Prince of Thorns

They followed me in. The entrance hall gave onto a homely dining room where the table was set with cold goose, bread, and autumn apples. I took an apple.

“My thanks, Prince Jorg.” Coddin gave another of his stiff bows. “Saved from escort duty in Crath City, I can enjoy my winter running around the woods in Gelleth now.” The faintest hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m coming with you. In disguise. It’s a closely guarded secret that you’re to ensure leaks out,” I said.

“And where will we be really?” Makin asked.

“The Gorge of Leucrota,” I told him. “Talking to monsters.”





25




We returned to the Tall Castle through the Old Town Gate, with the noonday sun hot across our necks. I carried the family sword across my saddle and none sought to bar our way.

We left the horses in the West Yard.

“See he’s well shod. We have a road ahead of us.” I slapped Gerrod’s ribs and let the stable lad lead him away.

“We’ve company.” Makin laid a hand upon my shoulder. “Have a care.” He nodded across the yard. Sageous was descending the stair from the main keep, a small figure in white robes.

“I’m sure our little pagan can learn to love Prince Jorgy just like all the rest,” I said. “He’s a handy man to have in your pocket.”

Makin frowned. “Better to put a scorpion in your pocket. I’ve been asking around. That glass tree you felled the other day. It wasn’t a trinket. He grew it.”

“He’ll forgive me.”

“He grew it from the stone, Jorg. From a green bead. It took two years. He watered it with blood.”

Behind us Rike sniggered, a childish sound, unsettling from such a giant.

“His blood,” Makin finished.

Another of the brothers snorted laughter at that. They’d all heard the story of Sir Galen and the glass tree.

Sageous stopped a yard in front of me and cast his gaze across the brothers, some still handing over their steeds, others pressed close at my side. His eyes flicked up to take in Rike’s height.

“Why did you run, Jorg?” he asked.

“Prince. You’ll call him Prince, you pagan dog.” Makin stepped forward, half-drawing. Sageous took him in with a mild look and Makin’s hand fell limp at his side, the argument gone from him.

“Why did you run?”

“I don’t run,” I said.

“Four years ago you ran from your father’s house.” He kept his voice gentle, and the brothers watched him as though charmed by a spinning penny.

“I left for a reason,” I said. His line of attack unsettled me.

“What reason?”

“To kill someone.”

“Did you kill him?” Sageous asked.

“I killed a lot of people.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.” The Count of Renar still lived and breathed.

“Why?”

Why hadn’t I?

“Did you harm him? Did you hurt his interests?”

I hadn’t. In fact if you looked at it, if you traced the random path of four years on the road, you might say I had furthered Renar’s interests. The brothers and I had nipped at Baron Kennick’s heels and kept him from his ambitions. In Mabberton we had torn the heart from what might have been rebellion . . .

“I killed his son. I stuck a knife in Marclos, Renar’s flesh and heir.”

Sageous allowed himself a small smile. “As you came closer to home, you came under my protection, Jorg. The hand that steered you fell away.”

Was it true? I couldn’t see the lie in him. My eyes followed the scriptures written across his face, the complex scrolls of an alien tongue. An open book, but I couldn’t read him.

“I can help you, Jorg. I can give you back your self. I can give you your will.”

He held out his hand, palm open.

“Free will has to be taken,” I said. When in doubt reach for the wisdom of others. Nietzsche in this case. Some arguments require a knife if you’re to cut to the quick, others require the breaking of heads with a philosopher’s stone.

I reached out and took his hand in mine, from below, his knuckles to my palm.

“My choices have been my own, pagan,” I said. “If someone sought to steer me, I would know it.”

“Would you?”

“And if I knew it . . . Oh, if I knew it, I would teach such a lesson in pain that the Red Men of the East themselves would come to learn new tricks.” Even as they left me the words rang hollow. Childish.

“It is not I who has led you, Jorg,” Sageous said.

“Who then?” I squeezed his hand until I heard the bones creak.

He shrugged. “Ask for your will and I shall give it to you.”

“If there were a glamour on me, I would find the one that placed it and I would kill them.” I felt an echo of the old pain that plagued me on the road, a pang from temple to temple, behind the eyes like a sliver of glass. “But there is none, and my will is my own,” I said.

He shrugged again, and turned away. Looking down I saw that I held my left hand in my right, and blood ran between my fingers.





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