Читать книгу: «Articles of Faith»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Part II

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Part III

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Part IV

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Footnote

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

PART I

ONE

Chel ran. His feet slapped against the dusty pale stone of the winter palace ramparts, blood thumping at his temples and breath rasping his throat, while gulls wheeled above and the sleepless harbour bustled beneath. He rounded a corner, the yawning guards on the tower watching his progress with vague interest at best.

A mound of refuse lay stacked against the sea wall, a pile of ashen rags with a long stick propped beside it. Chel shifted to round it, teeth gritted, when the pile moved. It became abruptly man-shaped, and its stick swung out into his path. Before he could react, the stick smashed into his shin. He tumbled, arms outstretched, and sprawled head-first into the stones. A blast of pain tore up his shoulder.

Cursing and swearing vengeance, he tried to whirl, but his vision went purple and the combination of running, falling, and a pounding hangover sent him retching back into the dust. By the time the convulsions passed, the rag-pile man and his stick were gone, the ramparts empty.

‘Thrice-damned pig-fucker!’ Chel spat onto the ground, still leaning on one arm.

A pair of boots stepped to fill his vision, their laces intricately bound, the soft leather grime-free.

‘I admit it, I did not expect to find you on the walls this time.’

He squinted up at the figure blotting the pink-flecked morning sky. ‘Marekhi,’ he coughed. ‘Was just on my way to you.’

His liege’s first sworn regarded him steadily. Her face was placid, her tone light. ‘What did they challenge you with this time? A brandy cask? The barrel-dregs? Did you even make it back to the barracks?’

Chel coughed again by way of answer, wiped at his mouth as he pushed back on his haunches. His shoulder throbbed in time with his headache.

The slightest lip-curl marred Marekhi’s flawless cheek, although her tone remained even. ‘Lord Sokol will be expecting to see his festival robes at ten bells. You will be present, as will the robes, and you will look as though you belong.’

‘Oh, he’ll be up by then, will he?’

‘Your odour will also be much improved. Am I understood, Master Chel?’

He sat back against the flagstones, no longer trying to stand. Her silhouette glowed golden in the morning light. ‘Come on, Marekhi, where’s your festival spirit?’ he croaked.

‘These petty defiances are a stain on our liege’s name, Master Chel.’ Her chin tilted. Her voice was quiet but carried clear over the sounds of the clamour of the port below. ‘You are a man in sworn service to a lord who is a guest at this palace, and your deeds and … presentation are those of our liege. It’s time you acted like it.’

‘I can take a beating, if Sokol wishes to make me an example.’

‘That should not be a point of pride,’ she said, her voice steel-edged. ‘You swore an oath. This behaviour shames your uncle and your family.’

‘If my step-uncle wants the value of my service, he can earn it.’

‘Boy, how much do you think your service is worth?’

For a moment she was snarling, then calm swept over her face. She turned and began striding away, boots clicking on the flagstones. ‘Ten bells, Vedren Chel, with the robes,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Obey, or don’t. But attend to your stench.’

A breeze ruffled the palms in the courtyard, and they slapped together like a round of sarcastic applause. Chel caught a whiff of himself, recoiled, then nodded his thudding head in bitter acknowledgement.

‘Fine.’

***

Chel bent over one of the stables’ water-troughs, scooping handfuls of cool, musty water over his face. A palace horse watched him from the dark of its stable. Chel did his best to ignore it. He felt disapproved of enough already.

‘You’re up, Master Chel! Up-ish, at least.’ A broad and beaming figure in a battered guardsman’s uniform was at his elbow. ‘Didn’t think we’d be seeing you for a good while this morning.’

‘Ungh,’ Chel grunted, and wiped himself down with a horse blanket. ‘Heali.’

‘So,’ the guardsman said, leaning forward, in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘Did you win?’

Chel pressed one palm to his thudding temple. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

Heali chuckled, a sound like marbles rattling. ‘Can’t say no to a challenge, can you, my boy?’

Chel grunted again and leaned back against the stable wall. The stable-yard churned with a gathering retinue, another of the minor lords assembling his host now that the campaigning season was drawing to a close. Chel watched the formation of their column with envious eyes. Within the hour, the column would be on the road, and its host would be back in their homes before winter hit.

‘They’re not staying for the festival, then,’ Heali said with a nod to the milling horse. ‘Any chance your lot …?’

Chel spat a wad of sticky dust. ‘Sokol’s so obsessed with rubbing up against royalty that he’s hanging on for the court’s arrival, and he’s chummy enough with the grand duke that we’ll not be kicked onto the road any time soon. I’m not that lucky.’ He flicked away a spherical fly, hangover sweat mixed with trough water dripping from his brow. ‘Five hells, how can you stand this heat?’

Heali chuckled again. ‘How can you not, Master Chel? Thought you Andriz were the blooms of the desert?’

‘Give it a rest, Heali. I grew up in the south. It’s not that hot down there, not like this – by the harvest festivals we’re usually a month or two into the rains.’

Heali cast a glance up at the pristine, punishingly cloudless sky. ‘Doesn’t look like rain any time soon, Master Chel. So happens, I was heading down to the kitchen to muster a bit of breakfast – care to join me? You look like a man in need of a feed.’

Chel’s stomach hissed bile. His hangover agreed.

***

‘Kitchen’s closed.’ A hard-faced woman in a smock barred the doorway.

‘Closed? Nonsense, my jewel,’ Heali replied. ‘How could the kitchen be closed in a festival week? We’re but days from the feast!’

The woman’s eyes narrowed. She had a jaw like quarried stone and weathered hands to match. ‘Off-limits, then. Especially to you, Heali, and whoever’s riding your pocket today.’ She flicked a sneer at Chel, who was quite offended. ‘This is no time for your antics – we’ve got the Order of the Rose at our shoulders. Get your meat-fingers gone before the churchmen come looking at you too.’

The door slammed shut. Heali frowned at it, thick lips pursed. Chel frowned at Heali.

‘My apologies, Master Chel, thought I’d be able to lend a hand to a brother in need. Come up looking a right pillock, eh?’

Chel gave no answer. His head hurt, and his palms and shoulder ached. His hunger had become a hot blade in his gut. He rubbed one hand over his eyes and started walking back toward the courtyard. Sokol’s robes and the lowport beckoned, and he was in no fit state for it. ‘I need to be going—’

‘Heading out on an errand? Surely not on an empty stomach?’

