by Karen Miller
‘The king presented it to me on my twelfth birthday.’ There was grief in the prince’s face now, and in his voice, raw as an open wound. ‘I swore to him I’d look after it. I swore—’
‘It doesn’t matter, Your Highness,’ said Darran, trying to soothe. It was hard; he felt jagged with his own distress. ‘Not compared to—’
‘Of course it bloody matters, you stupid old man!’ Gar shouted. ‘That circlet was a treasure, a priceless part of Lur’s history. It was a gift from my father! How can you stand there and say it doesn’t—’
‘Because you matter more!’ Darran shouted back. ‘Don’t you understand that, you foolish, foolish boy?’
Shocked silence. Horrified, Darran turned away, fists pressed against his chest. Behind him the prince shifted in his blankets. ‘Darran …’
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t speak. Had reminded himself over and over that his was the privileged place of servant to the royal family. The creed, unbreakable, was see all and say nothing. He was a man in the autumn of his life, this prince young enough to be a grandson. The onus was on him to behave as was proper, to indulge the hot blood of youth, to wave an indolent hand at intemperate outbursts. To understand and forgive, no matter what the provocation. That was maturity. That was the code.
Without permission his body turned and his mouth opened. His voice emerged, sounding thin, frightened, not his voice at all.
‘I remember the day you were born. Your gracious mother placed you in my arms with her own fair hands. You were so tiny. You smiled at me. I know you don’t remember, but you did.’ Memory curved his lips into the answering smile he’d blazed at the little thing.
The prince stared, startled and discomfited. Uncertain, and in need of a wiser man’s guidance though he couldn’t see it. ‘Darran …’
It was the vulnerability that shattered the last of his resolve. ‘I thought you were drowned!’ he cried. ‘I thought I would have to take your broken body back to your mother! Or worse, tell her – tell her you were lost beneath the waves, not even your body to—’
The hot tears behind his eyes burst forth, unstoppable. Flooded with shame he turned away again, hands pressed to his face. Disgraceful, this was disgraceful … but oh, how dreadful it had been with the storm upon them and the screaming and the howling and the clouds and rain and lightning and thunderbolts, the hail, the blood, the shrieking children, the waves as tall as trees and taller, pounding them to the ground, pounding them to pieces on the cobblestones, and the prince alone out there on the unprotected ocean! Moaning, he pressed his thin fingers to his lips and willed away the raw and recent horror.
‘Darran, you musn’t,’ the prince said, his voice strained. ‘I’m not drowned. I’m not even hurt, not to mention. Just a few bumps and bruises. I know you had a nasty shock, we all did, but we can’t go to pieces now. There’s too much to do.’
He could only nod, couldn’t trust his treacherous voice.
The prince said, shifting inside his blanket, ‘You know what that storm means, Darran. You know what must have happened.’
No, no, no. It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. Fresh tears brimming he turned, looked at the king’s son, whose own eyes were brilliant with unshed grief. ‘We don’t know anything for certain,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ the prince said starkly. ‘Barl save me, Darran. I know. Such a cataclysm can only be the result of … it has happened before, twice – I fear only one conclusion can be drawn! His Majesty is … His Majesty has …’ His expression fractured then, exposing a wasteland of loss. A hand came up to cover his face, fingers white and pressing.
On a choked sob Darran went to him, heedless of protocol, of propriety, of every rule he’d ever followed, every boundary he’d never crossed. He put his arms around the prince’s shoulders and held him. ‘There, there,’ he said, helpless, washed in his own tears. ‘There, there.’
At length the prince withdrew, pain banished, a new and harder resolve in his eyes. ‘How bad is it in the township, Darran? The truth.’
Oh, how he’d dreaded that question. Prevaricating, he stood and moved away. Smoothed his rumpled vest, his limp collar and sagging sleeves. Took deep, mustard-scented breaths until his heart was racing only a little.
