The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2)

by Ian Irvine

  A blast of aromatic heat struck her as she entered the tap-room, which appeared to occupy most of the ground floor of the inn, though it was lit only by a pair of lanterns above the counter and a smoking open fire on the other wall. The floor-boards were strewn with dried ferns and pungent thyme, several long trestle tables ran down the centre of the taproom, and there were smaller tables in the shadows to either side.

  Two of the trestles were occupied by groups of men and women sitting around steaming jugs of mulled drink; a gaggle of small children played hide and seek between the legs of the trestles. The tables near the fire were also full, though the ones along the rear wall were empty.

  Flydd and Bel stood at the counter, Flydd ordering drinks from a thin barmaid. Bel slipped off her grey cloak to reveal a clinging crimson gown, quite unsuitable for this weather, which displayed the most voluptuous figure Maelys had ever seen. The older woman was positively bursting out of her stays – or would have been if she were wearing any. A common tart, Maelys thought sourly.

  Bel folded the cloak and laid it over Flydd’s arm as Maelys staggered up with her bags. Flydd said something to her and they both laughed. Maelys scowled, thinking they were laughing at her, but Bel turned and smiled, saying, ‘Thank you, lad,’ in such a warm and welcoming way that Maelys was disarmed. Still a tart, but a good-natured one.

  Bel’s gaze slipped to Maelys’s chest momentarily before she turned back to Flydd, and Maelys felt a spasm of panic. She knew! It was much harder to fool a woman about such matters.

  ‘I’ll have your best room, taverner,’ Bel said in a carrying voice.

  ‘Sorry lady, we’re full tonight.’ The albino looked at Flydd. ‘Unless the gentleman …’

  ‘We’re not sharing,’ said Flydd. ‘But we’ll be gone at first light.’

  ‘You can have a room tomorrow,’ the taverner said to Bel. ‘You’ll have to sleep in the stables tonight.’

  ‘Damned if I will,’ said Bel. ‘What do they need two rooms for? They can have one and I’ll take the other.’

  ‘We need both,’ said Flydd, though less firmly than before. He glanced at her bust, swallowed and looked away.

  ‘All right. You and the fellow with the horses can have one; I’ll share the other with the lad. I’m sure my virtue will be in no danger from such a little chap.’ Bel gave a throaty chuckle.

  ‘His virtue might be in danger from you, though,’ said a red-faced fat man, sitting by the fire and tapping a long-stemmed pipe on the hob.

  The whole room laughed, and Bel as loudly as any of them. She ordered drinks for everyone and bestowed a knowing smile on the taproom. ‘I’m fixed up for the night, as it happens. Bring our drinks to the table by the back door, bar lass. Lad, take my bags up to our room.’ She tossed Maelys another coin.

  Maelys caught it, quivering in fury. What was the matter with Flydd? His eyes slid across Bel’s splendid bosoms again, which were practically exploding out of her gown, then back, lingeringly. A leg of ham could be concealed in her cleavage and you’d never know, Maelys thought spitefully. Coarse, vulgar strumpet – how could Flydd be taken with someone like her?

  Because he’d been a lusty man, even into his sixties, until the scrutator’s torturers had cut his manhood from him. Maelys had seen enough during his renewal to know that Flydd had got it back and, after so many years, perhaps his male urges were irresistible. Having grown up in a female household, men had always been a mystery to Maelys, but the aunts had never stopped talking about their base, wicked and unquenchable lusts.

  She looked helplessly at the taverner. ‘Up the stairs to the top and go right, all the way to the end,’ he said. ‘Would you like a hand?’

  ‘I can manage, thanks.’ She hauled Bel’s bags up the steep and creaking stairs.

  The room at the end was small, cold, and half of it was taken up by a rustic cabinet bed with sliding wooden sides. It was common for travellers of the same sex to share a bed, but Maelys had slept alone since she was little and couldn’t bear to lie with a stranger, especially one as loud and coarse as Bel; there was no choice but to sleep on the floor. It was a miserable prospect, for the boards were bare and a chilly draught blasted under the door.

  On the way downstairs, she saw Colm at the counter, scowling into a large tankard. His face was drawn; he looked as though he’d suffered a bitter blow. ‘Where the blazes did she come from?’ he muttered, as though Bel was Maelys’s fault.

