? ? ?
The trek continued under blue skies. Despite our fears no agents of the Dead King intercepted us, no monsters clawed from their graves to put us in ours, and we passed over the border into Red March without incident. Even so, Snorri pushed us hard, more urgency in him now than at any point since the Hardassa were on our heels. I could tell his wound hurt him—there was a stiffness about the way he moved. I wondered what we would see if he lifted his shirt to show the mark Kelem had put upon him. Perhaps though, the memory of Kelem in that cave, holding Snorri’s dead child, drove the northman forward more than the hooks in his wound drew him on. That had been a mistake on the mage’s part. He could have blocked that particular route to death’s door without that. I don’t care what magics you command—putting that kind of fury into a man like Snorri is always a bad idea.
? ? ?
In the town of Genova, two days out from Vermillion, I weakened and spent the last of my gold on a decent horse and tack, together with a fine riding cloak and a gilded neck chain. A prince of the realm can’t turn up looking like a footsore beggar however far he’s travelled and however many enemies he’s vanquished. I know Genova well enough and there’s fun to be had there, but with home so close I pressed on without further delay.
“Damn but even the air tastes better here!” I slapped the pommel of my saddle and took a deep breath—savouring the heady musk of wild onions among the oak and beech of the hill forests.
Snorri, Tuttugu, and Kara, sunburned and tramping along in my wake had fewer good things to say about my homeland, but Hennan, perched behind me on the gelding, tended to agree.
It felt wonderful to be back in the saddle again, a touch unfamiliar but far better than walking. My new steed looked rather nice too, a deep black coat and a crooked flash of white down his face, almost a lightning bolt jagging its way from between his eyes to his nose. If he’d been a seventeen-hand stallion rather than a squat gelding barely reaching fourteen hands I’d have been all the happier with him—though of course considerably poorer. In any event, he ate up the miles nicely and provided a good vantage point to watch Red March pass me by. My only regret was that the Norse had strapped their baggage to the beast as if he were a packhorse. Even “Gungnir” was there, wrapped in old rags to keep it from prying eyes, with just the spear tip gleaming where it pierced the wrappings.
I flashed my smile at Kara from on high a time or two but had little response. The woman seemed to be getting moodier by the mile. Probably thinking about how much she’d miss me. She was clever enough not to believe that I was coming with them to Florence and the nightmare Snorri had his sights on.
I bought us a room at an inn that night and after supper Kara found me alone on the porch. I’d been sitting there a while, watching the last traffic hurrying along the Appan Way as the day dwindled into gloom. She came to me as I always knew she would, reeled in eventually by that good old Jalan charm after the longest courtship I’d ever undertaken.
“Have you decided how you’ll stop him?” she asked without preamble.
I sat up at that, having expected some small talk before we began the old dance I’d been leading her up to. The dance that would see my passions requited at last in the hired bed awaiting us on the second floor.
“Stop who?”
“Snorri.” She sat in the wicker seat opposite, unconsciously rubbing her wrist. A lantern hung between us, moths battering against its glass while mosquitoes whined unseen in the dark. “How will you get the key from him?”
“Me?” I blinked at her. “I can’t change his mind.”
Kara massaged her wrist, rubbing at dark marks there. It was hard to tell in the lamplight among all the shadows . . . “Are those bruises?”
She folded her arms—a guilty motion, hiding the hand, and kept silent under my stare until at last: “I tried to lift it from him two nights ago as he slept.”
“You . . . were going to steal the key?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She scowled. “I was trying to save Snorri’s life. Which is what you and Tuttugu should be doing, and would be if you were any kind of friends to him. Why do you think Skilfar pointed him at Kelem? It seemed a long enough journey for me to stop him—either by talking him out of it, or if needed, by stealing the key.” She got up and came to sit on the step beside me, composing herself and offering a sweet smile that looked good but most unlike her. “You could ask him for the key again and—”
“You! You were trying to steal the key off him in the cave that morning! He swapped it onto a chain because of you, not me! He’s been wise to you all along!” I realized I was pointing at her and lowered my hand.