The Witchwood Crown

  “You are old, yes, but presumably age has brought you some wisdom as well. Did you know you were picked out of all other companions by the king himself?”

  Porto brightened a little. “Is that true? The messenger said something like it, but I did not believe it. I thought it just a bit of honey glaze on a tough hock of beef.”

  “Yes, it’s true. It is as much to gain wisdom as anything else that the prince is being sent. Have you any wisdom you haven’t used up yet?”

  “I hope so, my lord.” Porto’s shoulders sagged again. “But I have only one horse, and he is near as old as I am. I fear he will not survive a second long journey so soon.”

  “Then rejoice, because I have arranged a new mount for you. A handsome, strong young charger from the Stanshire grasslands, out of my own stable. You may come see him, if you wish.”

  “Truly? My lord, you are too good.” Porto looked a bit more hopeful. “I only hope I can prove deserving of such kindness.”

  “You will, if you listen to me now.” Pasevalles crouched so that his eyes were level with Porto’s, a strange and seemingly ignoble thing for a noble of his importance to do. “Prince Morgan must come home again. He must return hale and hearty.”

  “Well, to be sure, m’lord.”

  “Listen to me, Porto. I have allowed you and Astrian and your tall, silent friend Olveris to lead the prince down all sorts of dangerous alleys, because I knew that the two Nabban-men were uncommon swordsmen and could deal with almost any problem that would arise. But this time they will not be with you. The safety of the prince will depend on you alone.”

  “Me alone?” Porto looked not just startled but almost horrified. “Surely there will be a troop of guards with him, Lord Pasevalles. What can an old man like me do that all those swords and brave hearts could not?”

  “You can pay attention. You can keep an eye on him. That is my trust. Here.” He handed the old man a purse, which Porto took with shaking hands.

  “What is it?”

  “Look, if you please.”

  Porto unknotted the string and tipped out a shiny handful of coins. “Five silver towers!” he said. “For me?”

  “And that is but a portion of what you will receive if Prince Morgan comes back safely. I will give you twenty more of those if the prince comes back to the castle sound in mind and body. Also, you will keep the horse I have given you and have twenty-five more silver pieces just like these every year of your life.”

  Porto’s mouth gaped. For a long moment he did not speak, but tears trembled on his lower eyelids. “My lord, I cannot think what to say . . .”

  “Say nothing, then. Do what I ask and all will be yours. Protect Prince Morgan at all costs. He is vitally important to this kingdom and all of Osten Ard, as everyone knows. Give him your wisdom, but more importantly, give him your attention. Aldheorte Forest and the country that runs beside it is treacherous, with the High Thrithings barbarians on one side of it and only our merciful God knows what lurking in the forest itself. Even the Sithi can be unpredictable, if you do find them. They have killed men before now.”

  Porto slowly lowered himself to the floor, creaking like a drawbridge, and prostrated himself at Pasevalles’ feet. “I will serve you so faithfully, Lord, that our prince could have no better companion. For I do love the boy well, you know. He is a good lad, for all that people say about him. He has a good heart in his chest.”

  “Well, then, we are agreed. And keeping all of his parts where they belong is my greatest concern, so see that you do watch over him. Not too much drink, either—not for either of you. Am I understood?”

  “Like Saint Sutrin himself, preaching to the islanders.”

  “Good. When you wish to see your new horse, go to the stables and ask the head groom.”

  Porto shook his head in wonderment as he clambered onto his cot again. “All that silver! I had forgotten about the horse. And he will be mine to keep?” At Pasevalles’ nod, the old knight’s weathered face again split in a wide smile. “I will be a rich man when I return. I will be able to hire a squire to tend me. Perhaps I will even seek a wife.”

  “All these dreams are nothing if aught happens to the young prince,” Pasevalles said. “Mind what I’ve told you. Recite it to yourself with your morning prayers.”

  When the Lord Chancellor took his leave, Porto was still pouring his little fortune in silver coins back and forth from one hand to the other, murmuring happily to himself.

