“I know it does.”
Malik raised his eyebrows, then he leaned back against the tree and laughed. “Oh this is too good. I’m not supposed to say anything, but who would you tell anyway?”
“Tell what?”
“Still interrupting are you? You never did learn.” He smirked for a while, clearly enjoying his control of the situation. “It was my father who dropped a few words about who would go on this headless quest. I’m telling you because I want you to know that he only did what I told him. You see, I win in the end. And this time, you and your little Mardrae savage both lose.”
“Was it not enough to … to use that … stinking bully on me?”
“Iver was not enough!” Malik shouted. It was like the hissing of a mad cobra. He reined himself in and the mocking smile returned. “Though it was very nice to see Ilona finally lose whatever respect she had for you.”
Aedan shrank at the words.
“But it was not enough,” Malik continued. “See, the thing is that you and your savage both insulted me. I’m no spineless worm that can bend and ignore it. I remember everything you both said to disrespect me, teaching your friends to do the same. And then there was the festival, when you had the luck to surprise that gang.” Malik’s face was growing red, something Aedan had never before seen. “You told the story as if you had succeeded where I had failed.”
“But I only told what happened, and you were unconscious so how would you know?”
“Because I know you.” Malik was breathing hard. “I finally saw, thanks to Iver. You’re a worm, a little shaking worm who could never have done what you said you did. That’s when I knew. For years I suspected, but it was Iver who showed me the truth. You talked yourself big at my expense! Polishing your boots with my name!”
The last words were almost screamed. It was the first time he had shown emotion like this; it actually looked as if there were tears in his eyes. He recovered himself quickly though and stepped forward, fixing Aedan with an icy glare. “See,” he said, “nothing to say now is there?”
He was partly right – Aedan did not know what to say. What evidence could he supply? He realised that it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Malik had his verdict. The case was closed.
“You should have listened at the beginning, North-boy. You should have left. You brought this on yourself and her. You’ll be gone for at least three months, and Culver’s not going to bother with your studies like you were promised – I saw to that as well – so you’ll fail the year for sure, both of you. But that only matters if you make it back” – his lips curled slowly – “and I don’t think you will.”
He held the baleful glare, then turned and strode away, leaving Aedan chilled, fumbling with jagged thoughts as he made his way back to the stables.
Culver arrived with the large hairy man Aedan remembered from the final interview of the entrance examinations. Aedan tried to ask a question, but the chancellor strode past and spoke without breaking step. “You will deal with my assistant, Fergal.” His tone was as dismissive as his words.
Malik had spoken the truth then – at least that part was true. Even if they made it back from this corrupted quest, he and Liru would be failed. At the very least, the year was being stolen from them, and along with it, their friends. He should have broken Malik’s nose.
The bulky assistant offered Aedan a kind smile beneath a glowing nose. “We’ll speak along the way,” he said from within a black forest of beard, and lumbered off to find his horse. Aedan made no effort to conceal his dismay. He remembered now that he had seen the man more recently – with a mop!
“Aren’t you a cleaner?” he asked, coming up to him.
The man looked at him, quiet humour in his eyes. He was obviously in no hurry to answer. Aedan began to wonder if this servant was hard of hearing.
“I do clean, yes, among other things,” Fergal said. “Are you above being taught by a cleaner?”
Aedan was not in a good mood, and lessons were the least of his concerns. He wanted to say something cutting but he realised that this poor fellow was not his enemy, and the lessons would probably make no difference in the end anyway. “No,” he said, and left to finish saddling his pony.
A light wintery drizzle had come out to soak the first day of their quest. All had their hoods up, all but Fergal whose mass of black hair acted like a thatch roof. He seemed quite content with the miserable weather.
At the city gates, the party was met by a unit of a dozen soldiers and several pack-mules loaded with bags – grains, beans and other supplies for the journey. The soldiers were wearing leather armour suitable for travelling. They carried an assortment of weapons, all a lot bigger than cheese knives.
They were also cloaked and hooded so their faces were mostly hidden, but the eyes that Aedan saw were shifty and hard. These were not boys; there was no buzz of innocent enthusiasm here. He looked ahead at Liru, so small on her little pony, and he felt a thorn of worry begin to work at him. To the side, he glimpsed a soldier smiling at her. The man’s look gave him more cause to shiver than the wind that now struck through the opening gates.
He thought of how he and his friends had contributed to the design of the city’s defences, to the safety of its people, and wondered how things had come to this. Could the prince he served really be sending him to die for some political convenience?
He looked out at the sheets of drizzle. The men would not want to camp in the open tonight. They would push for one of the villages at a trot. He would have to slow them tomorrow. He blessed Osric quietly for the frogweed. Where was it now? He had put it under his bed so that it wouldn’t be found among his packed things during the night by a suspicious Dun. He turned around with a gasp and felt through the saddlebags with mounting panic, almost spilling his clothes on the muddy road.
He had left it.
