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

“We’d better, because I’m not going any farther east.” East of Maladon was Osheim, and nobody went to Osheim. Osheim was where the Builders built the Wheel, and every fairy tale that ever launched a nightmare starts, “Once upon a time, not far from the Wheel of Osheim.”

Snorri nodded, solemn. “Maladon. We’ll take ship in Maladon.”

The mountains thrust us up through autumn and into winter. Those were bad days, despite warm clothing and good provisions bought in Hoff. I’d paid the coin out with more than the usual measure of begrudging, knowing that the pieces of silver could have been paving my way back to the heat of Vermillion.

Amidst the high places of Gelleth I came to miss the small taste of luxury our night in the Tall Castle had afforded us. Even the stinking cots of the Falling Angel would have been heaven compared to bedding amongst rocks in the teeth of a gale halfway up some nameless mountain. I suggested to Snorri that we take the longer but less arduous path via the Castle Red. Merl Gellethar, the duke who kept that seat, was Grandmother’s nephew and would have some family duty to help us on our way.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It’s too long a detour.” Snorri muttered the words, ill tempered—an unusual thing for him.

“That’s not the reason.” He always grew cross when lying.

“No.”

I waited.

“Aslaug cautioned against it,” he growled.

“Aslaug? Isn’t Loki the Father of Lies? And she’s his daughter . . .” I paused for him to deny it. “So that would make her . . . a lie?”

“I believe her this time,” he said.

“Hmmm.” I didn’t like the sound of that. When your sole travelling companion is a seven-foot maniac with an axe, it can be unsettling to hear that he’s starting to believe the devil that whispers in his ear when the sun sets. Even so, I didn’t argue the point. Baraqel had told me the same thing that morning. Perhaps when an angel whispered to me at sunrise, I should start believing what he said.

I dreamed of Sageous that night, smiling a calm smile to himself as he watched the board across which I was pushed, from black square to white, white to black, dark to light . . . Snorri beside me, matching my moves, and all about us, shadowed pieces, orchestrated to some complex design. A grey hand pushed its pawns forwards—I felt the Silent Sister’s touch and stepped forwards, black to white. Behind her loomed another, more huge, deepest crimson, the Red Queen playing the longest game. A dead black hand reached across the board, high above it a larger hand, midnight blue, guiding. I could almost see the strings. Together the Lady Blue and the Dead King advanced a knight and without warning the unborn stood before me, only a plain porcelain mask to preserve my sanity from its horror. I woke screaming and waited for dawn without sleeping.

• • •

In the Thurtans we kept to ourselves, avoiding inns and towns, sleeping in hedges, drinking from the rivers, of which there are too many, dividing the country into innumerable strips.

On the border between East and West Thurtan there lies a great forest known as Gowfaugh, a vast expanse of pine, dark and threatening evil.

“We could just take the road,” I said.

“Better to cross the border without notice.” Snorri eyed the forest margins. “Thurtan guards are like as not to give us a month inside one of their cells and take any valuables as payment for the privilege.”

I looked back along the trail we’d taken down from the hills, a faint line across a dour moorland. The Gowfaugh had nothing inviting about it, but the threat behind worried me more. I felt it daily, nipping at our heels. I had been expecting trouble since we left Crath City, and not from King Olidan worried that I’d sullied his queen’s honour. The Dead King had moved twice to stop us and the third time could be the charm.

“Forwards, Jal, that’s the place to keep your attention. You southerners are always looking back.”

“That’s because we’re no fools,” I said. “You’ve forgotten the unborn at the circus? Edris and his hired men, and what they became when you killed them?”

“Someone is seeding our path to stop us, but they’re not chasing us.”

“But the thing in Vermillion—it escaped, Sageous said we would meet it, he—”

“He told me the same thing.” Snorri nodded. “You don’t want to believe much that man says, but I think he’s right. It did escape. I suspect the creature you saw in the opera house was an unborn, one grown old in its power, the target of the Silent Sister’s spell. Probably an important lieutenant to the Dead King. A captain of his armies maybe.”