The Exiled King

by Sarah Remy

  Liam’s relief sounded like ringing in his ears. “Thank you.”

  “Thank Wilde. That horse can smell a villain two villages over. Some people trust their instincts, I trust Wilde. If he’ll take a treat from your hand, it’s because he likes you. So. I’m willing to take a chance on you, Liam, but just the one. Don’t make me regret it.” They’d left the shed rows. Wythe paused before the stable gates, a wonder of ironwork embellished with bronze horse-head medallions and the throne’s silver starburst. The gate stood open. Outside a farrier worked in the evening and a groomsman grazed a spotted mare on a patch of grass. Past the farrier, the setting sun touched the palace’s lowest spire.

  Wythe released Liam’s arm. “Day after tomorrow Morgan’s moving out of the page’s dormitory and into the cavalry’s. He’s far too young, but he can sit a horse and throw a lance. He’ll go to war one way or another, and I want him under my wing.”

  A chill dripped along Liam’s spine. Wythe gave him another of her brusque nods.

  “Word came down this morning. The sand snakes are mobilizing and Roue’s ships are nowhere near Low Port. We’re to prepare to move. A week, maybe two, if we’re lucky.”

  “The draft,” said Liam.

  “Aye.”

  “Morgan—”

  “Is an earl and so must ride out with our house. I want you to ride out with him, as his companion and his squire. You’re handy with a knife and capable with a sword. You say you know how to ride. And I’m betting my last son on the chance that a good man who is neither entirely mortal nor completely sidhe may have a few tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Parsnip and Arthur?”

  “Will stay behind in the palace,” replied Wythe. “As will any other children dredged up in His Majesty’s draft, god willing. It is the throne’s opinion that our surviving young must be kept close and safe. I can’t say I disagree.”

  “They’ll be very angry.” The farrier’s hammer was an echo of Liam’s thumping heart. He’d assumed he would see the war from the ground, in the infantry. He’d not thought to see it so soon.

  “Anger is a privilege of the living. Let them be angry, so long as they are protected. So.” Wythe cocked her head. “Will you do it? It’s good pay, and good company. And if you keep Morgan safe, I’ll be in your debt. Wythe is an old, strong house and we’d do well for you, I think.”

  The groomsman and his charge walked back through the stable gate, the mare dancing on cobblestones. He nodded a greeting, his curious gaze lingering on Liam’s face. The setting sun turned the white palace red. Pennants flapped on the highest tower but on the ground the air was still. Breath held, Liam imagined, waiting on his decision.

  “Well?” prompted Wythe.

  In the end, it was a simple choice.

  “I will,” he said, “on one condition.”

  “To war?” Avani wrapped the woolen blanket taken off her cot more securely about her shoulders. It was well after dark, and while not frosty, the night felt like impending fall. Avani, for all the years she spent on the frigid Downs, was not one to suffer cold easily.

  “It’s coming,” Liam said, “sooner than expected.” He couldn’t read her expression in the great caged bonfire that burned in the yard through the night. They had come outside to talk quietly, away from Parsnip and Morgan and Arthur, each of whom were intent on questioning Avani about life in court.

  “Ai, I know.” Avani pulled her knees up beneath her chin. They sat together on the steps beneath one of the yard’s impressive white stone archways, looking out onto the woods beyond and the Mabon tree, a brighter stripe in a forest of shadows. “I have no quarrel with the desert.”

  A loose thread already marred the line of Liam’s new tunic. He worried at it with thumb and forefinger, thinking. He’d spent the entirety of his short life relying on Avani’s greater wisdom. He knew he owed her his survival at least twice over, and she’d never called that debt in, nor would she. He also knew that, in this, he was right, but she wouldn’t like to hear it.

  “Your goddess is a peaceful sort.”

  She watched him over the swell of her knees. “And I serve Her in all things.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to change that,” he promised. “Only, I don’t think the people of the desert are. A peaceful sort, you understand. I don’t think they’ve any interest in coming to an understanding. From what Riggins says, they never have done. There are far more of them than there are of us, and they’re desirous of our good land, our cities and ports. They want what we have and they’ve no interest in leaving flatlanders alive.”

  “Mercy is a flatlander concept,” Avani murmured.