Chel stopped in the courtyard archway, one foot in brilliant sunlight, squinting against the glare, already tired of the guardsman’s manner. ‘You’re in luck, my boy,’ Heali continued with a munificent smile, ‘because your friend Heali knows where to get the best breakfast in all Denirnas Port.’

‘You do?’ At that, Chel perked up.

‘Of course, my boy. Permit me to atone for my failing – I’ll take you myself.’

‘For the last time, Heali, stop calling me boy.’

‘I mean no disrespect, Master Chel. You’re still boyish from my end of the wick, that’s all.’ Heali raised a hand with a disarming grin. ‘Come, let’s take a wander. There’s a little fellow in the lowport, does the most arresting grilled things.’

Chel gave a sour glance back down the gloomy hallway to the closed kitchen door. ‘What do the Church care of festival preparations anyway?’ he said.

A voice like the earth moving rumbled in the darkness behind them. Chel hadn’t even realized there was a passageway there. ‘Because the festival of King’s Vintage is a lie, a sop to the masses to blot the vile truth from their eyes.’

He turned to find a gaunt figure looming over him, eyes mere hollows in the gloom, his dome of skull ringed by ragged grey locks. He carried a crate of earthenware oil lamps, clinking in time to his lurching steps. Heali sniffed. ‘Lengthened your chain for the festival, did they, Mad Mercunin?’

‘I know what they call me, Heali,’ the cadaverous giant replied. ‘Do you know what they call you?’

Heali laughed, but Chel detected an edge to it. ‘Go on, sod off, you walking corpse. Go whisper your secrets to the cliff ducks.’

Mercunin shuffled away into the gloom, the crate heavy in his arms. ‘Hey,’ Chel called, ‘what is the “vile truth”?’

The well-deep voice echoed from the stones as the porter slid into darkness. ‘That the king is dead, and we shall all of us burn.’

Heali snorted. ‘Take no heed of mad men, Master Chel,’ he said, then walked out into the bustle of the courtyard, nodding for Chel to follow. With a bemused sigh he did, the old porter’s words still rattling in his head.

***

‘Is this place far?’ Chel said as they wandered through the open palace gate, beneath the strutting statue of Grand Duke Reysel. A fresh streaking of bird shit adorned the statue; a pair of skivvies were doing their best to remove it. Duty guards nodded to Heali as they passed. ‘I need to be back by ten bells.’

‘And why’s that, Master Chel?’

‘Sokol will be expecting me to present him with his freshly arrived festival robes. Should have been here days ago, but you know what it’s like this time of year.’

‘I do indeed. Can’t spend days on the walls without learning the motion of the ocean, eh?’ Heali picked his way down the meandering ridge path, steering around the irregular mule traffic plodding uphill, festival loads stacked high.

Across the bay on the opposite ridge, the domes of the Academy glowed in the morning sun, safely nestled along the crest of the highport that towered over the harbour’s eastern flank. In the handful of weeks he’d been in Denirnas, Chel hadn’t made it as far as the highport, let alone the Academy. It looked pleasantly peaceful up there.

In the lowport, the summer’s-end sun was well up, as was the seething press of peddlers, pilgrims and panhandlers. Everywhere was noise and movement, heat and humanity, and Chel’s nausea came roaring back as he tried to follow Heali down the carved steps of the hill path into the town. He kept one hand on his purse and the other on Heali’s shoulder, buffeted by human tides.

They skirted a grim-faced servant tasked with scrubbing the latest Rau Rel graffiti from a pale wall, the words ‘The Watcher sees all’ disappearing beneath his brush. One of the palace guards watched over him; he nodded to Heali and moved aside as they passed. Chel shook his head. The partisans’ graffiti would be back before they made it back to the palace. You couldn’t go twenty strides in the port without seeing ‘death to tyrants’ or some reference to ‘the Watcher’ scrawled across walls; the only thing that varied was the spelling.

‘Who keeps writing this stuff?’ Chel muttered to Heali. Heali didn’t respond.

Preachers’ Plaza was already thick with idle folk circling the ranting box-clerics on their sea-crates, attending them or jeering them in equal measure. Chel took one look at the seething crowd and baulked; he could go no further. He almost cried with relief when Heali diverted from the main path, cutting round the plaza and between two of the low white buildings that blanketed the bluffs above the harbour. A narrow path led up to a flat roof, suddenly dim in the highport’s shadow.

The shaded rooftop was still cool and mercifully removed from the madness below. A clutter of mismatched wooden furniture dotted it, tables and chairs arranged in haphazard fashion, some occupied by resting merchants and sea-folk. Silk pennants and throws hung from poles around the roof’s edge, teased by the brisk ocean breeze, their sigils and symbols a mystery to Chel. A great clay oven dominated the hillside end, already smoking and sizzling, tended to by a small, wiry man.

Heali dumped himself in one of the chairs, nodded for Chel to join him and waved the little man over. Heali produced a purse from beneath his belt with a flourish, placing a stack of coins on the table that could pay for three breakfasts with change to spare. Chel made no comment.

The little man was beside him, asking him something with a cavalcade of syllables. Chel blinked back in incomprehension. The little man repeated his noises with practised patience.

Heali chuckled, marbles rattling again. ‘Chicken or fish, Master Chel? I can recommend the fish.’

‘Chicken.’

‘Ha! Suit yourself.’

The little man nodded and scampered back to the oven, and a moment later the sizzling redoubled. Chel felt a surge of gratitude, although he declined the wine that was offered while they waited. He wasn’t mad.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’ Heali took a deep swig and smacked his lips, then topped up his mug. ‘No such thing as a hangover at your age, young man. Splash of spiced wine and a sea breeze, see you right. Heali’s little tip for you.’

Chel ignored him, his gaze on the flapping silk hangings at the roof’s edge. ‘Those Serican?’

Heali shot him an incredulous look, half smiling, anticipating a joke. ‘No, Master Chel,’ he said after a moment, the smile lingering. ‘Not every piece of silk comes from Serica.’

Chel blushed at his ignorance, but at that moment the food arrived. Chel acknowledged that Heali had been right: it was excellent — spiced and fragrant and unfamiliar. He tore into it.

‘So,’ said the guardsman after a respectable number of chews, ‘you’ve been enjoying festival week?’ Chel only chewed. He could feel the food restoring him. ‘Partial to a bit of brandy myself, as it happens. I was a young man once: every night defiance, every morning … regret …’ Chel nodded along, half listening to Heali’s words, until his platter was empty.

