Pretender to the Crown, page 14
“To get food, of course. Did you relieve yourself yet? Kerish, help him into the woods. Mister Rafferty and I will get food ready.” By the way Kerish looked at her, she knew her ruse hadn’t worked. He knew perfectly well Felix was helping him and not the other way around. But he said nothing, just took Felix’s hand and disappeared behind some trees.
“You give a very good impression of a mother, for someone who’s never done it before,” Rafferty said.
“That’s insulting. Go gather wood for a fire, I want us to have a hot breakfast.”
Rafferty began picking up sticks from where they lay thickly on the ground. “You don’t still expect me to believe the two of you are married and that’s your son.”
“I don’t care what you believe.” Willow unearthed the cookpot—those rebels knew nothing about loading a wagon—and a bag of oats, then filled the pot with water. She could keep the lie going forever, but Kerish was bad at lying, and Felix might be self-possessed for an eight-year-old, but he was still just eight and the famous Hilarion had probably taught him lying was wrong. Eventually, they’d slip up, and who knew what Rafferty might do then?
“You don’t look at each other like married people,” Rafferty continued. “And that boy looks nothing like either of you.”
“We’re not sappy newlyweds, and Adam looks like my father.”
“You don’t look at each other like people who’ve been married for any length of time. And I’m never going to believe someone as dark as your ‘husband’ produced a child that fair-skinned.”
Willow put her fists on her hips. “Where exactly are you going with this, Mister Rafferty? Because you didn’t pay me enough to make my family life your business.”
“Call me Giles. I just don’t like secrets, that’s all. They make me nervous.”
“As if you don’t have enough secrets of your own.”
“Which is why other people’s secrets make me nervous.”
“I think my wife told you to stop prying,” Kerish said. “If we have secrets, they’re none of them a danger to you.” He came to stand at Willow’s right side, moving more confidently than he had yesterday and standing as if his wound didn’t pain him, though she was sure it did. He’s better at lying than I thought.
Rafferty kicked dry leaves out of the way and arranged wood for a fire. “Fair enough,” he said, but he had his eyes on Felix, and Willow didn’t like the calculation in them.
They ate silently, even Felix, who was normally more cheerful in the morning than either of his “parents.” Rafferty sat some distance from the three of them, ate quickly, then began cleaning up without being asked. That surprised Willow, but not enough to endear him to her. She wished she could hide Felix away where Rafferty couldn’t see him, and tried to convince herself she was being unnecessarily paranoid. Rafferty had never seen the Prince before the coup, wouldn’t recognize him even if he weren’t disguised, and had no reason to believe Felix Valant was even alive, but the man’s keen eye unsettled her. She handed him her plate with a challenging look, but he just grinned at her and cleaned it too.
Kerish really was moving more easily, she discovered. He needed no help getting into the wagon and settled himself against the sacks of supplies with no pained noises. “I don’t like you having to share the seat with him,” he murmured to her.
“Better than him sitting back here talking to Adam,” Willow said in the same low voice. “And you’re still not well.”
Kerish scowled. “Don’t keep reminding me,” he said.
“I wasn’t—oh, sweet heaven, do you have to be so stubborn all the time?” Willow jumped down from the wagon to hoist Felix up. “Why don’t you tell your papa a story? He’s in a bad mood and needs cheering up.”
Kerish glared at her. Felix said, “I don’t know any stories. I can talk about animals some more. Did you know there are ants in the jungles of southern Eskandel that can eat a whole boar in seven minutes? They just leave the skeleton.”
Willow shuddered. “Don’t you know any nice animals?”
“Most of those are boring. I like the ones that do things. Like the bull snake—”
“Yes, tell Mama more about the bull snake,” Kerish said.
“I have to drive the wagon now,” Willow said, and fled.