  ‘How would I know?’ she hissed, perching on a stool beside him. ‘She just latched on to Flydd. She won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ he muttered. ‘She’s a land lamprey if ever I saw one.’ Bel leaned towards Flydd, her bust swaying as though desperate to escape its moorings, and Colm said stiffly, ‘Oh, I see. Want a drink?’

  Maelys had occasionally tasted the mild small ale brewed for the labourers at Nifferlin, but had only touched proper drink once before, when Phrune had given her the drugged liqueur in Tifferfyte.

  ‘Yes, I do. A big one.’

  Flydd and Bel were leaning across the table towards each other and the air between them was sizzling. Maelys felt infected by it too, though the other patrons were talking and drinking as though nothing unusual had happened. Perhaps Bel regularly plied her trade here.

  Colm looked at her sideways. ‘A big drink? Are you sure?’

  She nodded vigorously. The barmaid tapped a large mug from a barrel and set it on the counter in front of her. The beer was a deep brown, with a myriad of bubbles bursting through a deep capping of foam.

  Maelys took a long draught without tasting it, gasped and banged the mug down on the counter. Nifferlin small ale had a sweet, nutty flavour, but this drink was so bitter that it puckered up her mouth.

  ‘How can anyone drink that stuff?’ she said, wiping her mouth on her grubby sleeve and streaking chimney soot across her face.

  Colm managed the ghost of a smile. ‘If you drank enough you’d come to like it.’

  ‘Why would I want to?’ She checked on Flydd and Bel. She was holding his broad hand across the table, staring down at it as if reading his palm. ‘We’ve got to do something, Colm.’

  He stared into his drink as though to read his own future there. ‘No, we don’t.’

  She lowered her voice. ‘We’re supposed to be incognito and he’s making a spectacle of himself. Everyone will remember us.’

  ‘If you don’t like the company he keeps, go to bed.’

  ‘I’ve got to bring him to his senses. It’s the responsible thing to do …’ But Maelys had kept Emberr secret from Flydd, so who was she to lecture anyone about responsibility? No, it had to be done.

  She turned away. Colm grabbed at her arm but she ducked under it and marched over to the table. What alias had he used? She couldn’t remember, and she couldn’t call him Xervish.

  ‘Surr,’ Maelys said, ‘are you sure this is wise?’ It sounded lame, but she couldn’t be more specific. There were spies everywhere in the God-Emperor’s realm, even in remote backwaters like Plogg.

  ‘Go away, boy!’ Flydd growled without looking up.

  Bel smiled and dropped her eyes to Maelys’s chest as if she could see straight through her boy’s clothes to what lay hidden beneath. ‘Your master is weary and saddle-sore, lad. He needs the kind of respite only I can give.’

  Maelys wasn’t giving in that easily. ‘Er, master,’ she said to Flydd, ‘you don’t know her.’

  ‘He soon will,’ grinned Bel. ‘Every luscious bit of me.’

  Even Flydd looked taken aback at that. He took a long pull at his mug, swallowed and allowed Bel his hand again. Maelys surreptitiously tried to see how much beer was left. Surely he couldn’t be drunk on half a mug?

  ‘He’s drunk on my charms, aren’t you, Lorky?’ Bel said teasingly. ‘I’m all you’ve ever dreamed of, and much, much more. In all your life you’ve not had the kind of night I can give you.’ She began to suck his fingers.

  Maelys looked away, dis
gusted, but Flydd was four times her own age, and if he chose to fall into the arms of the first scarlet woman he met, she couldn’t stop him.

  ‘We’ve got to leave early in the morning, surr,’ she said quietly.

  ‘He’ll be up at dawn, I promise you,’ Bel said with a throaty chuckle. ‘Run along, lad.’

  Maelys blushed, for her meaning was perfectly clear. She stormed back to the counter, where Colm was draining his tankard. ‘I’m going to bed!’

  ‘Don’t be silly; our supper will be here in a minute. Come over here. We need to talk.’

  Colm led her to a table in the angle between the counter and the wall, furthest from the fire or anyone else, and set their drinks down. Maelys noticed that he took the chair against the wall, where he could see the whole room and no one could approach him from behind.

