David Wragg - The Black Hawks

‘Welcome home, Master Chel! Back in time for the feast!’ Heali fell in step alongside Chel, fleshy face all smiles. It was, Chel supposed, nice to encounter someone pleased to see him for a change.

A dozen Brothers of the Thorn, their robes the colour of blood in the evening sun, had flanked the crude carriage that passed for royal conveyance. Chel had been stationed on its back plate, bounced by every rut and divot, exhausted by the first hour on the road. He’d exchanged little more than a shocked sentence with his sister before they’d swept him away, but her confused and reproachful stare had stayed with him long after Omundi’s broken valley dropped from view, along with her parting words.

‘Duty isn’t swearing to obey a person, Bear. It’s about service to the kingdom, its people. It’s about trying to make things better. Serve the people, Brother Bear. Make Father proud.’

He’d had no response for her.

Vashenda had ignored him on the road – which just served to make his anxiety worse – with the exception of a pointed remark to the prince that he was at least properly guarded for his return voyage. ‘Do you know what would happen if any harm came to you, highness?’ she’d said. ‘Do you know the trouble it would cause?’

With the sun sinking over the bay at their journey’s end, the column was dispersing at the city gates, the body of their escort departing for the croft and taking the carriage with them. Vashenda remained, a harbinger, to supervise the prince’s slow climb to the winter palace in person. Chel wondered if Hurkel lay up there in wait. The population of the refugees’ shack-village at the foot of the outer walls had trickled back after the screaming exodus of the days before, but the port’s fringes still looked strange and empty to Chel’s eyes. Odd shapes dangled from the walls, indistinct in the gloom of the structures’ shade, but his gut told him they were bodies. Bone-weary and ill-at-ease, part of him was glad when Heali appeared, unbidden, at his elbow, as what remained of the royal procession approached the gates.

‘You survived then, Heali? What did I miss?’

The big man chuckled. ‘A lot of bluster, Master Chel, then a lot of nothing. Norts calmed down a bit after making their point on the fort.’

‘I heard.’

Heali leaned in close. ‘Truth be told,’ he said, his odour unimproved in the days since Chel had seen him last, ‘the duke calmed down a fair stripe too. Think maybe he saw the merit of negotiation.’

‘Perhaps the duke’s a sensible man after all. Have they said what they want?’

Heali shrugged. ‘They’ve declared a blockade, it seems. Something about mistreatment of a citizen, or the return of stolen property … but what would a lowly guardsman know of international intrigue?’

‘What indeed?’

‘So now they just sit there, stopping up the bay. Nothing goes in or out. People in the port are going mad, whole place is …’ he waved a frustrated hand ‘… constipated.’

They began to climb the winding trail to the palace. The black ships lurked at the edge of Chel’s view, out at the harbour’s fringe, huge and dark and implacable. Heali followed his gaze, looking pained. ‘There have been some incidents. Place is swarming with refugees and pilgrims, watch can’t control all the outsiders, their notions of justice.’

Chel thought of the little man and his oven, his stern-eyed little daughter, and felt suddenly sick. He didn’t ask, afraid to hear the answer.

‘Duke’s insisting the festival is going ahead, ordered the folks to stay for the celebrations, but word’s out that he’s sent most of his own family south. Not sure most in the port can summon the enthusiasm.’ He scratched himself. ‘And you’re quite the popular fellow, it seems.’

‘Popular? What do you mean?’ Chel was hoping for something positive, but Heali’s words did nothing but stir queasiness in his gut.

‘Had a few folks asking after you – you know the types, funny little haircuts, like to wear a lot of red. Don’t worry, I told them you were long gone, although I wasn’t expecting you to come riding back into port by return, was I?’

‘Five bloody, blasted hells …’

‘Still, word is you’re the prince’s man, now. Quite the stroke of fortune, that; might even keep your ecclesiastical friends at bay. If you’re lucky.’ He raised a beetle-thick eyebrow. ‘Makes you a connected fellow, though, wouldn’t you say? An elevation like that could provide many opportunities. As it happens—’

They approached the palace gate, which stood wide open as ever. Chel blinked. ‘What does it take to close this bastard? City’s full of destitute and vigilantes, bay’s full of heathen alchemists, the palace is piled with feast-food and lingering nobility and still nobody thinks to shut the fucking gate?’ He threw up his hands. ‘How in five hells am I going to protect that pointless prince if we can’t even keep the door closed?’

Heali was looking at him through narrowed eyes, his gaze glittering in the light from the gate-side braziers. ‘You expecting trouble, Master Chel?’

Chel tutted in irritation. ‘No more than I have already. But two nights ago, I swore to give my life that Tarfel Merimonsun might keep his, and I’m thrice-damned if I’m giving it up to the first mask-wearing Nort or murderous Rau Rel partisan who wanders in off the fucking mountainside.’

The courtyard was eerily empty, devoid of its customary bustle. The minor damage from the preceding days had been patched and festival decorations were distastefully strung from every pillar and ledge, but unease permeated the atmosphere like a stink. No one from the palace was there to meet them. Chel wondered if Mercunin the ominous porter was still around.

Heali was still talking. ‘… fellow like you who walks beside a prince, he’s got a certain cachet , might find certain opportunities …’

Vashenda had stopped ahead of them and was addressing the prince in the manner of a stern master to a hopeless pupil. She instructed him to wait, then swept around to face Chel and Heali. Heali muttered something and excused himself immediately. With the slightest frown, Vashenda moved off to confer with another robed figure. Chel and the prince were left alone at the edge of the deserted courtyard.

Tarfel affected a semblance of regal bearing as he surveyed the festival decorations. Chel tried to sound reassuring. ‘Not what we were hoping for, highness. You were supposed to be safe with your brother by now, and I was supposed to be on my way home.’

‘No, no, indeed.’ For a moment the mask dropped, and Tarfel looked at him with wide, watery eyes. ‘Vedren Chel – our bargain stands. We just have to wait it out until reinforcements arrive, until storm season, whatever it takes. Keep me alive, keep me safe through this, and I’ll get you released. Again. Yes?’

Chel blinked. ‘I swore to serve you and protect you, highness. I mean to keep that oath.’

‘Of course, right you are. I’ll release you at the end of all this, prince’s word.’

Vashenda was back, a pair of guards at her heel; with a gesture she dismissed the prince in the direction of the residence, and the guards went with him. As Chel went to follow, she stepped in front.

‘You,’ Vashenda said, her silver scalp gleaming in the torchlight. ‘With me.’

Chel realized he was clutching his sealed oath scroll in his sweating hand, held against his body like a talisman. She can’t hurt me, he told himself. Not now I’m sworn to a prince. He swallowed, flicked a brief, troubled glance around the courtyard, and followed the good sister.

***

‘Get in my way, put one foot out of line or release any more heretics back into the city and you will spend your final days learning new meanings of pain,’ Vashenda said as they entered a small but plush bedchamber within the residence, adjoining a far grander set of rooms that Chel assumed belonged to the prince. ‘Am I understood?’