Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

‘Some waifs and strays? Farmgirls skilled in the delivery of cows and sheep?’


Women aren’t expected to be reasonable when getting ready to squeeze out a child. I still had my own doubts about the whole process. It seemed as though it would be a tight fit and I was glad I didn’t have to do it. ‘Peasants have babies too, Miana. Lots of them. But no, not a farmgirl. We’re going to be travelling through Teutonia. They’re at least half-civilized, so I’m told. We’ll stop by one of the local lords and prevail on him to volunteer some women of suitable quality and experience.’

I peered through the window grille, eager to be back out there. I’d spent a whole minute in the carriage and had had enough of it. Swapping the carriage bench and all its fine cushions for Brath’s saddle seemed a fair exchange given that I also got to swap Gomst and Osser for a view, and their sniffing and snotting for a fresh breeze. Outside, the Gelleth lowlands slid past, green and pleasant, fields in the main with occasional strips of woodland splashed in autumn colours. No sign here of the havoc I’d wrecked in the north at Castle Red.

Our route took us across Gelleth under empire pax and would lead on through Attar to bridge the Rhyme at the city of Honth. From there Captain Harran planned to guide us along the River Danoob through half a dozen Teuton kingdoms until we reached Vyene. A trip estimated at a touch over three weeks. We could make better time and easier travelling on a barge once we reached the Danoob, but with over three hundred horses and their riders aboard most barges have a tendency to sink, and without them aboard, any barge carrying me through Teutonia would be guaranteed to sink. My father held a lot of alliances with the Teuton kingdoms, Scorron in particular, and Teutonia had never liked the idea of the coast kingdoms uniting to the west of them.

‘Jorg?’ Miana at my side.

‘Sorry?’

She sighed and folded tiny hands across her belly.

‘Yes.’ I guessed an answer. It seemed to satisfy her. She nodded and turned to speak to Marten.

It wouldn’t be long before he wanted out of there too. A few days for his bruises to fade, maybe a while longer, for he wasn’t young, and he would want to be riding. Something niggled at me, guilt perhaps, for being so ready to abandon Miana. It seemed probable that I should want to spend time with her, but I just didn’t. I liked her well enough, but not well enough to spend three weeks in a carriage with. I wondered if any man would want to spend three weeks sat next to his wife. Would I feel any different if I’d chosen her? If she had chosen me? If it were Katherine beside me?

‘And what are you thinking about, Jorg?’ she asked. She fixed me with dark eyes. Not black but hinting green, leaves in moonlight. I’d never taken note of their colour before. Strange what strikes you and when.

‘I’m thinking I should take my muddy boots out of this fine carriage and check to see that Harran isn’t leading us astray.’

She didn’t say so but I could see her disappointment at the corners of her mouth. I stepped out feeling less than a king. Life can be complicated enough even when nobody is trying to kill you.

I rode alongside the carriage for a while in a black mood. A fine rain fell, unseasonably warm and light enough for the wind to blow into my face whatever angle I held my head. Makin rode up with his usual grin, spitting out the rain and wiping it from his cheeks.

‘Lovely weather.’

‘People who talk about the weather would be better served by admitting they’ve nothing to say but like the sound of their own voice.’

Makin’s grin broadened. ‘And don’t the trees look beautiful this time of year?’ I suspected he’d taken a pinch of clove-spice, the stink of it seemed to be on him a lot these days.

‘Do you know why the leaves change colour, Makin?’ They did look spectacular. The forest had grown around us as we travelled and the canopy burned with colour, from deepest red to flame orange, an autumn fire spreading in defiance of the rain.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Why do they change?’

‘Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poisons it can’t rid itself of otherwise. That red there – that’s a man’s skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.’