SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows)

by Jenna Waterford

  Stupid.

  “Are you forbidding me from continuing on my own?” Jarlyth heard a small gasp from behind him he identified as Flannery.

  The king’s eyes glittered with anger, but he did not lose control again. After a long, stomach-churning pause, he spoke.

  “You were his warder. I would not presume to dictate your duty to you, Lord Denara. But you are on your own in this insane waste of time.”

  The king turned sharply on his heel and stomped from the throne room, Durran and a flutter of courtiers following in his wake.

  The room cleared very quickly after that, but Jarlyth stood frozen, shocked. He sensed someone approach, and at last he managed to move. He turned with a pitiful excuse for a smile struggling across his lips.

  Flannery’s eyes gave away her fury though her expression retained its usual solemn composure. Evander looked sick and angry and mortified, reflecting Jarlyth’s feelings exactly. The rest of the guard had gone.

  Ah, well. They did what they’d set out to do. Everyone else wanted vengeance. Everyone else thinks I’m mad.

  “I don’t think you’re mad,” Flannery said. He focused on her, surprised.

  “Even I could guess that’s what you were thinking, Jary,” Evander said. “Come on. Let’s go get a drink.”

  He allowed himself to be herded out of the throne room. He couldn’t stand to wait for a cab, so they walked together down the front lawn to the main gates and slipped through the guards’ entrance onto the street. A trolley was just about to clang by, and they chased it, caught the pole at the back in turns, and swung on.

  Everyone made way for them—three importantly-uniformed people coming from the castle—but they stood together in silence. They jumped back off only a post and a half later, just outside their favorite pub.

  “It’s over,” Jary said once they’d been seated and served. “I can’t believe it.”

  “It isn’t over just because he won’t help,” Flannery said.

  She’s mad at me now.

  “Flan, I know you think—” Evander began, but she turned her cool gaze on the man, and he subsided.

  “Nylan has more than one parent with power.” Her glass seemed in danger of shattering, her knuckles white as she gripped its handle, but that was the only sign she gave of her fury. She looked at Jarlyth, unblinking, as if trying to send a thought into his brain.

  Which she could if I let her. He didn’t feel up to it. He wanted to get drunk. And maybe grab a nik. He turned slowly, trying not to be obvious, and caught the barmaid’s eye. She grinned back at him. She remembers. Good. It wasn’t very difficult for a Sensitive to find willing bed-partners. Their reputation preceded them.

  He flicked a glance at Evander and narrowed his eyes, trying to get him to leave, and take Flan with you!

  But Flannery was the one who excelled at reading him. She stood up, the sound of her chair shoving away from the table startling him back into looking across the table to where she had been sitting. The look she gave him made him feel suddenly embarrassed and exposed, but when he opened his mouth, he found nothing to say.

  Also wordless, Flannery turned on her heel and strode out of the pub. Leaving me with the tab. That’s fair.

  Evander stood up more easily, but his grin was real this time. “Shize, Jary. Next time, just say you want to be alone to relax.” He took out an herbal smoke and lit it, blowing out a mouthful of smoke as he gazed toward the door. “She’ll kill us both, one of these days.”

  “We’ll probably deserve it,” Jary agreed.

  The other man snorted. “I’ll go calm her down. We’ll meet up tomorrow and discuss next steps.”

  Left alone, Jarlyth nursed his drink and thought. Next steps... Flannery was right.

  Up until now, he hadn’t wanted to waste time running so far away to Voya to seek help he’d thought available to him in Serathon. But now it seemed the only thing to do.

  I can’t stand it. How many more moons will it take just to be able to continue the search? Where in all the hells is he?

  They’d searched Worldsend more thoroughly than anyone likely ever had. Nylan had been nowhere to be found, though rumors sprang up like weeds, all of them turning down dead-ends eventually. Even the mercenaries hadn’t been able to tell him anything of value.

  The barmaid wandered over to his table, her smile more alluring, her eyes warm with anticipation. “Good to see you, Lord Denara.” She sat a bottle of very fine wine down on the table, followed by two glasses. “May I join you?”