  After a long and wearisome climb back up the steps of the seawall, Tiamak had just reached the top when he saw a new ship approaching Erchester’s harbor, just a short distance from the entrance. It was quite a bold, swift-looking vessel, a trading cog by its shape, the castle higher than was usual. Its appointments were painted in bright blues and reds, and it bore a green insignia on its mast that Tiamak thought he recognized, although it seemed unlikely in the extreme that it should be here.

  “Ho, there!” he called down to a young harborman cleaning the hinges on the sea gate below him. “Can you make out that ship?”

  The fellow turned and squinted out to the Kynslagh. “I do not know her device, my lord!” he called back.

  “What is it?”

  “A green branch with berries, it looks. Nicely fitted out, too, my lord. A rich merchantman, I’d wager.”

  “Gods of my fathers! I cannot believe it.” Tiamak began to make his way across the top of the seawall. After so many steps already, he was not up to climbing back down to the harbor. He would ask to borrow the royal carriage instead and take the roundabout road to the port. If the ship carried the passenger he suspected, he would need the carriage anyway.

  • • •

  By the time Tiamak reached the harbor the Yew Tree had docked and its passenger was being carried down the unusually wide gangplank on a litter. Tiamak watched as four burly sailors struggled beneath the weight of one man, doing their best to keep the litter level, until they could set it down on the dockside stones. He could hardly believe his eyes. He had not expected ever to see this particular passenger again, let alone see him here in Erchester, seventy or eighty leagues from his Abaingeat home.

  Tiamak hurried forward. “Viscount Aengas! What a surprise! What are you doing here?”

  The Viscount looked up from his conversation with a slender young man who had followed behind the sailors. “Ah, it’s you! But I am a viscount no longer, my friend. I gave the title up—did you not hear, or is Abaingeat too far away for you to care? My younger brother holds the title now, may it give him more joy than it gave me. I am merely Aengas of Ban Farrig again. Well, I suppose I am a baron, so I must be called Lord. You cannot snub me, Tiamak, even in my lessened state! And of course, I remain a factor for the Northern Alliance, which helps to pay for honey and wine.” He turned to the young man at his side. “Give me water, will you, good Brannan?”

  “He’s not just a factor,” Brannan said as he produced a drinking skin, then upended it and squirted water into the big man’s mouth. “He’s the most important one.” The youth said it in almost an accusing way, as if his employer’s modesty annoyed him. Tiamak guessed that Aengas might be a difficult master. He had been thrown from a horse some years earlier, taking a terrible fall. Afterwards, his legs were useless and his arms not much better—he could use them, but without much strength or dexterity. But he had retained his sharp wits and sharper tongue. Even before his injury, though, he had not been one of the world’s most patient men.

  “But I am still amazed to see you,” Tiamak said. “What brings you here? I just sent you a letter, less than a fortnight ago.”

  “Of course you did, man. That’s why I’m here. If you truly have a copy of you-know-what,” he mimed opening a book, “then I really must see it for myself. It is unprecedented!”

  Tiamak could only shake his head. “I didn’t expect . . . I never thought you would come.”


  Aengas grinned. “Of course you didn’t. Everybody thinks that because a man cannot walk, he is helpless. But you see, my fine Lord Tiamak, that is precisely what gold is for! Those who can pay will achieve startling results! Now, take me to this prodigy, this forgotten tome, this terrifying compendium! I am as hungry to see it as I am hungry in the ordinary way—and trust me, I am mightily hungry in the ordinary way. Is your cook any good?”

  “My cook?” Tiamak laughed. “There is no such person. But our castle kitchen is not to be scoffed at. His Majesty, the king, does like his meals. I don’t think you will suffer too terribly while you are here.”

  “That,” said Aengas, “does not sound particularly reassuring. It’s a good thing that Brother Brannan here can cook.”

  “Brother Brannan? He is a monk . . . ?”

  “No longer, my rabbit. He left St. Agar’s Order some years ago, but he learned his way around a refectory and a herb garden first, I’m pleased to say. If he can find a few ways to spice up your infamously bland Erkynlandish fodder, I may survive the next few months.”

