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

“The Angel? What are you talking about?”

“The Falling Angel. I know you had other things on your mind, but you might have noticed the place was packed with his band. The Brothers.”

“What?” The chair contrived to trap me in its clutches as I tried to stand again.

“The prince was there, you know? In the corner with Sir Makin.”

“Oh God.” I remembered his eyes.

“And banging Sally in the room next to yours, I hear. Nice girl. From Totten just south of the Lure.”

“Dear God.” I’d thought Makin’s young companion to be eighteen at the least. He couldn’t have been less than six foot.

“And of course you know what prompted him to take another trip so soon after his return to the Tall Castle?”

“Remind me.” I would have thought making a mortal enemy of a dream-witch would be enough to get most men planning a long journey.

“He killed the king’s champion, the Captain of the Guard, Sir Galen. That’s who Sareth’s sister was in mourning for.”

“You’re going to tell me it wasn’t by poisoning his mead?”

“Single combat.”

“We’re leaving.” I called it from the corridor.

TWENTY

Nobody had orders to stop a visiting prince taking a ride around the city before his appointment at court. We collected Ron and Sleipnir and clattered down into Crath City. And kept on going. Riding proved a misery and I shifted constantly in my saddle, seeking more comfortable positions and cursing all Scorrons, their damned women most of all.

“Both of them had their eyes too close together too . . . I never liked ginger hair in any case, and I’m sure that younger one had—”

“She had something about her, that Katherine,” Snorri interrupted. “I could imagine her going places—doing great things. She had the look.”

“If you liked her so much you should have made your move.” Pain made me goad him, seeking distraction. “Perhaps she was looking for a bit of rough.”

Snorri shrugged, rolling in his saddle as we followed the Roma Road. “She’s a child yet. And I’m a married man.”

“She was seventeen if she was a day. And I thought you Vikings operated under ship rules?”

“Ship rules?” Snorri raised a brow. Crath City was nothing more than a stain in the air behind us now.

“If you get there by ship there are no rules,” I said.

“Ha.” He narrowed his eyes a touch. “We’re men as any other. Some good. Some bad. Most in between.”

I blew through my lips. “How old are you anyway, Snorri?”

“Thirty. I think.”

“Thirty! When I’m thirty I want to still be having fun.”

Again the shrug, a small smile. Snorri didn’t take offence at much. Which was a good thing all told. “Where we’re going, living to thirty is hard work.”

“Is there anything good about the North? Anything at all? Any single thing that I can’t better find somewhere warm?”

“Snow.”

“Snow’s not good. It’s just cold water gone wrong.”

“Mountains. The mountains are beautiful.”

“Mountains are inconvenient lumps of rock that get in people’s way. Besides, if it’s mountains I want, I have the Aups on my doorstep.”

We clomped along in silence for a minute. The traffic on the Roma Road had thinned, but on its long straight sections you could still see carts and horsemen, even travellers afoot, stretching off into the distance.

“My family,” he said.

And though I laid no claim to wisdom, I was wise enough to say nothing to that.

• • •

The summer that had welcomed us belatedly in Ancrath wore thin as we progressed north. At the town of Hoff, amidst fields ripe for harvest and on a cold day with more of autumn in it than any other season, Snorri led us east from the Roma Road.

“We could take ship from a Conaught port,” I said.

“Men of the true North are not loved in Conaught,” Snorri replied. “We have visited too often.” He urged Sleipnir onto the unkempt and rutted track that pointed east towards the mountains of northern Gelleth.

“And the Thurtans will be better?”

“Well, the Thurtans will be bad too,” he admitted. “But in Maladon a warmer welcome awaits.”

“Fewer visits?”

“There we stayed. We’ll take ship in Maladon. I have cousins there.”