  He echoed her smile and waved a hand, inviting her.

  Tomorrow would not be soon enough, but it was too late to leave for SouthPort today, and he had arrangements to make before he could even do that. Too late today to do any of it. Might as well relax, then.

  But he knew that someday he’d regret these stolen moments. When I find him...I’ll hate myself for every tic’s delay.

  Nylan was lost somewhere, alone, probably scared and unhappy and wondering what had happened to him.

  But Jarlyth couldn’t stop breathing, living, finding a moment’s peace once in awhile just because he knew his beloved charge was still lost.

  I also can’t stop feeling guilty.

  But that seemed only a fair price to pay.

  #

  The rain had not stopped, though Michael didn’t notice it at first. He didn’t notice anything outside of himself for a very long time as he sat against the public pump, shivering and reliving everything that had led up to this disaster.

  The stone edge of the pump’s platform dug into his back and had probably left a bruise when he’d been dropped there by the nannas. He began to feel the discomfort; began to feel the cold of the rain and his wet clothes as the rain kept falling; began to feel the deep, gut-twisting terror.

  The central building of the orphanage’s several loomed over him, seeming to glare down through its stories-high stained glass window eyes. The gates stood closed and locked for the night. Enormous chains wrapped the wrought-iron bars several times. Their weight underscored the impossibility of the gates being opened against the nannas’ will.

  The scant, waning daylight making its way through the storm clouds suggested that wherever the sun was hiding, it had yet to set.

  Everything happened so fast. Why does it always have to happen so nikking fast?

  His mouth throbbed and a finger touched to his lips came away bloody.

  Ethene’s dead...I should have let her die the way Vail meant. I didn’t mean for it to be like this.

  He was having trouble accepting what had happened to him. He’d been thrown him out—he realized that—but all that this action meant, all that Ethene’s death meant, all that Mabbina had done and had meant to do to him—it was more than he could comprehend all at once.

  “I’m kiska now,” he whispered, frightened. But where do the kiska go when JhaPel won’t take them? He bit his lip as he thought of Telyr and the boys who’d attacked Cyra. And me...but that won’t be me. That won’t happen to me.

  “Pol. Pol will help me,” he said. He used the platform’s edge to pull himself to his feet and just managed to avoid stepping in one of the troughs.

  He splashed his face and hoped his lip had stopped bleeding. His face and throat hurt, and he had no idea what condition they were in, but he knew he couldn’t afford to worry about that. He had to find Pol as quickly as he could.

  But where is the Red Boar Inn?

  He hadn’t seen anyone since the nannas—not surprising, thanks to the rain which, even for Queen’s City, was falling especially hard—but if he intended to find Pol, he’d have to find someone who could tell him where the Red Boar was. All he knew was that it was somewhere in Fensgate. JhaPel stood beside Fensgate Temple and together the two made up the southwestern border of the parish. He had to go the other way if he wanted to stay in Fensgate.

  Not that I want to. This is the worst place for a kiska to be! But he was afraid it might be the only place, too.

&nbs
p; He knew so little about anything beyond the walls of JhaPel, and for the first time, he comprehended how dangerous this was. He had only three years’ worth of memories and knowledge, and virtually all of it related to the orphanage in some way.

  He could count the number of times he’d really been away from JhaPel on one hand—going to Holy Prayers certainly didn’t count—and he’d learned nothing of use to him now during those few outings.

  The rain seemed to be easing off but already it was much darker. Michael picked a street at random from the seven fanning out from the square, heading away from JhaPel and began to walk.

  The buildings crowded together along either side of all the streets, towering up precariously and seeming to lean toward each other over the cobblestones below. Nothing in Fensgate was tall enough to distinguish itself above the buildings and twisting streets except the temple’s bell tower, and even it sometimes disappeared amongst the tangle of streets and alleys and upper stories.

  Michael remembered what Pol had said and feared he was walking into a maze he might never escape.

