“Huh.” Benni raised his eyebrows. “Then pray tell what is.”
“It appears I am going to have to miss the ale and singing tonight.” I said, the words barely escaping from behind my gritted teeth. “The Queen beckons her General to deliver the prisoner to Irongate in person.”
“In person?” Benni didn’t even try to hide the surprise in his voice.
“Before the Feast of the Black Flame.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Benni tilted his head to the side, his usual cocky smile absent from his face for once. “That’s in less than two weeks. You’re going to have to ride hard.”
“While dragging a feeble old man with me.”
“I almost regret letting the sergeants rough him up when we dragged him out of the hole he was hiding in.” Benni turned to follow me as I started to stride slowly towards where the grunts had set up my tent. I intended to have a few hours of sleep before I had to leave the camp at first light.
“Wherewashe hiding?” I asked, realising I hadn’t had time for the full details of how this prisoner, whom my Mother was so keen to get her hands on, ended up being captured.
“In the cargo hold of one of the ships docked in the harbour.” Benni huffed, as if holding back a chuckle. “The poor bastards were probably hoping for a quick escape across the Northern Sea.” The humour lingered for a breath, then slipped, as if even he heard the edge in hisvoice. “But it wasn’t just the old man.” He looked away, jaw tightening. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted – lower, more deliberate. “There were others. A young man and an old woman. Not soldiers. They wore the same tattered robes as the old man.”
Benni glanced around, in a way he did when he was about to say something outrageous and didn’t want others to hear it. “One of the grunts said the woman was whispering something to the old man,” he said then, after a beat. “Language none of them recognised. Thought it was nonsense. But it… stuck in his head somehow. Gave him a nosebleed.”
I stared at him. “From a whisper?”
“Said it was like the words got lodged in there.” He tapped the side of his temple. “Wouldn’t go away.”
I stopped, turning to face him fully. “That’s just nonsense.”
“The nosebleed wasn’t. I had to give him my kerchief; he went through his own in a hurry.”
“Alright then. These people with the prisoner –” I arched a brow. “They were just… there, with him?”
“Yes.” Benni’s expression hardened slightly. “And they didn’t exactly put up a fight. As soon as the sergeants made a move, they folded like wet paper. Barely reacted at all. It was like they’d already given up. And the old man…” Benni’s eyes narrowed, his gaze darkening. “He didn’t fight either. He almost seemed… prepared for it.” He paused, then added with a shrug, “Or maybe he just knew he wasn’t getting out alive. Maybe both.”
My arched eyebrow now turned into a full frown. “He didn’t fight?”
“No.” Benni’s voice was flat. “He didn’t resist. Just… let himself be caught.”
“And that’s when you decided to torch the entire harbour?”
His tone shifted to his usual brand of delightful, barely bearable audacity. “Well, you know, just to be sure. Couldn’t have anyoneslipping away on us.”
“Very practical of you.”
“I knew you’d appreciate my thoroughness.”
I clapped Benni’s shoulder, perhaps slightly harder than I meant to, but not in anger. I knew why he’d burned down the harbour. I didn’t begrudge him for it. What I did begrudge, though, was the sound of the soldiers clinking their tankards together and their tone-deaf singing.
Beneath the moon, the waters bled,
A crimson tide where ships lay dead.
The harbour burned, its riches torn,
A beacon turned to ash and scorn.
By the sword and by the flame,
We came to claim you in the Queen’s name.
The Jewel of the North, so proud, so bright,
