The Kingless Crown

Chapter 5-1

5

The Long-Trodden Mule

“Nightfall was an hour ago,” Esmerelda whined. She sagged atop the nag in demonstration of her exhaustion. Jesse expected no less from her and was surprised she’d even made it across the border into the Westerlands without surrendering and going home. “Come on, Jesse. Please.”

He waved his hands around the forest without turning. “Do you see a place to stop for the night, Princess?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“I wish you hadnae gotten my brother thrown in the traitor king’s prison camp. So, we both suffer.”

This shut her up for the time being. Truth was, he was tired, too. They’d hidden in an abandoned fortress just outside Goldthorpe for nigh a week, waiting for her father to announce the dead-given rites. Until then, there could be no confidence that Khallum had fallen for the ruse. That was to say nothing of the Rhiagain Guard who would use Esmerelda’s absence at the upcoming Right of Choosing as an excuse to send even more men into the Southerlands. They had to be absolutely certain no one was after them.

But unless they planned to sleep amongst the flora of the forest floor, they had another hour, perhaps two, before their next destination, the inn at Greystone Abbey. Westerlands, it might be, but the Abbey and Goldthorpe had alliances that ran deep, and Esmerelda, despite her attempts at disguise, was a vision in any land.

Crying, she’d sliced off her brilliant obsidian hair just below the shoulders with Jesse’s sword the night before. There was nothing to be done about the color. Any lighter and he could’ve crushed berries, like his father’s second wife did, or even woad, like his mother had done, but nothing would work against the black. He gave her his own cloak to drape down over her face, the only cure for her emerald eyes. They were playing a dangerous game until they arrived in the Hinterlands.

Beautiful or no, Esmerelda Warwick was now Jesse’s burden, and if he hadn’t sworn the sacred oath to his brother, he would’ve left her to meet the consequences of her feigned death by the sea. Ryan would be better for it, even if he’d hate him for the rest of their days.

But an oath was an oath. It was sacred, especially when given between men of the same blood. A man was nothing without the bond of his word.

“How far are we from Greystone Abbey?”

“Do I look like a mapmaker, Princess?”

“You know, and you just won’t tell me.”

“That’s a real possibility,” Jesse admitted and continued on, weaving through the roots and undergrowth. Their slow pace was a liability, but staying on a road, or even a well-worn path, was a risk too great. Whispers of the gloaming twilight pierced through gaps in the upper veil of the forest to light their way, but it wasn’t enough. Shelter or no, they’d be forced to stop if the forest grew more dense.

“I know you don’t like me.”

Jesse snickered. “I donnae know you.” And, though it was cruel, he couldn’t help adding, “all I do know is my brother is in Camp Atonement for loving you, and it was your father who put him there.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” Esmerelda grunted, shifting in pain from the long day’s ride.

“No? Tell that to your daddy.”

“If you think me so abhorrent, why didn’t you tell Ryan to find someone else?”

“Donnae say his name aloud,” Jesse snapped. “Or mine. Or yours. Not until we’re safe. You hear me?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Jesse adjusted in his worn saddle, travel sore. He’d thought about taking the newer one, but his father paid a pretty penny for it, and his disappearance was supposed to raise no suspicions. Same reason he borrowed two horses no one would miss. He was away on the usual business. That’s all. “And who else was there, Princess? Who else would’ve risked their neck for you?”

“You might be surprised.”

“Or you might,” Jesse countered. “The Warwicks aren’t as well-loved in the Southerlands as you want to believe.”

Her shoulders shot straight back in a flash of pride that Jesse found astonishing in their current situation. There was a saying about this, but it escaped him.

“Your father has thrived at my father’s side,” she countered. He didn’t dare look at her, but could feel her pout from feet away. “Without my father, most of the Great Families would be in the mines.”

“So says you.”

“So knows everyone!”

“Will you keep it down? You trying to wake the trees?”

“The trees a threat now, too, are they?”

“Donnae be so overly confident our plan was foolproof, Princess. As you said, this wasnae supposed to happen.”

“We wouldn’t have made it out of Warwicktown if anyone suspected a thing.”

“If you cannae keep your mouth closed, you can at least stop yourself from telling the whole world who you are.”

“You’re the one who pointed out my family’s reputation.”

Jesse navigated his nag around a copse of fallen trees. Esmerelda nearly ran into it, and he resisted the urge to chuckle as she cried out. She was a mess. Pretty, maybe, but not the type of woman a Strong man married. Ryan wasn’t thinking straight at all where this one was concerned, but he’d always been guided by the head not on his shoulders.

“We aren’t safe until we’re safe,” Jesse said. “Why don’t you leave the planning to me? My brother, at least, seemed to understand that wasnae your strength.”

Esmerelda blew some stray black hairs out of her face. She tugged at the hood, which she hated, but knew better than to remove it after the reaming Jesse had given her last time she’d tried. “Ry—your brother is overprotective. He treats me with delicacy, and I don’t require it.”

Jesse laughed. “No?”

Esmerelda looked away. At what, Jesse could neither guess nor care to. The only light to guide their way now was the spill of moonlight that washed across the makeshift path. When he reached for his waterskin, he realized he hadn’t seen her drink a drop since they’d left Goldthorpe. A groan that started from deep within him breached his lips before he could speak to say the painful but necessary words.

