The Whisperer (24 page)

Lute thought he was drowning and it was only when he began to fight the pull downwards and push himself to the surface that he noticed he was being unnaturally weighted down. He began to struggle, kicking his legs furiously. He heard a muffled gasp and it was only then he realised that he was not alone in his struggle but that Bitter Olof had his arms wrapped around Lute’s neck.

‘You’ll kill us both!’ Lute yelled, his head breaking through a wave and gasping for air.

‘I can’t swim,’ the dwarf screeched, clearly terrified, gulping water.

‘I can see that! Here,’ Lute said, still panting hard, ‘hold my hand. You have to stay calm. I promise I will not let you go. Just trust me.’

Lute kicked around to look back to the water’s edge and felt instantly numb. He could see Janko and his men standing over the fallen shape of Little Thom. Three arrows protruded from his back. The men were reloading their weapons and Janko was pointing at Lute and Bitter Olof. It was their turn to die.

A wave rolled over them and the shore was blocked out. He dragged Bitter Olof lower, although the dwarf fought him in his fear, and Lute waited for the arrows to come fizzing through the water to impale him. When his lungs felt fit to burst and he had
no choice but to surface again, coughing and spluttering, he instinctively looked to the beach again and was stunned to see several bodies slumped around Little Thom’s.

And then an unfamiliar voice spoke from above.

‘Are you happy to drown then, or do you want a hand?’

He looked directly up into the weather-beaten face of a short, stocky man-like person but with what he was convinced was a woman’s voice. But before he could work it out for sure, strong hands dragged him and a near-drowned Bitter Olof out of the waves and onto the rocky crag. As the dwarf coughed up the sea, Lute tried to catch his breath. He was shocked to count more than a dozen people.

‘Who are you?’ he groaned but he was ignored as the man-woman bent down and with a huge fist wrenched Bitter Olof easily to his feet.

‘You stupid old fool! Whatever possessed you to cross my path again?’

Bitter Olof couldn’t speak, could barely breathe yet.

‘Hey!’ Lute yelled. ‘Don’t treat him like that.’

‘Oh, I’ll treat him how I please, laddie. And if you don’t want a cuff around your stupid ears, you’ll watch your tongue with me.’

Lute stepped back. The person definitely spoke with a woman’s voice but was dressed like a man in loose pants and shirt. There were inkings on her forearms and out of the corner of her mouth hung a crooked pipe. It wasn’t lit and it bobbed around as she spoke in her curious, gruff voice. Her silver hair was pulled back tightly into a pigtail and the men around her definitely gave her respect.

Lute decided it was a woman looming over him. He was bent over, dragging in air, dripping and still spitting salty water. ‘Listen, that man on the beach, the big one,’ Lute began.

‘Looks dead to me,’ the woman cut across his words. ‘Forget him.’

Lute looked horrified. ‘Forget him! Are you insane? He’s a loyal friend. Did your men deal with the Duke?’

‘Duke? Is that who he was, eh?’ She cackled a laugh. ‘Well, he turned tail as soon as our hail of arrows started. I’m sorry we missed him.’

‘You’ve heard then that he has stolen the throne,’ Lute continued, his gaze on Little Thom.

‘No. Nor do I care. I hate the royals. Oy! Dwarf! What have you got to say for yourself?’

Bitter Olof groaned and held his arm out for Lute to help hold him up. He was breathing hard and definitely looked worse for the wear of his past day. But he set his jaw firmly. ‘We go and get Little Thom.’

‘He’s dead, fool. Can’t you see that? You have both had that coming for a long time. And I don’t doubt you’ll be the next one squirming around with an arrow in yer back.’

‘So be it.’ Bitter Olof stepped to the edge of the crag.

‘Wait!’ Lute yelled, grabbing for him.

Bitter Olof turned and Lute looked deep into his eyes for the first time. In there, all of the dwarf’s gruffness was gone and what he saw was grief and love. ‘He’s my friend, your majesty. Alive or not, I don’t leave friends behind and I have never had a more loyal friend.’

Lute nodded, laid a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. ‘Now you have two. I shall go with you.’

The woman spat on the rock near their feet. ‘So we did all that for nothing. Killed a pile of soldiers, scared off the throne-stealing Duke, saved your sorry backsides from drowning and not even so much as a nod of thanks.’

‘Forgive my manners. Thank you, er…madam, for dragging us from the sea.’ Lute held out a hand.