  “Months? You are staying so long?”

  “Of course! It is not just the you-know-what I am here to see, but everything in your late prince’s collection, not to mention all the other volumes you have gathered for the library. It will be most exciting! If I don’t die of starvation first, of course. That is a serious possibility if we stand here working the hinges of our jaws much longer.”

  Tiamak shook his head. Generally quiet and soft-spoken himself, he had always found Aengas a little overwhelming. Still, there were few scholars in all of Osten Ard who could touch him for knowledge of ancient books and writing.

  “Well?” Aengas demanded. “Shall I have my men shove me into your carriage, or must they carry me all the way up to the castle?”

  “The carriage, of course.” Tiamak stood to one side while the brawny sailors lifted Aengas from his litter and installed him on a seat. “I saw your sail in the harbor—that’s why I brought it. I said to myself, ‘That’s the Yew Tree!’ I could scarcely believe you were here in Erchester.”

  “They say that old Camaris used to come down on his enemies like a bolt from the sky.” Aengas chuckled. “So it is with me, except it is my friends that I fall upon like the wrath of God Almighty, sudden and surprising.” His expression grew more serious. “I couldn’t help it, you know. When you wrote me about the . . . well, I was so excited that I could scarcely sleep.”

  “Truly? I know so little about it, or about the author.”

  “You will know more when we can speak in private. Truly, it is strange that it should come to light now.” He shook his head as if to clear cobwebs and grinned again. “No mind. We will not cloud the air with secrets and speculations here in the open. On to the Hayholt, my brave and precious Tiamak! And on, I devoutly hope, to an early supper as well!”

  • • •

  Tiamak, Aengas, and his helper Brannan rode the long way back up from the docks by the Harbor Road and into Erchester. The only parts of Aengas that still moved with complete freedom were his head and his neck, both of which he employed freely as they made their way up Main Row.

  “Look at that!” he said. “Is that new? I swear, it has only been a few years since I was last here, but you have been building like madmen!”

  “The merchants, mostly. It has been a good time for trade.”

  “Thanks to our shipping confederation, in large part. The Northern Alliance has helped make the waters between here and Nabban safer than they have been in a century or more, since the Sea Emperors ruled.”

  “Last I heard from you, shipping was being deviled by pirates in the seas off the southern islands.”

  “There are not so many pirates making bold in the south now—we caught and hanged that devil Braxas, the worst of them, and the rest are now less bold—but other problems have replaced them. The kilpa, for one. In recent months they are as bad as I’ve ever known them—worse, I think.”

  Tiamak was glad, suddenly and selfishly, that it was Brother Etan and not himself currently traveling by ship to the south. The kilpa were nightmarish things that lived in the sea. They looked a little like men, which made them worse to Tiamak than even larger, fiercer creatures. “Bad? How so?”

  “Stirred up, somehow. More sightings, more attacks. They have even come ashore in some places, something I have never known them to do.”

  “Ashore?” That sounded disturbing indeed. “What do you mean, ashore?”

  “What do you think I mean, my dear fellow? Ashore, flopping and dragging and sticking their loathsome heads into houses where decent people live—if you can call the Nabbanai or the Perdruinese decent folk.” Aengas laughed, but it was more old habit than genuine mirth. “Something has roused the nasty creatures for the first time in a generation. It is worrying.”

  “For the first time since the Storm King’s War,” Tiamak said. “That seems an evil sign. What of the Niskies? Are they still capable of—how do they call it?—singing the kilpa down?”

  “Yes, when they are minding their ships as they are used to. But even the Niskie-people have grown strange, our captains say. There are days when they will not go to sea, and even when they do, sometimes they seem as confused and lethargic as fever victims. Most odd, all of it. But I should not bore you with the Alliance’s concerns. How is your clever wife? And the king and queen?”

  “All are well, and you will see them all. Except your countryman, Count Eolair, who may be occupied preparing for a long journey of his own.”

