King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

I like the sea. Even with a gentle swell, with the coast in plain view just ten miles to starboard, it sets me in mind of mountains in motion. I like the nautical phrases. Splice this, belay that. If Lundist proves right and we are all reborn, I’ll go once more round life’s wheel as a pirate. Everything about the ocean puts me in a good mood. The smell and the taste of it. The cry of seagulls. God jammed some kind of magic down their throats. No wonder the crows want to murder them and the ravens are unkind.

Captain Nellis didn’t like me being on the quarterdeck, or so he said, but I spent my time there, legs dangling through the rail with him behind me, dwarfed by the wheel. He could have roped it off for all the steering he did, but he seemed to like to hold it while he shouted at his men. To my eye he steered them as little as he did the ship. His curses and instructions rolled off the crew and they went about their tasks oblivious.

“I’ll buy me a ship one day,” I said.

“Surely,” Captain Nellis spat something thick and unpleasant onto the deck. Without men like him and Row, decks probably wouldn’t need swabbing at all.

“A big one, mind. Not a barge like this. Something that cuts the waves rather than wallows about in them.”

“A young sell-sword like yourself shouldn’t set his sights so low,” Nellis growled. “Buy a whole fleet.”

“A valid point, Captain. Very valid. If my kingdom ever gets a coastline I will buy a fleet. I’ll be sure to name one of them the Spitting Nellis.”

And so for the rest of that day, and most of the next, the Sea-goat wallowed its way sedately around the shore, stopping once in a small port to unload a huge copper pot and to fill the space with red-finned fish called…red-fin. I slept a night in a hammock, below decks, rolling in the gentle arms of coastal waters and dreaming of absolutely nothing. I can only recommend hammocks if you’re at sea. On dry land there seems no point to them. And sleep above deck if you have the chance. The Sea-goat had an appropriately animal smell to it in the stale heat of its hold.

My grandfather’s castle is called Morrow. It overlooks the sea, standing as close to a high cliff as a brave child might, but not so close as a foolhardy one. It has an elegance to it, being tall and slender in its towers, and sensibly tiled on its many roofs, having fought fiercer and more prolonged battles with ocean storms than with any army trekking to it overland.

The port of Arrapa lies just two miles north of Castle Morrow and I disembarked there, taking some pleasure in unsettling Captain Nellis with enthusiastic thanks for his services. I left the crew unloading red-fin and taking on crates of saddles destined for Wennith Town. Why the fishermen of Arrapa couldn’t catch their own red-fin I never did find out.

A well-maintained cart track winds up from the port to Castle Morrow. I walked, enjoying the sunshine, and turned down the offer of a ride in a charcoal man’s cart.

“It gets steep,” he said.

“Steep’s fine,” I said. And he flicked his mule on.

I wanted to come incognito to Castle Morrow, wanted it bad enough to see Makin thrown in a cell rather than risk him spoiling my cover. It has to be said that my experience with relations has been a mixed bag. Having a father like mine breeds caution in these situations. I needed to see these new family members in their element, without the complications of who I was or what I wanted.

Add to the mix the fact that my grandfather and uncle were said to hate Olidan Ancrath with a passion for the way he sold the absolution for Mother’s death—as if his brother had merely inconvenienced him by sending assassins to kill her. I might be my mother’s son but I have more than my fair share of Father’s blood and with the tales Grandfather was like to have heard of me it would not be unreasonable for him to see me cast in the image of Olidan rather than the child of his beloved Rowen.

I had a sweat on me by the time I reached the castle gates, but the cliff tops caught a sea breeze and I let it cool me. I stepped up to the archway. Double portcullis, well-crafted merlons topping the gatehouse, arrow slits positioned with some thought—in all a nice bit of castle-building. The smallest of three guardsmen stepped to intercept me.

“I’m looking for work,” I said.

“Nothing for you, son.” He didn’t ask what kind of work. I had a big sword on my belt, a scorching hot breastplate over my leathers, and a helm at my hip.

“How about some water then? I’ve sweated my way up from the beach and it’s a thirsty mile.”

The guard nodded to a stone trough for horses by the side of the road.

“Hmmm.” The water looked only marginally better than the stuff in the Cantanlona swamp.

“Best be on your way, son. It’s a thirsty mile back to Arrapa too,” the guard said.

I started to dislike the man. I named him “Sunny” for his disposition and his repeated claims of fatherhood. I reached inside my breastplate, trying not to touch the metal and failing. My fingers discovered the corner they were hunting and I pulled out a sealed letter, wrapped in stained linen. “Also, I have this for Earl Hansa,” I said, unfolding it from the cloth.

“Do you now?” Sunny reached for it and I pulled it back at the same speed he moved his hand. “Best let me see that, son,” he said.

“Best read the name on the front before you grubby it up too much, Father.” I let him take it, and used the linen to mop sweat from my forehead.

To Sunny’s credit he held the letter with some reverence by the very corners, and although we both knew he couldn’t read, he played out the pantomime well, peering at the script above the wax seal. “Wait here,” he told me and set off into the courtyard beyond.

I smiled for the two remaining guards then took myself off to a patch of shade where I slumped and let the flies have their way. I set my back to the trunk of the lone tree providing the shade. It looked to be an olive. I’d never seen the tree before but I knew the fruit, and the stones littered the ground. It looked old. Older than the castle perhaps.

Sunny took almost an hour to return and by that time the horse trough had started to look tempting. He brought two house guards with him, their uniform richer, chainmail on their chests rather than the leathers of the wall guard who had to endure the heat.

“Go with them,” Sunny said. I think he would have given a day’s wages to be able to send me back down the hill, and another day’s to be able to send me on my way with the toe of his boot.

In the courtyard a marble fountain sprayed. The water jetted from many small holes in the mouth of a fish and collected in a wide circular pool. I had seen illustrations of fountains in Father’s books. Reference was made to the team of men needed to work the pump in order to maintain pressure. I pitied any men sweltering away in darkness to make this pretty thing function…but the fine spray made a cool heaven as we walked past.

Many windows overlooked the courtyard, not shuttered but faced with pierced veils of stone, worked with great artistry in intricate patterns that left more air than rock. I couldn’t see into the shadows behind but I felt watched.

We passed through a short corridor, floored with geometric mosaic, into a smaller courtyard where on a stone bench in the shade of three orange trees, a nobleman waited, plain dressed but with a gold band on his wrist and too clean to be anything but highborn. Not Earl Hansa; he was too young for that, but surely someone of his family. Of my family. I kept more of my father’s features but this man shared some of my lines, high cheekbones, dark hair cropped close, watchful eyes.