The Crowded Shadows Read online

  “Dad… Dad was brought to his knees at the thoughts of its use, Razi. Whatever it is, the mere mention of it tore him apart. It seems as though our fathers had used it before, at the end of the Haun invasion.”

  “Aye,” whispered Razi. “Just before the Lost Hundred were expelled from the Kingdom.” He glanced at Christopher. “You recall my telling you of the Lost Hundred, Chris? The Haun nobles and businessmen, expelled with the rest of their race at the end of the war?”

  Christopher shrugged in the dim light as if he had forgotten, or hadn’t paid much attention at the time.

  “From what I could make out, our fathers agreed to suppress the machine after its first use,” said Wynter. “I don’t know why.”

  “And now your brother is using it to threaten the crown,” said Christopher. “Looks like your father weren’t quite as lunatic as he seemed, Razi.”

  “Good God,” sighed Razi. There was a rustle as he lay back against his saddle and put his hands to his face. “My bloody family.”

  Wynter looked down at her hands, ghostly starfish against the darkness of her crossed legs. She debated for a moment and then said quietly, “Did you see the cavalry, Razi? Did you see their pennants?”

  There was a heavy silence.

  “Razi?” she said.

  “Aye,” he said, “I saw them.”

  “What do you think…?”

  “Wynter?” His voice was utterly weary. “Could we… could we leave that until tomorrow?”

  There was another moment of heavy silence.

  “I’ll take first watch,” said Christopher, slapping his hand lightly against his thigh. He gathered his cloak around him and sat back against his saddle.

  “Aye,” sighed Razi. “Thank you, Christopher. Call me when the moon is at its zenith and I’ll take the next watch.”

  “Call him when the moon reaches its first third, Christopher. I’ll take the watch after him.”

  Razi snorted in impatience. “You’ll do no such—”

  “All right, girly,” said Christopher. “Razi will go after me, you go after Razi. It’ll do us good to get more sleep.”

  Razi lifted his head and gave them both what Wynter took to be a glare. “Good God,” he growled. “I should have you both flogged for insubordination!” He turned his back on them, settling grouchily against his saddle.

  Wynter grinned at Christopher. He was watching her, his face unreadable in the poor light.

  “Go to sleep,” he said quietly.

  She was suddenly so grateful to him that it almost turned to tears. “Good night, Christopher. I’m glad we all found each other again.”

  She heard him swallow. “Aye,” he said. “Now go to sleep, girly. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The bandit found her again, his laughter filling the darkness. This time she tore his throat, ripping his flesh with fangs she hadn’t known she possessed. As she sank her teeth into his neck and his blood filled her mouth—hot, sweet and delicious—something inside her screamed in despair. But she no longer cared. She had given in at last, and there was nothing left in her now but hate.

  “Girly…” A gentle hand on her forehead brushed lightly at her hair. “Come on, sweetheart. It’s all right.” Wynter opened her eyes, and Christopher smiled, his face hovering over her in the dark. “You were whimpering in your sleep,” he said. “Were you in a bad place?”

  Despite his smiling face, the dream would not leave her, and Wynter had to cover her mouth with her hands to keep the horror and the fear inside. Christopher’s gentle smile fled as he read her expression. Snatching her to him suddenly, he held her against his chest, his scarred hand covering her eyes as though he wanted to hide her. Wynter knotted her fists into his undershirt and tried to bury herself in him.

  “Oh God,” he moaned. “Who hurt you? Who hurt you? I’ll kill them! I swear it.”

  Wynter shook her head. She would not tell him. She could not, and despite the comfort she found in him, she pushed away. Christopher kept his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching her face and she shrugged him off.

  “It was just a dream, Christopher. Do not worry.”

  He took her hand, but she would not look at him.

  He tilted his head and ducked to catch her eye. “Wyn,” he said softly.

  “It was just a dream!” she insisted. “It’s just a dream,” and she buried her face in her hands and curled her head onto her knees.

