Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (17 page)

“Because you what?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Errin, don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies,” she snaps, and I’m taken aback. “I wish you could have seen yourself when you arrived. You looked like a corpse. Your hair, the bruises. You look like you haven’t eaten a decent meal since you left. How long have you been living like that? Who was taking care of you?”

“I was.”

“No, Errin. You weren’t.” Her voice is gentle but firm, and again she reminds me of Silas, of the pity in his eyes when he first saw the hut. “I’m not stupid; I know you’re keeping things from me. How did you earn the money to rent a cottage? What did you eat? What did you live on?”

“I—” I look at her, helpless.

“I can’t make you tell me. But I wish you’d written to me – to any of us,” she says, shaking her head. “You should have been here. We’re your people. We would have cared for you.”

Her words spark a memory that makes me ache. When Master Pendie came to offer his condolences, I didn’t open the door, didn’t want to tell him I was leaving. Mama was upstairs in her room, Lief was off making some inventory of the farm. I stood behind black drapes and watched through a chink as he knocked at the door, then knocked again. Finally, with a sad glance, he left a basket on the doorstep and went away, his footsteps dragging as though he were tied to the farmhouse with invisible ropes and each step threatened to pull him back to it. When I opened the basket I found vials of potions, for grief and sadness and sleep. And a cake. A lopsided, ugly cake, burned on the bottom and raw inside.

He’d made us a cake. It was awful but I ate every bite. We left the following day for Almwyk and I never thanked him for it.

“I was ashamed,” I say finally, quietly, speaking to the rapidly cooling bath water. “I still am.”

“Why? You’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”

I snort. “The debts. Having to sell everything. Having to leave.”

“It wasn’t your fault. What can I do to convince you?”

“Wasn’t it? If I’d put the tools away Papa might not have fallen on them. Which means he’d still be here, and so would Lief, and Mama. Instead Lief and Papa are dead and Mama is locked away in some Gods-forsaken place in Tressalyn, and she—”

Lirys leans forward and flicks water into my face, surprising me into looking up. “Enough,” she says in a voice coated in steel. “You’re not responsible for your father’s death. And you’re not responsible for what Lief did, or what happened to him. You know what he was like – Gods know I loved him like my own brother, but he was reckless. You couldn’t have stopped him, no one could. And you’re certainly not responsible for your mother. None of this is your fault. Stop punishing yourself.”

“Lirys,” I say.

“Errin,” she says back at me in the same pleading tone. “You need to eat. And sleep. I’ve left one of my nightgowns on my bed. If you can bear to wear a dress now.” She smiles.

“I can’t. I have to go. I have to find someone. If I can find her, she’s the key to getting Mama back.”

“And I’m sure you’ll find her. But, in the meantime, stay here, rest. We’ll talk to Mama and Papa in the morning and decide what to do. It might take a little while, but I know everyone will want to help.”

I shake my head. “I don’t have a little while. I have to get her back as soon as I can. You can’t help with this.”

I wish I could explain about the beast, and why time is short.

Lirys, trusting, unquestioning Lirys, sighs. “Well, you still can’t leave until the morning. The gates are locked, all of them. And manned. Like it or not, your quest will have to wait. So you may as well get dressed and eat something.” She ushers me out of the bath and into a thick robe before herding me up the stairs and into her small, clean room. “I’ll bring some supper up to you,” she says, closing the door and leaving me alone.

I shed the robe and pull the linen gown over my head, sighing at the feel of such soft, clean material next to my soft, clean skin. I sit on the bed, trying to calculate where Silas might be right now. If he’s still on foot, he’ll be a good thirty miles away, even if he walked through the night. But if he has a horse… I’ll rest for a few hours, I decide. And I’ll be at the gates at dawn. We’ll ride like the wind to Scarron. I can’t afford to let him beat me.

The man is walking through darkened streets, rain and wind lashing down, his cloak whipping behind him, his hood low over his face. He’s calling my name, over and over, howling it into the wind.

I don’t say anything, watching him, torn again between running to him and running from him.

