The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

G
DELSK CAME INTO
sight. Harkeld saw a high log palisade and steeply pitched wood-shingle roofs. Rain drummed down, blurring everything.

Rand met them a quarter mile from the gate. “The river’s too high for the smaller boats, so several crossings have been canceled. With the backlog, we won’t get across today. I’ve booked for dawn tomorrow.”

“Can’t be helped.” Cora glanced at the trampled mire of mud, ox dung, and refuse surrounding the town, and grimaced.

“I took the liberty of reserving rooms at one of the smaller inns.”

Cora looked at Rand, eyebrows raised.

“Although we can certainly camp out here, if you wish.”

“Wish?” Her nose wrinkled. “No, I don’t wish.” She sighed and looked over her shoulder. “Gerit, Katlen, your opinions, please.”

Harkeld had a strong opinion, but he kept silent while the witches debated the merits of staying in the town or camping outside it. They were the ones risking their lives to protect him.

“Very well,” Cora said, with a nod at Rand. “Show us to this inn.”

“Do you and Katlen wish to change into skirts first?”

Cora grimaced again. “I suppose we’d better.”

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, they rode through the gates. Harkeld looked out from under his hood. Gdelsk had to be the ugliest town he’d ever seen, a bedraggled collection of log buildings that appeared to grow haphazardly out of the mud. Justen rode beside him, hand on his sword hilt, watching the few people scurrying along the filthy streets, scanning the doorways, examining the windows overlooking them.

The inn was two-storied, with a central courtyard off which stables opened. The five bedchambers Rand had reserved were on the top floor. Justen looked up and down the narrow corridor, opened the door to a bedchamber, trod across to the window and peered out. “Better than I thought. I doubt if even a monkey’d climb up that.” He turned to Harkeld. “Station one of the mages outside the door as a dog and we should be safe.”

Harkeld nodded and looked around the room. Two narrow, sagging beds, a wooden bench, a fireplace, and some hooks hammered into the walls. Basic, and not particularly clean, but it was dry. Praise the All-Mother, it was
dry
. “I wonder if they do baths.”

Justen’s face brightened. “We can hope.”

They did do baths. While water heated in the kitchen downstairs, Harkeld unpacked his spare clothes. They were damp. He lit the fire, pulled the bench close, and draped his spare clothes over it to dry. He sent the armsman downstairs for a basin of hot water and a shaving kit, if the inn possessed such a thing. Justen came back with his arms full. The towel was threadbare, the mirror small and spotted with age, but the water was hot, the razor sharp, and the sliver of soap worked up a good lather. Harkeld propped the mirror on the windowsill and shaved. He dried his face afterwards and ran a hand over his jaw.

“You want to shave?” he asked the armsman.

“Ach, in a bit.”

The bath came a few minutes later, first the copper tub, and then bucket after bucket of steaming water. Justen watched the servants, his hand close to his sword, not relaxing until the door was locked behind them.

Harkeld stripped and stepped into the tub. It was small, nothing like the sybaritic bathtubs at the palace, but he could sit with his knees drawn up and water halfway up his chest. He gave a deep sigh of pleasure.

He lathered his hair and skin and scrubbed himself with the brush the servants had provided. When he’d finished, the bathwater didn’t look clean any more.

Harkeld glanced over the side of the bathtub. The servants had left two more buckets of water.

“Justen, rinse me off, will you?”

The armsman turned away from the window.

“Oh, you’ve shaved. You did that fast.” And quietly. He hadn’t heard the rasp of the razor through stubble.

Justen touched his chin, almost self-consciously, and shrugged. “Rinse you?”

Harkeld nodded at the buckets of water. “Pour them over me.”

Justen obediently picked up a bucket and hefted it over Harkeld’s head. Harkeld rinsed his hair and face in the stream of warm water, then stood and let the armsman empty the rest of the bucket over his chest and arms and back.

Justen hoisted the second bucket, pouring the water over Harkeld’s groin and buttocks, his thighs, not looking directly at him, as if embarrassed by his nudity. Harkeld suppressed his amusement. It was unkind of him to find the armsman’s bashfulness comical. He took the nearly-empty bucket and rinsed his calves and feet himself, stepping out onto the floor. “Thanks.”

Justen handed him a towel.

Harkeld went to stand in front of the fire. He was clean. Truly clean. “By the All-Mother, that feels good,” he said, drying his hair. “You should have one.”

“I will... if you don’t mind one of the mages guarding you?”

Harkeld shrugged. “No.”

His spare clothes, if not completely dry, were nearly so, and warm from the fire. He dressed and looked down at the sodden, filthy garments on the floor. How many weeks since he’d washed them? “I wonder if they can launder these?”

