The Rebel Prince (33 page)
‘You do just that, sergeant, and I commend you for your diligence. Now I bid you go about your duty and leave me go about mine.’
The sergeant hesitated, and Razi leaned in. ‘I should like you to give his Highness a message,’ he said. ‘You must repeat it exactly as I say, understand?’ The sergeant nodded. ‘Tell him that I am simply taking advance payment for damages due, and his immediate business will not be disrupted. Please repeat that for me . . . Good. Now go ahead. I am certain the Prince will be most content with your attention to duty.’
The soldiers left them.
Amazed, Sólmundr watched them go. Then he turned to look Razi up and down. ‘I think I take you home with me, Tabiyb,’ he mused. ‘You
very
impressive man.’
There was not a trace of humour in the warrior’s expression, and Wynter had to grin at the discomfort this brought to Razi’s dark face. ‘Um,’ he said. ‘Um . . . right.’ With a nervous cough, he led the way into the shadows again.
Sólmundr winked at her. ‘Sometimes it too easy,’ he said, and led the way after their retreating friend.
The Wolves slept on. Razi ignored them, but he helped Sólmundr and Christopher drag the slaves out into the moonlight and propped them up against furs taken from the Wolves’ tent. Wynter crouched by his side, gazing anxiously at them. It was difficult to tell in this strange light, but their colour seemed odd, their breathing fast and shallow.
‘Will they die, Razi?’
‘These are sevenths?’ he asked, glancing up at Christopher, his fingers pressed to a slave’s neck. Christopher nodded grimly. ‘So,’ murmured Razi, reaching to feel the other slave’s pulse. ‘They are the sons of Wolves? Sired by them on one of their slaving raids and then kept as their own?’
‘They ain’t Wolves, though,’ said Christopher. Razi met his eye. ‘I’m certain of it,’ said Christopher. ‘For all that André has them convinced they could change if they want it badly enough, that just ain’t the way it goes. It’s like having red hair or blue eyes. You’re either born a Wolf or you ain’t. There’s naught you can do about it.’
He made this last statement very quietly, glancing at Wynter. She smiled reassuringly at him. It made no difference to her. Christopher was a good person, that was all; a good person who happened to be a Wolf.
‘Still,’ said Razi, ‘they have Loup-Garou blood in them. They might be slightly different, perhaps, to normal men? There might be some physical differences that would make them more tolerant to the poison?’
Christopher shrugged, his eyes cold. He genuinely did not care.
Razi sighed. ‘In any case, there is nothing I can do for them; I have never heard of the plants Sólmundr has detailed, and I shall not risk a treatment when I do not know the tincture involved. They will live or die as the fates would have it.’ He stood and wiped his hands. ‘Would you like me to place the bracelets back on their arms?’ he asked gently.
Christopher shook his head. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘You are certain of this plan?’ rasped Sólmundr.
Razi nodded. ‘Even if I cannot secure the testimony of the landlord’s older daughter, Christopher and Wynter can testify that it was the Loups-Garous who killed that poor child at the Wherry Tavern. I shall see these cur tried in court, Sólmundr, using my father’s new rule of law. I shall make an example of them that none will forget. My brother will build them up and their fall will be all the harder for it, and all the more public.’ He looked at Christopher. ‘But you must return your bracelets, friend, that we may prove they stole them from you on the night.’
Christopher sighed. ‘It would be so much simpler to cut their throats,’ he groused, but he crouched nonetheless and slipped the silver spirals up the arms of the slaves. Then he turned and went back into the tent, taking the guitar from his shoulder as he did.
Wynter followed him. ‘Don’t give that back,’ she whispered, watching as he bent to place it by Pierre’s side. ‘Please, love. I cannot bear the thought of him playing it again.’
Sólmundr came up behind her, his long shadow blotting much of the light from the tent. ‘We can to keep it and hide it,’ he said.
Christopher shook his head. ‘They would look. They would find it, and then we would have to admit that we had been the ones who poisoned them. It’s all right. I can . . .’ He laid the guitar on the ground and stood. ‘I’ve already . . .’ Suddenly he took a sharp breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t either.’ And to Wynter’s horror he lifted his foot, ready to stamp down onto the fragile wood of his father’s guitar.
‘Don’t!’ she cried, already hearing the splintering of the beloved instrument beneath his boot.
But Christopher could not bring himself to do it, and he slammed his foot into the ground instead, crying out as he did so. Wynter put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes in relief. Around them, the Wolves slept on. Outside, Razi crouched by the slaves, watching from the cold moonlight.
‘Wait, Coinín’ said Sólmundr. ‘
Fan nóiméad
. . .’ And he turned abruptly, heading to the remains of the Wolves’ camp fire.
Wynter watched in silence as Sólmundr stirred the ashes, found an ember and carefully blew it to flame. He fed the fire from the Wolves’ woodpile until a hearty blaze spread its warm light on him and Razi and the unconscious slaves. Christopher edged past Wynter, his father’s guitar in his hand, and went and stood on the opposite side of the fire from Sól, his face grave.
‘You not ever get the chance to give your father proper ritual?’ asked Sól.
Christopher shook his head. He sank slowly to his knees, his eyes on the fire, and Wynter moved from the shadows and came to his side. Sólmundr nodded in approval as she put her hand on her man’s shoulder.
‘You want I should fetch Aoire?’ he asked Christopher gently.
Christopher shook his head.
‘You want me do it?’
