The Assassin Princess (Lamb & Castle Book 2) (23 page)

Scarlet, who hadn't seen Bessie before her flight spell wore off, managed to look genuinely baffled. “Sparrow…?”

“She had feathers. You sure you haven't seen her?”

“Oh, I think I'd remember if I'd seen something like that, Mister Breaker.”

“Never mind. You're wanted in Her Ladyship's private rooms: she'll need a wedding dress.”

“Of course, of course,” said Scarlet, still flustered and struggling to hide her despair. “I'll make her the most beautiful dress you've ever seen. Oh! Perhaps you could fetch me some white feathers? For the dress? Don’t you think that would –”

“No time for that, Ginger. I'm busy. Not long 'til the big day now, and then maybe we can all rest a bit easier.”

Scarlet glanced nervously over her shoulder, but behind her, the darkened corridor was empty: she'd bought the fugitives the time they needed in order to disappear.

The captured golem refused to speak. No threat could cow him; no promise could lure him. Before, the strange gentlemen's faces had been bland as milk; now, his was as wrathful as that of an avenging angel. If there was any fear there, either for his own well-being, or that of his twin left alone on the moor, he'd learned not to show it, to cover it with silent wrath. His loyalty was to the instructions carved into his own stone heart, whatever they might be, and Meg and the others had thwarted him, so he stood chained in the cargo hold of the unfolded
Sharvesh
, waiting for the soonest opportunity to fulfil his duties, his black eyes burning like coals. Percival, who'd come up with the plan to capture a golem in the first place, couldn't stand to be in the cargo hold with him for long, and Meg began to fear that the creature was more dangerous captive than free. Uneasily, they'd left Greyfell to persuade or threaten the golem into some kind of helpfulness, but after an hour or so of one-sided shouting intermixed with worrying quiet periods, the Black Paladin had grudgingly reported a stalemate.

With no further plan of action,
Sharvesh
stood at rest, leaning gently against a hillside. The sun dipped towards the horizon, and at a break in the rain, Meg climbed down the rope ladder over the side of the skyship, and down into the valley. Harold was keeping watch for any sign of the other golem returning to rescue or avenge his brother. From the vantage point of the crow's nest, Harold would see anybody approaching long before they could make trouble, and with his strong lungs he'd soon get a warning out. Even so, Percival wouldn't let Meg go out alone, and neither would Greyfell. Meg traipsed across the squelchingly wet grass with her two gallant guardians in tow, reminding them how she'd had to rescue the both of them on at least one occasion each, until she came to a large puddle mirroring an orange and lilac sky. She crouched down at the edge of it, clearing her mind.

“Meg, is that really all you can think to do?” said Percival. “Scrying again? You can put your considerable powers to better use than
that
.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“What we need the most is more manpower.”

Meg didn't dignify this with a response. Her knees hurt, the hem of her dress was soaking up rainwater, and she was beginning to wish she was the kind of woman vain enough to consider a mirror a travelling essential. It would've made scrying a lot easier.

“Or a diversion, perhaps,” suggested Greyfell. “
Sharvesh
must not fall to the City's defences, for the sake of the girls.”

Meg had almost –
almost
– forgotten about the flamethrowers along Ilgrevnia's borders. A diversion could easily be the difference between life and death, but she couldn't afford to be stretched too thin. It cost real physical energy to draw magic from the earth, and her resources were not infinite. She was already dreading the backache which she knew would be waiting for her in the morning, thanks to that trick with the mud… “How about
you
come up with a diversion,” she snapped, and set back to scrying, feeling coarse and unusually unproud of being a witch, what with Percival and Greyfell watching over her shoulder as she worked this unsophisticated magic. Gusts of wind blew wrinkles into the mirror surface of the water, but gradually it darkened, and began to reveal a place not far away… Dark tunnels echoing with drips, high-vaulted rooms hollow with long years of disuse, places that had the brightness of Amelia's presence fresh in their memory, though she'd moved on since. The images shifted as fast as shapes seen in clouds. Then, in a frustratingly brief glimpse, they saw Amelia. Meg regathered her concentration, the picture growing sharper and steadier. The little Black Queen was with Amelia, looking as if they were complicit in some scheme or other.