Then he turns, his mouth falling open when he sees me. He stands there, immobile, while everything rages around him. Slowly he raises a hand and beckons, one gloved finger calling me to him. I watch, still undecided whether to stay or go, and he tilts his head to the side.

“Errin?” he says softly. “Please.”

Without consciously choosing to, I begin to walk towards him. His hands reach for me and he smiles. Lightning blazes above us and then I’m ten paces from him, five, then just two. I lift my own hand to take his—

Nothing. They won’t meet. There’s something between us, stopping us. We push and prod at the invisible barrier, moving up and down it, trying to find a break.

“My brother is dead,” I say. “You were right.” I drop my head, my fingers sliding down the obstacle between us.

“Where are you?” he says. “Why can’t I get to you?”

“Where are you?” I ask.

“Where I’ve always been.”

“I’m in Tremayne,” I say, and immediately regret it. Now he’ll know I’m nearly there.

The pale blur of his face turns towards the dark sky. “Tremayne,” he whispers, the wind stealing the word away the moment it’s left his lips. He looks back at me. “Why?”

I turn away from the barrier between us, ignoring him as he calls after me, his voice becoming lost to the storm.

I wake to the sound of soft snores from the floor beside the bed. I roll on to my back and stretch out, sighing at the feeling of the bed beneath me. It’s the first time since we left the farm that I’ve slept in an actual bed and it’s so soft, so welcoming. It’s like being held, and I revel in it, wriggling into the centre and making a hollow with my body.

Around an hour later I’m still wide awake, staring upwards, annoyed by Lirys’s snoring and her ability to remain asleep. The bed – such a luxury after the pallets and floors I’ve been sleeping on – is too soft. I’ve tried lying in every possible position but I feel unsupported by the feathers, feel as though I’m sinking into them. I know then that I’m finished sleeping for tonight, and push back the covers, sliding my feet to the cold wooden floor. Using the bed as a guide, my fingers stretched out before me, I walk to the window and crack the shutters to peer out. Dark. Still. No sign of dawn.

Closing the shutters, I creep back across the room and pull Lirys’s robe from the back of the door, before opening it and slipping out. The cottage is silent as I pad down the stairs and into the kitchen, the slate tiles chilly beneath me. I light a taper from the stove, touching the flaming tip to the candles atop the mantelpiece and then crossing to the pantry. My stomach rumbles, horribly loud in the silence of the night; I slept through dinner.

Hoping the Dapplewoods won’t mind, I help myself to cold chicken, bread and butter, and pour myself a large tumbler of milk, drinking it in three gulps before pouring another. I take my meal to the table and sit in the seat I’ve sat in my whole life in this house, feet curled under me to keep them warm.

I am tearing chicken from the bone when I hear someone behind me.

Carys Dapplewood walks past, opening the larder and fetching herself a tumbler of milk, before sitting opposite me. I chew the meat and swallow, waiting.

“Lirys says your brother is dead,” she says after a while. “I’m so sorry, Errin. He was a special, silly, funny boy. I was very fond of him. We all were.”

I shake my head, pushing down the wave of grief. She knew Lief. Everyone here knew Lief. I can’t breathe for being reminded of him.

“Your brother, Gods keep him, was proud. You are too. I pray you’re more careful than he was.” Despite the harshness of her words they’re not said unkindly. “I hear tell you plan to leave again, to get your mother. Lirys said she’s been put away, because of her mind.”

“She has. And I do.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Tressalyn. I’m riding there.”

“Via Tremayne? Funny route to take.” Carys’s look is shrewd.

“I have to do something first.”

“So Lirys said. She also said she couldn’t get it out of you. That you’d become secretive.”

“It’s not a secret,” I lie. “I have to go somewhere before I can get Mama, that’s all.”

“Sounds like a fool’s errand to me. You’re lucky you made it this far without being hurt. I know you’re no fair lady but it’s still a great risk.” I remember the feeling of fingers gripping my hair, how powerless I was in that moment. It makes me shiver. I didn’t tell Lirys about it, and the look on Carys Dapplewood’s face makes me glad.

“Fortune favours the bold.” I smile weakly.

“So does death,” she counters immediately. “The craven tend to live much longer than the heroic. You should stay here, go through the proper channels.”

