The Hidden Coronet

2

Fear is our greatest weapon. Always the agent should look for it. If it is not there, he should create it.

Rule of the Watch

EVERYTHING SEEMED TO GO QUIET.

Raffi barely breathed; his whole body was a rigidity of terror, so that for an instant there was nothing else in the world.

Then, as if from a long distance, he heard Galen at the other table, grumbling to the harassed Watchman there about the cold, and even the sound of his voice brought Raffi a sliver of courage.

He walked back. “What?” he muttered, his voice shaky.

The Watchman thrust the paper in his hands. “Look at that,” he said in a bored voice. “Have you seen any of them?”

Raffi turned it around.

It was a list of outlaws. Each one was pictured—a brief sketch—and underneath their names, a sum of money for their capture, a list of crimes. He looked at it quickly, then gave it back.

“I can’t read,” he lied.

“You can see, can’t you! Do you know any of them?”

“No.”

The man leered, his breath smelling of sour beer. “Well, keep your eyes open, bright boy. It’ll pay you more than juggling apples.”

Hurrying away, Raffi bit his lip.

Carys’s name had been on the list.

The drawing of her had been incredibly accurate; her sharp look, the short, straight brown hair. Underneath it had said:

CARYS ARRIN. FORMER WATCHSPY. INS. 547 SILVER. MARN MOUNTAIN.

WANTED ALIVE FOR ABDUCTION, TREASON, COUNTERESPIONAGE.

A PRIORITY TARGET.

30,000 MARKS.

It was a fortune! But then, it would be. She’d betrayed the Watch, kidnapped one of their children, walked out on Braylwin. They’d hunt her down till they found her.

He stumbled, barely noticing, thanking God and the Makers that she was safe back on Sarres. She’d wanted to come with them, but Galen had refused absolutely, ignoring her anger. She was like Galen. Though they both loved Sarres, they grew restless there.

“Boy!”

The big woman was waiting on the cart, her sacking sleeves rolled past her elbows. Brawny arms controlled the fidgeting marset in the harness.

Raffi climbed up beside her.

“Where’s your master?”

“Behind,” he said wearily.

She looked at him shrewdly. “You got through, didn’t you? Must be a tough life though.”

He rubbed his hair with his hands, silent, annoyed she could see he was scared, annoyed with himself.

They watched the gate. When Galen came through it he hobbled away up the road ahead of them, ignoring them. The woman whipped up the reins and the marset stumbled off, Raffi grabbing tight. They soon passed the keeper. On the ice the cart ran smooth, but when the wheels hit the rough track the lurching began, a giddy swaying up the treeless slopes, down splintering ruts. The road was bleak, all its vegetation seared to blackness by the relentless frosts, except that halfway up, a small, bent patch of bramble thicket clung on. The woman stopped the cart there, and they waited for Galen.

He walked easier now, the limp reduced to normal, and when he came up he dumped the peddler’s tray and the pack with relief among the wool-bales, brushing ashpaste out of his hair in disgust.

Then he looked up at her.

“You must be in sore need of a keeper, Majella Caxton.”

“I am, master. Believe me.” She said it calmly, her shrewd gray eyes on his. “Or I’d never have run the risk. Yours or mine.”

For a moment he studied her. Then, as if a question had been answered, he nodded and climbed into the back, stretching his legs out among the wool-bales. “Is it a relic?”

“God knows.” She started the marset moving. “It terrifies the beasts, fills me with dark horrors I wouldn’t try to describe. We’re haunted by something, master. We can’t even live in the house anymore. And if you don’t get rid of it, it will surely kill someone.”

Galen didn’t answer, though Raffi knew he was intrigued. But the woman was busy now with the driving; ice made the rough track treacherous. Twice the marset slipped, its hooves clattering, and she had to urge it on. “Come on, my darling,” she crooned. “Up you go.”

Turning, Raffi saw the Frost Fair already far below them, a squalor of stalls and pens and smoke darkening the pure lake, and beyond it at the northern shore the quenta forest, dark and ominous, its strange tangled trees forming impenetrable thickets.