She stared at Lute long and hard, her eyes narrowing, whilst the pipe’s stem roamed around her mouth, making a clacking sound as it did so. She didn’t take Lute’s hand. Instead she rounded on Bitter Olof, who was still blinking from the stinging sea salt. ‘And why in Lo’s name are you calling him majesty?’

Bitter Olof sighed and looked at Lute again. ‘I’d like you to meet Calico Grace—she’s an old, er, acquaintance.’

Lute recalled the feminine name although it certainly didn’t match up to this terrifying vision that loomed before them. ‘Pleased to—’

‘Acquaintance! Why you old rogue. I’ll give you acquaintance!’ She lifted a beefy fist as though she was going to belt Bitter Olof and Lute instantly saw that the dwarf would not only be biffed into the sea but into the next realm if she connected with his jaw. She was a fierce, strong sort. She looked as though she wrestled bulls for a hobby. Her forearms were as thick as his own thighs, he was sure.

‘And this, Grace,’ Bitter Olof continued, seemingly untroubled by her threat, ‘is his majesty, formerly our Crown Prince, now King Lute.’

Her huge fist remained bunched in the air, but her thinned lips slackened and shock claimed her expression.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madam Grace,’ Lute continued, when he could tell nothing much was coming from that gaping mouth for the moment. ‘Er, Bitter Olof mentioned how charming you are.’ He didn’t dare look at the dwarf, although he knew his friend was staring at him sideways with not very well concealed amusement. He smiled.

‘We have to go, Gracie,’ Olof said softly. ‘My heart is breaking just to see him fallen. I couldn’t live with myself if I left Little Thom like that.’

‘I know you saved our lives, Madam Grace,’ Lute added, unsure how to address this curious person. ‘But Little Thom saved them just moments prior. Those arrows were meant for us. He shielded us with his body and took all the punishment. He was brave and selfless. I too cannot leave him.’

Finally her fist lowered and her pipe began moving around her mouth again. She scowled. ‘Would you not call me Madam, yer highness. I don’t really hate the royals. I’m just on the wrong side of their law. The name is Calico Grace and if your thickheaded friend here had told you everything, you’d know how he has treated his so-called
friends
in the past.’ Her tone was scathing. She turned to the dwarf, spat again, the spittle
somehow emerging easily from between her lips, the pipe not even shifting position, and the gob landing directly between Bitter Olof’s feet. ‘And you will stay right here. You are going nowhere!’ She called orders to her men, who instantly leaped into the water on the other side of the crag, where a small craft was anchored. They rowed expertly around the point and back to the beach. The eldest, and presumably the most senior-ranking, yelled something back but Lute couldn’t hear what was said. The wind carried the man’s words away.

They watched in silence as the men hefted Little Thom’s body into the boat and rowed him back against an increasingly fierce breeze that was whipping up.

‘What did you say?’ Calico Grace called to them as they approached, her hand cupped to her ear.

The man was standing in the boat as it neared. ‘I said he’s still alive,’ he yelled.

Tess gawped at both Griff and Pilo. ‘Let me understand this,’ she said to Pilo. ‘You think Griff has a twin brother and that his twin is the new King?’

‘I don’t think it, I know it,’ Pilo replied. ‘I’ve known Lute for most of his life. And although now I am aware this is not Lute sitting opposite me, I can assure you I would have lost all my money and the very clothes off my back if I’d been asked to wager against it. They look identical. You don’t move the same as Lute, Griff—I see that now—but your voice, mannerisms, even your smile…it’s as though I am with Lute.’

Griff threw down his apple core. ‘But how can this be, Pilo? I’ve told you everything I can. I grew up on the other side of the realm. I have a family—my brothers behave as twins, although they’re not, but I’ve never known anyone else. No other brothers or sisters.’

Pilo considered this, chewing on a square of hard cheese. ‘It is certainly a mystery. You said your mother died when you were young. How young?’

Griff looked down. ‘She died the day after I was born.’

‘So you never knew her,’ Pilo said, disappointed.

Griff shook his head. ‘And we didn’t speak about her, either. My brothers are just a few years older than me and they were sent away apparently, so they have no memories of my birth but they can recall that everything had changed when they returned.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tess asked.

Griff looked puzzled. ‘I don’t really know. You’d have to ask them but they said there was a new feeling around the house. It wasn’t just the sadness of our mother’s death; our father had changed. He had become suspicious, very careful of strangers. We moved from the town, beyond the villages that surrounded it. We lived alone, kept ourselves to ourselves.’

