The Uncrowned King (12 page)

She ducked smoked hams hanging from the rafters. 'What is it?'

'We were told you'd gone to Sylion Abbey, but they did not call off the guard who's been watching over your foenix so I wondered.' Milky eyes fixed on her face trying to make out her expression. 'Don't worry, I've been feeding your pet.'

'Thank you.' She squeezed his hands. 'Have you seen Sawtree?'

The spit-turner hesitated.

'Cobalt spotted me with him earlier,' Piro admitted. 'I... I had to leave him and run -'

'They've got Sawtree in chains in the stable yard. You must stay away from him, kingsdaughter. Promise you will?'

She nodded, meaning to go and see if she could do anything for Sawtree later.

'Cobalt said you betrayed Rolencia, but I did not believe them,' the spit-turner admitted. 'None of us believed him.'

Tears stung Piro's eyes. 'What about my mother? She's been loyal to Rolencia since she came here as a child of eight.'

He shook his head. 'The queen is Merofynian-born and under the influence of a renegade Power-worker. Poor thing.'

Piro's heart sank. How quickly they had turned on her mother.

They'd be equally quick to turn on her, if they knew she had Affinity. She shuddered as the ramifications hit her. With the castle under siege, Cobalt would be within his rights to have her executed. She shivered.

The spit-turner rubbed her hands. 'You're cold. And hungry, I expect. Stay here. I'll find you some food.'

Again, she squeezed his fingers then let him go. He returned after several moments with a calico bag containing smelly cheese and other items.

'Promise me you'll hide?' He held the bag up between them but did not release it. 'Cobalt's looking for you.'

'I know. I'll take care.'

He did not look convinced, but he gave her the bag and she slipped away, heading for the stable courtyard.

The place was so crowded, people had camped in the passages. She picked her way over bundles and through outstretched legs. She passed two old men, both veterans of other wars by the look of them. One was without a leg from the knee down and the other's hands were crippled with the bone-ache.

'They're saying all the king's old honour guard are dead,' One-leg muttered. 'I remember Temor as a boy, remember his da. Good men, both of 'em.'

'Good men,' the other echoed. 'Young Rolen lost a lot of good men today.'

It took a moment for Piro to realise they were talking about her father.

'Eh, he can't afford to. Not with the enemy at the gates again.' One-leg shook his head. 'The Bastard's brat shouldn't have punished Sawtree.'

'Aye. Good man, Sawtree,' the other agreed.

Piro's stomach lurched and her skin went cold. So the spit-turner hadn't been entirely honest with her. She wanted to ask these old men what Cobalt had done to punish Sawtree, but she didn't dare.

'I hear the Bastard's brat's offering a reward for news of Rolen's girl,' One-leg said and spat.

Piro crept away feeling guilty. What had Cobalt done to Sawtree? She wanted to go to him and help, but that would be an insult when he had chosen to sacrifice himself for her. Tears stung her eyes. She searched for somewhere safe, somewhere that if she was found she would not endanger others.

At last she settled in a store room. Everything had gone wrong. Her two oldest brothers were missing, her mother was locked up, her father was sick and had placed his trust in a trickster and now, Rolenhold was under siege.

Unable to eat, she stared out the single high window. The stars were covered by thick cloud tonight, which meant the usual dusk breeze hadn't come in from the sea. Had the Ostronite merchant escaped?

He was probably wealthy enough to cry hostage and pay for his release but his sailors and servants would not be so lucky. The best they could hope for was to be kept as seven-year slaves. Merofynians exacted seven years' servitude in return for captives' lives. Strange to think that a kingdom which considered itself the most civilised in the known world should keep slaves and hold to such harsh laws. For all that the Merofynians looked down on Rolencians as barbarians, her father had preferred a simple beheading to the hanging, drawing and quartering of the convicted.

Chapter Seven

It had taken the better part of the day for Fyn to lead the boys down the slope towards the village and now he hesitated in a hollow, out of sight of the village's gate tower. Finding Merofynian invaders inside the abbey had unnerved him. Who knew where the enemy was?

