Waking beauty, p.35
Waking Beauty, page 35
All the heat building up in his body went straight to his ears. He disguised his flaming ears by raising his arms overhead and bringing down the vademecum sword against the briars. He cut halfway through a couple briars, and snapped a small dried vine the thickness of his thumb clean in two.
So the vademecum sword had decided to cooperate. Somewhat. When Arpien remembered to concentrate on the sword’s owner, the sword behaved like a well-mannered woodsman’s axe.
Brierly borrowed Arpien’s boot knife (the spare Strandish sword proved too heavy for her to handle with one arm) and made her own attempt at pruning hedges. Arpien reclaimed it before Brierly completely nicked and dulled the blade hacking at the thorns. Brierly settled for clearing away the cut vines.
About twenty minutes and as many feet into the thicket, Brierly drew his attention by tilting her head so those Fine Ears could pick up some noise his couldn’t.
“Him again?” he said.
Brierly nodded.
There was nowhere to run. The vines at the gates scabbed over the hole where Arpien and Brierly had entered the thicket. Arpien handed his boot knife back to her. He didn’t ask if she knew how to use it to defend herself. A lady who wielded other eating utensils so memorably could figure it out.
Arpien recoiled anew as the vines shifted to reveal the Thorn King. He limped to meet them at the gates. Most of his wounds had puckered closed, but one new and particularly ghastly thorn, as thick and hard-looking as a bull’s horn, jutted out from his right ankle. For all he might be an enemy, Arpien cringed for him with every step.
The Thorn King steadied himself against the open gates. He smiled. “Brierly, Arpien. You’ve come back.”
Had the lonely man missed them? Did this strange man stay here of his own volition or because Voracity had condemned him with some Curse? Was this new thorn an accident, an attack, or worse, self-inflicted?
Amid all his visceral reactions, the only thought Arpien could articulate was, “How do you know my name?”
“The same way I know hers.” The Thorn King nodded at Brierly.
Had Voracity told him? Had he overheard them talking to each other last time?
“The question is, do you yet know who I am?” The Thorn King’s voice reminded Arpien of a dozen yellowed papers rustling together.
“You’re—”
“You’re the gardener,” Brierly interrupted.
Arpien turned to her with eyebrow lifted, and she glanced back, as though she had surprised even herself.
“He looked different then. No thorns. But there was something in his expression just now—”
The Thorn King smiled again. “I see you remember something of me.”
“Not a lot. I remember that the rabbits were worried you’d be upset at them for nibbling on the ornamental cabbage. I remember my mother liked to help you prune the rose hedges.”
“Do you remember the gloves I gave you so you could help her one spring?”
Brierly tasted the words slowly. “I was six. I gave it up because I got scratched.”
The Thorn King laughed, and it was now the sound of the wings of old geese taking flight. “You gave it up because you got distracted talking to a caterpillar. And you didn’t like digging around in the dirt in case your spade disturbed an earthworm. You were a warm-hearted girl.”
“Earthworms complain too much.”
Her brow iced over, yet Arpien felt himself smiling.
“What?” she said to Arpien.
“I would have liked to meet you as a child.”
“Yes.” The Thorn King was looking at him now. “But it would have driven any adult who had charge of you to distraction, had the pair of you ever joined forces at that age. For both of you were bright children with a great sense of adventure and no sense of self-preservation.”
How would he know that?
“And this one,” the Thorn King glanced at Brierly and crossed his arms in mock severity, “should have been reined in for her mischief far more than she was. Only Gowsma could resist her Gift of Charm.”
“Just because I remember you doesn’t mean I trust you,” Brierly said. “Yes, people from my Pre-Sleep life appear in my dreams. This is the first time you’ve told me anything of yourself.”
“This is the first time you’ve asked.”
“You might be a misbehaving figment.” She glanced sidelong at Arpien, then back to the Thorn King. “And if you didn’t come out of my head, you’re some creature of Voracity’s. You can control her thorns, you live in her thorns, you wear her thorns.”
“I wear these thorns for one I love.”
Ugh. Was he in love with Voracity? Better love a wayward enchanted princess than a vindictive fairy.
“We need to get to that castle,” Arpien said. “I have no quarrel with you as long as you don’t try to stop us.”
“I’ll lead you there myself if that’s what you want. But if you want my help, you have to give me something.”
“A fine Strandish sword?”
They had no use for two swords. In all these weeks Brierly had revealed no talent for swordsmanship, though he wouldn’t put it past her once her shoulder healed.
The Thorn King’s eyes fell to Arpien’s hand. Arpien felt his grip tighten. “Your other sword is more valuable, but I have no interest in taking either off your hands.”
Arpien hoped the Thorn King asked for his money pouch, because there was nothing in it but wool. He wore it in plain sight at his waist because it was the fashion, in Rosaria, to wear ornamental money pouches on formal occasions. The plumpness of the pouch advertised your fortune. The geese or grain or family crest embroidered on the finger-sized pouch advertised the wearer’s family, region, or skill. Arpien’s had a sword with a red dot at the hilt.
Brierly, in typical fashion, refused to wear a money pouch at all.
