boys were well liked by the help. As toddlers, Iome had sent them to the kitchens to work, as if they were the get of common scullions. She did it, as she said, “To teach the boys humility and respect for authority, and to let them know that their every request was purchased at the price of another’s sweat.” And so they had toiled- scrubbing pots and stirring stews, plucking geese and sweeping floors, fetching herbs from the garden and serving tables- duties common to children. In the process of learning to work, they had gained the love and respect of the common folk.
So the maids cooed at the boys, offering sympathy at the death of their father, a blow that one heavyset old matron thought could somehow only be softened by pastries.
Borenson told Waggit, “I need to get this girl to a surgeon, and learn what I can from her. Her Highness will be eager for news. Give her a full accounting.”
Then he carried Rhianna through a maze of corridors and steps, and soon was panting and sweating from exertion. As he carried her, he asked, “Where can I find your mother or father?”
Rhianna was almost numb with fear. She didn’t know how much she could trust this man, and she dared not tell him the truth. Her stomach hurt terribly. “I don’t have a da.” And what could she say about her mother? Those who knew her at all thought that she was daft, a madwoman. At the very best she was a secretive vagabond who traveled from fair to fair to sell trinkets, staying only a day or a few hours at each before she crept off into the night. “And my mother…I think she’s dead.”
Wherever Mum is, Rhianna thought, even if she’s alive, she’ll want people to think that she’s dead.
“Brothers? Sisters? Grandparents?” he asked as they bustled up some stairs, brushing past a maid who was hurrying down with a bundle of dirty bedding.
Rhianna just shook her head.
Borenson stopped for a second, peered deep into her eyes, as if thinking. “Well, when this is all over, maybe you can come live with me.”
If I live, she thought. Rhianna could feel the mail beneath his robe, hard and cold. The epaulets on his shoulders dug into her chin. She wondered if he was a hard man, like his armor.
“I think you’d like it at our house,” he continued. “There’s plenty of room. I have a daughter a little younger than you. Of course, you’d have to put up with some little brothers and sisters.”
Rhianna bit her lip, said nothing. He seemed to take her nonanswer as an acceptance of the offer.
They reached a tower chamber, a simple room with a soft cot. The room was dark but surprisingly warm, since one wall was formed by the chimney from a hearth. Borenson laid her on a cot, then ducked into the hallway with a candle to borrow light from another flame. In a moment he was back. The ceiling was low, and bundles of dried flowers and roots hung from the rafters. A single small window had heavy iron bars upon it to keep out the night. Rhianna found her eyes riveted to it.
“The creatures were following hot after us, weren’t they?” she asked. She’d heard the bell-like calls all down the mountain, had seen dark shapes, larger than horses, gliding among the pines.
“They followed us,” Borenson said. “But they didn’t dare come into the open. They stayed in the woods.”
“It’s the shadows they love,” Rhianna said. “I think they were mad that I left. They want their babies back.”
She tried to sound tough, but her courage was failing. Dark fluid had begun to dribble out from between her legs.
They’re eating me, she realized.
She looked up at Sir Borenson. “I think I would have liked to have lived with you.”
Borenson paced across the room peering at the bundles of herbs, as if wondering if one of them might be of some help. He went to a small drawer and opened it, pulled out a tiny gold tin. It held some dark ointment.
He took a pinch and rolled it into a ball.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“A bit,” she said, trembling. But to be honest, she wasn’t sure of the source. Her stomach was cramped part in fear, part in hunger. She hadn’t eaten in two days. She felt weak from hunger and constant terror. She hadn’t slept much, and now she felt as if she were in a dream and dared not hope for a happy ending.
“Take this,” he said, offering her the dark ball. “It’s opium, to get rid of the pain.” He took a small pipe from the drawer-a pretty thing shaped like a silver frog upon a stick. The bowl was in the frog’s mouth, while the stick served as a stem. Borenson lit it with the candle.
She took the end in her mouth and inhaled. The smoke tasted bitter. She took several puffs, then Borenson uncorked a wine bottle that was sitting on a stand by the bed and offered her a drink. The wine tasted sweet and potent, and in a moment the bitter taste faded.
There was a soft tap at the door, and Fallion entered. The boy looked very frightened, but when he saw that she was awake, he smiled just a bit.
“Can I stay?” he asked. He did not ask Borenson. He asked her.
Rhianna nodded, and he came and sat beside her, taking Borenson’s spot.
Rhianna leaned back upon the bed, and Fallion just sat beside her, holding her hand. He was trying to offer comfort, but kept looking to the door, and Rhianna knew that he was worried that the healer would not come in time.
At last, Borenson asked the question that she knew that he must. “The creatures in the wood… where were you when they took you?”
Rhianna didn’t quite know what to answer. Once again, he was prying, and she knew that, as the old saying went, A man’s own tongue will betray him more often than will an enemy’s. “We were camping near the margin of the old King’s Road, near Hayworth. My mum had gone to Cow’s Cross to sell goods at Hostenfest. We were shanking it home when a man caught us, a powerful man. He had soldiers. They knocked Mum in the head. It was a terrible sound, like an ax handle hitting a plank. I saw her fall by the fire, practically in the fire, and bleeding she was. She didn’t move. And then he took me, and wrestled a bag over my head. After, he went to town and nabbed other girls, and he hauled us far away, up into the hills-” The words were all coming out in a rush.
Borenson put his finger to her lips. “Shhh…the man with soldiers-do you know his name?”
Rhianna considered how to answer, shook her head no. “The others called him ‘milord.’ ”
“He was probably a wolf lord, an outlaw,” Fallion said. “I heard that a few of them are still hiding in the hills. Did you get a good look at him?”
Rhianna nodded. “He was tall and handsome in the way that powerful lords are when they’ve taken too much glamour. You looked into his eyes, and you wanted to love him. Even if he was strangling you, you wanted to love him, and even as he killed me, I felt that he had the right. His eyes sparkled, like moonlight on snow…and when he put the bag over my head, he had a ring! Like the ones that lords wear, to put their stamp on wax.”
“A signet ring?” Fallion asked. “What did it look like?”
There was a bustle at the door as a pair of healers entered. One was a tall haggard man with dark circles under his eyes. The other was an Inkarran, a woman with impossibly white skin, eyes as pale green as agates, and hair the color of spun silver.
“Iron,” Rhianna said. “The ring was of black iron, with the head of a crow.”
Borenson stood up and stared hard at her, almost as if he did not believe her. Fallion squeezed Rhianna’s hand, just held it tight. “A king’s ring?”
“He wasn’t a king, I’m thinking,” Rhianna objected. “He seemed to be taking orders from someone named Shadoath. He was telling the men, ‘Shadoath demands that we do our part.’ ”
“Did you see this man, Shadoath?”
“No. He wasn’t near. They just spoke of him. They said that he’s coming, and they were worried that everything be ‘put in order’ before he gets here.”
Borenson frowned at this news. “Shadoath? That’s not a name that I’ve heard before. So your captor, once he had you, where did he take you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “When they took off my hood, it was dark again. There was a town, a burned-out village in the woods. I saw black chimneys rising up like the bones of houses. But the fire there had been so hot, even the stones had melted. And we were sitting in the dark, on the ground, while around us there were ghost flames, green ghost flames.”
The opium was working quickly. Rhianna could no longer feel the clenching in her stomach. In fact, her whole
