They rode desperately through the night, their horses’ hooves slipping and sliding through Myrna, the sounds echoing about the empty streets.
In her house Anya heard them pass, and smiled at her girls. From Myrna they wrenched their horses’ heads onto the southern road.
For Ruen.
NINETEEN
UNWELCOME NEWS
“Sire?”
Cavor turned from the window and frowned at the Master of Ceremonies. His face was drawn and pale, and when he moved to his chair he slightly favoured his left leg. “What is it?”
“Sire, you have a visitor.”
“Well? Do I have to grow old waiting for you to tell me who it is?”
The Master of Ceremonies fidgeted nervously. The king’s mood had been bleak these past days, and he spent most of his time inside his private apartments, admitting no-one but his wife and Oberon Fisk, his soon-to-be-replaced personal physician. He had specifically asked that he not be disturbed with visitors, but the man waiting outside had been so insistent.
“Well?” Cavor all but shouted as he lowered himself into his chair.
“The overseer from the Veins, sire,” the Master of Ceremonies hastily said. “Fennon Furst.”
Cavor stilled, his eyes boring into his Master of Ceremonies. Then he nodded abruptly. “Show him in.”
The Master of Ceremonies almost stumbled in his haste to exit the chamber.
Fennon Furst entered the king’s chamber as smoothly and as silently as the first hint of water through a fissured rock-face. His hands were folded tightly before him, his head lowered and his eyes averted. Five paces into the chamber he fell to one knee and bowed his head in deep obeisance. “Sire, I greet you well.”
Cavor regarded the man with barely concealed distaste. Furst had never been one of his favourites—thus his transfer to the Veins—but the man looked more dishevelled than Cavor could remember. Even from this distance Cavor could smell the rank odour of sour wine.
And there was something about Furst. Something nasty. Something dark. But that was a memory that Cavor, like the man he’d replaced, had buried as deeply as possible.
For years Cavor had refused to remember exactly why it was that he’d assigned Furst to the Veins in the first instance; why it was he’d asked Furst to keep watch there.
He shifted irritably, wishing he could find one chair in this damned palace that would prove comfortable. “Yes, Fennon Furst? What has caused you to rush to Ruen in such a state?”
“Sire,” Furst wrung his hands and risked a look up. “Sire, I have ill news to report. A prisoner has escaped.” He paused for effect, his eyes lit with a cold dark light. “Lot No. 859.”
Even in these apartments with the king as his only witness, Furst was loathe to speak the man’s name aloud.
Cavor stared incredulously at the man. “A prisoner has escaped? And you’ve ridden all the way to Ruen to inform me?” He took a deep breath of anger, the veins in his neck thickening and twisting. “If you can no longer handle your position, Furst, I can have you easily replaced. Now, get out of my sight!”
“Sire,” Furst’s voice cracked in nervousness. Surely Cavor remembered? “Lot No. 859…you had him personally incarcerated. It was your first act as heir…sire.”
“I have heard enough, Furst! Get out of my—”
“Sire,” Furst cried desperately. “Surely you remember who Lot No. 859 is?”
Cavor exploded from his chair in fury, and strode across the chamber to a now shaking Furst. All traces of his limp were gone. He seized the man’s red hair in his hand and forced his head back. “I have imprisoned so many cursed souls in the Veins that I find it impossible to keep an inventory in my head!” he seethed.
“Sire—”
“But if we have a Lot No. 859 suddenly vacant, then I can now think of the perfect name to fill it!”
“Maximilian!” Furst all but screamed in utter terror. “Maximilian Persimius has escaped!”
Cavor reacted as though he had been stabbed. He stumbled back several paces, his face grey, his eyes wide and shocked. “Maximilian?” he whispered.
“’Twas not my fault, sire,” Furst grovelled, his face now flat against the cool marble floor. “Some guard, perhaps, derelict in his duty, failed. Not my fault…”
“Maximilian has escaped?” Cavor whispered again, not hearing a word that Furst said.
