Prince of Thorns

“Katherine?” Makin asked. I jerked my head up to find him watching me, with an eyebrow raised in that irritating way of his.

I looked away. To our left a long sprawl of hook-briar writhed around the boles of three elms. I’d learned a hard lesson among the hook-briar one stormy night. It wasn’t just the beauty of the land that had its hooks in me.

Kill her.

I turned round in the saddle, but Makin had fallen back to joke with the Nuban.

Kill her, and you’ll be free forever.

It seemed that the voice came from the darkness beneath the briar’s coils. It spoke under the crunching of hooves in the dry leaf-fall.

Kill her. An ancient voice, desiccated, untouched by mercy. For a moment I saw Katherine, blood welling over her white teeth, her eyes round with surprise. I could feel the knife in my hand, hilt against her stomach, hot blood running over my fingers.

Poison would be quieter. A distant touch.

That last voice—it could have been mine, or the briar, they started to sound the same.

Strength requires sacrifice. All weakness carries its cost. Now that was me. We’d left the briar behind and the day had grown cold.

The Forest Watch found us quick enough, I’d have been worried if they hadn’t. A six-man patrol, all in blacks and greens, came out of the trees and bade us state our business on the King’s road.

I didn’t let Coddin introduce me. “I’ve come to see the Watch Master,” I said.

The watchmen exchanged glances. I’m sure we seemed a ragged bunch, only Makin with any courtly touch about him, having polished up to see Father Dear. I had my old road plate on, and Elban and the Nuban, well, their looks would earn them a bandit’s noose without the tedium of a trial.

Coddin spoke up then. “This is Jorg, Prince of Ancrath, heir to the throne.”

His words, hard to swallow as they might be, had the weight of a uniform behind them. The watchmen looked dumbfounded.

“He’s come to see the Watch Master,” Coddin said, by way of a prompt.

That got them moving and they led us into the deep forest along a series of deer-paths. We followed in single file, riding until I got tired of being slapped in the face by every other branch, and dismounted. The watchmen kept up a stiff pace, showing little regard for royalty or heavy armour.

“Who is the Watch Master anyhow?” I asked, short of breath and clanking along loud enough to keep the bears from hibernation.

One of the watchmen glanced back, an old fellow, gnarled as the trees. “Lord Vincent de Gren.” He spat into the bushes to show his regard for the man.

“Your father appointed him this spring,” Captain Coddin said from behind me. “I gather it was a punishment of some sort.”

The Forest Watch made its headquarters by Rulow’s Fall on the plain where the River Temus meandered before gathering its courage for the leap down a two-hundred-foot step in the bedrock. A dozen large cabins, wood-shingled and log-built, nestled among the trees. An abandoned mill house served as the Watch Master’s keep, fashioned from granite blocks and perched at the head of the fall.

A few dozen watchmen came out to watch our column wind up to the keep. Not much entertainment in these parts I guessed.

The old watchman went in to announce us while we tied our steeds. He didn’t hurry out, so we waited. A cold wind blew up, stirring the fallen leaves. The watchmen stood with us, black-green cloaks flapping. Most of the watch held shortbows. A longbow will get tangled in the trees and you’ll never need great range in the forest. No Robin of Hood here, the watchmen weren’t merry, and they were apt to kill you if you stepped out of line.

“Prince Jorg.” The keep door opened and a man clad in ermine stepped out, his fingers hooked in a belt of gold plates.

“Lord Vincent de Gren, I’m guessing.” I gave him my most insincere smile.

“So you’re here to tell us we’re all going to die over some stupid promise a boy made to impress his father!” he said, loud enough for the whole clearing to hear.

I had to hand it to Lord Vincent, he certainly cut straight to the chase. And I like that in a man, I really do, but I didn’t like the way he said it. He had a screwed-up sort of face did Lord Vincent, as if the world tasted sour in his mouth, which was odd, because he had the sort of butterball shape that takes some serious eating to acquire and a few dozen extra stoats to cover in ermine. I took him to be about thirty, but it’s hard to tell with fat people: they’ve no skin spare for wrinkles.