She listened with half her attention to Felix’s chatter as she drove through the increasing heat of the day. The rest of her attention was reserved for Rafferty, who hadn’t argued when she took Rosamund’s reins. Hadn’t said much of anything, which made her more nervous than if he’d tried to engage her in conversation. The birds had gone silent, and the dusty green leaves of the gnarled trees were perfectly still. It was like driving through a painting created by someone with a very limited palette of limp greens and faded browns. Willow took off her hat and fanned herself. This was going to be a very long trip.
“Any idea when we’ll cross into Eskandel?” Rafferty said.
“I would think you’d know the border better than me,” Willow said. “Living so far south, I mean.”
“We don’t usually travel the Malaren Forest, except when we have to hide for a bit. As far as I’m concerned, the border’s just an imaginary line on a map.”
“All borders are,” Kerish said. He was still irritable, and Willow wished she could slap him out of his bad mood.
“Fair enough,” Rafferty said amiably. “But what I meant was that neither Tremontane nor Eskandel cares much about the exact location of the border, not being at war and not having people living near it. And with how inhospitable the region is, maybe they’re not wrong about that.”
“All I know is when we come out of the forest, we’re in Eskandel,” Willow said. “And from there it’s about five days to Belenda.”
“Where you’ll abandon me,” Rafferty said.
“Where we’ll part ways.”
“Possibly. I mean to convince you to change those plans.”
“Don’t count on it,” Kerish said.
Rafferty grinned and leaned against the back of the wagon seat. “I’m very persuasive,” he said, and began to whistle even more tunelessly than Willow had sung.
Chapter Twelve
They came out of the forest just before sunset, leaving the way they’d entered it, with the trees thinning out gradually until the narrow road spooled out before them like a pale thread against a background of reddish dirt. Gray-green scrub dotted the landscape in all directions, with the occasional tree punctuating the deep blue of the sky that hung over them like a vast glass bowl, its perfection unmarked by clouds.
Their long, bizarre shadows pointed eastward across the arid plains, away from the distant Snow River, whose name seemed incredibly inappropriate just then. The border crossing in the Riverlands was probably more comfortable, less dry and hot and tedious. For one moment Willow thought I wish we’d crossed there before remembering that nothing about this trip had been planned, and what she really wished was that it wasn’t necessary at all.
“You want to look for a stand of trees,” Kerish said. “There’s a river—more like a stream—near this road, which is why it was built here. It doesn’t parallel the river exactly, but close enough that we should be able to find water when we need it. The trees grow where the river is widest.”
“Have you been this way before?” Willow asked.
“I’ve traveled in the wilds outside my—outside Belenda,” Kerish said with a quick glance at Rafferty. Willow thought that was strange—there was no reason to conceal Kerish’s identity, was there?—but if that’s how he wanted to do things, she wasn’t going to ruin his game. “There are settlements along this road, not cities, just kin-groups living together for mutual survival. They’re good at surviving in the desert, but even they need water. But they’re not very welcoming to strangers, so we can’t count on hospitality.”
“Should we be worried?” Rafferty said.
“I doubt we look like much of a threat. We’ll keep to the road and camp well away from them.”
Willow scanned the horizon. “I see a few trees over there,” she said, pointing to the southwest. “They don’t look like the others. Tall and straight instead of crooked.”
“Acacias,” Kerish said. “That should make for a good camp.”
They heard the sound of flowing water well before they saw the narrow, fast-moving stream that perfectly reflected the blue of the sky. The sound made Willow’s mouth go dry with thirst, even though she’d made sure everyone drank plenty of water during the heat of the day. Felix stood clutching the side of the wagon and craning to see. “May I bathe, Mama?” he said. “Rebecca needs a bath too.”
“I think a bath might ruin Rebecca,” Willow said, “but maybe you can splash around downstream of where we’re drinking.” She steered Rosamund under the trees and stretched out the stiffness in her muscles. Rafferty jumped down and offered her a hand, which she accepted after only a moment’s thought. She didn’t have to like him, but she also didn’t have to be rude. The smile he gave her, though, almost made her reconsider that policy. He was so sure of himself, so completely confident that he’d be able to win them over, as if it were just a matter of doing his share of the chores and being friendly. As if he weren’t essentially blackmailing them. She withdrew her hand with some force and he grinned more widely.
