Prince of Thorns

You what, heathen? You want something? It’s not your place to want.

“I . . .” This was new to Sageous, I could see that: he was used to control. “You should not be left unattended, Sire. The b—”

The boy? Say it man, spit it out.

“It may not be safe.”

Wrong thing to say. I guessed the heathen had relied on his magics too long. If he’d truly learned my father’s mind, he’d know better than to suggest he needed protection from me.

“Out.”

Whatever else I might think of my dear father I always did admire his way with words.

The look Sageous gave me held more than hate. Where Katherine channelled a pure emotion the tattooed magician offered bewildering complexity. Oh, there was hate there, sure enough, but admiration too, respect maybe, and other flavours, all mixed in those mild brown eyes.

“Sire.” He bowed and started toward the doors.

We watched him in silence, watched him pace across the sparkling carpet of debris, spotted here with a discarded fan, there with a powdered wig. The doors closed behind him with a dull clang of bronze on bronze. A scar on the wall behind the throne caught my attention. I threw a hammer once, hard, and missed my target. It hit there. It seemed to be a day for old scars, old feelings.

“I want Gelleth,” Father said.

I had to admire his ability to wrong-foot me. I stood there armed with accusations, burdened with all my yesterdays, and he’d turned away from me, to the future.

“Gelleth hinges on the Castle Red,” I said. It was a test. That was just how we spoke. Every conversation a game of poker, every line a bet or a raise, a bluff or a call.

“Party tricks are well and good. You killed the Teuton. I didn’t think you had it in you. You scandalized my court—well, we both know what they are, and what they’re worth. But can you do it when it counts? Can you give me Gelleth?”

I met his stare. I didn’t inherit his blue eyes, I followed Mother in that department. There was a whole winter in those eyes of his, and nothing else. Even in Sageous’s placid gaze I could dig deeper and find a subtext, but Father’s eyes held nothing but a cold season. I think that was where the fear lay, in the lack of curiosity. I’ve seen malice many a time and hate in all its colours. I’ve seen the gleam in the torturer’s eyes, the sick-light, but even there was the comfort of interest, the slightest touch of salvation in shared humanity. He might have the hot irons, but at least he was curious, at least he cared how much it hurt.

“I can give you Gelleth,” I said.

Could I? Probably not. Of all Ancrath’s neighbours, Gelleth stood unassailable above the rest. The Lord of Gelleth probably had better claim to the Empire Throne than Father did. In the Hundred, Merl Gellethar had few equals.

I found my hand on the hilt of my dagger. I itched to draw the tempered steel, to lay it across his neck, to scream at him, to bring some heat into those cold eyes. You traded my mother’s death away, you bastard! Your own son’s blood. Sweet William dead and barely cold, and you traded them away. A pax for the rights to river trade.

“I’ll need an army,” I said. “Castle Red won’t fall easy.”

“You will have the Forest Watch.” Father spread his hands over the throne’s armrests and leaned back, watching.

“Two hundred men?” I felt my fingers tighten on the pommel of my knife. Two hundred men against the Castle Red. Ten thousand might not be enough.

“I’ll take my brothers too,” I said. I watched his eyes. No flicker in the winter, no start at “brother.” The weakness in me wanted to speak of Will. “You’ll have Gelleth. I will give you the Castle Red. I’ll give you the head of the Lord Gellethar. Then you’ll give the heathen to me.”

And you’ll call me “son.”





22




So we sat, Makin and I, at a table in The Falling Angel tavern with a jug of ale between us, and the song of a cracked-voice bard struggling to be heard against the din. Around us the brothers mixed with the lowest of the Low Town, gaming, whoring, and gorging. Rike sat close at hand, his face buried in a roast chicken. He appeared to be attempting to inhale it.

“Have you even seen the Castle Red, Jorg?” Makin asked.

“No.”

Makin looked at his ale. He hadn’t touched it. For a few moments we listened to the sound of Rike crunching chicken bones.

“Have you?” I asked.

He nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair, eyes on the lanterns above the street-door. “When I was a squire to Sir Reilly, we took a message to the Lord Gellethar. We stayed a week in the guest halls at the Castle Red before Merl Gellethar deigned to see us. His throne-room puts your father’s to shame.”

Brother Burlow staggered by, belly escaping over his sturdy belt, a haunch of meat in one hand and two flagons in the other, foaming over his knuckles.

“What about the castle?” I could care less about a pissing contest over throne-rooms.

Makin toyed with his ale, but didn’t drink. “It’s suicide, Jorg.”

“That bad?”