King of Thorns

‘Never have,’ he said. ‘A small enough principality. They breed them tough down there though, by all accounts. Been giving their neighbours a headache for years now.’

We rode on without talk for a while, just the clatter of hooves and the creak of the head-cart to break the mountain silence. The road, or trail if I’m honest, for the Builders never worked their magic in the Highlands, wound its way down, snaking back and forth to tame the gradients. As we dropped I started to realize that in the low valleys it would be spring already. Even here a flash of green showed now and again and set the horses nosing the air.

We saw the knights’ outrider an hour later and the main column a mile further on. Row started to turn off the trail.

‘I’ll say when we turn aside and when we stand our ground, if it’s all the same to you, Brother Row.’ I gave him a look. The Brothers had started to forget the old Jorg – been too long lazing around the Haunt, left too long to their own wickednesses.

‘There’s a lot of them, Brother Jorg,’ said Young Sim, older than me of course but still with little use for a razor if you discounted the cutting of throats.

‘When you’re making for the king’s castle it’s bad manners to cut down travellers on the way,’ I said. ‘Even ones as disreputable as us.’

I rode on. A pause and the others followed.

The next rise showed them closer, two abreast, moving at a slow trot, a pair of narrow banners fluttering in the Renar wind. No rabble these, table-knights from a high court, a harmony to their arms and armour that put my own guard to shame.

‘This is a bad idea,’ Makin said. He stank of horse-shit.

‘If you ever stop saying that I’ll know it’s time to start worrying,’ I said.

The men of Arrow continued their advance. We could hear their hooves on the rock. I had an urge to rest in the middle of the trail and demand a toll. That would have made a tale, but perhaps too short a one. I settled for pulling to the side and watching as they drew closer. I cast an eye over our troop. An ugly lot, but the leucrotas won the prize.

‘See if you can’t hide behind Rike’s beast, Gorgoth,’ I said. ‘I knew that plough horse would come in useful.’

I took the knife from my belt and started to work the dirt from under my fingernails. Gog’s claws dug in beneath my breastplate as the first men reached us.

The knights slowed their horses to a walk as they came near. A few turned their heads but most passed without a glance, faces hidden behind visors. At the middle of the column were two men who caught the eye, or at least their armour did, polished to a brilliance, fluted in the Teuton style, and scintillating with rainbow hues where the oiled metal broke the light. A hound ran between their horses, short-haired, barrel-chested, long in the snout. The leftmost of the pair raised his hand and the column stopped, even the men in front of him, though there seemed no way they could have seen him.

‘Well now,’ he said, both words precise and tightly wrapped.

He took his helm off, which seemed a foolish thing to do when he might be the target of hidden crossbows, and shook his head. Sweat kept his blond hair plastered to his brow.

‘Good day, Sir Knight,’ I said and nodded him a quarter of a bow.

He looked me up and down with calm blue eyes. He reminded me of Katherine’s champion, Sir Galen. ‘How far to Renar’s castle, boy?’ he asked.

Something in me said that this man knew exactly how far it was, as crow flies and cripple crawls. ‘King Jorg’s castle lies a good ten miles yonder.’ I waved my knife along the trail. ‘About a mile of it up.’

‘A king is it?’ He smiled. Handsome like Galen too, in that square-jawed blond manner that will turn a girl’s head. ‘Old Renar didn’t count himself a king.’

I started to hate him. And not just for the pun. ‘Count Renar held only the Highlands. King Jorg is heir to Ancrath and the lands of Gelleth. That’s enough land to make a king, at least in these parts.’

I made show of peering at the fellow’s breastplate. He had dragons there, etched and enamelled in red, each rampant, clutching a vertical arrow taller than itself. Nice work. ‘Arrow is it you’re from, my lord?’ I asked. Not waiting for an answer I turned to Makin. ‘Do you know why that land is named Arrow, Makin?’

He shook his head and studied the pommel of his saddle. The need to say ‘this is a bad idea’ twitched on his lips.

‘They say it’s called Arrow because you can shoot one from the north coast to the south,’ I said. ‘From what I hear they could have called it Sneeze. I wonder what they call the man who rules there.’

‘You know a lot about heraldry, boy.’ Eyes still calm. The man beside him moved his hand to his sword, gauntlet clicking against the hilt. ‘They call the man who rules there the Prince of Arrow.’ He smiled. ‘But you may call me Prince Orrin.’

