“My brother is camped north of Jorlem City,” Prince Hedrick said. “We can circle around the city and link up with him first.”
Emily shook her head. They’d discussed it time and time again and her answer had always been the same. She couldn’t link up with the Crown Prince, not until she’d spoken to the rebels. They’d think she was planning to sell them out and... she ground her teeth in frustration. Not knowing what was going on was always the worst. Prince Hedrick hadn’t been able to shed any light on who was really in charge of the rebels, if indeed there was an overall commander. The rebels might not have managed to put a government together in time to prepare for war.
Someone sent us a safe conduct, she thought, as she leaned back in her seat. And that means at least one faction is willing to listen to us.
She schooled her expression into calm as the coach picked up speed. There were fewer refugees on the road now, although it was hard to tell if that was a good thing. The locals might not want to leave their lands and set out on a chancy journey to Dragon’s Den or one or both factions might have ordered them to stay where they were. Prince Hedrick had claimed that two-thirds of the country was still in loyalist hands. Emily didn’t believe him. His wild optimism wasn’t particularly reassuring.
Although it might explain why he thinks the loyalists can defeat the rebels, she mused. He doesn’t realize he doesn’t have anything he can use for leverage.
She allowed her eyes to drift over the fields as they left Dragon’s Den far behind. It was high summer, yet the fields looked dangerously dry. Patches of healthy crops were surrounded by dying plants, starved of the water they needed to grow. The local watering holes were nothing more than mud, or completely dry. She spotted a handful of peasants in the fields, but there should have been more. There should have been a lot more. She could see crops rotting for want of anyone to harvest them. Her eyes narrowed as they drove through the remnants of a peasant hamlet. It had been burnt to the ground... not long ago, if she was any judge. No one remained to rebuild the hovels and tend the fields.
“They fled into the Royal Forests,” Prince Hedrick said. “That’s against the law!”
Emily almost laughed, although it wasn’t funny. The monarchs had reserved vast tracts of land for their private use, banning the peasants from poaching for the food they desperately needed. It was easy to imagine bands of outlaws loose in the forest, slaying deer and wild boar as they pleased. Her lips twitched. There were plenty of stories about Robin Hood-like figures stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. She was fairly sure there was a grain of truth somewhere in the legend.
The trees started to close in as they drove on. Emily sensed eyes watching them... perhaps human, perhaps not. The deeper forests had always been unwelcoming to human life. She’d met people who claimed they had a special bond with the Other Folk, if not the Awful Folk, but... most of them had been trying to scare away outsiders. Here, though... she found herself wondering. There might be something to the story after all.
Prince Hedrick let out a gasp as they burst from the forest and passed a pile of burned-out debris. Emily followed his gaze. The manor had been huge, easily bigger than the largest building in Dragon’s Den, but now it was nothing more than rubble. A pair of bodies hung from nearby trees, so badly decayed that she thought they’d been dead for weeks. She shuddered helplessly, then looked past them. The fields beyond looked abandoned. She couldn’t see a single person in the distance, not one. The crops themselves were rotting under the sun.
“They should have been safe here,” Prince Hedrick said. “What happened to them?”
Emily said nothing, but she could guess. The peasants - the serfs - would have spent their entire lives in the manor’s shadow, resenting their overlords and nursing their grudges until they’d finally snapped. The aristocrat - he couldn’t have been very high-ranking or he would have owned a castle - might have been trained to fight, but his family and their personal guards would have been hopelessly outnumbered. The peasants hadn’t tried to winkle him out of his lair, she guessed. They’d merely set fire to the building and watched their former overlords die in the flames. Who knew who’d been hung outside? The overlord himself? Or two of his guards?
The wind shifted, blowing the stench of rotting flesh towards them. Silent cracked her whip, picking up speed as the horses neighed in disgust. Emily didn’t blame them. She hastily cast a spell to save her nostrils, then glanced at the prince. His face was grim. She wondered, suddenly, if he’d visited the manor in happier times. She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask...
“They were good people,” Prince Hedrick said, as though he’d heard her unspoken question. “They were never unkind to their serfs.”
“I think the serfs saw it a little differently,” Emily said, more tartly than she’d meant. She’d resented the richer kids in her school, when she’d been a child, and she hadn’t been a serf. She’d been free to leave, when she came of age. No one would have sent out policemen to drag her and her family back home if she’d tried to make a life elsewhere. “They probably couldn’t take it any longer and lashed out.”
“I was here once,” Prince Hedrick said. “The eldest son of the family was going to be one of my knights. We jousted all day and partied all night. His sister was a sweet thing who wanted to give herself to a prince” - he kissed his fingers - “and