‘What is your father’s line of work, Griff?’ Pilo prompted.

‘He’s a falconer.’

Pilo grinned. ‘Oh, excellent. I always wanted to train hawks.’

Griff shrugged. ‘He loved his birds but they didn’t make him very much money.’

‘And still he was able to build you a house, feed you three growing boys.’ Pilo scratched at his beard, deep in thought.

‘We never wanted for much. What are you—’

‘Nothing, I just imagine it would have been hard to do that on the little he’d earn as a falconer. I know how tightly the nobles keep their purses shut when it comes to paying for necessary services like training falcons. They don’t want to live without those services but they also don’t like paying fair wages to the men who work hard to provide them and have families to feed, clothe and put roofs over their heads.’

Griff stared at him quizzically.

Tess interpreted for him. ‘Pilo’s wondering whether your father might have had an income from somewhere else.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I was with him all the time. He only worked the birds.’

‘Then he either had money given to him or he earned a sum of money to afford what he did for you boys.’

‘What are you saying?’ Griff asked, feeling a tide of indignation move through him.

‘Calm down, Griff, I’m not insulting your father or saying he did anything bad. Listen, your mother died when you were born. Your brothers had already been sent away. Presumably the only witness to your birth was your father and perhaps a woman from the local village who helped with the birthing.’

‘And another woman, but she wasn’t local,’ Griff answered, almost by reflex.

‘Well, how do you know that?’ Tess asked, intrigued. ‘You were newborn.’

Griff frowned. ‘Well, my skill developed early and from as early as I was walking I was tapping into my father’s thoughts without realising it.’

‘And?’ Pilo prompted gently.

‘He would try not to think about the woman—and not because of me—but because it upset him. She was very beautiful, very sad. She was brought to the house in a cart with a single driver. She wore a pale hooded cloak and always kept her face covered outside.’ Griff’s frown deepened. ‘My father was nervous around her.’

‘Why would a woman scare him?’ Tess pondered.

But Pilo’s eyes were shining. ‘It wasn’t because she herself frightened him, Griff, was it? He was scared because of who she was.’

Griff spoke as though his mind was far away. He was delving back into distant memories of his father and they were carrying him to a time in his early childhood that he had buried long ago. ‘She only came to us twice. We never saw her again after the day I was born. My mother died the next morning. And my father’s grief became a permanent companion. After he buried my mother he locked her away in his mind and very rarely allowed himself to think of her. I only know what my mother looked like because he sometimes told me that I reminded him of her and when he did, I could see her in his mind. She was dark and pretty.’

‘Did your father know you could listen to his thoughts?’ Pilo asked.

‘Yes. I think he realised what I could do before I did, to be honest. After that his mind became a vault. He learned how to shut himself off from me.’

‘That’s strange, don’t you think?’ Tess said to Pilo.

Pilo shook his head slowly. ‘No, not if he was hiding a terrible secret.’

Griff stared at Pilo, barely breathing.

‘I know you hate me saying that, I can see the anger in your eyes, Griff. But I need to say this and I think you already know what’s coming.’

Griff looked at the ground between his feet, dropped his head. ‘You must be mistaken. You have to be.’

‘Griff and Lute were born and Lute was taken away?’ Tess asked for both of them, her voice barely above a whisper, filled with disbelief.

Pilo took over. ‘I think the woman you speak of is our Queen.’ He held a hand up. ‘No, hear me out, Griff. King Rodin and Queen Miralda were childless for years. They badly wanted an heir, but knowing our Queen, she really just wanted a child to love—girl or boy, she would have adored it. But Lo didn’t bless them with a son or a daughter. As I understand it, it was all but taken for granted that Rodin’s only and much younger brother, Duke Janko, would succeed to the throne upon Rodin’s death. In return, Janko threw himself wholeheartedly into supporting the throne by commanding its army, which he did with great courage, never holding back from any battle, leading his men from the front. He has become quite a hero for the realm. The people love him. But the people don’t know the true Janko. The real Janko is cruel and loves power and wealth. He craves kingship and when an heir miraculously came along, many years after most had given up the notion of Rodin and Miralda producing one, Janko was not prepared to give up his dreams of kingship. Instead he pretended loyalty, all the while putting together a small army of mercenaries who would fight for anyone who put up sufficient money—and Rodin had ensured Janko was a rich man. He certainly had the means to pay these
hired soldiers. He also made a couple of attempts on the Crown Prince’s life, if I’m reading the situation correctly.’