Hanging behind the oven was a wooden mask, taller than a man’s head, carved with intricate detail and inlaid with a silvery metal. Its expression was unfriendly. Chel stared at it.

‘What is that?’

‘Battle-mask,’ said a voice beside him. He turned to see a child looking back with wide, dark eyes. I must be hungover, he thought. That’s the third person to get the drop on me this morning.

‘A battle-mask?’

‘My father was a famous warrior in our home. He has many masks.’ The tone was even, the gaze level.

Chel shot a look at the wiry little man, as the girl started clearing plates. He was scrubbing the inside of the oven with something. ‘He doesn’t look like a famous warrior,’ he said.

‘That is why he would have killed you.’

Chel’s eyebrows climbed. ‘That a fact?’

The girl nodded, her contemptuous expression not far off the mask’s. Chel squinted; he could see faded paint on it, yellow and maybe blue. ‘The champions of the cantons were given masks if they won a great battle or defeated another champion in a duel. My father has six masks.’

‘Cantons?’ Chel blinked. ‘You’re Norts?’

She nodded, but her eyes flickered in disapproval at the term. ‘Iokara.’

‘I didn’t think any Norts ever crossed the sea.’

‘Then you should feel shame at your ignorance.’ With that she turned and marched away, platters in hand, leaving Chel gawping in her wake. She reminded him strongly of his sister Sabina.

Heali was chuckling. ‘Feisty lass, eh? His boy will be around here somewhere. He’s even less forgiving.’ He laughed again, and Chel’s cheek twitched. ‘Didn’t think Norts crossed the sea. Not been around long, have you? How could you not know a mask? Everyone knows Norts fight in masks.’

‘That’s not what she … ah, forget it,’ Chel sighed. His hangover had faded but his shoulder still ached. He looked back at the little man, who was running a sharp-stone over a gleaming steel carving-blade. He didn’t let his gaze linger.

Heali was talking again, but Chel let the words wash over him. For the first time that morning, he felt vaguely human, and his eyes wandered over the spread of the lowport below, its ceaseless flurry. They had a good view down into the plaza from the rooftop. One of the preachers had attracted quite a crowd, although her proclamations were inaudible over the general clamour.

‘… close chums, goes the word, but is theirs a harmonious affection? A bond of equals, or pals for the proles, as my old cousin would say? You’ve been with the good lord some time now, I’d wager, and …’ Chel was half listening again, his attention drawn to something disturbing the crowds on the plaza’s far side, perhaps a wagon trying to move through. People were definitely trying to get out of the way of something.

‘… perhaps handle some of his correspondence?’ Heali went on. ‘See, there’s always dissent, especially around a man with a title like the grand duke. Question is, should matters come to a head, which way would your liege be leaning? Now, Master Chel, as a young man who likes a nip, perhaps you’d—’

Movement on a rooftop overlooking the plaza caught Chel’s eye.

‘Sweet merciful Shepherd, it’s that pig-fucking beggar! The one that tripped me on the wall. There, on that roof!’

He was off and running before Heali could stop him, pelting away and down the steep steps back to the lowport, chair tumbling in his wake. The shamble of rags had been unmistakable, the stick, the cloud of ash. He tore into the human press at the foot of the path, one eye on the rooftop on the far side of the plaza. The beggar couldn’t have seen him, not from there, and even if he had, how fast could a shuffling old bastard leaning on a stick go?

The human tide at the plaza’s edge seemed suddenly against him, as if the square were trying to empty itself in one go. Chel fought to get past, his eyes locked on the roof-line above, then with a curse changed tack. He rolled around the flood of traffic and into a side-alley, in dingy shade from the angled sun. Unimpeded at last, he drove his tired legs forward. The alley bent around toward the back of the plaza, and from there he’d have a direct line toward the crumbling rooftop where he’d seen the beggar. He just needed to find steps or a ladder, or—

Gaze still fixed on the bright sky overhead as he rounded the bend at full speed, he didn’t see the figures in the alley’s gloom. He crashed into them, sending one tumbling, crunching into dirt himself for the second time that morning. At least the robed man beneath him cushioned his fall. He was mumbling the world’s fastest apology, already looking around for his target roof, when his cushion’s companion whimpered, a small, pitiful sound in the claustrophobic stillness.

Eyes adjusting to the alley’s shade, Chel looked from one to the other. The man he’d downed was back on his feet, clad in a dark, stained robe, a short, thick stick in his hand and a snarl on his face. Huddled against the far wall was the whimperer, a wild-haired woman, her face mud- and blood-darkened.

Chel swallowed, shifting back toward the pair. ‘What’s going on?’

The man’s snarl widened. His head was shaved but for a dark tuft at its crest. Chel had seen hair like that around the port and assumed it was a fashion of sorts. ‘Church business. Fuck off.’

‘What kind of church business involves beating a woman in an alley?’

‘The kind you don’t get involved in.’

Chel set his jaw. He felt the fluttery canter of his heartbeat against his ribcage. ‘I’m from the palace. I won’t let you hurt her.’

The man’s snarl became a grim smile. ‘That, boy, would be a matter of opinion.’ Chel braced for his swing, but instead the man bared his teeth and whistled through a dark gap at their centre. Chel heard the approaching thud of footsteps from the distant alley-mouth, the rhythmic jingling. He turned to see two more robed figures advancing, heads shaved but for the tuft, sticks in hand. They passed through a musty shaft of morning light and their robes glowed a deep red, their steel necklaces gleaming.

Chel rubbed at his thudding temple. ‘Oh, shit.’

***

The three robed men marched Chel and the bleeding woman out of the alley and shoved them into the sudden bright emptiness of the plaza, the sun’s glare harsh against the whitewashed stone. Chel kept his feet, the woman collapsed to the dust beside him. She was draped in filthy rags, her visible skin scarred and blotchy, odd pale welts curled down her arms like vines.

‘Shepherd’s mercy, what is it now?’

A figure strode into view from behind a dark-wood cart that stood at the plaza’s rough centre, its sides and rear caged with iron. She was slight and sharp-featured, her silver hair cropped close to the skull, and was swathed in robes of white and rich vermilion. A long, hook-headed staff tapped the stones in time with her steps. Chel recognized her immediately. He’d seen her at the winter palace, being treated by the servants with a deference that bordered on fear: Sister Vashenda of the Order of the Rose. No wonder the plaza had emptied so fast. Chel grimaced. A set-to with the Church on a hangover was about as far away from ideal as anything he could imagine.

