Chapter Sixteen Ghosts in the Yard
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GHOSTS IN THE YARD
The gargoyle dragged me out of the Seacht’s canal, thwapped me three times on the back until I’d stopped coughing, perked his ears to the knell of incoming voices, and fled.
“Bartholomew!” I crawled to my feet. Stumbled after him. “Wait.”
“And spoil my grand entrance?” he called back. “I think not.” He disappeared down an alley, giggling to himself. “And just as mysteriously as he was gone, he arrived!”
I made it no farther than the bridge when the knights came.
Tory and Samuel and Hamelin rushed forward, turning between me, sopping wet, and Benji.
The king was still on the ground, barely conscious—and still a lie was already budding on his tongue.
“Water sprites,” he managed, crown askew.
“They overcame us. Dedrick.” He pointed at the edge of the bridge with a trembling finger.
“Just there. They dragged him in. The queen tried—”
But then his gaze fell to the cobblestones, and the king lost his words.
There, in a pool of ink, sat the shattered remnants of the Harried Scribe’s inkwell.
Benji stared at it, like he was seeing but incapable of believing.
Slowly, his blue eyes rose to my face, and I was certain he would call out and condemn me for its destruction.
But the spectacle went on.
“The queen tried to save him,” Benji said shakily, “but the current was too strong.”
“Dead?” Otto Lange came forth with a fleet of scribes, pushing through the knights. His mustache was quivering, his eyes wide and glassy.
Benji showed him his clean, empty palms. “I’m afraid so.”
Otto’s breath went out. He turned to his scribes. “Signal the east canal to drop their nets. Drag the river for him. Butcher every water sprite you catch.”
He turned to me. “What is the point of a Diviner who does nothing to change the future?” Then he shoved knights aside, following the scribes down the cobbled street.
More knights came, Rory ahead of them. When his pale eyes found me on the bridge, wet and shaking, his chest heaved.
He took a step forward, then, remembering himself, stopped short.
He rooted his hand against an alley wall, shoulders rigid, the muscles in his face tightening, and huffed out quick, hot breaths.
“Would you look at that,” Hamelin called. “The man with no memory knows exactly how to find his way through the Seacht.”
“Following your tromping steps was easy enough,” Rory bit back.
Samuel was wringing his hands. “The spear hitting the Diviner, then the earthquakes, and now this?” He clicked his tongue. “Very bad portents, my king. Very bad portents indeed.”
Benji’s mouth tightened. “Tory. Escort the Diviner to her carriage. Samuel and Hamelin—rally the knights.” He turned to Rory.
“Get on your horse, knave. They’ll be wanting to see my champion in the Peaks.
” He’d shoved through his knights, practically running, as if the phantom of Dedrick Lange might rise from the water and chase him.
Bridges were broken, windows shattered. Cracks ran through the cobblestone streets like veins, and many of the brick-and-mortar factories had lost smokestacks, walls—or had been entirely reduced to rubble.
The earthquake had put its teeth in the Seacht and bitten down hard.
There was flooding in the streets, the Tenor full of uncharacteristic zeal.
It took the king’s caravan and my bulky carriage a full two hours to find safe streets among the rubble.
Gods, it would take years—and a great deal of money—to repair such catastrophic damage.
Benji rode beside my carriage, back straight, eyes forward, as if devastation belonged in one place: behind him. We fled into the night, headed northeast, the next leg of the tournament awaiting us in the cold, stoic mountains—the Fervent Peaks.
When the Seacht was but a yellow light on the distant horizon, it began to rain, then pour, then hail. Robust as the king’s caravan was, neither its knights nor its horses were immune to the weather. The caravan conceded by midnight.
We stopped at an outpost tucked between moors, the way rocky and crude.
It had no more than a dozen rooms, and the knights slept in hallways, burlap sacks strewn about as makeshift pillows.
I was given my own room the size of a broom closet, and I stood at its door for a full hour, wondering if I should break it down and find Rory.
Drag him somewhere far away and leave Traum to its spectacles and earthquakes.
No.
There were three more stone objects left to destroy. A boy-king to put down. Visions yet to unravel—and a final thing after that. I couldn’t leave.
Besides. I didn’t want to miss Bartholomew’s grand entrance.
It was the first night in a long while that I did not fall asleep with ox-eye on my tongue. When I woke, dawn announced itself with a series of clashes. Not a storm, but the uproar of blades.
