Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince (15 page)

I nodded slowly, and he pulled his hand away, whirling me around to face him and pushing my chin up. As he did I raised my knife, pointing it at his throat. Beneath the lip of his hood he smiled again.

“You’re good,” he said, and I felt perversely proud of his approval. Then I felt it, something sharp pressing into a space between my ribs. His own knife, aimed at my heart. “But this time I’m better. So lower your weapon. Let’s be civilized.”

I did as he asked, and to my relief he did the same, pulling his blade away as I moved mine.

We stayed still. I could feel him peering at my face from inside his hood, studying me, but I could see nothing of his, save his mouth, which was drawn into a thin, determined line.

“Who are you?” he asked finally, taking a step back and sheathing his knife, as I did the same. “Why were you following me?”

“My name is Errin. Errin Vastel. I thought … I wanted to know who you are.”

“I’m no one, Errin Vastel,” he said, his lower lip twisting as he pulled it between his teeth.

There was something in the way he said both of my names that made me shudder, as though there was a curse in them, or a spell. There was an edge there, something to be wary of.

“You don’t live here,” I said. “That’s not your hut.”

“It’s mine for now,” he replied. “Why does it matter to you who I am?”

“I just wanted to know. This is the kind of place where strangers are a cause for concern.”

“From what I’ve heard, everyone in Almwyk is a cause for concern.”

“If Chanse Unwin found out…” I meant it mostly as a warning, not a threat, but his response came as a hiss.

“But he hasn’t. And he won’t. No one will. My being here will be our secret, unless you’d like me to tell everyone how we met. In the woods, you with a basket full of hemlock, and nightshade, and oleander.” He nodded to the mess at my feet. “It’s a hanging offence to gather them without an apothecary licence, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you have a licence, do you, Errin Vastel? Or am I mistaken and you’re the apothecary of Almwyk?”

I reddened, anger and fear vying inside me. Fear won. “No.”

“Well then, you keep my secret, I’ll keep yours. What do you say?”

What else could I say? I agreed, and I did my best to avoid the cottage he was living in.

But three days later I saw him again, back in the woods. It was after Unwin’s first town meeting, the day he told us that the Tregellian council would be dispatching soldiers to our village to guard the border, the day half the village packed up and left before they were arrested. Whilst they’d made a long, noisy caravan out of the village, I snuck into the woods for what I thought would be the last time before the soldiers came. He’d been waiting for me.

“I need a potion from you, if you can make it,” he said without preamble, hopping off the rotting oak stump he’d been perched on. He brushed dead leaves and moss from where they clung to his cloak, casual, as though we met in the woods often, as though we were friends, his head tilted like a bird’s as he did. “A tincture of henbane. Strong as possible. I’ll give you three florins for it, and I’ll tell no one where it came from.”

“Why should I?” As soon as the sullen words left my mouth I wanted to bite them back. Three florins was a moon’s rent, and then some. Enough to buy food to supplement my foraging. Three florins was another moon alive. I’d expected him to walk away after my rudeness.

I was wrong.

“Because you clearly need the money. And I really need the potion. We need each other. It makes sense.”

I stared at him in his hateful cloak, his stupid gloved hands, and I could feel him staring right back at me.

“What’s your name?” I said finally.

As he walked over to me I realized fully how tall he was, how lean he was. Last time we’d met, I’d been focusing on staying alive, but now… He reminded me of a silver birch, or a willow; a casual, insouciant grace to him, at home in the forest. He fitted here.

“Silas Kolby,” he said, stopping a foot away from me. I held my hand out, and he looked at it, puzzled, as though the gesture was alien to him. My cheeks flamed and I pulled my hand back, only for him to suddenly grasp it, his larger palm enfolding mine in a way that felt more like the sealing of a pact than an introduction.

