The Lost Endeavour Read online

  He nodded, understanding. But in the open fields, he wondered what they could do.

  Barlow coughed politely. “We understand, miss.” He waved at a couple of the soldiers, who held up a large sheet. He pointed out into the field. “We can assist you.”

  She nodded, and the girls moved together with the two young men. Ed watched as they directed the men away to watch what might be coming as two of the women stepped up to take the sheet.

  Ed turned to the lord’s sister by his side. She bowed her head. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said, then raced off to join the others.

  “Go for water,” Barlow ordered two others, and they headed in the other direction, where Ed could just see a small river glinting in the distance. They gathered water skins and took off at a run. “Are we to feed your men as well?” he asked the major.

  The man scowled. “We have our own tasks to do.”

  Without a glance in Ed’s direction, he turned back for his horse and indicated that the men he travelled with do the same. He looked out over the field and the young women chattering amongst themselves, taking it in turns to hold the sheet up to hide from the soldiers.

  The major climbed up onto his mount and, with a sharp whistle, he and his men disappeared quickly down the road. The women paused in their chatter to watch them go.

  “My uncle will know now that I’m on my way.”

  “Unless they plan to ambush us closer to the capital.”

  “Thanks Dray, that fills me with confidence. Perhaps I should have stayed hidden in the trees.”

  “Perhaps,” Dray murmured. “I’m not sure what allies we have here.”

  “We are the King’s Men,” Barlow said sharply, making Ed jump.

  “All of you?” Dray asked.

  “I give my word for every man present.”

  “Hmm.” Dray sighed, looking down the road after the major.

  “I could do with a bath,” Belle said, reappearing on the road beside Ed.

  “I would love to indulge you, miss, but I fear I haven’t the hot water.”

  Belle laughed easily. She seemed more herself now that they were out of the trees. Although Ed wondered if he knew who she truly was. He had seen her strong and independent, and in the forest something very different and clingy. Had fear changed her? She smiled up at him and took the offered water skin. As the women made their way back to the road, the soldiers handed out dry meat.

  “Do you wish to stay in the carriage, Your Majesty?” the soldier asked.

  Ed nodded. He hadn’t really been on a horse, and he didn’t want to fall off in front of all these men and young ladies.

  “What do you think?” he asked Dray.

  “About the carriage?” Dray returned with a grin.

  “Ambush,” Ed said quietly.

  “I don’t trust the major,” Dray said, glancing at the retreating form of the captain as the women were assisted back inside the carriages. “I imagine we shall find out soon enough.”

  “Then what?” Ed asked as he offered Belle a hand back inside.

  “We hope you still know how to use your father’s sword.”

  Ed put his hand on the pommel. If only he had been practicing. Master Forest would be disappointed in his lack of attention to it. Maybe he could have used the soldiers for some work, although he doubted they would be stopping anywhere long enough to ask.

  ֍

  Ana felt the uncertainty surrounding her and was desperate to run again. To hide somewhere they couldn’t reach her, although she wasn’t sure if that would help her. The whole castle seemed to be in a heightened state of activity and fear. She wanted to talk with the mage, although she was sure he was trying to kill her. And she wanted to scare the regent just because she could, yet she knew doing so would put her companions at more risk.

  “What did he say about the body?” she asked, then looked up at the faces surrounding her. “The boy in the hall,” she prompted. “The regent?”

  “Oh,” Master Forest said. “Little. He seemed as shocked as we were. Although…” He glanced at Ende. “He said something about seeing it before.”

  Ende nodded slowly. “He wouldn’t have seen the boy.”

  “So many boys,” Salima murmured. “Was it the same?”

  The sword master nodded. “But we never saw the shadows then. Not like now.”

  “I wonder if they came for something else.”

  “Then or now?” he asked her.

  “Where might the regent have seen it?” Ana asked instead.

  “It appeared to confuse him more than it answered any of our questions. Although, I have one.”

  She looked at him, waiting.

  “When will this second shadow creature appear?”

  “It has,” she said.

  “To others, not just their queen,” Ende said, his voice vicious.

  “Why do you think that is me?”

  “The soldier told us what it said. That you want the same things.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” she whispered.

  “You don’t know what you want, or you don’t know what it wants?”

  She looked at him, trying to see the old man in the younger one before her. She couldn’t connect them. She knew it was Ende, and yet he was something very different. “Why did you hide?” she asked instead.

  “From what?” the girl asked on his behalf. As he glanced at her, Ana knew the answer. He had thought them dead, that there was nothing else for him.

  “What else do you know of my mother?” Ana asked.

  “You think she returned here,” Ende said. “If she did, I never saw her. The last we saw of Mariela was when she ran with her soldier.”

  Ana looked down at her hands. She had asked so many times in the last day, and the answer was always the same. She wondered if anyone else had seen her mother after she had left Sheer Rock, and her longing to talk to the mage returned. She sucked in a deep breath, but before she could move anywhere, the sword master’s hand closed around her wrist.

