Loveless and Whisper had entered the inn’s main structure, but Foss suggested the others wait for them by the door. Chel was too tired to argue, and simply lay down in the straw where Lemon and Kosh were sheltered. Rennic was already snoring in the corner while Tarfel continued to pace in the yard. The downside to the straw, of course, was suffering another bout of international bickering.
‘What in hells are you making, anyway? Are those wings?’
‘Nothing you would understand.’
‘You always say that. I understand plenty, missy.’
‘Do you understand the essence that permeates all things, that flows through every material, every object? The essence that must be respected, embraced, shaped and entwined?’
‘You do talk a lot of bollocks, don’t you?’
‘You see, you have no understanding of such things. Balance and harmony. The correct measures of earth salts, the correct strike of a hammer on steel, the incantations and ceremonies for all things.’
‘Aye, right. Steel is steel, stumpy. Doesn’t need a song to get it to bend.’
‘Perhaps not to a cave-dweller. It is a marvel to me that your people, such as they are, have even achieved its production, however crudely.’
‘I can show you fucken crude, pal.’
‘This is my most surprised face. Do you understand it?’
‘Ha, yeah, ha. You can talk all you like, midge, chatter on about your inanimate spirits there, but you see, I’m a rationalist. A thinker. Where I come from, we don’t go in for all this superstition.’
‘Really? What do you worship, where you are from? I imagine something burning, perhaps a giant pig made of bark and dung.’
‘Ha. Worship nothing, we do. The Clyde is beholden to no man or god, you see, no spirit or pictsie.’
‘Indeed. Each an individual, then, alone in the world? No sense of a whole, no belonging?’
‘Bollocks again. We’re tight as anything, where I’m from. Great sense of history, of family.’
‘Yet here you are, far from all—’
‘Wisdom of ancestors, passed down generation to generation, ever expanding. No daughter of Clyden is going to repeat any ancestor’s mistake. We’re all part of a great whole, a giant one.’
‘It certainly sounds like it. You must consider yourselves fortunate, I suppose, that your people are born with strong and lustful animal urges, or you would no doubt have died out years ago.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this blather. I’m going to find Fossy.’
‘Watch out for gods and spirits.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘For a rationalist, you’re showing a great deal of emotion.’
‘Fuck off!’
A crest of faded pink hair appeared around the partition. ‘Everything all right in here, ladies? Not disturbing an intimate moment, am I?’
‘You can fuck off an’ all,’ Lemon muttered.
Loveless flashed her a malicious grin, which softened when her gaze fell on Chel. ‘You made it, cub. Good to see you.’
He could only stammer a reply, his tired brain flashing straight to thoughts of Rasha in the rain, and a sudden burst of guilt. He felt his cheeks darkening and tried to cover his face with his hands in a feeble pretence at cleaning off some of the filth, but she had already moved on. His relief must have shown too clear on his face, as he turned to find Lemon giving him an appraising look, one eyebrow raised.
Rennic was upright and awake. ‘On your feet, little man.’
Chel tried to follow. His aching body was protesting seriously. Eventually, Lemon launched him from the straw-pile, and Foss kept him upright on landing. He was too sore to be grateful.
***
‘God’s bollocks, we thought we’d finally cut you loose, Gar.’ Loveless’s smile was playful, but something simmered in her eyes. Apparently, their arguments had not been forgotten in their time apart. In the fading afternoon light she looked tired, paler than Chel remembered. Perhaps she’d had a tough trip too. ‘You had the decency to be late by only a day, I suppose. Did you keep your heads down on the way in? This place is crawling with small-timers, and there’s word of more on the road. Did anyone see you? Did you see anyone you recognized?’
Rennic was gazing up at the darkening sky, wearing a look of uncharacteristic stoic patience. Chel wasn’t sure if it was affected or not, thinking back to his time in captivity in the Andriz enclave and the calm that had settled on the big man before their escape. While their trip had been hard and exhausting, it hadn’t been … angry. Perhaps Rennic had gained a new perspective in his time alone, perhaps some of the rage had left him. It seemed a lot to hope for.
‘Don’t think so,’ he mumbled at last. ‘Little man and I were focused on finding you lot.’
‘Whisp told us you made some unplanned friends in Merenghi. Does this mean you shat the bed when it came to meeting my contacts?’
‘Yeah, we fucked it,’ Rennic said with a sigh. ‘By the time little man busted us out, we had no time to get anywhere but here. And like you said, a day late.’
‘Lucky we had to wait, eh?’
‘Who needs luck when you’ve got the little man along.’
Chel waved a half-hearted arm. ‘Can we not dredge that up, please? Andriz are no luckier than anyone else. Seriously.’
‘So you say, cub, yet here we are. No good news to report, then, Gar?’
Rennic shook his head. ‘We went cross-country, hit the river and followed it east. Could hardly have told you what month it was. Although little man did turn his back on a lifetime of studding the young fillies of Merenghi’s Wards.’
This time there was no disguising the blush. Even Loveless couldn’t keep the incredulous mirth from her face. ‘Come again?’
Rennic’s grin was savage. ‘Did you know the Wards were all Andriz? They wanted to keep him as a sire for their stock, could have seen out the rest of his days doing little more than covering their maidens.’
Chel gritted his teeth, stared at the floor and tried not to think of Rasha. So much for a new perspective.
Rennic’s levity departed without warning. ‘We failed, then. What about you? Do we still have a chance?’
This time Loveless’s smile was bright and genuine. ‘We did well. Maybe we should have left you to one side earlier.’
Rennic didn’t rise to it. ‘How well?’
