“Why did you do that when the battle is over?” the other asked.
Such dull questions! Harold could hardly be bothered to reply.
“To show you what I’m capable of. And, now that I have your attention, take this message to my sister, Princess Catherine: tell her that Tzsayn and Farrow have won this day, but they won’t win again. Next time, my boy army will cut you all off at the knees.”
With that, Harold turned and ran back to the trees, as fast as the wind. The soldiers didn’t even attempt to give chase but knelt by their wounded friend. And above the smoldering fields, above the river and the opposing army camps, above them all, the clouds began to gather. And late that afternoon, the first of the summer rains began to fall.
CATHERINE
ARMY CAMP, NORTHERN PITORIA
War never ends for the living; only for the dead is it ever over.
Pitorian saying
A SHORT cry broke the silence of the night. The queen turned over in her bed, still half-asleep. Every night was full of strange sounds and screams from the gaping mouths of men and demons.
It was just a dream . . .
She could deal with her dreams, since they dissolved away harmlessly with the day, but her dreams rarely woke her, and she was half-awake now.
Perhaps it was a fox’s bark . . .
Though there were no foxes in the camp.
Or a soldier shouting to a comrade . . .
Perhaps that’s exactly what it was.
Catherine opened her eyes.
The fabric of her tent hung limp in the gloom above her. The rains that had fallen for over a week had finally stopped, leaving puddles at the corners of the royal marquees and a dampness lingering in the air. Splotches of black mold had appeared and quickly bloomed across everything in her tent; wool partitions, silk hangings, even the bedsheets were turning into black shrouds.
Outside, the light from a lantern moved closer, casting wavering, stooped shadows with hushed voices.
Savage and his assistants.
Another pained cry and Catherine was up and out of her bed, pulling on her cloak as Tanya ran in. Though Catherine’s maid spoke no words, her face said it all—Tzsayn was getting worse.
Catherine pushed through the double-curtain partitions that divided the royal tent, separating her “chambers” from the king’s. General Davyon was there already, straddling the bed, holding down Tzsayn, who was struggling against him and flailing his arms. Tzsayn’s eyes now fixed on Catherine and he shouted out her name. Catherine ran to him, knowing a moment’s delay would send him further into panic. She grabbed Tzsayn’s hand and held it tight.
“Hush,” she said softly. “It’s me.”
“You’re real? You’re here?” He stared at her, as if still unsure who she was.
“Yes, I’m real. I’m here.”
“But they took you. The Brigantines. I thought I’d lost you.”
“No. I escaped from them . . . on the battlefield. You remember that, don’t you?”
Tzsayn stared and stared at her, tears filling his eyes, and he shook his head and tried to stop them from falling.
“I thought they’d taken you. I thought . . . that man.”
That man, every time. It was Noyes he meant, Catherine was certain, though Tzsayn had never said his name. But he was the one who had tortured Tzsayn and his men, the one who now haunted the king’s mind.
“It was a dream, a bad dream. You have a fever, my darling. Please lie back. I’m safe. But I want you to be safe too.”
Catherine sat beside the bed holding Tzsayn’s hand while Doctor Savage poured a cup of milky medicine, but, as he held it out toward his patient’s lips, Tzsayn knocked the cup away.
“No more of that stuff. Let me go, dammit.”
But Davyon just shook his head, and the doctor’s assistants held Tzsayn’s shoulders while Savage poured the medicine down his throat. Tzsayn spat and swore but eventually fell back into his pillows, still clutching Catherine’s hand.
When the king was still again, Savage pulled back the sheets to check Tzsayn’s wounded leg. Whenever he did this, Catherine usually focused on the good side of Tzsayn’s face—his smooth cheekbone and arching eyebrow—but this time she made herself glance down as Savage unwound the bandages.
A glimpse was all she could stand. Below the knee, Tzsayn’s leg was a raw length of bloody meat and pus, his foot swollen like a pumpkin.
She turned to Savage and Davyon.
“What’s happening to him? It’s getting worse!”
Savage shook his head. “The childhood burns mean the new burns take longer to heal.”