Furst peered from under his arms. Cavor had retreated to the window, but was still staring at Furst in disbelief. “We’ve searched everywhere, sire, but we cannot find him.” He remembered what Joseph Baxtor had said. “Perhaps he fell down a disused shaft and even now his body rots in cold black water.” He grinned, raising himself to his knees again. “Now, that would be a relief, would it not, sire?”
Cavor sunk slowly down into his chair, and Furst took the opportunity to rise to his feet and make his way to a small fire burning in a grate. Even on the hottest day, the thick-walled palace remained cool. He turned to face his king again, his composure rapidly returning in the face of Cavor’s utter shock.
Cavor blinked, then looked at Furst. “Maximilian is still alive?” he rasped, horror underscoring his voice.
Furst sighed inwardly. “Yes, sire. If he has not died since his escape.”
“But how? How? No-one survives longer than a year or two down there. I had thought that…years ago…he would have died…surely…not even the mark could have protected against natural death…in the Veins…could it? Could it? Why didn’t you tell me Maximilian was still alive?”
“You never inquired,” Furst replied.
Cavor was silent for a long time, and Furst noted that he absently fingered his upper right arm.
“How?” Cavor asked finally.
Furst knew what he meant. “For seventeen years I have put Lot No. 859 in the most dangerous sections,” he said, his eyes steady on the king. “I have put him to work rock-faces that were so thin you could see the sea shadow behind them—and yet none of them cracked and ruptured until the day after I moved him somewhere else. I have chained him to gangs that were heavily infested with disease—fungus, plague, the sweating sickness, you name it, Lot No. 859 has been chained to it—but he remained disease-free. I have appointed the shortest-tempered guards to his detail, and they have beaten to death prisoners to either side of Lot No. 859, but he has remained unscarred. I have put him to work underneath hanging walls that have bulged with the weight of the earth above, and they have collapsed and buried every man but him. Somehow Lot No. 859 has lived.”
Cavor’s face was now gaunt. “The Manteceros,” he said almost to himself. “The mark has protected him.”
“You were there,” Furst grunted dismissively. “You saw the irons put to his arm. You heard him scream. You inspected the result. The mark has gone.”
Cavor was silent, but his fingers again scratched at his right arm. Furst’s eyes flickered over the king. “The mark has gone,” he repeated.
“Are you sure?”
“Once every two or three years I made sure I inspected the man, sire. A thick scar thrives where once reared the Manteceros.”
“I wonder,” Cavor whispered. What of his dreams over the past months? Coincidence?
“There is nothing to mark him or name him,” Furst replied. “If he still remembers who he is then there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. No-one would believe a madman escaped from the Veins.” Furst thought about that for a moment, then roared with laughter. “No-one!”
Cavor stared at the man, remembering why he disliked him so much. He also knew better than to believe his thin reassurances. Maximilian alive and free was nothing but disaster.
Strangely, coming to that realisation somehow bolstered Cavor’s resolve. He sat straighter in the chair, and his hand fell to the armrest. “We will recapture him,” he said, both voice and face now firm.
Furst shrugged. The problem was now the king’s. His mind turned to other matters. “Has Baxtor arrived, sire? He left some fifteen hours before I,
and yet I did not pass him on the road. He must have ridden as hard as I to get here before me.”
“Hmm?” Cavor looked up, preoccupied with the problem of Maximilian. “What was that you said?”
“Joseph Baxtor,” Furst repeated patiently. “He should be here. He left the morning after he escaped.”
Cavor frowned. “But, no, Baxtor has not arrived.”
“Then where…?”
“Wait!” Cavor snapped, holding up a hand. “Let me think.”
It did not take long for the damning memories to flood back. Both Baxtors arguing persuasively to go back to the Veins just this once. Garth Baxtor asking about the way a man laid claim to the throne, and then Cavor remembered that Joseph Baxtor would have known Maximilian when he was a boy at court.
“Dear gods!” he whispered appalled. Why hadn’t he ever stopped the damned physician from going down the Veins? Because he’d thought Maximilian dead, that’s why.
