The Briar King (9 page)

“Yah, I know the story. Me, I've never seen a Scaos.”

“Well, they're all dead.”

“Then it doesn't much matter whether I believe in them or not, does it?”

“Well, that's not a very enlightened attitude.”

Aspar shrugged.

“I wonder,” Stephen said, stroking his stubbly face. “Could this have really been a Skasloi road before it was Vitellian?”

“Why not? If you believe that sort of thing, the whole stretch of it's said to be haunted by alvs. The old people say the alvs come as white mists, or as apparitions, so terrible in beauty to see them is to die. The Sefry say they're the hungry ghosts of the Scaosen. People leave them things. Some ask them for favors. Most try to avoid them.”

“What else do these alvs do?”

“Steal children. Bring sickness. Ruin crops. Make men do evil by whispering evil words in their ears. They can still your heart just by reaching their misty fingers into it. Of course, I've never seen one, so—”

“—you don't believe in them. Yes, holter, I think I'm starting to understand you and your philosophy.”

“
Werlic?
Good. Now, if it please you, could you stop your nattering for a space? So if there be alvs or uttins or booghinns sneaking about us, I've me a chance to hear 'em?”

Miraculously, Stephen did quiet after that, studying his rubbing as they rode. After a moment, Aspar almost wished he would start up again, for the silence left him with the uneasy memory of the spring, the dead frogs, the print that had so bruised the earth. It reminded him that there were, indeed, things in the forest that he hadn't seen, even in all of his days roaming it.

And if some strange beast, why not the Briar King?

He remembered a song they had sung as children, when he lived with the Sefry. It went with a circle game and ended with all playing dead, but he couldn't remember the details. He remembered the song, though.

Aspar grunted and switched his reins to the other hand, wishing he could forget as easily. Instead, he remembered a verse from another song, one Jesp used to sing.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE PRINCESS

“THEY'VE SEEN US!” Austra gasped.

Anne leaned around the side of the oak, fingers gripping its rough skin. Behind her, her cream-colored mare stamped and whickered.

“Hush, Faster,” she whispered.

The two girls stood in the shadows of the forest at the edge of the rolling meadow known as the Sleeve. As they watched, three horsemen made their way across the violet-spangled grass, heads turning this way and that. They wore the dark orange tabards of the Royal Light Horse, and the sun glinted from their mail. They were perhaps half a bowshot away.

“No,” Anne said, turning to Austra. “They haven't. But they
are
looking for us. I think that's Captain Cathond in the lead.”

“You really think they've been sent out to look for us?” Austra crouched even lower, pushing a lock of golden hair from her face.

“Absolutely.”

“Let's go deeper in the woods, then. If they see us—”

“Yes, suppose they do?” Anne considered.

“That's what I just said. I—” Austra's blue eyes went as round as gold reytoirs. “No. Anne!”

Grinning, Anne drew her hood over her red-gold hair, then took Faster's reins, gripped the saddle, and flung herself up. “Wait until we're out of sight. Then meet me in Eslen-of-Shadows.”

“I won't!” Austra declared, trying to keep her voice low. “You stay right here!”

Anne clapped her thighs against her horse's flanks. “Faster!” she commanded.

The mare broke from the woods in full gallop, a few leaves swirling in her wake. For perhaps ten heartbeats the only sound was the muffled thumping of hooves pounding damp soil. Then one of the mounted men started shouting. Anne glanced back over her shoulder and saw she had been right: Captain Cathond's red face was behind the shouting. They wheeled their white geldings to pursue her.

Anne shouted in joy at the rush of wind on her face. The Sleeve was perfect for racing, long and green and beautiful. To her right, the forest was dressed in spring leaves, dogwood and cherry blossoms. Left, the Sleeve dropped a steep shoulder down to the marshy rinns that surrounded the island of Ynis and bordered the broad river Warlock, which lapped honey-gold against his banks.

Faster was living thunder, and Anne was the bright eye of lightning. Let them try to catch her! Let them!

The Sleeve curved around the southern edge of the island, then turned right, climbing up to the twin hills of Tom Woth and Tom Cast. Anne didn't wait for the Sleeve to bend, however, but twitched the reins, commanding Faster into a sharp turn, sending clots of grass and black earth flying, veering them back into the woods. She ducked branches and held tight as the horse leapt a small stream. A quick look back showed the horsemen cutting into the woods earlier in hopes of heading her off. But the wood was thick with new growth through there and would slow them.

She had ridden, though, the tract that had been burned off a few years before. It was relatively clear, a favorite cutoff of hers, and Faster could whip around the great-girthed ash and oak. Anne crowed as they sped beneath one tree that had fallen aslant upon another, then up a hill, right, and back out onto the Sleeve, where it curved up to Tom Woth and Tom Cast. As she gained altitude, the topmost towers and turrets of
Eslen castle appeared above the trees to her right, pennants streaming in the breeze.

When the men emerged from the wood again, they were twice as far behind her as they had been when they began the pursuit, and there were only two of them. Smugly, she started around the base of Tom Woth, headed back toward the south edge of the island. There was no challenge to it now; when she came to the Snake they wouldn't even see her performance. A shame, really.

“Good girl, Faster,” she said, easing up the pace a little. “Just don't go skittish on me, you hear? You'll have to be brave, but then you can rest, and I'll find you something good to eat. I promise.”

Then she caught motion from the corner of her eye and gasped. The third horseman, through some miracle, had just entered the Sleeve almost at her elbow. And worse, a new fellow on a dun wearing a red cape appeared just behind him. A hot flash of surprise burned across Anne's face.