  Wynter hoped Christopher would just go, but when he put his arm across her shoulders and pulled her to him again, she surprised herself by not pulling away. And when he continued just to sit beside her, his chin resting on her hair, rocking her gently in the quiet night, she felt overwhelmingly grateful for his presence.

  Somehow she found herself holding his hand again.

  “Christopher,” she whispered, “please don’t tell anyone…”

  Christopher said nothing when she told him about the poor merchant. He did nothing but continue to rock her gently as she spoke about that man’s hot look across the bright water of the stream, and about how he had followed her and attacked her and haunted her dreams afterwards. He didn’t draw away or show any anger, or make any comment at all. At the end, when he was certain that she was finished, he tilted his head against her hair and looked down at her.

  “Are you all right now, sweetheart?”

  She nodded against his chest. “Aye.”

  “Will you be able to sleep?”

  She nodded again and Christopher tilted his face up to the moonlit canopy and sighed. “This bloody world,” he said softly. Then he kissed her hair, pressed his forehead to her shoulder, and got up to rouse Razi for his watch.

  It took quite an effort to wake the poor man.

  Wynter wrapped herself tightly in her cloak and listened to them moving about in the dark. Razi coughed and stretched, and went behind a tree to piss. He pottered around the edges of camp, checking the horses and stretching his legs. She heard Christopher yawn; there were soft sounds as he settled down for the night. Eventually, he was lost in silence for a while. Wynter could just see his pale face glowing in the corner of her eye.

  “Christopher?” she whispered.

  “Aye?”

  She lay quietly for a moment, uncertain. Then she got to her feet, her cloak wrapped around her. She saw Christopher’s eyes follow her as she crossed the camp.

  Razi called softly from the dark. “Are you all right, sis?”

  She smiled at him, though she knew he wouldn’t see it in this light. “I’m fine, Razi. Thank you.” She shuffled around behind Christopher, and he turned his head to look up into her face. “Is it all right?” she asked, gesturing to his bedroll.

  He nodded wordlessly, still gazing up at her. Wynter hesitated, then lay down beside him. Christopher tensed for a moment, as if unsure of what to do, then he turned his back to her, as he had on their last night together. Wynter pulled herself in close, looped her arm across his waist, and rested her forehead against his back. Behind them, Razi was motionless in the shadows.

  Wynter closed her eyes. Christopher took her hand. Razi went back to checking on the horses.

  The Box of Hay

  “You have no right to ask that of us.” Christopher’s lilting voice, speaking quietly nearby.

  Wynter opened her eyes to pale pre-dawn light. She blinked slowly into the dimness, orienting herself. She was lying with her back to the camp, facing out into the trees, and it took a moment to remember that she had come across in the night to share Christopher’s bedroll. She felt her cheeks grow hot at the memory and at the same time she realised that Razi hadn’t woken her for her watch. She was just about to turn and give him a piece of her mind when his deep voice stilled her.

  “It is what I want,” he said.

  “Oh, I have no doubt,” countered Christopher mildly. “But that’s beside the point. Don’t ask it again.”

  “Chris…”

  “She will not leave, and I will not attempt to pers
uade her. She is a full grown woman, Razi. She has her own mind.”

  “She is fifteen years old,” exclaimed Razi, his voice pitched low so as not to wake her.

  “You were negotiating your father’s business in Algiers at fourteen.” Christopher was stirring a pot, or scouring a bowl, and though his voice was still mild, the grating sound of his activity grew louder in agitation.

  “I am different!”

  The sound of stirring paused. “How are you different? Because you have that pudding between your legs, is it?”

  “Christopher! Do not be crude!”

  “She is a full-grown woman …”

  “So you seem determined to point out.”

  Wynter thought she heard amusement in Razi’s voice now, and Christopher resumed his activity, his voice muffled as if he’d ducked his head. “She is strong and brave and quick.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “She would have gelded you on that hill had her reflexes not been so fast.”

