The Hidden Coronet

7

Artelan traveled. He never knew how long or how far. He never knew how he was brought to the hidden island.

Artelan’s Dream

CARYS PUT THREE CARDS DOWN carefully. “Crescent,” she muttered.

Sitting cross-legged opposite her on the grass the Sekoi smiled. Its seven fingers plucked out an Emperor and pushed it carelessly into the last gap in the ring.

“Circle,” it said smugly.

Carys swore. “You can’t have!”

“I have.” The creature smirked, its yellow eyes bright. With both hands it gathered the great pile of withered chestnuts toward itself. “So all these are mine. I make that four thousand gold marks exactly that you owe me.”

Disgusted, Carys flung the cards down. “You were cheating. You had to be cheating!”

“Prove it.”

“You deal too fast.”

“Skill,” the creature said, crunching one of the nuts.

“And these.” It waved its fingers at her.

Carys leaned back against the calarna tree, folding her arms. “You know you’ll never see the money.”

“I live in hope. But I would have thought that a Watchspy would have been able to teach me a few tricks in card-sharping. What do you people do in your time off?”

“There isn’t any.” Carys brushed the blown hair from her eyes irritably. She didn’t want to think about the Watch, let alone discuss it. But she said, “And I’m not a Watchspy. Not anymore.”

“Ah.” The Sekoi looked over the smooth lawns of Sarres to the house, and the strange green hill beyond. Geese wandered under the trees, pecking at grass. “My people have a saying. ‘Darkness is a stain that will not wash away.’”

Carys’s eyes went hard. “Meaning?”

Idly it stroked the tribemark on its furred face. When it looked at her again its eyes were sly. “I think you know I’ve never been quite sure of you, Carys,” it said quietly.

She laughed bitterly. “Only too well. What do I have to do to convince you? Isn’t it enough to be on every death-list for miles?”

The Sekoi lounged elegantly on the grass. “Ah, but I know the Watch. Anyone can be on a list. Anyone can seem to be an outlaw, and still be working undercover.”

“Galen trusts me. And Galen—”

“Is the Crow. I know. He is also a man wholly possessed by his faith. Sometimes I think that makes him blind to danger. Certain dangers.”

They looked at each other in silence, Carys hot with annoyance. In the stillness the birdsong seemed louder. The endless ripple of the hidden spring, Artelan’s Well itself, bubbled from under the yew trees.

When she spoke again her voice was spiteful. “Time will tell.”

The Sekoi closed its eyes against the sun. “Indeed. I will be watching.”

“So will I, Graycat. Because the Sekoi would sell their only sons for a bent button. That’s an old saying too.”

As it opened one eye and stared at her, surprised, the door of the house flew open and Felnia ran out, racing wildly over the grass, her short hair flying. She flung her arms wide.

“They’re coming! The Guardian says they’re coming!”

Carys scrambled up, the Sekoi tall beside her. “Now?”

“Soon. Any time!” The little girl was breathless with delight, her face somehow smeared with soil from the gardens. Behind her the Guardian, Tallis, came slowly, in her old-woman shape, wiping her hands on her dress. She looked uneasy, her face tense with worry. “They’re not alone,” she said as she came up.

Instantly Carys was wary. “Who’s with them?”

“I don’t know. More than one.”

The Sekoi flicked her a glance. “We should be ready in case . . .”

“I’ll get my bow. You go to the causeway.”

Hurtling into the house and into the small room of sweet-smelling wood that was hers now, she rummaged in the corner chest anxiously. The bow had been in here since she came; there was no need for weapons on Sarres. But her Watchtraining was always sharp in her, so she’d kept it oiled and clean. Grabbing a handful of bolts, she racked the mechanism back and jammed one in.

It might be all right. Galen might have found some more of the Order. But all the time she knew only too well what else could have happened. The Watch had expert interrogators. They used pain relentlessly. There were no secrets left after the rack, after being hung by the wrists, and as much as she loved Raffi, she knew that he would never stand up against that.

Ferociously she pushed the thought away, ran down and out into the spring warmth of Sarres. At the edge of the lawn she raced through the trees and found the others waiting, the Sekoi firmly gripping Felnia’s hand tight in its seven-fingered fist.

Before them stretched what seemed to be unbroken grass, but they knew this was illusion, the Maker-power that protected the sacred island. Beyond it a wicker causeway led through the marsh back to the Finished Lands, receding now each year. As she listened she heard a splash, faint voices.