‘Bad enough,’ he replied, and on another breath turned and faced his prince again. ‘Perhaps half a hundred dead. There seems to be some difficulty in agreeing on a final tally. Some drowned, some struck with debris. Some … trampled underfoot in the panic to escape the foreshore.’ Despite himself he shuddered, seeing again an old woman crushed to a pulp in the first mad stampede. ‘Injuries, of course. Aid stations have been established in several locations. Doranen healers have been sent for, but Barl alone knows how long they’ll take to reach us, even if any are to be found. This is an Olken part of the world, sir. They have their herbalists and their pothecaries, fine people, doing all they can. Of course it’s not the same as having a proper Doranen physicker, but they seem to be managing tolerably well.’
‘What of damage to property?’
‘As you can imagine, sir, it is extensive. Trees down, roof tiles blown off, windows shattered. Boats sunk to the bottom of the harbour.’
‘The Crown will see them right,’ the prince said, and pulled his blanket closer. ‘Whoever has lost what is dear in this calamity, he or she shall be recompensed.’
Aching, Darran passed a shaking hand across his eyes. My boy, my boy, and who will recompense you? His heart broke anew at the thought. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said. ‘I have set Willer to starting the tally in anticipation of such a commitment.’
Incredibly, a faint smile. ‘Your efficiency does you credit, Darran.’ Then the smile faded. ‘I must return to the City. Tomorrow, at first light. The rest of today I will inspect as much of the damage as I can. Pay my respects to the bereaved. I’ll need you to work with Asher to ensure my speedy leave-taking come the dawn.’
‘Leave tomorrow?’ Aghast, he stared at the prince. ‘But that’s impossible! Recall that you nearly drowned, Your Highness! You mustn’t exert yourself before a proper medical inspection, by a proper Doranen pothecary! You need rest, sir, and embrocations for your bruises!’
The prince waved an impatient hand. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. The pothers are for those with real injuries. You’re making far too much of a few cuts and scrapes. I’ve had worse falling off my horse out hunting and you know it.’
Grimly determined Darran straightened his spine hard and said, lips pinched with disapproval, ‘I cannot support such behaviour, sir.’
The prince lurched to his feet, blanket clutched haphazardly about his chest, eyes blazing. ‘I haven’t asked you to support it! I’m telling you what I intend to do! My mother needs me and I will go to her, is that clear?’
Somehow he stood his ground in the face of royal anger. ‘You are needed here, sir.’
‘I know,’ the prince replied. ‘But the queen takes precedence. You will act in my stead, with my voice, my hand. Do whatever needs to be done. I’ll support any decision that you make, without reservation. But I am returning to Dorana at dawn.’
He was beaten and he knew it, so he bowed, punctiliously. ‘As you wish, Your Highness.’
‘No,’ said the prince, and his face was bleak as winter. ‘As I must. Now. Where’s Asher? I need to talk to him.’
‘I don’t know where he is, sir,’ he said, scrupulously neutral. ‘He left the premises against my express request. Something about making sure his family was all right.’
The prince paused in midscowl. Let out a deep sigh. ‘Of course. I should have thought. Are they all right?’
Darran lifted an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir. All I do know is he had no business leaving without your permission. He has duties, obligations—’
‘Oh, for Barl’s sake!’ the prince snapped. ‘He has family, Darran. For all we know one or all of them could be among the injured. Or the dead. Of course he went to see if they’re all right!’<
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Well, naturally the prince would say that. His judgement was woefully suspect when it came to that ruffian. The prince was a good lad with a kind and lonely heart, ripe pickings for the unscrupulous, the callous and the calculating. ‘Yes, sir.’
The prince sighed and thumped back into his armchair. When he looked up again his expression was wry and cross and irritatedly patient. ‘You know he saved my life, Darran.’
Saved his life. That was how Asher would tell the tale, for certain. Like as not it had been an accident; like as not he’d been flung into the ocean himself and just happened to latch onto His Highness in all the confusion. Circumstance. Serendipity. To suggest that an uncouth savage like Asher could be heroic?
With a bow and smile he humoured his prince. ‘Yes, sir.’
The prince flicked him a sharp look. ‘Darran, he did. I was drowning and he saved me.’
Prickled by sudden doubt, by the new shadow in the prince’s eyes, Darran stared at him. ‘Drowning?’
‘A few more seconds and I would’ve been dead. Don’t let your dislike blind you, Darran. You’re a better man than that. I owe Asher my life.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said faintly.