“I don’t have time.”

“Lirys said you’d say that.” She sips her milk. “What will you do, once you’ve got Trina? Where will you go?”

“I have a plan.”

“So did your brother,” she says, silencing me. “I won’t try to talk you out of it. I don’t believe anyone ever talked a Vastel out of doing something stupid. But I will say this: you have a home here. No matter what trouble you’re in, or how bad things are. We are your family; this is your home.”

I nod, a lump in my throat, and she reaches over and pats my hand.

“The door will be open to you, Errin. It always has been. And we’ll always be here. Now –” she brushes the sentimentality away with a shake of her hands “– they won’t open the gates before dawn, so you’re stuck here. But if you don’t mind the company of an old woman, I’ll stay with you.”

“You’re not old,” I say automatically, but as I study her in the candlelight I see that she is. Lirys is a year older than me and Kirin; she’s the same age as Lief. Carys and Idrys tried for twenty years to have a baby, so the story goes, but they weren’t blessed. When it finally happened, Carys didn’t believe it. Though her courses had stopped, she thought it was her natural time and that her thickening waist was another symptom. It wasn’t until her waters broke that she realized she was having a baby at long last.

Now Carys is in her sixty-first harvest and her hair is streaked with greys and whites. The candlelight, so flattering to the young, draws out the shadows under her eyes and cheeks, plays in the lines that bracket her mouth and span out from the corners of her eyes. In my mind, she looks as she did when we were children – a little grey, a little careworn, but fierce, quick of tongue and temper, but the kindest woman you’d ever meet. I lift my tumbler and drink, and she does the same, yet I notice when she puts it down her hands remain slightly curled in on themselves.

When it’s time to leave I have more milk, and chicken, bread and cheese, and apples for my horse, as well as half a plum pie. We debated whether to wake Lirys so I could say goodbye, but I fretted about the time, and Carys didn’t push me.

As well as the food, she somehow got hold of new clothes for me. I’m now dressed in a neat blue tunic and better-fitting black breeches. I don’t know whose they are and I don’t care: they’re not Unwin’s, and I tell Carys to burn the old ones. In the hour before dawn, Carys neatened the edges of my hair, and she has also lent me her old winter cloak, a rich dark green lined with rabbit fur. With clean hair and clothes and, best of all, freshly forged papers claiming I’m Erika Dapplewood, which Carys tucks into my pocket whilst tapping the side of her nose. I feel hopeful as I swing up on to my horse, who also looks refreshed.

“We’ll see you soon, Errin,” Carys calls softly from the doorway. “Promise me that.”

“I promise,” I say, turning the horse out of the yard and along the lane.

I let my eyes roam over sleeping Tremayne as I pass through. It looks so idyllic, safe and untouched. And I’m torn because I want very much to come back here and carry on with my life. But I don’t know how I could, because of Mama. More than that, I don’t know if I could after everything I’ve seen beyond the city walls.

That’s the trouble with knowing things: you can’t un-know them. Once you let yourself look at them, or say them aloud, they become real. I look ahead to the gates, noticing the guards are different this morning. They give my papers a cursory glance before allowing me to pass, and I glance back one last time at Tremayne, my heart torn as we exit the town.

I urge my horse to pick up the pace a little and then we ride, towards Scarron and the sea. I’ll find the girl, and get my mother back. Then I’ll make a decision.

Scarron is a tiny, isolated fishing village that sits at the most north-westerly point of Tregellan, on the mouth of the estuary where the River Aurmere meets the sea. The river begins somewhere in the mountains; there are supposedly over a hundred waterfalls in them, made by the Aurmere rushing back to the sea. Rumours of pirate caves and hidden treasure abound; they even say there is a fountain of youth in there somewhere. I used to think it was a myth, but given the way stories are coming to life these days I might go and look for it if I ever get the chance.

Once the river has escaped the mountains, it runs between Tregellan and Tallith. Seventy miles long and getting wider and wider until it spills out and joins the sea. It’s known for being rough, dangerous to cross, the currents violent and merciless. On clear days, you can see clean across the Aurmere to Tallith City, or what’s left of it. The castle sat high on the cliff-side over the harbour and the ruins of its seven towers are still there, crumbling slowly into the sea below.