It had taken a few weeks for me to shake my fears that he’d been the one to hurt my mother, but the nights of the first full moon after the attack proved it wasn’t him; he stayed infuriatingly himself, while she… It was pure dumb luck I’d taken to locking her in when I went out, to keep her from wandering and getting hurt again. It was pure dumb luck that I’d turned the key in the door after I’d given her supper, already half asleep and acting out of habit. It was luck that meant all she scratched that night was a door, and not me, while I sat behind it weeping as she called me names. During that first moon, when I slowly realized inch by inch that Lief was in real trouble, and that it was just me and my beast mother now, Silas was the one thing that kept me sane. He had an uncanny knack of appearing when I was teetering on the edge of something dark that I couldn’t come back from.

And I trusted him. I really had. I had no idea how much until he betrayed me.

Far to the west the sun sits low in the sky and I realize that night is coming, quickly and quietly. I slow the horse to a walk, pulling my satchel around and fetching out the map. Five miles riding towards the sinking sun to Tyrwhitt, but even if I could afford to pay for an inn with my stolen coin, it would be the first place soldiers would look for me, so that’s out. Tremayne is fifty or so miles north-west after Tyrwhitt, and we have to make it there by lunchtime tomorrow if I want to get to Scarron before dark.

I decide to press on, get as far past Tyrwhitt as I can before the sun disappears completely. Then we’ll have to stop for the night, whether I find shelter or not. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. It’s one night, and I have a thick cloak. It can’t be much worse than the pathetic cottage in Almwyk.

“Come on, girl.” I press my heels into the horse’s flank and urge her onwards. As the sky turns from grey to violet, we pass the outskirts of Tyrwhitt and I get my first glimpse of the refugee camp in the distant fields. Kirin wasn’t exaggerating when he said you could smell it on the wind. It reeks of rot, and rubbish, and human waste.

I squint to see the makeshift shacks leaning against one another, fabric hanging between them to increase the shelter. There are mismatched tents made from various scraps, propped up with sticks. Small fires glow everywhere, but there’s little sign of movement and no smell of cooking on the rank air. It looks forlorn and forgotten. I can see no place to get fresh water, or anywhere for the refugees to clean and toilet themselves. It looks like a breeding ground for disease.

Worst of all is the wire fence around the encampment, flecked with rough-cut trios of wooden star and wound with holly, the berries bright in the dying light. They look like drops of blood against the cruel coils of razor-sharp wire, and the sight of it all is enough to make me urge the horse on. Is Old Samm in there? Pegwin? Gods help those poor souls.

We make it another four or five miles past Tyrwhitt before I finally call a halt to the day. I decide to camp away from the main road, and I dismount and lead the horse along a narrow dirt track. In the last of the light I see the horse’s ears turn back and it feels as though mine are trying to do the same, listening for danger. We’re surrounded on both sides by a small thicket, dense enough to conceal someone, and I decide that it’s likely as good as it’s going to get.

The track veers sharply to the left and then a small, filthy-looking cottage, not dissimilar to the ones in Almwyk, looms out of the darkness ahead of us. I freeze, holding my breath and watching it, listening, scouring the ground for footprints.

I tie the horse to a tree and pull out my knife, creeping forward. There’s no candle or firelight visible through the glassless windows. The shutters stand open to the elements, despite the temperature, and I straighten as I approach.

I circle around, listening, looking in through the corners of the windows, my heart thumping, ready to run. When I reach the front door I see it’s ajar. Carefully, half-expecting something to fly at me, I push it open, wincing at the creak. I wait for my eyes to adjust and then I step inside.

The small windows and twilight make it difficult to see anything at first. I move in further and begin to explore. It’s somewhat like our cottage: tiny fireplace, dirt floor. But this place has a single large, empty room and, unusually, a narrow wooden staircase leading up to a second floor. One hand still clutching my knife, the other wrapped around the bannister, I climb it slowly, expecting to hear the splitting of wood beneath my feet with every step.