With a dismissive wave of his hand the prince slumped inside his blankets. ‘Now leave me. Find one of our pigeons and get a message to the queen. Let her know I’m all right and that I’m coming home. And when Asher returns send him to me immediately.’
Another bow. He could try arguing some more, but what would be the point? ‘Certainly, sir. Can I send up something from the kitchens, sir?’
The prince shrugged. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know. Do what you like. Some soup, maybe.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Darran?’
Fingers on the door handle, he turned. ‘Yes, sir?’
The prince was scowling again. ‘You might as well give me the damned mustard bath. Seeing as it’s just sitting there, getting cold.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, killing the fatuous smile that threatened to spread over his face. ‘As Your Highness commands. As always.’
‘Watch out!’
Asher looked up, saw the slithering roof tiles and leapt aside just in time. With a crash and a splintering spray of clay shards the red squares hit the cobblestones beside him. Peering downwards, a pale face mottled with bruises, eyes wide with alarm.
‘Be you unhurt?’ the man shouted.
‘Aye,’ he called back, but didn’t stop, kept on hurrying. If he stopped for every man, woman and child that needed help in these demolished streets he’d not reach the Dancing Dolphin till the middle of next week. That’s where he’d find his family. Year in, year out, without alteration, at festival time they stayed at the Dancing Dolphin.
It wasn’t a fashionable inn, which was why Da liked it so much. Good food, better ale, soft beds and no gapesters forever goin’ on about how they saw the king and what a mighty upstandin’ man he be and weren’t they lucky to have such a king to help sing in the harvest. Lucky. When everybody knew their festival weren’t nowt to do with any Doranen. An Olken matter, it was, and the king bein’ invited no more than a courtesy when you got right down to it.
Skirting more debris he turned his face away from a woman standing in a doorway with a mute wrapped bundle in her arms and tears pouring down her blanched and sunken cheeks. Ducked up Lickspittle Lane and into Baitman Alley, which ran along the back of the houses and shops facing onto Seaswell High Street and came out almost opposite the Dolphin at its far end. The damage wasn’t so bad along here. The storm seemed to have cut a straight path down through the township and over the water, as though it were alive, as though it knew exactly where it wanted to go and didn’t care what it went through to get there.
He didn’t want to think about what that might mean. Couldn’t be distracted by Gar’s problems right now. Right now he had his own.
Heart hammering, uncaring of his cuts and bruises and the pains they caused, he jogged along the alley until he reached its end. Then he stopped, one hand clutching the corner of the building beside him, and stared.
The Dolphin’s sign was half torn from its moorings, dangling tipsily groundwards. Two windows on the top floor were broken. Somebody, probably Hiram the innkeeper, had already boarded over the holes.
There were a few tiles missing here and there. By the side door, the old pittypine tree he’d played in as a spratling was half blown over, gnarly roots clotted with dirt and tangled like an old man’s fingers. Apart from that, the inn seemed to still be in one piece. Absurdly, his heart lifted. Brothers aside he had good memories of the Dolphin.
Dodging carts and timber-laden packhorses he crossed Harbourmaster Street, made his way through the gate and along the path that led to the Dancing Dolphin’s front door and banged both fists on it, hard. His heart was beating so violently he thought he could feel his eyes jumping in their sockets.
‘Asher!’ Hiram exclaimed, his vast belly swathed in a dark green apron and his wiry hair a little greyer than the last time they’d met. Standing back, the innkeeper swung the door wide open. ‘Sink me with a rusty anchor! Hepple said he’d seen you ridin’ alongside that namby-pamby prince they sent down from the City, and a course I arsked your fambly and they said they knew nowt on it, said you’d took yourself off a year ago and nobody knew where you were, so I reckoned Hepple’d made a head start on the ale this year, but now here you be and by the looks of your fancy togs you ain’t a fisherman no more so Hepple were right then, were he?’
‘Hiram,’ said Asher, trying to see round the innkeeper’s bulk, ‘be my family here? Be they all right? Da—’
Hiram shook his head and stood back from the doorway. ‘Sorry, lad, sorry, here’s me gabbin’ like a barmaid and you all worrited about your fambly, and speakin’ of fambly let me be the first to tell you how bad me and ole Mistress Hiram did feel when we got the news about—’
‘Hiram. Stow that gabble afore I slice out your tongue and roast it for dinner.’
