The Charnel Prince (14 page)

“Most are, auy,” Artwair allowed. “But some were afar, or late in the fields.”

“And the children,” Leoff said. “Who will look after them?”

Gilmer and Artwair had made a house-to-house search the morning after the fire. Thirty children they had found in all, still in cribs or abed. Those old enough to be out had shared their parents’ fate. “They will be cared for,” he said. “Their duke will see to it.”

“Yes, that,” Leoff sighed. “Why did you not tell me who you were,
my lord?”

“Because one learns more, sees more, lives more when people aren’t constantly calling him ‘my lord,’” Artwair replied. “Many a greffy and kingdom has come to ruin because its lord had no knowledge of what went on in its roads and on its streets.”

“You’re an unusual duke,” Leoff said.

“And you’re an unusual composer—I suppose, though I’d never heard of one before I met you. You’ve done me—and this empire—a great service.”

“It was Gilmer,” Leoff said. “I didn’t understand. I would have run far away, if it had been just me. I’m no hero, no man of action.”

“Gilmer has lived here all his life. His obligations and duty are rooted deep in his bones. You are a stranger, and owe this place nothing—and as you say, you aren’t a warrior. Still you risked all for it. You are a hero, sir, the more because you wished to run and did not.”

“And yet we saved so little.”

“Are you mad? Do you have any idea how many would have perished had they broken the dike? What cost to the kingdom?”

“No,” Leoff said. “I know only that an entire town has died.”

“It happens,” Artwair said. “In war and famine, in flood and fire.”

“But why? What were those men about? Where did they get that terrible creature?”

“I wish I knew,” Artwair said. “I
very
much wish I knew. When I returned to the dike, the last two men had fled. The rest were killed by the fire or by the basil-nix.”

“And the creature,” Leoff asked. “Did it escape?”

Artwair shook his head. “It burned. That’s it on Galast, there.” Leoff looked. The packhorse had an irregular bundle on it, wrapped in leather.

“Is it safe?” he asked.

“I wrapped it myself, and have suffered no ill.”

“Where did such a thing come from?”

The duke shrugged. “Some months ago a greffyn was slain at Cal Azroth. A year ago I would have sworn all such creatures were nothing but children’s alvspellings. But now we have a basil-nix, as well. It’s as if a whole hidden world is waking around us.”

“A world of evil,” Leoff said.

“The world has always had plenty of evil in it,” Artwair said. “But I’ll admit, its face seems to be changing.”

By noon, Leoff saw what he thought at first was a cloud hunkered on the horizon, but he gradually made out the slim towers and the pennants upon them and realized that what he saw was a hill rising up from the great flat bottom of Newland.

“Is that it?” he asked.

“Auy,” Artwair replied. “That’s Ynis, the royal island.”

“Island? It looks like a hill.”

“It’s too flat here to see the water. The Warlock and the Dew meet on this side of Ynis, and divide around it. On the other side is Foambreaker Bay, and the Lier Sea. The castle there is Eslen.”

“It looks big.”

“It is,” Artwair said. “They say Eslen Castle has more rooms than the sky has stars. I don’t know—I’ve never counted either.”

Soon they came to the confluence, and Leoff saw that Eslen was indeed on an island of sorts. The Dew—the river they had crossed at poor, doomed Broogh—ran into another bediked river, the Warlock. The Warlock was enormous, perhaps half a league in width, and together the rivers formed a sort of lake from which the hills of Ynis rose precipitously.

“We’ll take the ferry across,” Artwair said. “Then I’ll make certain the right introductions are made. I’ve no way of knowing if your position is secure, but if it is, we’ll find out. If it isn’t, come to my estates at Haundwarpen, and I’ll find a place for you.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Call me Artwair—it’s how you came to know me.”

When they came in sight of the ferry crossing, Leoff feared they had come up on an encamped army. As they drew nearer, he saw that if it was an army, it was a terribly patchwork and unorganized one. Tents and wagons had formed themselves into a sort of maze with narrow avenues and squares, almost a makeshift city. Smoke curled from a few cookfires, but not as many as he might have expected. He remembered what Gilmer had said about wood being scarce.

People certainly weren’t scarce, though. Leoff guessed that several thousand were gathered there, and most of them weren’t in wagons and tents but were disposed upon blankets or the bare ground. They watched the cart pass, and their faces showed many expressions—most commonly greed, anger, and hopelessness.

At the heart of this ragtag encampment was a more orderly one, with tents all flying the king’s colors and no lack of armed men wearing them. As they approached the camp, a man of middle years stepped out into the road, a hard look of determination reflected in his eyes.

“Clear off,” the driver said.

The man ignored him, looking up instead at Artwair. “My lord,” he said. “I know you. I worked in your city guard when I was younger.”

Artwair peered down at him. “What do you want?” he asked.

“My wife, my lord, and my children. Take them into the city, I beg you.”

“And put them where?” Artwair asked softly. “If there were room in the city, you wouldn’t have been stopped here. No, they’re better off outside, my friend.”

“They are not, my lord. Terrors stalk this land. Everyone talks of war. I am not a man easily frightened, my lord Artwair, and yet I fear. And it’s damp here. When the rains come, we will have no shelter.”

“You would have none in the city, either,” Artwair said regretfully. “Here you have the water to drink, and soft ground, and some food at least. In there you would have nothing but beds of stone and piss thrown from windows to lick up for your thirst.”

“But we would have the wall,” the man said, his voice pleading now.

“The things you fear will not be stopped by walls,” Artwair said. Then he straightened. “Remind me of your name, sir.”

