The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) (49 page)

Even if Liam lived, Salimbene would surely discard her if they were.

The thought of being tossed aside by him had her sobbing for breath, fumbled her fingers as she made sure of enough poppy and fevermoss and knitbone in her satchel. When she was satisfied, she hefted it outside, fetched her nag from its tethered grazing, banged on its saddle and bridle, strapped on the satchel, and set off for the Pig Whistle.

At least she had one consolation. Molly had straight away sent to her for help. That was welcome proof she’d grown indispensable to this stretch of the Marches. It was what she’d been working towards. What Salimbene had planned. Perhaps, hearing that, he’d forgive her for Liam.

It had been a simple task, killing the old herb-woman Phemie. Long ago Salimbene had given her the power to walk silent through the world, being seen by men only when it suited her. Or him. No curse had killed the old woman, just a drop of poison. A lingering death that mimicked the capricious cruelty of nature and let her death be called plague-kill without question. After that it was simply a matter of making people sick, as she’d made that trader Denno Culpyn sick, then waiting until fear stalked the Marches like a ravenous beast. Only then did she reveal herself. Izusa, the healer, with no plan to stay in these parts… except that she was needed. And being needed, would remain.

But only for so long as Salimbene desired.

Clemen’s Lord Wido, unaware he was galloping towards his death, had granted her the use of dead Phemie’s cottage. It lay in one of his woodlands so he imagined it was his. She’d taken it, gladly, and placed around the modest daub-and-shingled dwelling so many runes and curses that not a living soul would ever remember she’d lived there or what she looked like. Unless, of course, she wanted them to. Soon after that she arranged a dead baby, for its head. Then Salimbene found her and she was whole again.

But if she failed him… if she failed him…

When she reached the Pig Whistle, the stable lad who’d come to fetch her took the nag and told her she’d find Molly indoors. Iddo, tending the public room, nodded when he saw her and told the serving wench they’d taken on to show her upstairs.

“Izusa!” cried Molly, wringing her hands. “At last. I tell ye, there be an ill faery under my roof. First that ruckus on the doorstep, then Alys
goes tumbling to her death, and now this. The imp stood behind me while I was at the hob and when I turned round with the stew pot I—”

“Yes, Molly, I see,” she said, moving to crouch beside Liam in his truckle bed, pressed against the wall in Molly’s bedchamber. “You broke his nose and burned him.”

The woman’s true son, little Benedikt, stood high-strung beside his foster-brother. “But ye can heal him, iss?” His piping voice shook. “He won’t die?”

Stripped out of his roughspun shirt and propped up on pillows, Harald’s son was a wounded, sorry sight. Nose bent and bloody. Forehead, cheek and shoulder blistered scarlet and weeping. His eyelid was swollen. Had the stupid woman made of him another Vidar? The child was shivering, pain taking its toll.

Molly made a growling sound. “What did I say, ye wretch? Be hushed!”

Her son wilted. Reaching out, Izusa stroked his wild, dark hair. “Not to fret, Benedikt. I won’t let him die.”

Harald’s son, misnamed Willem, bore her interfering fingers with surprising strength. He whimpered but once when she mostly straightened his nose, and shed only a few tears at the bite of the poultice she slathered on his burned flesh. When she gave him a poppy posset he gagged, but drank. All the while, Benedikt stood close and encouraged him. Patted his good shoulder. Promised all kinds of rompish fun just as soon as he was healed.

As for Molly, she stared. Stuffed with guilt, and silent. Stupid, careless woman. Should Salimbene want her punished it would be no hardship to obey.

Finished with her leeching, Izusa helped Liam ease properly into his bed. Benedikt helped too. He was a sweet boy.

“The poultice will stop any festering,” she said, turning to Molly. “Change it morning, noon and night for three days. I’ll leave you the herbs. But he’s going to scar. And that nose of his, it’ll stay crooked.”

“His eye?”

“Not blistered. I’ll know for sure when the swelling’s gone, but I think he’ll keep his sight.”

Molly pressed her work-rough hands to her face. “The spirits be thanked.”

“Let him sleep,” she said, touching the back of her hand to Liam’s unburned cheek. He was already drowsy, the poppy doing its work. “When he stirs he’ll likely fever up. Steep him in a yarrow bath. That should do the trick. Poor mite. He’ll feel worse before he’s better.”