“Princess. You should have some water.”

“You care now, do you?”

“I care for my brother,” Jesse corrected gruffly. “And my brother cares for you. And if he returns to a shriveled corpse that might set us on the wrong path when your father finally sees fit to letting him come home.” Not that it mattered much whether Ryan was there or here. Esmerelda was promised to a king, and if ever anyone discovered her death was feigned, she’d return to her fate as a queen. If there was a world where Esmerelda Warwick and Ryan Strong could be happy and wedded, they weren’t living in it now.

“I’m fine,” Esmerelda lied.

Jesse slowed his nag. He reached for the reins on her own and she made a soft, shocked sound when her horse did the same. He held the skin out, looking half-away. “Come on. Drink.”

“I said I was fine.”

Jesse shoved the skin under her nose. A slosh of water spilled over the lip. “We aren’t moving until you do.”

Still refusing to look directly at her, Jesse nonetheless felt the pride burning from her, as she reluctantly did as he demanded. When she shoved it back his way, he reached around until his hand settled over the skin, and he pulled it back, capping it. He was already moving again when he slipped it into his saddlebag.

“Greystone is nigh an hour, barring any problems,” he mumbled and pushed on. “Push through your stubbornness and then we can sleep.”

Greystone Abbey was once a vital trading port, some five miles off the coast, though this changed in the past fifteen years. Someone came along and built something bigger and better, closer to the water, as Greystone should have been from the start, and Greystone’s population eventually migrated there, leaving the shells of another time in their wake. In today’s world, the only remaining were the ones who couldn’t afford the rents in the more bustling Newcarrow, which had almost overnight become the most important port along the southwestern shore of the Westerlands.

A dark pall hung over the derelict village. Even the name, Greystone, seemed appropriate in a way its forebears couldn’t have foreseen. The mud along the untended main road was hardly touched, though an abandoned cart stuck along the side of it was a reminder some still passed through. Smoke billowed from the chimneys of the occasional house, but the foliage beyond most doors grew up and around, sometimes poking through windows, or bowing doors.

“What is this place?” Esmerelda whispered, suddenly alert once more.

Jesse hadn’t the heart to sting her with another barb. He hadn’t been to Greystone himself since he was but a lad, and this wasn’t how he remembered it. Back then, Stanhope was just building his trade kingdom near the sea, and Greystone still held out hope that it wasn’t the end. A true end would’ve been kinder, Jesse thought, as he watched the crows pecking at what remained of the carcass of a mare long-dead. That was a sign of the times as much as anything, that no one had bothered to move it off the main road.

“It wasnae always like this,” he answered. “But keep your head down, Princess. A place forgotten by civilization isnae forgotten by robbers and beggars. Stay close to me.”

Esmerelda had no retort, either, and did as asked, pulling in so close he could smell her fear and sweat. He hoped she couldn’t smell his. Friends here or no, it was a world time had forsaken, clearly manifested in the abandoned shops along what was once a village of prosperity. Signs dangling or stuck in the ground, overgrown, made him wonder if he could even find the place anymore. Would Kaslan even still be here? The rest of the world had moved on. Why not him?

Ahead, Jesse spotted a denser billow of smoke above a structure of wood and moss, tucked into the corner just off the path. He heard the voices next, and as they drew closer, the sign, perhaps the only in town still neatly intact, read The Long-Trodden Mule.

“I don’t like this,” Esmerelda said.

He didn’t either, but replied, “My brother trusted me. You should try it as well.”

“Are you sure the person you’re wanting to meet is even still here? No one else is.”

No, I’m not sure at all. “I’ve known him and his family all my life. If he’s here, he will aid us.”

“If he isn’t?”

Jesse grunted in response. No use telling her that if they couldn’t find what they were after in Greystone Abbey, their journey north would be fraught with dangers beyond prediction.

He tied up his own horse first, then helped Esmerelda with hers. She handed the bridle over with tense hesitation, and he could almost read her thoughts: What if someone steals them?

After securing the bells, their alarm against theft, Jesse planted a hand against his sword. “Food. Drink. Sleep. It’s all here, Princess. And if it isnae, I’ll know that straightaway and we’ll be gone before trouble finds us.”

Esmerelda answered him with a deeply skeptical look, but she was right at his heels as he entered the only sign of life in all of Greystone Abbey.

The moonlight painted the field beyond The Long-Trodden Mule. The way it lay at the edge of the rotting fence line told Jesse that they were well past midnight. All respectable laborers had given up their spots at the bar for sleep, as the world would wake in less than a few hours.

Jesse scanned the tavern for signs of life. One man at the bar, another behind it. Some sounds from a back room, indicating at least one other. Three, perhaps more.

The one behind the bar came to life when Jesse and Esmerelda passed through the door, bringing with them a strong wind and a spray of fresh rain. He was old, wearing the signs of that age in pocks and brownish marks dotted along a weathered face that resembled the warbled rings on a tree trunk. Whatever remained of his hair clung desperately to an environment no longer hospitable. His unreadable expression wasn’t the immediate ease Jesse searched for, but the look wasn’t hostile, either.