The Charnel Prince (52 page)

“They’ve had it coming for a long time,” the man said. “But just now I figure that if I let them go, they’ll go tell that pack of Hansan knights, then they come looking for me, burn down my house—no good.”

“You mean you aren’t taking us to them?”

“Me? I hate knights and I hate Hansans. Why would I do anything for them? Come, it’s dark soon, and I think you’re hungry, no?”

Anne numbly followed the man named Artore along a rutted road delimited by juniper and waxweed, into the hilly country that stretched beyond sight of the river. There they were quickly joined by four boys, all armed with bows. The setting sun lay behind them, and their shadows ran ahead in the subdued dusk. Swallows cut at the air with crescent wings, and Anne wondered once again exactly what had happened in the horz, why the knights hadn’t seen them.

They strolled past empty fields and thatch-roofed houses built of brick. Artore and his boys chatted amongst themselves and exchanged greetings with their neighbors as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“This is Jarne,” Artore informed her, patting a spindly, tall young man on the shoulder. “He’s the eldest, twenty-five. Then there’s Cotomar, the one with the chicken nest in his hair. Lochete, he’s the one with the big ears, and Senche is the youngest.”

“I didn’t thank you,” Anne said guardedly.

“Why should you? Figured we were going to take you to town, just like Comarre planned. Eh?”

“Are the knights still in town?” Anne asked.

“Some of them. Some of them are out in the countryside, and three of them went east with a couple of fellows they had all tied up.”

“Cazio!” Austra gasped.

“Friends of yours, I take it.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “We were following them, hoping for a chance at rescue.”

Artore laughed at that. “I wonder how you thought you were going to manage that.”

“We have to try,” Anne said. “They saved our lives, and as you said, they are our friends.”

“But against men like that? You’re braver than you are smart. Why do they want you?”

“They want to kill me, that is all I know,” Anne said. “They’ve chased us all the way from Vitellio.”

“Where are you trying to get to?”

Anne hesitated. “Eslen,” she finally said.

He nodded. “That’s what I figured. That’s still a long way, though, and it’s not the direction they’re taking your friends. So which way will you go?”

Anne had been thinking about that a lot, since Cazio and z’Acatto had been captured. It was her duty to go back to Eslen, she knew that. But she also had a duty to her friends. As long as their captors had been headed north, she hadn’t been forced to choose. Now she was, and she knew without a doubt which choice her mother—and the Faiths—would call the right one.

The thing was, whichever way she chose, she didn’t have much chance of surviving, not with Austra as a companion.

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

“Anne!” Austra cried. “What are you saying?”

“I’ll think of something,” she promised. “I’ll think of something.”

Artore’s house was much like the others they had passed, but larger and more rambling. Chickens pecked in the yard and beyond, in a fence, she saw several horses. The sky was nearly dark now, and the light from inside was cheerful.

A woman of about Artore’s age met them at the door. Her blondish hair was caught up in a bun, and she wore an apron. Wonderful smells spilled through the doorway.

“There’s my wife,” Artore said. “Osne.”

“You found them, then,” she said. “
Daje Vespre
to you, girls.”

“You were looking for us?” Anne said, the hair on her neck pricking up.

“Don’t be frightened,” the woman said. “I sent him.”

“But why?”

“Come in, eat. We can talk after.”

The house was as cheery inside as it looked from the outside. A great hearth stood at one end of the main room, with pots and pans, a worktable, ceramic jars of flour, sugar, and spices. Garlic hung in chains from the rafters, and a little girl was playing on the terra-cotta-tile floor.

Anne suddenly felt hungrier than she had in her life. The table was already set, and the woman ushered them to sit.

For the next half bell, Anne forgot almost everything but how to eat. Their trenchers were sliced from bread still hot from the baking. And there was butter—not olive oil, as it always was in Vitellio but
butter
. Osne ladled a stew of pork, leeks, and mussels onto the bread, which in itself should have been plenty, but then she brought out a sort of pie stuffed with melted cheese and hundreds of little strips of pastry and whole eggs. Added to that was a sort of paste made of chicken livers cooked in a crust, and all washed down with a strong red wine.

She felt like crying with joy—at the coven, they’d eaten frugally—bread and cheese and porridge. On the road and in z’Espino they had lived near starvation and eaten what they could find or buy with their meager monies. This was the first truly delicious meal she had eaten since leaving Eslen, all those months ago. It reminded her that there could be more to life than survival.

When it was done, Anne helped Osne, Austra, and the two youngest boys clear the table and clean up.

When they were finished, she and Osne were suddenly alone. She wasn’t sure where Austra had got off to.

Osne turned to her and smiled. “And now, Anne Dare,” she said, “heir to the throne of Crotheny—you and I must talk.”

SWANMAY WAS AS GOOD AS HER WORD
. They reached the mouth of the Teremene River five days after she made her promise.

By that time Neil could stand, and even walk, though he tired quickly, so when he heard that land had been sighted, he pulled on the clothes that Swanmay had supplied for him and went up on deck.

A cloud cover was breaking up with the rising of the sun, painting the landscape with long brushes of light. Corcac Sound, Neil reflected, was what Newland would have been, without the canals and malends and the sheer force of human will to keep the water back—a thousand islands and hammocks, some of which vanished at high tide, and all green with marsh grass and ancient oaks. They sailed past villages of houses raised on stilts and men in skiffs hauling in cast-nets full of wriggling shrimp. Beyond the river channel, a maze of creeks and waterways wandered off to the flat horizon.

He found Swanmay near the bow.

“We’re nearly there,” she said. “I told you, you see.”