“We’re going to want a fire,” Kerish said. “It gets cold out here at night.” He climbed out of the wagon, grimaced, and headed off into the stand of trees to gather fallen branches.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much firewood out here,” Rafferty said. “Why don’t you supervise your boy, Mis—that is, Willow, tend to your ‘son’ and let us set up camp.”
“Thank you, Mister Rafferty,” Willow said, and followed Felix to the stream. She paid only enough attention to Felix to make sure he wouldn’t slip and fall in the rocky streambed, though the water wasn’t deep enough to really endanger him, and watched Rafferty. He and Kerish exchanged words whenever they passed one another in bringing their small armfuls of wood to the camp, but she was too far away to hear what they said. Nothing serious, by Kerish’s expression. If Rafferty had been needling him, he wouldn’t have looked so placid.
She grabbed Felix’s arm and steadied him on the slick stones, then went on watching, not Rafferty, but Kerish. He’d become much more serious in the years they’d been apart, was no longer the laughing, teasing, even flirtatious man she’d fallen in love with, and yet she was drawn to him every bit as much as she ever had been. Well, she’d changed, too, and maybe the woman she was now appreciated the man he’d become.
It didn’t matter. The fundamentals of what had come between them hadn’t changed. Eventually, he’d go back to serving an Ascendant, and she couldn’t bear that. It was a miracle they’d been able to ignore the problem for as long as they had. She went back to watching Felix and cursed her weakness. By the time he tired of playing in the stream, her eyes were dry and her nose wasn’t red anymore, and she could rejoin the others with no sign of her turmoil evident on her face.
Once again they ate in silence, all of them around the fire this time. Kerish had been right about the heat. When the sun set, the temperature dropped enough to be very comfortable after the day’s heat, and then dropped further to be chilly enough for Willow to look forward to the warmth of the quilt. “Should we keep watch through the night?” she said.
“Not this far north,” Kerish said. “Once we come closer to those settlements, we’ll want to be alert. There are always people who see travelers as fair game. But for right now, we can sleep safely. And speaking of sleeping safely, Adam’s asleep.”
“I’m awake,” a sleepy voice protested.
“Time for bed,” Willow said, and picked Felix up. He was heavy and limp in her arms, and when she set him down on the mattress in the back of the wagon, he hardly moved except to hug Rebecca more tightly. She covered him with the quilt, hesitated, then bent to kiss his forehead. “Good night,” she whispered.
“Good night, Mama,” he said, and curled up in sleep.
It left her breathless. He knew it wasn’t real, of course she wasn’t really his mother, but for a moment she forgot it wasn’t true. I’m leaving in a few days, she told herself, and walked back to where Kerish and Rafferty were sitting.
“I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing,” Kerish said. “Not all Ascendants are like that.”
“They may start out with the best of intentions,” Rafferty said, “but no one wields that kind of power without being corrupted eventually. I’d think you’d know that better than anyone, dowser.”
“Terence Valant’s coup had nothing to do with his magic and everything to do with feeling disrespected by his brother,” Kerish said. “Terence used his magic to make Tremontane better.”
“And failed to keep the other Ascendants in line.”
“He enforced the laws.”
“When it suited him.”
“I’ve seen Ascendants put on trial. That’s just not true.”
“And I’ve seen Ascendants burn towns to the ground just because they felt they weren’t getting enough respect,” Rafferty said. “Small comfort to those people if the Ascendants are punished afterward.”
“So what do you propose? Kill them all? Let heaven cast out the evil and welcome the good?”
“They need to learn they aren’t omnipotent, and they’re not above the law. If that means executions, then that’s what has to happen.”
