Prince of Thorns

For a moment I saw Lundist, lying as I’d left him.

We’d climbed from the very bowels of the castle vaults, to the least ostentatious of all the castle’s exits. Dung men came this way a dozen times a day, carrying off the treasures of the privy. And I’ll tell you, royal shit stinks no less than any other.

The brother ahead of me turned at the archway, and showed me his teeth by way of a grin. “Fresh air! Take a breath o’ that, Castle Boy.”

I’d heard the Nuban call this one Row, a wire of a man, gristle and bone, old scars and a mean eye. “I’ll lick a leper’s neck before I take a lung-full o’ your stench, Brother Row.” I pushed past him. It’d take more than talking like a road-brother to earn a place with these men, and giving an inch wasn’t the way to start.

Ancrath stretched out on our right. To the left, the smoke and spires of Crath City rose behind the Old Wall. A storm light covered it all. The kind that falls when thunderclouds gather in the day. A flat light that makes a stranger of even the most familiar landscape. It felt appropriate.

“We travel fast and we travel hard,” Price said.

Price and Rike, the only true brothers among us, stood shoulder to shoulder at the head of the column, Rike beetling his brow while Price told us how it would be. “We put as many miles between us and this shit-hole as it takes. The storm will hide our tracks. We’ll find horses as we go, roust a village or two if need be.”

“You think the King’s hunters can’t track two dozen men through a bit of rain?” I wished my voice didn’t ring so pure and high as I said it.

They all turned round at that. The Nuban flashed me a look, eyes wide, and patted down at the air as if to shut me up.

I pointed to the sprawl of roofs edging toward the river where Father’s loving citizens had built beyond the safety of the city walls in their passion to be near him.

“By ones and twos a brother could find his way to a warm hearth, bit of roast beef, and an ale maybe,” I said. “I hear there’s a tavern or three to be found down there. A brother could be toasting by a fire before the rain even got to washing his trail away.

“The King’s men would be riding back and forth on those fine horses of theirs, getting wet, looking for the kind of rut that twenty men put in a road or across a field, looking for the kind of trouble a band of brothers stirs up. And we’d be sitting comfortable in the shadow of the Tall Castle, waiting for the weather to clear.

“You think there’s a man we left behind who could tell the Criers what we look like? You think the good folk of Crath City will notice a score added to their thousands?”

I could see I’d won them. I could see the light of that warm hearth reflecting in their eyes.

“And how the feck are we to pay for roast beef and a roof to hide under?” Price shoved through the brothers, setting the redhead, Gemt, on his rear. “Start robbing in the shadow of the Tall Castle?”

“Yeah, how we a-gonna pay, Castle Boy?” Gemt scrambled to his feet, finding me a better target than Price for his anger. “How we gonna?”

I brought up two ducats from my purse, and rubbed them together.

“I’ll take that!” A sharp-faced man to my left lunged for the purse, still fat with coin.

I flipped the dagger from my belt and stuck it through his outstretched hand.

“Liar,” I said. I shoved a little more, until the hilt slapped up against his palm, the blade glistening red behind.

“Out the way, Liar.” Price grabbed him by the neck and tossed him down the slope.

Price loomed over me. Any full-grown man loomed over me, but Price added a new dimension to it. He took a handful of my jerkin and hauled me up, eye to eye, careless of the bloody knife I still had hold of.

“You’re not scared of me, are you, boy?” The stink of him was something awful. Dead dog comes close.

I thought about stabbing him, but I knew there wasn’t a wound that would stop him breaking me in two before he died.

“Are you scared of me?” I asked him.

We had us a moment of understanding then. Price didn’t so much as twitch, but I saw it in him, and he saw it in me. He let me fall.

“We’ll stay a day in the city,” Price said. “The drinks are on Brother Jorg. Any of you whoresons start trouble before we leave, and I’ll hurt you, bad.”

He held a hand out to me where I lay. I half-reached for it, before understanding. I tossed the purse to him.

“I’ll go with the Nuban,” I said.

Price nodded. A black face lost from the dungeons would be remembered. A black face found in a Crath tavern would be remarked on.

The Nuban shrugged, and set off, east toward the open fields. I followed.

It wasn’t until we’d lost ourselves in the maze of tracks and hedgerows that the Nuban spoke again.

“You should be afraid of Price, boy.”