At the top of the stairs is another open space, though this has a lumpy-looking bed near the window, a wooden crate upended to become a table beside it. The layer of dust on the mattress and the tabletop is thick, and the only footprints on the grimy floor are mine. It’s creepy, and isolated, but it’s indoors, and no one has been here for a very long time…

Making up my mind, I edge down the stairs and start a small fire in the hearth, pulling the shutters over to hide the glow. I pray the chimney isn’t blocked. Then I head back outside, leading the horse behind the cottage, where I tie her up, murmuring an apology for leaving her outside. For her part she doesn’t seem to mind, nuzzling at me until I give her an apple and some of the water from my skin. I hate leaving the tack on her, but there’s nowhere to hang it, and I didn’t think to take a comb or brush to groom her either. I loosen what I can and apologize again, and she watches me with liquid brown eyes, snorting warmly into my shoulder.

Then I return to my temporary home, bolting the door behind me.

I toast some of the bread and cheese, washing it down with the milk, enjoying it more because of where it came from; then I unpeel my towel bandage and examine my hand. I use a little of the water to clean it, then tie it back up. It still hurts, but I’ll bet it’s not half as painful as Unwin’s face. I play the moment again in my mind. I hope his nose heals crooked, and every time he looks in the mirror he remembers me.

When my eyelids start to droop I toy with the idea of sleeping upstairs, but decide I don’t want to cut off my exit. Instead I wrap myself in my cloak, leaving my boots and clothes on, using the satchel as a pillow. I watch the fire as it smoulders, red and black, and I close my eyes.
Please let my luck hold. I’ve had precious little of it lately.
I don’t know who, or what, I’m praying to, but I hope they’re listening.
Let me get to Scarron and find the girl.
I’m not asking for a miracle. That’s all I need. Just please, please let me find her before Silas does.

I dream of the man, but it’s fragmented: he’s there, but he isn’t. He’s always one room away, in a place with more rooms than seems possible. I run down endless halls, longing for and dreading him being around the corner. I hear him call out for me and the skin on the back of my neck tightens and prickles. I don’t know if I’m running to him, or from him.

When I wake sometime later, I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. The fire has gone out, and my cloak is hanging off me, exposing me to the cold night. I reach to pull it back over but stop.

Beginning at my ankles, and rising up and along my calves, I feel gooseflesh erupt, my skin prickling. The crawling feeling spreads as every hair on my body stands on end. My eyes dart around the small room, taking in the shadows, looking for the reason why my instincts are telling me something is wrong.

I strain to hear beyond the cottage, listening for the snores of the horse or the rustling of an animal. There. To the left of the house I can hear leaves being crunched underfoot.

As quietly as I can, I walk to the window and peep out through a thin gap between the shutters, gazing in the direction I think is east, squinting to see if the sky is any lighter.

A shadow crosses in front of the window.

I jerk back, my mouth dry with terror. Then another shadow falls.

Before I’ve had time to think I’ve darted back to the satchel and slung it around my neck, abandoning the food and my cloak. Then I climb the stairs, praying that none will creak, moving as fast as I can without making a sound. As I reach the top, the door latch rattles.

I tiptoe across the room, standing on the bed and peering out of the window, unable to see who the visitors are. What if they’re soldiers? What if they’ve found me? I stand still, listening, hoping they’ll leave. Please leave. Leave.

There is a loud bang downstairs, then another: the sound of the door hitting the dirt floor.

I look out again, trying to gauge the distance to the ground. Too far, I decide. If they heard me, or if I hurt myself, I’d be done for.

Then I look up. The eaves hang low over the window and I wonder… I hear someone poking the fire, footsteps sounding closer to the stairs, and the time for wondering is over. I climb out on to the windowsill, my back to the night, and reach up, feeling beneath the eaves for a beam. An experimental tug reassures me as much as anything could, and I lift myself up, standing on the small frame and leaning my elbows on the roof. Cold air whips behind me and I’m paralysed by fear.

Then I hear a man’s voice. “There’s an upstairs,” he says, the accent Lormerian. Not soldiers, then.

But there’s no time for relief. The muscles in my arms are screaming as I haul myself upwards, biting my lip as I feel the skin on the knuckles of my right hand splitting again. My upper body lurches on to the roof, the sound muted by the thatch. For a wild, terrible moment my feet can find no purchase; I wheel my legs frantically before my fists grip at more thatch, and I swing them up, one foot then the second reaching the beam. Thank the Oak I’m wearing breeches, I would never have made it in skirts.