  The rain did prevent him from being overwhelmed by every shock Fensgate had in store for him. It had fallen for so long that day, it had washed away—for a short time—the stench and filth that normally clogged the parish’s streets.

  Grasping the lifeline Pol represented to him, Michael walked along in a fog of shock and denial.

  He decided against asking the first few people he saw where he could find the Red Boar Inn. They looked strange and scary. And they looked at him as if he were strange, too. It unnerved him.

  An old woman stood under a tattered awning, looking not much better than it did, but when she gave Michael a toothless grin, he decided she’d be safe enough to ask.

  “Excuse me, senna. Would you know where I could find the Red Boar Inn?”

  Her eyes widened, and then she made a coughing noise he thought might be a laugh. “Yer lookin’ for the Red Boar, are ye? What’s a lowly kiska like yer want with a flash place like the Red Boar?”

  Michael frowned at that. “I just want to know where it is. If you know, please?”

  “Oh, I know it, I do,” she assured him, as if she didn’t look ten times more lowly than he did.

  “I have a friend who works there.” Michael hoped she wasn’t crazy. “I need to find him.”

  She coughed again but nodded and began a long series of directions that soon baffled the boy. He repeated them to her, and though he knew he’d confused much of what she’d told him, she agreed with his recital. He tried to see in her mind what she was describing to him, but that only made things murkier.

  His shoulders sagged, but he started walking again, hoping that at least the first few turn-heres and go-theres were correct.

  Though the state of their clothing varied a good deal, the next three people he begged directions from were equally as perplexing as the old woman had been, both in the way they reacted to his question and in the complicated directions they supplied.

  After walking for hours, he heard the temple bell ring far off in the distance for Second Prayer. Almost at that same moment, it had started to rain again in earnest, and—exhausted, terrified, and very hungry—he began to believe he’d never arrive anywhere.

  Though he’d seen a carriage or two pass him by, it had been a long time since he’d seen anyone to give him directions—however useless they’d all turned out to be. And what if I’ve passed it without knowing? What am I going to do if I can’t find Pol? What am I going to do?

  Tears stung his eyes, and he inhaled deeply and held his breath to try to keep them from falling. He failed.

  I didn’t mean it! I didn’t know! I didn’t mean it to happen!

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. The words heaved up from deep inside him and came out on the crest of a great sob. More sobs wracked his body, and he sank to the ground, too exhausted to stand for another moment.

  He heard the carriage coming but didn’t try to look for it. His shock had grown more powerful and more debilitating as the night had worn on, and his brain could no longer put the sound of the carriage together with his own collapse in the street and warn him of his danger.

  The driver’s senses and reactions were apparently more acute. The horse stopped with a length to spare, and a man climbed out of the carriage and approached him.

  “Michael? Is that you?” a man’s voice asked him.

  “Magister Vaznel?” Michael whispered. “What are you doing here?”

  The man said nothing more but knelt down and picked Michael up, ignoring his dirty and sopping-wet clothing. He carried the boy back to the carriage and settled him onto the seat beside him. So deep was his shock, however, Michael felt nothing from him at all.

  “Drive on,” the man called as he shrugged out of his coat. Turning to Michael, he said, “Here, put this on. You’re chilled to the bone.”

  The obviously fine and elegant coat enveloped him in warmth and Michael felt a little better. “Thank you,” he breathed.

  “Of course,” the man replied. It was Magister Vaznel, though he had to look into the man’s face to confirm it. His wavy, dark hair framed a painfully-sympathetic expression made even more kind by the man’s shy, childlike smile and large, perpetually worried eyes. Michael had not thought to see the man again after Mabbina told him his lessons were cancelled. The man’s blankness of mind had always been a little unsettling but at that moment, it was very welcome. Michael didn’t think he could take one more thought or feeling from anyone.

  Michael couldn’t imagine what series of events had brought the man to find him wandering Fensgate that particular night, but he was very, very glad to see a familiar face.

