Mark Lawrence - The Wheel of Osheim

“And he advised you to pay me?”

I thought of my meeting with Jorg Ancrath. When I had spoken of my problem he grew quiet at first, then serious as if not a drop had passed his lips all night. “He said to give you what you want.” I set the coffer down between us and rubbed my arms.

“A wise king indeed.”

“Three thousand.” The bookkeeper tied off the last sack, then bent over the coffer once more and started to count out the last eleven coins.

“You seem a changed man, Prince Jalan. I do hope your travels in the remnants of our once great empire haven’t soured you?”

“Six . . . seven . . . eight.” The bookkeeper placed the coins into a pocket of his leather apron.

“I’ve been through Hell, Maeres.”

“The roads can be dangerous.” He nodded. “Still, I’m sure we’ll see the old prince return, such a happy young man, so sure of his opinion, so ready to spend.”

“Nine . . . ten . . .”

“I hope so too-but for now the prince you see before you will have to serve.” I remembered how it felt to be tied to his table-the look on his face as he turned me over to Cutter John-how I’d shouted and begged. Snorri had mistaken that for bravery.

“Eleven.” The bookkeeper straightened up, seeming reluctant to leave the coffer with gold still obscuring the bottom. “The debt is covered.”

“Well and good.” Maeres’s smile told me he knew that despite the chains of debt being cast off he owned me now, more truly than he ever had before. A chill ran through me, the cold challenge of the Slidr, and the red heat that had seen me across the sharpest river in Hell now rose to burn away that chill. I remembered all the boy-king’s words.

“Jorg Ancrath told me, ‘Give him what he wants.’” I stepped forward, bending to recover my coffer.

“One more thing, Prince Jalan.” Maeres’s voice, arresting me as I bent before him. A cold hand closed around my heart and I knew there was only Jorg’s path open to me.

“He said you would say that.” I remembered all of it. I remembered the darkness, the heat, Jorg Ancrath’s prediction: “When you’ve given, he will ask for more. Just one more thing, he’ll say.” And I remembered the look in the boy-king’s eyes.

“He said, give him what he wants.” I straightened, quick and smooth, without touching the box. “Then take what you want.” A flick of my wrist brushed the back of my hand across Maeres’s neck. The small triangular knife, once concealed in my sleeve, and now with its blade jutting between my fingers, slit his throat. I hardly felt it.

I caught him around the back of the head and held him close, spraying crimson and trying to speak. I had it done before any of his men even knew what had happened.

“I am the Red Queen’s grandson.” I roared the words out into the silence. “Maeres Allus is dead. His life was mine to take. There’s nothing left to protect here.” Hot blood soaked my chest while I clasped Allus against me, lifting my chin as one of his arms reached up weakly, scrabbling at my face. “I don’t care how his assets are divided, but lift a hand against me and by God you will lose it.”

The crowd had drawn back from us, aghast, as if the violence they looked down upon each day twenty foot below the level of their shoes was something different, a pretence perhaps, but a man in a well-tailored tunic bleeding among them was all too real and made them blanch and cringe.

Allus’s guards had stepped away too. Their charge was dead, his heart would realize it in short order. They had nothing to gain by coming against me now. It had ended for them the moment I slit their boss’s throat.

I pushed Allus away from me. He staggered back, pulsing crimson from his neck wound, fetching up against the wooden barricade. I followed and shoved him, two hands rammed hard into his chest. He went heels over head, plummeting backward across the barrier. I peered after him. “Is the bear big enough for you?” Shouted at a volume that would reach the whole crowd, though Maeres himself was beyond hearing.

I spun around and picked up my coffer. I could see some of Allus’s flunkies slipping away through various exits. The bookkeeper was clutching a wound in his side and the three sacks had vanished. Scuffles had broken out further back in the crowd. Half a dozen of the Terrif brothers’ guards were closing in on me.

“He’s dead!” I roared it at them. “I’m a fucking prince of the realm. Are you going to touch me?” I stalked past the first of them, paying him no heed. “Thought not!” I walked on, letting the onlookers part before me.

Just before the entrance I turned back. Several bloody fights were in progress and the richer elements had already started to flee the scene.

I used my royal shout to be heard. “My grandmother’s troops will be burning the poppies by nightfall. Death warrants will be issued for Allus’s captains. I expect to see Alber Marks’s head on a spike by morning, Cutter John’s too, and there will be leniency for any man who helped put them there.”

I turned and left, exiting the main doors, with some of the lords who had wondered about my identity now sprinting ahead into the street, many others crowding behind me. I heard the mutter then, for the first time. “Red Prince.” And looking down at myself as I stepped into the light of day I saw that few parts of me weren’t crimson with Maeres Allus’s lifeblood.

I walked twenty paces and leaned against one of the great buttresses that support the slaughterhouse walls, forehead to the stonework, cool in the shade. I saw my knife cut Allus’s throat, again and again. On the third time I vomited until I was empty. At last I walked away, weak and shaking, wiping my mouth.

“Give him what he wants,” Jorg had said. “Then take what you want. Nobody is more vulnerable than in their moment of victory, and you know that whatever you do this man will never let you go while he lives.”

I walked away, coffer heavy in my arms, still a coward. Neither the old Jalan, nor the one who left Vermillion a year ago. Perhaps a little of each-still a coward, but when you’ve looked at your old life with eyes that have seen Hell you discover a new perspective and realize that you can only be pushed so far.

I walked to the palace. Three times city guards stopped me, concerned at the gore dripping from my finery.

“I’m Prince Jalan. A man tried to rob me. He won’t try again.” I said the same thing three times and passed on.

I met more soldiers than guards, units of them moving rapidly and offering me no more than curious glances. At last I came to the Errik Gate through which heroes enter the palace, and took instead the postern gate just as I had on my return from the North. The sub-captain on duty recognized me and admitted me without fuss once he’d established the blood wasn’t mine.

On the far side of the wall the palace waited, unchanged, baking in the late Vermillion summer. “What’s going on in the city?” I asked the sub-captain as I emerged. “Soldiers everywhere.” It had been like this before we moved out for the Scorron border. That had been war in earnest and there hadn’t been as many troops in the streets.

“It’s a campaign against Slov, my prince.”

“Why?” I cared little enough for politics but I was pretty sure Slov hadn’t offered Red March even a hint of aggression in my lifetime. I seemed to remember half their royal family were honoured guests of the March, hostages against the good behaviour of the current regime- though quite how much the current Slov royals would care about people they hadn’t seen in decades I didn’t know. “What have they done?”

The man wrinkled his brow as if the act might produce an answer. “They’re the enemy, sire.”