Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

Of course he wanted to move on to daring rescue and bloody revenge in the North whilst I wanted to move on to sweet women and soft living in the South.

• • •

Another day’s travel: damp, muddy, grey skies, and a stiff wind. Another roadside camp with too little food and too much rain. I woke the next morning at dawn, disappointed to find myself beneath the same dripping hedge and wet cloak I’d shivered myself to sleep under the evening before. My dreams had been full of strangeness. At first the usual horror of the demon from the opera stalking us through the rain-dark night. Later, though, my nightmare became full of light and it seemed a voice addressed me from a great distance at the heart of all that brilliance. I could almost make out the words . . . and finally as I opened my eyes to the first grey hints of the day it seemed I saw, through the blurry lash-filled slit of my eyes, an angel, wings spread, outlined in a rosy glow, and at last one word reached me. Baraqel.

• • •

Three more days riding through the continuous downpour that served as a Rhonish summer and I was more than ready to gallop back south towards the myriad pleasures of home. Only fear bound me to our course. Fear of what lay behind and fear of what would happen if I got too far from Snorri. Would the cracks run through me from toe to head, spilling out light and heat until I crisped? Also fear of his pursuit. He would know the direction I took, and though I trusted my riding skills to keep me safely ahead in the chase I had less faith in the city walls, town guard, and palace security to keep the Norseman out once I’d stopped running.

Twice over the next three days I saw a figure, half-imagined through miles of rain, on distant ridges, dark against the bright sky. Common sense said it was a herder following his flock or some hunter about his business. Every nerve I owned told me it was the unborn, escaped from the Sister’s spell and dogging our heels. Both times I urged my gelding into a canter and kept Snorri bouncing along behind me until I’d outrun the worst of the cold terror the sight put in me.

With dwindling resources we ate mean fare in small portions, cooked by peasants I wouldn’t trust to feed my horse. We spent two more sleepless nights huddled beneath lean-to shelters of branches and bracken that Snorri constructed against the hedgerows. He claimed it to be all a man needed for slumber and proceeded to snore all night. The downpour he proclaimed to be “fine damp weather.”

“North of Hardanger the children would run naked in warm rains like these. We don’t sew our bearskins on until the sea starts to freeze,” he said.

I nearly hit him.

I slept better in the saddle than I had in his shelter, but wherever sleep found me, dreams came too. Always the same theme—some inner darkness, a place of peace and isolation, violated by light. First bleeding through a hairline fracture, then brightening as the crack forks and divides, and beyond the thin and breaking walls of my sanctum, some brilliance too blinding to look upon . . . and a voice calling my name.

“Jal . . . Jal? . . . Jal!”

“Wh-what?” I jerked awake to find myself cold and sodden in the saddle.

“Jal.” Snorri nodded ahead. “A town.”

• • •

The sixth night out from Pentacost saw us in through the gates of a small, walled town named Chamy-Nix. The place sounded vaguely promising but proved to be a big letdown, just another wet Rhonish town, as dour and worthy as all the rest. Worse still, it was one of those damnable places where the locals pretend not to speak the Empire Tongue. They do, of course, but they hide behind some or other ancient language as if taking pride in being so primitive. The trick is to repeat yourself louder and louder until the message gets through. That’s probably the one thing my military training was good for. I’m great at shouting. Not quite the boom that Snorri manages, but a definite blare that comes in handy for dressing down unruly servants, insubordinate junior officers, and of course as a last-ditch means of intimidating men who might otherwise put a sword through me. Part of the art of survival as a coward is not letting things get to the point where that cowardice is exposed. If you can bluster your way through dangerous situations it’s all to the good, and a fine shouting voice helps immensely.

Snorri led us to a dreadful dive, a low-roofed subterranean tavern thick with the stink of wet bodies, spilled ale, and woodsmoke.

“It’s a touch warmer and slightly less damp than outside, I’ll grant you.” I elbowed my way through the crowd at the bar. Local men, dark-haired, swarthy, variously missing teeth or sporting knife scars, packed around small tables towards the back in a haze of pipe smoke.