Christopher nodded. He offered the guitar, and Sólmundr took it from him with formal solemnity. The warrior kissed the smooth wood then held it out across the flames. The light flickered warmly on his strong arms and his bracelets; it glowed in the depths of the polished wood. Sól began to speak in Merron, but Christopher murmured, ‘In Hadrish, Sólmundr, my family are here,’ and Sólmundr switched languages in mid-sentence, saying:
‘. . . and peace with you, Aidan an Filid, Mac Oisín an Filid, as Tír na Garron. A million thanks to you, for granting to me the son of your heart and now mine, Coinín Mac Aidan ’gus Mac Sólmundr. See he walk in freedom now, as one of the tribes. We have faith this make you happy as you walk in peace at the Heart of the World, and we ask you reclaim your property which your son and mine has liberate for you and now returns as is right.’
He kissed the guitar again and once more held it over the flames until Christopher took it. For a moment, the young man held the instrument poised across the hungry fire, his face determined. But then his strength seemed to desert him, and he snatched it back, curling himself around it as if incapable of letting go. His shoulder quaked beneath Wynter’s hand, and she squeezed gently, her vision blurred with tears. Sólmundr tilted his head in sympathy as Christopher silently keened, his body rocking, his forehead pressed to the snake emblem on the back of the guitar. Then Christopher abruptly raised his head and, without further hesitation, placed his father’s guitar into the heart of the flames.
‘Bye, Da,’ he said.
It caught immediately, the fire roaring to life around it, the strings snapping with sudden, sharp pops. Wynter sank to her knees by Christopher’s side. He slid his arm around her waist. Razi came to stand behind them, and the three of them watched as the flames turned blue and green around the varnished wood.
They watched until there was nothing but ash and ember, until the silver fittings were nothing but meaningless blobs of metal. Then they rose together, as the sun began to cast its first faint light across the treetops, and walked in weary silence back to their tents.
‘W
HAT WRONG
with you lot? You look like you drink too much mead. Sól? You been sneaking brew?’ Sólmundr didn’t bother to open his eyes, just waved a lazy hand in the Aoire’s direction. The warrior was sprawled on a blanket, baking gently in the sun, Boro snoozing by his side. The other Merron were picking their way around him with tolerant amusement as they went about their chores. Úlfnaor directed a questioning look to Wynter and she shrugged noncommittally; better he think they had been at the wine than know what they had really been up to.
It had been almost midday when the sounds of camp and the airless fug of the tent had finally roused her. She had pushed herself from her bed, blear-eyed and swollen-headed from lack of sleep, only to find that both Razi and Christopher were still snoring lightly into their blankets, dead to the world. She had roused them as best she could. Since then, all three of them had sat slumped outside the Merron tents, as listless and fragile as soldiers after the feast of St Barbara.
We should have stayed abed
, thought Wynter as Razi cracked his jaw with an enormous yawn.
‘I should get going,’ he murmured, ‘I have things to arrange.’
Christopher’s head drooped and his beaker began to slip slowly from his fingers. Wynter was eyeing this with weary glee – anticipating his no doubt colourful reaction to a lap full of tea – when the warhounds distracted her by growling and climbing to their feet. The hackles rose on their great necks and they lowered their heads, eyeing the alley between the tents. Sólmundr sat forward, the rest of the warriors tensed, and all the lazy relaxation left the air as David Le Garou came to the mouth of the alley.
He was alone, leaning at the corner of the tents like a derelict drunk, looking across the Merron to where Razi sat. ‘I would speak with you, al-Sayyid.’
Razi, his face impassive, did not bother getting up.
Christopher carefully placed his beaker on the ground. ‘Good morning, David,’ he said. ‘Ain’t you pretty today? Weren’t no one around to brush your hair for you?’
Le Garou regarded him with loathing, and Christopher grinned, hard, bright and defiant. Wynter had to stop herself from crying out,
Stop that, Christopher!
She wanted nothing more than to throw a cloak over his head, so that he would be hidden and wouldn’t aggravate this dangerous creature any further. There was something in Le Garou’s dishevelled condition that made him seem even worse than before, as though the loss of some of his veneer had brought his evil closer to the surface. Wynter’s sword, still sheathed, was lying on the ground behind her. She shifted her hand until she felt the hard reassurance of its hilt beneath her palm.
Le Garou tore his eyes from Christopher and back to Razi. ‘I would speak with you,’ he said again.
Razi crossed his ankles, leaned back on his elbow and laced his fingers. He shrugged lazily. ‘I’m a little busy,’ he said. ‘But I could spare a brief moment. Are you unwell, David? You’re a touch pasty.’
The Wolf was slightly worse than ‘a touch pasty’. His eyes were red and sore-looking, his hair a dull tangle around his grey face. With a scowl of discomfort, he pushed himself from the tent and stepped, squinting, into the sunshine. The hounds immediately blocked his way, their fur bristling into stiff ruffs, their bared teeth dripping. The Merron hummed to themselves and went about their business, doing nothing to clear David’s path.
‘Call them off,’ he said. Then again, with impatience: ‘Call them off, curse you! I have no tolerance for games this morning.’
At Úlfnaor’s nod, Hallvor called the dogs and she and Wari took them down to where the others were tending the horses.
‘Merron scum,’ hissed David, staggering across the clearing and easing himself down onto Hallvor’s abandoned seat. Sólmundr and Úlfnaor exchanged a look, but remained silent. David sat swaying for a moment, his eyes shut, then he reached into his belt-purse, fetched out both sets of snake bracelets and laid them onto the fire-stones.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘I’ve been told that these belong to your boy.’
There was a moment of frozen shock, during which time Úlfnaor got to his feet, his eyes fixed on the glittering jewellery. Sól murmured something, and the Aoire turned his head on a stiff neck to look at him. Sól said something again and Úlfnaor sat back down, his face dark with rage.