King of Thorns. Mark Lawrence

found the patrol waiting, stamping in the cold. A few castle women fussed around the wounded, planting a stitch or two. I let the commander tell his tale to Coddin while I called Red Kent to my side. Rike loomed behind him uninvited. Four castle years had softened none of Rike’s edges, still close on seven foot of ugly temper with a face to match the blunt, mean, and brutal soul that looked out from it.

      ‘Little Rikey,’ I said. It had been a while since I’d spoken to the man. Years. ‘And how’s that lovely wife of yours?’ In truth I’d never seen her but she must have been a formidable woman.

      ‘She broke.’ He shrugged.

      I turned away without comment. There’s something about Rike makes me want to go on the attack. Something elemental, red in tooth and claw. Or perhaps it’s just because he’s so damn big. ‘So, Kent,’ I said. ‘Tell me the good news.’

      ‘There’s too many of them.’ He spat into the mud. ‘I’m leaving.’

      ‘Well now.’ I threw an arm around him. Kent don’t look much but he’s solid, all muscle and bone, quick as you like too. What makes him though, what sets him apart, is a killer’s mind. Chaos, threat, bloody murder, none of that fazes him. Every moment of a crisis he’ll be considering the angles, tracking weapons, looking for the opening, taking it.

      ‘Well now,’ I pulled him close, hand clapped to the back of his neck. He flinched, but to his credit he didn’t reach for a blade. ‘That’s all well and good.’ I steered him away from the patrol. ‘But suppose that wasn’t going to happen. Just for the sake of argument. Suppose it was only you here and twenty of them out there. That’s not so far from the odds you’d beaten when we found you on that lakeside down in Rutton, neh?’ For a moment he smiled at that. ‘How would you win then, Red Kent?’ I called him Red to remind him of that day when he stood all a tremble with his wolf’s grin white in the scarlet of other men’s blood.

      He bit his lip, staring past me into some other place. ‘They’re crowded in, Jorg. In those valleys. Crowded. One man against many, he’s got to be fast, attacking, moving. Each man is your shield from the next.’ He shook his head, seeing me again. ‘But you can’t use an army like one man.’

      Red Kent had a point. Coddin had trained the army well, the units of Father’s Forest Watch especially so, but in battle cohesion always slips away. Orders are lost, missed, go unheard or ignored, and sooner or later it’s a bloody maul, each man for himself, and the numbers start to tell.

      ‘Highness?’ It was the woman from the royal wardrobe, some kind of robe in her hands.

      ‘Mabel!’ I threw my arms wide and gave her my dangerous smile.

      ‘Maud, sire.’

      I had to admit the old biddy had some stones. ‘Maud it is,’ I said. ‘And I’m to be wed in this am I?’

      ‘If it pleases you, sire.’ She even curtseyed a bit.

      I took it from her. Heavy. ‘Cats?’ I asked. ‘Looks like it took a lot of them.’

      ‘Sable.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Sable and gold thread. Count—’ She bit the words off.

      ‘Count Renar married in it, did he?’ I asked. ‘Well if it was good enough for that bastard it’ll do for me. At least it looks warm.’ My uncle Renar owed me for the thorns, for a lost mother, a lost brother. I’d taken his life, his castle, and his crown, and still he owed me. A fur robe would not close our account.

      ‘Best be quick about it, Highness,’ Coddin said, eyes still roaming for assassins. ‘We’ve got to double-check the defences. Plan out supply for the Kennish archers, and also consider terms.’ To his credit he looked straight at me for that last bit.

      I gave Maud back the robe and let her dress me with the patrol watching on. I made no reply to Coddin. He looked pale. I had always liked him, from the moment he tried to arrest me, even past the moment he dared to mention surrender. Brave, sensible, capable, honest. The better man. ‘Let’s get this done,’ I said and started toward the chapel.

      ‘Is it needed, this marriage?’ Coddin again, doggedly playing the role I set him. Speak to me, I had said. Never think I cannot be wrong. ‘As your wife things may go hard for her.’ Rike sniggered at that. ‘As a guest she would be ransomed back to the Horse Coast.’

      Sensible, honest. I don’t even know how to pretend those things. ‘It is needed.’

      We came to the chapel by a winding stair, past table-knights in plate armour, Count Renar’s marks still visible beneath mine on the breastplates as if I’d ruled here four months rather than four years. The noble-born too poor or stupid or loyal to have run yet would be lined up within. In the courtyard outside the peasantry waited. I could smell them.

      I paused before the doors, lifting a finger to stop the knight with his hands upon the bar. ‘Terms?’

      I saw the child again, beneath crossed standards hanging on the wall. He’d grown with me. Years back he had been a baby, watching me with dead eyes. He looked about four now. I tapped my fingers against my forehead in a rapid tempo.

      ‘Terms?’ I said it again. I’d only said it twice but already the word sounded strange, losing meaning as they do when repeated over and again. I thought of the copper box in my room. It made me sweat. ‘There will be no terms.’

      ‘Best have Father Gomst say his words swiftly then,’ Coddin said. ‘And look to our defences.’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘There will be no defence. We’re going to attack.’

      I pushed the knight aside and threw the doors wide. Bodies crowded the chapel hall from one side to the other. It seemed my nobles were poorer than I’d thought. And to the left, a splash of blues and violet, ladies-in-waiting and knights in armour, decked in the colours of the House Morrow, the colours of the Horse Coast.

      And there at the altar, head bowed beneath a garland of lilies, my bride.

      ‘Oh hell,’ I said.

      Small was right. She looked about twelve.

       In peace Brother Kent reverts to type, a peasant plagued by kindness, seeking God in the stone houses where the pious lament. Battle strikes loose such chains.

       In war Red Kent approaches the divine.

      3

      Wedding Day

      Marriage was ever the glue that held the Hundred in some semblance of unity, the balm to induce scattered moments of peace, pauses in the crimson progress of the Hundred War. And this one had been hanging over me for close on four years.

      I walked along the chapel aisle between the high and mighty of Renar, none of them so high or so mighty, truth be told. I’ve checked the records and half of them have goat-herders for grandparents. It surprised me that they had stayed. If I were them I would have acted on Red Kent’s sentiment and been off across the Matteracks with whatever I could carry on my back.

      Miana watched me, as fresh and perky as the lilies on her head. If the ruined left side of my face scared her she didn’t show it. The need to trace the scarred ridges on my cheek itched in my fingertips. For an instant the heat of that fire ran in me, and the memory of pain tightened my jaw.

      I joined my bride-to-be at the altar and looked back. And in a moment of clarity I understood. These people expected me to save them. They still thought that with my handful of soldiers I could hold this castle and win the day. I had half a mind to tell them, to just say what any who knew me knew. There is something brittle in me that will break before it bends. Perhaps if the Prince of Arrow had brought a smaller army I might have had the sense to run. But he overdid it.

      Four musicians in full livery raised their bladder-pipes and sounded the fanfare.

      ‘Best use the short version,