“We are defined by our enemies. This holds true for men, and by extension, their countries,” I said. I’d recognized the book Lundist brought to the lesson. That our enemies shape us was its central thesis.
“Good.” Lundist pulled his baton free and pointed to the tablemap. “Gelleth, Renar, and the Ken Marshes. Ancrath is a product of her environs; these are the wolves at her door.”
“The Renar highlands are all I care about,” I said. “The rest can go hang.” I rocked my chair onto the back two legs. “When Father orders the Gate against Count Renar, I’m going too. I’ll kill him myself if they let me.”
Lundist shot me a look, a sharp one, to see if I meant it. There’s something wrong about such blue eyes in an old man, but wrong or not he could see to the heart with them.
“Boys of ten are better occupied with Euclid and Plato. When we visit war, Sun Tzu will be our guide. Strategy and tactics, these are of the mind, these are the tools of prince and king.”
I did mean it. I had a hunger in me, an aching for the Count’s death. The tight lines around Lundist’s mouth told me that he knew how deep the hunger ran.
I looked to the high window where sunlight fingered into the schoolroom and turned the dust to dancing motes of gold. “I will kill him,” I said. Then, with a sudden need to shock, “Maybe with a poker, like I killed that ape Inch.” It galled me to have killed a man and have no memory of it, not even a trace of whatever rage drove me to it.
I wanted some new truth from Lundist. Explain me, to me. Whatever the words, that was my question, youth to old age. But even tutors have their limits.
I rocked forward, set my hands upon the map, and looked to Lundist once more. I saw the pity in him. A part of me wanted to take it, wanted to tell him how I’d struggled against those hooks, how I’d watched William die. A part of me longed to lay it all down, that weight I carried, the acid pain of memory, the corrosion of hate.
Lundist leaned across the table. His hair fell around his face, long in the fashion of Orient, so white as to be almost silver. “We are defined by our enemies-but also we can choose them. Make an enemy of hatred, Jorg. Do that and you could be a great man, but more importantly, maybe a happy one.”
There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends. Something sharp that puts an edge on all the soft words I once owned. I don’t think the Count of Renar put it there that day they killed my mother, he just drew the razor from its sheath. Part of me longed for a surrender, to take the gift Lundist held before me.
I cut away that portion of my soul. For good or ill, it died that day.
“When will the Gate march?” I left nothing in my voice to say I’d heard his words.
“The Army of the Gate won’t march,” Lundist said. His shoulders held a slump, tiredness or defeat.
That hit me in the gut, a surprise shot passing my guard. I jumped up, toppling the chair. “They will!” How could they not?
Lundist turned toward the door. His robes made a dry sound as he moved, like a sigh. Disbelief pinned me to the spot, my limbs strangers to me. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “How could they not?” I shouted at his back, angry for feeling like a child.
“Ancrath is defined by her enemies,” he said, walking still. “The Army of the Gate must guard the homeland, and no other army would reach the Count in his halls.”
“A queen has died.” Mother’s throat opened again and coloured my vision red. The hooks burned in my flesh once more. “A prince of the realm, slain.” Broken like a toy.
“And there is a price to pay.” Lundist paused, one hand against the door, leaning as if for support.
“The price of blood and iron!”
“Rights to the Cathun River, three thousand ducats, and five Araby stallions.” Lundist wouldn’t look at me.
“What?”
“River trade, gold, horses.” Those blue eyes found me over his shoulder. An old hand took the door- ring.
The words made sense one at a time, not together.
“The army…” I started.
“Will not move.” Lundist opened the door. The day streamed in, bright, hot, laced with the distant laughter of squires at play.
“I’ll go alone. That man will die screaming, by my hand.” Cold fury crawled across my skin.
I needed a sword, a good knife at least. A horse, a map-I snatched the one before me, old hide, musty, the borders tattooed in Indus ink. I needed… an explanation.
“How? How can their deaths be purchased?”
“Your father forged his alliance with the Horse Coast kingdoms through marriage. The strength of that alliance threatened Count Renar. The Count struck early, before the links grew too strong, hoping to remove both the wife, and the heirs.” Lundist stepped into the light, and his hair became golden, a halo in the breeze. “Your father hasn’t the strength to destroy Renar and keep the wolves from Ancrath’s doors. Your grandfather on the Horse Coast will not accept that, so the alliance is dead, Renar is safe. Now Renar seeks a truce so he may turn his strength to other borders. Your father has sold him such a truce.”
Inside I was falling, pitching, tumbling. Falling into an endless void.
“Come, Prince.” Lundist held out a hand. “Let’s walk in the sunshine. It’s not a day for desk-learning.”
I bunched the map in my fist, and somewhere in me I found a smile, sharp, bitter, but with a chill to it that held me to my purpose. “Of course, dear tutor. Let us walk in the sun. It’s not a day for wasting-oh no.”
And we went out into the day, and all the heat of it couldn’t touch the ice in me.
Knife-work is a dirty business, yet Brother Grumlow is always clean.
10
We had ourselves a prisoner. One of Marclos’s riders proved less dead than expected. Bad news for him all in all. Makin had Burlow and Rike bring the man to me on the burgermeister’s steps.
“Says his name is Renton. ‘Sir’ Renton, if you please,” Makin said.
I looked the fellow up and down. A nice black bruise wrapped itself halfway round his forehead, and an over-hasty embrace with Mother Earth had left his nose somewhat flatter than he might have liked. His moustache and beard could have been neatly trimmed, but caked in all that blood they looked a mess.
“Fell off your horse did you, Renton?” I asked.
“You stabbed Count Renar’s son under a flag of truce,” he said. He sounded a little comical on the “stabbed” and “son.” A broken nose will do that for you.
“I did,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t have stabbed him under.” I held Renton’s gaze; he had squinty little eyes. He wouldn’t have been much to look at in court finery. On the steps, covered in mud and blood, he looked like a rat’s leavings. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about my own fate than whether Marclos was stabbed in accordance with the right social niceties.”
That of course was a lie. If I were in his place, I’d have been looking for an opportunity to stick a knife in me. But I knew enough to know that most men didn’t share my priorities. As Makin said, something in me had got broken, but not so broken I didn’t remember what it was.
“My family is rich, they’ll ransom me,” Renton said. He spoke quickly, nervous now, as if he’d just realized his situation.
I yawned. “No, they’re not. If they were rich, you wouldn’t be riding in chain armour as one of Marclos’s guards.” I yawned again, stretching my mouth until my jaw cracked. “Maical, get me a cup of that festival beer, will you?”
“Maical’s dead,” Rike said, from behind Sir Renton.
“Never?” I said. “Idiot Maical? I thought God had blessed him with the same luck that looks after drunkards and madmen.”
“Well, he’s near enough dead,” Rike said. “Got him a gut-full of rusty iron from one of Renar’s boys. We laid him out in the shade.”
“Touching,” I said. “Now get my beer.”