The people who live in Scarron are fisher-folk, and they are hardy, possibly the hardiest people in all of Tregellan – they have to be, to fish the waters there. Their skin is tanned by the wind, their faces lined prematurely, carved by salt and sea and air. Scarron is the kind of village people are born in and die in. Rarely does anyone leave. Still more rarely does a new face arrive. So unless the girl is in hiding, like Silas was, I should be able to find her easily; she’d be known as the “new one” for the next fifty years if she stayed here.

I’ve been to Scarron once before, with my mother, around eight years ago. She took Lief and me away from the farm for a few days, and it was here we came. We arrived after dark, so we didn’t see the sea until the next morning when we raced from the inn to the beach. But we could smell it; all night long we could smell it, the briny, greenish air rushing in through the open windows. I dreamt strange dreams then, of a woman with fish scales and green skin smiling at me with a mouth full of pointed teeth, beckoning me into the water. I wanted so much to go to her. When I woke I was gasping for air as though I was drowning.

I loved Scarron. I loved its handful of wind-battered cottages in a higgledy-piggledy row along the harbour front. I loved the harbour master, a jolly man with a booming voice who was happy to show Lief and me how to tie knots, and bait lobster pots, and dig for mussels. Everything sparkled by the sea, everything was scoured clean by the wind and better for it. And it was so far from everything. It was completely itself, like Almwyk; practically a country of its own, except better, more honest and wholesome. I can see why the girl went there.

The landscape changes again as I ride further north, and I pull my cloak tighter around me to combat the colder air. The trees become sparser, more evergreens, bent from bracing against gales and storms. I stop every couple of hours to eat and drink and get the blood flowing in my hands and feet. I feed the horse her apples, and then a little of the cheese; I drink my milk and chew happily on the fresh bread Carys packed for me.

I alternate between riding and walking a mile or two to keep my muscles supple. After we pass through Toman, I stop seeing soldiers, and even the ones there don’t demand to see my papers. The hamlets beyond Toman become progressively smaller, housing fifty, sixty souls, almost all farmers, not large enough to appear on my map. I ignore the curious stares of the villagers as I ride through. They seem unworried, untouched by what’s happening to the south and east. I keep my eyes peeled for any sign of the army, but as in Tremayne everyone here seems unconcerned, and for some reason it makes me angry. Not much more than a hundred miles away, young men are being shot at in the woods. Refugees are being run off the roads, rounded up and dumped in hellish encampments. And war hasn’t even truly begun. How can the people here stand it? Don’t they know?

The edges of the sky turn gold, clouds like bruises against it, then the sky begins to darken. I dismount, walking slowly ahead of the horse, keeping us on the road. A few lights appear in the far distance and we plod towards them as the world turns blue, then purple, then black around us.

By the time we reach the outskirts of Scarron most of the lights have gone out and the hamlet is quiet. As in all fishing towns, most folk are in bed now, to be up in the very early hours to take their boats out to sea. With fear nibbling away at my confidence, I dismount and lead the horse through the small circle of cottages, the clopping of hooves the only sound in the night.

No, not the only sound. It’s so natural I hadn’t noticed as we’d approached, but all at once I can smell it, and then hear it. The sea: a distant rushing roar. Something in me fills with longing and I want to run to it. But I don’t. I continue to walk, reasoning there will be time, not tonight but maybe in the days and weeks to come. With luck. With a lot of luck.

I don’t know this girl’s name. I don’t know how old she is, or whether she’s alone. I didn’t think about whether there was an inn here; I didn’t plan to need one, and I can see no one to ask. I can’t even smell a tavern. It’s as if the whole village has gone to sleep.

I lead the horse through the neat square, one ear cocked for sounds of life, and then I hear something much sweeter to me: the familiar deep ring of iron meeting iron. I head towards it, a small shed near a tiny, leaning cottage a little way away from the rest, and tie the horse to the fence outside it. I knock on the door and then wait. The clanging continues. When it stops I knock again and then push the door open, to find myself staring into the twinkling eyes of a man whose face is entirely wrinkled. In one hand he holds a hammer, in the other a bent, rusty hook.