“With you passing judgment, I suppose.”
Rafferty shrugged. “What say you, Willow?”
“I—what do you mean?”
Rafferty’s grin wasn’t at all pleasant now. “What do you think of my…occupation? Are you willing to defend the people your husband works for? Not much call for a dowser anywhere else.”
She hadn’t anticipated this line of questioning. “I…don’t like that Ascendants think they’re better than people without magic. And that so many of them believe they’re entitled to use their magic against others on a whim.” Kerish made an impatient noise. “It’s something Kerish and I…disagree on.”
“Still want to pretend you’re married? Well, I know if my wife and I had such a fundamental difference of opinion, we’d have a hard time staying married.” Rafferty laughed, a short, dry bark of a laugh.
“You’re married?” Willow said.
“Don’t sound so shocked. Yes, I’m married. I bid goodbye to Selina last night before joining you. We’re neither of us happy about my little trip, but she understands the necessity and I’ve left her well provided for.”
“And vulnerable to retribution by the law, if they connect you to her,” Kerish said.
“They won’t. And if they did, she can defend herself. She used to be military and now she’s in the city guard at Rannis. I miss her, but I’m not worried about her.”
“Even though your vigilante actions put her in danger?”
“I didn’t ask you to criticize my decisions, Kerish whatever-your-name-is.”
“Both of you stop puffing out your chests and go to bed,” Willow said. “Mister Rafferty—”
“Call me Giles.”
“Mister Rafferty, your business is your own, and I can’t say I don’t sympathize with you a little, but don’t expect us to agree with you just because we’re traveling the same way. Stop prying into our business and we’ll leave yours alone. Good night.”
She didn’t wait for Kerish, just strode straight to the wagon and climbed in. Felix had rolled all the way to one side of the mattress, and she knelt down to move him back to the middle.
“You’re hell-bent on keeping me at a distance, aren’t you,” Kerish said, climbing up behind her.
“What are you talking about?”
He pointed at Felix. “You don’t have to disturb him. It’s not like I’m going to assault you just because I’m sleeping next to you.”
“I’d rather not have any ambiguity about our situation, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine.” Kerish lowered himself onto the mattress, grimacing. “If that’s what you want.”
Willow finished arranging Felix and sat down on her side of the mattress. “It’s not about want.” Instantly she regretted her words. What kind of weapon had she just handed him?
“Then what is it about?” Kerish said.
“I don’t think this is a conversation we should have right now. Where anyone might hear.”
“Rafferty’s all the way on the other side of the fire and we’re both whispering. Are you saying you want things to be different?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I mean that you came to me for help, and I’m helping you, and I don’t even regret agreeing to it. I just don’t want you thinking there’s anything more to it than that.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. You just don’t need to make your point quite so clearly.”
Kerish settled in on Felix’s other side and turned his back to her. She sat, blinking back tears, for a few seconds, then lay down on her back and looked up through the trees. She knew the stars well, after years of running rooftops beneath them, but only a few were visible through the leaves that were a dark gray blending into the black of the night sky.
She lay there, and let silent tears leak down the sides of her face and into her ears. She did want everything to be different. She’d sounded so cold just now, so bitter, she’d hurt him, he’d hurt her in turn, and she didn’t know how to fix any of it short of sacrificing her principles. Not that it mattered, because he’d clearly moved on and wasn’t interested in reconciliation. And neither was she. She was such a good liar even she couldn’t tell if that were true or not. She wiped her eyes and settled in to sleep.
***
They broke camp early the next morning and traveled in silence for several miles. Willow hadn’t been able to face Kerish, guilt over her actions the previous night stopping her tongue. She kept her eyes fixed on a spot down the road between the tips of Rosamund’s ears and wished their journey was over already, and she could…what could she do? Going back to Aurilien was potential suicide. Maybe she could visit Ravensholm, in County Harroden, or travel farther north to Baronies Marandis or Steepridge.
