King of Thorns Read online

  “I’ll find you, bitch,” I spoke low. She had enough ears to hear me.

  The heads broadened their smiles to show teeth. Lips moved. It looked like “Dead King” that they mouthed.

  I shrugged. “Enjoy the ravens.” And I left them. Whatever power worked here, I doubted it would trouble Maical under such a weight of stone.

  We moved on, resupplied from the fort, with replacements for what Gog had burned in the night. Remagen huddled around both shores of the Rhyme, a modest walled town, smoke rising from scores of chimneys lined along well-ordered streets. The bridge held my attention though. I’d not thought of bridges as graceful before, but this one hung glittering between two silver towers taller than the Haunt, suspended on what looked like gleaming wire but must have been cables thick as a man.

  Within half an hour we were lined at the town gates, waiting our turn behind pedlars, merchants with their wagons, farmers leading cows or carting ducks and hens. We stowed our weapons out of sight on the horses, but we still looked a rough crowd.

  Gorgoth drew looks aplenty, but none of the normal screaming and the running.

  “You’ll be with the circus then,” said the farmer with the ducks in wicker cages. He nodded as if agreeing with his statement.

  “So we are,” I said before Rike could grumble. “I juggle,” I added, and gave him my smile.

  The men at the gates were of the same rag-tag crowd that we found at the fort. The free-town had no soldiers, according to Row, just a loose militia drawn from the population, at the service of the mayor for a month or two then free to go back to their livelihoods.

  “Well met.” I clapped my hands to the shoulders of what should have been the gate captain in any decent town. I grinned as if we’d been best friends all our lives. “Jorg the Red and his travelling players, catching up with our colleagues at the circus. I juggle. Would you like to see?”

  “No,” he said, trying to shake free. A good answer in the main since I don’t juggle.

  “You’re sure?” I asked, finally letting him go. “My friend here does knife tricks. And Little Rikey is famously ugly?”

  “Move on,” he said and turned to the tinker behind us.

  I passed between the guardsmen—“Care to see some juggling? No?”—and through the gates.

  “The bridge is that way,” Makin said, pointing again as he did at the crossroads, as if it weren’t two hundred feet tall and glittering in the morning sunshine.

  “Indeed,” I said. “But we’re with the circus.” And I led off to the right, not pointing at the multi-coloured pavilion rising above the rooftops. “I juggle!”

  We had to start with the elbows to make a path before we got within clear sight of the pavilion. The people of Remagen were out in their hundreds, packing the streets around the circus, spilling from the taverns and crowding the smaller tents and stalls around the main attraction.

  “Must be Sunday,” Sim said, grinning like a boy, which I suppose he was by most accountings.

  Rike moved to the front, pushing his way toward the big top. Like Sim he had an eager look on him, the kind of light that toy clown put in him back at the Haunt. I wasn’t the only one who remembered.

  “It’s Taproot?” Makin asked, frowning.

  I nodded. “Got to be.”

  “Excellent,” said Kent. He’d swiped himself three sugar sticks from somewhere and was trying to get all of them in his mouth at once.

  We got to the pavilion entrance, laced up all the way down and staked, with the smaller entrance to the side also tagged down. A man and a boy sat in the dust before the door, bent over a wooden board with black and white markers arrayed across it in various depressions.

  “Show’s not until sundown,” the man said as my shadow fell across the board. He didn’t look up.

  “You’ve got mancala in three if you play from the end pit then the eye pit,” I said.

  He looked up sharp enough at that, lifting his bald head on the thickest of necks. “By Christ Jesu! It’s little Jorg!”

  He stood and took me under the arms, throwing me a yard in the air before executing a neat catch.

  “Ron,” I said. “You used to be strong!”

  “Be fair.” He grinned. “You’ve doubled in height.”

  I shrugged. “The armour weighs a bit too. Saved my ribs though!” I waved the others forward. “You remember Little Rikey?”

  “Of course. Makin, good to see you. Grumlow.” Ron caught sight of Gorgoth. “And who’s the big fellow?”

  “Show him the thing,” said Rike, bubbling like a child, “show him the thing.”

  “Later.” Ron smiled. “The weights are all stowed now. Besides, looks like your friend could put me out of business.”

