‘How?’ Lant demanded.
‘Fitz,’ he said quietly. He stepped clear of the brambles and looked around him as if the world were a wonder. ‘As he was dying. He did a last healing. On me. I suspect it took every last bit of strength he had.’ He looked down at me and added, ‘I did not ask him for that. I did not want it. But he knew he was trapped. He chose to spend what life he had left on me.’
I looked up at him. He was changed from the first time I had seen him. He was thinner, almost gaunt. The battering his face had taken was almost gone. And he stood differently. It came to me slowly. Nothing hurt inside him any more.
I looked away from him. I was still trying to understand what I felt when Lant spoke, his voice emptied of emotion. ‘We need to get to the ship as quickly as possible. We must try to be seen as little as possible. We don’t know if the White prisoners or Prilkop have rallied folk against us. So we will assume they have. Per, if we are attacked take Bee and run. Don’t stay to fight. Take her, hide with her, and stay there until you can get to the boat and the ship.’
‘I don’t like that,’ I said bluntly. ‘Do you think I can’t fight? Do you think I didn’t fight?’
Per’s angry face mirrored mine.
Lant looked down on me. ‘It doesn’t matter if you like it. My father charged me to protect Fitz. I didn’t. I won’t lose you, too, Bee. Not unless I go down in my own blood. So, to make that less likely, obey me. Please.’ He added the last word as a courtesy, with no plea in it. Per gave a tight nod and I knew I’d have no choice. Months of being on my own. It wasn’t even noon and I was relegated to being a child again.
‘I will choose our path,’ Beloved said. Lant started to object, but he added, ‘I once knew every alley in this town well. I can get you to the harbour, and few will mark our passage.’
Lant nodded curtly and we fell in behind him. We pushed our way clear of the brambles into a sheep pasture on a hill above the town. From our vantage I looked down at a town that seemed unaware of any disaster. Wagons creaked through the streets. I saw a ship coming into port. The wind off the water brought me the smell of roasting meat from someone’s kitchen. The wet grasses slapped against me, soaking me and slicing my bare legs as we strode on. Were the fishermen setting out for the day’s work? Did they not know what I had done in the night? How could their lives be so ordinary when my father was dead? How could the whole world not be as broken as I was? I lifted my eyes to Clerres Castle. And there saw thin tendrils of smoke still rising from my handiwork. I smiled. They, at least, would share some of my pain.
Lant spoke. ‘This is odd. Don’t they see that smoke and wonder what happened there?’ He was silent, brows gathered in thought.
I moved closer to Beloved and asked him, ‘Where do you think Prilkop went?’
‘I truly don’t know,’ he said, and I heard sadness and a fear of betrayal. ‘And we don’t have time to worry about him.’
I defended him. ‘He’s a good man. He was kind to me. I want to believe he was really my friend.’
‘I know that. So do I. But good men can disagree. Severely. Now don’t talk. We need to move quickly and quietly.’
He led us by a roundabout path, past empty sheep-pens and through a part of the town where vine-covered walls hid gardens and fancy houses. We entered a narrow lane, and trotted past smaller houses and humble cottages. We came to a muddy, rutted road that snaked down to the warehouses. The streets were bereft of people. ‘They’ll be at the entry to the causeway, asking one another what is happening,’ Beloved predicted softly.
I trotted at Per’s side as the adults stretched their strides. I was barefoot and my wet trousers slapped against my legs. A man pushing a barrow stopped and scowled to watch us pass. But he did not cry out, or point at us or chase us. ‘Run now,’ Beloved commanded us quietly, and we did. We dashed past two old women carrying baskets of vegetables and exclaiming loudly about the rising smoke. An apprentice in a leather apron ran across our path, in too much of a hurry to notice us. We came to the harbour road. I had a terrible stitch in my side, but still we ran. We passed other people, but they were all going in the opposite direction. All bound for the end of the road and the causeway to Clerres Castle as Beloved had predicted.
Smoke was rising from behind the castle walls, dark against a blue sky. A fleet of small fishing vessels, some with sails and some oared, were visible on the water. They came around the curve of the castle’s promontory, sailing into view as calmly as seabirds.
The docks rang hollow under our pounding steps. We reached the end. I bent over, gasping, my hands on my knees. ‘Thank Eda and El,’ Lant said in a shaky voice. I took two steps and looked down. Four sailors in a boat, three drowsing in cramped curls in the bottom. But as we clambered down, they woke rapidly and moved to take their places at the oars.
‘Where’s Fitz?’ one asked.
‘Not coming,’ Lant said tersely.
The tattooed warrior who had asked nodded sagely and tossed her head in the direction of the island. ‘I figured that for his handiwork when I first saw the flames last night.’ She stared at Beloved’s face then shook her head wordlessly. Her eyes came to rest on me. ‘So you’re the little baggage all this is about?’
‘She is,’ Lant said, saving me the trouble of replying. He sounded almost proud of me as he added, ‘And she’s the one who set the fires!’
The sailor woman tossed me a damp woollen blanket, ‘Well done, sprite! Well done.’ To the other sailors, she said, ‘Pull. I think we want to be well away from here as fast as we can.’
The increasing light showed two thin trickles of smoke and one fat black one still rising. The outer walls of the keep prevented us from seeing how much damage I’d done. But I smiled to myself, trusting it was enough. There was little for them to rescue. I was certain of that.
I took a seat next to Per. Spark crouched in the bottom of the boat next to Lant. The warriors bent to their oars. The woman spoke as she pulled. ‘Very late last night, I saw flames. Only for a short time. Some of the folk in town came out of their houses and shouted a bit, but then the city guard turned out and chased them all back in. They shut down the taverns, too. We heard all the shouting. “Go home and stay there.” And like sheep, they all went! We pushed in under the docks and stayed quiet. We thought you’d all come running then, but no. Before dawn, I saw the lights of three boats come around the far side of the island and go to the shore. I thought they would sound an alarm, turn out the guard. But, nothing.’ She shrugged.
Beloved sat up. ‘Nothing they’d let you see. But there will be something, I fear.’ His face was grim.