CHAPTER 10

“Do you think the Order can fix it?” asked Audie. “Your hand, I mean.”

“Likely not,” Jeran said. “It is the will of the Father. It is not our lot to comprehend his intentions.”

“You believe that?”

He hesitated.

“I have to,” he said. “Without reason the world is a frightening place.”

They went north from the tower, rather than the easterly trail they had arrived by. They would find somewhere to rent horses before riding west to the border at Maesbury. It was nearly dark by the time they found an inn. They hadn’t seen a soul on the brisk downland and were cheered by the idea of a good meal.

The inn was a fine building - and finer still on the inside. The sight of a roaring hearth was a welcome sight.

“You celebrating tonight?” the landlady asked Yannick at the bar.

“Indeed. A rather successful trip, all things considered. The contract I carry is worth more than its weight in gold to my masters at the guild.”

The landlady nodded. “What’s the deal with him?” she said, looking at the Prince. He’d tied a shawl around his neck to conceal the tell-tale tattoos of Kestrian royalty. “He looks a little rougher than the rest of your lot. No offense intended, of course.”

“None taken,” said Yannick, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “He’s a vagrant we came across on our way back from Suthsea, wandering the downs. A mute at that. The priest insisted we share the Father’s bounty with the less fortunate, and who am I to argue with a holy man?”

“Kind of you to take pity on a wretch like that. There are too many of his kind wandering the wold these days.” The landlady smiled warmly at him, her suspicions allayed. “And a foreigner to you, at that.”

She sat them in a private room, and piled the table high with roasted game birds, potatoes, pies, fruit, cheeses and flagons of ale.

The Prince ate with an appetite unbounded. He gnawed every scrap of meat from the carcasses, ate every else in sight and drained more ale than Yannick had ever seen a man drink.

“You must be careful, your highness,” said Jeran. “If you eat too much in your state, your body might reject it after your starvation.”

The Prince belched.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. In the privacy of the dining room, they could speak without worry of being heard. His Cambercian was fluent, but his accent still bore the strength of his Kestrian accent - a dangerous thing this far into Sandingham.

One by one, the party left for their rooms. First Audie, unravelled by her ordeal, left the table, yawning as she did so. The Dusken Knight watched her go, a longing expression upon her face. She followed soon after.

The priest tried to keep himself awake, out of a sense of propriety and duty to the Prince, but he could not fight the onslaught of exhaustion for long. He too, left the table.

Yannick and Prince Rallo sat at the table, half the candles gone out and the fire burning low in the hearth.

“Not tired?” said the Prince, helping himself to another discarded chunk of meat and bone.

“At my age, one sleeps very little, if at all. No matter how often I go, my bladder is always full within the hour.”

The Prince grunted as he gnawed on the bone.

“You’re a drakorl,” Yannick said.

The Prince froze. “A bold accusation.”

“No normal man can swim that far after months of starvation and imprisonment. No normal man gains weight as quickly as you seem to have. Why, it’s been only a day since we left the Tower and already you look better. And the appetite… one would think you’d be smarter to conceal it, but perhaps the Tower made you forget your normal restraint.”

Yannick took a small sip of his beer. It had an unpleasant, chalky taste that made him long for a barrel of perry from his cellar.

The Prince put the bone down and wiped his greasy hands on a rag. The low light cast long shadows, mixing with the black symbols tattooed across his fingers.

“Skinwalkers, as your countrymen like to call us. Will you tell your fellows and have me strung up from a mighty oak?” His tone was mocking, but his expression remained unreadable.

“My husband was from Rheged.”

“I am not familiar with it,” said the Prince.

“It’s a small village at the end of the Aviecaul range. A day, perhaps a day and a half’s ride from Kestria. Full of what one might call hill folk.”

The Prince looked at Yannick with a curious expression. “Stag?”

“Wolf.”

The Prince nodded. “Of course. A wayward tribe, that one.”

“A wayward man, too,” Yannick said with a sad smile. He looked into the dwindling hearth and he was taken back to those final weeks in winter.

“What became of him?”

“He passed on Long Night. Five years ago. A quiet death for a man who lived a wild life.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said the Prince.

“I’m not,” Yannick said. “We had a good life, and he died at peace. He was sad to miss the lambing. Became quite the shepherd in his old age.”

“You don’t like me.” It was a statement, rather than a question. “So why did you save me?”

“I don’t like Kestria, and to be honest, I’ve never met a Kestrian I liked. I don’t like your antiquated government. But I don’t want another war.”

“What about your husband?” asked the Prince. “Perhaps I am a fool, but in Kestria we tend to quite like our spouses.”

“What about him?”

“You say he was a drakorl. Then he must have been Kestrian.”

Yannick shook his head. “By blood, perhaps. But he was a Cambercian patriot, through and through.”

The Prince snorted a laugh and took a long drink of ale. “I’m sorry, but… you people. You’re such hypocrites. You tell us we’re backward, blood-thirsty peasants but then you talk about your great Cambercia. Or noble Sandingham.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Yannick asked, his hackles up. He’d drank a lot of the chalky beer - it seemed to be stronger than he realised.

“When your people stepped off that boat, you were nothing more than a ragtag bunch of illiterate raiders. We gave you land. We gave you your language. Then, you declared war, pushing us into the tiniest, most miserable sliver of land on this continent. You built your country on the ashes of ours,” said the Prince, his eyes aflame.

“I’ve heard this one before,” said Yannick. “It conveniently forgets that your people were a bunch of invaders who came long after the Old Ones.”

The Prince shook his head. “Not invaders, mage. Kestria is the last remnant of what your people call the Olds.”

“I’m not interested in arguing history with you. I wanted to warn you. I hold no ill-will towards the drakorl,” said Yannick. “But I cannot speak for my warriors. You would be wise to conceal those aspects of yourself until you are across the border in Kestria. I would not want to test their prejudices. Am I clear?”

The Prince nodded. “Thank you, mage.”

Yannick stood up. “I hear my bed calling.” With that, he turned on his heel and left the room, leaving the Prince in the flickering light of the fire.

The rumours about the royal family of Kestria were true, it seemed. He didn’t pray much, but he sent a small one to the Father. Protect them, he thought. They’ll need it, should it ever become known. Both the Order of Antonic and the Church of Sandingham agreed on one thing: the drakorl were devils best wiped out.

Ricard had kept quiet about being a drakorl, lest he attract the wrath of the Order. The irony was that this very devilry had served the Order extremely well for decades. Ricard had been a natural scout. His drakorl abilities gave him extreme endurance, heightened senses and an inhuman ability to track over long distances.

He lay down in the bed. It was dusty, but at least it wasn’t damp. The softness of the bed only reminded him of his many aches and pains, worsened by the time in the Tower. He drifted into a fitful sleep, dreaming of his dead husband.