I rushed to my feeble window. From it, I could make out armored shapes, moving in a circle, near the stables.
Knights, sparring in light rain. It was Benji, he and Hamelin and Samuel making a show for the other knights.
I stripped off my clothes. Bathed with a bucket of cold water and a soapstone and looked down at my abdomen.
My wound had stopped bleeding, the gash that wept pieces of limestone and never seemed to close knit tightly, leaving little more than a scar above my pelvis. The pain was still there, rattling my walls like a haunting specter, but it did not take me over entirely.
Not since I’d tasted the spring water in Rory’s blood.
A plain wool tunic was in the corner of the room. I threw it on. Took the hammer Rory had given me, ripped open the door—
And tumbled over Tory, who lay like a log on my threshold.
She swore. Rose to her feet. Put her hand on the hilt of her blade. “For fuck’s sake, Diviner.”
I slammed the door behind me. “What’s happening in the yard?”
“The king is sparring.” Tory raised her brows. “What are you wearing?”
I glanced down at my tunic and shrugged. “A sack.”
“Unbecoming for a Diviner, don’t you think?”
“You prefer me in white? A pale, perfect sacrifice?”
“Isn’t that what a Diviner is?”
I was taller than Tory. It was easy in so many ways to look down on her. Easy for her to hit me below the belt, too.
Tory’s smile was thin. “At least you’re well enough to be unbearable again. You had us worried for a moment.” She jerked her head toward the corridor. “We can glimpse the sparring on our way to the carriage. We’re due in the Peaks by nightfall.”
Outside, the wind threw my hair back—and rain weighed it down—and both put a chill in me. We entered the muddy yard, where the king sparred with Samuel, both wielding blunted swords.
I looked for Rory’s dark armor, but he wasn’t there. The rest of the knights were—along with a few folk in travel clothes, sojourners who trailed behind the knighthood to witness the tournament.
Benji, it seemed, had a mind to start the tournament now. He was swinging wildly at Samuel, racing and rushing and hitting with impressive strength. Meanwhile, Samuel, who moved with comical slowness, took nearly all the blows, capitulating to the king.
Tory and I joined the knights near Hamelin. “Did you let him beat you as well?” I asked.
“He’s had some bad news,” Hamelin answered. “Not to mention the loom stone and inkwell, destroyed. Dedrick, dead. The king needs an outlet.”
Like a child, grasping for control. “What bad news?”
“The knights and castle guards protecting the tor were overrun. The sprites dug up Aisling’s spring last night.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll be dealt with easily enough when the tournament’s over.
The real challenge waits ahead. Feats of strength,” Hamelin said.
“Me, my oar, against every strong man in the Fervent Peaks.” He looked down at the hammer in my hand and wiggled his eyebrows.
“You like to play at strength—you’ll be competing, too, I imagine.
Or will you wait in the sidelines, offering me a token from your robe like you did the knave? ”
He leaned closer, Rory’s three gold bands fastened with twine around Hamelin’s left gauntlet like a trophy. I kept my gaze on the yard, knuckles white against the neck of my hammer, imagining myself shattering the oar—and Hamelin Fischer’s hand along with it.
Benji noted the swelling crowd of onlookers and tried to puff himself up—to strike with even more zeal. He leveled an impressive hit to Samuel’s breastplate, and the knight faltered. Fell onto mud.
The knights cheered.
“Enough sparring, my king,” Hamelin called. “We should be on our way. My mother awaits us, along with the other nobles of the Peak.”
Benji stalled, wrist going limp, sword drooping. He took a few trudging steps through mud—
“What are nobles to a king?”
Rory was standing in the crowd, armor on, helmet off, his visage darker than the storm above.
“You’re gifted with a sword, King Castor.
” Just as it had been when he bowed before the king in the Seacht, Rory kept his voice hammered flat.
“It’s a shame your knights don’t allow you to flex your capabilities. ”
“Asshole,” Hamelin muttered. “A king is answerable to those who crown him. Put your helmet on and shut up, knave.”
Rory’s eyes, pallid and terrifying, turned to Hamelin. “And a champion is answerable to none”—his gaze flickered to me—“save himself and those he chooses to serve. Surely a king bears the same rights as a no one like me.”
Benji turned, one foot in the mud and the other under the sheltered overhang with his knights. But then—his blood was up, his assurance in himself bloated. He tromped back into the yard. “All right, then. Pick up that sparring sword, knave.”