‘One of the heretics, Sister,’ one of the tufts grunted. ‘Fell short on her repentance.’

A sigh. ‘And the other?’

‘Interfered. Says he’s from the palace.’

Her head tilted. ‘Does he now?’ She waved her free hand, urgent, exasperated. ‘Go, find the rest, get them to the croft. Clean this place up.’

The tufts departed, leaving Chel and the two women in the otherwise empty plaza, except for the cart. From the look of it, there were people inside, peering gloom-eyed from behind the cage bars. Chel swallowed.

Sister Vashenda was staring directly at him. ‘Brother Hurkel,’ she called toward the cart. ‘Would you join us, please?’

The cart moved, shifting on its axle, then settled as its front lowered to the ground. The hulking figure that lumbered into view was clad in a rust-coloured tunic, a milk-skinned beast of a man with a shock of blond hair crowning a too-small head the colour of beetroot. An intricate steel necklace jangled at his beefy chest, and at his belt his stubby fingers rested on a short, heavy ball mace. Its head was stained dark.

‘Yes, Sister?’ the giant rumbled.

‘Brother Hurkel, do you know this young man? He claims to be from the palace.’

‘I do not, Sister. Perhaps he has hit his head. Perhaps he wishes to.’

Chel stood his ground. A sickly fire burned anew in his innards. ‘I’m a sworn man in the service of a lord under the grand duke’s aegis. I’m protected as his guest and servant.’

The sister walked toward him, her face curious, as if he were the most interesting turd she’d stepped in that day. She looked him up and down. Behind her, Hurkel had advanced, drowning them in his shadow. ‘Do I know you, sand-flower?’ Vashenda asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you Sokol’s brood?’

‘By marriage, not blood,’ he snapped, then cursed himself.

She offered a smile that contained not a jot of amity. Her teeth were so white. ‘Between chosen people, a word of advice, perhaps?’ She stepped close, a silver flower gleaming at her chest, bright in his eyes. ‘Sand-flower or not, a lucky traveller keeps from the Rose’s path,’ she whispered, then clacked her teeth so hard in his ear he shied away, certain she’d bitten off his earlobe.

‘Brother Hurkel,’ she said, stepping away from him. ‘How high does Lord Sokol rank?’

The beast-man waggled a slab hand, palm-down, his bottom lip protruding. ‘Middling, if friendly with his grace the grand duke.’

‘Of little consequence, then. Sand-flower, are you, perhaps, in need of some spiritual re-education at the croft? I doubt Lord Sokol will miss a “relative by marriage” for a few days, especially for the betterment of his eternal soul. Hmm?’

She was shaking her head slowly at him. Chel felt himself shaking his along with her.

‘Good. Depart.’ A brief, bright smile. She turned back to the rag-clad preacher, who had remained on her knees. ‘Now, what have we here?’

The meat-pile growled. ‘Heresy, Sister. Godlessness. Abomination.’ His thick fingers tightened around his mace. Chel heard its wooden haft creak.

The box-preacher’s head was up; Chel saw a fierce gaze, clear and defiant, that bore into the robed figures looming over her. When she spoke, her voice was cracked but strong. ‘Your godless church is the abomination! Lo Vassad sits atop a festering dung-heap of corruption. Your type act not for the people, but for avarice, venality – how plush are your robes, false prelate.’

Sister Vashenda cocked her head and raised an eyebrow to her colleague, a hand to her mouth in mock-horror. ‘Truly are evil days upon us, that such profanity be uttered before the Shepherd’s humble servants. That the poor townspeople should have been so assailed.’ She crouched in front of the kneeling box-preacher, lifting her chin with a finger, and trotted out her words with tired practice. ‘Very well. Will you repent of your madness and ill-speech, and be welcomed back to the good Shepherd’s mercy?’

‘I will never bow to you, idolater. I have heard the voice of truth, felt the touch of the real Mother of the earth.’ She rubbed at the odd scars on her arms, livid whorls shining in what sunlight escaped Hurkel. ‘I have been chosen by the storm.’

Vashenda sighed. ‘I will never understand you people.’

‘You are dirt in the Mother’s eyes! You are—’

‘Yes, yes, dirt and damnation and such, very good.’ Vashenda stepped away with a wave of her hand. ‘Brother Hurkel, the heretic is yours. Have your fun, in God’s name.’

A grin split Hurkel’s beetroot face. He began to advance, the mace gripped in his meaty fist.

Vashenda’s eyes fell on Chel. ‘Sand-flower, you are still here.’ When he said nothing, she continued, directing her attention away from whatever Hurkel was about to do. ‘You know, people speculate on why the red confessors of the Brotherhood of the Twice-Blooded Thorn carry blunt tools on their divine business. Many believe that the Articles forbid the Shepherd’s children from carrying weapons, or from spilling blood in divine service.’

Hurkel towered over the kneeling preacher, weighing the mace in his grip. He was chuckling to himself.

Vashenda gave a rueful smile. ‘Nonsense, of course. God’s will must be performed by whatever means necessary.’

Chel’s heart was galloping in his chest. He looked from preacher to Hurkel and back again, light-headed, mouth dry.

‘Sand-flower, what are you doing?’ Vashenda’s tone was low, warning, as he moved toward Hurkel. ‘Sand-flower! Do not be foolish!’ His breath coming in shallow gasps, fingers trembling, Chel stepped between Hurkel and the kneeling preacher, who was chanting something to herself in a low, urgent voice. He looked up into Hurkel’s porcine eyes, staring back at him with a hot mix of incredulity and outrage.

‘Sand-flower! Why in God’s name must everyone …’ Vashenda leaned her head against the crook of her staff, eyes clenched shut. ‘I suppose we’ll find out how much you’ll be missed after all, you stupid boy.’

Chel didn’t move. He couldn’t. His gaze was locked on Hurkel. The enormous confessor was grinning again. Chel’s vision was twitching in time with the thump of his pulse, a taste like burning at the back of his throat.

The distant peal of bells carried on the sea breeze, from somewhere out past the headland. They were joined by others, closer at the harbour’s edge, then a moment later the plaza rang with the clang and jangle of churches, chapels and watchtowers.

Chel blinked. It couldn’t yet be ten bells, surely?

Hurkel looked at Vashenda, who looked back at Hurkel, eyes narrowed, brows low. His expression matched hers. ‘That’s an alarm,’ Vashenda said slowly. Hurkel grunted, his attention dragged away from Chel.