“Elizabeth!” Greyfell whispered. “Thank God, she's safe.”

Meg raised her eyebrows at that – the girls could be a lot safer than where they were. “Now, any idea just where in Ilgrevnia that is?” she asked.

“It must be the palace,” said Greyfell at once. “I distinctly saw the City's Keystone through the window behind them, and Main Street behind that.”

Meg questioned his powers of observation, which would have to be bordering on the supernatural to take in all that from the image in a muddy puddle, but Greyfell was adamant: the girls were somewhere in Ilgrevnia's grandest palace. Then the rain started up again and the image in the mirror surface of the water dissolved into countless ever-changing circles.

The three of them returned to
Sharvesh
. Of course, Meg might have another way of learning more about what was going on in the City far above their heads: as soon as they'd restrained the golem, she'd taken away the enchanted silver pocket watch that he used to report back to his Commander. Now she took it from her bag for another look. Some little while ago it had given out a burst of energy, and later she'd heard a muffled voice within, but so far she'd resisted the temptation to open it, instead holding it to her ear and listening closely. She might spy with it… or it might spy on her… She feared it might do that anyway. Safer by far to throw it down a well, or into a lake. And yet Meg always struggled to get rid of a thing when she sensed some usefulness about it.

She stood on the deck, trying to breathe and be calm. Her heart said they must fly up to Ilgrevnia and rescue Amelia at once. It had been making demands along those lines ever since her first inkling that something had gone wrong, but her common sense warned her that they might interfere with Amelia's own plans. She'd hated to see Jonathan treating her daughter like a helpless weak-minded child, and since Springhaven, she'd done everything in her power to ensure that Amelia grew as rapidly as possible into a strong and competent woman. More than that: a witch. Still… it had been one thing for Amelia and Bessie to venture into the Flying City alone – they'd each been equipped with a means of escape – but Amelia's wyvern mount had turned out more feral than previously thought, and Bessie had failed to use her enchanted wings in time to return to her own companions. The time for hiding had passed. Under cover of darkness
Sharvesh
would ascend, and they would find and rescue the girls. Percival, Greyfell and Harold took turns to watch Ilgrevnia through a spyglass, debating over their strategy for when they reached the City. Harold donned his full armour, and in the soft warm glow of the end of the day, with the wet timbers of the skyship gleaming, he looked less like an apprentice butcher and more like a fine young warrior from one of those big old paintings in the museums that Percival liked so much. Good thing Amelia couldn't see him like that: she'd get that soppy smile on her face and start giggling and acting like she hadn't a brain in her head…

Meg stomped off towards the cabin for a lie down. Best conserve her energy, if there was to be a battle before dawn. Her bones ached just from churning enough mud to mire a single horse, something she was sure she would have done without a second thought twenty years ago. And the attempt to capture a golem had all been for nothing in the end… She bypassed the cabin and went to the cargo hold, where she sat down on a tea chest and considered the prisoner, furious but silent. She ran through the details of his capture again in her mind, picking at a thread that seemed out of place: the golem gentleman had been unarmed and Harold wielding a sword, with strength and courage if not much actual skill. In that situation she might have expected such a being to pragmatically attempt escape if possible and attack again later, or else to surrender to its logical fate. She'd heard golems were beyond emotion, but it rather looked as if this one had developed some personal feelings, against Harold if nothing else. Percival had a theory that one of the two golems was defective and hiding his imperfections from his master for fear of destruction, and Meg was coming to the conclusion that this could well be the one. Any emotion, even of the mildest kind, might be taken as a fatal flaw in a being intended only to serve its master's desires, and have none of its own. Still, the thought that he might be persuaded to side with them had never seemed more ridiculous than now, and she doubted she could extract any useful information at all from him. But, even if she knew in her heart that she'd wring no blood from this stone, she was desperate enough to try.

“You must be missing your brother by now,” she said. She'd never seen one of the strange gentlemen alone, after all. “No need to be stoic about it. How do you think he'll get on without you? What good are you to anybody without him?” she taunted him. She felt the heat rising in her blood, knew she should hold her tongue but couldn't stop herself. “What good is
he
without
you
? I can't imagine what the Prince will do with one useless half of a pair.”

Nothing.

