Morning made its slow advance down the street. I’m sure a tutor once told me that day breaks at a thousand miles an hour, but it always seems to creep when I’m watching. The high points on the soldier’s armour caught the first light and seemed to burn with it.
“There. I told you. Nothing we can do.” I took Hennan’s shoulder and pulled him back into the shadows of the side street. He shot me a sour look. He still hadn’t forgiven me for taking him by the ankles and trying to shake my florins out of him. I’d failed on two counts. Firstly, he’d proved heavier than I’d imagined and I got very little shaking done, and most of that with his head on the ground. Secondly, he’d had the foresight to hide all the gold. He’d probably stashed it when I fell into the vision-sleep. I explained to him how terribly mistrustful this was and how it wasn’t only an insult to my royal person but by extension to the whole of Red March. The little bastard just clamped his mouth shut and ignored all reason. Some people might say I only had myself to blame, what with teaching him to cheat at cards, advising him to always take the money, and sharing with him my policy on disposable friends. It’s not the kind of education that builds trust in the tutor. Of course I’d say to those people, “shut the hell up,” and also that it was Snorri’s fault for filling the boy’s head with nonsense about never abandoning a comrade and for making that ridiculous last stand with Hennan’s grandfather back in Osheim. In any event the boy’d hidden the money and I was hardly going to twist his arm until he told me where he’d put it. Well . . . I did twist his arm, but not far enough to get him to tell me where my gold was. Hennan had turned out to be tougher than I’d expected and whilst I might twist his arm, I didn’t want to break it. Or at least not unless I was sure it’d get me my answer. And of that I wasn’t sure.
In the end we’d come to a compromise. I agreed to take him to Frauds’ Tower and show him just how impossible what he was asking would be. In exchange he would, when convinced, recover the money and we’d buy a horse then ride it to death getting to Vermillion in the hope of getting the Red Queen’s aid in freeing Snorri and Tuttugu.
“Maybe there’s a back way,” Hennan hissed at me.
“If there is, you know what it will have?” I whispered my reply. I wasn’t sure why we were whispering but it fitted the mood. “Guards. That’s what prisons are about. Guards and doors.”
“Let’s go and see,” he said. We had already watched for hours as the guards came and went, made their rounds carrying their lanterns, swords at their hips. It would look no better in the light of day or from a different angle.
I kept hold of his shoulder. “Look, Hennan. I want to help. I really do.” I really didn’t. “I want Snorri and Tuttugu out of there. But even if we had fifty men-at-arms I doubt we could do it. I don’t even have a sword.”
I felt the boy slump beneath my grip. Perhaps finally accepting in the light what I’d told him over and over in the dark. I felt sorry for him. And for me. And for Snorri and Tuttugu under the question in some torchlit room, but, in all truth, there really was nothing to be done. Snorri had sealed his own fate when he decided to keep the key and set off on this insane quest. The fact was that the day Sven Broke-Oar told Snorri his family were gone Snorri had stopped caring whether he lived or died. And the thing about people who don’t care if they live or die . . . the thing is . . . they die.
“We can’t stay long,” I said. “If we don’t keep moving the witch will find us.”
“Don’t call her that.” Hennan scowled.
I touched fingers to my swollen nose. “Damnable witch, I say.” I was sure she’d broken it.
“She just wants to take the key somewhere safe,” he said. “She’s no worse than you. At least she was ready to help Snorri while she could . . .”
“No worse than me? She’s a witch and she wants to give the key to an even worse witch!” I started to think the only reason he’d brained her was he knew he could buy me.
“My grandda used to tell stories about Skilfar. She never sounded too bad. Helped as many people as she didn’t.” Hennan shrugged. “Who do you want to give the key to?”
“The Queen of Red March! You’re not going to insult my grandmother I hope?”
The boy shot me a dark glance. “And the key will be safe from witches in your grandmother’s hands will it?”