Prince of Thorns

3

“Two dead, two wrigglers.” Makin wore that big grin of his.

We’d have camped by the gibbet in any case, but Makin had ridden on ahead to check the ground. I thought the news that two of the four gibbet cages held live prisoners would cheer the brothers.

“Two,” Rike grumbled. He’d tired himself out, and a tired Little Rikey always sees a gibbet as half empty.

“Two!” the Nuban hollered down the line.

I could see some of the lads exchanging coin on their bets. The Lich Road is as boring as a Sunday sermon. It runs straight and level. So straight it gets so as you’d kill for a left turn or a right turn. So level you’d cheer a slope. And on every side, marsh, midges, midges and more marsh. On the Lich Road it didn’t get any better than two caged wrigglers on a gibbet.

Strange that I didn’t think to question what business a gibbet had standing out there in the middle of nowhere. I took it as a bounty. Somebody had left their prisoners to die, dangling in cages at the roadside. A strange spot to choose, but free entertainment for my little band nonetheless. The brothers were eager, so I nudged Gerrod into a trot. A good horse, Gerrod. He shook off his weariness and clattered along. There’s no road like the Lich Road for clattering along.

“Wrigglers!” Rike gave a shout and they were all racing to catch up.

I let Gerrod have his head. He wouldn’t let any horse get past him. Not on this road. Not with every yard of it paved, every flagstone fitting with the next so close a blade of grass couldn’t hope for the light. Not a stone turned, not a stone worn. Built on a bog, mind you!

I beat them to the wrigglers, of course. None of them could touch Gerrod. Certainly not with me on his back and them all half as heavy again. At the gibbet I turned to look back at them, strung out along the road. I yelled out, wild with the joy of it, loud enough to wake the head-cart. Gemt would be in there, bouncing around at the back.

Makin reached me first, even though he’d rode the distance twice before.

“Let the Baron’s men come,” I told him. “The Lich Road is as good as any bridge. Ten men could hold an army here. Them that wants to flank us can drown in the bog.”

Makin nodded, still hunting his breath.

“The ones who built this road… if they’d make me a castle-” Thunder in the east cut across my words.

“If the Road-men built castles, we’d never get in anywhere,” Makin said. “Be happy they’re gone.”

We watched the brothers come in. The sunset turned the marsh pools to orange fire, and I thought of Mabberton.

“A good day, Brother Makin,” I said.

“Indeed, Brother Jorg,” he said.

So, the brothers came and set to arguing over the wrigglers. I went and sat against the loot-cart to read while the light stayed with us and the rain held off. The day left me in mind to read Plutarch. I had him all to myself, sandwiched between leather covers. Some worthy monk spent a lifetime on that book. A lifetime hunched over it, brush in hand. Here the gold, for halo, sun, and scrollwork. Here a blue like poison, bluer than a noon sky. Tiny vermilion dots to make a bed of flowers. Probably went blind over it, that monk. Probably poured his life in here, from young lad to grey-head, prettying up old Plutarch’s words.

The thunder rolled, the wrigglers wriggled and howled, and I sat reading words that were older than old before the Road-men built their roads.

“You’re cowards! Women with your swords and axes!” One of the crow-feasts on the gibbet had a mouth on him.

“Not a man amongst you. All pederasts, trailing up here after that little boy.” He curled his words up at the end like a Merssy-man.

“There’s a fella over here got an opinion about you, Brother Jorg!” Makin called out.

A drop of rain hit my nose. I closed the cover on Plutarch. He’d waited a while to tell me about Sparta and Lycurgus, he could wait some more and not get wet doing it. The wriggler had more to say and I let him tell it to my back. On the road you’ve got to wrap a book well to keep the rain out. Ten turns of oilcloth, ten more turns the other way, then stash it under a cloak in a saddlebag. A good saddlebag mind, none of that junk from the Thurtans, good double-stitched leather from the Horse Coast.

The lads parted to let me up close. The gibbet stank worse than the head-cart, a crude thing of fresh-cut timber. Four cages hung there. Two held dead men. Very dead men. Legs dangling through the bars, raven-pecked to the bone. Flies thick about them, like a second skin, black and buzzing. The lads had taken a few pokes at one of the wrigglers, and he didn’t look too cheerful for it. In fact he looked as if he’d pegged it. Which was a waste, as we had a whole night ahead of us, and I’d have said as much, but for the wriggler with the mouth.

“So now the boy comes over! He’s finished looking for lewd pictures in his stolen book.” He sat crouched up in his cage, his feet all bleeding and raw. An old man, maybe forty, all black hair and grey beard and dark eyes glittering. “Take the pages to wipe your dung, boy,” he said fierce-like, grabbing the bars all of a sudden, making the cage swing. “It’s the only use you’ll get from it.”

“We could set a slow fire?” Rike said. Even Rike knew the old man just wanted us angry, so we’d finish him quick. “Like we did at the Turston gibbets.”

A few chuckles went up at that. Not from Makin though. He had a frown on under his dirt and soot, staring at the wriggler. I held up a hand to quiet them down.

“It’d be a shameful waste of such a fine book, Father Gomst,” I said.

Like Makin, I’d recognized Gomst through all that beard and hair. Without that accent though he’d have got roasted.

“Especially an ‘On Lycurgus’ written in high Latin, not that pidgin-Romano they teach in church.”

“You know me?” He asked it in a cracked voice, weepy all of a sudden.

“Of course I do.” I pushed both hands through my lovely locks, and set my hair back so he could see me proper in the gloom. I have the sharp dark looks of the Ancraths. “You’re Father Gomst, come to take me back to school.”

“Pr-prin…” He was blubbing now, unable to get his words out. Disgusting really. Made me feel as if I’d bitten something rotten.

“Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath, at your service.” I did my court bow.

“Wh-what became of Captain Bortha?” Father Gomst swung gently in his cage, all confused.

“Captain Bortha, sir!” Makin snapped a salute and stepped up. He had blood on him from the first wriggler.

We had us a deathly silence then. Even the chirp and whir of the marsh hushed down to a whisper. The brothers looked from me, back to the old priest, and back to me, mouths hanging open. Little Rikey couldn’t have looked more surprised if you’d asked him nine times six.

The rain chose that moment to fall, all at once as if the Lord Almighty had emptied his chamber pot over us. The gloom that had been gathering set thick as treacle.

“Prince Jorg!” Father Gomst had to shout over the rain. “The night! You’ve got to run!” He held the bars of his cage, white-knuckled, wide eyes unblinking in the downpour, staring into the darkness.

And through the night, through the rain, over the marsh where no man could walk, we saw them coming. We saw their lights. Pale lights such as the dead burn in deep pools where men aren’t meant to look. Lights that’d promise whatever a man could want, and would set you chasing them, hunting answers and finding only cold mud, deep and hungry.

I never liked Father Gomst. He’d been telling me what to do since I was six, most often with the back of his hand as the reason.

“Run, Prince Jorg! Run!” old Gomsty howled, sickeningly self-sacrificing.

So I stood my ground.

Brother Gains wasn’t the cook because he was good at cooking. He was just bad at everything else.