Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns

And what were Jorg Ancrath’s last words to me? “Perhaps, Aunt, you have a better hand?” As he invited me to finish his father’s work. As he stood there, more pale than Orrin, darker than Egan, his hair across his shoulders like a black river. He watched me and my knife, his face sharp and complicated, as if you could see there not the man he will become, but the men he might become.

And why am I writing of that boy here when there are men to speak of? That boy who hit me. I don’t think he tore my dress. I think he considered it though.

They both asked for my hand. Orrin with sweet words that I can’t capture. He made me feel perfect. Clean. I know he would keep me safe and would turn his mind toward making me happy. I paint him too…prissy. There’s fire and strength in Orrin of Arrow. At his core he is iron and every part of him is wholly alive.

Egan asked with short words and long, dark looks. I think his passions would terrify Sareth, despite her dirty mouth. I think a weak woman would die in his bed. And a strong one might find it the only place she’s been alive.

We walked in the rose garden that Queen Rowan had planted the year before she died, out between the keep and the curtain wall. I strolled first with Orrin, since he’s the elder brother by a year, and then with Egan, with Maery Coddin a yard behind to chaperone us. The garden is overgrown now, not neglected but tended without care, the roses left withered on the stems, thorns and dead flowers all bearded with frost. Orrin walked without speaking to start, with only the crunch of feet in gravel to break the cold silence. His first words plumed before him: “It wouldn’t be easy to be my wife.”

“Honesty is always refreshing,” I told him. “Why should it be so difficult?”

And he told me there among the roses, without bluster or pride, that he would be emperor some day but the path to Vyene would not be easy. God had not told him to do it, nor had he laid a promise to a dying father; he didn’t paint it as destiny, only duty. Orrin of Arrow is, I think, that rarest of things. A truly good man with all the strengths to do what his goodness demands of him.

He was right of course. To love such a man might be easy, to marry him much more difficult.

Where Orrin first thought and then spoke about the future, Egan spoke without hesitation and about the now. All they shared was honesty. Egan told me he wanted me, and I believed him. He told me he would make me happy and how. I’m sure if I’d turned around Maery’s face would have been as red as mine. Egan spoke of his horses, the battles he’d fought in, and the lands he would take me to. Some of it was boasting, sure enough, but in the end he spoke of his passions, killing, riding, travelling, and now me. It may be shallow of me, but to be counted among the simple primal pleasures of a man like Egan of Arrow is a compliment. And yes, he may see me as a prize to be won, but I think I would be equal to his fire and that he could find himself well matched.

I told them I would have to consider.

Sareth thinks I’m mad not to choose one and jump at the chance to leave Ancrath.

Maery Coddin says I should choose Orrin. He has more land, more prospects, and enough fire to melt her but not so much as to scorch her.

But I chose to wait.

February 8th, Year 99 Interregnum

Tall Castle. Library. Cold and empty.

Sareth has squeezed out her Ancrath brat. She howled about it, loud enough for half the castle to know more than they ever wanted about the business of pushing a big slimy head through a hole where even fingers feel tight. She sent me away after only a few hours. For my sulking she said. Truly, I was glad to go.

I should be happy for her. I should be thankful they both lived. I do love her, and I suppose I will come to love the boy. It’s not his fault he’s an Ancrath. But I’m scared.

It wasn’t sulking. It was fear. She howled the rest of the day and into the night before she got it out of her. I knew she had a dirty mouth, but the things she shouted near the end. I wonder how the servants will look on her now. How the table-knights will watch their queen behind their visors.

I’m scared and this quill puts the fear wavering into each letter. I’m trembling and I have to write slow and firm just to be able to read what I’ve set down.

I missed my time last month, and again this month. I think before the year is out it will be me screaming and not caring what I say or who hears. And there won’t be flags out and prayers in chapel for my bastard. Not like there were for little Prince Degran at midnight. Not even if my baby has the same black hair slime-plastered to its head and the same dark eyes watching out of a squashed up face.

I hate him. How could he? How could he spoil everything?

I dreamed of Jorg last night, coming to me, and my belly all fat, taut and hot and stretched, stretching like the bastard wanted out of me, little hands sliding beneath my skin. I dreamed Jorg brought a knife with him. Or it was my knife. The long narrow one. And he cut me open, like Drane guts fish in the kitchen, and he pulled the baby out scarlet and screaming.

I should tell somebody. I should go to Friar Glen with the story. How Jorg raped me. And seek forgiveness, though Christ knows why I should be the one to ask. I should go. They would send me to the Holy Sisters at Frau Rock.

But I hate that man, that stocky friar with his blank eyes and thick fingers. I don’t know why but I hate him even more than Jorg Ancrath. He makes my skin want to drop off and crawl away.

Or I could ask someone to help me lose it. They had old mothers in the slum quarter in Scorron who could grind up a bitter paste…and the babies would fall out of the women who went to them, tiny and dead. But that was in Scorron. I don’t know who to ask here. Maery Coddin maybe, but she’s too good, too clean. She would tell Sareth and Sareth would tell King Olidan and who knows what he would do to me for spoiling his plans, for not playing his game of statehood like a good pawn, for falling off the board.

Better I should marry Prince Orrin or Egan. Quickly before it shows. Egan wouldn’t wait for the wedding. He would be on me in a moment. He would never know it wasn’t his. Orrin would wait.

Wedding day

“Where’s Coddin, dammit?”

“Back down there.” Watch-master Hobbs pointed down the valley. The grey rear-guard of the Watch sketched a ragged line ahead of the foremost of Arrow’s troops.

“Should have left him in the castle, Jorg,” Makin said, heaving a breath between every other word. “He’s too old for running.”

I spat. “Keppen’s a hundred if he’s a day, and he’d be up and down this mountain before you’d broke fast, Sir Makin.”

“He might be sixty,” Makin said. “A whack older than Coddin in any case, I’ll grant you.”

Watch-master Hobbs joined us on the ridge, with Captain Stodd beside him, his short beard white against a red face.

“Well?” Hobbs said.

I watched him.

“Sire,” he added.

It’s easy to lose faith on the mountain, but also to find it. Somehow being a few thousand feet closer to God makes all the difference.

Hobbs had good reason for his doubts in any case. Above us the valley narrowed to a steep-sided pass, a choke point that would slow three hundred men to the point where the men of Arrow might finally get to blood their swords after their long chase. Above that, the snowline and the long climb to Blue Moon Pass, blocked at this time of year despite the promise of its name. Below us ten times our number and more filled the valley, a carpet of men in constant motion, the sun glittering off helms, shields, the points of sword and spear.

“Let’s wait for Coddin,” I said. Even Coddin needed his faith restored.