Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell (4 page)

‘You mean apart from you and me?’

We looked around at the town, with its thatched roofs and flowering window boxes; a place where nothing more unpleasant occurred than the town drunk being dragged under the millwheel on his unsteady way home.

Rodden sighed. ‘I suppose. Come on, I need a drink.’

Two days later, on the road to Ercan, we got our lead. Griffin had been hunting up ahead but came swooping back to me with an
alert!
that nearly knocked me out of the saddle. Harmings. We’d been bound to pass some sooner or later. But would they know who we were? I pulled my horse alongside Rodden’s.

‘You’ve got your mind shielded?’ he murmured. His eyes were scanning the road ahead.

‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘Good. Just act natural. We’re travellers like anyone else.’

With their safety in mind, I urged Leap and Griffin to make themselves scarce. Then I concentrated on keeping my thought-wall impenetrable.

I watched the flow of traffic: a farmer with a cart full of squash; a wagonload of children with a dark-haired man at the reins; a young boy leading a milking cow with a big clanging bell around its neck. Then I noticed something peculiar about the children in the wagon. They were young and scrappy, the eldest about fourteen, and they all wore the same pale blue shirt. But what raised the hairs on the back of my neck was their uncanny silence. Two dozen pairs of icy blue eyes stared at us as their wagon trundled by. I turned and saw the wagon pulling off the main road onto a dirt track. When they’d disappeared we pulled our horses over.

‘Those children were all harmings, weren’t they?’ I rubbed my forearms, suddenly chilled to the bone. Children. It had never occurred to me that they’d take children.

Rodden had one hand on the strap of his crossbow and his eyes on the turn-off. He nodded. ‘Did you see the shirt they wore? It looked like an orphanage uniform. That road they turned off on leads to Yib. It’s a farming district, and a pretty lonely one.’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘Enclaves. I haven’t seen them in Pergamia before. My guess is they were stolen from an orphanage in Ercan and are being taken to a training enclave.’

‘They were so young,’ I said wistfully.

‘The harmings are taking the destitutes off the streets and the unwanted from the orphanages; people no one will ever miss. Some for blood and some to swell the harming ranks, I’d wager.’

‘Should we do anything?’

Reluctantly, Rodden shook his head. ‘There’s not much we can do for them now. Except . . .’ He trailed off.

I winced. Except kill them, he meant. ‘It’s such a waste. Their lives are over before they’ve begun.’

He looked at me with worried eyes. ‘Stay close, all right?’

I nodded. Leap and Griffin returned, and I clutched my cat against my body as we broke into a canter.

FOUR

T
he blinding sun did little to dispel our grim mood as we rode into Ercan the next morning. I had slept badly, partly because I had been thinking of the harming children. I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been afraid when the harmings had come for them; if they’d cried out for their mothers, even though they were orphans and their mothers were dead. It was awful to contemplate. For the first time I was glad that I’d been infected as a baby – if it’d had to happen at all – and not when I was old enough to remember it.

But mostly I slept badly because of Rodden. I didn’t think he had slept at all. Instead, by the light of his glowing eyes he had sharpened all our weapons. First his knife, then my knife, then the arrow tips – both
the yelbar and ordinary ones – and even the crossbow bolts. The rasping of whetstone on metal had been incessant. It had been on the tip of my tongue to tell him to knock it
off
, but I sensed that my protestations would be ignored. At first light he had been up and away and I had managed to drop off for a moment, but all too soon a fresh rabbit carcass had been dumped on my cloak. Rodden had looked pale and cheerless in the wan morning light and I didn’t bother to make conversation over our meal. It seemed the sight of the harming children had upset him as badly as it had me.

The set of his shoulders was murderous as we rode into Ercan. I hoped the captain of the guard had his reports in order, or heads were about to roll.

Ercan was another land-locked city but large and bustling compared to Rendine. It was just the sort of place where the homeless and orphaned could go missing with no one any the wiser.

We rode straight to the guardhouse and Rodden shouldered the door open without a word. I thought we might have spruced ourselves up a bit first: after nearly a week in the saddle we looked rather scruffy, hardly the ideal look for the king’s envoy.

Captain Verlin sat behind his desk, legs splayed, a churlish expression on his features as Rodden questioned him.

‘Nup. Nothin’ strange.’

The muscles in Rodden’s jaw bunched. ‘It says here in your latest report that thirteen people died from miscellaneous causes.’

‘S’right.’

‘Would you care to elaborate?’

Verlin shrugged, his eyes wandering around the room. ‘Old age.’