He also saw the gallows.

Galen was looking at them too. The keeper’s black eyes were angry and thoughtful; as Raffi watched he fished among the trinkets of the peddler’s tray and brought out the awen-beads, jet and green, slipping them on over his head. He held out Raffi’s and Raffi took them, the two blue and purple strands of the scholar, wishing Galen would say something about the gallows. When he was silent he was planning, and Raffi feared that.

Slowly, the cart rocked to the top of the hill.

The way down was less steep; the woman took a breath and said, “Now. You want to hear all about it.”

“It would help.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him as he leaned among the soft bales.

“Well, we moved here two months ago. We’re Watchtenants. We had a farm up north, but then out of the blue they moved us. No explanations. When I saw this place I was amazed. It’s old, you’ll see that. Far too good for me and a dozen farm men. Lots of the rooms are empty.”

“What’s it called?” Galen interrupted.

“Halenden.” She flicked the reins. “For a fortnight it was all right. Then the trouble started.”

“Noises?”

She shrugged, uneasy. “Hideous sounds. First time it brought us all hurtling out of our beds. I thought some beggar-band was burning the place around our ears. Howling, echoing deep down. Max—the foreman—swears it’s some Kest-ghost, trapped under the place. He’s a loudmouth, and I’d sack him, but I need him. Most of the others have left.”

The cart jolted; Raffi clung on, feeling sick.

“What else?” Galen murmured.

“Things move. Around the place. They’re never where you left them. Doors won’t open; then they open on their own. Plates smash. Voices talk in rooms where no one is. But last week, that was the worst.”

She stopped the cart suddenly and turned to face him, her broad face red with the cold. “I’m not a woman who scares easily, master.”

“I can see that,” he said.

“Then you’ll know that I’m scared now.” The wind gusted sleet in her eyes; she rubbed it away. “Last week, on Agramonsday, I was alone in the house. The men were in the fields. I was sure I heard something moving down below. There’s a cellar, a deep cellar. It sounded like . . .” She shook her head, impatient with herself. “Flain knows what. I’m not good with words. A dragging sound. Cold. Heavy.”

The wind was icy. Raffi shivered, tugging his hands up into his sleeves. In all the bleak land around him nothing stirred, the hedges gnawed down to bare thorn.

“You went down?” Galen asked, his face intent.

“I did.”

“Not many would have.”

“Keeper, I don’t like mysteries. I’m a plain woman; I trust what my senses tell me. I took a lamp and went down the cellar steps.” She paused. Raffi felt a threat of terror break out in her, the shock of it stirring the small hairs on the backs of his hands.

Then she said, “I saw it. A shadow. Something evil. A terrible . . . venom seemed to come from it. I knew it was alive.”

The marset whinnied, impatient. Sleet was coming down heavily now, a white sheet of weather slanting out of the west.

Galen didn’t move.

The woman turned back to the harness. “That’s all I can tell you. It vanished. I was outside, shivering, when the men came back; can’t even remember how I got there. None of us will stay in the place now—we’ve fitted up a barn a few fields off and even the dogs creep in with us at night.”

The cart’s wheels began to turn, crunching down into the ruts and up again. “Can you help us?” she asked quietly.

Galen leaned back. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No,” she said, too quickly.

He gazed at her broad back. Then he said, “I can only do what the Makers wish.”

For the rest of the journey he was silent, and glancing back Raffi knew he was meditating, gathering strength, sending sense-lines out into the frozen land, waking stones and soil and the bare trees, searching for any Maker-life, any energies.

Raffi was quiet too. After the strain and racket of the fair, weariness washed over him like a wave. Despite the cold he dozed, slumping against the woman. As the cart hit a stone he jolted awake, muttering, “Sorry.” She grinned at him. “My lad was like you once. Eat and sleep. That’s all boys are good for.”

He smiled, wan.

