The Golden Cage (29 page)

‘What about the book? Is the secret in the
Llyfr Draconius
?'

‘Almost certainly.' Frecknock's voice betrayed a tiny quiver of hope that instantly put Melyn on his guard. ‘But it's not like a normal book. You can't just open it up and read it. You'd lose your mind.'

‘So you say, but how do I know you just don't want me to know what's in it?'

‘I can't stop you from reading it, sire. But I must warn you that it is very dangerous. You and I are very different. Men don't think like dragons. Your kind have never been able to master the subtle arts.'

‘And yet somehow Errol Ramsbottom managed to walk your lines. Not just once, either. He escaped Tynhelyg and ended up at Emmass Fawr, disappeared from there a couple of times too, and then went from the Neuadd to the depths of this forest. He shouldn't have been able to do any of those things.'

The darkness was almost total now, and Melyn could see nothing of Frecknock's outline. She was motionless, silent, the only thing showing her presence the twin sets of low embers reflected red in her glassy eyes.

‘No, Your Grace. He shouldn't have.'

‘We can't very well just ride into Talarddeg, Dafydd. Not like this. They'll think we're an invasion force or something.' Captain Pelod voiced the problem that had been weighing on Dafydd's mind for several days now, ever since they had crossed the pass on their back-road route to Fo Afron and seen the sparkling blue waters of the Sea of Tegid stretching out to the eastern horizon. They had dropped back down into the trees now, but every so often a turn in the road would offer them another breathtaking vista.

Still, it had been a long journey. Dafydd was beginning to tire of the mountains and the endless forest. After the initial few days of worrying that a messenger from his father would catch up with them, ordering him back to Tynhelyg, he had relaxed enough to start enjoying himself.
It was a bit like some of his more daring childhood escapades, when he and Jarius had taken horses out at first light to hunt boar – that same sense of wrongdoing, that frisson of danger. But this was ten times as perilous, and at the same time even more exciting. He had the king's blessing for this quest, but also the king's expectations weighing heavily on his shoulders and a troop of the king's elite guard riding at his back.

‘How exactly are we supposed to get from Talarddeg to Abervenn, anyway?' Jarius asked, nudging his horse closer to Dafydd's. Iolwen rode on his other side, silent but smiling. She had changed noticeably on their trip, becoming brighter and happier as the miles grew from Tynhelyg. Dafydd wondered how much of the reason for this was the thought of going home, and how much sheer relief at being away from the city and royal court.

‘We'll be sailing on one of Master Holgrum's merchant ships.'

‘Oh joy. A sea journey. You know how much I hate getting my feet wet.'

‘I've never been to sea.' There was perhaps a note of trepidation in Iolwen's voice as she joined in the conversation. ‘Is it as bad as people say?'

‘Only during the winter storms,' Jarius said. ‘And even then the Sea of Tegid is fairly calm, at least up the west coast. It's deep there, you see, and sheltered from the worst of the weather by these mountains we've just ridden through.'

‘But what about the rest of the journey? Aren't we going out through the Spires of Idris?'

‘It can get a bit choppy there, and there's a tricky bit
around the Caldy peninsula between the southern sea and the Great Ocean. But we're not going to be on a little rowing boat, Iol. And the sailors will know what they're doing.'

Dafydd said the words to comfort himself as much as his wife. He had sailed from Talarddeg before, but only north, up the coast to Kais. Jarius had more experience of the sea, but there wasn't much call for sailors in Llanwennog. It was landlocked on three sides, and the sea that formed its northern border was frozen for most of the year.

‘Seriously though, Dafydd, we need to think about how we approach the city. Beulah will have plenty of spies there, and Tordu too. If we don't want either of them to know where we are, then we need to split up, arrive at different times and through different gates. There're a dozen taverns I can suggest where we can regroup, and when we know which boat we're sailing on, I can pass the message on.'

‘That's a sound plan, Captain Pelod. But I have a better one.'

Dafydd, Iolwen and Jarius stopped their horses in unison. They had been riding down a long straight track with wide grass verges to either side. Nothing and nobody could have approached them without being seen. And yet there, standing in the middle of the road, was a man.