The tension in the room, obvious to myself but clearly not to Verlin, was making me nervous. My nails were making crescent-marks in my palms.

‘Twelve were under twenty.’

‘Folks don’t live long round these parts. It’s the pollution. No sea air. Not like you fancy folk in the capital.’

Rodden started taking off his gloves, one finger at a time. ‘Captain Vermin –’

‘Verlin.’

‘– I put it to you that you are a lazy, imbecilic, corrupt individual who is wasting my time and the king’s money.’

Verlin ignored Rodden, his wandering eyes wandering over to me. He winked. ‘Such a pretty sister. Wouldn’t mind one of ’em of me own.’ He laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Rodden’s patience snapped and he reached over the desk and grabbed the captain by the scruff of his jacket.

‘Oi!’

He marched Verlin out of the guardhouse past his guards, across the square and over to the stocks. I followed, fascinated and horrified at the same time. Surely he wouldn’t put the man in his own restraints?

‘Last chance, Vermin,’ Rodden said, the man still dangling by his uniform. ‘Any idea how those people died?’

The captain said something rather uncomplimentary about donkeys and Rodden’s mother, and a few seconds later he found himself clapped in the stocks. He struggled as Rodden stripped the badges from his uniform. As Rodden strode away Verlin yelled, ‘Y’can’t do this! I’m the bleedin’ captain! Come back here, ya goat-swivin’ son of a donkey’s turd!’

Rodden ignored the demoted captain. We approached the knot of guards that had gathered outside their headquarters, struck dumb by the sight of Verlin struggling in the stocks.

‘Question time, gentlemen. Who can tell me which orphanage in Ercan dresses its children in pale blue shirts?’

After a moment, a young, sandy-haired soldier cautiously raised his hand. ‘Fallowood Home for Unfortunates.’

Rodden tossed the soldier the captain’s badges. ‘Congratulations . . .?’

‘Sergeant Milson, sir.’

‘Milson. You’re the new captain. Take me to Fallowood, and bring two of your guards.’

Milson looked rather startled at his sudden promotion, but did what he was told.

Fallowood was in a seedy part of town, a dank, grey building nestled among the brothels and the less sanitary butchers’ shops. We picked our way down the narrow street, avoiding puddles of filth in the middle of the road. Toddlers ran about without their napkins, dirty marks down their legs. On their backs were pale blue shirts, just like the ones we’d seen on the harming children. This place was a far cry from the ‘glorious’ nation of Pergamia I’d heard so much about. It seemed there were cracks to slip through, and we were in one of them.

The new captain knocked on a door and a dour, middle-aged woman opened it. When she saw the
guards she stepped back to let us inside. She gave Rodden a once-over, taking in his scruffy beard and dusty travelling clothes. ‘I’m fresh out of wenches,’ she told him. ‘Hafta come back next week if ye want one over eleven. I’ll call the ones I ’ave, if ye like. You can have one cheap. But they’re a stringy bunch.’ She nodded at me. ‘Hafta make do with this one for now.’

‘You beastly woman,’ I growled. This had to be the place the harmings had taken the children from – or bought, it seemed. Had she so little compassion that she could sell someone in her charge to just anyone who came asking?

Rodden placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Now, here’s something we
can
fix,’ he murmured.

Before he could speak, Milson coughed apologetically. ‘This is the Honourable Rodden Lothskorn, ma’am.’

‘Who?’ She peered at Rodden afresh, but the name clearly didn’t mean anything to her.

Rodden addressed the soldier. ‘Milson, was Captain Verlin in the habit of allowing slaves to be peddled out of orphanages?’

Milson shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for your honesty. The selling of children won’t happen in the future, I’m sure.’ He
turned to the matron. ‘Are you missing a quantity of children as of yesterday?’

The woman spat on the ground, barely missing Rodden’s boots. ‘Not missing. Fostered.’

‘Two dozen at once?’

She looked quite pleased with herself. ‘Aye.’

‘Milson,’ said Rodden. ‘Have this woman suitably fined, flogged, or jailed. I don’t care which.’

Milson nodded to his men. The matron began to scream in protest as the two guards hitched her up by her armpits and hauled her away. Two dirty children, barely four and five, watched her go. They looked like they were infested with lice and hadn’t seen the bristly end of a comb in a long time.

It angered me that King Askar could let this sort of thing go on. It didn’t happen in Amentia, did it? I thought of the capital, Prestoral, small but neat. It had seen desperate times, but surely Renata had kept a close eye on greed and corruption. I had to assume so, but I didn’t know. I’d never bothered to concern myself with such things.