  She looked up at him, and he shook his head once.

  “Are we to hide away here, hoping that the shadows don’t return?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth and then closed it, standing instead to move to the window. “I thought you said the maid was lost,” he murmured, leaning forward.

  Ana joined him at the window and watched the girl race through the streets below them, lost in the crowd by a stall and then back onto the road leading towards the castle. Did she want to be seen?

  “She seems to be in a hurry,” Salima said, pushing between them at the window. “Perhaps she has some news.” She jumped down and raced for the door.

  “No,” Master Forest called after her.

  “I won’t get caught,” she said, slipping through the doorway. Although Ende took a step towards the door as though to follow, he joined the other man at the window instead.

  “She might be seen,” Ana said, standing and pulling her cloak around her.

  “So might you,” Ende said quickly.

  “I’m friends with the shadows, and that little maid is far from safe.” Ana sighed and then winked out of the room. Ende’s disappointment followed her. She wondered if it was aimed at her, or at himself for not seeing what she was. Not that it was any clearer. She pressed her back into the wall of the throne room, lost in the shadows behind the throne. She couldn’t see the child, but she could sense her coming. She pulled the hood up around her face to ensure she couldn’t be seen, but she knew in her very being that no one knew she was there.

  The regent wandered into the room, glanced around and sat on the throne. He was still and rigid, the only person in the room. Ana searched the shadows, fearing the creature had returned this way for a reason. If the maid did not appear here, she would search in the mage’s rooms. As the heat moved towards her, she knew the little dragon was not far away.

  The maid appeared silently in the room. If Ana had not been watching for it, she would not have seen her. It
was almost as though she had winked into existence in the middle of the room. The regent didn’t appear to have noticed how she had arrived, and he waved a hand as though waiting for a report.

  “What do you want to hear?” she asked, her voice not quite what it had been. The regent sat forward a little.

  Ana wondered if he realised what it was he was talking to.

  “Is it done?”

  There was the smallest pause, and Ana could feel the shadows pressing in on the room.

  “No, sire.”

  “No!” the regent bellowed, pushing up from the throne. He clenched a fist. Ana could feel the anger flowing from him, but there was something else. Pain. He made to touch one arm with the other and then stopped. He must still be afflicted from where she had grabbed him.

  “Has the mage seen my soldiers?”

  She tilted her head to the side as though considering the question.

  “He has sent you?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “The mage,” he said, exasperation washing from him as he stepped forward.

  She shook her head once.

  The regent stared at her, then moved back to sit heavily in the throne. His hand rubbed absently at the arm Ana had grabbed so violently. She had done more than make him nervous, and the idea filled her with a little more confidence than she had felt of late. She refocused on the strange scene within the room. The maid had come, but not at the mage’s bidding. She wondered if it would continue to do as he wanted. Yet there was a reason.

  “What do you know?” the mage snapped.

  “You will learn more soon,” the maid said, bowing her head and turning for the door.

  “Why are you here, little girl?” he asked unkindly. Ana could feel his hatred for the girl roll from him; or was it jealousy? She was tempted to hold her breath to prevent the feeling from overwhelming her.

  “I wanted to see what you would do,” the maid said, her voice more like the hiss Ana had experienced in the forest.

  She felt the fear of the little dragon flow from her hiding space as she realised the maid was something very different.

  “Maybe I should have kept you for myself,” the regent growled.

  “I serve another,” the voice, clearly not that of the maid, growled across the room.

  There was a sharp intake of breath in a distant corner of the room, and both maid and regent turned towards the sound. The regent stepped forward, and the maid winked from existence. Ana closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around the girl and then put her hand across her mouth as she dragged her back through the shadows to her father’s rooms.

  “What is that girl?” Salima blurted as Ana released her hold and stepped back.

  “A way to the king,” Ana whispered.

  “I thought you could keep him safe,” the sword master muttered.

  “They will know where he is soon enough,” Ana said.

  “What if the shadows follow him?” the girl asked, panic clear on her face and filling the room around them.

  “They won’t.”

  “Can you check on him?” The panic shifted to desperation.

  Ana nodded once. But again, the sword master’s hand was on her. “It is not safe.”

  “Ana can keep him safe,” Salima said.

  Ana looked down, the weight of the girl’s expectations heavy on her shoulders. It was a reminder that she was only of use to these people to protect Ed. Even though that was all she had wanted, to find a way to put Ed on the throne. Back where he belonged.

  “Could he be on his way?” Salima asked. “If people were to see him, then they would know who he was and the regent couldn’t do anything.”

  The sword master let Ana go.

  “He is my only concern,” she whispered, looking back to the girl, and then she blew out a soft breath as she searched out Ed.

  In the dim carriage, the sounds of sleep competed with the sounds of horses’ hooves and wheels travelling at speed over rough road. Girls, young women, curled against each other, having been jostled to sleep by the movement of the carriage. At one end, Ed lay back in a corner, Belle nestled in beside him. His arm wrapped around her, her arm across his chest. She appeared to glow in the dim light. Dray’s dark eyes sparkled as the moonlight squeezed through the narrow windows.

