Authors: S. E. Zbasnik,Sabrina Zbasnik
The King's Blood (9 page)
CHAPTER SIX
H
is unwanted tunic pulled and bunched in the back, causing Aldrin to shift his shoulders while trying to keep a hold of the piles of clothing still clutched in his hands. Ciara, always in the lead, pushed through the unhinged doors and held it open for the wandering prince.
Some Kings prided themselves on having a common touch, spending nights ensconced around the hearth trading exaggerated tales, wandering amongst the back ranks and even the archers giving little pep talks, and of course nipping into every local tavern and drinking the biggest guy there under the table. Then finishing the night terrorizing some women, stealing a chicken, and bedding a cart.
But King Edric loved little more than a warm plate of clotted cream (preferably on top of whatever pie was in season), then a long night under the duvets his fore-bearers earned in blood and about five ravens to the royal embroiderers. The only info Aldrin knew about such places of ill repute came from either his nurses or the knights whose knees he'd play carts under during meals.
This place was neither a den of debauchery as demons whipped patrons and fires roasted men alive, nor was it a nirvana of top-heavy women swimming in pools filled with ale. It was actually quite boring.
A few tables, most made from the doors that refused to stay on the single hinge, littered the wooden floor. While the ground did cling greedily to the bottom of his shoes, no gaping mouths with razor sharp teeth lay buried in the floor ready to gobble him straight to hell. It did lean a bit, but he doubted his old nurse would have cared.
Some men gathered around the table painted a cheery blue, one accidentally dropping his mug onto the doorbell that was still hooked up. A handful of others took up permanent residence at the bar itself, formed mostly from old apple crates which, judging by the piquant smell of rotten fruit, still had a few non-evicted tenants.
"Regulars," Ciara mumbled under her breath as she turned from the bar and pointed towards a circular table, greener than a meadow's lawn.
He settled his things down on top of hers and watched the girl pace up to the bar, her hood starting to slip off. Aldrin tried to inconspicuously sit in the chair but the challenge to gravity caused his legs to fly up and kick hard into the green door, rattling the bright brass knob in the middle.
A few eyes perked up at that and background conversation, undetectable at first, grew still. Each ear waited to see what the outsider would do next. As Aldrin struggled to pull himself forward, a few grizzled grunts responded as he failed to rise from his seat. This approach going nowhere, the boy then tried tipping all the way back, hoping a fall to the floor would offer some freedom, but his legs caught again, rattling the knob a second time.
More grunts, these short and quick like a pig rooting through the ground, followed suit. Growing tired of this game, Aldrin pushed his body to one side and fell butt first onto the ground. The table of grunts erupted into full apple peals of laughter, a few even clapping, as Aldrin struggled to his feet, turned the chair backwards, and leaned upon it like a sled.
A set of bags fell into his vision and a then a dark glare, "If you were trying to draw attention to yourself, mission accomplished."
Ciara slid a plate towards the prince, its gray mass congealing quickly now that it was away from the warm fire. He gingerly raised a spoon to the slop and poked it, the mass jiggling a bit as if it were laughing at Aldrin as well. Then the smell, a pungent mix of onions, old boiled beef bones, and 'them's spices what we don't ask what they is' found purchase in his nose.
For the first time since watching his fellow countrymen get sliced up like Soulday ham, hunger stampeded back inside twisting his intestines like a pretzel. He gobbled down the beef surprise faster than the eye could follow, getting some in his ear. Never before had mush flavored beef (or beef flavored mush, it was hard to tell) tasted of pure ambrosia, or ambrosia substitute. A small tear dribbled down his cheek, offering some much needed salt to the dish, but Aldrin didn't care. He'd have gladly eaten this culinary nightmare for a week straight. Going without was a good duller of the palate.
The girl watched, intrigued by the nobility's table manners, but not really surprised. If you couldn't do something however you wanted without consequence, it wasn't worth doing for the landed gentry. She, having a fairly good idea just what was inside the slop of the day, took her time trying to not throw off her stomach.
Aldrin licked his plate clean, dragging his fingers along the edge and slopping the last bits onto his tongue. He felt the eyes upon him again from across the room, seeming to wait for something exciting to happen. The boy slowly lowered his spoon onto the plate facing to the left to signify to the servants the meal was finished. He watched the girl twitch, as if she were supposed to pull the thing away before he could berate her, but she continued to eat her meal slowly. Aldrin got the message, this wasn't a castle anymore and he wasn't a child. Sliding back off his sled chair, the boy rose, carrying his own plate back to the bar.
The regulars didn't even flinch as Aldrin loudly dropped his plate onto the crates, his face a giant smile. There was no greater fun that pretending to be what you weren't, and for the moment the prince got to be a "commoner". He stood there impatiently, waiting for someone to appear, to take his escorted dish, and perhaps reward him for a job well done. But no barkeep appeared, no jolly man in an apron with some hilarious saying painted upon it. Not even a shrewish wife, who clucked her tongue at the spec of food he didn't finish.
Ciara smacked her forehead as she set down her own spife
Aldrin jumped at her theatrical intrusion and blinked slowly at her narrow glare. Properly cowed, he returned to his chair slope.
"What were you doing up there?"
For being one of the dark people, she didn't mince words. "I was waiting to be acknowledged."
Her brow furrowed as she absentmindedly scraped off the embedded bits of dinner, "The last thing we want is someone to 'acknowledge' us."