  Ron, or to do him justice, the amazing Ronaldo, did the circus strongman act. He earned Rike’s undying respect by the simple act of lifting a heavier weight than Rike could. It’s true that nature treated Ron to an unreasonable helping of muscle, but I think that Little Rike might be the stronger even so. Certainly I’d bet on Rike before Ron in a tavern brawl. But with the lifting of weights there’s grip and timing and commitment, and Rike faltered where Ron pressed on.

  “So, where might we find the good Dr. Taproot?” I asked.

  Ronaldo led us through the side flap, leaving the boy, who turned out to be a midget old enough to be going grey, to watch our horses. I took the Nuban’s bow. I didn’t trust the midget to be able to run down any thieves, and besides, I might want to shoot a circus clown or two. Just for laughs.

  We skirted around the centre ring, kicking sawdust and watching three acrobats practice their tumbles out where the sun struck down through the high opening. Toward the back of the big-top, canvas divisions spaced out several rooms. Here the heavy stink from the animal cages reached in and you could hear a growl or two above the thumps and shouts of the tumblers.

  Taproot had his back to me as I followed Ron in. Two of the dancer girls stood before him in slack poses, bored and rolling their eyes.

  “Watch me!” Taproot said. “Hips and tits. That sells seats. And look as if you’re enjoying it, for God’s sake. Watch me.”

  He talked with his hands did Taproot, long-fingered hands always flying about his head.

  “I am watching you,” I said. They say Taproot got that habit from his days at the three cup game. Watch me! And the boy will dip your pockets.

  He turned at that, hands plucking at the air. “And who have you brought to see me, Ronaldo? A handsome young fellow indeed, with friends outside.”

  Taproot knew me. Taproot never forgot a face, or a fact, or a weakness.

  “Jorg the Red,” I said. “I juggle.”

  “Do you now?” He drew fingers down his jaw to the point of his chin. “And what do you juggle, Jorg the Red?”

  I grinned. “What have you got?”

  “Watch me!” He fished a dark bottle from the depths of his cloak of many faded colours. “Come take a seat, bring your brothers in if they’ll fit.” He dismissed the dancers with a flutter of hands.

  Taproot retreated behind a desk in the corner, finding glasses from its drawer. I took the only other chair as the others filed in behind Makin.

  “I’m guessing you still juggle lives, Jorg,” Taproot said. “Though in more salubrious surroundings these days.” He poured a green measure into five glasses, all of a motion without a drop lost.

  “You’ve heard about my change in circumstances?” I took the glass. Its contents looked like urine, a little greener.

  “Absinthe. Ambrosia of the gods,” Taproot said. “Watch me.” And he knocked his back with a slight grimace.

  “Absinthe? Isn’t that Greek for undrinkable?” I sniffed it.

  “Two gold a bottle,” he said. “Has to be good at that price, no?”

  I sipped. It had the kind of bitterness that takes layers off your tongue. I coughed despite myself.

  “You should have told me you were a prince, Jorg; I always knew there was something ab
out you.” He pointed two fingers to his eyes. “Watch me.”

  More Brothers followed on in. Gorgoth ducked in under the flap, Gog scurrying in front. Taproot took his gaze from me and rocked back in his chair. “Now these two fellows I could employ,” he said. “Even if they don’t juggle.” He waved to the three spare glasses. “Help yourselves, gentlemen.”

  There’s a pecking order on the road and it helps to know how it runs. On the surface Taproot’s business might be sawdust and somersaults, dancing girls and dancing bears, but he dealt in more than entertainment. Dr. Taproot liked to know things.

  A beat passed. Most would miss it, but not Taproot. The beat let the Brothers know that Makin wasn’t interested. Rike took the first glass, Red Kent the next, another beat, then Row snatched the last. Row threw his down and smacked his lips. Row could drink acid without complaint.

  “Ron, why don’t you take Rike and Gorgoth and show them the thing with the barrel?” I asked.

  Rike gulped his drink, made a sour face, and followed Ron out, the leucrotas next, Gog tagging behind.

  “The rest of you can lose yourselves too. See if you can’t learn some new tricks in the ring.” I sipped again. “It’d be foul at twenty gold a bottle.

  “Makin, perhaps you could be finding out about that rather fine bridge for us,” I said.

  And they filed out, leaving me and Taproot watching each other across the desk in the dim glow of the sun through canvass.