Building on the outer wall was supposed to commence at first light every day, but there were no hands to be seen as the party approached the network of scaffolds and ramps. After passing a large mound of rock and stone, Aedan caught sight of a group of builders. They were huddled against the leeward shelter of the now-twelve-foot wall, trying to kindle a fire. Captain Senbert shouted at them, but a sudden watery squall turned everything white and swept his words away, apparently along with any resolve to interfere. He put his head down and urged his horse forward, leaving the builders to themselves.
The road lay empty, apart from a few unfortunates who hurried through the mud to or from the city. As soon as the party had descended the slope, the captain spurred his horse to a trot. Aedan glanced to his right as they passed Borr and Harriet’s home. His mother would be there. Thinking of her made him feel like turning his pony from this hateful procession and dashing away. But she could not protect him. Who could, if the prince had in fact ordered his death? Osric, perhaps, but even that was uncertain.
The morning aged without changing, unable to outgrow its mood. It remained swamped in a dusky darkness, thick with drizzle and worried by restless wind. The belts of rain would often bring visibility down to a few yards, but in the breaks when the clouds gathered for the next squall, the travellers were permitted brief glimpses of the surrounds. Buildings began to thin out until there were only scattered farmsteads on the plains. Here, barns and homes crouched and dripped while smudges of blue smoke were pulled from their chimneys by the gusts. Only the bravest of the farmers could be spied in their fields; the rest were clearly content to bow out and let the weather do its work.
The miserable travelling allowed Aedan much time for thought. The immediate threat gave way to something that had been often in his mind over the past few days. It was an interview he had recently had with Giddard, an interview that had shaken him to the roots.
“One of my little first-year boys came to me,” Giddard had said, “much like you once did – overwhelmed and concerned. He said that there was an older apprentice who hurt him, and whom he now avoided.”
“Was it Warton?” Aed
an had asked with a guilt-reddening complexion.
“No, Aedan. It was you.”
Aedan still felt his cheeks burn. He had only meant to bring the junior apprentice into line. He hadn’t intended to use his fists again, like when the other boy had asked if he was the coward.
Or had he?
Had he really beaten him? The memory was distorted, nightmarish. He had shouted, but there was more. Had he really hit?
Something of Iver, something of his father – curse them both! – must have started growing on him, like horns, invisible to him, but not to everyone else. It was as if he was now becoming the thing he hated with no way to stop the infection. He could not even see it, much less root it out.
At first he had despised Giddard for his words. Then Hadley had said something similar, and then he had seen the little apprentice run from him. Now it was himself he had begun to despise. What was happening to him?
Perhaps being away from everyone for a few months would help, but in spite of the frail hope, he knew it would take more than time, though what, he could not say.
The horses had been alternately trotting and walking for a few hours when the Captain called a halt and dismounted along with a sergeant.
Aedan looked around. They were in a shallow depression – no buildings or people were visible. More to the point, their party was visible to none. With a rush of fear he wondered if this could be it. Sounds would not carry, graves could be easily dug in the softened earth, tracks would wash away in the rain. He urged his horse forward and stopped beside Liru.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“What good will talking do, Aedan? I have made peace with my fate. Let me be.”
“It’s not your fate. Are you going to make no effort to escape any of this?”
“And then what would happen to my parents if I escape your prince. He will turn on them. I will not let that happen.”
“But Liru –”
“Enough Aedan. Leave me.” With that she urged her horse away.
The sergeant called out that they would stop briefly. The party dismounted. Aedan headed for the trees. On his way back, one of the soldiers stepped in front of him with a loose-lipped smirk.
“Not much luck with the girl, huh? Saw her give you the hoof. Bit dark for my usual taste, but definitely growing on me. I like a bit of pluck.”
Aedan stared back, furious but helpless.
The soldier laughed and made a mock chop at Aedan’s neck with an imaginary sword. “Look at me like that too often and I’ll cut you down to size, little marshal.”
The captain had been within earshot, but he merely turned away. He carried his head as if his neck was tired, shoulders drawn in; he looked wilted. On the few occasions when Aedan had seen his face, it had reflected turmoil.
The day continued as gloomily as it had begun. Sodden and cold, they pressed on until, in the failing light, they came to the gates of Morren. Once the horses were stabled, their riders hurried indoors where they warmed themselves before the hearth while stamping in pools of water that gathered at their feet.
The inn, named The Rabbit’s Burrow, was a warm and cheery place, though decidedly more rustic than anything Aedan had seen in Castath. Reeds covered the clay floor, and smoky rushlights mounted against the walls put out a moody glow that barely reached the centre of the room. Under better circumstances Aedan would have found the place almost magical.
The regulars looked, for the most part, to be farmers, labourers and craftsmen – the carpenter and blacksmith were easily identified by wood shavings and soot. Between them they set up a buzz and hum of relaxed conversation. Aedan caught a few strands – caterpillars in the cabbages, a new hay wagon big enough to carry a house and that necessitated widening of all gates, predictions of rain and complaints about last month’s predictions. There was talk of the latest eerie sighting at Eastridge – trees that had been devoured by something in the night – and then a story that spilled the banks of gentle murmuring.