  ‘Did you ask the way,’ she said in a low voice. ‘To your valley?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  A cook’s boy came from the kitchen, carrying their dinners on a tray – thin slices of hot grilled meat on slabs of bread, and on the side a jumble of steaming vegetables, none of which were familiar to Maelys. She waited until the boy had gone before speaking.

  ‘A party of travellers went west this morning – the God-Emperor’s men. The taverner mentioned them.’

  ‘I heard it in the stables,’ said Colm. His big fists clenched on the table. ‘Jal-Nish must know we’re coming, and what we’re looking for.’

  So that’s what the matter was. Maelys felt for Colm; nothing ever went right for him. ‘We’ll have to call it off.’

  Agitated, he hacked meat and bread, speared it on the point of his knife and wolfed it down, staring at his plate all the while. Maelys was cutting her meat into neat portions when she remembered that she was supposed to be a rude, grubby lad, not a well-mannered girl. She picked up a large piece with her fingers, swallowed it without chewing, had another swig of beer and even managed a small belch.

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ scowled Colm. ‘You’ve already attracted enough attention.’

  How dare he treat her like a child! She lowered her head and attended to her dinner in silence. The meat was tough but tasty, the bread gritty, and the vegetables had a bitter taste, but she ate every morsel. She was so hungry she could have gnawed splinters off the table leg.

  Colm threw down his knife, his meal barely touched. ‘I can’t call it off!’ he hissed. ‘I’m going on by myself if I have to.’

  Bel’s eyes were on her. Maelys leaned forwards, saying quietly, ‘What’s the point, Colm? Without Flydd you’ll never see through the illusion.’

  ‘This is the only thing left to me,’ he said slowly, tapping his fists on the table with every word. ‘I’ve lost everything else – my family, my estate, everything I’ve ever worked for, and –’

  For a terrible moment she thought he was going to say, ‘– and you,’ but he bit the words off.

  ‘I can’t give up Faelamor’s treasure, no matter the cost.’

  ‘I don’t think Flydd would want you to go alone,’ said Maelys.

  ‘I’ll be gone before the tart’s finished with him. And you can’t stop me.’ He glared at her.

  ‘I wouldn’t try to stop you. The things I’ve done to try and save my family …’ Her ears began to burn. Why had she reminded him?

  ‘Indeed!’ He nodded stiffly. ‘Good night. I’m leaving at dawn.’

  She felt a lump in her throat. Despite their differences, he’d been good to her once. ‘I’ll get up to say goodbye.’

  ‘All right.’ He set off upstairs.

  Bel was leaning right across the table, nibbling at Flydd’s palm. Maelys was revolted; in her family, no one would have dreamed of acting lasciviously in a tavern. Noticing Bel’s eyes on her again, she went up to her room.

  But it wasn’t her room now; Bel would be sharing it. Maelys turned the lantern low and lay diagonally across the bed, fully clothed, as if to stake her claim on it, but sleep would not come. She shoved the draught excluder against the crack under the door and threw herself on the bed again.

  It wasn’t long before they came up the stairs. Flydd was laughing and snorting at the same time, Bel making a throaty chuckle. They stopped on the landing below and Maelys heard their lips smacking together, the disgusting slurping noises going on for ages, like two swamp creepers mating. She pulled a pillow over her head and tried to block them out.

  They came up the last flight and Maelys groaned aloud, only now realising what Bel wanted the room for. How could she, Maelys, have been so dull-witted as to not realise? She would have to go to the stables. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, but Bel – Maelys could tell it was her – began to pound on the door next to Maelys’s room.

  Footsteps stumbled to the door and it was wrenched open. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Colm cried. He stamped across the floor, then back to the door and Maelys heard him thumping down the stairs. Flydd and Bel fell into the room, laughing like drains, and the door banged.

  The snorting and lip-smacking, and then the symphony of the bed, continued for hours. Maelys was grinding her teeth down to stubs when the tumult cut off as their bed collapsed.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Maelys shot up in bed, wide awake, her heart pounding; she had just recalled where she’d seen Bel’s profile before. Front-on her features were unfamiliar, yet from the side the curves of her nose and chin were oddly reminiscent of the woman in red, as Maelys had glimpsed her on the way to the Nightland. Could she be Bel, transformed by spell or illusion, and if so, what did she want from Flydd?

