The Rebel Prince (32 page)

‘I could!’ he said.

He snapped the knife away from David’s throat and plunged it between David’s legs, jerking the blade up into his groin. ‘I could,’ he said again, staring into the Wolf ’s slack face. ‘I could take you apart, little by little.’

The Wolf remained impassive, his eyes lightly shut, his mouth open. He was completely at peace, blissfully unaware of Christopher’s rage. With a desperate noise, Christopher dragged him closer still and, once again, pressed the knife to his eye. The sharp tip trembled against the Wolf ’s dark eyelashes and Christopher desperately scanned his face for a reaction – but there was none.

‘Curse you,’ he whispered. ‘Curse you. You goddamned
pox
.’

Then, to Wynter’s amazement, he flung the Wolf back onto the furs and, with a shaking hand, slipped his knife back into his boot.

‘Coinín,’ said Sólmundr. ‘It not matter he not feel it. You need do it now! You might not ever again get the chance.’

Christopher shook his head and stood up.

‘We can burn the tent afterwards,’ murmured Wynter. The two men turned to look at her in shock, and she hefted her sword uncertainly. ‘If you must kill them,’ she said, ‘we could burn the tent with the Wolves’ bodies inside. You can finally take your revenge, Christopher. They would be out of your life forever. Sól would not have to leave. It would be very neat.’ She waited, thrown by their silence and the way they were staring at her in the crawling firelight. ‘I’m not sure I could stay to watch, though,’ she admitted softly. ‘I thought I could . . . but I don’t think I could bear it.’

‘God help me, Iseult,’ whispered Christopher. ‘I love you more every day.’

Wynter’s eyes filled with tears and Christopher’s dark outline was suddenly haloed in orange stars as the firelight split itself into pinpoints of brilliance around him. ‘I love you too,’ she said. Then she wiped her eyes, sheathed her sword, and turned for the door. ‘I shall wait outside.’

‘Stay,’ said Christopher.

‘I can’t, Chris. I’m sorry. I understand what you need to do. But I can’t stay.’

‘No. Stay. It’s all right. I ain’t about to do aught.’

Both Sólmundr and Wynter frowned in disbelief.

‘But you might never get other chance!’ cried Sól.

Christopher tilted his head fondly. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Razi has promised me. He always keeps his promises. I ain’t going to let him down.’

‘But . . .’ Sól gazed around at the unconscious Wolves, unable to comprehend Christopher’s decision to spare them.

Christopher left David Le Garou and crossed the tent. Crouching at Sól’s feet, he gently lifted the fallen guitar. The polished wood glowed like honey in the warm light, the silver frets and the silver snake-head pegs gleaming. He turned it to show the back. Inlaid in dark wood, a representation of two snakes twined around themselves, each biting the other’s tail. Wynter hunkered down by Christopher and gazed at it. It was very fine work.

‘This is beautiful,’ she whispered.

‘Aye. Hawk-worked. Da had it made at the Hollis
aonach
, the year I was adopted. The same man made it as made the trunk.’ Christopher smiled and ran his fingers along the segmented back of the snake emblem. He went to speak; then the sight of his mutilated hand seemed to halt him in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat and he frowned, staring at his fingers. He clenched his hand and stood abruptly, looping the guitar-strap across his shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he snapped. ‘Let’s go.’ And he strode to the door, dragging it aside and darting out as if afraid to stay any longer.

Wynter got slowly to her feet. Sól was glaring at the prostrate bodies stretched all around him, his face twitching with rage. Wynter knew exactly how he felt.
Well
, she thought, eyeing the vicious rings of scar tissue on his neck and wrists.
Perhaps not quite exactly.

‘This is not your vengeance to take, Sól,’ she said softly.

‘How can he to walk away?’ he ground out. ‘How can . . . ?’

‘He’s not walking away forever.’

Sólmundr huffed and shook his head, his anger and disappointment palpable.

‘You think he is foolish to trust Razi?’

He did not answer, and Wynter wondered if he was as much hurt by Christopher’s rejection of his gift as he was angered by the Wolves’ close escape.

Christopher called for them to
come on
. He was crouched in the shadow of the awning, dragging his father’s bracelets from the slave’s limp arms. ‘Get out of there,’ he hissed, glancing in at them. ‘We need to get back before Razi returns from his brother.’

Wynter picked her way out to him. Behind her, Sól snuffed the fire-basin, plunging the tent into pitch darkness.

He came to her side, watching in silence as Christopher took his own bracelets from the second slave.

‘Will they die, Sól?’ asked Wynter, gazing down at the unconscious young men at her feet.

‘I hope,’ he said coldly.

‘Much as they aspire to be, they ain’t Wolves,’ said Christopher, standing and kicking the slave’s hand away from his foot. ‘So it’s likely the poison will do them in.’

‘Will it be bad?’ she whispered. ‘Sólmundr called it
slow
poison
. That sounds bad.’

‘It just mean it sneak up slow,’ said Sólmundr. ‘It not . . .’ He made a spasming motion, reminding Wynter of Razi when Christopher had drugged him in Embla’s tent. ‘This one, it just pull you gently under. You almost not notice it until it too late, and then you die.’

Christopher huffed dryly. ‘It’s still too bloody good for them,’ he said.

Sól nodded in understanding. Wynter found their lack of compassion very strange. After all, did her friends feel no kinship to these two young men? As slaves, had they not all suffered the same things? Glancing at her, Christopher must have caught some of this in her face, and he looked away, uncomfortably shifting the bracelets in his hand.

‘You don’t understand what they’re like,’ he whispered. ‘You couldn’t imagine. These are two of the Wolves’
Boys
. The Wolves have raised them from little children and . . . they ain’t normal,’ he said. ‘They’re savage. They’re horribly cruel.’

