caught in whatever hooks snagged his mind, seeing but trapped. I thought of the watch a tick tick ticking on my wrist. All that cleverness, those wheels within wheels, turning, being turned, teeth biting, and yet one tiny piece of grit, one human hair in the wrong place, and it would seize, ruined, worthless. I wondered what had got into Maical way back when. What had it been that stole his wits away?
‘Tell Makin to get himself up here,’ I said.
Maical pulled on his reins and the grey slowed. I saw Row’s scowl. He’d lost his bet.
The mountains pulsed from red to green as the pain washed from front to back, from behind my eyes to the base of my skull.
‘Sometimes I think you keep him around just to keep the grey happy,’ Makin said. I hadn’t noticed him draw level.
‘I want you to teach me how to use a sword,’ I said.
‘You know how—’
‘I thought I did,’ I said. ‘But now I’m going to take it seriously. What just happened …’ I put my hand to my head and my fingers came away bloody. ‘… is not going to happen again.’
‘Well at least it’s a kingly way to pass the time,’ he said. ‘Help to keep your edge too. Have you even swung a sword since we took the Haunt?’
I shrugged and wished I hadn’t. My teeth made a nasty squeaking as they ground over each other.
‘I’m told you’ve been attempting to father a bastard on pretty much every serving girl in the castle.’ He grinned.
It’s good to be the king.
Except when you get hit in the head with a sword.
‘It’s an effort at repopulation,’ I said. ‘Quality and quantity.’ I clapped a hand to my head. ‘Arrrgh, damn and fuck it.’ Some pain you can distance yourself from, but a headache sits right where you live.
Makin kept grinning. I think he quite liked seeing me knocked down.
He reached into his saddlebag, dug deep, pulled out a tight wrap of leather and tossed it over. I almost missed it. Double vision will do that for you.
‘Clove-spice,’ he said.
‘Been hoarding that one, Sir Makin.’ You could trade a good horse and not get enough clove-spice to fill your hand. Wonderful stuff for pain. Too much and you die of course, but it’s like floating to your death, carried by a warm river. I almost opened the wrap. ‘Take it.’ I threw it back. Giving in to things becomes a habit. I made an enemy of the ache in my head and started to fight.
We rode on. I filled my mind with old venom, brought out the hate I kept for the Count of Renar. I’d had little to exercise it on since he passed out of reach. The throb throb throb behind my eyes made the ache from my broken tooth feel like a tingle.
Rike caught up on that monster horse of his and kept pace. He watched me for a while. Makin might have enjoyed seeing me knocked on my arse; but Rike thought all his festival days had come at once.
‘You know why I keep you around, Rike?’ I asked.
‘Why?’
‘You’re like the worst part of me.’ That squeak of enamel on enamel again as I ground my teeth. ‘Damn.’ It slackened off. ‘I don’t have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I got me a devil on both. But you’re like the bad one. Like I’d be if I lost my charm, and my good looks.’ I realized I was babbling and tried to grin.
‘Lose yourself, Rike.’ Makin again. I hadn’t seen him come back.
‘My father was right, Makin,’ I said. ‘Right to take his brother’s money, for William and Mother. He would have lost half his army just getting to the Haunt.’
Makin frowned. He held the clove-spice out again. ‘Take it.’
‘My father knew about sacrifice. Corion too. The path he set me on. The right one. I just didn’t like being pushed.’
I could hardly see Makin, eyes slitted against the pulse in my head.
Makin shook his head. ‘Some crimes demand an answer. Corion tried to take that from you. I crossed three nations to find the men who killed my girl.’ He sounded worried.
‘Idiot.’ Numb lips shaped the word.
‘Jorg.’ Makin kept his voice low. ‘You’re crying. Take the damn spice.’
‘Going to need a bigger army.’ Everything had gone black and I felt as if I was falling. And then I hit the ground.
8
Four years earlier
I woke in a darkened room. A fly buzzed. Someone somewhere was being sick. Light filtered in where the daub cracked from the wattle. More light through the shutters, warped in their frame. A peasant hut. The retching stopped, replaced by muted sobs. A child.
I sat up. A thin blanket slipped from me. Straw prickled. The ache in my head had gone. My tooth hurt like a bastard but it was nothing compared to how my head had been. I felt around for my sword and couldn’t find it.
There’s something magical about a departed headache. It’s a shame the joy fades and you can’t appreciate not having one every moment of your life. That hadn’t been a regular headache of course. Old Jorgy got himself a bruised brain. I’d seen it before. When Brother Gains fell off his horse one time and hit his head he went crazier than Maical for the best part of two days. ‘Did I fall off my horse?’ He must have asked that a thousand times in a row. Crying one moment. Laughing the next. We’re brittle things, us men.
I found my feet, still a little shaky. The door opened and the light came dazzling around the dark shape of a woman. ‘I brought you soup,’ she said.
I took it and sat again. ‘Smells good.’ It did. My stomach growled.
‘Your friend, Makin, he brought a couple of rabbits for the pot,’ she said. ‘We hadn’t had meat since the pigs got took.’
I raised the bowl to my lips: no spoons here. She left as I started slurping, burning my mouth and not caring too much. For a long time I just sipped and watched the dust dance where fingers of light reached in through the shutters. I munched on lumps of rabbit, chewed on the gristle, swallowed the fat. It’s good to eat with an empty mind.
At last I got to my feet again, steadier now. I patted myself down. My old dagger was on my hip and there was a lump in my belt pouch which turned out to be Makin’s clove-spice. One more glance around for my sword and I went to the door. The day seemed a little too bright, the wind chill and sharp with the stink of old burning. I stretched and blinked. Apart from the hut I’d come from, a stall for animals by the look of it, the place lay in ruins. Two houses with tumbled walls and blackened spars, some broken fences, animal pens that looked to have been ridden through with heavy horse. I saw the woman crouched in the shell of the closer house, her back to me.
The sudden need for a piss bit hard. I went against the hut, a long hot acid flow never seeming to end. ‘Jesu! Have I slept for a week?’
A wise man once said, ‘Don’t shit where you eat.’ Aristotle perhaps. On the road that’s a rule to live by. Find your relief where you will. Move on each day and leave the shit, all manner of shit, behind you. In the castle I have a garderobe. Which, let’s face it, is a hole in the wall to crap through. In a castle you shit where you eat and you have to think a bit harder about what kind of shit is worth stirring up. That’s what I’ve learned in three months of being king.
Finished at last. Had to be a week’s worth.
I felt better. Good. A yawn cracked my face. The land lay flat to the north, the Matteracks a jagged line to the south. We’d left the Highlands or near as dammit. I stretched and ambled over to the woman. ‘Did my