‘Usel. By the Shepherd, man. You might have got yourself killed.' Dafydd turned slightly in his saddle. ‘It's all right. He's a friend.' The soldiers riding behind him were in disarray, pulling up their horses and stepping off the track to avoid riding into the back of them.

‘They haven't seen me yet,' Usel said, and Dafydd could
see the truth of his words in the actions of his guards. They had been taken completely by surprise and even now didn't seem to know what had caused their leaders to stop so suddenly. He turned back to the plain-robed medic and for the first time noticed that he had a horse, standing patiently behind him.

‘How … ?'

‘Magic, Your Highness. Misdirection. Please forgive me my little game, but I could think of no other way to come among you. I hadn't anticipated you would be accompanied by the king's best men. Ah, yes, they've seen me now.'

Within seconds Usel was surrounded by two dozen mounted soldiers, all wielding swords of bright white flame. He stood in their midst motionless, seemingly unconcerned. Dafydd thought it would serve the man right to let him sweat a bit, but the medic merely waited. In the end it was Iolwen who broke the impasse.

‘Stand down, won't you. Can't you see he's no threat?'

The guards extinguished their blades and turned their horses away, falling back behind the royal pair and their captain.

‘Thank you, Princess,' Usel said. ‘And thank you, gentlemen, for not running me through.' He swung himself up on to his horse and wheeled it round so that he was alongside Iolwen.

‘You were saying you had a better plan?' Jarius spoke as if the whole incident had been no more than a horse stumbling over a pothole.

‘Indeed, Captain, I have. Talarddeg is, as you rightly said, awash with spies – Beulah's, Tordu's, Padraig's. Even
the merchants keep an eye on each other and sell whatever information they glean. It's not a good place to go if you don't want to be noticed.'

‘So we should avoid it, is that what you're saying?' Dafydd asked.

‘No. Well, not all of you. I'm sorry, Your Highness. This might seem a bit strange, but I think you and Iolwen should be seen entering the city, just not in an official capacity. News must get back to Tynhelyg of your whereabouts eventually; we just need to manage the process. Perhaps Captain Pelod might accompany you, and Master Teryll as well. Her Royal Highness the princess is in a delicate condition, after all, and where better to build up one's strength than Talarddeg? You should have rooms at the most expensive inn, take the waters and be seen in the spa. Then you might charter a boat to take you across to Fo Afron. There are interesting ruins in the Gwastadded Wag that a young prince might wish to explore.'

‘And you'll pick us up somewhere in the middle of the Sea of Tegid, where even the loosest-tongued sailor can't tell a soul.'

‘Exactly so, Prince Dafydd.' Usel smiled as if everything had been settled to his liking.

‘But what of my guards?' Dafydd asked. ‘What of my safety? What of Iolwen's? If Talarddeg's as full of spies as you say, might there not be assassins too?'

‘We hadn't counted on you bringing so many men,' Usel said. ‘But Holgrum's ship is more than capable of taking them all. I dare say he wanted to fit in a paying cargo as well, but he might have to accept a small loss on this journey. The ship will put into a small harbour not
two days' ride south of Talarddeg. They can board it there without fear of being discovered. Local tongues might wag, but only the sheep will hear them.'

‘And the assassins?' Dafydd noticed that he medic hadn't answered his question.

‘I won't deny that Talarddeg can be a dangerous place. But my people are in place, have been for many months now. And Master Holgrum has contacts throughout the city. If anyone was plotting an attack, we'd know about it and deal with it. People disappear all the time in busy coastal ports. The city guard tends not to get involved.'

Dafydd knew it made sense. Riding into town at the head of a troop of King Ballah's finest soldiers would bring the wrong kind of attention. He would be invited to stay at the castle, watched by his uncle, the odious Duke Vern, his every move reported back to his father. It would be all but impossible to do anything without half the local aristocrats following him around. But if he arrived quietly, unannounced but not concealing his presence, then he might well be left alone, at least for the few days it took to exchange message birds with Tynhelyg, and by then he would be gone anyway.