  “Chris—”

  “She was already heading straight as an arrow for your brother’s camp while we were still sniffing our own arses here in these woods!”

  “All right, Chris.” There was a definite smile beginning to creep into Razi’s voice. Wynter could not help but smile herself. Christopher sounded so earnest.

  “You cannot always treat her like a baby, she is—”

  “A full grown woman. Aye. You’ve said. She is strong and brave and clever. The equivalent of ten strong men. How have I not seen this before? Why, with Wynter by our side we shall overthrow the Haun in a day, and convert the rabid Combermen to Islam.” Razi was laughing now, but there was no sting in it.

  Christopher muttered an amiable “Oh, shut up,” under his breath.

  There was a long moment’s pause. Then Razi murmured softly, “I want you both safe, Chris. This fight is not of your making. I want—”

  “Do not insult me,” interrupted Christopher flatly. There was more silence, then Christopher said, “Stop shirking and go fill those waterskins. Your little sister is going to murder you when she realises that you took her watch, and I want your chores done before you’re too crippled to walk.”

  “You had better run, Razi Kingsson,” growled Wynter from her bed, “for as soon as I get these covers off me, I’m going to kick your arse.” She rolled and glared across the clearing at him.

  Razi was already walking off, the waterskins slung across both shoulders. He backed away, spreading his arms in challenge. “Catch me then, warrior woman! Come on!”

  Wynter settled back, folding her arms, and Razi grinned.

  “I thought not!” he said, and strode away towards the river.

  Wynter watched Christopher’s slim back as he served out three bowls of mush. Like herself, he had his hair bound tightly against his head to protect it from the dust and parasites, and she thought the nape of his neck had a very strong, pleasing look to it. He had left off his tunic and she could see the closely muscled contours of his back and shoulders under the thin cloth of his undershirt. She swallowed hard at the feelings these things awoke in her.

  “Christopher,” she said. “I am sorry that I intruded on your kindness last night.”

  Christopher was perfectly still for a moment. Then he tilted his head towards her slightly, so that she could see a portion of cheekbone and the black shadow of his eyelashes. “Do you regret it?” he asked softly.

  “No, I do not.”

  She saw his shoulders relax, and he went back to dishing out the breakfast. “Would you mind packing away the bedrolls?” he asked. “There’s much to discuss before we leave, and it’s best to get everything done now.”

  “All right.”

  He sat still and quiet while she began her task, but she’d only knotted the ties on the first ground sheet when he spoke again. “Razi has asked us to leave him,” he said. She stopped in her work and they turned to look at each other. “I told him you’d be no more willing to leave him than I, but it has just occurred to me… I have no right to speak for you, girly. I don’t know your mind.”

  Wynter smiled. Oh, I think you do, Christopher Garron. I think we are of one mind in this. But thank you for asking my opinion. “I will be staying,” she said.

  Christopher regarded her closely, those clear grey eyes searching her face.

  “Girly?” he asked.

  “Aye?”

  “Do you think this Alberon fellow sent those assassins to kill Razi? I have this fear that we are allowing our friend walk to his execution here, and it haunts me that I may be aiding him in his own destruction.”

  Wynter thought of Albi, of his generous, loving nature, of his adoration of Razi, and she tried to dovetail it with the images of the assassins—the knife thrown across the banquet hall, the murderous arrow through the poor guard’s head. How could her sunny, laughing friend have been behind them? Then she thought of Razi, standing by while that poor man was tortured so awfully, and she realised that time and circumstance could change anyone.

  “Girly?” insisted Christopher. “I am in the dark here.”

  She sighed. Razi would be back from the river soon. In the short time left, how could she let Christopher know what Razi meant to Alberon and herself? How much he had done for them, and how unthinkable it was that Albi would ever want to hurt him. “Did you know that Albi and I were born on the same day, Christopher?”

  He shook his head, puzzled by the direction the conversation had taken.