  Liam blinked. “Just so.” He tugged on a corner of her blanket, stealing a bit of warmth for himself. “Wythe isn’t asking you to fight. She wants you to come along as magus, and healer.”

  “There are priests for that.”

  “And to lay the dead,” Liam told her. “In Roue they had no magus to do so, after battle, and the dead walked in circles on the fields, without ever stopping, Mal said. It was like in the Bone Cave, only worse. I couldn’t see them but I could feel them and it was wrong.”

  “Mal—”

  “Will be kept in Wilhaiim near His Majesty, to see the throne safe. Besides—” he tried for a knowing look but faltered “—the barracks aren’t far enough away from that one. I don’t like to say it. I know you’ve admired him from the beginning. I think you admire him still. But . . .” The words stuck.

  “I know,” Avani said quietly. “You don’t have to explain. I’ve seen it in his head. As he sees in mine. We’re often inseparable now. I suspect that’s why Jacob shuns my company. I’m no longer only myself.”

  Liam half rose in distress, dragging Avani’s blanket from her shoulders. Shock rattled his bones in a shudder. “Avani! Skald’s balls, if anyone were to find out—”

  “Hush,” she interrupted him quickly, raising a hand. She looked toward the woods and the Mabon tree. “Someone comes.”

  Liam, recalling the walking straw men who had appeared in the night and snatched him and Parsnip away, drew his knife. Avani rose slowly, retrieving the blanket and wrapping it once again about her torso.

  “Be calm,” she told him. “It’s only Faolan.”

  They came up out of the woods in a group of three, Faolan and a pale sidhe woman and a barrowman dressed in multicolored rags. Faolan was exactly as Liam had last seen him, much older than he appeared, long limbed, his skull bare, a gleaming torque fastened around his neck. The woman had long hair and dark eyes and her skirts matched the barrowman’s motley. The barrowman scuttled past the bonfire in the way of its kind, a bronze-tipped spear held in one hand.

  They all three crossed the courtyard with remarkable boldness. Liam clenched his fingers around the hilt of his knife, comforted by the weight of it against his palm.

  “Faolan,” Avani rebuked when the small group was within speaking distance, “the barracks are patrolled. Any moment now, the Kingsman on duty will come around that corner, and how will I explain sidhe in the heart of the city? I’d hoped you were safely without.”

  “We have been without,” replied Faolan, smiling small. “And now we are within.”

  “Halwn has tracked your rat.” The woman eyed Liam. Her black gaze was unfriendly. Her sultry features were familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. When he tried, his head buzzed unpleasantly. “The one you call Holder,” she continued. “We know where he’s hiding, and it’s time for a Hunt.”

  “I’ll send word to the palace.” Avani swung toward the barracks, but the sidhe woman stopped her with a hiss.

  “Holder belongs to Halwn,” said Faolan. “To do with as it likes. As reparation for Tadhg’s death. Tell Renault the problem of his traitorous farmer is dealt with.”

  “Tadhg is dead?” Firelight made Avani’s expression stark, stricken. “Its wounds were healing.”

  “Tadhg died of shame,” said Halwn. Liam twitched in surprise. He’d not thought a barrowman
could know the king’s lingua, but Halwn spoke it as clearly Faolan did. “For becoming less than whole. Maimed heart and hands.”

  “The barrowman.” Liam’s own hands went clammy with shock. “Tadhg is the captured barrowman? I saw it, in the fields, and then later, when my lord walked it through the gates. My lord—Malachi—did Malachi kill it?” He thought he might weep.

  Avani wouldn’t meet his eye. The sidhe woman showed Liam her pointed teeth. The barrowman stared, flat black eyes reflecting bonfire flames. Only Faolan paused for thought.

  “Liam,” he said slowly. “You are welcome to join our Hunt.”

  Avani made wordless protest, reaching to pull Liam close. The sidhe woman snarled, bestial sounding as Bear. The barrowman showed no reaction at all.

  Liam’s tongue tasted sour. “Why would I?”

  “It is your right, if you want it.” Faolan touched his torque. “Have you never wondered what it means to be sidhe?”

  “He is not Tuath Dé! He is the very opposite!”

  “Hush, Cleena,” Faolan warned. “It is not for you to decide.”

  “Last Liam was alone amongst the sidhe they meant to kill him,” Avani said. Her arm around his waist tightened.