Apparently one of the dairy cows had tried to jump a fence and only made it half way, landed on the beam, and slid forward until her forelegs reached the ground. There she remained, half on and half off until the labourers could wrestle her free. One of the men proceeded to re-enact the performance by suspending himself over the back of a chair, buttocks hoisted, legs in the air kicking uselessly. His companions were helpless with laughter.
Aedan smiled, as much at the story as at those who told it. Though he had grown to love Castath and the academy, he missed these quiet country ways.
A whistle and lyre were produced and two musicians, young, eager and more than a little nervous, took their places in the corner and began to pour out a medley of folksongs. The notes did not always agree, but the result was nevertheless a pleasant ambience, like the bubbling of a quiet brook.
The innkeeper was a small man with bulging cheeks and a white downy beard under grey downy hair. With a carrot plugging his mouth it would have taken little imagination to see that this was indeed his burrow. He was as polite and attentive as a grandfather hosting his nephew’s birthday party.
His wife, however, was a different prospect altogether. She was a big woman with a hard face and sharp ears. At any hint of disorder, she would march through from the kitchen to raise her eyebrows as a herder raises his staff, or as a stone mason raises his hammer. The locals sensed the weight of those brows and simmered down when she appeared, but the soldiers paid her little attention. As the evening progressed, they became louder, their talk cruder, their looks meaner. Locals began to grow quiet and started leaving, a few without finishing their meals. It was as Aedan had suspected. These soldiers were of the wrong kind.
Unfortunately, the eager, bowing innkeeper could not oppose anyone’s wish, so the ale flowed more freely than it ought to have done. The serving girls knew to retreat from the company of drinking soldiers, especially this kind, and the innkeeper was left to manage his own disaster.
Aedan had hoped to speak to Culver – he needed to speak to him, and urgently – but the chancellor and his assistant took their meals to a small table that would not accommodate a third. Aedan found another small table. Liru, instead of joining him, sat by herself until the soldier that had been watching her earlier joined her. She left him without a word and took the chair opposite Aedan. Roars of laughter rose from the soldiers who had been watching the performance. Even the captain, whose mood had been softened by a bottle of wine, was enjoying the spectacle. The rejected soldier’s smile, however, was tight as a scar. Liru remained silent and ate little, though the duck pie was perfect – thick pastry and soft meat swimming in a spicy gravy.
Fergal lingered to see that Aedan and Liru found their rooms. When he turned to leave, Aedan asked if he might have a word. Fergal replied, in a voice that carried a long way, that there would be much time for talk during the journey and that whatever he had to say could wait a few days. Aedan opened his mouth to say that there might not be a few days. But Fergal held up a hand and spoke one Sulese word, almost like a salutation, then lumbered away, his broad shape filling the passage from wall to wall.
Vlegalyo’du. That was not a salutation. Aedan went to his room and racked his brain to dig up the meaning. It was familiar. If he had brought his books he could have found it quickly. Something told him that there was an importance attached to the word – Fergal’s eyes had been intent when speaking it, as if driving some meaning home. Aedan paced, he leaned with his head against the wall and drummed his fingers, whispering the word to himself over and over. A creak distracted him, and he listened. Suddenly he forgot about the creak as his face lit up. Listen – that’s what it meant. Although it should have been vlegalyo. Trust a cleaner to make such a basic error.
But he began to wonder if there was more to it. Then, from an almost forgotten class he remembered the modifier ’du signified people, in this case it would be people who listen. Listeners.
The creak from earlier now took on a meaning, and Aedan re
membered that the body of soldiers in the common room had appeared a little thin. Fergal had given a warning that they were being listened to. That’s why he had spoken so loudly of there being no need for haste. He must have been assuring an eavesdropper that he was not suspicious of anything.
Which meant that he was.
So Fergal and Culver also suspected treachery. Osric, then, had succeeded in getting a warning through. Aedan felt relieved in part, but wondered what the old scholar and his large assistant would be able to do. A compelling lecture would be of little help.
Liru would be no help.
Aedan was unable to sleep. The carousing of the soldiers was enough to keep anyone awake. He hoped Liru had barricaded her door. By the time the inn fell silent, he was still gazing up at the ceiling. The heavens that had already delivered more than a week’s quota of drizzle now showed themselves capable of far greater things as they truly opened up. Through the pounding of heavy drops, he could not even hear his own steps when he got up from the bed and walked to the window. The drowning noise gave him an idea, not a comfortable one, but one that he would be fool to discard.
Getting out the window was the easy part; climbing down the wall under a small waterfall from the roof was something else. He had never climbed under such conditions and did not find it enjoyable. Holding the slippery surfaces was far less of a problem than actually seeing them, and breathing was more difficult still. When he reached the ground, he collapsed into a frothing pool and gasped for air until he had recovered. Even if there had been a light outside, the rain was so thick that it would have sheltered him completely, so he ran around the building to the stables, nearly tripping over the low rim of the well and ending his plans with a long, dark fall.
As he covered the last few yards before the stables, he was surprised by a faint yellow glow emerging through the rain. He guessed too late that Captain Senbert had probably mounted a guard. Unable to stop in time, he skidded under the eaves and looked up to see a soldier at the far corner of the building holding a lamp.
Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) Page 51
