King of Thorns

“She broke.” He shrugged.

I turned away without comment. There’s something about Rike makes me want to go on the attack. Something elemental, red in tooth and claw. Or perhaps it’s just because he’s so damn big. “So, Kent,” I said. “Tell me the good news.”

“There’s too many of them.” He spat into the mud. “I’m leaving.”

“Well now.” I threw an arm around him. Kent don’t look much but he’s solid, all muscle and bone, quick as you like too. What makes him though, what sets him apart, is a killer’s mind. Chaos, threat, bloody murder, none of that fazes him. Every moment of a crisis he’ll be considering the angles, tracking weapons, looking for the opening, taking it.

“Well now.” I pulled him close, hand clapped to the back of his neck. He flinched, but to his credit he didn’t reach for a blade. “That’s all well and good.” I steered him away from the patrol. “But suppose that wasn’t going to happen. Just for the sake of argument. Suppose it was only you here and twenty of them out there. That’s not so far from the odds you’d beaten when we found you on that lakeside down in Rutton, neh?” For a moment he smiled at that. “How would you win then, Red Kent?” I called him Red to remind him of that day when he stood all atremble with his wolf’s grin white in the scarlet of other men’s blood.

He bit his lip, staring past me into some other place. “They’re crowded in, Jorg. In those valleys. Crowded. One man against many, he’s got to be fast, attacking, moving. Each man is your shield from the next.” He shook his head, seeing me again. “But you can’t use an army like one man.”

Red Kent had a point. Coddin had trained the army well, the units of Father’s Forest Watch especially so, but in battle cohesion always slips away. Orders are lost, missed, go unheard or ignored, and sooner or later it’s a bloody maul, each man for himself, and the numbers start to tell.

“Highness?” It was the woman from the royal wardrobe, some kind of robe in her hands.

“Mabel!” I threw my arms wide and gave her my dangerous smile.

“Maud, sire.”

I had to admit the old biddy had some stones. “Maud it is,” I said. “And I’m to be wed in this, am I?”

“If it pleases you, sire.” She even curtseyed a bit.

I took it from her. Heavy. “Cats?” I asked. “Looks like it took a lot of them.”

“Sable.” She pursed her lips. “Sable and gold thread. Count—” She bit the words off.

“Count Renar married in it, did he?” I asked. “Well, if it was good enough for that bastard it’ll do for me. At least it looks warm.” My uncle Renar owed me for the thorns, for a lost mother, a lost brother. I’d taken his life, his castle, and his crown, and still he owed me. A fur robe would not close our account.

“Best be quick about it, Highness,” Coddin said, eyes still roaming for assassins. “We’ve got to double-check the defences. Plan out supply for the Kennish archers, and also consider terms.” To his credit he looked straight at me for that last bit.

I gave Maud back the robe and let her dress me with the patrol watching on. I made no reply to Coddin. He looked pale. I had always liked him, from the moment he tried to arrest me, even past the moment he dared to mention surrender. Brave, sensible, capable, honest. The better man. “Let’s get this done,” I said and started toward the chapel.

“Is it needed, this marriage?” Coddin again, doggedly playing the role I set him. Speak to me, I had said. Never think I cannot be wrong. “As your wife, things may go hard for her.” Rike sniggered at that. “As a guest she would be ransomed back to the Horse Coast.”

Sensible, honest. I don’t even know how to pretend those things. “It is needed.”

We came to the chapel by a winding stair, past table-knights in plate armour, Count Renar’s marks still visible beneath mine on the breastplates as if I’d ruled here four months rather than four years. The noble-born too poor or stupid or loyal to have run yet would be lined up within. In the courtyard outside the peasantry waited. I could smell them.

I paused before the doors, lifting a finger to stop the knight with his hands upon the bar. “Terms?”

I saw the child again, beneath crossed standards hanging on the wall. He’d grown with me. Years back he had been a baby, watching me with dead eyes. He looked about four now. I tapped my fingers against my forehead in a rapid tempo.

“Terms?” I said it again. I’d only said it twice but already the word sounded strange, losing meaning as they do when repeated over and again. I thought of the copper box in my room. It made me sweat. “There will be no terms.”

“Best have Father Gomst say his words swiftly then,” Coddin said. “And look to our defences.”