  Magister Vaznel regarded Michael thoughtfully. Finally, as if to answer the boy’s unspoken wonderings, he said. “Nanna Whiltierna sent word about Abbess Ethene and everything. She asked me to find you. I’m so sorry.”

  Michael’s eyes stung with fresh tears. “You shouldn’t be helping me. Nanna Mabbina was right to throw me out.”

  The man reached out and with gentle fingers traced the outline of the bruise marring the boy’s cheek. Michael flinched, but he felt nothing from the man, still. I forgot. He’s muted. But he’s even more blank than before.

  He wondered why, but Vaznel interrupted his thoughts. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  He’s so odd. Is that why Nanna Mabbina doesn’t like artists? Michael shook his head, and the man returned to what he’d said before.

  “‘Right to throw you out?’” He repeated Michael’s words, plainly surprised. “It seems you were on the worse end of the situation. And I can’t imagine you meaning to do anything wicked. You’re the sweetest child I’ve ever met.”

  “Nanna Mabbina doesn’t think so.” He bit his lip, not wanting to cry in front of his tutor. “She’s probably right. Everything just happened so fast.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how you ended up where I found you. We’re posts away from JhaPel. What were you doing?”

  Michael almost wailed his answer. “I was looking for the Red Boar Inn! I have a friend there, and I thought he might be able to help me. Do you know where it is?”

  Vaznel nodded, but Michael recognized the odd expression on his face. Everyone seemed to react to the Red Boar’s name the same way. But Pol is there, and he’ll help me! “Could you please take me there? I looked for it for hours, but I couldn’t find it.”

  The man smiled at Michael and shook his head. “Not right now. It’s too late even for the Red Boar. Come home with me tonight, and we’ll see about finding your friend tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble, Magister—”

  “Call me Robyn. All my friends do.”

  Michael blushed again but managed a grateful smile. “Thank you, sirra.”

  “Robyn. I must insist upon that.”

  “Thank you, Robyn.”

  # # #

  CHAPTER TEN

  Michael didn’t remember falling aslee
p. The carriage ride had been a long one, though, and the coat had been so soft and warm that he knew he must have nodded off before they’d reached Robyn’s home.

  He lay still for a long time after he woke up, keeping his eyes closed in the childish hope that if he didn’t open them, everything would be all right.

  Ultimately, it was hunger that led him to open his eyes and break the fragile bubble of hope he’d created. The bed he was in was not his own and the room he was in was definitely not his dorm room at JhaPel. Which could only mean that the fragmented, frantic memories he had of the night before really had happened. Abbess Ethene was dead. He had been banished from the only home he’d ever known. And he must now be in Robyn’s house.

  He wilted back into the pillows, exhausted and devastated all over again. He was very thirsty, and his throat ached. His entire body throbbed from the intensity of his headache. His face hurt even at the pillow’s slight pressure. He remembered Nanna Mabbina hitting him and closed his eyes again.

  The bed chamber door whispered open, and Michael peeked through swollen eyelids to see Robyn’s sympathy-filled face. The man carried a tray filled with delicious-smelling food. Michael’s stomach rumbled noisily.

  “And well you should be hungry, dear boy.” Robyn set the tray down on the foot of the bed. “You fell asleep before I could feed you. It must be more than a day since you’ve had anything to eat.”

  “What time is it?” Michael was afraid he knew the answer.

  “It’s well past Seventh Prayer.”

  Dismayed, Michael blurted, “I slept all day! I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all. After what you’ve been through, it is only to be expected. We shall find your friend tomorrow.”

  Michael’s shoulders sagged. He’d hoped Robyn would take him to the Red Boar right away. Doesn’t he want to be rid of me? But he’d been brought up by the nannas not to argue, so he said nothing.

  “Eat as much of what’s on that tray as you can. The bathing room is through that door over there.” Robyn pointed to the wall behind and to the right of Michael’s bed where, yes, there was a door. “And I will be down in my study where you may join me in a little while if you wish to. This room is just at the top of the stairs, so you should have no trouble finding me from here, all right?”