Prince of Thorns

The first of them came up over the sucking pool, and onto the Lichway. He had a glow about him like moonlight, something that you knew would never warm you. You could see his body limned in the light, with the rain racing through him and bouncing on the road.

Nobody stood with me. The Nuban ran, eyes wide in a dark face. Fat Burlow looking as if the blood was let from him. Rike screaming like a child. Even Makin, with a horror on him.

I held my arms wide to the rain. I could feel it beat on me. I didn’t have so many years under my belt, but even to me the rain fell like memory. It woke wild nights in me when I stood on the Keep Tower, on the edge above a high fall, near drowned in the deluge and daring the lightning to touch me.

“Our Father who art in heaven. Father who art . . .” Gomst started to gabble when the lich came close. It burned with a cold fire and you could feel it licking at your bones.

I kept my arms wide and my face to the rain.

“My father isn’t in heaven, Gomsty,” I said. “He’s in his castle, counting out his men.”

The dead thing closed on me, and I looked in its eyes. Hollow they were.

“What have you got?” I said.

And it showed me.

And I showed it.

There’s a reason I’m going to win this war. Everyone alive has been fighting a battle that grew old before they were born. I cut my teeth on the wooden soldiers in my father’s war-room. There’s a reason I’m going to win where they failed. It’s because I understand the game.

“Hell,” the dead man said. “I’ve got hell.”

And he flowed into me, cold as dying, edged like a razor.

I felt my mouth curl in a smile. I heard my laughing over the rain.

A knife is a scary thing right enough, held to your throat, sharp and cool. The fire too, and the rack. And an old ghost on the Lichway. All of them might give you pause. Until you realize what they are. They’re just ways to lose the game. You lose the game, and what have you lost? You’ve lost the game.

That’s the secret, and it amazes me that it’s mine and mine alone. I saw the game for what it was the night when Count Renar’s men caught our carriage. There was a storm that night too, I remember the din of rain on the carriage roof and the thunder beneath it.

Big Jan had fair hauled the door off its hinges to get us out. He only had time for me though. He threw me clear; into a briar patch so thick that the Count’s men persuaded themselves I’d run into the night. They didn’t want to search it. But I hadn’t run. I’d hung there in the thorns, and I saw them kill Big Jan. I saw it in the frozen moments the lightning gave me.

I saw what they did to Mother, and how long it took. They broke little William’s head against a milestone. Golden curls and blood. And I’ll admit that William was the first of my brothers, and he did have his hooks in me, with his chubby hands and laughing. Since then I’ve taken on many a brother, and evil ones at that, so I’d not miss one or three. But at the time, it did hurt to see little William broken like that, like a toy. Like something worthless.

When they killed him, Mother wouldn’t hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I’ve learned to appreciate thorns since.

The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who’ve fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all.

“What have you got for me, dead thing?” I asked.

It’s a game. I will play my pieces.

I felt him cold inside me. I saw his death. I saw his despair. And his hunger. And I gave it back. I’d expected more, but he was only dead.

I showed him the empty time where my memory won’t go. I let him look there.

He ran from me then. He ran, and I chased him. But only to the edge of the marsh. Because it’s a game. And I’m going to win.





5


Four years earlier




For the longest time I studied revenge to the exclusion of all else. I built my first torture chamber in the dark vaults of imagination. Lying on bloody sheets in the Healing Hall I discovered doors within my mind that I’d not found before, doors that even a child of nine knows should not be opened. Doors that never close again.

I threw them wide.

Sir Reilly found me, hanging within the hook-briar, not ten yards from the smoking ruin of the carriage. They almost missed me. I saw them reach the bodies on the road. I watched them through the briar, silver glimpses of Sir Reilly’s armour, and flashes of red from the tabards of Ancrath foot soldiers.

Mother was easy to find, in her silks.

“Sweet Jesu! It’s the Queen!” Sir Reilly had them turn her over. “Gently! Show some respect—” He broke off with a gasp. The Count’s men hadn’t left her pretty.

“Sir! Big Jan’s over here, Grem and Jassar too.” I saw them heave Jan over, then turn to the other guardsmen.