He ordered the boys to wait but, with the promise of hot food only two bow shots away, the older boys muttered about the delay and the little ones cried softly.

'They're just about done, Fyn,' Feldspar protested, catching up with him. 'Can't we -'

'No, we can't!' He grimaced. 'Sorry. I don't want to lead you all into a trap.'

'Do you think the Merofynians are already there?' Joff asked.

Fyn shrugged. 'I just don't know.'

'We'll wait,' Feldspar whispered. 'Settle them down, Joff.'

He moved off and Feldspar squeezed Fyn's shoulder.

He wanted to brush off that supporting hand. Felt a fraud. No one would be following him if they knew how he'd failed the abbot.

On top of that, impatience and worry ate at Fyn. Already, he had lost a night and a day since the abbey had been taken. And he still had to cross Rolencia's ripe valley. No matter how often he told himself Piro was safe in Rolenhold, he couldn't rid himself of the worm of worry that gnawed at his belly. She was in trouble, he just knew it.

'What is it?' Feldspar asked.

Fyn glanced around the hollow while Lenny waited at his side, shivering but not complaining. This was all that remained of Halcyon's warrior monks, small boys and acolytes who were too young to go to war. A wave of loss engulfed Fyn. Tears burned his eyes as he thought of the knowledge lost with the monks' deaths. The Merofynians were probably ransacking the great library even now. On a more practical note, who would tend the hothouse seedlings? How would the farmers get two crops harvested this summer? A summer spent warring meant a winter spent starving.

Speaking of which, the boys were hungry and needed somewhere warm to sleep. It was getting dark. 'I'll approach the village, see if it's safe.'

'I'll come with you,' Feldspar decided.

Lenny shivered and his stomach rumbled loudly.

Fyn grinned. 'Wait here, Len.'

He slipped out of the hollow with Feldspar at his heels, and made for the isolated cover of stunted pines until they reached a cairn of stones about a bow-shot from the gate. This was where the traveller coming from up the path around the far side of Mount Halcyon would stop to give thanks for a safe journey before entering the village.

From behind this cairn, Fyn studied the village's single gate tower. Several youths between thirteen and seventeen were standing on the platform, hovering over a wyvern harpoon which some enterprising fisherman had mounted up there.

The business end of the harpoon was pointed at a winter-bare, gnarled tree across the field just off the path from the valley.

Feldspar shaded his eyes as he studied the village chimney pots, visible above the wall. 'No more than a dozen cottages. I think we outnumber them. I hope there's enough food to go around.'

'The abbess can replace their supplies later.' Fyn glanced to the clouds. 'More snow on the way. Good. It'll hide our trail.'

'You think the Merofynians will send warriors after us?'

'I think we have a day or so before they begin to wonder where we got to. And, if they have a Power-worker with them, which they're sure to do, they will eventually find Halcyon's Sacred Heart.' He shivered, thinking of the invaders desecrating the mummies of the old monks and tapping into Halcyon's own seep. 'The sooner you lot are safe behind Sylion's walls the better.'

'Well, something has stirred up the fisher folk.' Feldspar pointed to the tower with its cluster of defenders.

Fyn agreed. He stepped out from behind the cairn and called. 'We're from Halcyon Abbey and we claim traveller's ease.'

Several dogs barked. The youths swung the wyvern harpoon towards them. Fyn and Feldspar instinctively opened their arms to show they carried no weapons.

'Halcyon Abbey,' they yelled to be sure there were no mistakes.

The youths cheered and one of them shouted an order to the youngest. 'Fetch Lame Klimen. Tell him Halcyon Abbey has come.'

'I'll go back and get the boys,' Feldspar offered and turned around only to mutter, 'Oh, I see Joff's bringing them.'

Fyn glanced over his shoulder to find the others plodding after Joff, too eager to wait for his signal.

Another head, this one weathered by time, appeared on the gate tower. There was some confusion as the old man pushed the youths aside. Then he raised his voice to call to Fyn. 'It's just as well the abbey sent you, we have a renegade Power-worker trying to get in.' He pointed to the gnarled tree.

