Thornmere
The Kingdom of Thûn
mira looked out across the dark expanse of water and frowned. The Rithmar border was so close and yet seemingly remote. She was beginning to feel as if they’d never reach it.
Turning back to the fisherman she’d just been arguing with, Mira’s frown deepened. “I’m not asking you to take us across the lake,” she muttered, “just to sell me one of your boats.”
The sinewy man who spent his days fishing for eel and trout in the lake’s waters glowered at her. “Clean your ears out, woman,” he growled. “I’m not selling you either of my boats, not for any price.” He cast a glance right then, at where black and red clad figures patrolled the dock. “Are you trying to get both of us arrested?”
Mira huffed out a breath, although the fisherman’s warning caused her to adjust the hood of her cloak so that her face was cast in shadow. “No,” she growled back. “I just want to get home.”
That was her story—that she and her little sister needed to cross the border and return home to Rithmar. She’d thought the tale would elicit sympathy, but the boatmen, merchants, and fisherman of Thornmere hadn’t a shred of empathy for her and Ninia’s plight. They were more afraid of what the Anthor soldiers would do to them if they were caught helping folk cross into Rithmar.
“The border is closed,” the fisherman muttered, picking up a heavy coil of oiled rope and tossing it into his boat. “You and your sister are just going to have to stay put until things change.”
Mira clenched her jaw and considered another attempt at changing his mind. However, she saw the stubborn glint in his eye. If she pushed things too far, he’d report her. It was time to leave the man be.
Rounding her shoulders, she turned her back on the fisherman and wove her way back up the long jetty. A trawler had just docked, and men were unloading crates of crayfish onto the wharf. Fortunately, Thornmere’s docks were a busy place; even with Anthor soldiers here Mira was able to go about her business. She just had to be careful.
Mira reached the end of the jetty and slipped into the crowds that thronged Broad Walk—the wide, straight walkway that was Thornmere’s main thoroughfare. Mira would have called it a street, however, there weren’t any in this town. Thornmere didn’t have cobbled and dirt streets and stone buildings like most of Thûn’s settlements; instead, it was built out of wood over the dark waters of the lake. A forest of giant pillars held up a huge pier that thrust out from the pebbly lake-edge, and from that main pier, smaller ones shot off like branches from a great tree trunk. The main pier stretched at least four furlongs out into the lake, finishing at the bustling docks.
At the start of Broad Walk, a group of women had clustered around a man who was selling a load of carp fresh off the boat. Mira loitered amongst them, waiting until a patrol of soldiers had passed, before moving on.
All her years on the streets served her well now. Every day as a mudlark had been a fight for survival in Veldoras. Mira knew how to move through crowds unseen, how to blend in with her surroundings, and how to get folk to look right through her.
Even so—none of her skills had enabled her to get them passage north.
A dark mood descended upon her as she wove her way up Broad Walk. High timber buildings stained dark loomed overhead, their shuttered windows open to let in the bright morning sun. Women were leaning out, hanging out washing. The smell of lye and lavender wafted by. Mira’s boots whispered on the oiled wood, pitted and polished with age, as she threaded her way past crowded shop fronts. Wherever you went in Thornmere, there were throngs of people—and she was sure that was the only reason she and Ninia had been able to remain here undetected.
The situation was becoming critical. Every day more men of Anthor poured into town; soon she and the princess would run out of places to hide.
I need to get out of here … alone.
Ninia was dragging her down. She couldn’t believe she was still traveling with her. Mira had planned on ditching the girl at the first opportunity, but it seemed that fate had plotted against her every step of the way.
That stage coach had never turned up at Deeping, and so the pair of them had been forced to travel to the next settlement—a hamlet named Shallowcreek—on foot. They’d barely made it in time and both spent the night awake to the sounds of shadow creatures clawing on the door outside the inn. Unlike Deeping, Shallowcreek wasn’t protected by a palisade. And nor were many of the other villages they stayed at on their way north.
