It stood on a wide, solid outcrop of dark rock, proud from the churning waters around it, at the joining of two rivers: one wide and sweeping, the second narrower, eager. It was a rising, many-tiered thing, alive with lamplight in the waning silver of the afternoon. Steam billowed from a dozen chimneys on its structure, twisting and curling until it melded with the cloud above. It seemed both elegant and sturdy, thick blocks of dark stone blended with older pale crenellations and slender turrets, myriad silken pennants drooping in the still air.
Two great bridges arced from the outcrop at the water’s centre, one to each bank, wide and walled and dotted with lights and squatting substructures. Each ended in a mighty gatehouse, ringed by stakes and torches, and beyond them shanties of hawkers, traders and supplicants had sprung, secondary settlements, parasitic and expanding.
‘So that’s the Bridge House.’ Chel took in the imposing gatehouse looming over the huddled staging inns, the peaked arc of the thick bridge beyond, the sprawling, towering structure at its end. ‘I heard of it. Never thought I’d visit.’
‘Don’t stand there gawping, you fucking hayseed,’ Rennic muttered from beside him, his eyes roving the structures at the muddy roadside. All around them, the auxiliaries called their wares and services, stabling and storage, coin exchange and covert fencing, knock-down companionship for the more frugal traveller. ‘Help me look. If we’ve missed them, I swear to God, I’ll cross that river floating on your bloated corpse.’
The third staging inn proved the right one, and it was the noise that guided Chel and Rennic – exhausted, mud-caked and farcically travel-sore – to their target. Voices rose from behind a wooden partition at the edge of the churned and puddle-washed stable-yard, the first with a strong Nortish accent.
‘Stop making that noise.’
‘What noise?’
‘That disgusting honking sound.’
‘I’m just fucken breathing!’
‘You are wheezing like a punctured bellows.’
‘I’ve got a cold, all right? It’s cold around here, we’re wet all the fucken time, I’ve waded more waterways in the last few weeks than I thought I’d see in a year. It happens.’
Chel almost collapsed as his doubt and anxiety evaporated. Lemon. We’ve found Lemon.
‘Ah, I cannot wait to get shot of you, you shirty wee bollocks. The sooner we dump you back on your lot in Denirnas, the better.’
‘The only thing that could rival my delight at returning to my people would be my joy at escaping the stench of your undergarments. Do you have some kind of mortal aversion to bodily hygiene?’
‘You want to hear what I’ve got a fucken aversion to—?’
Rennic was ahead of him, his stride reinvigorated by the confirmation of their journey’s end. ‘Lemon!’ he bellowed. ‘Get out here.’
A wild and orange head popped over the partition. ‘Boss? That you? Fucken hells, man, where have yous two been? Whisp and princey showed up ages back. You’re lucky we didn’t cross without you.’
Chel rested himself against the partition’s rough wood and squinted up at Lemon, her head haloed copper in the watery afternoon light. His legs were numb, which was for the best as the blisters on his feet had long since passed through all known realms of discomfort and arrived at a new place of agony. ‘Why didn’t you? We missed the first moon, didn’t we? We were counting days …’ He rubbed at one eye and regretted it as flakes of mud clung to his lashes. ‘I lost count a bit.’
Rennic clapped a hand up to where Lemon’s presumed shoulder lay, a look of near affection cracking the grime around his eyes. ‘They wouldn’t have gone without us, they hung on to the last. Reckless, Lem, but I can’t say I’m not a little touched.’
Lemon offered a tight, unconvincing smile, cleared her throat and dropped from view. A moment later, she wandered around the side of the partition, brushing straw from her boots. ‘Aye, well, truth be told we would have crossed last night were it not for a touch of, ah, indelicacy around our travel arrangements.’
‘What?’ Rennic and Chel said in unison, with markedly different inflections.
Lemon kept her eyes on anything but them. ‘Spot of trouble with negotiating our transit, the securing of certain approvals, and the, uh, wherewithal to acquire said.’
‘What?’ Chel repeated, this time in genuine confusion.
Rennic let out a long breath. ‘She means they didn’t have enough coin for all the bribes. Nine hells, Lemon, what happened to planning ahead?’
‘Ah, don’t blame me! I was in charge of nothing more than keeping arse-bastard the alchemist on a tight lead, income and expenditure was Loveless’s remit.’
Chel’s head was now resting against the partition. He could feel his eyes trying to close against his will. ‘You and our Nortish visitor not getting on, Lem?’
She tried to smile again but managed only a murderous leer. ‘That salty wee fuck-spoon? If it were up to me—’
Rennic cut her off. ‘Where are the others now? How did you get on with your tasks?’ He swallowed and a touch of his nervous edge returned, the lines deepening beneath his eyes. ‘Does the plan hold?’
Lemon waved a hand toward the grand bridge that rose beyond the walls of the stable-yard. ‘Back with the gate clerks. I believe we, uh, unlocked some new funding since the last attempt.’
‘And the plan?’
‘Ach, don’t ask me, man, I’m just the fucken babysitter.’
A needling voice came from the partition’s far side. ‘You are welcome to seek other duties, savage, assuming you can find any worthy of your abilities. Perhaps a privy requires brushing with something coarse and wiry?’
Lemon jerked a thumb, her round eyes wide. ‘You see what I have to put up with? This fucken—’
‘Where’s the prince now, Lem?’ Chel asked, near poleaxed by a sudden remembrance of his oath and duty. ‘Where’s Tarfel?’
