King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

When night fell it dropped heavy and moonless, swallowing all the stars. The swamp, silent by day save for the squelching of our feet, came alive in the dark. A chorus of croaks, whirrs, chirps, and wetter, more disturbing sounds, flowed over us from sunset to sunrise. I set a watch, though the embers of our fire gave nothing to watch, and when my hour came I sat with closed eyes, listening to the darkness speak.

“Makin.” I kicked him, wary lest he take off my foot. “You’re on.”

I heard him grunt and sit. He hadn’t taken his breastplate off, or his gauntlets. “Can’t see a damn thing. What the hell am I watching for?”

“Humour me,” I said. The place just made me feel that if we all fell asleep together maybe none of us would wake up again. “And why are you still clanking if you think this place is safe?”

Dreams took me before Makin could find an answer. Katherine walked them, the dead child in her arms and accusations on her lips.

The morning sun drew a mist from the pools of standing water. At first it hung a foot or two above the cotton grass, but by the time we were ready to move, the mist boiled around our chests as if it were ready to drown us where the mud had thus far failed.

Some stenches you get used to. After a short while you can’t say if they are gone or not. Not the stink of the Cantanlona Marsh though. That stayed as ripe after a day and a night as it did when the reluctant breeze first brought it to me.

The mist managed to make me sweat and give me chills at the same time. Wrapped in it, with my Brothers reduced to wraiths at the edge of vision, I thought for some reason of the woman and her brats at that remote cottage—the woman with her dead face and the children like rats around her calves. Isolation comes in many flavours.

“We could wait it out,” Kent said.

A splash and Rike cursed. “Mud past my feckin’ knee.”

Kent had a point. The mist couldn’t hope to hold out against the heat of the day as the sun climbed.

“You want to stay here a moment longer than you have to?” I asked.

Kent plodded on by way of answer.

Wherever the sun had got to, it was doing a piss poor job of keeping me warm. The mist seemed to seep into me, putting a chill along my bones, fogging my eyes.

“I see a house,” Sim called.

“You do not!” Makin said. “What the hell would a house be doing in a—”

There were two houses, then three. A whole village of rough timber homes, slate-tiled, loomed about us as we slowed our advance.

“What the fuck?” Row spat. I think he invented spitting.

“Peat-cutters?” Grumlow suggested.

It seemed the only even half-sensible explanation, but I had it in my mind that peat bogs lay in cooler climes, and that even there the locals came to the bog to cut peat and then went home; they didn’t build their homes on it.

A door opened in the house to our left and seven hands reached for weapons. A small child ran out, barefoot, chasing something I couldn’t see. He ran past us, lost in the mist, just the splashing of his feet to convince me he was real, and the dark entrance to the house where the door lay open.

I approached the doorway with my sword in hand. It reminded me of a grave slot, and the breath of wet rot that issued from it did nothing to erase the image.

“Jamie, you forgot—” The glimmer of my steel cut the woman short. Even in the mist Builder-steel will find a gleam. “Oh,” she said.

“Madam.” I faked a bow, not wanting to lower my head more than a hair’s breadth.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company.” She looked no more than twenty-five, fair-haired, pretty in a worn-thin kind of way, her homespun simple but clean.

Between the houses to our left a man in his fifties came into view, labouring under a wooden keg. He dumped it from his shoulder onto a pile of straw and raised a hand. “Welcome!” he said. He rubbed at the white stubble on his chin and stared up into the mist. “You’ve brought the weather with you, young sir.”

“Come in, why don’t you?” the woman said. “I’ve a pot on the fire. Just oat porridge, but you’re welcome to some. Ma! Ma! Find the good bowl.”

I glanced round at Makin. He shrugged. Kent watched the old man, his eyes wide, knuckles white on his Norse axe.

“I’m so sorry. I’m Ruth. Ruth Millson. How rude of me. That’s Brother Robert.” She waved at the old man as he went into the house he’d set the keg by. “We call him ‘brother’ because he spent three years at the Gohan monastery. He wasn’t very good at it!” She offered a bright smile. “Come in!”

A memory tickled me. Gohan. I knew a Gohan closer to home.

“Does your hospitality extend to my friend?” I asked, opening a hand toward Makin.

Ruth turned and led on into the house. “Don’t be shy. We’ve plenty for everyone. Well, enough in any case, and there’s no sin like an empty belly!”

I followed her, Makin at my heels. We both ducked to get under the lintel. I had half-expected the interior to be dripping with the mire but the place looked clean and dry. A lantern burned on the table, brass and polished to a high shine as if it were a treasured heirloom. The place lay in shadows, the shutters closed as though night threatened. Makin sheathed his sword. I was not so polite.

I cast about. Something was missing. Or I was missing something.

Rike stood outside, looming over the Brothers who pressed about him. Foolish enough they looked, bristling with weaponry as two young girls ran past laughing. An old woman hobbled up with a bundle under her arm, oblivious to Grumlow’s daggers as she grumbled on by.

“Ruth,” I said.

“Sit! Sit!” she cried. “You look half-dead. You’re a just a boy. A big lad, but a boy. I can see it. And boys need feeding. Ain’t that right, Ma?” She put her hand to her neck, an unconscious gesture, and stroked her throat. Pale skin, very pale. She’d burn worse than Rike in the sun.

“They do.” The mother put her head around the entrance from what must be the only other room. Grey hair framed a stern face, softened by a kind mouth. “And what’s the boy’s name then?”

“Jorg,” I said. As much as I like to roll out my titles there is a time and a place.

“Makin,” said Makin, although Ruth only had eyes for me, which is odd because even if I were handsome before the burns, it’s Makin that has a way with…everyone.

“And is there a Master Millson?” Makin asked.

“Sit!” Ruth said. So I sat and Makin followed suit, taking the rocker by the empty fireplace. I leaned my blade against the table. The women gave it not so much as a glance.

Ruth picked up a woollen jerkin from behind my stool. “That Jamie would forget his head!”

“You have a husband?” I asked.

A frown crossed her like a cloud. “He went to the castle two years back. To take service with the Duke.” She brightened. “Anyhow you’re too young for me. I should call Seska over. She’s as pretty as the morning.” She had mischief in her eye. Blue eyes, pale as forget-me-not.

“So what are you doing out here?” I asked. I’d taken a shine to Ruth. She had a spark in her and put me in mind of a serving girl named Rachel back at the Haunt. Something about her made me unaccountably horny. Unaccountable if you don’t count eight weeks on the road.