It had been too dangerous to leave Ninia on her own. Six months on, they were still in Thûn.
At Thornmere they’d come to a dead-end. The border lay so close now that it seemed to mock them. Ninia was the problem. On her own, Mira would have been across the border by now.
Mira passed a cat stretching out languidly in a doorway. It was a crisp morning, yet the feline had found a pool of sunlight to relax in.
The sun—what a relief it had been to see it again. Even months on, Mira enjoyed the feel of it warming her back as she walked.
Life without it had been much harder.
Mira would never forget the morning the sun had returned. On the journey north, a day out from Witchmere—a walled burgh on the shores of a vast, blue lake—she and Ninia had been caught outdoors after dark. They’d climbed a tree just before dusk before waiting for the shadow creatures to hunt them.
Yet they hadn’t come.
The night had stretched on, and they’d heard the howls and shrieks of the servants of darkness in the distance, but none ventured close. Stranger still, when the sun rose that morning, the heavy bank of cloud that had covered the world for weeks lifted. Mira and Ninia had stood, faces tilted upward, as the warmth of the late summer sun bathed their faces.
The sun made Mira sweat now although she didn’t dare push back her hood. She had to remain a shadow here.
Halfway down Broad Walk, she cut left onto Pike Walk. Apart from the main thoroughfare, the rest of the walks bore the names of the fish that lived in the cold waters of this great lake. Pike Walk was a narrow, dank way that jutted out into the lake in a dark finger. Shabby timbered buildings rose overhead; the sky was just a thin blue strip above her. The air smelled of urine and rotting fish. The boarding house where she and the princess were staying was near the end of the walk.
Not far from home, a small food market partially blocked Pike Walk. Mira stopped here and bought some fresh bread, cheese, and apples. She handed over a bronze talent reluctantly. Since leaving Veldoras, her money purse had lightened considerably. At this rate she’d be penniless by the time they reached Rithmar.
Slinging the cloth bag over her shoulder, Mira strode the last few yards to the boarding house. She and Ninia had moved half a dozen times since arriving in Thornmere. For the moment, this battered-looking establishment was home. The façade was missing half its shingles and the guttering was sagging. But at least it was cheap and discreet.
Inside, Mira stepped into a narrow entrance hall. A stairwell to the left led to the rooms above, and a doorway to the right led into the common room. The silver talent Mira paid weekly covered a room for the two of them and supper every night.
Mira was about to climb the stairs when she heard the tinkle of girlish laughter coming from the common room.
“Yes, that’s right … and in Farras they call donkeys ‘Aswani’.”
Male laughter echoed through the doorway. “You’re a clever one, girl. Where did you learn to speak so many tongues?”
Mira gritted her teeth and plowed into the common room. It was a low, windowless room crammed full of tables with a hearth at one end. The air smelled of smoke and sawdust.
At one of the tables, cups of ale before them, sat Princess Ninia and a handsome, sharp-featured man with long dark hair. Dressed head to foot in black leather, the fellow had a watchful gaze that Mira immediately distrusted.
Shadows, why is she talking to him?
“Nelly,” Mira greeted her with a bright smile, using the name the princess had gone by ever since they’d left Deeping. “There you are. I’ve bought food for our noon meal. Come, we’d best get upstairs.”
Ninia smiled back. “But I’ve just started my ale, Aunt Melinda.”
Mira stopped before the table, her gaze dropping to the huge tankard before the princess. “You’re too young to be drinking,” she said sweetly, her attention shifting to the man opposite. “Or talking to strangers.”
The man grinned at this before holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Your pretty niece approached me. I thought it only gentlemanly to offer her a drink.”
Mira inhaled deeply, anger simmering within her. She then turned back to Ninia, forcing herself to continue smiling. “Upstairs, Nelly.”
Ninia pouted. “But I—”
“Upstairs.” Mira leaned down, grasped Ninia by the arm and hoisted her out of the chair. “You know your mother wouldn’t approve.”