“I did not doubt you, lady.” He paused uncomfortably. “You said the men who attacked me are the same men you fear. Yet they did not recognize your ship in z’Espino. Why do you fear they will recognize it now, if they are in the port of Paldh?”

A hint of a smile touched her lips. “In z’Espino they didn’t yet know they were looking for me. Another day or so there and the news would have reached them. For certain, it has reached Paldh by now.”

“The news of your escape?”

“Yes.”

“Then—if I may—I would propose not to hold you strictly to your word. Put me off here, before we reach port. I’m sure I can find the mainland.”

She looked out over the marshes. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” She seemed to ignore his suggestion.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She turned to him. “It’s kind of you to think of me, Sir Neil.”

“It’s nothing compared with what you’ve done for me, lady. I would not see you hurt.”

She shrugged. “I’m in no physical danger. They will not kill me, if that is what worries you.”

“I’m grateful for that,” he said.

“I accept your offer,” Swanmay decided. “There is only a small chance that I will escape the Lier Sea now, with my head start gone. But it is a chance, nonetheless. I may yet win my game of fiedchese.”

“I pray you do, Lady Swanmay,” he told her gravely.

“That isn’t my real name, you know.”

“I didn’t,” he replied. “I wish I knew your real name.”

She shook her head. “I will provide you with a boat and some supplies.”

“That isn’t necessary,” he said.

“It won’t cost me anything, and it will make your life easier. Why shouldn’t I do it?” She lifted her head. “But if you would repay me for the boat, I have a suggestion.”

“Anything, if it is in my power.”

“It is. A kiss—just one. It’s all I ask.”

In the light of the sun, her eyes were bluer than any sky. He suddenly remembered the words to a song he’d liked when he was a boy, “
Elveher qei Queryeven
.
”

If you’ll not stay and share my bed,

The lady of the Queryen said

Then all I ask is for a kiss,

A single kiss instead.

But when Elveher bent to kiss the Queryen lady, she stabbed him in the heart with a knife she had concealed in her sleeve.

With her otherworldly beauty, Swanmay might as easily be Queryen as human.

“Why should you want that, lady?” he asked.

“Because I may never have another,” she replied.

“I—” He suddenly realized she wasn’t joking.

“Anything in your power, you said.”

“I did.” he admitted, and he bent toward her, held by those strange, beautiful eyes. She smelled faintly of roses.

Her lips were warm and somehow surprising, different from any lips he had ever kissed, and with their touch, everything seemed oddly changed. When he pulled away, her eyes were no longer so mysterious. They held something he thought he understood.

“My name is Brinna,” she said. There was no knife in her hand.

Before the next bell he sat in a smallboat and watched her ship until he could no longer see the sails. Then he began to row upstream. Each time the oars dipped in the water, he seemed to hear Fastia telling him he would forget her.

The tide came in and eased his journey, but Paldh was several leagues upstream, and he was still very weak and had to rest frequently. Still, the exertion felt good, and the salt-marsh smell pleased him. Near sundown, he made dock at a fishing village, where a sandy-haired boy of about twelve took his bowline. He checked the wallet Brinna had given him and found coins in it. He selected a copper for the boy, but turned it in his fingers before giving it to him. It bore a sword on one side, but no inscription. He took a gold out and looked at that. It had the likeness of a man on it, and an inscription that read
marcomir anthar thiuzan mikil
. Marcomir was the king of Hansa.

He sighed and returned the coin to his purse.

The boy said something in Hornish, which Neil knew only a few words of.

“Do you speak any king’s tongue, lad, or Lierish?” he asked, in the best Hornish he could command.

“
Tho
, sure, I speak king’s tongue,” the boy said, in a slow, lilting accent. “Do you need a place to stay? The Moyr Muc has a room in it.” He indicated a long building built of leather planks and a shingled roof.

“My thanks,” Neil said. “Say, what’s your name, lad?”

“Nel MaypPenmar,” the boy told him.

Neil smiled. “That’s almost the same as my name. I’m Neil MeqVren. Nel, do you know your ships?”

The boy swelled his chest out a little. “Tho, sir, I sure do.”

“I wonder, have you seen a Vitellian merchantman come through here in the past few days, the
Delia Puchia
?
”

“I’ve seen that ship,” the boy said, “but not lately.”

“What about a big brimwulf with no name or standard?”

“That one I saw, three days ago. She caught that storm and was listing hard, needed a new mast.”

“Storm?”

“Tho, a bad one. Some ships went down in that one—one of ‘em out of here, the
Tunn Carvanth
.”

“Maybe the
Delia Puchia
came by and you didn’t notice?”

“Maybe,” Nel said dubiously. “You can ask around in the Moyr Muc. Why? You have kin on it?”

“Something like that,” Neil replied. “Thanks.” He got his things and started toward the inn.

Beside the door was hung a placard with a painting of a porpoise on it, confirming Neil’s idle suspicion that “
Moyr Muc
”
was the same as
meurmuc
, which was what they called dolphins on Skern. It meant “sea-pig,” which he’d always thought was a poor name for such a beautiful creature. Of course
Neil
meant “champion,” a name he didn’t much deserve, either. He had lost his armor and his sword, and now it might be that the princess he had been sent by his queen to retrieve was at the bottom of the Lier.

None of the handful of people in the Sea Pig allowed that they had seen the
Delia Puchia
, but they pointed out that the shallow-drafted Vitellian ship could have made port at half a dozen other places to weather the storm. That made Neil feel a little better, but the larger problem remained—if Anne was still alive, it was because the
Delia Puchia
had done just that, which meant once again he had lost her trail.