Morning struck with the promise of a blazing summers day. More of a threat than a promise. When you watch from a shaded veranda, sipping iced wine as the Red March summer paints lemons onto garden boughs-thats promise. When you have to toil a whole day in the dust to cover a thumbs distance on the map-thats threat. Snorri scowled at the east, breaking his fast on the last stale remains of the bread hed stolen in the city. He said little and ate left-handed, his right swelling and red, the skin blistering like that on his shoulders but not burned by the sun.
The river held a brackish air, its banks parting company and surrendering to mud flats. We stood by our boat, the water now fifty yards off, sucked back by tidal flow.
Marsail. I pointed to a haze on the horizon, a smear of darkness against the wrinkled blue where the distant sea crowded beneath the sky.
Big. Snorri shook his head. He went to the rowing boat and made a slight bow, muttering. Some damn heathen prayer, no doubt, as if the thing needed thanking for not drowning us. Finished at last, he turned and gestured for me to lead the way. Rhone. And by swift roads.
Theyd be swifter if we had horses.
Snorri snorted as if offended by the idea. And waited. And waited some more.
Oh, I said, and led off, though in truth my expertise ended with the knowledge that Rhone lay north and a little west. I hadnt the least clue about local roads. In fact, past Marsail I would struggle to name any of the regions major towns. No doubt Cousin Serah could reel them off pat, her breasts defying gravity all the while, and Cousin Rotus could probably bore a librarian to death with the populace, produce, and politics of each settlement down to the last hamlet. My attentions, however, had always been focused closer to home and on less worthy pursuits.
We left the broad strip of cultivated floodplain and climbed by a series of ridges into drier country. Snorri ran with sweat by the time the land levelled out. He seemed to be struggling; perhaps a fever from his wound had its hooks in him. It didnt take long for the sun to become a burden. After a mile or three of trekking through stony valleys and rough scrub, and with my feet already sore, my boots already too tight, I returned to the subject of horses.
You know what would be good? Horses. Thats what.
Norsemen sail. We dont ride. Snorri looked embarrassed, or perhaps it was the sunburn.
Dont or cant?
He shrugged. How hard can it be? You hold the reins and go forwards. If you find us horses, well ride. His expression darkened. I need to be back there. Ill sleep in the saddle if a horse will get me north before Sven Broke-Oar finishes his work in the Bitter Ice.
It occurred to me then that the Norseman truly hoped his family might yet survive. He thought this a rescue mission rather than just some matter of revenge. That made it even worse. Revenge is a business of calculation, best served cold. Rescue holds more of sacrifice, suicidal danger, and all manner of other madness that should have me running in the opposite direction. It made breaking whatever spell bound us an even higher priority. By the look of his hand, which seemed worse from one hour to the next, with the infections spread now marked by a darkening of the veins, any spell-breaking would need to be done soon. Otherwise he might die on me and then my dire predictions concerning the consequence for one of us if the other expired might soon be put to the test. Id made the claim as a lie, but it had felt true when I spoke it.
We trudged on through the heat of the day, forcing a path through a dry and airless conifer forest. Hours later the trees released us, scratched, and sticky with both sap and sweat. As luck would have it, we spilled from the forests margins directly onto a broad track punctuated with remnants of ancient paving.
Good. Snorri nodded, clearing the side ditch with one stride. Id thought you lost back there.
Lost? I feigned hurt. Every prince should know his realm like the back of. . of. . A glimpsed memory of Lisa DeVeers back came to me, the pattern of freckles, the knobs of her spine casting shadows in lamplight as she bent to some sweet task. Of something familiar.
The road wound up to a plateau where innumerable springs chuckled from the eastern hills along stony beds and the land returned to cultivation. Olive groves, tobacco, cornfields. Here and there a lone farmhouse or collection of stone huts, slate-roofed and huddled together for protection.
The road wound up to a plateau where innumerable springs chuckled from the eastern hills along stony beds and the land returned to cultivation. Olive groves, tobacco, cornfields. Here and there a lone farmhouse or collection of stone huts, slate-roofed and huddled together for protection.
Our first encounter was an elderly man driving a still more venerable donkey ahead of him with flicks of his switch. Two huge panniers of what looked to be sticks almost engulfed the beast.
Horse? Snorri muttered the suggestion as we approached.
Please.
Its got four legs. Thats better than two.