“Hey, there! Stop!”

She recognized the voice of Captain Cathond. Her heart drummed, but she clapped Faster fiercely, circling the hill. Tom Woth and Tom Cast together looked like an ample woman's breasts. Anne rode right down the cleavage.

“You'd better slow up, you damned fool!” Cathond shouted. “There's nothing on the other side!”

He was wrong. There was plenty on the other side—a spectacular view of the verdant rinns, and far below, the river, the southern fens. Coming from between the hills, there was a terrible and wonderful moment when it seemed the whole world was spread before her.

“Here we go, Faster!” Anne cried, as they crossed the lip over nothing and all of Faster's feet were in the air. Now that it was too late, she felt a thrill of fear so sharp she could nearly taste it.

An instant stretched to eternity as Anne lay flat and knotted her hands in Faster's mane. The warm musk of horse, the oil and leather of the saddle, the rushing air were her whole universe. Her belly was stuffed with tickly feathers. She shrieked
in delirious fear, and then her mount's hooves struck the Snake, a narrow gorge slithering down the steep side of the island.

Faster almost went end over end, and her hindquarters came around awkwardly. Then she caught a pace, bounding along the edge of the Snake, back and forth, now slipping out of control, then recovering and gathering her legs to spring. The world jumbled by, and Anne's fear was so mixed with giddy elation she couldn't tell the difference. Faster stumbled so hard she nearly plowed her head into the ground, and if that happened, there would be an end to both of them.

So be it then,
she thought.
If I die, I die, and glorious!
Not like her grandmother, wasting like a sick dog in the bed, turning yellow and smelling bad. Not like her Aunt Fiene, bled dry in childbirth.

But then Anne knew she wouldn't die. Faster had her hooves on a gentler slope, and she became more surefooted. The giant willows at the base of the Snake beckoned her in, but before she entered their concealing shadows she cast a final glance up the way she had come and saw the silhouettes of her pursuers, still on the edge. They didn't dare follow her, of course.

She had escaped, for the moment. For the rest of the day, if she was lucky.

Faster's withers were trembling, so Anne got off to let her walk a bit. It would take the guards forever to get down here by any of the conventional routes, and then they had twenty paths to choose from. She smiled up at the gnarled roof of willow, got her bearings, and started back east, toward Eslen-of-Shadows.

“That was wonderful, Faster,” she said. “They didn't even
think
about following us!” She brushed her hair from her face. “Now we'll just find Austra and hide out in the tombs the rest of the day. They won't look for us there.”

Her blood and Faster's wheezing were so loud in her ears that Anne didn't hear the other rider until he had already turned the bend behind her. She spun and stopped still, staring at him.

It was the man on the dun, in the red cape—the latecomer. He was tall and fair, but dark-eyed, a young man, perhaps nineteen. His horse was blowing almost as hard as Faster.

“Saint Tarn, what a ride!” he exclaimed. “Quite mad! You, my lad, are—” He broke off, squinting at Anne.

“You're no lad,” he said.

“Never have been,” Anne replied coldly.

His gaze was fixed on her now, and his eyebrows went up. “You're Princess Anne!”

“Am I? And what is that to you?”

“Well, I'm not sure. I thought the Royal Horse was after a thief or a poacher. I thought I'd help 'em, for a lark. Now I'm confused.”

“My mother sent them, I'm sure. I've probably forgotten some dull errand I was supposed to do.” She put her foot in the stirrup and swung back into the saddle.

“What? So quickly?” the man said. “But I've just caught you. Don't I get something for that?”

“I can lose you again,” Anne promised.

“You never lost me,” he pointed out. “I came down on your heels.”

“Not right on them. You were up there thinking about it for a while.”

He shrugged. “You've ridden that before, I warrant. I've never ridden in Eslen before today.”

“Well done, then.” At that, she turned to leave.

“Wait. Don't you even want to know who I am?”

“Why should that matter to me?” she retorted.

“I don't know, but it certainly matters to me who
you
are.”

“Oh, very well,” she said. “What's your name?”

He dismounted and bowed. “Roderick of Dunmrogh,” he said.

“Fine, Roderick of Dunmrogh. I am Anne Dare, and you have not seen me today.”

“What a shame
that
would have been,” he said.

“You're awfully bold, aren't you?”

“And you're awfully pretty, Princess Anne. Tarn's own
horsewoman, I'm bound. But if you say I haven't seen you, I haven't seen you.”

“Good.”

“But … er …
why
haven't I seen you, if I may ask?”

“I told you. My mother—”

“The queen.”

She glared at him. “Yes, the queen, saints save her. And me from her.” She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know who I am?”

“I saw you. In court. I took the rose of knighthood only nineday ago.”

“Oh! So it's
Sir
Roderick, then.”

“Yes. But you were there, along with your sisters.”

“Oh. Yes, I do suppose I stand out, the duck amongst the swans.”

“It was your red hair that bought my attention,” Roderick said, “not pinfeathers.”

“Yes. And the freckles, and this boat keel of a nose.”

“There's no need to bait a hook to catch my praise,” he said. “I like your nose. I liked it right away, and I'm happy to say so.”

Anne rolled her eyes. “You thought I was a
boy
.”

“You're dressed like one! And you ride like one. It took only one glance up close to dispel that illusion.” He wrinkled his brow. “Why
are
you wearing breeches?”

“Have you ever tried to ride in a dress?”

“Ladies ride in dresses all the time.”

“Yes, of course—sidesaddle. How long do you think I would have stayed in my seat coming down the Snake sidesaddle?”