  “It’s not for you to decide, either. The choice belongs to Liam, should Halwn agree to have him.”

  “We don’t eat tainted meat,” replied the barrowman. “The farmer did Liam damage as well as Tadhg.” It rubbed its pointed chin, claws gleaming in the night. “It would be a tale to tell. Tadhg enjoyed a good tale. If he can keep up, we will have him.”

  “Well.” The corners of Faolan’s mouth curled. “Liam. What do you think? Can you keep up?”

  Cleena began to laugh. Her merriment echoed off flagstone, unpleasant. Avani was rigid against his side. The barrowman, standing across the bonfire, waited.

  “Aye,” said Liam. His lips were numb, but unlooked-for excitement sang in his veins. He hadn’t meant to accept the invitation, not at all. Yet the minute acquiescence slipped out, the sourness in his gut and mouth eased. Relief felt like joy and made him shiver. He sheathed his knife. “I can keep up.”

  Chapter 12

  They gathered in the moonlight outside Wilhaiim’s Maiden Gate: Faolan and Cleena and twelve barrowmen. Faolan and Cleena overtopped the lesser sidhe by at least an arm’s length. To Liam, standing awkwardly on one side, it seemed a bizarre family gathering, and Faolan the patriarch. Only, Halwn’s kin were the very opposite of rambunctious children with their spears and sharpened sticks and dagger-like claws. Cleena played a resentful wife, glaring often in Liam’s direction and refusing to look Faolan’s way. It was very apparent she begrudged the aes si’s decision to include Liam in the night’s activities. Liam, who had finally placed her face, believed her vexation more than a little bit unfair.

  Pride stung, he sidled around waiting barrowmen until he could catch her eye. “You used to delight in taking my coin,” he said. He was pleased to note they were of a height, when in early spring she had been taller. “In exchange for your sweets.”

  “Business,” Cleena said, folding her arms beneath her breasts and raking him head to toe with a scathing glare. “I take coin from all sorts.”

  She was more voluptuous than Liam remembered, her lips full and inviting in the moonlight. She smelled of the honey she worked with, and of something else he couldn’t quite place, a perfume as alluring as promises whispered in private.

  “Cleena,” said Faolan. “I promised Avani we’d bring him back in one piece. Not banshee stricken.”

  “Banshee?” Liam reared back. “The keening hag?” Even the Stonehillers had feared the banshee, the wandering old woman who appeared in the night to foretell a person’s death or a family tragedy. The Widow had avowed she’d seen one of the banshee peeking through her bedroom window two nights before her husband succumbed to the dropsy.

  “Sidheog,” Cleena corrected. “The ban side are to the sidheog as the sapling is to the deep-rooted oak.” She swiped the pink tip of her tongue along her lower lip, and as she did so Liam saw underlying her pretty, freckled face a white-bone skull and lank, parchment-colored hair. The skull’s eyes were empty holes, the hair stuck to the moon-washed skull in thin hanks.

  The heat that had been gathering in Liam’s groin dissipated so quickly as to be painful. Cleena’s laugh sounded like dry bones snapping.

  “By the Aug.” He backed away.

  “Come,” said Faolan, sweeping Liam beneath one arm. “Halwn is ready.”

  The Maiden Gate was not a busy portal even in daytime, nor was it often deserted. A fat moon made for easy travel. Kingsmen guarded the gate itself; more rode out on a patrol, calling out to each other as they went. The horses snorted at the sidhe gathered near the wall, but the soldiers payed no attention. Nor did a lone farmer, leaving the city with empty produce baskets hanging from a pole across his shoulders. Nor a fishmonger, pushing his cart home for the evening, whistling mournfully as he went.

  Halwn waited amongst its kin. It watched Liam as he drew near. The barrowmen, although uniform in size and shape, were unique in dress and weaponry. The four standing nearest Halwn wore furs and patchwork tunics. They carried spears tipped with bronze. The rest were barrowmen as Liam had come to know them—emaciated, barely clothed, and holding sharpened sticks instead of bronze. Each of the twelve had painted their faces with dark soil. Muddy swirls darkened their cheekbones and chins and looped across their foreheads. A few wore the same vining designs painted on their forearms and bare calves.