Shouts followed the bells. Suddenly the plaza was full of people again, running this way and that, their shouts and calls vying with the cacophony of bells.

Vashenda grimaced. ‘We’ll have to take the heretic’s confession later. Brother Hurkel, put her in the cart with the others.’

Chel stood his ground. Already the plaza was thick with motion, the sound of the bells sporadically near-deafening. ‘Leave her alone,’ he shouted over the noise.

Someone was bellowing Vashenda’s name from across the plaza, another red-robed, tufted type, his features animated with alarm. Vashenda exhaled in exasperation, then leaned forward and fixed Chel with a fearsome glare as the chaos enveloped them. ‘This is not over, sand-flower. You may yet enjoy the chance to regret your choices.’

She growled at Hurkel and jerked her head for him to follow. Hurkel gestured at the cart, but she shook her head. ‘They’ll still be there when we come back.’ The two of them stalked away, leaving the cart with its whimpering cargo locked at the plaza’s centre. Chel felt his insides unclench as they passed from view. He needed to get back to the palace.

Heali was pushing his way through the crowd, his fleshy face waxy and pallid. ‘God’s breath, Master Chel. That’s pushing your luck, even for someone of your blood.’ He shook his head. ‘Why would you get yourself involved in all that?’

Chel had stilled his breathing, although the light-headedness remained. ‘You saw? I could have used some moral support there, Heali. Besides, I’m sworn. They couldn’t have touched me.’ I hope, he added to himself.

‘I’m sure that knowledge would have been a comfort once they had you strung up by your ankles in the croft. You want my advice, young man, you stay—’

‘Beating the poor wasn’t in any Article I ever heard.’

Heali gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Maybe you’ve not heard the new ones. They’ll let anyone in these days, give some alley-boy a stick and a red robe and call him a confessor, I dunno, makes me question sometimes …’ He tailed off. ‘Stay out of their way, Master Chel, for your own sake. The Rose have a long memory and a longer reach.’

Chel only sniffed. His legs were trembling. He hoped Heali couldn’t tell.

The wild-haired preacher’s head emerged from beneath the rancid cart. ‘They’re gone,’ Chel said, doing his best to look reassuring.

She clambered out and fixed him with her clear eyes. ‘Mother bless you, child. You and your people shall be in her highest favour.’

‘Er, if you say so.’

She turned and began working at the cage’s bolt, trying to prise it open. Within, the sallow and frightened faces shrank back, more alarmed than ever. Interfering with the Rose’s confessionals was simply not done.

‘Hey,’ Chel called after her. ‘Hey! They’ll be coming back, you don’t want to hang around for that, right? This will make things worse!’

The preacher stopped for a moment, and looked out over the harbour as a briny gust from the coast blew dust around the plaza and the bells rang on around them. ‘A great storm is coming,’ she said, her eyes still on the harbour. ‘The Mother has shown me. There will be a cleansing flood.’

He squinted out at the sea, still glittering in the morning sun, trying to work out what she saw; her words were all too close to Mercunin’s earlier proclamation. ‘You know, there’s a porter up at the palace you should meet, you two would get on like a house on fire.’

Heali grabbed his arm, pulling him away. ‘That’s enough, Master Chel. You can’t help the touched any more than you already have. We’d better get back up the hill.’

With one last look at the struggling preacher, they made for the palace.

TWO

What seemed like half the palace’s population was crammed onto its white walls, jostling and bickering for a clear view of the bay. Above them, the lone, sad warning bell of the palace’s solitary spire tolled in fitful answer to the jangling mass below.

‘Can’t see a bastard thing,’ Heali muttered, squeezing around a gaggle of servants. He was a hand shorter than Chel, who didn’t have much of a view himself. They laboured along the crowded battlements until at last they found a space between the chattering crowds.

‘God’s breath,’ he whispered as Chel pressed in alongside.

The mid-morning sun, kept low in the northern sky over the sea by autumn’s arrival, gleamed from the gentle waves of the bay. But where sea should have followed, the neck of the bay was blocked by a giant black vessel: long, wide and low, a floating fortress of dark wood and metal, its sails and oar banks crimson and gilded with silver. A pair of smaller vessels, just as dark, trailed it like ducklings. Chel guessed even the smallest would have rivalled the largest ship currently moored in the harbour. The main ship could have sailed over the grand duke’s pleasure barge without scratching its hull.

They didn’t seem to be advancing. The dark ships sat out to sea, riding the waves up and down in place, anchors dropped, while the terrified bells rang out around the bay. A small boat, black flag of truce fluttering from its prow, had dropped from the largest ship and was rowing into the bay beneath the watching eyes of the port’s population, and the swivelling half-dozen giant skein-bows on the headland sea-fort. From the other direction came the duke’s barges, moving to encircle it, the tin hats of crossbowmen glinting from their decks.

‘What are they? Who are they?’ Chel asked, his eyes not leaving the floating fortress. Adrenaline washed through him, refreshing the fearsome trembling that had only just left him from his encounter with Brother Hurkel.

Heali’s brow was slick, his breath short. ‘Norts, boy. The black ships of the Norts have come for us.’

Others were joining them, muttering and shouting filling the air as guardsmen jostled with servants and house staff, occasionally shunted aside by the arrival of someone with a title to wield. Their hubbub filled Chel’s ears.

‘Is it an invasion?’

‘It’s a blockade!’

‘But if Denirnas Port is closed, it’ll be nothing but river traffic ferried up from Sebemir! The north will starve!’

Chel nudged Heali. ‘We’re not enemies of the Norts. Are we?’

‘I’m not much inclined to go down and ask them, Master Chel.’

In the port, the bells faltered, then one by one they stopped. Perhaps the operators were now watching the scene in the bay, or piling their worldly goods onto a mule and making for the mountains. Two fluttering objects had risen from the main deck of the giant Nort vessel, like outsize birds with wings of spider-silk. They glimmered and glistened, borne aloft on the inland breeze, anchored by thin ropes or cables to the vessel beneath. The silk-birds soared up and over the little boat and the approaching barges, twinkling beneath as if they carried lanterns.

‘What in hells do you suppose those are, Master Chel? Totems? Decorations?’

‘If they’re sails, they’re very small and very far away.’

A further commotion ran through the crowd like a wave. ‘Oh joy,’ muttered Chel as he watched ducal guards pushing their way to the promontory. ‘The grand duke and his entourage are here. I’m sure everything will be just fine now.’

‘You sound a touch insincere, Master Chel.’