The evening closed in. Above in the darkening sky the seven moons brightened, the crescent of Cyrax far off on the horizon; glinting through torn cloud above the black land. Stars were suddenly there too, vast scatterings of light, brilliant in the frost-cold.

The road ran down, into a hollow. Raffi felt trees, dark shapes on each side, old hollies and some yew, the faint turpy smell of their needles crushed under the wheels.

The track ran smoother. The trees closed in, became a dim avenue, their branches tangling overhead. Bats flitted in a narrow strip of sky.

And then he felt the house.

His eyes widened; the skin crawled on his neck. Behind him, he heard Galen scramble up.

Halenden was dark; a cluster of roofs and gables rising above the trees. He could see windows, most of them boarded up, and a great mass of ivy and spidervine that sprawled over half the façade, smothering walls and chimneys.

As they drove up to it, the house seemed to grow. Owls called in its leaves; a skeat answered in the woods, and then a whole pack of them was howling, the farm dogs barking furiously in return.

The cart creaked to a halt.

Galen climbed out, stiff, then stood tall in his dark coat, looking up at the building, noting the battered, rainstained door, the high windows, some with broken glass, glittering with reflections of the climbing moons.

The dogs went quiet with a yelp, as if he’d ordered them to.

Raffi stood behind him. The stillness of the place made him wary. The woods were infected by its gloom; the house had eyes inside, and for a second he looked through them, seeing himself and Galen and Majella from some high place.

“Come around the back,” the woman said, climbing down awkwardly.

But when Galen turned, her face went suddenly still because there was something changed about him, some power that crackled in the air; his face was gaunt and his eyes dark in the shadows.

“I know,” he said.

Barely breathing she mumbled, “Keeper?”

He stepped toward her. Now he was the Crow, the dark energies moving in blue sparks through his fingers. “I know. The Makers have told me. The very trees have told me. Do you believe you could really hide this from me?”

The woman gasped. For a moment Raffi thought she would kneel down in the mud, her fingers making the half-forgotten signs of honor. But then she looked up boldly, her face set.

“You’re right. I should have told you.”

“Told us what?” Raffi blurted out. He couldn’t bear it. “Is this a trap? Are the Watch here?”

Galen grinned sourly. “In a manner of speaking. What she hasn’t told us is that this is the house of a Watchman. Her son’s house. Isn’t that so?”

She nodded bleakly.

Raffi was aghast. “We’ve got to get out!”

To his horror Galen just laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he even knows.”

“He doesn’t.” She looked up at him, her small eyes measuring his anger. “He’d have us all killed if he found out.”

“Your own son!” Raffi couldn’t believe it.

“My own son.” Watching Galen she said, “The keeper knows. He knows we don’t stop loving our children, however they turn out. Yes, my son is a Watchman. He wasn’t taken as a child; he joined them of his own will. He enjoys power. He hates the Order. You’ve even seen him, lad. He was the one who searched you back at the checkpoint.”

Raffi’s chest was tight with fear. “We have to go. He’ll recognize me!”

But Galen was watching the woman, his face unreadable. Finally he asked, “Will he come here?”

“Unlikely. Not while the fair is on. He’ll want to see the hangings.”

Galen nodded. “Then listen to me. Tonight, if I can, I will break your house of its spell. But in return, if I survive, I want your help. Your son has a spare uniform, insignia, papers. I want them.”

“What!” Raffi grasped the keeper’s arm. “Why?”

Galen shook him off ferociously. “Because if we do nothing, there are ten people who’ll hang on those gallows. And one of them is a keeper. I intend to get him out.”

Chilled, Raffi stared at him in despair.

And instantly, from behind them in the house, an eerie, throaty cry rose up, as if it were his own fear given voice, an echoing howl from some creature trapped in unendurable darkness and pain, so terrifying that Raffi’s hands went cold and all his sense-lines stirred in a web of dizzying sickness.

It lasted long seconds. When it had ebbed, all three of them were still, shadows among shadows.

Then the woman nodded, white-faced.

“All right,” she said. “Anything.”