Janny Wurts - To Ride Hell’s Chasm

Kailen cracked open bloodshot eyes. Through parted lashes, he sorted the blurred but sparkling impression of Devall’s maroon and gold livery. To the one pricked by the costly glimmer of rubies, he said, ‘They haven’t found any sign of her, yet. Not even that busy cur of a desert-bred, though he’s got the whole lower garrison scouring the town. All the inquiries they’ve run down, every whisper they’ve culled from the streetside gossip has drawn nothing but blanks.’

The Prince of Devall looked haggard, as though he, too, had not slept through the night. Composed by the grace of iron will and state poise, he inclined his groomed head to request the dismissal of the valet. ‘Might we speak of this privately?’

The fair royal in the bath tub shrugged streaming shoulders, then winced as his headache rebelled. He said testily, ‘What’s to hide? Every servant at court knows the details already. The kitchen maids bring back the lower town gossip on their return from the market.’

‘Even so,’ said the High Prince of Devall, his consonants considerately muted. ‘My words, and yours, bear more weight than a commoner’s.’ He waited, smiling in gracious tolerance, until the red-faced valet accepted the hint, and bowed himself out of the chamber.

The Crown Prince of Sessalie surveyed his immaculate counterpart, his inflamed eyes a troubled china blue, and his clenched fists couched in soap suds. ‘That’s all I know, in my servant’s hearing, or out of it. Nobody has a clue where my sister has gone, or what fate may have befallen her. We have no enemies, and no political significance to draw the interest of other nations. No one could have spirited her away without trace! Anja’s much too resourceful to pack up her nerve and submit. It’s not canny, to suppose she could have been kidnapped. Not in front of the nosy eyes of Sessalie’s inbred society.’

‘For myself, I prefer not to stand on presumption.’ The High Prince of Devall gave way to his frustration and paced, fastidiously skirting the puddles splashed on the marble-tiled floor. ‘Lady Shai is the princess’s closest confidante. Some change in habit, or a detail of Anja’s dress or mood may have caught her notice. An astute line of inquiry might prompt her recall. I wish, very much, to pay a call on her. Yet I need you along with me to observe propriety, do I not? Since the lady’s a maiden, titled and wealthy, and not yet promised by handfast?’

Given Kailen’s enervated sigh, the high prince’s manner turned pejorative. ‘You must come as I ask! I will not risk the least insult to Anja, or lend your court the mistaken impression that I would flatter another young woman with a visit in private company’

‘As if the sour opinion of Sessalie’s matrons could tarnish Devall’s reputation!’ Kailen managed a lame grin. ‘That’s laughable.’

The heir apparent stopped, his regard sharpened by a turbulent mix of sympathy and censure. ‘Her Grace is your sister, and the joy of her father’s old age. She is also the paragon of wit and good character I have chosen as our future queen. For my sake, and for the pride of my realm, you will honour her by maintaining appropriate form.’

‘Well then,’ Kailen sighed, his puckered fingers clenched on the tub rim as he arose, streaming soap froth in a cascade down lean flanks, ‘since I’m still too sotted to fasten my buttons, and you’ve excused my valet, your servants can kindly assist with my dress.’

Informally clad in his loose, white shirt, his sword harness and a labourer’s knee-length trousers, Mykkael threaded a determined course through the late-morning crush in the streets. Though the thoroughfares under Middlegate were narrow, the traffic parted before him. Passersby always stared at his back, no matter what hour he passed. Even lacking his blazoned surcoat, he drew notice, surrounded by fair northern heads and pale skin.

He met that difference straight on, and nodded a civil greeting to the matrons out shopping with cloth-covered baskets. He asked the foot traffic to pause, allowing the straining mules of an ale dray smooth passage as they toiled uptown. By the public well, he caught the scruff of a sprinting urchin to spare an aged man with a cane.

The oldster’s middle-aged daughter paused to thank him, then inquired after the princess. Mykkael gave his apology, said he had no news, then slipped like a moving shadow through the jostling press of women drawing water from the cistern. He kept a listening ear tuned to the snatches of talk that surrounded him: the idle speculation on bets for the summer game of horse wickets; complaints exchanged by servants concerning the habits of greatfolk; the chatter of young girls on the virtues of suitors; the irritation of a mother, scolding an unruly child. At random, Mykkael tracked the patterns of life embedded in Sessalie’s populace.

Princess Anja’s disappearance spun a mournful thread though the weave of workaday industry.

Mykkael let that tension thrum across his tuned instincts. Alert as a predator sounding for prey, he paused to sip a dipper of water in the shade, and overheard the Middlegate laundresses sharing news of a lost cat. His dark hand was seen as he hung the tin cup.

‘Captain!’ someone said, startled. Skirts swirled back as the women parted to give him space.

Mykkael nodded politely. Like most sheltered northerners, these folk met his glance with reluctance. If they had stopped challenging the authority he had never been seen to misuse, their hidebound tradition would not yet embrace the upset of a foreigner holding crown rank. Today, his appearance provoked a mixed reaction. While some folk still eyed him with outright distrust, or turned their shoulders to ward off ill luck, others met his presence with anguished appeal, as though the looming threat of a crisis forced them to a grudging trust. Now, his hardened experience offered them hope, that he might plumb their formless, uncivilized fears and retrieve their lost princess from jeopardy.

Mykkael surveyed faces, but found nothing suspicious. No furtive lurker dodged into the shadows. The crowd stayed innocuous. Nothing more than clean sun warmed the hilt of the longsword sheathed at his back. Only daylight nicked coloured fire through the women’s drop-glass earrings. To the bold matrons who approached him with questions, he answered: no, he had no further news of the princess; very sorry.

The captain moved on through the racketing din of Coopers’ Lane, where apprentices pounded iron hoops on to barrels. His step scattered a racing gaggle of children trying to catch a loose chicken. At due length, he reached the cool quiet of the gabled houses on Fane Street.

The physician lived on the corner, in a tidy two-storey dwelling with geraniums under the windows. Mykkael dodged an errand boy, hiked his strapped knee over the kerb, and chimed the brass bell by the entry.

A maidservant admitted him with punctilious courtesy and ushered him into a drawing room that smelled of waxed wood, and the musty antiquity breathed from the wool of a threadbare Mantlan carpet. Mykkael stood, rather than risk the pearl-inlaid chairs to the weapon slung from his harness. Hands linked at ease, he admired the animal figurines of carved ivory, then the ebony chests brought from the far south, with their corners weighted with tassels knotted from spun-brass wire.

The physician had been a well-travelled scholar, before he retired to Sessalie.

He entered as he always did, a plump, pink man with a myopic blink who moved as though shot from a bow. His clinical stare measured his visitor’s stance, then softened to smiling welcome. ‘Mykkael! You’re leg’s a bit better, today, is it not?’

The captain gave credit for that with his usual astringent humour. ‘Jussoud’s good work, not the bed rest your sawbones assistant prescribed me.’