‘Call me judgemental, but if three years in Sokol’s service have taught me anything it’s that the more skivvies, flunkies and lickspittles that surround a lord, the less contemplative their decisions.’ And that’s without counting his repellent offspring, he added to himself.

Robed notables scuttled in the duke’s wash, hemmed by the brooding house-guards. Chel half expected to see Lord Sokol among them, but it was still early yet. He watched them bustle their bullish way through those already gathered, his lip curled. There was the duke’s eldest, Count Esen, pushing an inattentive kitchen-waif from his path and almost off the ramparts; only the swift hands of a watching guardsman prevented her from falling. Count Esen only smirked.

Chel felt Heali’s restraining hand on his arm.

He spat into the dust and sighed. ‘At least that ghastly prick actively blackens his father’s name.’ He watched a pale, slumped figure come trudging after the other nobles. ‘That little prince doesn’t do a thrice-damned thing, just slopes along like a kicked dog after the rest of them.’

Heali chuckled. ‘Tough job, being the ward of a grand duke. No doubt takes a lot out of him, weekly lectures at the Academy, the feasts and festivals.’

Chel froze. One last figure had come to join the ducal party: Sister Vashenda had stopped a way short of the promontory, looking out over the bay. Chel was rooted to the spot, sweat-slick, praying she didn’t turn his way.

His prayers were for dust. As if sensing him, Sister Vashenda turned, and the sharp lines of her face locked rigid. She advanced, her hook-headed staff tapping the stone, signalling to her lackeys as she came. ‘Sand-flower!’ she called, her eyes burning. ‘Impeding the work of God’s messengers is a vile crime …’

Chel tried to stand his ground again, but his legs were shaking uncontrollably. He was safe here, surely, within the walls of the palace. A sworn man, a guest of the duke—

‘… But the release of heretics is beyond contempt.’

‘What? You mean … But that wasn’t me!’

‘There will be a reckoning, boy!’

Something had happened out in the bay. One of the seneschals gasped, ‘Beneath a flag of truce no less!’ Others around him shushed and jeered. The duke’s barges had fired on the little Nort boat. Then the mutterings rose in pitch and urgency. ‘What in hells!’ a guardsman shrieked. Chel turned from the prelate and peered out over the jostling assemblage, toward the harbour.

‘Sand-flower! Do not turn your back to me.’ He heard Vashenda shout over the crowd. ‘Brother Hurkel,’ she called, ‘take the Andriz!’

The floating silken birds were spewing flame. Streams of liquid fire poured from the sky, dousing the duke’s barges. Screams filled the air as the flaming mass gushed over them, the men within scrabbling overboard as the flames roared up. Tin hats glinted on the waters of the bay, while gobbets of fire spat and hissed, burning on the surface.

‘Witchfire!’ came the cry along the battlements. Others joined it. People started to run, and at once the ramparts churned.

‘Come hither, Andriz.’ Chel turned to see Brother Hurkel come lumbering into view, his grin undiminished by the chaos around them. ‘You’re late for your lesson.’

‘He means to take you, Master Chel, Norts be damned.’ Heali was at Chel’s shoulder. ‘I’ll stall him. Make for the sea-fort!’

Chel ran, the duke’s roar to attack ringing over the thundering of his heart in his ears. He pelted off down the rampart, weaving in between hurrying guardsmen, servants and seneschals, all of whom had remembered urgent business elsewhere. Witchfire! he thought. Mercunin was right, we shall all of us burn. From behind him came Heali’s bright wheedling. ‘Ah, Brother Hurkel, if I might—’

‘Fuck off, Heali,’ was all Chel heard before the duke’s signal drums rang out from the walls, loud over the sounds of the fleeing crowd. Ahead of him, the massive skein-bows cranked and turned, while ghastly burning smells were drifting over the palace, borne by the same wind that kept the silk-birds aloft.

Chel rounded a turret as great thrums filled the air. A whistling volley of giant bolts, each as long as Chel was tall, soared out over the bay, blurs rippling through the air. He heard the distant eruptions of water and great tin booms like kettledrums where they found their mark. A ragged cheer rose from those guards still at the wall as the spray subsided.

Quickly, gasps and oaths replaced the cheer. Chel slowed, snatching a glance over the bay. The black ships remained, unsunk, bobbing on the gentle waves.

‘Are they made of iron?’ one of the guardsmen said, incredulous. ‘How the fuck do they float?’

Something flew out from the black ship, something like a fireball, trailing bright flame and black smoke. The fireball shot over the water, faster than a skein-bolt, screaming like a demon. It smashed into the headland below the sea-fort, exploding in white and crimson flame and sending chunks of rock soaring into the air, stone splashing out into the bay.

Chel tumbled and skittered, his heart galloping up his throat in what felt like a desperate bid to escape. ‘What in all the saints …?’

Another fireball launched from the black ship, then the turret ahead of him exploded. The blast showered flame and stone across the walls as the turret’s skein-bow, arms burning, pitched over the collapsing battlement and dropped into the bay. A wall of choking smoke blew over the rampart, forcing Chel to hunch and gasp, while stone shards and pebbles rained down around him. From somewhere through the fog came the sound of Brother Hurkel’s calls.

Chel wiped at his eyes and pushed himself to his feet as another explosion rocked the stone beneath him. ‘Fuck. This.’

As smothering clouds of smoke and ash billowed over the walls, Chel ran.

***

He dropped from the wall above the stables. The palace was emptying, he couldn’t see Sokol and his retinue, and their mounts were gone too. They must have cleared out at the first warning bells. How very Sokol. Chel took a long, ragged breath to try to calm his nerves. He had to get out before the Norts razed the entire port. There were still horses left, although not for much longer: already palace staff were tussling with liveried riders over the ownership and use of those that remained. Then, of course, there was Brother Hurkel and his companion confessors to consider. If witchfire hadn’t put them off his trail, they may yet be lying in wait.

A narrow, two-wheeled cart stood just beside the stable arch, abandoned midway through unloading supplies for the kitchens from the look of it. It stood, facing the wrong way, a burly, bored-looking mule hitched before it. A dusty cloak lay across the driver’s bench.

‘Perfect.’

He jumped up to the cart and threw the cloak over himself. Sweating from the morning’s heat, the strain of Hurkel’s chase, the Nort attack and now cart-theft to boot, Chel geed the reins and drove the cart and mule forward, wheeling around the stables and toward the main courtyard and the outside world.

