Bresgion dumped two fat trout in Louen’s lap and dropped to his haunches. ‘I found footprints near the river shore. Two men, one horse. A man and his servant?’

‘Could be.’ Louen wrinkled his brow and drew his knife. He made a deft cut up the creamy belly and pulled out the innards, dumping them in the bushes behind. They’d made the Forest and were currently taking a well-earned break from wading through the overgrown deer path that turned the place into a maze. Even he felt pixie-led at times, and he knew Tarnbreck like the back of his hand. Some of it, anyway. He was a little out of his depth on this side of the wood, since he’d never had much occasion to venture this way. It wasn’t worth it usually. There wasn’t anything but the occasional croft, out on the moor, and they weren’t worth looting. Only the hunters came here. The Queen called them poachers, and now and then sent rangers in, and sometimes those rangers came back and sometimes they didn’t, and sometimes they ended up in Karon or beyond, if the Karoni slavers were feeling motivated enough to come into Louen’s territory and pick off the nuisances for him. It was the unspoken agreement between him and Lord Karon, who mysteriously and for no reason at all held Louen in good regard and Duhnos’ monarchy in deep contempt, and lived his life enjoying plaguing them. And in return, Louen’s people formed the barrier between Karon and Queen Verana.

He wondered how Lord Sarath Karon fared. He hadn’t seen him for several months now. His last letter had been brief and to the point, and concerned nothing more than the wish to own another blue eagle egg, if Louen could go to the top of the Eyrie for him and get one. Louen had replied that the last man he'd sent up there had come back in chewed pieces over several days, and no he couldn't go himself, not if Lord Karon wanted his supply of news to continue. Lord Karon would, however, be welcome to try himself.

Lord Karon had replied that he had thought about it, and decided that perhaps he didn't need another blue eagle as much as he'd thought.

That had been more than a month ago. Had their good relationship been marred by Louen's reluctance to put himself on the precipice of death for his lord? He hoped not. Perhaps Sarath had nothing to say just now. Perhaps his messengers, with Erwillian trampling about, couldn't very easily get through, and Sarath was biding his time.

‘I don’t understand why one man with enough money for a servant would be by himself with said servant, in the middle of your forest,’ Bresgion said, cutting through Louen's thoughts. He cocked an eyebrow at Louen. ‘Do you?’

‘No idea,’ said Louen.

‘...none at all?’

‘Perhaps you could clean this other fish, and gather kindling so I can get a fire going? I don’t recommend eating these raw. Parasites aren’t fun.’

Bresgion made a face that said he agreed, with the parasite bit anyway, if not the bit that sounded like work. Mucky, smelly work. He grimaced as Louen tossed the fish at him.

Louen fixed him with a stern look. ‘You do eat, don’t you?’

‘I eat.’ Bresgion set to with his own knife. ‘I just prefer my food to arrive the way it does in your kitchen, on dainty plates. I don’t think I’ve ever prepared my own food. Not even when…’ He trailed off, blushing, his eyes on his own knees in the grass of the clearing.

‘Do continue,’ said Louen, smoothly. ‘Not even when….?’

‘I was just going to say, even when I wasn’t a whore a House Willow,’ said Bresgion, just as smoothly. He made a show of fumbling with the knife, made a mess of the fish, and gave Louen a lopsided, apologetic grin. ‘I’m no good at this. I don’t have your peasant’s skill in making shift for myself.’

Louen put his own knife down with a sigh, and looked Bresgion full in the eye. ‘Don’t go making the mistake that someone is of low birth just because they know how not to die in the wilderness. But, in my case, you’re right. My parents were commoners. I was cast from the castle not five years whence. Do you know what position I held there?’

‘No.’

Louen smirked. ‘Gong-farmer.’

Bresgion’s stunned silence was worth it. Then he burst into peals of laughter. ‘Gong-farmer? You? But…you’re always so...so…pristine…!’

‘Now you know why.’ Louen picked up his knife again and went back to cleaning his fish. He didn’t have to look at Bresgion to know the young man was chewing this information over as thoroughly as he could, and that a hundred questions were lining up behind his tongue.

‘Ask, then,’ he said, unable to get any peace with the fidgeting going on in front of him.

Bresgion sagged in relief. ‘What did you do, to get banished?’