Silenced midsentence, Hiram turned his head to look at the speaker.
Asher didn’t need to look. He knew that voice. Had known it all his life, and the fists that went with it. With a nod and a grim smile at Hiram, he stepped over the Dolphin’s threshold and prepared to meet his brothers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Warily, Hiram shifted sideways to reveal the inn’s modest staircase and a pack of men, descending. Their boots on the uncarpeted treads were loud in the sudden hush. In the lead, of course, as always, lean and mean and warm as midwinter …
‘Zeth!’ Hiram said. ‘Look who be here!’
Standing still now, scarred fingers taut on the banister, Zeth nodded. ‘I got eyes, Hiram. I can see.’
Hiram cleared his throat. ‘Aye. Well. I’ll just be gettin’ on then, eh? You boys have fambly business to take care of, I reckon. Don’t need no outsider puttin’ in his three cuicks worth, eh? Good to see you again, Asher. Mind you say goodbye, now!’
‘Aye,’ said Asher, his eyes not leaving Zeth’s cold face. ‘That I will, Hiram.’
With a last nervous smile, Hiram retreated. Asher closed the inn’s front door behind him then stared at his brothers. Coming down the stairs one after the other, oldest to youngest, the way they went everywhere. Zeth. Abel. Josha. Wishus. Niko. Bede. All grimly staring and not a bump or bruise between them. Despite everything, he was relieved. He took a step forward. Shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. ‘That wasn’t very polite, Zeth. It’s Hiram’s inn, you know.’
Zeth bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Come home to lesson us in manners, boy?’
Asher swallowed a stupid reply. At Zeth’s back, his other brothers muttered. ‘There’s no need for trouble, Zeth. I just want to see Da.’
Zeth’s sharp smile widened. He started down the stairs again, the pack of brothers at his heels. He looked … older. There was grey in his hair and a new scar on his face, a pink and puckered line slicing through his left eyebrow and down his cheek, mak
ing his eyelid droop.
‘That be a fancy tongue you got in your head, boy. And fancy clothes on your back too. Where’d you come by them, eh?’
Asher stood his ground. It was an old game this, one they’d played him at all his life. Standover bully-boy tactics. Raised fists and whispered threats. Well, he wasn’t in the mood for games and he wasn’t afraid of them any more. Realising that, he nearly laughed out loud. He wasn’t afraid of them any more. After a year of Lord Conroyd Jarralt and Master Magician Durm, who was Zeth? Who were any of ’em?
‘Don’t piss me about, Zeth. Where’s Da? I want to see him.’
‘Curly Thatcher said he saw you ridin’ into town alongside the prince,’ said Zeth, conversational, at the foot of the staircase now and leaning a negligent shoulder against the newel post. Silent and staring, the others spread out behind him. ‘Sailor Vem said you were troughin’ slops with ’im. That where you been this past long while? Hobnobbin’ with blondie?’
Asher let the air hiss softly from his lungs. ‘I don’t answer to you, Zeth. Not any more. Now for the last bloody time, I want to see Da. Where is he? Upstairs? Then let me past. You got no right to keep me from him.’
Zeth turned his head, swept their brothers with a measuring gaze. Then he looked again at Asher. ‘No. No, he ain’t upstairs.’
An icy splinter of fear pierced him. There was something in their faces. A memory in their eyes. ‘Then where is he, Zeth? I want to know. Now.’
Zeth sighed. Inspected his chipped fingernails. Lifted his unfriendly face and said, with all the brutality in him, ‘Why, he’s right where you put ’im, Asher dear. Deep in the cold dark ground.’
Boom, boom, boom went Asher’s heart. ‘What d’you mean, in the ground?’
‘What d’you reckon I bloody mean!’ said Zeth, suddenly savage. ‘Da’s dead, boy. Eight months gone. Mast cracked and fell on ’im. Split ’im in half like a rotten apple.’
‘No,’ he said. But not because he disbelieved his brother. Not because it wasn’t true. The truth of it was raw and bloody in the air between them, in Zeth’s voice, his face. In all his brothers’ faces. ‘No.’