  What if the woman in red was one of Jal-Nish’s mancers? Yes, that had to be it. She must have been manipulating Flydd all along, in another of the God-Emperor’s twisted schemes to raise their hopes so he could have the satisfaction of dashing them irretrievably.

  She eased off the bed, trying not to make a sound. She had to tell Flydd without alerting Bel, though in his current state he wouldn’t be easy to convince. How could he have been taken in so easily? Because the woman in red had been in his mind since renewal. Bel must have bewitched him at the door – at that moment when his eyes had gone blank – while he was weak with aftersickness.

  Surely dawn could not be far off, though Maelys could see nothing through the dirty sheets of mica that served for window panes. Unfastening the window, she slid the sash up and put her head out. It was still dark.

  The inn was still, and so was the night; there wasn’t a breath of wind. No night bird’s cry broke the chilly air, no rat scurried across the rafters; not even a cockroach was stirring.

  Thup-thup.

  Her stomach muscles knotted, for the sound was unmistakable – it was a flappeter, not far away. Bel must have summoned it; no doubt she’d already rendered Flydd helpless. And Colm was gone. He’d been so furious that he couldn’t have slept – he would have headed directly for Dunnet, where his hidden valley lay, and must be at least a league away by now. Maelys was all alone, and no one here would dare support her against the God-Emperor.

  Thup-thup, louder this time. The flappeter must be planning to land on the roof. She was out of time. Jamming her new boots into her pack, she eased open the door. It stuck on the draught snake and she picked it up thoughtfully. The sand-filled sausage was heavy; she might knock Bel down with it if she could take her unawares.

  There was not even a snore from Flydd’s room now. Maelys lifted the latch, careful not to let it clack. The door hinges let out a faint creak and she froze, but when there was no sound from the bed she slipped inside.

  She crept across, feeling her way, and made out Flydd’s nasal breathing. One knee encountered the foot of the bed.

  ‘Xervish?’ she whispered, forgetting that they were travelling incognito.

  With a little sigh, someone rolled over and Maelys caught a waft of expensive perfume, not the kind that a rustic tart would be able to afford. But if Bel was one of Jal-Nish’s most accomplished mancers she could have whatever her heart desired.

&nbs
p; Swinging the draught snake back, Maelys aimed where she expected Bel’s head to be, and felt it strike flesh – probably her shoulder. Bel cursed, snapped upright and tried to tear the draught snake out of her hands.

  With an almighty crash, the flappeter landed on the steep roof above their heads. Maelys could hear it scrabbling there, and torn-up shingles sliding down the roof and crashing onto the road at the front of the inn.

  ‘What?’ groaned Flydd, sitting up with pearls of light swelling at his fingertips. He was naked, bleary-eyed and there were scratches across his arms and chest.

  ‘It’s a flappeter, you stupid dunce!’ Maelys cried. ‘Bel must be one of Jal-Nish’s mancers. She’s betrayed you.’

  Flydd stared at Bel, bewitched, uncomprehending, helpless.

  She scrambled out of bed, threw her gown over her head in one elegant movement and jumped into her shoes, which fastened themselves. ‘Out the back way.’

  ‘Don’t go with her, Xervish,’ Maelys cried. ‘She’ll take you straight to the enemy.’

  Bel was on her in an instant, lifting Maelys by the shirt front and shaking her. ‘Get out of the way, you stupid little fool.’ She tossed Maelys at the wall.

  She slid to the floor, groaning. There was a thumping and crashing on the roof, as if soldiers were trying to smash a way in. Flydd hauled his clothes on. Maelys clambered to her feet, the draught snake hanging from her hand, not knowing whether to whack again or run for her life. All over the inn, people were shouting and screaming.

  ‘Soldiers coming through the roof,’ a man shouted.

  ‘And outside the doors,’ yelled another.

  Someone fell down the lower stairs and began to groan.

  ‘There’s no way out,’ said Flydd listlessly.

  ‘Through the window,’ said Bel. ‘Onto the roof.’

  ‘Xervish?’ cried Maelys. ‘Don’t listen to her. There’s a flappeter up there.’