“Open the stomach and pull out the insides,” the big man said. “Dig a deep hole with this,” he tossed the Prince a small wedge-shaped tool, “and throw them in there so we don’t get any wolves looking for handouts. Try not to hit any rocks, it’s a good spade.”
And with that he turned and left, slinging his sword across his back and moving off in the direction the girl had gone, no doubt following her trail, though the Prince could never have said how.
For a long moment, the Prince stood there, unfettered, armed, and alone. He turned his head and saw the two horses cropping the scraggly mountain grass not twenty yards away, and realized he could take one and leave. The Exile’spacks were there, full of supplies. He could take them and go. No doubt the girl’s pack contained the map she’d used, and with that he might be able to chart his own way to Banelyn, and….
He moved off to the side of the small clearing and began to dig a hole, using the metal triangle—spade?—to pull large clumps of dirt out of the ground. It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but it was easy enough, and soon he was making good progress. As he worked, he told himself again and again that the only reason he was staying was that no matter how fast or stealthily he ran, the Exiles would catch him again before he left the mountains. He was no woodsman, of that there was no doubt, and he would last barely a day, if that, before they caught him and ruined everything.
He needed to wait until Banelyn. That was all.
So he dug the hole, and when he judged it to be deep enough, he turned and thought about how best to follow the rest of Tomaz’s instructions, feeling oddly invigorated by the physical activity, even though it had made him sweat. But then again, with the way he smelled as it was, and with the multiple layers of grime that covered his Commons clothing, it didn’t really matter.
“If only Geofred could see me now,” he muttered raggedly, breathing hard as he looked from the hooked knife to the dead animal. Or Tiffenal for that matter; the thought of the Fox trying to maneuver his perfectly manicured fingernails around the handle of the metal triangle—the spade, use its name—to dig a hole was certainly amusing.
He bent and stuck the knife into the elk’s stomach, doing his best to map out exactly what his plan of attack was. As he went about opening the animal’s belly, he found that he wasn’t at all alarmed by the sight of the entrails, nor the smell of the blood or the sounds of the knife. He supposed that after seeing what he’d seen in the lives he’d taken made this seem… somehow mundane. The creature was already dead—working with a body held no horrors for him now. It was the living hehad trouble with.
Sometime later, the Exiles returned, the girl looking around anxiously until she saw him by the elk. Tomaz bore a slightly exasperated look on his face and was carrying a load of branches and twigs.
The only words that were spoken that night were in reference to the elk and the fire. Tomaz finished the job the Prince had begun, which in large part involved pulling out bit’s the Prince had missed, and then skinning the creature, before cutting it into large chunks and then strips and hanging it over the fire. Tomaz showed the Prince how to wash his hands with water from the waterskins and a cake of hard animal-fat soap to remove the blood without getting it all over himself, which the Prince found very useful.
That night they ate what Tomaz didn’t decide to smoke and salt—a process the Prince found fascinating. The girl ate only a small amount, while the Prince ate ravenously. He hadn’t gone more than a day without fresh meat in his entire life, and the recent diet of cheese, edible plants, flatbread, and jerky had left him sated but never full. Tomaz himself ate nearly half the animal, enormous though it was, and looked as though he stopped himself from eating more.
When they had finished eating, they all pulled out their blankets and found a patch of ground on which to sleep. The Prince and the girl situated themselves on opposite sides of the fire as Tomaz took the first watch.
As the Prince lay beneath his blanket trying to find sleep, he wondered why he didn’t feel any sense of triumph. He felt no anger, no remorse, and also no hope. He felt… blank. Empty. Numb, that was perhaps the best way to put it. The only other time he had described the experience of using the Talisman was to his brother Geofred, so that the reaction could be chronicled. He had felt numb then as well, but mostly because he had recently come out of the coma into which the experience had sent him. Now, the numbness came from… he didn’t know. Was it because he knew Tomaz’s reaction was out of understanding and sympathy? Perhaps because of the way the girl had looked at him, the way her silence showed she too had an idea, however infinitesimal, of what he went through when he used his Mother’s gift.
He was unbound. He had played Tomaz into believing in him, and had convinced the girl, however unintentionally, to lower her guard, though he knew that she still had not done so completely. He was free to make his escape when they reached Banelyn, to find the Seeker there and make his way back to his Mother… his Mother who would never have believed in him the way Tomaz did. The way the girl was beginning to.
She is the Empress,he reminded himself.She knows only right and wrong, as should I. The Talisman is my gift and my burden as one of the Princes of the Realm, and I should wear it with pride. I wear it to serve the Empire. Someday, I will be Prince of the Seventh Principality, and I will need to deal with Exiles such as this without pity. They have broken our laws and turned their backs on civilization. They threaten the lives of the people of Lucien.
The Prince rolled over and stared at the stars. And suddenly it occurred to him that he didn’t know for what the girl and the giant had been exiled.
The reason doesn’t matter. The Empress has exiled them, and all of the Kindred. That is reason enough, and always will be.
But the words sounded hollow, and he didn’t know why.
.
Chapter Eight: Banelyn
The next few days passed with no further incident, for which the Prince was very grateful. He didn’t know what had passed between the girl and the giant when they were alone in the woods, but by unspoken consent the Prince was allowed to ride unbound. He expected the girl to demand that now that he could move about freely he and she take turns riding the horse, but she didn’t. Instead, she chose to walk, and more often than not was off in the woods scouting ahead or behind, claiming when the Prince asked that she moved better without a clumsy beast of burden beneath her.
“Ride if you want,” she said. “My own legs are good enough for me.”
“Very well,” he said, not understanding but not particularly caring.
“I’ll be ranging ahead, Tomaz,” she said, ignoring the Prince, which was what she did now as long as he wasn’t talking to her. Sometimes even then.
As she left, Tomaz chuckled quietly and pulled his charger back to walk beside the Prince’s horse, which shied away from the huge stallion before calming itself.
“What’s funny?” the Prince asked, perhaps a touch too eagerly. He had decided to try to keep up the friendly rapport that he had established with Tomaz until they reached Banelyn, though he still wasn’t certain exactly how to make it happen without it sounding forced.
“Nothing in particular,” Tomaz replied with a friendly smile, “just remembering something she said many years ago.”
There was a long pause in which neither of them spoke, and the Prince feared that that would be the end of the conversation. But for some reason he could not bear silence today, and so he asked the first question thatcame to mind:
“How long have you known her?” The words came out slightly too quickly, but Tomaz appeared not to notice and replied in his customary slow rumble.
“Since she became an Exile.”