  “A prince, Jorg? Watch me!” Taproot smiled, a crescent of teeth in his thin face. “And now a king?”

  “I would have cut myself a throne whatever woman I fell from,” I said. “Had I been a carpenter’s son, stable-born, I’d have cut one.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Again the smile, that mix of warmth and calculation. “Remember the times we had, Jorg?”

  I did. Happy days are rare on the road. The days we had ridden with the circus troop had been golden for a wild boy of twelve.

  “Tell me about the Prince of Arrow,” I said.

  “A great man by all accounts,” Taproot said. He made a steeple of his fingers, pressed to his lips.

  “And by your account?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve not met the man.”

  “I’ve met everyone, Jorg,” he said. “You know that. Watch me.”

  I never knew if I liked Taproot.

  “I’ve even met your father,” he said.

  I am rarely uncertain in such matters, but Taproot, with his “watch me” and his talking hands, with his whole life a performance, and his secret ways? It’s hard to know a man who knows too much. “The Prince of Arrow,” I said.

  “He is a good man,” Taproot said at last. “He means what he says and what he says is good.”

  “The world eats good men for breakfast,” I said.

  “Perhaps.” Taproot shrugged. “But the Prince is a thinker, a planner. And he has funds. The Florentine banking clans love him well. Peace is good business. He is setting his pieces. The Fenlands fell to him before winter set in. He’ll add more thrones to his tally soon enough. Watch me. He’ll be at your gates in a few years if nobody stops him. And at your father’s gates.”

  “Let him call on Ancrath first,” I said. I wondered what my father would make of this “good man.”

  “His brother,” said Taproot, “Egan?”

  Taproot knew, he just wanted to know if I knew. I just watched him. He kept telling me to after all.

  “His brother is a killer. A swordsman like the legends talk of, and vicious with it. A year younger than Orrin, and always will be, thank the Lord. More absinthe?”

  “And how much support is there for the Good Prince among the Hundred?” I waved the bottle away. You needed a clear head with Taproot.

  “Well, they’d all murder him for half a florin,” Taproot said.

  “Of course.”

  “But he’s merciful and that can be a powerful thing.” Taproot stroked his chest as though he imagined a little of that mercy for himself. “There’s not a lord out there who doesn’t know that if he opened his gates to Arrow he’d get to keep his head and most of what was behind his gates too. By the next Congression his friends could vote him to the empire throne. And if he keeps going the way he is, he could vote himself to the throne at the Congression after next.”

  “It’s a clever ploy,” I said. Mercy as a weapon.

  “More than that, watch me.” Taproot sipped and ran his tongue over his teeth. “It’s who he is. And he won’t need too many more victories before more gates are opened to him than stand closed.” He looked at me then, dark and shrewd. “How will your gates stand, Jorg of Ancrath?”

  “We’ll have to see, won’t we?” I ran a wet finger around the rim of my glass and made it sing. “I’m a little young to be giving up on ambition though, neh?” Besides, sometimes an open gate just means you’d rather they did the walking. “What about the others?” I asked.

  “Others?” Taproot’s innocent look was a work of art, perfected over years.

  I watched him. Taproot kept his frozen innocence a moment longer. I scratched my ear and watched him.

  “Oh…the others.” He offered a quick smile. “There’s support for Orrin of Arrow there. He’s foretold, the Prince of Arrow. Prophecy aplenty. Too much for the wise to ignore. The Silent Sister is of course—”

  “Silent?” I asked.

  “Even so. But others are interested. Sageous, the Blue Lady, Luntar of Thar, even Skilfar.” He studied me as he spoke each name, knowing in a moment if I knew them. I put little enough on my face at such times, but a man like Taproot needs less than little to know your mind.

  “Skilfar?” He already knew I didn’t know.

  “Ice-witch,” Taproot said. “Plays the jarls off against each other. There are plenty of eyes on this Prince of Arrow, Jorg. His star is not yet risen, but be sure it’s in ascendance! Who knows how high and how bright it might be come Congression?”