‘Some people,’ said Sólmundr, his eyes wide with unwanted memory, ‘they end up with not just bodies in slavery. Some people, their souls be slaves also.’

Christopher shuddered, then shook himself free of his memories. ‘Come on!’ he hissed, slapping Sólmundr on his strong arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Grimly, the warrior stepped over the slaves, heading for the gap in the army tents. Wynter moved to follow him, but hesitated as Christopher came to an abrupt halt in front of her.

‘Sól!’ he cried.

Sólmundr glanced back over his shoulder, frowning. ‘What?’

Christopher just shook his head, his eyes bright. He wordlessly lifted the fistful of bracelets, shaking them as if to say,
I can never repay you for these.

Sólmundr’s face softened. ‘Oh,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, aye.’ He cleared his throat. ‘
Ná bac, lucha.
Let’s . . . let’s go, before Tabiyb, he find you gone and we all in trouble.’ Glancing briefly at Wynter, the warrior turned and led the way back between the tents.

‘Ah, shit,’ whispered Christopher. ‘Could he not have bloody waited, the awkward bollocks?’

Razi was standing by the supply tent, his shadow and those of the soldiers accompanying him stretched long and black in the lowering moonlight. He was quietly dismissing the men.

‘You may go,’ he said. ‘I shall be fine from here.’

‘His Highness’s orders were to bring you to your tent, my Lord.’

‘Thank you, lieutenant, but there’s nothing except shadows between me and my bed. Your presence should only serve to disturb the dogs, and they would wreak their vengeance by ruining everyone’s sleep.’

Wynter heard the lieutenant chuckle, and Razi sent him on his way with a nod of his head. The soldiers walked off and Razi made his way into the black canyon between the tents. Wynter sighed in frustration. There was no hope of sneaking back before him now. They may as well come clean.

Sólmundr popped his head out, glanced at the retreating soldiers, then gestured that the way was clear. They slunk furtively across the road and reached the other side without anyone raising an alarm.

Razi was just ducking back out from their empty tent as they exited the alley, and he regarded them with alarm. ‘Where
were
you?’ he whispered, but almost immediately he saw the bracelets in Christopher’s hands, and he groaned and closed his eyes in despair. ‘Oh, Chris,’ he said. ‘No.’

Wynter went to explain, but Christopher spoke before her. ‘Your brother’s plans will be unhinged, I suppose.’

Sól glanced curiously at Wynter and they shut their mouths.

Razi groaned again and tiredly ran his hand across his face. ‘God, he will be apoplectic,’ he said. Then to Wynter’s utter astonishment he threw his hands out in resignation and sighed. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Do not worry. Certainly I can find a way around it, though it would have been so much better if – oh, never mind. Do not worry, friend.’ He glanced at Christopher, genuine apology in his face. ‘It was unbearably cruel to stretch your tolerance any further. I am glad for you, Christopher. I only wish—’ He shook his head. ‘No! I am
glad
for you,’ he said firmly. ‘I am glad it is over for you.’

‘You only wish what?’

Razi grimaced ruefully. ‘It matters not, friend. In the end, that was
my
plan and had nothing to do with your wishes or desires. In the end it is better that, having for so long deferred to my needs, you got to do things as you wanted.’

‘You only wish
what
?’ insisted Christopher. ‘Tell me what you
wanted
, you damned fool, and stop always holding things back!’

Razi stepped abruptly into the moonlight and the weary acceptance on his face gave way to something harder. He held his fists before him, his eyes bright with desperate zeal. ‘I had wanted
more
, Christopher,’ he hissed. ‘I had wanted it to
mean
something.’

Christopher gazed at him, waiting, and Razi, seeing that he did not understand, spread his hands, trying to find the right words.

‘I had wanted that this should be more than a private, personal revenge. Something more powerful than a throat slit quietly in the dark. I had hoped that, when it came, your vengeance would symbolise something. I had wanted it to sing out,
Behold. Here is the wages of evil. See what befalls those who
live at the expense of those weaker than themselves.
I had wanted the Loups-Garous’ deaths to say,
We shall not be tolerated. Our
kind shall not prevail.
’ Razi stared ahead of him for a moment as if witnessing his plan blossom before him. Then he dropped his hands and sighed.

Christopher smiled. He glanced at Wynter and she took his arm. Wryly he jangled his father’s bracelets in his hand and grinned at Razi.

‘Lucky for you the Wolves ain’t dead, then, ain’t it?’ he said.

Razi gaped at him.

‘Nah,’ said Christopher with studied negligence. ‘Didn’t feel right. Thought I might leave it for another day.’

‘Chris,’ said Razi quietly, ‘I have a plan.’

‘Thought you might.’ Christopher grinned across at Sól, a loving, affectionate grin at which the older man had to smile. Wynter’s heart filled with pride. Christopher had been right. Thank God.

‘You must put the bracelets back,’ said Razi.

Sólmundr’s rueful good humour fell away, and Wynter cried out, ‘Oh
no
, Razi! That is unfair!’

Christopher froze for a moment, clutching the bracelets, his eyes wide with shock.

‘But . . . why?’ he managed eventually.

‘Because they are evidence of a crime. Come on, friend. Show me what you have done, and I shall explain my plan as we walk.’

There was no slinking through the shadows this time. Razi simply strode through the camp as if it was perfectly natural to be wandering about at night, and the others trailed along behind him like uncertain ducklings. They met a patrol on the road and Razi sighed with lordly impatience as the sergeant eyed the strange little entourage and explained that he would need to report them to the Prince.