The Rebel Prince

DAY TEN: IRREVOCABLY

COMMITTED



IN THE end it was Wynter who made the decision, and to her surprise the others fell in with it. It was a strange feeling, laying out the maps and plotting their route while three men nodded and listened intently to her opinions. She was unaccustomed to that. She was unaccustomed to the undiluted responsibility. It was terrifying.

Three days later, deep in the heart of a stately pine forest, she lay next to a tiny fire and watched as the last light of day drained from the tops of the trees. The knowledge of how randomly she had chosen this course of action burned in the pit of her belly; it lay like lead in her chest. Everything, everything, rested on her having taken a flip of a mental coin. There had been nothing logical about it. She had simply played an internal game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo and chosen a course of action by chance.

Each time she shut her eyes, she saw Razi and Sól and Christopher as they had been when she persuaded them to do this: brown eyes, blue eyes and grey, staring gravely at her and trusting her. Jesu. And tomorrow would reveal the truth. Tomorrow morning they would finally reach the Chér Ford, there to discover . . . what?

‘You’ll stick like that.’

She startled and looked up into Christopher’s smiling face. ‘Pardon?’

‘You’re lying there with your face knotted like a handkerchief . . . it’ll stick like that if the wind changes.’ He plopped down beside her and shrugged his blankets around him. ‘I wouldn’t be able to love you anymore if that happened, you know. You’d be much too ugly.’

She laughed.

‘Stop fretting,’ he whispered gently.

‘I can’t, Christopher. I really can’t. What if I’ve made the wrong choice? What if we get there and all we find is the remains of some bandit’s meet-up or the litter of a hunter’s camp. We’ll have wasted so much time. I’ll have thrown all Albi’s chances away.’

‘Lass.’ He took her hand, rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. ‘What’s done is done. Truth is, you were the only one of us with balls enough to make a decision. Had you left us to it, we’d still be on that mountain side dithering to and fro while the Wolves snickered at us from the rocks.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘Yes, we would. You quite ruined things for poor Sól, you know. He had lovely dreams of setting up home there with Razi. He’d picked a nice little spot for a hut and everything.’

Sólmundr grimaced at him from across the flames and went back to checking Boro for ticks. ‘Razi should to be that lucky,’ he murmured.

‘I still do not understand what purpose I shall serve you,’ said Razi softly. He tapped his temple. ‘I am as blank as a clean slate.’

‘You are our access to the King, Razi,’ said Wynter. ‘After that,’ she held up Alberon’s folder, ‘these will have to speak for themselves.’

He regarded the folder with uncertainty, sighed, and rubbed his forehead. ‘If you say so,’ he said and lay back, wrapping himself in his covers. His head was aching again; Wynter could tell by the tension in his eyes and mouth. She had hoped these headaches were signal to a change in Razi’s condition, but so far they had been nothing but pain: mild, slightly nauseating, and totally free of the burden of memory.

Out in the darkness, the Loups-Garous began their low moaning, and Christopher threw his hands up in frustration and despair. ‘Good Frith,’ he said. ‘Bloody . . .’ He jumped to his feet. ‘Shut up!’ he yelled.

The Wolves chuckled and snickered. ‘Make us,’ they growled. ‘Come and make us, sly-boy.’ They drew the word ‘boy’ out until it was something low and wicked and dirty. Wynter hissed in disgust.

Christopher kicked a stone into the darkness. ‘You come here,’ he muttered. ‘You slithering caic. I’ll feed you to the dog.’

‘You calm down,’ said Sólmundr, ‘or I chain you to my ankle, and it be Boro that wriggle up beside your woman tonight.’

‘Why are they still here, anyway?’ hissed Christopher, prowling the edges of the shadows. ‘Why don’t they go back to their master? Why don’t you go back to your master? ’ he shouted.

Sólmundr looked up at him, his face serious. ‘Because you giving them too much amusement, Coinín. Look at you! They play with you like a toy.’

Christopher flung him a withering look and continued to prowl.

