chapter THIRTY
NOTHING GOES
Eight people in one badly-sprung coach that smelled of sweat and eau de cologne: a lawyer from St Omar with his daughter; two governesses from Arlas, who knitted through the entire journey even though their fingers got pricked at every bump in the road; and a priest who tried to convince them that the Goyl were direct descendants of the Devil. Jacob wished himself in the black forest, or back at the Blood Wedding, or even on board the sinking Titania . . . and they’d only been travelling for three days.
The coins his handkerchief produced were becoming ever more pathetic, but the coachman had accepted his with wide eyes. Compared to the copper coins he usually received, gold was still worth a fortune, even if it was paper-thin. The coin had spurred him so much that the other travellers soon began to complain about the lack of rest stops. Five days in, one of the wheels broke in a mountain gorge. It took them hours to unharness the horses and lead them along the icy road towards the next coach station. Jacob couldn’t decide which was worse, his throbbing side or the voice in his head: You should have taken a horse. The Bastard must be in Vena already. You’re dead, Jacob . . .
The stationmaster refused to send his men into the night to repair the wheel. He told them about wood sprites and kobolds that supposedly roamed the gorge. He charged them a fortune for his cold rooms, and he only sent his cook back into the kitchen after Troisclerq dropped a pouch full of silver on his polished counter. Troisclerq paid for them all. He arranged for the fire in the dining room to be stoked, and he put his coat around Fox’s shoulders when he saw her shivering as she brushed the snow from her hair. Jacob did not miss the grateful look she gave him in return. She was wearing a dress she’d bought in Gargantua while they’d waited for the coach, and Jacob caught himself wondering whether she’d put it on especially for his rescuer.
Not that Troisclerq wasn’t also taking care of Jacob. As soon as he noticed Jacob holding his hand to the bite in his side, he offered him two black pastilles. Witch-caramel. Not something people generally carried on them. It was made by the child-eaters, and one had better not ask about the ingredients. How did someone with such fine clothes and manners get hold of Witch-caramel? Maybe the same way he learnt how to drive off a pack of wolves, Jacob. And anyway, Lotharaine was swarming with Dark Witches ever since Crookback had granted them asylum in return for straightening his spine.
The pastilles were even better than moor-root, and Witch-caramel had no side effects. Jacob had to admit he was beginning to like his rescuer. Troisclerq hadn’t said a word about saving Jacob in the woods, not to Fox or to the other travellers. He might have given Fox a few too many looks, but even that Jacob could forgive. After all, he couldn’t ask the man to pretend to be blind.
It was best not to drink wine with Witch-caramel, but not even the child-eater pastilles could soothe his injured pride, and Jacob could still see the Goyl sneering down at him. Fox shot him a worried look as he ordered his second carafe. He answered her with a smile that he hoped didn’t give away too much of the humiliating self-pity he was wallowing in. Self-pity, injured pride, and fear of death. A nasty mix, and they still had several days of travelling in that stuffy coach ahead of them. He filled his glass to the brim.
The pain shot into his chest so suddenly that he thought he could feel his heart explode behind his ribs. Nothing would have soothed that pain. Jacob clawed at the table around which they were all sitting, and he suppressed the groan that so badly wanted to escape from his lips.
Fox looked at him. She pushed back her chair.
The pain blurred her face as much as the others’, and he could feel his whole body begin to shake.
‘Jacob!’ Fox took his hand. She talked at him, but he couldn’t hear her. There was only the pain as it seared another letter of the Fairy’s name from his memory. Jacob felt Troisclerq’s arms reaching under his, then Troisclerq and the coachman carrying him up the stairs, where they put him on a bed and examined the wound the wolf had torn into his side. He wanted to tell them they were wasting their time, but the moth was still feeding, and then he was gone.
When he came to, the pain was gone, but his body still remembered. The room was dark. Only a gas lamp burning on the table. Fox was standing next to it; she was looking at something in her hand. The lamp’s light made her skin as white as milk.
She spun around as he sat up, and hid her hand behind her back.
‘What do you have there?’
She didn’t answer. ‘The moth on your chest has three spots,’ she said. ‘When was the other time?’
‘In Saint-Riquet.’ Jacob had never seen her face look so pale. He sat up. ‘What is that in your hand?’
She flinched.
‘What’s that in your hand, Fox?’ His knees were still weak from the pain, but Jacob grabbed her arm and pulled the hand out from behind her back.
She opened her fingers.
A glass ring.
Jacob had seen a similar one in the Empress’s Chambers of Miracles.
‘You didn’t put that on my finger, did you? Fox!’ He grabbed her shoulders. ‘Tell me the truth. This ring was not on my finger. Please!’
Tears ran down her face. But then she shook her head. Jacob took the ring before she could close her hand. She reached for it, but Jacob put it in his pocket. Then he pulled her close. She sobbed like a child, and he held her as firmly as he could.
‘Promise me!’ he whispered. ‘Promise me you’ll never try something like that again. Promise!’
‘No!’ she replied.
‘What? Do you think I want you dead instead of me?’
‘I just wanted to give you time.’
‘These rings are dangerous. Every second you put it on my finger will lose you a year. And sometimes they can’t be pulled off before they have taken your entire life.’
She struggled free and wiped the tears off her face.
‘I want you to live.’ She whispered the words, as though she feared death might hear them and take them as a challenge.
‘Good. Then let’s find the heart before the Goyl does. I’m sure I can ride. Who knows when they’ll get that coach repaired?’
‘There are no horses.’ Fox went to the window. ‘The landlord sold his only riding horses the day before yesterday, to four men. He boasted to Troisclerq that one of them was Louis of Lotharaine. He had a Goyl with him, with a green-speckled skin. They only stopped briefly and rode on that same afternoon.’
The day before yesterday. It’s even more hopeless than you thought.
Fox pushed open the window, as if letting out the fear. The air that came rushing in was as cold and damp as snow. There was laughter from downstairs, and Jacob recognised the loud voice of the lawyer who’d sat next to him in the coach.
Louis of Lotharaine. The Bastard was hunting the crossbow for Crookback.
Fox turned around. ‘Troisclerq heard me ask about horses because we had to push on urgently. He bribed the landlord to send his workmen to the coach. I told him we’ll pay him back, but he won’t hear of it.’
They would pay him back. Jacob pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. He was already too deep in Troisclerq’s debt.
‘I tried that,’ said Fox.
She was right. No matter how hard Jacob rubbed the fabric, the only thing the tattered handkerchief produced was the card on which were still the same words. FORGET THE HAND, JACOB. It had been good advice.
‘We could ask Chanute to send some money,’ Fox suggested. ‘You still have some in the bank in Schwanstein, right?’
Yes, he did. But it wasn’t much. Jacob took her hand.
‘You’ll get the ring back once all this is over,’ he said. ‘But you have to promise me you’ll never use it.’