Beneath me I hear the sound of footsteps, two sets, thundering up the stairs, and it frightens me so much that I nearly let go.

I lie on my belly, the satchel wedged beneath me, holding my breath.

“She went out the window,” another voice says, and to my surprise it’s female, though as gruff as the man’s, and as Lormerian too. “Look, there’s footprints in the dust on the bed. She jumped.”

“Without breaking her legs? No chance. She could be on the roof,” her companion replies.

“You’d better take a look, then.”

My stomach drops when a pair of large hands with hairy knuckles appears inches from my face; I can see the chewed edges of his filthy nails in the moonlight. I’m readying myself to kick out at him when the thatch pulls loose and I hear him swear.

“She’s not up there. Thatch is rotten; she’d be on the ground with more than a broken leg if she’d tried. You’re right, she jumped. Must have heard us and took off.”

“She probably heard you coming a mile off, you were making such a racket.”

“She can’t have gone far; her cloak was still warm. And she left her food. Might be she’ll come back for them when she thinks it’s safe. We should wait it out.”

“She had two bags, remember. The other one’s gone. And there’s no sign of the horse. I wouldn’t come back, in her shoes. I’d put as much distance as I could in.” The woman’s words are laced with certainty, and her male counterpart grunts his response.

I hear their boots moving away, on the stairs, and I take a single breath before realizing that if they come around the rear of the house and look up, they’ll see me, clinging to the roof like a spider. I shuffle to the edge, but the man has pulled away the thatch I’d need to use to get back into the house.

I have no choice but to stay where I am for now.

I hear them leave and wait, braced for the moment they’ll come around and see me, or look for tracks, find my horse and know I’m still here.

Then I hear a muffled thud from inside the house and my limbs lock. They didn’t leave after all. They waited. They know I’m here; they tried to trick me. I hear the stairs creaking, feel someone below me, waiting in the window. They stand there for a long time and I can feel my heart beating frantically, in my chest, even in my fingertips. Then, mercifully, I hear stairs creak again, and then silence.

Long minutes pass with me gripping the roof for all I’m worth, my breath shallow, my limbs trembling. The wait becomes unbearable, and I lean closer to the edge, listening. Have they truly left? When I alter my grip on the thatch it pulls free.

I have to jump, or I’m going to fall.

Lief and I used to jump from the hayloft into the barn below after harvest, throwing ourselves down fifteen feet to bounce in the sweet-smelling hay. As he got older Lief would do somersaults, flinging himself backwards into the piles of grass, but I wasn’t quite brave, or stupid, enough.

By my guess the edge of the roof is perhaps thirteen feet from the ground. And there’s no hay beneath me.

I shift until I’m parallel to the ledge. There is a thick beam that’s part of the frame, and I brace myself against it, holding on tight. I need to roll as soon as I hit the ground and then I need to run. Roll, then run. When I lower myself over and my feet touch nothing I panic, even though I knew it would happen, and I grasp a new patch of thatch.

It comes away in my hand and I fall. Before I’ve even had time to understand what’s happened I’m on the ground and I can’t breathe, searing pain across my ribs, my lungs unable to expand…

Then it recedes and sweet, sweet air rushes into my lungs. It hurts, but I gasp anyway, sucking the air in. Winded. I winded myself. That’s all. I thought I’d broken my back.

I roll on to my side, pushing the satchel out from under me and twisting my head to stare up at the lightening sky. Then I take an inventory of my body. I’m jarred and jolted, but nothing is broken, or even sprained. It’s shock that keeps me pinned to the ground, even as part of my mind insists I get up and run. That part gets louder, and I sit, stiffly, amazed by the miracle of being all right. I look at the cottage, trying to summon the courage to go to it. Surely, if someone were still there they would have come out when they heard me fall.

I pull the knife from the satchel and approach.

The door is gone, knocked from its hinges. I edge in, staying near the doorway while my eyes get used to the gloom. Then I forget to be stealthy as I cry out and rush to my makeshift bed.