they walked sedately.

Trotting, he hated. It hurt.

They alternated between walk and trot for the next two bells. By that time, further inspired by the jolting ride, Stephen had added several pages to his treatise.

He'd also begun to hear something, as the holter predicted, and to wish he hadn't. The forest was growing dark, and he was already imagining movement in every shadow. Now the shadows had voices, hollow with distance, throaty ululations that worried at the edge of hearing and then vanished. He tried to ignore them, concentrating on the fourth chapter of his treatise, “The Very Annoying Personal Habits of the Holter-Beast,” but the sounds crept deeper and deeper into his head, becoming a howling or baying that sounded unearthly.

“Holter—what
is
that?” he asked.

“Hounds,” Aspar White told him, in his irritatingly brief manner. “Told you y'd hear them.”

Stephen had heard hounds before. He didn't remember them sounding like
that
. “
Whose
hounds? This is the King's Forest! No one lives here! Or are they wild?”

“They aren't wild, not the way you mean.”

“They sound vicious. And eerie.” Stephen turned in his saddle, frowning. “What do you mean, ‘not the way I mean’? Are they wild, or aren't they?”

The holter shrugged. At that moment, a particularly bloodcurdling note entered the baying, much nearer than before. Stephen's belly tightened. “Will they stop at dark? Should we climb a tree, or—”

“Pissing saints!” Aiken, the redheaded bandit, gasped. “It's Grim, id'n it? It's Grim and his hunt!”

“Quiet,” Aspar said. “You'll scare the boy.”

“What do you mean, Aiken?” Stephen asked.

The bandit's face had bleached itself so white even his freckles had disappeared. “One-eyed Grim! He hunts for the lost souls wandering the forest. Oh, saints, keep him off me! I never meant no harm to no one!”

Stephen wasn't sure who Grim was, but his grandfather had told stories of a host of nocturnal ghosts and demons led by a beast-man named Saint Horn the Damned. Stephen had never got around to checking whether or not Saint Horn was recognized by the church or was just a folk legend. He now sincerely wished he had.

“What's he talking about? Is he right?” Stephen asked the holter.

Aspar shrugged, looking almost nervous. “Could be,” he replied.

“Pissing saints!” Aiken howled. “Cut me loose!”

“Do you want a gag, too?” the holter snapped.

“You don't believe in any such creature,” Stephen accused, wagging his finger at Aspar. “I know you well enough by now.”

“Werlic. Right. I don't. Ride faster.”

For an instant, the holter almost looked frightened, and that put a chill deep in Stephen's bones. He had never met anyone so prosaic as Aspar White. If
he
thought there was something to fear …

Aspar was quiet for a moment, then said, in a low voice, “I've heard those dogs raging, but never seen 'em. Once, they came straight at me, and I thought to spy them at last. I nocked an arrow and waited. That's when I heard 'em—high above me, in the night air. I swear, it's the only place they
could
have been.

“Here, listen—they're coming at us. We'll see, yah? Be still.”

“This is perfect nonsense,” Stephen hissed. “I don't—”

“For pity,
let me down
!” Aiken moaned. “If it's the Raver, we have to lie flat in the road or be taken!”

“If it
is
him, I've a mind to make his work lighter,” Aspar grunted, fingering the bone handle of his dirk. “It's the damned souls he likes best, after all, and those not all weighted down with skin and bone. Cover that cesshole with your teeth, or I'll cut you loose of your corpse!”

Aiken quieted to whimpering then, and they waited, and the hounds came closer and closer.

Stephen's fingers began to tremble on the reins. He willed them to stop, for his fear to blow away with the cool wind. Through the trees, the sky was dark lead, and the woods were so murky he could scarcely see ten yards.

Something huge and black exploded onto the road, and Stephen shrieked. His horse danced sideways and Stephen had a nightmare impression of gleaming eyes and twisted antlers. He screamed again, yanked at his reins, and his horse went widdershins like a puppy chasing its tail.

Then the hounds burst onto the road, huge mastiffs with glistening teeth, their howling so loud it actually hurt his ears. Most tore on, following their terrible quarry, but three or more began racing around the horses and men, yelping and slavering.

“Saints, keep us!” Stephen hollered, before losing his grip and thumping painfully onto the leaf-littered forest floor.

As he looked up, another horse and rider loped out from the trees. The rider was human in form, but with a face that was all beast, bright beady eyes and matted hair.

“Saints!” Stephen repeated, remembering Saint Horn the Damned.

“Grim!” Aiken screamed.

“Hello, Aspar,” the beast-man said, in perfectly good king's tongue. “I hope you're happy. You probably cost me that stag.”

“Well, you nearly cost the world a priest. Look at this boy; you nearly frightened him to death.”

“Looks like. Who did you think I was, boy, Haergrim the Raver?”

“Gah?” Stephen choked. Now he knew what it meant to have his heart pounding in his throat, something he had always considered a fanciful literary expression. The rider was closer now, and Stephen realized that he had a human face after all, covered by a bushy, unkempt beard and long, ragged hair.

“Well, he's an educated fellow,” Aspar went on. “His thousand-year-old maps say no one lives in the King's Forest, so who else could you be but the Raver, yah?”

The bearded figure bowed slightly, in the saddle.

“Symen Rookswald, at your service,” he said.

“
Sir
Symen,” Aspar amended.

“Once upon a time,” Sir Symen said dolefully. “Once upon a time.”

Tor Scath wasn't on Stephen's maps either, but it was as real as any black shadow in the night could be.