Meg sighed. Greyfell had tried this before, and probably had more experience of these things, so why should she have any more luck? So the thing had feelings. So what? Trying to turn somebody's feelings against them was like trying to nail a boiled egg to the back end of a bull: difficult, messy, cruel and dangerous all at once. She wondered if the golems could know that she had feelings of her own, much stronger and much more dangerous. More golems might well guard Ilgrevnia, but if they stood between her and Amelia, she'd find a way to destroy them, in their hundreds if need be…

A thud shook the timbers above her head, muffled shouts sounded on deck, then a harsh animal cry, and Meg rushed to see what was going on. The low sun dazzled her as she ascended into orange light broken by a stark angular silhouette. Meg's heart raced, but in the next instant she recognised the wyvern. Ungainly on level ground, it lurched towards Harold, who scratched the creature's neck affectionately, beaming with joy. “Good lad – I knew you'd come back.” Then Harold's look turned serious. The wyvern still wore the makeshift harness that Meg had improvised.

“Oh no you don't!” shouted Meg, flinging out one arm to block Harold by magical force before he could climb onto the wyvern's back. They couldn't trust the half-wild wyvern to do as it was told.

“Why not?” Harold demanded, putting his broad square shoulder against the witch’s power as if trying to make headway against a gale. “
Somebody's
got to go up there and get Amelia.”

“And we’ll all go, soon enough. But not
yet
,” said Meg. “Perce, keep this boy from playing the foolish hero until we’re ready.”

Despite the gathering clouds and the chill in the air, with the sunset glow skimming the boards like it was, Meg couldn’t help but recall the night she’d left Springhaven, all those years ago. She’d been… what, twenty-four? Twenty-five? Younger than Amelia now. She’d lost track of time as it had slipped past, and she couldn’t be sure of the day or the year, but she remembered with painful clarity the quiet parlour steeped in the slow amber glow of a glorious summer’s evening – how beautiful and idyllic the scene that she’d been fleeing. She remembered Jonathan sitting silent with an open book unread in his lap, and the golden halo of light in his fluffy hair. How like a wounded angel her husband had looked, while Meg had rushed about, determined to leave before nightfall.

Ever since she’d made the decision to leave, she’d kept busy. She’d made much of making sure she had the right walking boots for the journey; of binding a broom for flight so she could move quickly when she had to; of calculating how much she could carry by herself. She’d cut her hair short for practicality’s sake, but though the bouncing curls barely touched her shoulders, she’d had to tie them back with a scarf to keep them out of her eyes.

The practical details had kept her from thinking too much about what she was doing on the larger scale: abandoning her well-meaning husband and her baby. She wiped her eyes irritably, and was just trying to squash another spare pair of bloomers into the already full bag when the sound of water splashing on the kitchen tiles gave her a welcome distraction. She dropped the bag, striding to the kitchen. It hadn’t rained in weeks and nothing should be…

…dripping. A tall slim girl stood in the kitchen, droplets of water rolling off her dark bedraggled hair and the hem of her grey dress, splishing on the tiles. She looked somewhat bewildered: she must have tried to fly from shore to tower, found the magic out here thinner than she was used to, and got a ducking. But her grey uniform was unmistakeably that of the Antwin Academy and she probably wore conjuring rings under her black gloves. At sight of Meg, the girl curtseyed gracefully, clasping her hands in front of her – a polite gesture that might well have been used to transfer a poison dagger from her belt to her palm.

Meg had on no conjuring rings of her own – she’d fought with Jonathan over whether she could keep the ones he’d given her on their wedding day – and instead she snatched up the breadknife from the kitchen table, levelling it at the stranger.
Where was the baby?
In the parlour, with Jonathan. And perhaps this girl hadn’t heard about the baby… Meg gripped the handle of the knife tight, trying her best not to shake, but the amber light flashed off the blade in shivers. “So, are you the Black Queen?” she demanded. “Have you come to do me in?”

“Oh, no,” the girl shook her head. “Sincerity Willows, of the Willowgrove Willowses,” she introduced herself, with another perfect curtsey. “Mistress Kingsbridge sent me. She said you needed a governess, and that I’ll never graduate, so I might as well take this opportunity for what it is and be grateful.” And she smiled the smile of one who is eager to please but has no idea how to go about it.