  If anyone knew, it would be the circus master before me. I turned Taproot’s words over in my head. The next Congression stood two years away, four more again before the one after that. As lord of Renar I had my place booked, a single vote in hand, and the Gilden Guard would escort me to Vyene. I couldn’t see the Hundred electing an emperor to sit over them though. Not even Orrin of Arrow. If I went, if I let the Gilden Guard drag me five hundred miles to throw my vote into the pot, I’d vote for me.

  “I’m sorry about Kashta,” Taproot said. He filled his glass and raised it.

  “Who?”

  Taproot dropped his gaze to the bow beside me. “The Nuban.”

  “Oh.” Taproot knew stuff. Kashta. I let him fill my glass again and we drank to the Nuban.

  “Another good man,” Taproot said. “I liked him.”

  “You like everyone, Taproot,” I said. I licked my lips. “But he was a good man. I’m taking the monsters to Heimrift. Tell me about the mage there.”

  “Ferrakind,” Taproot said. “A dangerous man, watch me! I’ve had pyromancers that trained with him. Not magicians, not much more than fire-eaters, flame-blowers, you could do as much with this stuff and a candle.” He raised his glass again. “Smoke-and-spark men. I don’t think he lets the good ones go. But all the ones I had were terrified of the man. You could end any argument with them just by saying his name. He’s the real thing. Flame-sworn.”

  “Flame-sworn?” I asked.

  “The fire is in him. In the end it will take him. He used to be a player. You know what I speak of, a player of men and thrones. But the fire took too much from him and we no longer interest him.”

  “I want his help,” I said.

  “And this is your offer?” Taproot tapped his wrist. I hadn’t seen him so much as glance at my watch but it seemed he knew all about it.

  “Perhaps. What else might interest him?” I asked.

  Taproot pursed his lips. “He likes rubies. But I think he’ll prefer your fire-patterned child. He may want to keep him, Jorg.”

&n
bsp; “I may want to keep him myself,” I said.

  “Going soft in your old age, Jorg?” Taproot asked. “Watch me! I knew a twelve year old hard as nails and twice as sharp. Perhaps you should leave the monsters with me. There’s a good enough living to be made in the freak tent.”

  I stood. I hefted up the Nuban’s bow. “Kashta, eh?”

  “Even so,” Taproot said.

  “I must be on my way, Doctor,” I said. “I have a bridge to cross.”

  “Stay,” he said. “Learn to juggle?”

  “I’ll look around once more for old times,” I said.

  Taproot raised his hands. “A king knows his mind.”

  And I left.

  “Good hunting.” He said it to my back.

  I wondered if he’d taken enough from me to sell at profit. I wondered at what some men can fit between their ears.

  I walked past the dancers. They hadn’t gone far.

  “Remember me, Jorg?” Cherri smiled. The other struck a pose. They both followed Taproot’s advice. Hips and tits.

  “Of course I do.” I sketched a bow. “But sadly, ladies, I’m not here to dance.”

  Cherri I remembered, lithe and pert, hair lightened with lemon and curled around hot tongs every morning, a snub nose and wicked eyes. They both closed on me, half-playful, half-serious, hands straying, warm breath and that gyration in the pelvis that speaks of want. Her friend, dark-haired, pale-skinned, and sculpted from fantasy, I did not recall, but wished I did.

  “Come and play?” the friend murmured. She smelled money. Sometimes, though, reasons don’t matter.

  It’s hard to pass up an offer like that when you’re young and full of juice, but fourteen heads around a rock cairn were telling me to get a move on and I had taken what I needed here, almost.

  I left them and slipped through an exit to the rear of the tent. In a clearing to the left I could see Thomas swallowing a sword, watched by a scatter of circus urchins. He hardly needed the practice but that was Thomas, a crowd pleaser. An odd breed, the gypsies and the talent, needing to live in the torch ring, only alive in grease-paint. I swear, some of them would fade and die given a week without applause.

  Rumbles from the cages drew me. A stack of them on the east side of the camp where the wind would take some of the stink away. They still had the two bears I remembered, pacing their madness in tight circles, dull shaggy fur, the bronze nose-rings big enough to fit an arm. The huge turtle—Taproot claimed it to be two hundred years old—statue-still and as interesting as a big stone, not caged but tethered to a stake. The two-headed goat was a new addition, a sickly-looking thing, but then again it should have been a still-birth, so it was more healthy than anyone had a right to expect. Every now and then the heads would sight each other and startle as if surprised.