“Ye’ll come again on the morrow?” Molly said, anxious.

Izusa smiled. She’d never seen the innkeeper so turmoiled. And serve her right, for Liam’s sake. “First thing.”

“I want to stay,” said Benedikt, tugging Liam’s blanket smooth. “Can I stay? I won’t fret him.”

Molly frowned. “Ye have chores, Benedikt.”

“He’ll do no harm, Molly,” she said softly. “Let him stay. It’ll ease Willem if he’s not alone when he wakes.”

“On yer bed, then,” Molly told her son, pointing to the other truckle tucked in behind the door. “And if I hear a mouse peep from ye, it’ll be the wooden spoon.”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Izusa portioned out the herbs and ointments and powdered poppy that Liam would need overnight. When she was finished, her satchel repacked and fastened, Molly pressed a silver coin into her palm.

“Thank ye, besom. I don’t know what I’d do without ye.”

She slipped the coin into the leather purse belted at her waist. “Don’t fret, Molly. I’m not going anywhere. As for your Willem, he’ll come right. I’ll make sure of it. For you’d best believe I’ll die before I let that boy come to harm. Now, take care of your customers. I’ll see you again in the morning.”

Her plain nag was weary, she’d ridden it so hard to the Pig Whistle. So she let it amble its way back to the cottage. Though summer was fading some warmth remained in the sun. She tipped her head back to bathe her face in it, let it melt the lingering fear.

Harald’s son may be healed… but there was still Salimbene. She couldn’t keep this from him. That would surely mean her death.

Returned to her small dwelling, she unsaddled the nag then penned it beside the cottage with water from the well, an armful of hay and a scoop of oats. That done, she went inside. Before she left the Pig Whistle, Molly had gifted her a skinful of rich rabbit stew. She warmed it in a kettle over her hearthfire, and washed it down with a mug of strong ale. Then, her heart thudding, she lit more candles, fed the fire to leaping, and fetched her wooden box. She never knew how long it might take for Salimbene to answer her call. Sometimes he came to her swiftly. Sometimes he took hours.

All she could do was wait for him… and trust that he’d come.

With a snarling shout, Balfre ducked under Waymon’s swinging arm, hooked one bare foot around his ankle, pulled hard while he thrust
sideways once with his hip. Waymon went down. Balfre followed him. Plucked Waymon’s dagger from his numbed, wide-spread fingers and thrust its point under his chin. Sprawled on his back, gasping for air, Waymon turned himself to stone.

Laughing, Balfre slapped Waymon lightly on the cheek. Then he bounced to his feet and turned to his watching men-at-arms, gathered raggedly around the barracks tilt yard of Bayard’s manor that he’d taken for his own. “A little trick I learned from my father’s Master Armsman, Ambrose.”

Uneasy mutters. Sideways glances and some shuffling feet. Harcia’s men-at-arms didn’t know what to make of their new lord. Sagged into soft-bellied indiscipline by Bayard and Egbert’s neglect, their taunting squabbles with Clemen’s men spilling a little blood here and there but provoking more rancorous word play, these men thought themselves much deadlier than they were. Between them, at the Pig Whistle, he and Waymon had put down their sword-brothers with no more difficulty than if they’d been ladies’ lapdogs. What he needed was wolves.

And when he was done with them, wolves he would have.

“I was two years of age when Ambrose first put a sword in my hand,” he said, sweeping his gaze across their blankly wary faces. He held up Waymon’s dagger. “It was made of wood, not much bigger than this. When I was three, I rode my first pass in a joust. I sat a pony. Ambrose faced me on foot. He sent me tumbling. When I snivelled, he beat me with the flat of his blade.
For shame, my lord Balfre
, he said.
You are a duke’s son
. I learned my lesson. I took many more tumbles but I never snivelled again.
You
—” He sharpened his gaze. “Are all snivellers. You think you’re fine, fighting men but you only play at war. You take the duke my father’s coin and you piss it against a tree. You jeer at Clemen, and catcall, when you should stand fast for Harcia.
Make no mistake
. Your snivelling days are done. I’m about to beat you with the flat of
my
blade until you beg for mercy.
Waymon
.”

“My lord,” said Waymon, joining him.

“Let’s begin.”

