out with one eye. A figure is bending over one boy’s pallet, holding a guttering candle over the bed. Regulus sees it is not a bird at all, but a man dressed in white robes, his hood drawn low over his face. He drags the boy up from his pallet by his arm, and silently waits while the boy wrestles his shirt over his pale, skinny chest and gropes his feet into sandals, which he fumbles to fasten.
The robed man grows impatient. He seizes the boy by the shoulder, and propels him towards the door before his shoe is secure. The boy walks with a lopsided shuffle trying to keep a grip on his sandal, but on the steps leading up to the door, he loses it and it bounces back down, as if trying to flee back to the safety of the pallet. The boy turns, trying to retrieve it, but the robed man pushes him towards the door. As he lifts the candle to illuminate the iron ring, the light catches the boy’s face. His cheeks are wet with tears, his face contorted, but he makes no sound as he is led out into the bitter night. The great door closes behind him.
Regulus dreams he is pissing into a giant pot, but it’s running out through a hole and he can’t stop it. Felix is shouting at him,
Fill it up! Fill it up!
But it’s all running out. Beneath the blanket, something hot trickles down the sleeping boy’s leg. The little king has wet his bed.
Chapter 13
Saturn is the planet of death: look, this one has brought the black mantle of the raven’s head.
There were two tracks that wound through the river valley to Ricey-Bas. The broader one was favoured by soldiers on the march and by men driving carts or women herding squawking geese or plodding cows. This track followed every twist and turn of the River Laigne, skirting fields of grain and vineyards, and marked by numerous wayside chapels where men might light a candle to their favourite saint to pray for a safe journey and a good day’s trading in the market.
The higher track, on the opposite side of the river, was much straighter, though steep, rough and narrow. It was fit only for single riders and foot travellers. I agonised over which would be the better route. If I took the broader track there was a chance I could beg a lift on a cart, which was certainly tempting. But the ground was sodden after the rain and there was a risk of carts and wagons getting stuck in water-filled ruts, with any passing man being pressed into pushing it out. I’d no wish to spend my day with my shoulder to a cartwheel, being splattered with mud and dung for my pains.
I made for the river and parted with one of the precious coins Philippe had given me to pay the ferryman to row me across. At the start of the forest path, where the track parted company from the river, there was a small shrine to the patron saint of travellers, St Julian the Hospitaller, who had accidentally slain his own mother and father and spent his life running a pilgrim’s inn as penance. But I passed without stopping. I didn’t intend to waste a single coin or prayer on the fellow. I was only going out for a day’s stroll after all, and when you have a man as powerful as Philippe as your patron and protector, you’re hardly in need of the favours of a dead innkeeper, who was so witless he mistook his own parents for his wife and her lover.
The autumn leaves on the trees had turned every hue between buttercup yellow and ruby red, and as the wind rattled the branches, they spiralled up the hillside. Winter was not far off, but at least this year I’d be sleeping in the great hall before the huge fire, not in that draughty turret with the wind shrieking through the shutters and Gaspard’s dry old bones lying between me and the miserly heat from the brazier.
The wooden box bounced against my thigh as I walked. If the surly ferryman had known what I had hidden under my cloak, he would have been far more polite to me, instead of treating me like a beggar. New clothes: that would be the first thing I’d demand from
The robed man grows impatient. He seizes the boy by the shoulder, and propels him towards the door before his shoe is secure. The boy walks with a lopsided shuffle trying to keep a grip on his sandal, but on the steps leading up to the door, he loses it and it bounces back down, as if trying to flee back to the safety of the pallet. The boy turns, trying to retrieve it, but the robed man pushes him towards the door. As he lifts the candle to illuminate the iron ring, the light catches the boy’s face. His cheeks are wet with tears, his face contorted, but he makes no sound as he is led out into the bitter night. The great door closes behind him.
Regulus dreams he is pissing into a giant pot, but it’s running out through a hole and he can’t stop it. Felix is shouting at him,
Fill it up! Fill it up!
But it’s all running out. Beneath the blanket, something hot trickles down the sleeping boy’s leg. The little king has wet his bed.
Chapter 13
Saturn is the planet of death: look, this one has brought the black mantle of the raven’s head.
There were two tracks that wound through the river valley to Ricey-Bas. The broader one was favoured by soldiers on the march and by men driving carts or women herding squawking geese or plodding cows. This track followed every twist and turn of the River Laigne, skirting fields of grain and vineyards, and marked by numerous wayside chapels where men might light a candle to their favourite saint to pray for a safe journey and a good day’s trading in the market.
The higher track, on the opposite side of the river, was much straighter, though steep, rough and narrow. It was fit only for single riders and foot travellers. I agonised over which would be the better route. If I took the broader track there was a chance I could beg a lift on a cart, which was certainly tempting. But the ground was sodden after the rain and there was a risk of carts and wagons getting stuck in water-filled ruts, with any passing man being pressed into pushing it out. I’d no wish to spend my day with my shoulder to a cartwheel, being splattered with mud and dung for my pains.
I made for the river and parted with one of the precious coins Philippe had given me to pay the ferryman to row me across. At the start of the forest path, where the track parted company from the river, there was a small shrine to the patron saint of travellers, St Julian the Hospitaller, who had accidentally slain his own mother and father and spent his life running a pilgrim’s inn as penance. But I passed without stopping. I didn’t intend to waste a single coin or prayer on the fellow. I was only going out for a day’s stroll after all, and when you have a man as powerful as Philippe as your patron and protector, you’re hardly in need of the favours of a dead innkeeper, who was so witless he mistook his own parents for his wife and her lover.
The autumn leaves on the trees had turned every hue between buttercup yellow and ruby red, and as the wind rattled the branches, they spiralled up the hillside. Winter was not far off, but at least this year I’d be sleeping in the great hall before the huge fire, not in that draughty turret with the wind shrieking through the shutters and Gaspard’s dry old bones lying between me and the miserly heat from the brazier.
The wooden box bounced against my thigh as I walked. If the surly ferryman had known what I had hidden under my cloak, he would have been far more polite to me, instead of treating me like a beggar. New clothes: that would be the first thing I’d demand from
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