‘How much further is it to the coast?'

‘We should reach the sea by this evening. A place called Smailtown. It's a long day's ride to the city from there. We'll find lodgings for tonight and set off fresh in the morning.'

They rode on through the afternoon, arriving at the small coastal settlement as the sun dipped behind the Caldy mountains. The smell of the sea brought back vivid memories to Dafydd, not all of them good. He could
almost feel the rocking of the small boat that had taken him to Kais through stomach-churning waters. That had been a miserable trip, a strange idea of his father's to round out his education by sending him to the four corners of the kingdom and beyond. He hoped that this voyage would be both more profitable and more comfortable.

Smailtown sat on the main road that followed the western coast of the Sea of Tegid. It was a small place: a few fisherman's cottages clustered around a tiny harbour, and a large inn built to cater for travellers heading to and from Talarddeg. The soldiers made camp in a sheltered field nearby while Usel accompanied Dafydd, Jarius and Iolwen into the inn.

It had been weeks since last they had stayed anywhere so well appointed, and Dafydd wasn't surprised that his wife disappeared into the bathing room attached to their chambers as soon as the maids had finished bringing up what seemed like enough hot water to fill the harbour below. He contented himself with a quick wash before making his way to the main tavern room. The endless days on the road, with only the rations they could carry supplemented by what they could catch, had given him a hunger for something more sophisticated than spit-roast deer, and a thirst for something stronger than water.

There were few people in the long low-ceilinged room; Jarius had yet to make it down. Usel was waiting for him, however, and they retired to a private room at the back of the building. They sat at a heavy-topped oak table and a serving girl brought two tankards of foaming ale. Dafydd drank deeply from his, washing away the road dust.

‘You look like you needed that.' Usel sipped at his own drink with slightly more decorum.

‘It's been a while since I've had real ginger beer,' Dafydd said. ‘It doesn't travel well to Tynhelyg, and the brewers there don't know how to make it with the dried ginger root that gets brought in.'

‘Well, this is all right, I suppose, but it's not the best. Remind me to take you to Plentin's when we get to Talarddeg. He makes the finest ginger beer in the whole of Gwlad.'

‘Listen to you two. You sound like a couple of old merchants discussing their next trip.' Dafydd looked up from his tankard, then reflexively stood up. A familiar fair-haired woman in a long dark gown stood by the unlit fireplace. He was certain she hadn't been there before, though he hadn't heard the door.

‘Ah, Lady Anwyn. I was wondering where you'd got to.' Usel stood as well, and pulled out a chair so that she could sit.

‘I was here all along, Usel. I've been practising.'

Dafydd looked at the young woman and back at the grey-haired medic. He was nothing like as powerful in the ways of the Grym as his grandfather – no one in the whole of Llanwennog could hope to match the king – but he was nevertheless a skilled adept. He could conjure a puissant sword and knew how to feel out another man's thoughts. He could even communicate over long distances using his aethereal form, though there were few people with the skill to see him thus. He had no desire to contact either his father or Tordu, and the king himself would not wish to be bothered until there was important
news. But in all his years of training he had never encountered a spell that could render him invisible in the way both Usel and now Anwyn seemed able to do. He could misdirect a person's attention so as to be overlooked, could possibly even make a small crowd ignore him, but he had also been trained to know when something similar was being done to him. At no time had he noticed any of the telltale signs.

‘This … trick. I've not seen it done before. It's new magic?'

‘No, sir. It's the very oldest magic. Or the subtle arts, as those who taught it to me would prefer to call it. I've always found the term more appealing.' Usel smiled an enigmatic little smile, then disappeared from where he was sitting. Dafydd could sense nothing of him, but he reached forward and poked the area where the medic's chest should have been. As he made contact, so Usel reappeared.

‘Touch will undo the spell, it's true. But it's a useful working nonetheless. It would have been very difficult to get across half of Llanwennog undetected without it.'

‘Who else knows how to do this?' Dafydd asked. ‘Do the warrior priests? By the tree, man, this is a terrible thing. Our armies could be attacked before they knew anything was coming their way.'