  “They know,” Dray whispered.

  Ana nodded once. “They have guessed, and it will be confirmed soon enough.”

  “I will keep him safe for you,” Dray said, and she turned as the knot filled her throat, making it hard to swallow.

  Chapter 26

  The regent stood in the middle of the mage’s workshop and scowled. Anger burnt in his chest, and he wanted desperately to take it out on someone. Given that the mage had failed him and his little maid had provided nothing but riddles, Thom was fully prepared for that someone to be him. He had gone to all the trouble to drag something from the other side to take the boy out, and that had failed. The regent still wasn’t quite sure why that was. But then the beast had started killing people within the capital. At least two that he was aware of. The mark that had been on the boy’s arm flashed again before him.

  “You had better start explaining, old man,” he growled into the dark room. He looked around then, aware at how chilly it was. Was it usually this cool? A single candle burned, but he had carried that in with him. The fire, one of several fireplaces around the odd-shaped room that usually glowed with hot coals, was dark. He crept closer and held out his hand.

  He felt suddenly exposed in the dark room, as though whatever the mage had called was lurking somewhere. He was reminded of how strange the little maid had sounded.

  “Mage!” he cried into the darkness, allowing his anger and frustration to fill the space. Nothing responded.

  How long since Thom had seen him? How many days, and where might he be?

  The regent turned and hurried out of the space. The mage knew far more than he had shared, and Thom needed answers. The mark, the certainty that he had seen Mariela, and where the little witch had got to. He was sure now that she had survived.

  Ende was here for some reason he didn’t understand, and he wanted answers to it all. For all of them led back to the mage and his secrets.

  He pushed open the door and climbed the stone steps that led towards the courtyard. A soldier stood at attention not far away. “Have you seen the mage?” he asked, trying to relay his urgency without sounding accusing, but by the way the man jumped he realised he had failed.

  “No, Your Highness.”

  The regent growled out his frustrations. “When was he last seen?”

  The man shook his head. Thom saw another man across the courtyard and waved him over. The soldier looked to the regent and bowed his head.

  “The regent is seeking the mage. Have you seen him?”

  The man nodded quickly. “Several days ago, he took some men and headed out.”

  “Men?”

  “King’s Men.”

  “Do you know where he was going?”

  He bowed his head. “Only that he was looking for a girl.”

  “What girl?” the regent snapped.

  “I don’t know,” he said quickly.

  “Let us hope he returns shortly.”

  The man nodded, but his eyes were on the other soldier.

  “Where were you going?” the regent asked.

  “The watch,” he said, indicating the wall.

  “Trouble?” the regent asked, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt.

  “Not yet, but we are keeping a close eye on the world. Strange things seem to be occurring.”

  The regent nodded. “I might have a look with you,” he said. And after a nervous glance at the soldier still standing in the courtyard, he led the way to the wall.

  The regent couldn’t remember looking at the world from this part of the wall. He spent much of his time on his balcony looking over something else, the city and the people. This was something quite different. The wide river app
eared to run along the very wall he stood on, as though it kept the river from the castle. The Near Deep. And he knew it to be fast and deep. There were no bridges nearby that allowed a crossing, but if any enemies were to camp on the other side, they could be easily picked off from the vantage of the wall.

  He was surprised to see people moving through the long grasses on the other side of the river. A path tracked along the edge, and when he leaned over the wall, he could see something similar along the bank below him. Where city and people filled the space on the other side of the castle, there was nothing but fields on this side. Although they were not fields farmers filled with crops. They were marshy and soft. He could see the water glinting through the grasses from here, and he wondered at those who moved through it. A man with a pole, children with a net. A woman with a basket.

  He had been standing looking out over the world for the good part of an hour, and he had seen no more than four people moving towards, away from or past the river. But no one stopped. No one lingered. There was nothing but grass and water as far as he could see.

  “Is there no one out there?” he asked a soldier walking past.

  “Fishing villages, further out,” the man said. “The sea eventually, only it is not easy to reach across the marshes.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it is,” he said. “It would be hard to cross that way to us as well.”

  “We are well defended, Your Highness.”

  The regent nodded. There was fighting at various points in their history, but the capital had never been taken and no one had come from across the seas. Now that the provinces proved their loyalty so regularly, he doubted they would be fighting anyone anytime soon.

  Their crown was safe. His crown. Almost.

  What had Edwin been thinking by running off like that? If he had just stayed where he had been placed, life would have been easier. He could have contracted some disease before the people had started asking too many more questions. The regent sighed and scratched at his beard. Something moved in the grass, something tall and dark. In the midday sun, he was somewhat surprised that it would show itself so openly. And then, just as quickly, it was gone. A soldier appeared beside him, raising a looking glass to his eye and then studying the bank beneath them.