Prince of Thorns

The knife felt like hot iron in my fist. I hated myself for what I was going to do, and just as much for hesitating. I hated myself for the weakness in me.

For a moment I saw the Nuban, just the white line of his teeth, and the darkness of his eyes, watching me as he’d watched since the day we met.

Makin took that moment. A swift kick snatched my legs from under me. He followed down with what weight remained to him, and sandwiched my head between the flagstones and his fist. We neither of us were in great shape. One punch was all it took to send me back to wherever it was I’d escaped from in Katherine’s room.





Shakespeare had it that clothes maketh the man. The right clothes could take Brother Sim from a boy too young to shave to a man too old to be allowed to. He makes a fine girl also, though that was a dangerous business in road company and reserved for targets that just couldn’t be killed any other way. Young Sim is forgettable. When he’s gone, I forget how he looks. Sometimes I think of all my brothers it’s Sim that’s the most dangerous.





43




“Explain it to me again.” Makin leaned forward in the saddle to be heard above the rain. “Your father stabs you, but it’s to Count Renar’s castle we’re going so you can cut yourself some revenge?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not even the Count we’re after. Not him that sent your sainted mother on her way, but some old charm seller?”

“Right.”

“Who had you and the Nuban at his mercy when you first ran from home. And let you go without so much as a beating?”

“I think he put a spell on the Nuban’s crossbow,” I said.

“Well, if he did, it must have been to prevent it missing. The Nuban could stop an army with that thing. Given the right spot.”

“There wasn’t much that the Nuban missed, true enough,” I said.

“So?”

“So?”

“So, I don’t understand why we’re out here in the pissing rain on stolen nags, riding into the worst kind of danger.”

I rubbed my jaw where he’d hit me. It felt sore. The coldness of the rain did little to ease it.

“What’s the world about, Makin?”

He looked at me, eyes narrowed against the wetness of the wind.

“I never had time for those philosophers of yours, Jorg. I’m a soldier, and that’s the end of it.”

“So you’re a soldier. What’s the world about?”

“War.” He set a hand to the hilt of his sword, unconscious of the action. “The Hundred War.”

“And what’s that about, soldier?” I asked.

“A hundred noble-born fighting across as many lands for the Empire throne.”

“That’s what I always thought,” I said.

The rain came down harder, bouncing off the backs of my hands with a sting as if it carried ice. Ahead, at a place where the road forked, I could see a glow, three of them in fact, three patches of warm light.

“Tavern up ahead.” I spat water.

“So aren’t we fighting for the Empire then?” Makin kept pace, though his horse slipped in the mud torrent at the roadside.

“I killed Price here,” I said. “Outside this inn. They called it The Three Frogs back then.”

“Price?”

“Little Rikey’s big brother,” I said. “You never met him. Made Rike look like a gentleman.”

“Oh right, I remember the story. The brothers told it around the fire once or twice when Rikey was off on some private whoring.”

We reached the inn. They still called it The Three Frogs if the sign was anything to go by.

“I’ll bet they didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“Brained him with a rock, didn’t you? Now you mention it, none of them was too keen to talk about it.”

“Me and the Nuban had come down out of the highlands. We didn’t speak the whole time. I had Corion in my head, or the touch of him, like a black hole behind my eyes.

“We didn’t expect to see the brothers. We’d arranged to meet a week earlier on the other side of Ancrath. But I’d called the Nuban on his debt, and off we’d gone.

“Anyhow, there they were. A score of horses on the road, the flame just starting to lick the thatch. Burlow over by that tree, there, with a keg of ale all to his-self. Young Sim, axe on high, chasing a pig. And out comes Price, bending low to fit through the door, smoke billowing around him as if he was the devil himself, and dragging the landlord, one hand round the man’s neck, not choking him, mind: Price could get his mitts all the way round a man’s neck without so much as pinching.

“Price sees me and it’s like something explodes inside him. He knocks the landlord against the doorframe, and there’s brains everywhere. Keeps his stare nailed to me the whole time.

“‘You little bastard. I’m going to open you up.’

“He didn’t shout it, but there wasn’t one of the brothers who didn’t hear him. Me and the Nuban were thirty yards off still, and it was like he’d hissed it into my ear.

“ ‘With a big crossbow like that, I bet you could hit him between the eyes from here,’ I told the Nuban.