***

Chel couldn’t keep his hands tight on the reins. They shook and slipped with his still-thumping heartbeats as well as with each rut on the road. He’d joined the main road out to the provinces, but all around him people surged, creating a long line back to the city. He could only hope that Vashenda and Hurkel had more to worry about than his escape.

A cloaked figure poked his head out from the crates in the back of the cart. ‘Why are we slowing?’

‘Argh! Who in hells are you?’ Chel shrieked.

‘We’ve been invaded! Invaded! They’re going to kill us all! Why aren’t we going faster?’

‘Because this road is full of people, you plank. I’d rather not tip this thing and kill us and them before we get anywhere.’

Something about the way his companion stiffened when he’d called him a plank bothered Chel. ‘Who are you? Why were you hiding in this cart?’

The figure pulled back his hood and looked up at him. Chel’s insides congealed. He looked back at the pallid face of the hang-dog prince, the runt of the litter: Tarfel Merimonsun, Junior Prince of Vistirlar.

‘Five bloody, blasted hells …’

‘Why aren’t we going faster?’ shrieked the prince.

THREE

‘Your highness! I’m so— I didn’t realize. I was just trying to get out of the city and find my liege—’

‘Immaterial! I’m commandeering you.’

‘But—’

‘Listen, peasant: whoever you’re sworn to, whoever they’re sworn to, totter high enough up the stack and they’re all sworn to the crown. And who wears that?’

‘Uh, your father?’

‘Well, yes, but he’s ill, isn’t he? So while he recovers, the master of the Star Court is …?’

‘Your brother, highness?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But he’s not the one commandeering me.’

‘Well, no, you gormless pleb, but that’s why you’re going to take me to him.’

‘But your brother is in Omundi and that’s days away – I’d be an oathbreaker! I have to be released, it doesn’t work if I just walk away.’

‘In my father’s name, are all you provincials so thick-skulled? Your pestilent oath won’t matter a gnat’s fart once we reach my brother. The crown can supplant or dissolve inferior pledges, you homespun halfwit. You’ll be released the moment my brother decrees it.’

Chel’s hands went very still on the thin reins. The mule plodded on, making progress into the rough countryside. In Chel’s mind, a second road was unfurling, one that led into a suddenly unconstrained future. For a moment he forgot his fear. ‘Released from my oath?’

‘In a heartbeat.’

‘And what about a pardon for any unwitting offences against the Church?’

‘Of course! My brother is on excellent terms with Primarch Vassad. Just get me to safety. And fast! This whole coast is unsafe. One of my brothers was murdered on the road by brigands, you know.’

Chel’s mind was galloping ahead. The prince slapped at his arm.

‘Do you dare defy a prince of the kingdom in a time of war? I’ll have you e—’

‘I’ll take you, highness. I’ll get you to safety, I swear it.’

‘Well, about bloody time. There you go, you have a new oath already.’

Chel saw no sign of any of Sokol’s band on the road. Images floated in his mind: silken birds pouring fire onto the water beneath, the screaming fireballs ripping across the bay and into the fort, the giant black ship, sitting implacable between frothing plumes. Already the memories were becoming unreal, too much to absorb, greasy moments slipping away into his subconscious.

He still felt a burn of shame at the thought of abandoning his sworn duty, despite the young prince’s commands. He told himself that Sokol would no doubt be on the road east already, and that they’d likely catch him up, whereupon Prince Tarfel could explain the situation. Perhaps they’d all make the journey together, Sokol prideful of his new charge right up to the moment where Crown Prince Mendel dissolved Chel’s oath before his eyes.

Chel and the prince went east, toward Omundi and the army.

***

The port was burning, great gouts of flame pouring from the sky like incandescent pillars. Whole buildings were reduced to rubble, the palace on the bluffs a blackened cadaver, the Academy opposite a scorching glare too bright to regard.

The city walls crumbled to ash as the entire sea lit with alchemical fire, washing like a wave over the port. He watched it rise before him, screaming silently, anchored to the spot in the ruin of the sea-fort. Heali’s voice called to him, exhorting him to flee, but he remained rooted as the curtain of flame rose higher until it consumed the sky. There, at its centre, just before it fell upon him, he saw a tiny figure, dark against the blaze. It wore a snarling mask.

His head knocked against the crate behind him and with a gulp of air Chel woke. The reins were still in his hands, soaked through. Mortified, he tried to wipe away the worst of his slick sheen, while the mule plodded faithfully on. He felt in no hurry to sleep again.

It was a three-day trip to Omundi, rattling along the pitted dirt roads in the mule cart. The makeshift convoy moved as fast as it could, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the invading Norts as conditions allowed, the bulk of their contingent likewise seeking the safety of the League’s armies.

They camped only briefly and stopped at few roadside shrines. Prince Tarfel made for a dreadful travelling companion: he insisted on hiding among the kitchen supplies in the back of the cart, where he alternated between gibbering panic, which was tiresome, and ostentatious boredom, which was worse. He was prone to bursting into song when under-occupied; his reedy tenor could at least carry a tune, but his limited repertoire ground down Chel’s resolve as the journey wore on, to the extent that he considered teaching the prince some of the more rustic ditties favoured by Sokol’s regulars. When not singing, the prince demanded explanations for everything they passed on the road, from the meaning of the plague quarantine markers to the frequency of the smoking char pits. The only sight to hush him was a rack of gibbets strung at a crossroads, the bodies dangling beneath shorn of noses and ears, the signs around their shredded necks clearly reading ‘Rau Rel’. Otherwise, Chel kept his answers short. When a kingdom has been fighting the same war on itself for twenty years, there’s little new to say, he thought to himself.

Chel tried to focus on the immediate future. He would ditch the prince with his brother, hop back on the cart and roll on south, cut east at the Lakes and be home ahead of the news of Denirnas Port’s destruction. Away from the madness, away from murderous confessors and their lingering venom. By the time he arrived, he could shape the story of the Nort invasion to his choosing, his interactions with the prince, how he came to be reprieved from Sokol’s pointless service, assuming Sokol had even survived. Enough remained of the cart’s contents to barter his way all the way back to Barva. He was going far away from all this. He was going home. All he had to worry about was what to say when he arrived. What to say to his sisters, what to say to his step-father. What to say to his mother. Chel bit his lip in contemplation. At least he’d have plenty of time to think.

‘Look, the pennants, the pennants!’