The inn couldn’t, but at least he didn’t have to wear them until tomorrow, by which time they’d be dry. And until then he was clean and shaved. Harkeld hung his wet clothes on the hooks and went downstairs with Ebril and Rand, while the armsman bathed in fresh, steaming water.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

R
UTGAR AND
L
UKAS
arrived in their new quarters at dusk. Princess Brigitta visited them immediately, taking Karel with her even though the storeroom was only a few steps across the corridor. He stood just inside the door and examined the room. It was windowless, lit by candles, warmed by a small brazier. The only openings were the door and a ventilation slit near the ceiling. The beds had been placed against the far wall. In one corner, a woven screen shielded a chamberpot.

Two armsmen stood inside, and another armsman outside in the corridor. Karel silently thanked Duke Frankl. He’d made this significantly easier for them.

The princess sat on one of the beds. The boys clung to her, bewildered, frightened, crying. She held them, rocked them, kissed away their tears. After an hour, Lukas fell asleep sucking his thumb. Rutgar stayed awake, clutching his half-sister, not crying any more, his distress silent.

A nursemaid watched from one corner.

When the twelfth bell rang, the princesss carefully covered Lukas with a blanket. “Shhh,” she whispered to Rutgar. “Don’t wake him.”

She undressed Rutgar, helped him into a nightshift, and tucked him into bed. “Will you stay all night?” the little boy asked, an edge of panic in his voice. He was thinner than he’d been four days ago, paler. He looked fragile, terrified.

“I can’t, sweetheart.”

Tears welled in his eyes.

“I promise I’ll come back tomorrow.” Princess Brigitta smoothed the hair back from Rutgar’s face, kissed him. “I
promise
.”

She held his hand and sang lullabies until he slept, then stood, beckoning to the nursemaid. “How have they been?”

“Not eating well, highness, nor sleeping well. Calling for you.”

“My brother has given me permission to visit daily. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. They may eat better if I’m here.” Princess Brigitta clasped the woman’s hand. “Thank you for looking after them.”

The nursemaid curtseyed. “Highness.”

Karel followed the princess from the storeroom, took two strides across the corridor, opened the door to her suite, and stood aside for her to pass.

Princess Brigitta halted just inside the parlor. She pressed her hands to her face.

“Britta?” Yasma came from the bedchamber. “Are you all right?”

The princess lowered her hands. “How can he do that to them?” There were tears in her voice, tears on her face. “His own brothers!”

Yasma hurried across the room. “We’ll save them, Britta.” She hugged the princess. “Come, let me take off your crown. And I brought dinner from the kitchens.”

Karel paced the parlor while the princess and Yasma were in the bedchamber, holding the boys’ faces in his mind. Rutersvard princes
. Am I insane?
Rutersvards were conquerors, oppressors. And yet he was risking his family’s freedom for them.

No, that was wrong. If he was honest with himself, he was doing it for Princess Brigitta, because she loved the boys. And because, if this wild plan succeeded, she and Yasma would be free. And for
that
, almost any risk was worth it.

When you love people, you save them.

He paced from the marquetry table by the shuttered windows, to the far wall, and back. A trolley sat beside the table, with ashets and tureens. The smell of food wafted from beneath the silver lids.

The princess emerged from the bedchamber, her hair caught loosely at the nape of her neck, a leather pouch in her hand. “Yasma has an idea, Karel.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “What?”

Yasma came to stand beside the princess. “If you die serving the king’s interests, there’ll be no penalty to your family, will there?”

“No.” His death in the line of duty would carry the same weight as twenty years’ good service. The last portion of his family’s debt of servitude to Osgaard would be erased; they would be fully free. “But I can’t come with you. Someone needs to witness your death.”

“Britta says there’s an armsman in the corridor, guarding the boys’ door. What if we get
him
to witness our deaths? Then you can come too!”

Karel frowned. “Witness how?”

“Suppose Britta calls to him for help and he sees us lying here...” Yasma gestured to the floor. “In the middle of
lots
of blood.”

Karel shook his head. “His duty is to guard the princes. He shouldn’t move one step from that door.”

“Even if Britta is covered in blood and calling for help? Don’t you think he’d at least look in? She
is
a princess. It would be his duty, don’t you think?”

Karel chewed the inside of his cheek.
What would I do in those circumstances?

“And once he’s seen you both, I’ll spray him with All-Mother’s Breath,” Princess Brigitta said.

“Don’t you think it could work?” Yasma asked.

“It increases the risk,” Karel said, ignoring the voice in his head that urged him to agree with them.
Caution,
he told himself. That’s what would carry them through this: caution. And taking as few risks as possible.

But hope of leaving Osgaard blossomed inside him, bright and painful.

Karel forced himself to shake his head. “He might come to the doorway, but he might just as easily call for help.”

“Everyone will be at the coronation,” Princess Brigitta said. “No one will hear him.”

“The two armsmen inside the storeroom will.”

“Then we’d have
three
witnesses.”