The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [157]
“Anne!” Austra cried. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll think of something,” she promised. “I’ll think of something.”
Artoré’s house was much like the others they had passed, but larger and more rambling. Chickens pecked in the yard and beyond, in a fence, she saw several horses. The sky was nearly dark now, and the light from inside was cheerful.
A woman of about Artoré’s age met them at the door. Her blondish hair was caught up in a bun, and she wore an apron. Wonderful smells spilled through the doorway.
“There’s my wife,” Artoré said. “Osne.”
“You found them, then,” she said. “Dajé Vespré to you, girls.”
“You were looking for us?” Anne said, the hair on her neck pricking up.
“Don’t be frightened,” the woman said. “I sent him.”
“But why?”
“Come in, eat. We can talk after.”
The house was as cheery inside as it looked from the outside. A great hearth stood at one end of the main room, with pots and pans, a worktable, ceramic jars of flour, sugar, and spices. Garlic hung in chains from the rafters, and a little girl was playing on the terra-cotta-tile floor.
Anne suddenly felt hungrier than she had in her life. The table was already set, and the woman ushered them to sit.
For the next half bell, Anne forgot almost everything but how to eat. Their trenchers were sliced from bread still hot from the baking. And there was butter—not olive oil, as it always was in Vitellio but butter. Osne ladled a stew of pork, leeks, and mussels onto the bread, which in itself should have been plenty, but then she brought out a sort of pie stuffed with melted cheese and hundreds of little strips of pastry and whole eggs. Added to that was a sort of paste made of chicken livers cooked in a crust, and all washed down with a strong red wine.
She felt like crying with joy—at the coven, they’d eaten frugally—bread and cheese and porridge. On the road and in z’Espino they had lived near starvation and eaten what they could find or buy with their meager monies. This was the first truly delicious meal she had eaten since leaving Eslen, all those months ago. It reminded her that there could be more to life than survival.
When it was done, Anne helped Osne, Austra, and the two youngest boys clear the table and clean up.
When they were finished, she and Osne were suddenly alone. She wasn’t sure where Austra had got off to.
Osne turned to her and smiled. “And now, Anne Dare,” she said, “heir to the throne of Crotheny—you and I must talk.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PORT OF PALDH
SWANMAY WAS AS GOOD as her word. They reached the mouth of the Teremené River five days after she made her promise.
By that time Neil could stand, and even walk, though he tired quickly, so when he heard that land had been sighted, he pulled on the clothes that Swanmay had supplied for him and went up on deck.
A cloud cover was breaking up with the rising of the sun, painting the landscape with long brushes of light. Corcac Sound, Neil reflected, was what Newland would have been, without the canals and malends and the sheer force of human will to keep the water back—a thousand islands and hammocks, some of which vanished at high tide, and all green with marsh grass and ancient oaks. They sailed past villages of houses raised on stilts and men in skiffs hauling in cast-nets full of wriggling shrimp. Beyond the river channel, a maze of creeks and waterways wandered off to the flat horizon.
He found Swanmay near the bow.
“We’re nearly there,” she said. “I told you, you see.”
“I did not doubt you, lady.” He paused uncomfortably. “You said the men who attacked me are the same men you fear. Yet they did not recognize your ship in z’Espino. Why do you fear they will recognize it now, if they are in the port of Paldh?”
A hint of a smile touched her lips. “In z’Espino they didn’t yet know they were looking for me. Another day or so there and the news would have reached them. For certain, it has reached Paldh by now.”
“The news of your escape?”
“Yes.”
“Then—if I may—I would propose not to hold you strictly to your word. Put me off here, before we reach