If I ever married and became queen, I decided, I would take an interest in everyone, rich and poor. I would go into the cities myself and speak with the people who were doing things in my name and under my pay. Or my husband’s, as the case may be.

But not yet, I thought silently to Renata. I’m not ready to be married yet.

All the way back to the guardhouse, Rodden lectured Milson on his new captaincy. ‘Your first duty is to rehouse the remaining children from Fallowood in reputable establishments. Orphanage inspections are to happen monthly, and you are to see to it that only trustworthy individuals are in charge of and allowed to foster children. Disappearances and deaths in this city are to be treated with the utmost seriousness. A coroner is to determine cause of death and reports are to be made to me. I am sending ten of my own guards from Xallentaria to work under you and by the time they arrive I am sure there won’t be even a whiff of corruption among the king’s guards of Ercan. Right, Captain Milson?’

‘Yessir.’

‘Good. Any questions?’

‘Yes. What’s a coroner, sir?’

Rodden ran his hands down the legs of two fresh horses, checking for lameness. I held their bridles and thought fondly of bathwater and bed sheets.

‘Do you really think “a doctor for dead bodies” is
a good explanation of what a coroner is?’ I asked.

Rodden lifted the horse’s foot and inspected it. It seemed he didn’t trust anything in Ercan. ‘I don’t care. I just want to get out of this stinking cesspit of a city.’

I patted one of the horses on the nose. ‘Nothing personal,’ I told it. I peered at the horizon. ‘It’s getting late. And it looks like rain,’ I added hopefully.

‘No, it doesn’t.’

I scowled. ‘Snow then. Can’t we stay? I’m out of clean clothes.’

‘This place gives me the gripes.’ He stood up and regarded me, smiling. ‘But you do look a sight. Maybe I will trade you in at Fallowood.’

‘Go swive a goat.’

He dug out some coins to pay for the horses. ‘Princesses shouldn’t know such language.’

‘It must be the company I keep.’

He paid the stable keeper and we led the horses outside. ‘All right. Which flea-bitten inn do you fancy then?’ he asked.

We found one on the western side of town close to the road to Jefsgord. ‘For quick and easy departure,’ Rodden muttered as we crossed the threshold.

As the sun set I stood out the back with my sleeves rolled up, giving my two spare outfits the scrubbing of their short lives. I felt an odd sort of
accomplishment as I did it. There were worse things I could be doing; sucking on dead squirrels and rats did tend to put things in perspective.

With pruned fingers I joined Rodden in the tavern. He was staring into a flagon of ale, the very picture of dejection.

‘Hungry?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

I sat down. ‘Rodden, are you an orphan?’

‘My parents died when I was sixteen,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘Does that count?’

A serving maid came over and I asked for a cider. I sipped the dry, fruity ale in silence for a moment. Then I asked, ‘Are you from Verapine?’ Rodden had told me once that he wasn’t Pergamian, and with his olive skin, dark brows and stern features, he didn’t look like any Brivoran I had seen.

Rodden looked at me from beneath his lashes. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you want to . . .?’

‘Talk about it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do I ever?’

I shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose. Brood all you like. The aunts find it sexy.’

‘The who?’

‘Amis’s aunts. They’re quite taken with you.’ I’d had tea with Amis’s aunts before Lilith’s wedding, and Rodden had featured high on their list of favoured men at the palace. I smiled at the memory.

He thought for a moment, and then looked horrified. ‘Not those tarty middle-aged hags who are incessantly shoving cakes in their faces?’

‘That’s them.’

He made a face. ‘I wondered why they were always badgering me to come to their parties.’ He took a sip of ale and looked at me over the rim of the cup. ‘And what about you?’

‘What about me?’ But my face was already flaming. Curse my good circulation.

‘Do you find it sexy? My brooding.’ When he grinned like that he looked like a Hallow’s Eve pumpkin.

I coughed and looked away. ‘I find it exceedingly dull. Excuse me, I’m hungry.’ Face aflame, I went to study the menu, which was a piece of slate with some chicken scratchings in chalk on it. My spine prickled and I was certain Rodden was watching me with that wicked grin on his face. I didn’t find his brooding sexy, I decided. I liked it better when he smiled. He had a disarming smile, crooked, with dimples in just one cheek . . .

Shut up
.

‘Meat Stu,’ the menu read. What sort of meat, I wondered. ‘Taters. Cheppers Py.’

‘Excuse me,’ I said to the bar-keep, who was polishing glasses with a dirty apron. ‘What is “cheppers py”?’