Tarfel had roused himself and was pointing down into the river valley. Ahead of them, down the curve of the dusty road as it wound its way into the river valley, the bright walls of Omundi shone in the evening sun.

Spread like a dark blanket pocked with campfires before the walls, the armies of the Glorious League lay camped, the Church-blessed alliance of great Names and small, the crown-led instrument of divine unification. Siege engines stood idle in their earthworks, just out of bowshot, and Chel noted with distaste the rocky dam that had diverted the river’s flow away from the city and down deep-cut channels in the earth. Little seemed to be happening.

Highest of all the pennants that fluttered at the centre of the camp was the white lion of Merimonsun, and Tarfel squealed with glee at its sight. ‘Go there, go there!’ Chel geed the mule down the slope toward the camp.

***

Whether or not the pickets at the camp’s edge believed that the mule cart was an official royal conveyance, Tarfel’s shrieking, princely entitlement and signet-waving had them escorted to the camp’s centre in short order by nervous men-at-arms. An equally sceptical vizier bade them wait, still guarded, at the edge of a wide earth circle, ringed by the exotic tents of the great and good of the royal forces. Lions, pictorially speaking, were everywhere.

Overhead, a host of messenger-birds, doves and pigeons, seemed in constant circulation, teeming from the cotes stacked beside the grandest pavilion, coming and going in a ceaseless flutter of feathers. Panting foot messengers with grime-streaked faces came pelting past at regular intervals. All activity seemed centred on the pavilion, the hub for messages from hand and wing, a commotion of traffic in each direction at its entrance. Chel guessed that the news from Denirnas must have reached them by now. Beside the pavilion’s flap, watching every item in and out, stood a tall, hooded figure, robed in white and vermilion and dusted with travel-muck.

Chel’s heart thudded once and stopped, his pulse replaced with a sudden flooding lightness that spread over his skin. How had Vashenda got here ahead of them? His mouth was dry, tongue thick. Then his brain registered the difference of stance, of height, the curved sword belted beneath the robes, and he felt his heartbeat restart. It was not Vashenda. Another senior prelate, but not one who’d ordered him adjusted.

‘Bear?’ He was jolted out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bear, is that you?’

‘Five bastard hells, it can’t be,’ he whispered.

***

Chel and the prince turned to find a young woman standing behind them, excitement and trepidation surging over her face. Her straight hair was bound and shrouded in the fashion of the Star Court, and she gazed at them with eyes as grey as Chel’s own.

Her face split in a wide grin and she threw her arms around him. ‘I knew it was you!’

‘Sab?’ Chel reeled, carried backward by her momentum. ‘How are you here? What are the chances? You look …’

She released him from her crushing grip. ‘Taller? More dynamic? Matured like fine spiced wine?’

‘Different.’

‘It’s been three years, Bear, near as matters. I wasn’t going to stay small and grotty. You look the same, if dirtier. But what are you doing here?’

‘I should ask likewise. Why aren’t you at home?’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Why’d you think, Bear-of-Mine?’

Tarfel cleared his throat with a frown, and the girl grinned again. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’

Chel sighed. ‘May I present Sabina Chel of Barva, my little sister.’

Tarfel inclined his head, looking Sabina up and down. ‘Not so little any more, eh?’

Frowning, Chel continued. ‘Sab, this is His Royal Highness Tarfel Merimonsun, prince of the realm, youngest son of King Lubel.’

She’d already begun a bow of her own and she staggered at his words. ‘You’re friends with a fucking prince?’ she hissed, head bent.

‘Well, not friends exactly,’ he said, experiencing several different flavours of mortification.

‘Your brother was good enough to escort me here from Denirnas,’ Tarfel said haughtily. ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ He extended a grubby hand for her to kiss. To Chel, he murmured, ‘Bear? You’re not very bear-like, Chel.’

‘It’s, ah, a family thing.’

The sneering vizier reappeared, informing them that negotiations with the city had paused, if not concluded, and Prince Mendel had a moment for an audience with his brother. Tarfel swanned off after the man and into the grand pavilion. The robed prelate lingered outside, her hooded gaze swinging back across the Chel siblings, black eyes glittering within. Chel felt an unpleasant tingling as it swept over him, then the figure ducked beneath the flaps and was gone.

‘Who is that? That prelate?’

Sab sniffed. ‘Ah, Balise da Loran: “Lo Vassad’s clenched fist”. She’s the Star’s chief minister and a double-bastard.’

‘Chief minister? She’s a Church prelate!’

‘She’s also first sworn to Prince Thick, you know, after he had to start afresh. Many feathers in that cap.’

‘Prince Thick?’

She gestured toward the pavilion. ‘Mendel, the crown prince. Your new chum’s big bro. The man’s a haircut in boots. Pretty, though, even with the scars.’

He shook his head, baffled. ‘So who’s left at home, if you’re here? Has everyone been sent away?’

‘The twins are still there, Bear. They’re too young to go anywhere yet.’ She offered a sad smile. ‘They’ll look after Mum.’

‘But why are you here? I mean, here, at Omundi?’

‘You know, bit of this, bit of that. Making friends, keeping my eyes open.’

‘Sab.’

‘I’m travelling with the court. Can’t you tell?’ She twirled in her formal garb.

‘As what?’

‘As a lady-in-waiting, seconded to the entourage of our crown prince’s intended. The Lady Latifah has about three dozen of us, so I just slot into the mass. Five hells, is that girl stupid: people call her Latifah the Dim, sometimes to her face, poor lamb. That was Prince Dunce’s pick from the nobility’s nubility. Shepherd’s tits, imagine their children! They’ll need breathing lessons!’

‘How long in service? And when did you start cursing like a sergeant?’

‘Are you interrogating me, Bear? Since the spring. Amiran thought it was time I made my way.’

‘Of course he bloody did. You’re far too young to be fending for yourself at court!’

‘I’m not a duckling, Bear. I’m the same age you were when you set off on your travels. Speaking of which, where’s Uncle Hanush? Is he with you?’

‘Don’t call him that. And no, he’s not.’ His cheeks coloured at the thought of Lord Sokol, and his clothes felt suddenly hot.

Sab narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s going on? How did you come to be escorting the little prince? Your last letter said you were spending the year burning farmers up north.’

‘We did. Not burning farmers – well, some of them might have been. We were suppressing insurrections in the northeast all summer. Then Sokol decided we’d be wintering with Grand Duke Reysel at the winter palace in Denirnas, where they don’t so much have winter as a cool spell between summers. Mostly we just seemed to chase people away from places.’