“Jan Readalvson, my lord.”

“Come into the city with me, Fralet Readalvson. You’ll see for yourself it’s no place for your family, not at the moment. Furthermore, I’m going to give you a charge—distributing food, clothing, and shelter to these people. I trust that after you provide for your family, you will be fair in your disbursements. I will check on you, from time to time. It is the best I can do.”

Readalvson bowed. “You are very generous, lord.”

Artwair nodded. “We’ll move along, now.”

They boarded the ferry and began their short journey across the water. Above them, the castle rose like a mountain, and the city rolled down like its slopes, an avalanche of black-roofed houses stopped only by the great wall that encircled it.

As they neared the broad stone quay, Leoff saw conditions there were much as they were on the side they’d just left. Hundreds of people were huddled on the far side of the quay, though these were without wagons or tents, and their expressions held less hope.

“You said you served in my guard.” Artwair spoke to their new companion. “From whence do you hail now?”

“I heard there was steading in the east, near the King’s Forest. I took a wain there ten years ago and built a farm.” His voice seemed broken. “Then the Briar King woke, or so they say, and the black vines came—and worse.” He looked up. “There are times I can still hear the shrieks of my neighbors.”

“They were killed?”

“I don’t know. The tales—I could not risk to see, do you understand? I had my children to think of. I still feel them at my back, though, I still feel the shiver in my bones.”

Leoff felt a shiver in his bones, as well. What was become of the world? Was the end truly at hand, when the heavens would splinter and fall like shards of a broken pot?

When they reached the quay, the crowd pressed toward them, but the city guard pushed them back, and a path cleared. A few moments later, the gate creaked wide, and they entered the city itself.

Their way led them into a courtyard, and beyond that, through a second gate. The walls above them bristled with guards, but clearly they recognized Artwair, and so the inner gate was opened.

The main thoroughfare to the castle wound through the city as if it were a great snake crawling up the hill. Leoff propped his back against the wagon to sit for a better view as they jounced past chapels of ancient marble streaked and decayed by a thousand years of rain and smoke, houses with steepled roofs stabbing skyward, low cottages with white walls and red trim crammed tightly together save where narrow alleys divided them. Most buildings were of two stories, with the upper stories overhanging a bit—some few were of three.

They rolled into another plaza, in the center of which stood a weathered bronze statue of a woman with her foot upon the throat of a winged serpent. The beast coiled and writhed beneath her boot, and her face was as cold and imperious as the north wind.

Near a hundred people were gathered in the square, and for a moment, Leoff thought it a mob, but then he heard a bright soprano and pulled himself up farther. On the broad pedestal of the statue, a troop of players was performing, accompanied by a small ensemble of instrumentalists and singers. The instruments were simple—a lesser and bass croth, a drum and three pipers. When Leoff arrived, a woman had just finished singing as another woman in a green gown and gilt crown acted out her words. The player seemed to be addressing a man on a throne. Leoff had missed the words of the song, for the crowd roared in response and drowned her out, but the tune was a simple one, a well-known tavern ballad.

The man on the throne drew himself up, grinning stupidly. “Hold a moment,” Leoff said. “Can I hear a bit of this?”

Artwair shot him an ironic look. “You may as well have your introduction to the court, I suppose. The lady in green represents our good queen Muriele, I believe.”

The man coughed, as if to clear his throat. Down among the musicians, a chorus of three men sang.

He is the King,

Ha, ha, ha,

He is the King,

Tee, hee, hee

What shall he do,

Ha, ha, ha

Touched by the Saints,

Tee, hee, hee

The player broke off into the helpless laughter of an idiot and gamboled a bit while the chorus repeated its verse. A ridiculous figure in a huge hat joined the “king” in his dance.

“Our good king Charles,” Artwair said wryly. “And his jester.”

The instruments fell silent, and the player acting the king suddenly spoke what seemed to Leoff to be gibberish.

A sinister figure in black robes with a long, ridiculous goatee ran onto the stage. He fawned up to the queen. He did not sing, but spoke in a theatrical fashion that resembled chant.

“Let me interpret!” the black-robed figure cried. “Good Queen, your son has proclaimed, in the voice of the saints, that I should be given the whole of the kingdom. That I should be handed the keys to the city, that I should have leave to fondle your—”

The audience finished his sentence for him in a roar.

“Our beloved praifec Hespero,” Artwair explained.

“What’s this!” A group of three men dressed as ministers rushed up, tripping and bumbling into one another. Below them, a chorus began singing,

Here, here are nobles three

Who claim the Praifec wrong, you see Charles speaks in Fing, not Churchalees,

And they say that his thoughts are these . . .

They paused, and the music changed meter, became a rather jolly dance.

Raise the taxes,

Draw the gates,

Bring them damsels, bring them calces

War’s a bother

They don’t see,

They are nobles foolish three!

The “nobles” covered their eyes, and the chorus began another verse as they capered around the queen.

“Our wise and beloved Comven,” Artwair said.

The queen drew herself up in the midst of this.

“The Queen implores!” she chanted. “Is there no one to save us in our time of darkness?”

The chorus then launched into a song of loss and mourning for the queen’s children, while she danced a pavane for the dead, and the other songs came back as counterpoint.

“Is that the sort of thing you compose?” Artwair asked.

“Not really,” Leoff murmured, fascinated by the spectacle. “Is that the sort of thing that’s common around here?”

“The
lustspell
?
Auy, but it’s a thing for the street, you understand. The common folk like it. The aristocracy pretends it doesn’t exist—save when it goes too far in mocking them. Then the players might have a more tragic end to their play.”