  “We were not meant to be, but Albi came very late and I came much too early.” Wynter glanced in the direction of the river. Marni had been the one to tell her this, and she was never too sure that Razi would want her to know it.

  She looked back to Christopher. “Princess Sophia… Albi’s mother?… had the most appalling labour. My mother and Sophia had been in their confinement together… you know about my father, of course?” Christopher shook his head, and Wynter spread her hands in frustration and glanced towards the river again. “Father was still on the run with Rory at the time, Jonathon’s father being determined to see them both dead.”

  She held her hand up to deflect Christopher’s shocked questions. “Another time,” she said. “It is irrelevant to this story. Anyway, my mother was under Jonathon’s most steadfast protection, and so she had been sharing the Princess’s quarters. But the sounds of Sophia’s awful torment terrified my poor mother, who was already mortally afraid of the prospect of labour, so Mamma fled the palace, seeking the tranquillity of the home she had shared with… with my dad.”

  Wynter faltered; somehow putting everything into words like this was very difficult. It brought everything sharply into focus for her. Most awfully, the fact that she, squirming and kicking in her mother’s womb, had been the reason for that good woman’s death and for the barrenness of her father’s remaining years. She stared at her hands for a moment, then blinked and carried on.

  “Razi was most devoted to my mother. He must have followed her from the palace. Marni thinks that he must have found her very soon after she fell. It had been raining, the ground must have been…” Wynter paused again, the image of her seventeen-year-old mother, giving birth alone and frightened in a wet field, was much too vivid in her mind. “Razi turned up in the kitchens hours later, covered in blood and carrying me wrapped in his tunic. I was tiny, apparently, and blue with cold. Marni swaddled me and put me in a box of hay like a kitten. By the time they found my mother, she had already bled to death.”

  Christopher shifted slightly, but did not speak or reach for her. She rubbed her forehead and continued.

  “Albi was born that night. Princess Sophia lingered till morning, and then she too died. No one really knows why, though Razi has his suspicions.” Wynter raised her eyes to Christopher. “He blames her death on the same thing that kept Jonathon’s next two wives from carrying children, the same thing that led to their deaths. Poison…”

  Christopher sat up a little straighter. “Oh,” he said.
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  “Two days later, Razi turned up in the kitchens again. This time he was carrying the royal prince under his arm, a weighty, great dumpling of a baby, apparently. It’s amazing that a four-year-old could have carried him so far.”

  “Why did he do it?” asked Christopher quietly.

  Wynter glanced towards the river again. “Have you met Razi’s mother, Christopher?”

  “Aye.”

  “What think you of her?”

  Christopher gave it some thought. “I think …” he said carefully, “that she is a woman who has managed to make her way in a world dominated by men. There is much to be admired in her.”

  This so stunned Wynter that she was speechless for a moment. Christopher was the first person she had ever met with anything positive to say about Umm-Razi Hadil bint-Omar. “My father calls Hadil ‘The Hidden Dagger’,” she said.

  Christopher’s amused dimples blossomed into a grin. “That is also apt. Why was it that Razi brought his brother to the kitchens, girly?”

  Wynter flicked a glance towards the river. Razi’s curly head was just coming into sight as he made his way up the slope towards them, and she continued in a whispered rush, “According to Marni, Razi would say nothing but ‘my mother is looking at him’. No matter how many times they returned Albi to his chambers, he would eventually be found in the kitchen, sleeping in the box of hay by my side, Razi sitting on the floor at our feet.”

  Christopher turned his head at the sound of Razi’s footsteps approaching through the dry leaves.

  “Razi has protected us our whole lives, Christopher. He has been our rock. Albi would never hurt him. I can’t believe that Albi would ever hurt him.”

  Razi came trudging into camp, his long body curling forward with the weight of the waterskins and his own heavy thoughts. He sighed and glanced up as he began to make his way down the slope, then paused to see the two of them sitting cross-legged and deep in conversation.

  “You God-cursed laggards!” he exclaimed. “You’ve done naught since the time I left!”