Well find something more sturdy. And not some plough-horse either. Something fitting.
And fast, said Snorri.
The donkey ignored us, and the old fellow paid scarcely more attention, as if he encountered giant Vikings and ragged princes every day. Ayuh. And he was past.
Snorri pursed his blistered lips and walked on, until a hundred yards farther down the road something stopped him in his tracks. That, he said, looking down, is the biggest pile of dung Ive seen in my life.
Oh, I dont know, I said. Ive seen bigger. In fact, Id fallen in bigger, but as this appeared to have dropped from the behind of a single beast I had to agree that it was pretty damned impressive. You could have heaped a score of dinner plates with it if one were so inclined. Its big, but I have seen the like before. In fact, its quite possible that well soon have something in common.
Yes?
Its quite possible, my friend, that well both have had our lives saved by a big pile of shit. I turned towards the retreating old man. Hey! I hollered down the road at his back. Wheres the circus?
The ancient didnt pause but simply extended a bony arm towards an olive-studded ridge to the south.
Circus? Snorri asked, still transfixed by the dung pile.
Youre about to see an elephant, my friend!
And this effelant will cure my poisoned hand? He held the offending article up for inspection, wincing as he did so.
Best place to get wounds seen to outside a battle hospital! These people juggle axes and burning brands. They swing from trapezes and walk on ropes. Theres not a circus in the Broken Empire that doesnt have half a dozen people who can stitch wounds and with luck an herbman for other ailments.
A sidetrack turned from the road a quarter of a mile on and led towards the ridge. It bore evidence of recent traffic, and large traffic at that-the hard-baked ground scarred by wheel ruts, the overhanging trees sporting fresh-broken branches. On cresting the ridge we could see an encampment ahead: three large circles of wagons, a scattering of tents. Not a circus set up to entertain but one on the move and enjoying a rest stop. A dry-stone wall enclosed the field where the travellers had camped. Such walls were common in the region, being as much a place to put the ubiquitous chunks of rock that the soil yielded as they were a means of containing livestock or marking boundaries. A sour-looking grey-haired dwarf sat guarding the three-barred gate at the fields entrance.
We already got a strongman. He eyed Snorri with a short-sighted squint and spat an impressive amount of phlegm into the dust. The dwarf was the kind that resemble common men in the size of their head and hands, but whose torsos have been concertinaed into too small a space, their legs left thin and bandy. He sat on the wall cleaning his fingernails with a knife, and his expression announced him more than happy to stick strangers with it.
Come now! Youll offend Sally! I remonstrated. If youve already got a bearded lady I can scarce believe shes as comely as this young wench.
That got the dwarfs attention. Well, hello, Sally! Gretcho Marlinki at your service!
I could feel Snorri looming behind me in the way that suggested my head might get twisted off in short order. The little fellow jumped from the wall, leered up at Snorri, and unhitched the gate.
In you go. Blue tent inside the circle on the left. Ask for Taproot.
I led on in, thankful that Gretcho was too short to pinch Snorris backside or we might be owing this Taproot for a new midget.
Sally? the Norseman rumbled behind me.
Work with me, I said.
No.
Most of the circus folk were probably sleeping out the noon heat, but a fair number worked at assorted tasks around the wagons. Repairs to wheels and tack, tending animals, stitching canvas, a pretty girl practising a pirouette, a heavily pregnant woman tattooing the back of a shirtless man, the inevitable juggler throwing things up and catching them.
Utter waste of time. I nodded at the juggler.
I love jugglers! Snorris grin showed white teeth in the cropped blackness of his beard.
God! Youre probably the sort that likes clowns!
The grin broadened as if the mere mention of clowns were hilarious. I hung my head. Come on.
We passed a stone-walled well beyond which, away down the slope, a scattering of headstones stood. Clearly generations had used this place to pause their travels. And some had never left.
The blue tent, though faded almost to grey, proved easy to spot. Larger and cleaner and taller than the rest, it stood centrally and sported a battered painted sign outside on two posts.
Dr. Taproots famous circus
Lions, tigers, bears, oh my!
By appointment to the Imperial Court of Vyene
Since knocking is difficult with tents, I leaned in towards the entrance flap and coughed.
. . couldnt just paint some stripes on the lion?
. .
Well, no. . but you could wash them off again before that?
. .
No, its been a while since I last gave a lion a bath, but-
My second, more theatrical cough, caught their attention.