“Whoever they are, say nothing in front of them about what’s happened,” Tallis said quietly. “We can tell Galen and Raffi later. Understand, Felnia?”

The little girl nodded, impatient, her eyes fixed on the drifting mist.

It swirled open.

A faint smell came through, of woods and stagnant water, and a gust of icy wind that made Carys shiver.

She raised the bow.

Raffi was first. His face was almost hidden under a knotted rag of scarf, but he pulled it away with a whoop of delight and breathed deep, tasting the sweet air of the island. Then he grinned up at them. “Don’t shoot. It’s only us.”

“Not only you.” Carys paced forward warily. “Who else?”

“Friends. A keeper!” He crouched and opened his arms, and Felnia broke the Sekoi’s grip and came running, flinging her arms around him, then punching and pummeling him until he fell over.

“Did you bring me anything from the fair? You said you would.”

“I doubt they had the chance,” Carys said drily.

She was disturbed by the change in him. After only three weeks outside he was tired and filthy and strained. The strain of long fear.

Then she looked behind him.

A man had come out of the mist, a stranger. His smooth hair was silver, matted with dirt. Around his eyes was tied a rag of scarf, so if Raffi had not turned to help him he would have stumbled, but then he straightened and stood still, stock-still, and she knew by the alert lift of his head he was using the things Raffi called sense-lines, feeling the warm grass, the fresh leaves on the trees.

“Incredible,” he breathed.

“Where’s Galen?” Carys asked.

“Here.” The keeper shouldered out of the fog, dark and hook-nosed. With both hands he supported another man, bald, also blindfolded, clearly on the point of collapse. The Sekoi ran to him instantly, Tallis hurrying behind.

Carys stayed where she was, the bow unwavering.

With a gasp and a moan through gritted teeth, the bald man was gently lowered to the grass. He too had a crossbow, strapped to his back. Watch issue. Tallis kneeled beside him and tugged the blindfold off. He stared up at her in surprise.

Quickly she felt his arms and shoulders. “This man has been beaten.”

Galen straightened, stiff and sore. “That’s how the Watch treat their prisoners, Guardian.” He looked around, his dark eyes moving gratefully over the trees and smooth lawns as if the beauty and order of it healed some deep inner hunger. “It’s been a nightmare journey,” he muttered.

The Sekoi glanced up. “Watch?”

“Everywhere. They know about the Crow.”

Then he saw Carys and smiled his rare grim smile. “Not forgiven me yet?”

“Are you all right?” She lowered the bow and came down slowly.

“We are now. And these are friends.”

“Are you sure?”

His smile faded and for a moment she caught that edge of strangeness that came and went in him, the darkness of the Crow. “As I can be. This is Solon.”

He limped over and undid the blindfold gently, then took it away.

Carys saw how the man stiffened. He had a wise, experienced face under the dirt and bruises, lit up now with a sudden deep joy. He turned slowly, staring at the hill, the gardens, the house. “Dear God,” he kept saying. “Dear God.”

“Welcome to the lost land of Sarres,” Galen said. “Now I think we should get Marco inside.”

But Solon’s hands shook; he clasped them tightly together. “All my life,” he breathed, “I’ve dreamed and prayed for this.”

He looked at Raffi in a kind of daze. “Is it real?”

Raffi grinned back wearily. “It’s real.”

How much of a nightmare the journey had been Carys could only guess. Raffi was too tired to talk; after he’d eaten, he fell asleep at the table, with Felnia leaning up against him. The man called Marco slept too, after the Guardian had given him some cordial. But Solon seemed too excited to be able to rest. He asked for some water, and when he came back later they could see that he had washed from head to toe; the skin on his arms and face was red, as if he had scrubbed and scrubbed. He wore clean clothes Tallis had brought for him. He went out, and from the window Carys watched him as the evening darkened and Agramon rose, wandering and touching and exploring until the lawns and lanes were dim and owls and were-birds called from the woods beyond. Then Galen and Tallis went out to him, taking candles.

They placed them on the grass and made him sit down, around the glow.

Above the trickle of the well she heard the three keepers chant the Night prayer, the strange Maker-syllables murmured under the ring of rising moons.

The Sekoi’s shadow loomed at her shoulder.

“When should we tell him?” she muttered.

The creature made a small mew of unhappiness in its throat. “Tomorrow. Let them have one night in peace.