He leaped out of his chair, shouting for his guards. Then he turned and seized Furst by the shoulder.
“What?” the overseer gasped.
“We’re going hunting,” Cavor said grimly, but there was a wild gleam in his eyes. “And if I have to tear the entire kingdom apart to find Maximilian, then I bloody well will!”
He reached the door and tore it open. “Guard!”
TWENTY
THE FOREST
In the end it took them almost three days to reach the forest because Maximilian tired so easily. His fever burned day and night, and they had to stop every half an hour to let him rest and to force cool water down his throat. Every time Joseph or Vorstus suggested he mount one of the horses, Maximilian reacted so violently they eventually gave up their efforts to get him to ride, and so their pace was slowed to Maximilian’s increasingly halting stride.
“It is the mark,” Joseph murmured to his companions on the third night out from Myrna as they huddled about a small camp fire, Maximilian rolled into a tight, blanketed ball to one side. “It burns from underneath the scarring, and the fever runs rampant through his body. If we can’t find a place to rest and shelter soon…”
Vorstus glanced at the eastern horizon, now hidden by the darkness. His concern at the time it was taking them to reach the relative safety of the forest nibbled at his peace of mind like a ravenous rat chews at a locked larder, but he fought to keep his expression calm. No point worrying the others more than they already were.
“We’ll be there tomorrow, Joseph. If we start several hours before dawn we can reach the safety of the forest by first light.”
“Will it provide safety?” Garth asked. He sat close to Ravenna, his hands extended towards the inadequate flames. His eyes were very calm and very steady as they gazed at Vorstus.
The monk dropped his gaze. “Better than these open hills, Garth. The order maintains a small house—no more than a woodsman’s hut, really—about two hours’ walk into the trees. It’s well hidden in the side of a cliff. We should be safe enough there.”
Garth nodded and lowered his eyes to the flames, watching their light flicker over his hands. Over the past days he’d expected to hear the sound of pursuing troops with every breath he took; all of them, with the exception of Maximilian, who was consumed with his own troubles, jumped at every unexpected sound or the shadow of a bird rising from the undergrowth.
Ravenna smiled for him, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “Garth, we will be—”
A glimmer of light to the south and a brief crackle in the night halted her mid-sentence. Her eyes flashed to Vorstus then, with the others, she rose and stared where the light had briefly illuminated the night sky.
“What could it be?” Joseph asked Vorstus, and Garth bent down and shook Maximilian awake. The prince grunted and rolled over, rubbing sleep from his eyes; he got to his knees as he saw the concern on everyone’s faces.
“I don’t know,” Vorstus said quietly. “Perhaps we’d better—”
The light flashed again, brief and silvery, and Ravenna exhaled in relief. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s Venetia.”
Garth stared at her, then turned back to the night.
“Oh,” Maximilian said, and sat down with a tired thump. “The silver ball returns.”
Ravenna smiled at him. “Yes, Maximilian. The light returns.”
“Does she send news of Nona?” Joseph asked. Worry about his wife had kept him awake for hours over the past few nights; now both anxiety and lack of sleep had puffed grey pouches under his eyes.
“We’ll see,” Ravenna said gently. She was sure that her mother could have spirited Nona out of Narbon safely, but she didn’t want to raise Joseph and Garth’s hopes until she had definite word. And Venetia wouldn’t have risked the light for any other reason, would she?
The silvery light flared again, much closer, then again, and within moments it rushed over the crest of the nearest hill like a racing moon and danced down into Ravenna’s hands. She smiled, then murmured, clasping the ball close to her breast. It flared once, brilliantly, then once again, lighting the landscape about them to a radius of some fifty paces—Vorstus swore softly and spun about on his heel; how far had the sudden radiance been seen? If there were soldiers within half a league of them…
“Peace, Vorstus,” Ravenna said softly, and the ball she clasped to her breast dulled and appeared to flatten and then fade; the flesh of her face and neck absorbing the light. “No-one sees.”
“And Nona?”