‘I discovered that more than shit gets thrown down into the pits, and I went to the King. Sadly, I had failed to consider that it might have been he who wanted things covered up. I was supposed to be hanged, but I escaped with the help of a mysterious benefactor; whose name, if I ever discover it, shall be the subject of many offerings I may or may not make at the shrines.’

Bresgion snorted.

‘I am not all pragmatic indifference to the existence or usefulness of gods,’ Louen said, sternly. ‘And you? Surely you’ve had occasion to petition a god for deliverance from misery?’

‘I did ask, and look what I became! The gods take requests far too literally! Who was it?' He added the last with his characteristic curiosity tinged with slyness. Louen wasn't certain he liked that trait, but there wasn't much he could do about it. 

'The King's mistress,' he said. 'Nobody knew he had a mistress. I did, though. Know the real reason for a gong-farmer's high wages? But, I'd thought I'd uncovered some disgruntlement from the Queen - I hadn't considered that the King might have got rid of the girl.'

'Makes you wonder,' said Bresgion, and didn't elaborate. Louen didn't need him to. He thought, yes, we've all wondered why one princess was dark and the other fair and taking after her father and her mother the Queen.

They had a fire going now, and Louen skewered both fish and propped them to cook over it. He didn’t worry about smoke: there were a hundred charcoal burners in Tarnbreck and as far as he was concerned, Erwillian was welcome to go and investigate every one of them. Besides, the General was on horseback with thirty or so men. He’d hear their racket long before they even knew he was there.

Besides that, Lord Karon’s slavers were due their monthly sweep of the forest, and they wouldn’t like it if they found Duhnosian soldiers in their way. Those soldiers were likely to be picked off in the dark and snatched back to Karon faster than a whore dropped her knickers for a gold coin, then sold to whoever's gold coins shone brightest and numbered the most. Erwillian would never see those men again. Louen’s lips twitched. He’d watched several such incidents, standing shoulder to shoulder with Lord Karon himself on occasion, both men pretending to look the other way while Sarath’s shrewd little accountant made another entry into his record-book, her pen skittering over the white page in efficient, sparse movements. Then she’d push her spectacles up her nose, speak crisply to Lord Karon in their own language, speak even more crisply to Louen in his, and then the ropes would go tight, and the column would move one way, and Lord Karon and she in another.

And Louen would go back to House Willow with a red-gold Karoni coin in his pocket.

No House Willow anymore, he reminded himself. I have to let Sarath know this. If he wants news and gossip from Wayland he can’t get it from me anymore.

The fish sizzled and the skin curled and blackened, and he gave one to Bresgion. The other, he dropped into his own lap and picked apart bit by bit, savouring the sweet, flaky pink flesh.

‘Bit of ginger, next time,’ he said, reasonably satisfied with his meal, though it had lacked proper seasoning. ‘Or maybe just salt.’

‘What now?’ Bresgion squinted at the setting sun. Long shadows crept toward them from the trees. ‘Are we staying here for the night?’

‘Yes. Do you need…anything?’

‘You mean blood? Let me worry about that.’

‘Don’t go far,’ said Louen, resigned. ‘It’s not safe.’

‘I can take care of myself.’

Louen didn’t doubt that, but the thought of Bresgion running about the place and leaving the kind of mess he’d left at House Willow wasn’t one he relished. He wanted to avoid that sort of thing. So, he repeated his warning, and threw in a threat as well.

Bresgion only smiled at him and touched his arm. ‘What do you take me for? What I did at the brothel, I did for effect. Anyway, if I leave a trail of destruction, would it not be to our advantage? Erwillian’s men might refuse to go any further through the Forest if they think it’s haunted by a ravener like me.’

‘On the other hand, everybody else might leave too, and they’re our cover,’ countered Louen, getting exasperated. ‘For the third and last time, whatever you do, you do it discreetly!’

…………………..

A little while after Bresgion had left their camp, Louen left too. It didn’t take him long to pick up the tracks of the mounted man and his servant on foot, and he found them waiting for him in a small ravine, under an overhanging rock. A stream trickled through the ravine, and he could hear the thunder of a high cascade a little further on.