In all, Harcia boasted some fifty men-at-arms to protect its Marches territory from Clemen’s incursions. He’d ordered half to the tilt yard to train with him and Waymon this afternoon. The other half he’d confront in the morning. Waiting for the uneasy men to strip themselves to britches and bare feet, he smiled. Single out one or two for particular humiliation, batter the rest to their unsuspecting knees, and word would
swiftly spread that Aimery’s son Balfre was no soft, pampered lord.

“So, my friend,” he said, glancing at Waymon. “Are you ready to teach these fucking shites a sharp lesson?”

Sweaty and dirt-streaked, his cheekbone bruised, Waymon grinned. “Not ready, my lord. Eager.”

As was he. Putting crippled Vidar in his place at the Pig Whistle had only whetted his appetite for sport. He slapped Waymon’s arm. “Good. But no maimings. I don’t mind blood and bruises but I’d leave them with all their limbs.”

For more than three hours he and Waymon put Harcia’s men-at-arms through their paces. Kicked their legs out from under them, tossed them onto their backs, cut them and bruised them and rubbed their lapdog noses in how much they didn’t know. When at last the light was fading, and he was satisfied they’d learned their lesson, he called a halt to the drubbing.

“You could be worse,” he told his Marcher men, strewn panting and bloody around the foot-churned tilt yard. “Those of you who were worse got themselves gutted at the Pig Whistle. Me, I say they died of shame. That old cockshite Humbert took the most living men home. What’s shame, if not that?”

Mynton, the barracks captain, hawked and spat blood. “My lord, what d’ye tell us? Do we prepare for war?”

“With Clemen?” He laughed. “Every day is war with Clemen. Roric the bastard would kill us all, had he the chance. But Aimery loves you. He’d keep your blood in your veins–as would I. For now. So until Roric breaks the peace we’ll wage a war without blood. We’ll keep the Marches bloodless and every day we’ll train. Because one day Roric will put his sword to our throat. And when he does I’d have us ready to plunge our sword through his heart.”

More muttering, this time tinged with cautious pleasure. This time Balfre hid his smile. These men were beaten but not broken, which was precisely his intent. Mynton and two others, men he’d made sure to wound enough for leeching, he told to remain. Dismissing the rest to the barracks bath house, he sent Waymon to fetch him needle, thread and hot water. When they came he neatly cleaned and stitched the wounds he’d inflicted.

Mynton stared as he cautiously flexed his slashed forearm. A stringy man of middle years, he spoke with a faded hint of the Green Isle in his voice. In his pale blue eyes, a grudging gleam of respect.

“Thank ye, m’lord.”

Balfre nodded. “You did well. You’ll do better. See the men settled for the night.”

“M’lord,” Mynton said, with a jerky half-bow. “Brindle. Poley. With me.”

As the men-at-arms snatched up their boots and tunics and limped through the falling dusk towards their barracks, Waymon cleared his throat. “Balfre, a good lord should know his men. I’d bathe and sup with ours.”

A surprising request. Making sure to seem indifferent, he shrugged. “If you like. If my company’s grown so dull.”

Waymon flushed. “My lord—”

“Fuck, Waymon. You’re as easily gulled as a virgin. Go. Somehow I’ll survive a solitary meal for one night.”

After pulling on his shirt, doublet and boots he returned to the manor. Its soft-footed steward Fulcher met him in the modest entrance hall and handed him a wax-sealed parchment. “My lord, this came while you were at the tilt yard.”

“I’ll be in the library,” he said, taking it. “Bring me food and wine there.”

Comfortably cradled in his chair before the fireplace, he opened the letter. It was from Grefin, hastily penned the morning of his departure from Cater’s Tamwell.

Balfre tossed the letter onto a nearby side table, darkly amused, then stretched out his legs and let the leaping flames dazzle him. Ah, Grefin. So earnest. So transparent. So useful, from time to time. By all means let a new leech eke a few more years out of Aimery. He could wait. He had time. He had a great deal to do before he was ready to become the new king of Harcia.

His belly rumbled, complaining. Fulcher arrived with his evening meal and, laughing softly, he started to eat.

She was drowsing, drifting, when at last the severed baby’s head in its wooden box stirred, then answered.

“
Izusa. You called me
.”

Heart beating wildly, she slid from her chair to the cottage’s rush-mat covered earth floor. Forced herself to look into the severed head’s grey, prunish face.