Ravenna turned to Joseph, the silvery ball and light now completely gone. “She’s safe, Joseph,” the girl smiled, and both Joseph and Garth visibly relaxed, “although she does not much like the misty marsh and she yearns for her kitchen.”
Joseph took a deep breath. “I thank you, Ravenna. You and your mother.”
“There is nothing for you to worry about,” she replied, glad to have been able to help.
“Except for the prince,” Garth said, very low, and all turned to look at Maximilian.
He stared back at them, his eyes flat and almost black in this light, then he lay back down and pulled the blanket close about him. Without a word he rolled himself once again into an unapproachable ball.
Vorstus and Garth shared the watch that night, silently agreeing to let Joseph sleep unhindered, then woke the others several hours before dawn. Vorstus stoked the fire silently, brewing tea for them and sharing out the remainder of the bread and fruit that the ladies of Myrna had provided. They ate and drank wordlessly, Garth encouraging Maximilian to take a few mouthfuls from the mug he held reluctantly, then Vorstus kicked the dirt across the fire and helped Maximilian to his feet.
They set out as silently as they had risen, both their thoughts and the chill air discouraging conversation, and moved only as fast as Maximilian could walk; Ravenna rode one of the horses and led the other. Not for the first time both Garth and Joseph, each with an arm about the prince, cursed the fact that he refused to ride.
Yet their pace was not too slow. The pre-dawn air was crisp and still, and it seemed to bolster Maximilian’s steps. With Garth and Joseph’s aid he managed a fair pace, and within an hour of leaving the camp site both father and son noticed that Vorstus, ahead by some five or six paces, was walking with loose-limbed ease.
“Vorstus?” Joseph called, wondering, for only a few minutes ago the monk had been moving far more cautiously.
Vorstus halted and waited for the others to catch up. “We’re not far away now,” he grinned, his relief evident. “In another half an hour we’ll have the trees for cover. Take a deep breath…smell it?”
Pushed into their faces by a gentle easterly breeze, the air was redolent with the scent of sweet pine and the musk of oak and beech. Ravenna reined in the fidgeting horses and closed her eyes momentarily, letting the breeze wrap about her face. “It is a rich scent,” she said, “but has not the tang of the salty marshes.”
Maximilian straightened and lifted his head, his eyes feverish. “It is the forest,” he said
, “and it is where my life ended.”
“Then it will also be where your life will resume,” Vorstus said tersely, and strode forwards.
They reached the line of trees just as the first tendrils of daylight gilded their crests with gold. Maximilian shuddered once, violently, as they passed into the shaded walks of the forest, and he kept his head down and his eyes riveted on the leaf litter of the forest floor. But Joseph and Garth—and Ravenna, who had dismounted so her bare feet could touch the damp ground—gazed about curiously. Few were permitted into the vast expanses of the royal forests, for they were the preserve of the royal family; only on the occasion of the great hunts, when virtually the entire court accompanied the king into the forest, did the shaded ways resound to the trample of hooves and the clamour of hounds.
But Vorstus led the way confidently; closely connected to the royal family, the monks of the Order of Persimius entered the forest whenever an heir needed to be marked, or when an heir staked his claim to the throne of Escator. Yet the order also maintained a house within the forest, and as he watched a surefooted Vorstus stride down an unmarked trail, Joseph wondered what else the mysterious monks did within the secret silence of the trees.
It was cooler beneath the forest canopy, and the air was damp. In these lower regions the trees were mostly ancient beech and oak, although deeper into the forest the ground rose into a series of razor-spired cliffs and ridges, and there conifers clung to the thin soil, their pine cones tumbling to the base of the ravines to snag at the gentle feet of passing deer and the ragged fur of snuffling bears. But here the way was relatively clear. The trees, some with girths of eight or nine paces, grew well apart to give their gnarled limbs space to spread out, and so little light filtered through their thick canopy that undergrowth was sparse and stunted.
As they walked Garth asked Vorstus about the forest. “How often does the king and the royal court come to hunt here, Vorstus?”
“Several times a year, Garth. Generally during the summer and autumn.”