The road from the Castle Red to the Tall Castle is a long one, longer in the coming back than in the going. For one thing, on the way out we rode—on the way back we had to walk. And most of those miles back pointed down. Given the choice I’d rather climb a mountain than come down one. The down-slope puts a different kind of hurting in your legs, and the gradient pulls on you every step, as if it’s steering you, as if it’s calling the shots. Going up you’re fighting the mountain.
“Damn but I miss that horse,” I said.
“A fine piece of horseflesh.” Makin nodded and spat from dusty lips. “Have the King’s stable-master train you another. I’m sure there’s not a paddock in Ancrath without it has at least one of Gerrod’s bastards.”
“He was a lustful one, I’ll give you that.” I hawked and spat. My armour chafed, and the metal held the heat of the late afternoon sun, sweat trickling underneath.
“It doesn’t feel right though,” Makin said. “The most convincing victory in memory and all we have to show for it is a lack of horses.”
“I’ve had more loot from a peasant hut!” Rike called out from back down the line.
“Christ bleeding! Don’t start Little Rikey off,” I said. “We’re rich in the coin that counts the most, my brothers. We return laden in victory.” There indeed was a currency I could spend at court. Everything is for sale at the right price. A king’s favour, a succession, even a father’s respect.
And that’s another thing that made those returning miles longer than the going ones. Not only did I have to carry myself, my armour, my rations, but I had a new burden. It’s hard to carry a weight of news with none to tell and days ahead before you can release it. Good news weighs just as heavy as bad. I could imagine myself back at court, boasting of my victory, rubbing noses in it, a certain stepmother’s nose in particular. What would not paint itself on the canvas of my imagination was my father’s reaction. I tried to see him shake his head in disbelief. I tried to see him smile and stand and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried to hear him thank me, praise me, call me son. But my eyes went blind and the words I heard were too faint and deep for distinction.
The brothers had little to say on the return journey, feeling the holes left in our ranks, haunted by the space where the Nuban should be. Gog on the other hand bubbled over with energy, running ahead, chasing rabbits, asking question after question.
“Why is the roof blue, Brother Jorg?” he asked. He seemed to think the outside world was just a bigger cave. Some philosophers agree with him.
There were other changes too. The red marks on Gog’s hide had shaded to a fiercer red, and the nightly campfires fascinated him. He would stare into the flames, entranced, edging closer moment by moment. Gorgoth discouraged the interest, flicking the child into the shadows, as if the attraction worried him.
The roads became more familiar, the inclines gentle, the fields rich. I walked the paths of my childhood, a golden time, easy days without care, scored by my mother’s music and her song, with no sour note until my sixth year. My father had taught me the first of the hard lessons then, lessons in pain and loss and sacrifice. Gelleth had been the sum of that teaching. Victory without compromise, without mercy or hesitation. I would thank King Olidan for his instruction and tell him how his enemies had fared at my hands. And he would approve.
I thought of Katherine too, as we drew nearer. My idle moments filled with her image, with the moments I had spent close enough to touch her. I saw again how the light caught her, how it found the bones of her face, the softness of her lips.
We came footsore and road-weary to the heartlands of Ancrath, too deep in our own thoughts even to steal the horses that would ease the last of our journey. I had but to close my eyes and I would see the new sun rise over Gelleth, rise through Gelleth, and hear the screams of her ghosts.
We saw the Tall Castle’s battlements from the Osten Ridge, with seven miles still before us to the gates. The sun descended in the west, crimson, racing us to the city.
“We’ll be heroeth, Jorth?” Elban asked. He sounded uncertain as if all his years had yet to teach him that the end justifies the means.
“Heroes?” I shrugged. “We will be victors. And that’s what counts.”
We walked the last mile in dusk. The guards at the gates of the Low City had no questions for me. Perhaps they recognized their prince, or perhaps they read my look and some instinct for self preservation kicked in. We walked through unopposed.
“Brother Kent, why don’t you lead the way to the Low Town and find the lads somewhere to drink? The Falling Angel, maybe.” Sir Makin and I would go to court. The remainder of my brothers would find no welcome in the Tall Castle.
With Makin at my side I set off for the High City and at last we came to the castle itself. I put fatigue aside when we entered by the Triple Gate. We crossed the Lectern Courtyard in the deepest shadows, thrown by a failing sun.
By the time we passed the table knights at Father’s doors I had a spring in my step. I looked first for Sageous, seeking him at the King’s side, then amongst the glitter of