It seemed rash to be riding into another’s realm with fifty men, even fifty such as these. The very thing I had decided against for my own travels.

‘You’re not worried that King Jorg will take the opportunity to thin the field in this Hundred War of ours?’ I asked.

‘If I were his neighbour, maybe,’ the Prince said. ‘But killing me or even ransoming me to my enemies would just make his own neighbours more secure and better able to harm him. And I hear the king has a good eye for his own chances. Besides, it would not be easy.’

‘I thought you came looking for a count, but now it seems you already know about King Jorg and his good eye,’ I said. He came prepared, this one.

The Prince shrugged. He looked young when he did it. Twenty maybe. Not much more. ‘That’s a handsome sword,’ he said. ‘Show it to me.’

I’d wrapped the hilt about with old leather and smeared that with dirt. The scabbard was older than me and shiny with the years. Whatever my uncle’s sword had been it wasn’t handsome now. Not until I drew it and showed its metal. I considered throwing my dagger. Old blondie might not see so clear with it jutting out of his eye socket. He might even have a brother at home who’d be pleased to be the new Prince of Arrow and owe me a favour hereafter. I could see it in my mind’s eye. The handsome Prince with my dagger in his face, and us racing away across the slopes.

I’m not given to should haves. But I should have.

Instead I stowed the knife and drew my uncle’s sword, an heirloom of his line, Builder-steel, the blade taking the light of the day and giving it back with an edge.

‘Well now,’ Prince Orrin said again. ‘An uncommon sword you have there, boy. From whom did you steal it?’

The mountain wind blew cold, finding every chink in my armour, and I shivered despite the heat pulsing from Gog at my back. ‘Why would the Prince of Arrow come all the way to the Renar Highlands with just fifty knights, I wonder?’ I dismounted. The Prince’s eyes widened at the sight of Gog left in the saddle, half naked and striped like a tiger.

I stood on one of the larger rocks by the roadside, on foot to show I had no running in me.

‘Perhaps such reasons are not for a bandit child by the roadside clutching a stolen sword,’ he said, still maddeningly calm.

I couldn’t argue with the ‘stolen’ so I took offence against the ‘child’. ‘Fourteen is a man’s age in these lands and I wield this sword better than any who held it before me.’

The Prince chuckled, gentle and unforced. If he had studied a book devoted to the art of infuriating me he could have done no better job. Pride has ever been my weakness, and occasionally my strength.

‘My apologies then, young man.’ I could see his champion frown at that, even behind his visor. ‘I travel to see the lands that I will rule as emperor, to know the people and the cities. And to speak with the nobles, the barons, counts … and even kings, who will serve me when I sit upon the empire throne. I would win their service with wisdom, words and favour, rather than with sword and fire.’

A pompous enough speech perhaps, but he had a way with words this one. Oh my brothers, the way he spoke them. A magic of a new kind, this. More subtle than Sageous’s gentle traps – even that heathen witch with his dream-weaving would envy this kind of persuasion. I could see why the Prince had taken off his helm. The enchantment didn’t lie in the words alone but in the look, in the honesty and trust of it all, as if every man who heard them was worthy of his friendship. A talent to be wary of, maybe more potent even than the power Corion used to set me scurrying across empire and to steer my uncle from behind his throne.

The hound sat and licked the slobber from its chops. It looked big enough to swallow a small lamb.

‘And why would they listen to you, Prince of Arrow?’ I asked. I heard a petulance in my voice and hated it.

‘This Hundred War must end,’ he said. ‘It will end. But how many need drown in blood before the peace? Let the throne be claimed. The nobles can keep their castles, rule their lands, collect their gold. Nothing will be lost; nothing will end but the war.’

And there it was again. The magic. I believed him. Even without him saying so I knew that he truly sought peace, that he would rule with a fair and even hand, that he cared about the people. He would let the farmers farm, the merchants trade, the scholars seek their secrets.

‘If you were offered the empire throne,’ he said, looking only at me, ‘would you take it?’

‘Yes.’ Though I would rather take it without it being offered.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why do you want it?’

He shone a light into my dark corners, this storybook prince with his calm eyes. I wanted to win. The throne was just the token to demonstrate that victory. And I wanted to win because other men had said that I may not. I wanted to fight because fighting ran through me. I gave less for the people than for the dung heap we rolled Makin in.

‘It’s mine.’ All the answer I could find.