Fisher, Catherine: The Hidden Coronet #3

“We saw them. But that creature didn’t put them there.”

“So who did?”

But Galen did not answer.

BANGING WOKE HIM. A hard, insistent banging that seemed to go on and on, until Raffi rolled over with a groan and heard Galen unbolting the doors below. Echoes of a woman’s voice murmured in the house.

He sat up.

Bleak gray light was seeping through the boarded windows. He yawned and scratched and rubbed his face with dry hands. Then he pulled his boots on and went downstairs.

In the kitchen they were talking.

The woman had a bundle in her arms; she laid it on the table. “Are you sure?” she said, dubious, looking around.

Galen was tired and bad-tempered. “It’s gone. It won’t be back.”

Raffi was amazed she couldn’t feel that. The whole house was calm around him, as if it had slept for the first time in weeks. He knew that was why he felt so bleary.

She nodded. “I’ll have to take your word. I’ve brought these, but if anyone asks me, mind, they were stolen. I never saw you or want to know anything about what you do with them.”

Galen opened the bundle. It contained dark clothes, a few small silver discs on a chain, and some papers.

“They may not fit you,” she warned.

He looked up. “I’ll take a chance. We’ll leave now. We need to get there in time.”

“But what about food? I have to thank you, and the boy looks famished.”

“The boy always looks famished,” he snapped, going out. They heard him limping up the stairs.

Majella turned to Raffi. The morning light showed the wrinkles in her skin, the graying hair. “What happened?” she asked, fascinated. “He looks worn out. What was in here?”

He knew better than to say too much. “A sort of . . . energy. Probably left over from some relic. Galen said the incarnations and we prayed. It just faded out.”

He was poor at lying. She looked at him closely. “I see. And now, what does he want these clothes for? If it’s for what I think, then he’s crazy! He’ll never get away with it!”

“The Makers will help us,” Raffi muttered.

“If he’s killed,” she said, “and you’re on your own, come back. I’ll hide you.”

Astonished, he looked at her.

She glanced away. “My lad used to look a bit like you. When he was young.”

Galen shouldered his way in, the pack in his arms. He dumped the peddler’s empty tray on the table. “Burn that.”

“Don’t worry.” She pushed a small sacking roll at Raffi. “That’s food. Eat it in the cart. And thank you for coming here, keeper. Now we can make something of the place.”

He looked at her. “Did your son know about this haunting?”

“Not from me. The men may have said something. Now, are you certain you want to go back to the fair?”

Galen did up the straps of the pack. “Certain.”

“Keeper—”

He looked up. She was watching him anxiously.

“I don’t ask. But if there’s . . .” She shook her head. “I mean, you have weapons, powers. I don’t understand them. But I have only one son, and all I ask is that he’s not hurt.”

Galen looked at her in surprise. Then he said, “Mistress, you have great faith. Far more than you think.”

5

Be public. Be brusque. Let the criminal choke slowly.

If the people feel a thrill they are ashamed of, so much the better.

WP6/489: Notes for the

Guidance of Executioners

EVERYONE WAS WAITING.

Shoving his way through the crowd, Raffi could feel the tension. Today the fair was full, crammed to bursting, and the noise was intolerable—loud talk, forced laughter, intense bargaining—as if people tried to drown out the fear inside themselves or argue it away. Music seemed sharper in the cold air. He was lightheaded with it all, his own terror a chill down his spine. Even the animals, sheep and marsets and boshorns, bleated and fidgeted and racked their stalls with restless energy, hooves chipping the frozen floor into tiny drifts of snow that the wind gusted into corners.

Out in the center of the solid lake the gallows waited too, black and gaunt. Around them stood a ring of armed Watchmen, faces muffled against the icy wind. One of them, he prayed, must be Galen.

They had separated outside the checkpoints, and Raffi had come in first with the pack—easy enough, as the crush had been fierce. Were they all so keen to watch people die? he thought in disgust. Or was it that the Watch would notice anyone who stayed away?

Already the front row of the crowd was pressing against the ropes, finding good places. Sellers of sausages and ale and hot cakes were doing a fast trade. Raffi chewed his thumbnail, anxious. Had Galen gotten in? Or had he been arrested already? He narrowed his eyes against the sleety wind and tried to see, but each Watchman was tall and dark and he could feel nothing from them. They all had crossbows too. Where would Galen have gotten one?

If the keeper was captured, then it was up to him. He squashed that thought away. There was nothing he could do on his own.

Then, like a cold touch, he felt something. A brush of knowledge, the edge of it like a feather against his mind.

Someone was watching him.

He turned. Around him the stalls were busy. He saw coopers, blacksmiths, singers, all sorts of peddlers and hucksters and hawkers, a man with a dancing bear, a gang of girl beggars. None of them seemed to have noticed him. He walked away quickly, weaving in and out of the crowd, anxious to lose himself, his heart thumping. It might have been Galen. That thought washed over him with relief, but still he sent a few sense-lines out, feeling instantly only the confusion of the crowd, its dizzying desires and anxieties and laughter.

Then the drumming began.

At once people surged forward, Raffi pushed along with them. Bargaining was abandoned; men and women elbowed for position, a better view. He tried to worm his way out, edging down the rope toward the nearest point to the gallows, as Galen had told him to.

The prisoners were coming out. They were filthy and bruised. Ten of them. Five men, two women, and three bedraggled-looking Sekoi, all with their hands tied loosely in front.

The crowd went quiet. Only the drums thudded like a heartbeat. Raffi looked carefully along the stumbling line, seeing an old woman, a young, white-faced boy. When he came to the third man, his gaze fixed, all the hairs on the backs of his hands stirring. He knew this was the keeper.

He was an elderly man, straight-backed, silver hair swept back to the nape of his neck, his face calm, despite its dirt and bruises. A smooth, noble face. He wore a long, ragged gray coat. Power was all around him; even Raffi could sense it. The others were terrified, yet this man felt nothing but compassion; Raffi saw how he turned to a bald, thickset prisoner behind him, obviously injured, and put an arm around his shoulders. Ignoring the angry yell of the Watch commander, he supported the man across the slippery ice, speaking to him quietly.

Raffi bit his lip. He had no idea what Galen was planning. It would be reckless; Galen always was. But how could they ever hope to get away, unless it was to try and lose themselves in the crowd?

The drums stopped.

Dead silence.

The prisoners gathered in a huddle, the silver-haired man looking out at the crowd. His eyes seemed to scan their faces, as if he was alert, sensing something. Raffi ducked under a woman’s arm and crouched in the front. The Watchguards held their bows ready, facing the crowd.

The first to be hanged was a woman; young, barely out of her teens. As two Watchmen dragged her forward she turned to the silver-haired keeper, arms stretched out. He put his hand out and gripped hers, then blessed her, the sign of Flain made clear and proud.