Watching her, Aldrin wondered just much experience she'd gained hiding out from the authorities, ducking through dark forests for safety, and outmaneuvering entire armies. For his sake, he assumed it was greater than her years allowed. Five year olds could be wanted criminals.
"I got us a bed of sorts for the night. It sounds like the winter's gonna turn soon judging by all the creaking bum legs. If we don't head towards the Northern Pass now, we can kiss making it before snowfall goodbye."
The prince nodded, as if any of that made sense. His cartography skills ranked somewhere around the sailing acumen of a landlocked pirate. Ciara gently placed her plate on the floor where the "dishwashing crew" would lick them clean later and began to stuff the coats in the bags. Aldrin watched her unfold each piece of clothing, weigh them in her hands, then toss one at his side before folding the other into the pack in front of her.
Ah. He fumbled with the pack she acquired from the "manager," as Fred demanded he be called. The buckles he undid, flopping to the floor with a clank. A black eyebrow raised and caramel eyes watched as the prince tried to lift the lid of the pack. Finding it still seemingly sewn down, he searched through the front for a missed buckle, a snap, anything else he could undo, but he only found more canvas.
Picking up the coat she had tossed his way, he crumpled the edge into a small ball and forced it into the tiny opening on the side. Then, like a rat catcher working a small pipe, he wormed the end through the opening, slowly wadding the coat as he went. The thing was over half way in when Ciara, aware of the attention this was gathering, snatched the thing away and seemed to open the top flap by a magical spell, offering a glimpse of the tortured overcoat inside. Aldrin looked up at her in awe.
She sighed and pointed to a slit on the back of hers, "It's on the back that way pickpocket's can't easily get in without you noticing."
He grinned widely enjoying this vacation, before wadding up a pair of mismatched mittens, which might have once been socks. Ciara sighed at his exuberant face and picked up her weak ale, more water than anything approaching alcohol. Well, she hoped it was water.
The doors flew wide, one finally succumbing to the harsh mistress of gravity and accepted its retirement as a drink supporter. Two men wandered in, slugging each other in the shoulders the only way a pair besotted to the point of near blindness could. Their clothes were obscured by muddied fawn cloaks but the familiar clank of armor betrayed them.
The regulars sat bolt upright at the sound, but these men weren't with the local tab enforcement. The bearded one fell onto what had once been a highchair and banged the table, "Mead!"
"An' anly good shit too. We knows you're all hidin' it," the second one, clean shaven, spoke with a lilting accent as if the Cadaratchian tongue was only native to him thanks to a lot of dirty limericks and a prostitute who turned to teaching to supplement her income.
Aldrin's eyes grew wide as Ciara again slowly raised her glass to her face. She whispered over her drink, "Sit down, slowly."
His buttocks obeyed before he absorbed anything she said. The life drained from the room with the appearance of the two soldiers. Men traveling with war were never a good sign even in the best of times. Anyone throwing around the name Harbinger tended to find himself naked outside the town with a
few days missing from his memory. And most in that tiny room watched the flames leaping across the towers in the west through the night.
A small boy, or possibly a girl, was shoved out from behind the apple crates with a bottle of brandy tucked under his or her arm and two glasses balanced on her? head. Despite being unable to find their own bottom with both hands and an assist from the other, the soldiers still managed to snatch the brandy out from her arm and pour it into the glasses.
As the second was lifted off his head, the small child yelped and dashed back to the safety of the crates. The intruders clanked glasses and were about to drink when Bearded stood up. "A toast! To the Empire!"
"Ja! To the Empire!" his compatriot joined in.
No one else in the place moved their hands. The cold, previously kept at bay by the roaring fire, crept across the creaking floorboards as the men started to wave their arms around, banging their scabbards together in a mock fight under the table.
"I was there," Bearded started, as if he'd told this tale a thousand times before. "I watched that blade go right through tha' fat bastards neck."
"Ya was na.' Ya were off'n hidin' under the castle mistresses skirts."
Ciara tightened, her muscles clenching as her fingernails dug into the table, scraping green paint off. Aldrin tried to not look at the drunken louts but his cursed curiosity was getting the better of him again. The Queen always said it would be the death of his cat, or something like that. Aldrin could never get close enough to the throne room to make the entire thing out.
Clean-shaven had his back to Aldrin, but Bearded put down his mug and, as he poured another round, looked right into the boy's eyes, "Dunna kid me. I was there, I watched it all. They cut that fat king's head right off and carted it back to Avar."
The lopsided floor flew away from Aldrin as the blood drained into his royal shoes. Whatever joy he had from playing he was on a grand adventure away from duty and nobility withered inside him as that bastard carelessly let slip his father was dead.
Bearded bastard kept a preternaturally, seemingly undrunk stare with the boy's eyes, locked upon him with a challenge.
Try something, kid. I killed your kin; I'll kill you too.
He felt the cry moving in his throat, knew that letting on would spell his own doom in his endless struggle for being allowed to keep breathing, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. If they, the mercenaries of the usurper, figured out who he was -- even discerned he had any close ties to the throne -- he'd be diced before his boots hit the floor. But still the scream grew, a tear building behind his eyes as he tried to keep it in check.
Just then a hand clamped down upon his, squeezing tight. It was the only warmth he felt in his entire body. Aldrin's eyes swung down to it, breaking the curse. Bearded went back to his companion, the two of them singing a song in Aravingion, seeming to give little to no shits they were still deep in Ostero territory.
Ciara leaned close to the boy prince, his eyes still brimming. "Not here," she whispered.