Secretly terrified, Fyn fixed on the tree. How he wished he'd completed his training under the mystics master. He was no match for a Power-worker.

No one spoke.

The gnarled tree continued to look innocuous.

'Come out, you heathen wyvern!' Lame Klimen yelled. Several more heads had joined him on the gate tower and they added their abuse to his.

Nothing happened.

Joff jogged over to join them. 'There must be something you can do, Fyn.'

'Neither of us are trained mystics,' Feldspar whispered.

'True.' Fyn's fear receded as he thought things through. 'But if the Power-worker is so powerful, why is he hiding behind a tree, dodging the harpoon?'

'I'd be scared of a wyvern harpoon,' Joff offered.

Feldspar grinned. 'But you have no Affinity training. You can't manipulate the Unseen world.'

Fyn reached a decision and set off across the field towards the tree. As he approached, he made out someone huddled behind it, someone young with a large bundle that they cradled like a baby.

Fyn came to a stop as frightened, slightly lopsided eyes looked up at him from a dirty, tear-stained face. Odd, the renegade Power-worker might look like a grubby street urchin but they were wrapped in a rich Rolencian travelling fur, fit for a king.

The bundle in their arms stirred and made a soft interrogative sound that reminded Fyn of his sister's foenix. At the same moment his nostrils stung with a rush of Affinity power. 'What have you got there?'

The child's arms moved protectively and they muttered something that sounded Merofynian.

Fyn switched to his mother's native tongue. 'Whatever that is, it's giving off enough Affinity to make me sneeze.' And before he could help himself he did, sneezing three times in a row.

The child smiled reluctantly and let the blanket fall away to reveal a rare, feathered Affinity beast. 'It's a calandrius but it's injured. The kingson told me to take it to the village and ask for safe passage to Sylion Abbey in his name, but no one speaks Merofynian and they won't let me in.'

'Kingson, you say?' Fyn tried not to sound too excited. 'Byren or Lence?'

The child shrugged. 'He was nice and he had a crooked smile.'

'Byren.' So Byren was somewhere in the Rolencian valley. 'Where is he?'

She shrugged. 'He was on the king's business. He sent me here, but they won't let me in.'

'Well, you're lucky I came along. What's your name?'

'Dinni.'

Fyn leant forwards and offered his hand. 'Come on, Dinni.'

She did not accept his help or let him take the bird, but struggled to her feet alone. And, as she did, Fyn noticed a thick metal collar around her neck which had left angry marks on her pale skin. He had heard of Affinity-slaves but never actually seen one before. 'You're a runaway slave.'

'Sold to a Power-worker who beat me, but the kingson freed me and saved the calandrius.'

'That sounds like Byren.' A rush of pride filled Fyn, making it hard to speak. 'When did you see him?'

'Last night.'

So they were only a day apart. If Byren had run into a Merofynian Power-worker, and Fyn could not imagine how his brother had bested the Power-worker, Byren had to be headed back to Rolenhold to warn their father.

If Fyn set out tomorrow he would be two days behind Byren, with no chance of catching up. He had to reach the castle to report the violation of the abbey and the destruction of the warrior monks. That would be a blow to his father's battle plans.

'Master monk?' Dinni whispered.

'I'm no master, not even a monk, only an acolyte,' Fyn told her. 'Come on.'

He led her down the slope back to Feldspar and the others. Their eyes widened as he approached.

'Beware, Fyn,' Feldspar called. 'I smell Affinity on her from here.'

'It's safe,' Fyn assured them. 'The Affinity's coming off the calandrius. My brother sent her.'

'Calandrius?' Feldspar approached to take a look at the bird. The rest fell into step beside Fyn, giving the girl a wide berth. Fyn blinked a snowflake from his right eye as he looked up at the wary heads on the gate tower. 'This is Dinni, an escaped Affinity-slave who wants to claim sanctuary at Sylion Abbey. She brings a prized calandrius with her as a gift to the abbey. Open up.'