She reeled off a string of accomplishments, from enlisting the enthusiastic support of a number of minor lords, some with connections to kingdoms abroad, to the exuberant reaction of the tribal emissaries at the news that the free companies that usually kept them in check would be holding fast in their strongholds. Foss sighed heavily at the mention of the lords, and muttered something about parties. ‘Come the thaw in the high places,’ Loveless finished, ‘our tribal friends will likely come rampaging down with greater force than ever. They have particular enmity for the church forces, it seems; it rather sounds like they have a new religion up there.’
From the corner of his eye, Chel saw Foss make the sign of the crook.
Rennic let out a long breath. ‘That’s good. That’s really good. We may have snarled the free cities, but if all else starts to roll our way …’
‘Exactly.’ Loveless finished the thought. ‘They won’t want to be left out, especially if they fear their rivals will be taking advantage.’
‘Then a lot rides on the decisions of the free companies. At the Gracechurch I thought we had the balance, before Corvel arrived and made our point for us. What happened after?’
Lemon cleared her throat. ‘Aye, right, we legged it on their arrival, same as you, but the tales since, weeell, they suggest there was something of a set-to.’
Rennic gazed at her from beneath lowering brows. ‘A set-to?’
‘A fracas. A ruckus. A brouhaha.’
‘Nine fucking hells, Lemon, spit it out!’
‘Aye, well the wildest tales suggest that during the aforementioned altercation, the Gracechurch was somewhat … levelled.’
‘Horseshit.’
‘I did describe said tales as the wildest of their ilk.’
‘There’s no chance, the place is … You’d have to grind the walls down with engines for months, they’d still be chipping away at the curtain wall even now—’
‘Aye, all right, all right, I only know what I heard, boss.’
Chel thought of the smell of burning on the wind the day they fled the Gracechurch, and wondered.
‘Irrespective,’ Loveless said over Lemon’s protestations, ‘for every gambit failed, a gambit won – and vice versa. We’re on the blade’s edge here. Our next stop can sink us, or save us.’ She was leaning against the piebald wall of the staging inn, and for a moment Chel thought she looked as tired as he felt. He spotted that Whisper was keeping close to her, within easy reach. She must be as concerned as Chel.
‘Denirnas,’ Rennic said, fast enough to remind everyone he was in command.
‘Denirnas,’ Loveless repeated, as if crediting Rennic with the correct answer to a question she’d asked. ‘Alliance with the Norts. We bring Kosh’s people on-side, Corvel and his forces will quickly feel the noose begin to tighten.’
Chel stared down at his hands. Back to Denirnas. Back to where it had all begun. Unprompted, his shoulder began to throb.
‘If you ask me,’ Lemon said, ‘we can’t get rid of the wee shite fast enough. She’s toxic, that one, just like her nasty brews.’
‘Funny, Lemon,’ Loveless shot back, ‘she says the same about you.’
‘Now listen here—’
‘Keep yourself together, Lem, just a little while longer. We need them to like us when we propose alliance, remember?’
‘I’m being fucken nice! I’m being a fuck-sight nicer than her behaviour—’
‘Just a little longer, Lemon. Take deep breaths.’
‘Do you all see that? She’s fucken smirking at me! She’s—’
‘It still might not be enough.’ Rennic’s eyes were on Kosh but his words were for Loveless. ‘We have to consider—’
‘No.’
‘You know people there, important people.’
‘No.’
He swung to face her. ‘If just one of the pieces of our plan doesn’t fall into place, especially after our failure with the free cities—’
‘No! The Norts will be enough, they’ll be the key you wanted, the dagger in Corvel’s back. Pressure in the north. His forces split, nowhere safe – he’ll be begging for parley before the crops begin to turn.’
She turned to face the others, leaving Rennic standing. ‘Once we cross, we make for the coast, full-speed.’ Chel thought he caught a slight waver in her voice at the last. ‘Ruumi’s reavers may already have landed, all we need do is stay ahead of the news. Denirnas, Norts, victory.’
‘It may not—’ Rennic began.
‘Whisp and I have got the passes sorted,’ she ploughed over him, ‘and we’ll cross tonight. There are far too many unfriendly faces around here for my liking, too many people with the sniff of a contract about them. So, we’ll cross in darkness, disguised as merchants.’ She gestured to a wagon across the yard. ‘That’s us there, cloaks, hoods, and packs aboard. Gar, Fossy, and Whisp will be the guards, Lem and I the drivers.’
Chel put up a tired hand. ‘What about the rest of us? Me, Kosh, and the prince?’
‘In the back. You’re our cargo. Out of sight, under canvas.’
He considered being offended, but the thought of lying down in the back of a wagon for a while was an appealing one.
‘Huh,’ came a voice from behind them. Chel turned to see Tarfel stalking off across the yard, back in the direction of his stable of rotten wood.
All eyes were on Chel. ‘Fuck’s wrong with princeling?’ Rennic said.
‘Cares not to be cargo?’ Lemon enquired.
‘We, er … He missed his birthday.’
Rennic’s glare carried more heat than the midday sun. ‘The fuck you say?’
‘… And you’ve all been mean to him! He is a prince, remember? He’s supposed to be in command. He’s the reason we’re doing all this.’
Rennic seemed to grow before Chel’s eyes, swelling with charged outrage, and he steeled himself for the onslaught.
‘See if you can talk him round, cub,’ Loveless murmured before Rennic could burst. ‘Shepherd knows there’s worse to come than this.’ She circled a hand. ‘Let’s get packed for the road, fellow merchants.’