So they had no money to offer the Thorn King. Not that he had to know that.
“What would you have of us?” Arpien said.
“Your thorns.”
Brierly shook her head. “We told you, we don’t have any—”
Arpien laid a hand on Brierly’s left arm. “We’ll give you all the thorns we have after you get us through this thicket. And out again.”
“You think to dupe a fool with clever words, Arpien Trouvel. But hear me truly. Carry out your promise, or I won’t be able to give you the help you most desperately need.”
He turned, and the briars parted like a curtain before him.
Arpien and Brierly glanced at each other, then followed.
If Arpien hadn’t known that the briars had scared away the animals in Estepel, he would have sworn he saw a turtle pass them through the underbrush. It hardly seemed chivalrous to hurry the Thorn King along when the man had such a pronounced limp. Yet Arpien wondered if the solitary man was dragging the journey out on purpose, because he enjoyed his captive audience. As the Thorn King hobbled along, he told stories. “Did you ever hear the story about the Prince and the Whale?”
Well, if humoring him helped them reach the castle …
When the Thorn King finished one story, he launched into another. Midway through his third story, he paused to rub his ankle. “Do you mind if we sit for a minute?”
That terrible thorn must pain him. What could it hurt to let the poor man rest for a few minutes?
A few minutes stretched into twenty, then thirty. Arpien found himself leaning in to catch every word. The rasp gave his voice a texture and depth, by turns gritty and gentle. He used it to good effect, coloring phrases without ever making a production of it. The Thorn King would never be a success in Conquisan, but his conversational style suited this intimate setting: just three people huddled in a cozy bramble, trading stories.
Well, two people trading stories and a third there under duress. Around the fourth tale Brierly purloined the vademecum sword and attempted to hack her own way through the briars. She couldn’t even dent them, certainly not with one arm. Arpien was so engaged in the stories that he didn’t notice Brierly’s struggles until she glowered over him, a heaving, scratched-up tower of green dress and sweaty hair.
“Oh, sweet prince …” she said in a sing-song voice that told him he was in trouble.
Arpien batted her wrist down—she was leaning over him with sword in hand, and Arpien was in danger of a shave. “Brierly, come listen to this.”
“Arpien, there’re just the same old tales.”
“When he tells them, they’re new.”
“How?”
Arpien couldn’t say. They were to the point, most no longer than a few minutes. Arpien’s own vocabulary was far more extensive, yet somehow less effective. The stories used commonplace imagery yet painted vivid pictures in Arpien’s mind. Vivid, yet tantalizingly out of reach. It was like looking at a painting but only being able to see half the colors. Yet the more stories Arpien listened to, the more colors he was able to see.
“Arpien.” Brierly shook his shoulder. From the way she said his name, he guessed it must have been the third or fourth time she’d tried to get his attention.
Arpien tugged at her wrist. “Brierly, come sit down. You’ve got to hear these stories.”
Brierly resisted his pull. “I doubt that’s healthy.”
“Healthy?”
“Have you forgotten what we’re here for? All you do is sit there like you’re under a spell.”
Her concern for him did more to startle him out of his mood of contentment than anything else could have. Arpien stood. His legs stung from the pins and needles of sitting too long on the hard ground. “You’re right.”
Arpien pointed the vademecum sword at the Thorn King’s nose. “What spell are you casting? You said you’d lead us to the castle.”
The Thorn King pushed himself to his feet. He wobbled so much on the pierced foot that Arpien put out a hand to brace him without thinking. The Thorn King grasped his hand. His feet might be unsteady but his handclasp was firmer than Arpien expected. He would have expected it to disgust him, too, for all the scabbed-over wounds. It just felt warm and rough.
The Thorn King clasped him lightly on the shoulder. “Thank you, son.” He turned and limped forward.
No one, not his brothers or tutors or the Conquisani armsmaster, had ever called him son. Not even his father.
The word landed on Arpien and sank into his skin. Arpien felt the imprint of the Thorn King’s hand on his shoulder all the way to the castle door.
“I will wait here until you are ready to pass back through the briars. Remember your promise to me. Bring me your thorns.” The Thorn King looked first at one, then the other. “Be careful.”
“Yes. Er … thank you.” Arpien’s body started to bend out of habit. Which Conquisani bow would be appropriate? He tried to remember the one for Flower-Arrangers, Foresters, and Other Professions Having to Do With Plants. It started with the right hand spiraling upward, and then—
Brierly laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t let him fool you.”
Arpien’s spine snapped straight as a maypole. He wasn’t naïve. In Conquisan you bowed to friend and foe alike. Indeed, some of the most fun bows were reserved for enemies. The Thorn King might just be helping them so they could bring Voracity the spindle. But why would a servant of Voracity tell stories about the Prince?
Maybe Arpien’s confusion really was the result of a spell.
At least now that they’d crossed the threshold into the atrium, the Thorn King remained outside, uninvited. He couldn’t get in now unless Brierly asked him, and she seemed more than disinclined.
Arpien had not sheathed the vademecum sword since they arrived at Estepel. “So where do we start looking?” he asked.
The sword had no opinion, but Brierly did. “The most secure place in Estepel is the vault. If my parents wanted to ensure that no one stole the spindle, that would be the place.”
