Mandle shrugged. ‘Get the bodies covered over and we’ll be out of here. Quickly, mind.’
Jaerl looked over at the body of his fellow guardsman, and for a moment Marith wondered if he was going to object, demand a proper burial for the man. That sort of thing seemed to matter to these hardened killing types. Got so misty-eyed and miserable over a bloody corpse. Although, if it was about the only thing one had to look forward to …
Not entirely fair. He’d felt moved himself, by Alxine’s death. Burying him had seemed necessary. It was hardly this man’s fault, if the only thing he’d had in the world to live by had been a good sword arm. Now he was going to end up dumped behind a tree with a handful of leaf mould over him until foxes and wildcats ripped him apart. Nobody would know he’d lived at all.
The best way to avoid dying, he thought then, is not to live.
‘You can help move the bodies, Prince Ruin,’ Mandle said gruffly at him. Marith almost jumped, his hands shaking again. Scratched painfully at his face.
‘I—’
‘You nothing. Get moving and drag them. That tree there’ll do.’
Marith bent and pulled awkwardly at one of the bandit’s ankles. Hard, heavy work, pulling the corpse over the rough road and into the undergrowth. Dead eyes looked up at him. Was this the one who had died almost in his arms? His whole body was shaking by the time he returned.
‘Clearing up the mess is harder than making it, you see, Prince Ruin?’
I see, he thought dully. His shirt was filthy with blood. The feel of it. The look in the eyes as men died.
It was dusk when they arrived in Skerneheh. A small city or a large town, hugging the mouth of the River Skaer, set within a steep valley so that it seemed hemmed in with dank hills, black cliffs rising sharply from either side of the harbour. A poor city, as Reneneth had been a poor town. Left behind by Immish’s growing power and glory. The men traded in salt fish and ambergris, bred with the things living in the cold waters, seemed half fish themselves with bulging eyes and thick mouths that closed on their words.
He’d spent several months here, dead drunk and tearing himself apart with hatha, Carin’s blood still ground in under his nails. He wondered if he could find the inn. Very near the harbour wall: he’d been just about able to make it that far, when they threw him off the ship. It had stunk of dog shit. The innkeep had let him sleep in the doorway, when he ran out of coin for a room.
At the gates, the same questions, the same answers, the same bored soldiers, three days’ stubble, breath reeking of stale food. Marith had wondered if there might be trouble, questioning, eyebrows raised at him and at Thalia, so obviously prisoners. I could shout, he thought. Protest that they’re holding me captive. Beg them to help me … Landra smiled her cold smile at them, rich and plain, shining with gold, and they waved them through untroubled, into narrow cobbled streets leading down towards the sea. The air smelled of salt and fish and seaweed; Marith sighed as he breathed it in. The water was a thin dark line, white crests just visible, a few boats tiny on the horizon. It came to him suddenly that Thalia had never before seen the sea, that he’d told her he’d show it to her, show her how beautiful it was, how terrible, ever changing yet ever the same. After the empty pain of the last few days, he felt a brilliant, glittering joy at the thought of it.
They rode through the gates down narrow streets. Turned away from the sea.
Back again up to a room in an inn, a locked door, the smell of alcohol maddening as it drifted up. Seagulls began to scream outside their window, fighting over something. Thalia jumped at the sound. He’d always liked it, painful and harsh and lonely. Lonely things, seagulls. Vicious. And then to see them fly … Almost like dragons, they were, soaring out over the sea.
The next morning broke damp and sluggish. A mist rolling in. Tiny droplets of water beaded Thalia’s hair. Her eyes radiantly blue against a grey world. She looked around her curiously, shivering. She’d never seen drizzle and mist and damp before, Marith realized. Her face frowned like a wet cat. Perhaps she wouldn’t like the sea, after all. It occurred to him that she might get seasick.
They rode slowly down to the harbour in the pale dawn light, the streets still largely silent. The gulls wheeled and screamed overhead. Towards the harbour, the streets became busier, night fishing boats coming in with their catch, trades being made. A whaling ship had arrived in the night, the vast carcass floating alongside it, belly-up. Blood still eddied from the wounds hacked in its sides. Ambergris and oil and blubber and baleen and flesh and bone. A fortune in its hulking corpse.
A man was waiting on the quayside, well-dressed but weatherstained. Their ship’s captain. Dark red hair, a red beard grizzled with damp, his leather jerkin bright red and yellow, the flashy colours such men seemed to like. Landra drew forwards, Mandle a few paces behind her. They dismounted and walked up to him. He bowed his head.
‘My Lady. The ship’s ready, set to sail.’ The captain spoke in Pernish, with the Islands accent. From Third. One of Lord Relast’s ships, probably, abandoning whatever had been its business at Landra’s command.
‘Her name?’
‘Brightwatch, My Lady. Yonder.’ He gestured at the small ship bobbing out beyond the breakwater, yellow sails gleaming.
‘A good name,’ Landra said. Marith, craning his head, saw that the figurehead was a woman holding a sunburst, golden hair and golden rays. He frowned.
The captain shifted, looked at Marith. ‘That him, then, is it? The one who—’ He broke off. ‘Him? But— That’s— He’s—’’ His face went white and puffy, grub-like. ‘Gods and demons, my lady. I’m not taking him, like that. He’s dead … And the king …’ He drew himself up a little, trying to look anything less than terrified. ‘Whatever is going on here, My Lady, I want no part in it.’
‘The king will never know,’ Landra said savagely. ‘And you do not serve the king. You serve me. And whoever he might resemble, he is a nameless peasant boy you never saw before and will never see again. Understand?’
‘I don’t serve you, My Lady, I serve your Lord father. And he serves the king.’ The captain bowed his head weakly. ‘If you’re sure and certain, My Lady …’
‘Sure and certain,’ Landra said in a bitter voice. ‘Now get him on board.’
Down narrow slippery steps into a rowing boat, out across to the Brightwatch. Only Mandle and the two women remained with them. The remaining servant and the guardsmen, hired men, had been paid off and left at the inn. Marith feared for a moment that Thalia would scream again, feeling the motion of the boat under her, but she sat immobile, her eyes blank. He trailed his hand over the side, then licked the salt water. Harsh and stinging in his mouth. A reminder that he was alive.
The seagulls screamed overhead, circling the boat.
Chapter Forty-Six