Rory came forward like he always did: in a straight, menacing line. He bent. Gave the king an embellished bow. Picked up the sword.
And slammed it against Benji’s breastplate so violently the resounding clang made the entire yard jump. “Just checking you were awake, sire.” Rory squared his stance. “Your move.”
Benji struck out.
They might have been two bodies in armor, but there were ghosts in the yard.
The man and the boy that had once been friends.
I could see it in the way they fought. Benji put all his power into choppy, sudden swings of his dull sparring sword, always trying to outdo those who’d childminded him. And Rory—
His movements did not say anything quite that loud; his ghosts were harder to mark, but they were there.
Looking at him now… I must have been out of my mind from ox-eye not to have recognized him before the melee.
I could read the atlas of his back like I’d drawn it myself.
He was tense. Warring with something, but not unbridled.
He was holding himself back.
Benji faltered a step, which cost him instantaneously—Rory’s elbow crashed into his shoulder. The king stumbled. Dropped his sword. “Hand to hand,” he blurted, hot in the face. “A proper contest of strength.” He reached for the straps of his armor. “No gauntlets, obviously.”
A low laugh sounded in Rory’s throat. “Obviously.”
Benji’s lips went tight. He bent his knees, balled his fists, took a step forward—
Rory cracked him over the mouth with the back of his hand.
Gasps filled the yard. The knights exchanged glances, and Hamelin took a step forward.
Benji put a hand to his mouth, eyes widening in surprise.
Hamelin’s fist was around the hilt of his sword. “That’s enough. Both of you. We’re needed in the Peaks.”
“Shut up, Hamelin,” Benji called, blood spraying from his lip.
Again, the king balled his fist with zeal, like he was holding all his worth in the cage of his fingers, and swung it.
And Rory, who kept his fingers light, rootless despite the weight of his armor, was like water.
Fast, unencumbered, he dodged the king’s blows and they moved through the mud, caught in a brutal dance that ended abruptly when the serpent of Rory’s fist struck out, catching the king once more in the face.
This time, Benji didn’t stumble. He fell like I’d once seen him fall from a horse—onto his back, into dirt. Mortification stole into his cheeks, the color a brilliant crimson against our gray, stormy surroundings.
Rory stood over him, his shadow smothering what little remained of the sheen upon the king’s armor.
“That’s the spirit, Your Majesty.” He offered his hand.
Hauled Benji to his feet and looked him in the eye, his voice scraping out of him.
“Keep it up and you might just win one of these tourney events.”
“I did win, you idiot.” The king’s ears, cheeks, eyes, had gone red. “The joust was mine by default.”
“Is that how I taught you to win?” called a fearsome voice upon the wind. “By default?”
We all turned at once. There, between the stables, where the road opened up to windswept moors, stood two figures.
One was armor-clad, tall and broad. She had short dark hair with silver and gold rings knotted in it and charcoal around her eyes. In her hand was a sword; on her back, an axe; and over her breastplate—
The golden sash Regius Ormsby had commissioned for the winner of the joust.
Maude Bauer.
Next to her, chest puffed like he was the greatest weapon of all, was a gargoyle in a pink robe.
Grand entrance indeed.
They moved into the yard, passing sojourners and knights, and stood before Rory and the king. Maude widened her stance. Narrowed her eyes. Gods, she was terrifying. “Hello, Benedict.”
I smiled so widely my cheeks ached.
The corners of Rory’s mouth twitched.
The gargoyle’s fingers trilled.
“What the hell is that?” Hamelin snapped, nodding at the heralding sash over Maude’s breastplate.
“Ask him,” Maude said, eyes still on Benji.
Mouth open, arms limp, the king did nothing but stare.
He’d been caught off guard so fiercely it did not matter that he had the Artful Brigand’s coin or the knights at his disposal.
The name Maude Bauer meant something in the Stonewater Kingdom, and it was as strong as a blade, as stone—as transportive and destructive as magic.
“She’s my champion,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Then, finally remembering the pretense—she’d been his dearest friend, had she not?
—Benji took a step forward. Smiled like an anxious dog, teeth on display.
“My knight, my oldest friend—and winner of the joust. We thought you’d been killed. How wrong we were.”
He put out his hand. It must have taken all his might not to wince when Maude shook it. “It’s good to have you back.”