play no courtly games with Christopher Garron’s life. If he so much as stumbles and bruises his knees, I shall . . .’
Footsteps crunched up the dry slope and Wynter snapped to furious silence, certain that Oliver was about to beg access to the Prince. God curse him! Of all the damned times to interrupt. Right at that moment, Wynter did not think that she could face the knight without losing her now hopelessly tenuous self-control.
But it was only Alberon’s lieutenant, and he came to attention with a smart salute, waiting for permission to approach. Alberon waved him at ease and gestured him to speak.
‘Sir Oliver has taken watch with the pickets, your Highness. He sends word from the tree line.’
‘What news?’ asked Alberon.
‘No sign of the supplies, your Highness. It being two days now, and considering what the Lord Razi witnessed by the ford, Sir Oliver is of the belief that the provisioners might have been taken.’
Alberon sighed. ‘It is more than possible. The valleys are crawling with the King’s soldiers. If Sir Oliver is right, and those poor men have been taken, it will only be a matter of time before they crack and tell my father where we are . . . I’m afraid we may have to move again, Marcel, and soon.’
The lieutenant nodded gravely and gazed out across the camp. ‘No need for the men to know it yet, though, Highness. T’would only rattle them.’
‘Aye. In any case, we must await these last envoys. We certainly cannot up stakes till they are here. There is no sign of them, I suppose?’
Wynter saw the lieutenant’s face crease in momentary distaste. ‘No, your Highness,’ he said coldly. ‘No sign.’
Alberon sighed again and dismissed the man. He watched as the lieutenant walked away, then he drew his cloak around him and stood staring pensively out across the trees. His thoughts seemed utterly diverted from Christopher, and Wynter glowered at him – torn between needing to discuss the desperate politics of their situation and the desire to settle the subject of her future once and for all.
At the back of the tent, something stirred and a thin whine drew Wynter’s attention. With another grim look at the Prince, she crossed to see what it was. On the trunk that acted as Alberon’s bedside table, Marguerite Shirken’s papers rested, their seals as yet unbroken. Wynter glanced suspiciously at them; then she drew the insect-netting aside and looked behind it for the source of the noise.
It was Coriolanus, hidden in his nest of blanket at the foot of the neat cot. The poor creature seemed in the grip of a bad dream, and he mewed hoarsely in his sleep, his little teeth flashing.
Wynter crouched by the bed. ‘Cori,’ she whispered, reaching to stroke him. ‘Cori . . . wake up.’
The cat hissed and lashed out, and Wynter withdrew with a cry, her hand scored with four shallow gashes. She cursed vehemently. ‘Cori!’ she snapped. ‘Wake up!’
His eyes flew open and he lay on his back, staring at her, his small white forepaws held to his bony chest. ‘Cat-servant,’ he rasped.
‘You scratched me.’
He looked at the blood she was sucking from the back of her hand and frowned, rolling to his side. ‘I . . . I was dreaming of my dear mother. The soldiers-who-kill had come again. I was too sick and my mother . . . my mother drew them away. But,’ he squeezed his beautiful eyes shut, ‘but in my dream they came again,’ he whispered. ‘Reaching.’
‘It was only me,’ said Wynter, moved by the poor creature’s obvious distress. ‘I was only going to pet you.’
‘Ahrrrrrr,’ he huffed, flustered. ‘Humans. Always touching. Always grabbing!’ He slid a look at her. ‘Though I am sure I can bring myself to tolerate it if you must lift me.’
Wynter gathered him to her, a fragile collection of brittle warmth, and cradled him like a baby. ‘Your mother still lives, you know,’ she whispered gently. ‘An orange cat told me so. GreyMother hides somewhere in the castle with the last of the kittens.’
Coriolanus didn’t react to this, except to rub his head against her caressing fingers and gaze into nothing. ‘A flame-coloured cat,’ he murmured, ‘with a heart full of hatred?’
‘How did you know?’
‘SimonSmoke’s tenth daughter, the only flame-coloured cat of her litter. She has no human-given name. She rages against you all now, brave thing. She and her litter-mates were the last of the Palace-born. GreyMother carried them down into the woods,