  The swoops and loops were familiar to Liam. They disfigured his own hands and face, and his torso and thighs beneath his clothes. The barrowmen had decorated him in a like manner, not with mud or paint, but by drawing the patterns into his flesh with claw and knife.

  He lifted a shaking hand to his chin.

  “Halwn will lead the charge,” murmured Faolan. “Do not get in their way. I see you wore your knife, though I asked you to come unarmed. I will not dishonor you in front of them by taking it from you now. But do not draw iron against them, Liam. Even I cannot protect you against their wrath, should they see you as threat.” The gem in Faolan’s torque glowed a muted yellow beneath the scarf he wore. The stone was a larger version of the matching carbuncles in Mal’s ring of office, and in Andrew’s ring that Avani now wore on a chain around her neck. Liam had seen Faolan’s collar before. The bronze was aged to green, the pale flesh beneath calloused. It marked the aes si as acolyte, servant to sleeping sidhe elders.

  It was not at all dissimilar to the iron chokers worn by the human engines in Roue’s ships, a badge of indentured servitude, slavery in disguise.

  “There are no gods but us,” Faolan said before Liam could remark on the resemblance. “Everything mankind knows now sprang first from the sidhe, when we walked above ground and mortals looked still in our direction for answers.” He beckoned Halwn close. The barrowman stepped obediently forward. Between its hands was cupped a small earthenware bowl. Steam curled off a simmering black mixture within.

  Faolan dipped a finger into the bowl. “Close your eyes,” he bade Liam. Liam glanced between Halwn and the aes si, wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. He couldn’t refuse without appearing small. He wished he knew whether the catch behind his ribs was from terror or elation.

  He closed his eyes.

  Faolan’s finger pressed firmly against Liam’s brow. The muck on his fingertip was warm, slimy. His skin tingled where Faolan traced it, circles around both of Liam’s eyes and a sweeping stripe down his nose.

  “There.” The night air stirred as Faolan retreated. “It’s finished.”

  Liam opened his eyes. At first the world seemed unchanged. The Maiden Gate was as it had been a heartbeat earlier. The Kingsmen standing guard talked quietly together beneath the portcullis. The barrowmen milled in a restless knot, waiting. Faolan and the banshee stood side by side in silence. A cloud crossed the moon, briefly blotting out light.

  He took a step in Faolan�
��s direction. Moving was a mistake. Cobblestones flowed like river water under his feet. The Maiden Gate receded in a blur of unwinding white wall. Trees and grass and a soldier returning from patrol washed past in a lengthening cloud of color.

  Liam froze, both arms helplessly extended to either side for balance, like one of Renault’s jesters stuck halfway along his tightrope. His surroundings came back to order: The King’s Highway, rolling fallow fields, a copse of trees lit bright as tapers by the moon.

  Slowly, he turned his head. He could still make out the Maiden Gate for the impression of flickering torches set on either side of the opening, almost half a furlong distant. Carefully he pulled his arms back against his chest.

  “Everin fainted the first time he attempted a Hunt,” said Faolan, materializing at Liam’s side where before there had been only moonlight. “You kept your feet. Congratulations. But the leader of the Hunt must always go first, or you’ll find yourself lost.”

  “One step.” Halwn and its kin, absent one minute and there in the road the next, measured Liam with a dubious glance. “A child could manage as much.”

  “Exactly that.” Cleena joined them, pale hair rising off her shoulders on a breeze Liam couldn’t feel. “Let us see how he runs.”

  “Holder has hidden himself away in the red woods,” Faolan told Liam. “It’s not far. Keep your eyes on Halwn’s back as we go. Don’t look away, or you might get lost. I’ll keep you safe as I can. Are you ready?”

  Liam nodded. Halwn raised its spear in a salute. The barrowmen began to caper in place. Even the scrawniest of the group, those more sinew than flesh, began to hop and yelp, rattling together spears and sticks. Liam heard Faolan inhale. So warned, he pinned his gaze between Halwn’s fur-draped shoulder blades. When the barrowman scuttled forward, crowded by its kin, Liam trotted after. The King’s Highway vanished from beneath him. Moonlight and shadow ran together in smears out of the corner of his eye. He thought he heard the barrowmen singing, in sweet silver-bell voices. He knew he heard Cleena laughing.