Lord Karon was sitting on a large rock and dangling his bare feet in the beck when he saw Louen. He stood up, feet still in the water, and beckoned Louen down to join him. One the shore was a woman, her spectacles perched on her nose while she read a book.

Louen greeted Lord Karon first, then turned to the woman. ‘Mother,’ he said, and kissed both her cheeks.

She swatted him away, then looked him over, harrumphed, and went back to her book. But not before she’d slipped a paper-twist of sticky barley-sugar sticks into his hand, as if he were five years old again. He smiled and tucked the candies into his pocket.

‘So,’ said Sarath Karon, swishing his feet in slow circles, churning the gently-trickling water. ‘Erwillian’s flinging himself around our Forest with thirty idiots in tow, looking for you.’

‘I know.’

‘Shall I do something about it?’ Lord Karon smiled a dazzling, white-toothed smile into the sun and almost blinded Louen. He wasn’t a tall man, and slightly-built, and he wasn’t stern either, but somehow, he could get whole rooms of people on their knees in seconds just with a look. Even Louen found his legs bending, and stopped himself with a silent reprimand to the silly things.

Sarath Karon didn’t notice. He never did. Not even when he swept through his entire palace on a rampage and devastated every single person in it while he inspected china cupboards and libraries and bathrooms and linen presses. Now and then it was pointed out to him but he only laughed, and commanded everyone to their feet again, and they rose up as if someone had yanked all their strings at once. It wasn't even his looks, although he was handsome. He had long shining black hair, sharply-upturned shining black eyes, and honey-gold skin, which, combined with his cherry-ripe mouth, small nose, and thick, straight brows, managed to compel hundreds of women at once to faint en-masse. 

He never understood that, either, and declared them all weak in the head with constant vapours which could be cured by a spell in the mineral baths in his palace. He would send them, forget them, and retire for several hours in one of his libraries, then ring for tea and be perplexed when no-one brought it.

Now, he swished his bare legs in the water of Tarnbreck Forest and looked for all the world like a mischievous boy playing truant from his masters.

He blew out his cheeks and looked Louen up and down. ‘Erwillian’s been a thorn in my side for years,’ he said. ‘I’ve a mind to send in the vipers and kill him. But something tells me this wouldn’t meet with your approval, Louen. Why?’

‘Because the Queen would burn all of Karon if you did, and before she got to you, she would drench Tarnbreck in blood.'

‘You’re too cautious,’ said his mother. She glared at Sarath over the rim of her spectacles. ‘And you’re too careless. Find the middle road.’

‘Good advice,’ said Sarath, coming out of the water, up to the bank where Louen stood. ‘So. What is the middle road?’

‘I need the rightful Queen restored to Duhnos’ throne,’ said Louen, hoarsely. Sarath always had that effect on him, like he did on pretty much everyone, and close up it was a disaster for anyone wanting to hold on to their own reason and desires. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if Sarath actually touched anyone. As far as Louen knew, that didn’t ever happen. Lord Karon was Lord Karon by himself; there was no Lady Karon, and it didn’t look like there ever would be.

‘And for that Erwillian needs to live?’

‘For now. I think he knows where she is, and that’s why he’s crawling over the Forest like a gangrene. He’s looking for her, not me.’

‘Ah. Now, I did wonder what you’d done to attract his attention!’

He didn't wait for Louen to reply, but spoke a few words to Louen’s mother, and she, grumbling, fished about in her pack and handed him a book of coloured and patterned paper. He tore out a sheet and with quick, deft movements, folded a bird. He held it out for Louen to see. 'AS messenger, or a spy. Whatever I want it to be. Shall I teach you the trick of it?'

'Yes,' said Louen, thinking it was a good thing to know, and not just because it would get him an hour or two extra in Sarath's company.

'Good. I think you'd be a good student, if you could apply yourself to the task. I know you have aptitude,' Sarath smiled.

Then he blew on the paper bird and threw it into the air. Louen watched as it transformed into a real bird, with wings of rose petals and tail feathers made from ferns, and flew away.

He looked at Sarath, and caught him looking back, his black eyes glittering with secrets.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Where is it going?’

‘To see what it can see, Louen,’ said Sarath. He folded up on the rock and patted the space next to him. ‘Sit with me, and tell me what happened to bring you to me, in peasant’s clothing, and with the weight of grief on your heart.’