Mark Lawrence - Prince of Fools

“They want the key.” Spoken to the ground.

“What?”

“That’s what he said. He used his last breath to tell me that. I sat with him but he hadn’t any more words. He lasted another hour, less than that maybe. He waited for me and then he died.”

“A key? What key? That’s madness-who would do all that for a key?”

Snorri shook his head and held up a hand as if begging quarter. “Not tonight, Jal.”

I pursed my lips, looked at him hunched before me, and swallowed all the questions bubbling on my tongue. Snorri would tell me or he wouldn’t. Perhaps he didn’t even know. Either way, it was of no great consequence for me. The North sounded more terrible by the minute, and whilst I was sorry for Snorri’s losses I had no intention of chasing dead men across the snow. Sven Broke-Oar had taken Freja and Egil to the Bitter Ice. And Snorri seemed to think his wife and son were still alive there now-and perhaps they were. Either way, that was a matter between Snorri and the Broke-Oar. Somewhere between us and the northern ice would be a means to unlock the two of us, at which point I’d be off before the G of Good-bye had cleared the Norseman’s beard.

We sat in silence. Or almost silence, for it seemed as if Baraqel’s voice spoke just beyond the edge of hearing, gentle and full of music. After a time I lay down and set my head on my pack. Sleep took me quick enough, and as it caught hold the voice came more clearly so that in the moments before dreaming washed over both me and the voice, I could almost make out the words. Something about honour, about being brave, about helping Snorri find his peace. .

“Bugger that,” I replied. Words muttered half-asleep over slack lips-but heartfelt nonetheless.

We came to Ancrath along the border roads between Rhone and Gelleth. Snorri travelled with a native caution that kept us safe on several occasions, holding us back amidst a wood as battle-ragged troops marched south, taking us into the corn when brigands rode by in search of wickedness. I was keener to avoid such encounters than Snorri, but my senses were better honed to detecting the approach of trouble across a crowded feast hall or through the smokes of an opium parlour than on horseback across open country.

In the town of Oppen, just a few miles into Ancrath, I bought more serviceable travelling clothes. I made sure to buy sufficient quality to mark me out as a man of distinction, though of course normally I’d not be seen dead in sturdy boots and tough-wearing garments made to withstand rough treatment. I’d rejected the idea of letting a Rhonishman fit me for cloak and hat but decided I could suffer the attentions of an Ancrath tailor. Snorri snorted and stamped so much during the fitting that I had to send him out to find an axe more suited to his tastes.

The moment he’d gone I started to feel an unease. Nothing to do with the slight stretching of the magics that bound us, and everything to do with the certainty that the necromancer who had sought our deaths in Chamy-Nix would still be hard upon our trail. Her or that creature that had watched me from behind its mask at the opera. The Silent Sister’s trap had been set for that one. I was certain of it now. She’d been prepared to sacrifice the lives of two hundred, including some of Vermillion’s finest- including me, damn it -to burn that one monster. I could only pray the crack I’d put in her spell whilst escaping hadn’t let it free. And of course other servants of the Dead King might lurk around any given corner. Even in a tailor’s shop!

In the end I left Oppen with a sense of relief. Being on the move had become a habit, and I wasn’t sure I would ever feel entirely comfortable settled in one place again.

We skirted the Matterack Mountains, a dour range with none of the Aups’ grandeur, and found our way in time to the Roma Road, which I’d long argued we should have followed the whole way. “It’s better paved, safer, equipped with inns and whorehouses at regular intervals, passes through two dozen towns of note. .”

“And is easily watched.” Snorri guided Sleipnir out onto the ancient flagstones. She immediately started to clatter. I think of that noise, horseshoe on stone, as the sound of civilization. In the countryside everything’s mud. Give me a clatter over a clomp any day.

“So why are we risking it now?”

“Speed.”

“Will it make-” I bit off the words. Would it make a difference? To Snorri it would. His wife and younger son would have been captive for months now, even before he’d been dragged in chains to Vermillion. And if they had endured all this time, labouring at some task the Drowned Isles necromancers set them to, the chances were that a few days either way wouldn’t make much difference to their situation. I couldn’t say that to him, though. Mostly because I’m fond of my teeth, but also the angel that kept whispering to me wouldn’t approve, and you don’t want to piss off an angel that lives under your skin. They’re the worst sort. “We’ve been making good time, pacing ourselves for the journey. Why do we need to travel faster now all of a sudden?” I settled on letting him say it himself. It’s harder to lie to yourself out loud with an audience. Let him tell me he still truly believed his wife and child lived.

“You know.” He gave me a dark look.

“Tell me anyway,” I said.

“The voices. We need to get this over and done, get that bitch’s curse off us, before the voice I’m hearing stops suggesting and starts telling.”

That left me with my mouth open and nothing to say. Ron clip-clopped his way up another twenty yards of the Roma Road before I found the presence of mind to press my lips together.

“You’re trying to tell me you’re not hearing a voice?” Snorri leaned around in the saddle to scowl at me. He could manage the sort of scowl that reminded you he named his axes.

I could hardly deny it. The voice that had whispered beyond the edge of hearing in Compere had grown more distinct day by day, and its directives more frequent. It grew loudest each dawn. At first I had imagined that this was what people like Cousin Serah meant when urging me to listen to my conscience. I thought perhaps that too much fresh air and a lack of alcohol had opened me up to the nagging monologue of conscience for once in my life. Morning after morning of pious lecturing had me doubting my theory, though. Surely everyone couldn’t go around with some sickeningly moral voyeur hectoring them each moment of their life? How would they stay even vaguely sane? Or have fun?

“And what does this voice say to you?” I asked, still not admitting to anything.

Snorri returned his gaze to the road ahead, showing me broad shoulders. “I’m dark-sworn, Jal. Cracked through with it. What kind of secrets do you think the night whispers?”

“Hmm.” That didn’t sound good, though frankly I wouldn’t have minded swapping. Unsavoury suggestions bubbled out of the darkness at the back of my mind all the time. Most I ignored easily enough. Being upbraided on my own moral shortcomings at every turn, on the other hand, was proving most annoying. “Does your voice have a name?”

“She’s called Aslaug.”

“She? You got a woman?” I couldn’t keep the complaint from my voice. Nor did I try.

“Loki lay with a jötnar, a beauty with a spider’s shadow.” Snorri sounded self-conscious, no hint of the storyteller now, hesitating as he repeated unfamiliar details. “She birthed a hundred daughters in the dark places of the world, and none of them ever stepped out into the light. Old Elida used to tell us that tale. Now one of those daughters walks in my shadow.”

“So you got a beauty with a dirty mind, and I got a pious killjoy. Where’s the justice in that?”