“You’re not from here,” he says, looking me up and down.

“No. I’m not. I’m looking for someone. She’s—”

“The Lormerian girl?” he interrupts. “Dimia?”

The name sounds familiar. I bite back a smile of relief. “Yes. Dimia. Could you tell me where I might find her?”

He gives me a shrewd look. “You a relative?”

“Friend.” It’s not wholly a lie.

He looks me up and down, then shrugs. “She expecting you, then?”

“No.”

“It’s very late, dear. I don’t reckon she’ll want callers at this hour, and besides that, I can smell a storm brewing. Why don’t you get along to the tavern and get yourself a room.”

“I can’t stay. I need to see her tonight. It’s very important. It’s about the war.”

“The war?”

I stare at him. “In Lormere.”

“I thought that ended years back.”

“No, there’s a new one. With the Sleeping Prince.”

He shrugs again. “We don’t know nothing about a war here, love.”

“That’s impossible,” I say. “The Council have mustered an army; surely some of the men here have been drafted? There are checkpoints all along the King’s Road, refugees, the city gates are closed at night in Tressalyn and Tremayne. Everyone in the east is in upheaval; there are soldiers everywhere. The Council must have sent word?”

“Ah, we don’t bother that lot, and they don’t bother us.”

“But … what about when you take your fish to market? What about people who come here?”

“No one comes here, not at this time of year. And the nearest market is back in Toman. We stop going after harvest, bring back what we need for winter then; the road gets too treacherous when winter comes. We’ll get the news in spring, I shouldn’t wonder.”

He sounds supremely unconcerned by everything I’ve said and anger starts to rise up again, red and pulsing. “Look, I really need to find Dimia tonight. It’s more urgent than you know.”

“There’s a storm coming, love. You’ll need to get indoors.”

“Please. I’m begging you. Just tell me where she is.”

He blinks at me, and then shakes his head in disappointment. “Walk back through the square and take a sharp left at the harbour. Follow it along until you see the path up to the cliff. Take that, and when it forks back inland, you’ll see her cottage at the end of that track. You can’t miss it, it’s the only one out that way.”

“Thank you.” I nod and begin to close the door.

“Wait,” he says, following me out. “You can’t take that horse up that way. It’s too narrow.”

“Is there somewhere I can leave her?”

He thinks. “May as well leave her here. She’ll be safe enough in the lean-to out back, out of the storm. I’ll lead her round, soon as I’m done here.”

I look at the horse, then at him, weighing it up. “Thank you,” I say finally. “I’ll be back for her soon.”

“No hurry,” he says. “You got a lantern?”

“No.”

“There,” he says, gesturing at an oil lamp hanging on the wall. “Take that.” I lift it down carefully.

“Thank you.”

“No need for that. Any friend of Dimia’s is welcome here. You be careful. That storm’ll come in fast and angry. Watch your step.” With that he turns back to his hook, and I leave him to it.

Following his directions, I walk into the tiny village square. I count nine cottages around the well, with the blacksmith’s cottage down the path, the row of five along the harbour front, and Dimia’s. There is no House of Justice, no inn, one small store, which is clearly someone’s home as well. Is it possible no one here knows about the Sleeping Prince? Is it really true that no message has been sent, that they’ve been overlooked, or forgotten? I think about it all the way along the cliff path, listening to the sea beat against the rock below me, watching the storm clouds roll in and obliterate the stars. I pick up the pace before they can cover the moon, turning right at the fork, heading back inland.

The cottage appears quite unexpectedly, looming out of the darkness. It has no upstairs, but is large. I count two windows on either side of the door, more along the sides. I put my lantern down behind me and stare at one of the ones at the front, trying to make out any light around the edges of it. Then – yes – there. A slim orange bar running down part of the wall.

I push my hood back and smooth my hair, regretting that I didn’t go into the inn and at least wash my face. Too late now, I decide, pushing open the small wooden gate and making my way through the bare garden. A spot of rain lands on my nose, then my cheek. I hope she’s feeling hospitable.

I brush down my dress and then, taking a deep breath, I knock at the door.