“What secures it?”
“Father always stationed two guards there, but they’ll be long gone.”
“Human guards?” This was Sentre Forest.
Brierly tapped the side of her cheek. “Well, there is Snowball, too.”
“Snowball?”
“Our fire-breathing dragon.”
Arpien swallowed.
He caught a grin on her face, a small one, but the first softening of her features since they reached Estepel.
“Liar,” he said.
She dropped the grin and blinked innocent eyes. “Every dragon needs a hoard, and every hoard needs a dragon. This way.”
She led him through the castle to a long winding down staircase. Estepel had towers both above and below ground. Within fifteen steps they lost daylight, which forced them to come back up for flint and steel. They found some in the kitchens, and Arpien lit a torch from the staircase wall. Brierly carried it downstairs, so Arpien could walk in front, sword at the ready. His feet force-marched his shadow further and further down the stairwell.
“If there is a dragon, that will be your assignment, since you’re the one with the fairy Gift,” he said.
“Oh, Snowball’s as tame as an oyster. He’s only fricasseed a couple of people.”
She was teasing.
She was.
But the only barrier between them and the vault was a series of nine iron locks. “Where are the keys?” Arpien said.
“Does it matter?” Brierly extracted one of the last five spiky hairpins remaining in her unraveling ball coiffure and picked the locks, one by one.
Handy with Needles again.
The hinges had rusted shut. Arpien handed the sword to Brierly, took several steps back, and hurled himself at the door. It opened with the groan of architectural indigestion that only ancient buildings can produce. Arpien whisked the sword away from Brierly and brought it to the ready.
He counted a dozen heartbeats. “Still no dragon.”
Brierly poked him from behind. Arpien yelped, whirled, and landed some three paces away.
He lowered the sword. “That wasn’t funny. I might have sliced your head off.”
“It was a little funny.” Her mood had certainly improved since they shed the Thorn King at the castle door.
No self-respecting dragon would have chosen this as a hoard, anyway. There was little gold, silver, or jewelry. The few coins in the room were scattered on a high shelf, as though someone short had missed them when he swept stacks of coins into bags and carried them away. As there was no sign of forced entry, Arpien could only guess that the Montaines had taken the nation’s wealth with them when they moved the capital to Boxleyn.
What there was, was plenty of rough-hewn wooden shelving, cobwebs, and scrolls. Arpien’s heart leapt at the sight of the scrolls. One of them might contain information about where to find the Prince. As expected, Brierly drifted right past the scrolls. She still insisted that she couldn’t read in a dream. Arpien started to call her back with the light, but his words disintegrated when he saw what the torchlight illuminated further in.
Relics of the old tales.
A row of worn-out dancing slippers. A translucent brown and yellow marbled tortoise shell hair comb, labeled POISONOUS. DO NOT TOUCH. Seven mirrors of various sizes and shapes. One of them spouted half a sonnet before falling back asleep. When Arpien found that out, he tapped the surface of each mirror in the room. Some reflected landscapes, some faces. One sang.
Brierly raised a finger. “You’ll want to leave that one asleep. It only speaks in dirty limericks.”
He withdrew his finger and picked up a ring. Inset was a round, opaque, green stone.
“Brierly, what’s this one?”
“The pea that kept the princess awake, even when it was buried under twenty-seven mattresses.”
Now that Brierly had moved closer with the light, Arpien could see the wrinkles where the pea had shriveled over the years.
“So that’s why someone took the rest of the jewelry but not this piece.”
“Yes, that and it causes bruising. But keep it. We might get hungry.”
“I am not going to eat evidence for the old tales.” For that must be the other reason these treasures were left behind. They had no value outside the old tales, and too much if you wanted to squelch them.
“Good thing you’re so fond of grandmother pickles, then.”
Brierly hitched up her muddy skirts above the ankles—she had lovely ankles—and put her own feet beside the row of dancing slippers, as though checking for size. It was hard to tell whose slippers were in worse condition.
“Wait ‘til we tell Nissa about this place,” said Arpien.
It was a stupid thing to say, but regret doesn’t unsay things.
“Yes, well, we’d better find the spindle then.” Brierly dropped her skirts and moved further into the vault.
“Brierly, maybe it’s best that the spindle stay lost.”
“It’s the only way to bring Nissa back.”
“If it means risking you or empowering Voracity, would Nissa want to be brought back? Even supposing Voracity means to carry out her promise, which I doubt.”
“Then I’ll use the spindle to avenge her.”
“The spindle’s poison to you.”
“It might have been one hundred years ago. I’ve had one hundred years of battle experience since then. And we have no other choice.”
“What about the Pr—”
She held up a hand. “He doesn’t exist.”
“You can stand here in this room and say that? Brierly, this is the best repository of Prince artifacts I’ve ever seen.”
“Then I dreamed them up.”
“You’ve been in the vault before, or you wouldn’t know so much. Tell me you didn’t come here as a child.”
“Arpien, please. Let’s not argue. You go look for your Prince of Here and There if that’s what makes you happy. Leave me alone to fight Voracity my own way.”