Ninia glared up at her. “I don’t care what—”
Mira pushed her toward the doorway. “Come on,” she said brightly. “Enough back-chat.” She then cast a look over her shoulder at where the man was leaning back in his chair watching her, a smirk on his face. Mira glared at him. “Good day.”
He grinned back. “And good day to you.”
Upstairs, Ninia flounced into the room behind Mira, slamming the door so hard behind her the whole wall shook. “You embarrassed me.”
Mira whipped round and struck out, slapping the princess hard across the face.
Ninia reeled back, clutching her cheek, eyes huge. “You hit me.”
“Aye, and I’ll repeat the gesture if you ever compromise us like that again.”
Stunned, Ninia blinked, tears welling now. It was the first time Mira had ever lifted a hand to her. There had been numerous times over the past six months when Mira had been tempted, times when Ninia had tested her patience to the limits. However, the girl’s behavior today had pushed her over the edge.
She pushed her face close to Ninia’s. “Do you want to bring the Anthor army down upon us?”
Ninia held her hard stare with one of her own. She had her mother’s fire and pride, and hated to be proven wrong about anything. “I was doing no such thing.”
“Really? How many young women in The Four Kingdoms speak more than one tongue? Do you not think Reoul of Anthor has sent men after us? How do you know that man wasn’t looking for you?”
Ninia paled. “He was just friendly,” she replied in a small voice.
Mira uttered a curse. “For a clever girl, you sometimes have the wits of a goose.”
Ninia backed away, removing her hand from her red cheek. “I just get so bored with you gone,” she murmured, the fight going out of her. “I thought I’d go downstairs and see if there was anyone to chat to.”
Mira shrugged off her heavy mantle and hung it up. “I’m doing my best to get us out of here, Ninia. The least you can do is be patient.”
The princess sat down upon one of the small beds lining the rectangular room. “Did you have any luck today?” she asked.
Mira shook her head, digging into the cloth bag and extracting the food. “None. We’re going to have to steal a boat.”
Ninia’s sharply indrawn breath drew Mira’s gaze. The girl was watching her, incredulous. “But we already tried that … and we nearly got caught.”
Mira frowned. A month ago, frustrated that none of the boatmen would ferry them across the lake, she had brought Ninia down to the docks after dark and attempted to steal one of the rowboats moored to the pier. A guard had spotted them, and the women had fled—only just evading capture.
“I didn’t plan that well enough,” she admitted, placing the bread, cheese, and apples onto a platter. “I’ve been thinking this idea through though. Every four days, a man brings barrels of mead across on a boat from Snape. I watched him yesterday. He moors his boat at the end of the docks and only ever stays a few hours in town. He always goes for a drink in the Grey Goose tavern before returning to his boat. If we could find a way to delay him till after dark, we could steal his boat.”
She didn’t mention that she had been seriously considering ditching Ninia. If this plan failed, she would. Irritation flooded over her then. Why don’t I just leave? Who cares about the girl? Yet here she was, still trying to help the most ungrateful wench ever born.
Ninia’s mouth compressed, making it clear she didn’t think much of this idea. “And how are we going to delay him?”
“I can approach him in the tavern, charm him, and then slip something into his drink.”
Ninia smirked.
Mira glowered at her. “What’s so funny?”
“Just the thought of you, charming a man. Most of them are terrified of you.”
“I’m capable of being nice … if I want to. Most men aren’t worth the effort.”
Ninia gave her a sly look. “Have you ever been in love, Mira?”
Mira gave a rude snort and ripped a piece off the loaf of bread she’d bought. “And when do you think I’ve had time for that?”
Apart from the odd fling with guards at the keep, she’d had little to do with men. Love was the last thing on her mind—survival was all that mattered.
Mira met Ninia’s eye once more. “We need to find a way across that damn lake,” she said firmly. “That boatman is due to dock again in three days. We’ll be ready when he does.”