Razi, still lying back against his saddle, watched him pace, his dark eyes thoughtful. ‘David Le Garou,’ he said suddenly, and everyone turned to look at him. He nodded at the question in their faces. ‘I remember him. David Le Garou.’ He gazed at Christopher. ‘We owe him,’ he said darkly. ‘I remember that too.’

Christopher stood very still, as if frightened to disrupt Razi’s newly emergent thoughts. Wynter sat slowly forward. Razi, his hands folded casually on his chest, looked from one to the other of them with the same mildly curious frown on his face. ‘You are both very good friends of mine, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘We’ve known each other a terribly long time.’

Wynter nodded.

‘I owe you both,’ said Razi. ‘I owe you much.’ Then he shook his head, sighed and shut his eyes. ‘Yet I still cannot recall your names.’

‘Do you remember your brother, Razi?’

‘A small boy? Full of life? He loves his hounds . . . Oh,’ he cried, his eyes flying open in surprise. ‘I have remembered my father! He was a wonderful man! Gentle. Kind. He taught me much.’

Christopher exchanged a glance with Wynter. ‘What did he look like?’ he asked.

‘But you knew him surely, Chris?’

At Razi’s use of his name, Christopher’s face crumpled in pain. Razi seemed to mistake this for confusion, and he went on trying to describe his father. ‘He was a smallish man? With dark hair cropped close to his head? Slim, sallow face, big nose.’ Razi smiled in fond remembrance. ‘Bigger nose than head, he used to say. He was a lovely person . . . I am fair sure you knew him.’

‘Oh, aye,’ whispered Christopher. ‘I knew him for a while, but . . .’

‘But what?’ Razi raised himself onto his elbow. ‘But what, friend?’

Christopher frowned desolately at Wynter and she shook her head in dismay. ‘You are describing Victor St James, Razi – your tutor. Your father is the King. St James was certainly no king.’

‘But he was a doctor,’ whispered Razi. ‘He was a wonderful man.’

Wynter nodded sadly. ‘But he was not your father,’ she said.

Razi lay back against his saddle again, lost in confusion.

Out in the darkness, the Wolves once more began to laugh. Christopher flung a stone in impotent rage. ‘Go home!’ he yelled. ‘Go home! You poxy whoreson curs!’

Sólmundr sighed. ‘Your father may not be no doctor, Tabiyb, but he at least rid his kingdom of that vermin.’

‘Aye,’ muttered Christopher, ‘he did that.’

‘Then . . . then why are they here?’ asked Razi.

‘That was your damned brother,’ sneered Christopher, glaring out into the snickering darkness. ‘He invited the poxy things back.’ He glanced across, and the look on Razi’s face made him laugh despite himself. ‘I know,’ he said in sympathy. ‘It’s all just a mite too perplexing, ain’t it?’



Late into the night, Wynter woke from a dream in which her father stood staring down into a valley of silent ghosts, his hands red with blood. She had been shouting across to him from the other side, Da? Da! I don’t know where I am. But even as she called to him, Lorcan had turned and walked into the misty rain, and she had understood that she was all alone. She woke with the diplomatic folder clutched to her chest. She’d fallen asleep with it in her arms.

Christopher lay warm beside her, his strong arm looped around her waist. She slid carefully down under their covers until she could rest her chin against the top of his dark head, and she put her arm around him, pulling him closer.

‘Y’all right?’ he murmured, and she nodded. ‘Go asleep,’ he said. ‘They won’t come near the dog.’

She lay staring out into the impenetrable trees, holding Christopher close and listening to the Wolves as they whispered in the darkness beyond the light. She could think of nothing to say when she met the King. She could think of nothing to do. Across the fire, Razi’s dark eyes reflected the light as he too lay awake, thinking. Sólmundr sighed and rolled over, grousing at his blankets.

‘Lass,’ whispered Christopher, ‘go back to sleep.’

But she didn’t, and neither did he, and when dawn finally broke, it found them still lying there, staring pensively into the forest as the trees emerged slowly from the dark.