She nodded her head at the yard’s far side. ‘Yonder. Don’t worry, Fossy’s keeping an eye. We both drew the jobbie-flavoured ends of the stick this time round.’
Chel nodded his thanks and began a slow limp across the squelching yard, while Rennic set off in the direction of the privy. ‘No bother, boys, nice to see you,’ Lemon called after them. ‘I suppose.’ Then: ‘Oh, first moon was last night – you’d have seen it if it weren’t for the shite-sheet of cloud. You were only a day behind.’
Only a day, Chel thought as he crossed the yard. Turns out I can run pretty fast after all.
***
Foss was resting against a stack of mottled crates, eyes half-closed, when he saw Chel’s approach. He leapt up, a beaming smile across his broad face and a look of great relief in his eyes. ‘My friend! You are returned to us. Is the boss with you?’
Chel nodded, returning the smile. ‘Availing himself of the facilities. Where’s Tarfel?’
A crash came from an open stable door beside them, followed by the sound of splintering wood. They were followed by a muffled hammering sound, as if someone were ineffectually beating a piece of wood against a plaster wall.
Foss’s smile diminished. He was already edging away, Chel noticed, back into the yard. Perhaps that relief in his eyes hadn’t been entirely from seeing Chel alive and whole. ‘Taking out his frustrations within.’
‘His frustrations?’
‘He can explain it better than I, friend. It’s good to see you so well!’ With that, Foss was off, lumbering across the muddy yard to where Lemon lurked sulking.
Another crash issued from within the stable, although it sounded as though it was losing steam.
Chel peered inside. ‘Tarfel? Your highness?’
‘Vedren? Vedren, is that you?’ Tarfel came trotting into the doorway’s grey light, a broken length of rotten wood in one hand. He looked like he’d been crying, but was otherwise healthy. Thinner, if anything. ‘Shepherd be praised, you’re alive!’
‘I am, high— Tarf. I am. I’m glad to see you’re well, but …’ Chel gestured to the wood in the prince’s hand. His eyes were adjusting, and he could now see the stack of rotting crates against the far wall, the ragged pile of broken wood at one end. ‘… Is everything all right?’
The prince took in a long breath through his nose and pulled himself straight. ‘If I am to be honest with you, Vedren, and I believe I should always be honest with my first sworn,’ Chel nodded along, feeling his trail-aches creeping back with renewed vigour, ‘then no, everything is not all right. I have been … ill-used, Vedren, and certainly ill-served.’
‘How so? Do you mind if I sit, Tarf, it’s been quite a trip.’
‘What? Yes, by all means, although not on those boxes, they’re a little, ah, unsteady. Perhaps outside?’ They emerged, blinking, as Tarfel continued. ‘Ill-served, Vedren, for the duration of your absence. When first we witnessed your abduction outside the walls of Merenghi, I demanded the mercenary intercede but she refused. I commanded her to rescue you, and she refused again. Instead she kept me huddled in a hedge while she went off and planted little flags. Then!’ He was beginning to pace, the soft mud of the yard smearing his boots. ‘Then, instead of awaiting your escape, she force-marched me across the countryside, made me hide in trees, in ditches – ditches, Vedren! Cold, icy, slimy ditches! – avoiding anything that could be considered civilization until we reached this place.’
He stopped and waved a regal arm around him, before leaning forward to meet Chel’s drooping eyeline. ‘Now, Vedren, I realize that I must travel incognito, to keep my royal status under our collective bonnet, but I am still a prince beneath my simple garb and I am still in command of this expedition, this great endeavour, the salvation of our kingdom. Yet since finding the rest of our company, every one of them has done little more than ignore me, or worse, give me orders. Orders, Vedren! I’m the prince!’
Chel tried to offer a smile that was both sympathetic and calming. He was very tired, and the prince’s cheeks were getting redder by the moment. ‘And if that weren’t enough,’ the prince continued, his voice now what passed for a low growl, ‘do you know what day it is, Vedren?’
‘Not enough?’ Chel shook his head. ‘The first day after the spring moon, I think.’
‘Exactly,’ Tarfel replied. ‘The spring festival is upon us.’ He took a long, shuddering breath, and Chel saw tears glisten in the corners of his pale eyes. ‘We have missed my birthday.’
Chel felt the silence stretch, and summoned what strength he had left. ‘Your birthday?’
‘It’s a week before the new light festival. I was … I’m eighteen now.’
Chel swallowed. ‘Happy … belated birthday.’
‘Father always said that you became a man, a true man, at eighteen. My brother received new titles, had a lavish feast that went on for days. All the vassals came, bringing gifts, tokens, offers of marriage …’
‘I’m so sorry you missed it, Tarf.’
‘Of course, Father would have been dead by then, and Mendel too. Vassad must have arranged the whole thing, while Corvel faked his way through it. Who would have arranged my birthday feast? Does my brother even know I’m still alive? Does he care?’
‘I’m sure he cares.’
‘If he does, then it’s only because I’m a threat.’ Tarfel stood tall, white fists clenched by his side. ‘I’m a man now, a prince of the realm with a claim to the throne. My brother cannot be allowed to drive this nation further into the mire! People need to listen to me!’
Chel could only offer a weak nod. To his relief, he saw Foss wandering back across the yard toward them. He’d attained new understanding of the look the big man had given him on his arrival. ‘Foss?’
‘The others are back. There’s news.’