  “Ah, too bad—he is a good and very clean man, that Eolair,” said Aengas. “I remember when I was young, my mother would hold him up as a model to emulate—‘Think of noble Eolair!’ she would say. ‘He never squabbled with his brother over the last pie!’ For years, I hated him for a prim ne’er-do-wrong, ’til I met him and realized it was not his fault that my mother worshipped him—that he was a perfectly decent fellow, and that he might even have squabbled over a pie or two in his own childhood, whatever Mother claimed. He was always a handsome fellow, too, even when I saw him last, and he had grown old.” He shook his head. “Growing old is most inconvenient for us all. Still, I have the advantage over most of my peers, having lost most of my faculties already!”

  Tiamak smiled. “You have not lost your tongue. Were any of your ancestors bards? Certainly there must be at least a little poetry in your blood.”

  “If there is, I have done my damnedest to kill it with wine and the cold winds of Abaingeat. I can’t abide poets. They interrupt those of us who prefer conversation to be a sport shared between several players, not the work of a single performer who must be silently admired.”

  Now Tiamak laughed. “Somehow, I cannot see you silently admiring anyone.”

  “Not for their use of words, no.”

  As they wound through the southern districts of Erchester, Lord Aengas noticed many things that had changed since his last visit and commented on all of them at length. The carriage passed shabby old St. Wiglaf’s Minster, which had survived the Storm King’s War and looked as though it might have been around since the Sithi fled the Hayholt all those centuries ago. They turned into Fish Way, where the last of the morning’s catch lay waiting for late buyers in the strengthening sun.

  “Not exactly the perfumed nights of lost Khand,” said Aengas, wrinkling his nose.

  “If you had let me know you were coming,” Tiamak told him, “I might perhaps have arranged a nicer route to the castle.”

  “If I had let you know I was coming then my enemies would have heard too, and rushed to defraud me while I was sailing up the Gleniwent.”

  Tiamak was taken aback. “Are you suggesting that I cannot keep a secret?”

  “Not you, my dear swamp man. The Hayholt leaks like an ancient cog. I don’t even have to bribe anyone here to learn what the High Throne is doing—your servants
are uncommonly gossipy, and the court’s nobles are generally in such a hurry to take advantage of their superior knowledge that they do not bother to hide their tracks. I have spies in half a dozen of their houses—no, I shall not tell you which, so do not moon those sad brown Wran eyes at me. I generally know what the High Throne plans to do within a day of the king and queen knowing it themselves.” He paused, and his superior smile curled into annoyance. “Tiamak, my limping love, are you even listening to me?”

  “I am sorry, Aengas, but there is something strange going on.” He squinted. “There are soldiers in front of the Nearulagh Gate.”

  “It seems to me that it would be very wicked of Lord Constable Osric and his men if there were not soldiers at the gate.”

  “No, I mean many soldiers.” Tiamak leaned his head out of the carriage window. “Many, many soldiers.”

  Even as he spoke, three guards from the double-phalanx stepped forward, pikes at the ready, to block the carriage from going any farther.

  “What goes on here?” Tiamak asked the nearest Erkynguard. “I am Lord Tiamak, Counselor to the High Throne.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said the sergeant who led them. “As to what’s in the air, I fear we couldn’t tell you. Order came down, triple the guard on the gate. Don’t let anyone out.”

  “Well, we wish to come in. Is that a problem?”

  “No, my lord. Just let us have a look.” Tiamak moved back so the sergeant could lean in to inspect the inside of the carriage. “Do you vouch for this gentleman, Lord Tiamak?” the sergeant said.

  Aengas slowly swiveled his head to stare back. “It is scarcely necessary to vouch for the loyalty of Aengas ec-Carpilbin. I am First Factor of Abaingeat.”

  The guard-sergeant tightened his lips. “Then I am sorry for the inconvenience, Lord Factor, but our orders were not given lightly. I do not know you, much to my shame, I’m certain. Do you vouch for him, Lord Tiamak?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Lord Aengas is an old friend of the High Throne—and of myself.”