Page 9 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Samson

I’ve never been outside London. Dreamed of it, over and over, held the idea so close to my chest that it left a bruise I’d grown used to, a constant ache of wanting. But leaving costs money.

It’s a three-day trip to the border, and Cecil accompanies me himself, along with two men. Soldiers? Other spies? I don’t care to ask, and they don’t speak to me.

But each morning, we leave the inn Cecil’s arranged.

Each day, we spend hours in the saddle, my body screaming from the shift and sway of a horse.

I’ve never ridden, but I mimic Cecil and the guards, fake my way through that task with only a few slipups.

Each moment, we peel farther and farther from the congestion of the city.

My soul lifts. Weights are gone, and I find myself so often just closing my eyes and breathing that it’s honestly a wonder I don’t drop off the horse.

The air is frigid but sweet, smelling of dried grass and packed earth and all manner of living things hunkering down for the season.

It smells of campfire smoke and ice on the wind, and I can’t get enough of it, gulping it down like a greedy idiot.

It’s my one distraction—a consuming one, but a distraction nonetheless.

Still can’t work out what Cecil really wants with me.

Every task he’s given me, I’ve completed.

Every fae item he’s sent me after, I’ve retrieved.

When a highborn lord comes slumming it in Southwark brothels, and he somehow got his hands on a glowy bit of nasty fae magic, I don whatever persona best lures him in: A bumbling-drunk sycophant?

A poor sewer rat he can laugh at? I weasel my way into his confidence, close enough to snag the item, then I’m gone before he comes out of his alcohol stupor enough to realize what’s what.

That’s what happened with the baron—the damn fool poured me a glass of wine before I snuck Hal and Oskar into his room. ’Course, everything went arseways after that, but we still got the item.

Even that task Cecil sent me on against his rival—I still lied my way into the man’s house, claiming to be a new servant before he found me out, and I got the item, though it was never about that.

Sometimes I think lying is the only steady thing I’ve ever had in my life.

So I’ve got skill, I know. But skill enough to take on a job this monumental?

Skill enough not to get ensnared in Cecil’s true plans again?

The afternoon of the third travel day wears on, and just before dusk, Cecil halts our journey. We left roads behind yesterday, traveling cross-country, our horses damn near breaking their legs on knolls that can’t decide whether they wanna be grassy or rocky.

Cecil points ahead. The scenery looks no different from everything else we’ve been traveling through: barren, scraggy trees and sloping hills.

“There,” he says. “That’s where the border begins.”

I sit up straighter in my saddle and peer around.

The border between England and Scotland is a no-man’s-land that’s been contested for years, yet nothing about this place looks like the center of war and struggle.

I expected the dirt to be ripped by booted feet; I expected the swords of dead men wedged in the earth, marking their graves.

It looks…ordinary.

And it creeps unease up my spine.

“Right,” I say. “We go on?”

But Cecil shakes his head. His horse dances impatiently. “No. You continue alone. There are roads from here, but it’s best to stay off any paths and make your own way north. Draw as little attention as possible.”

There’s no active war right now between England and Scotland. Tensions are still sky-high though.

Cecil’s eyes flash to mine. His usual calm, stoic mask slips, and he looks at me only in distaste. “You remember everything I’ve said?”

I stare at him, as cold as the way he looks at me. “Aye. I’ve got it.”

Cecil’s droned on the whole trip, talking and talking as our horses carried us up paths and through forests that grew more barren, peeled down by the coming winter and the change in the geography.

He told me about Mary’s court and the various players there, and it was easy enough to log what information his spies gleaned about each person.

He’s thrown facts about marks in Southwark at me similarly through letters, so I treated it just the same, filing away this or that detail for later.

I’ll be posing as a secretary for Lord Latimer of Clan Maxwell.

I’ve got an English mother; that’s my cover to explain my accent and any gaps in my knowledge, any slipups.

The best cons play close to the truth after all, and Cecil knows that.

So my English mother raised me in London, and I came up to be with my father on Latimer’s staff.

Latimer is due to attend the baptism of Mary’s son, followed by celebrations for Christmas, but he’s indisposed, Cecil said.

I interpreted that as killed or imprisoned by Elizabeth, as the two men accompanying us shared a smirk when Cecil talked of him.

My role is to travel to the gathering at Stirling Castle and offer to be Latimer’s proxy.

I’ve got a bag full of papers proving I’m Latimer’s man. Seals and correspondence and diaries, and Cecil drove so much information into me about Clan Maxwell and Latimer’s place there that my brain feels as swollen as the snow clouds that haven’t yet unleashed over us.

I survived on my own in the streets of Southwark.

I can memorize anything in a snap and take on whatever front people need to see.

I’ve pried an existence out of a stark and uninhabitable place, and I’ve been training for something like this my whole life whether I knew it or not, whether Cecil likes it or not, and if he means for me to die or be his obedient little assassin, he’ll be disappointed.

Cecil eyes me. Weighing me up.

He reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out an item wrapped in a silk cloth.

After a moment’s hesitation, he passes it over to me.

“One last tool,” he tells me.

I take it and unwrap the cloth. It’s a necklace of thin braided leather bearing an amulet the size of my thumb. The amulet is silver, an interlocking weave of knots. It ain’t glowing like magic items, but something about it makes the hairs on my neck rise.

“What is this?” I can’t keep my nose from curling.

“I told you,” says Cecil, “I have people at work for me, studying fae weapons. They have developed a protective shield.” He nods at the necklace. “Wear this, and it will keep you from being further affected by fae magic.”

I bite down on my tongue. The tang of iron floods my mouth.

How long’s he had access to a charm like this? How long’s he let me traipse around Southwark, hunting dangerous fae items, when I could’ve had some semblance of protection?

He sits impassively.

He doesn’t care. I’m a tool to him just as this necklace is to me.

I slip it on.

“The symbol is important as well,” he adds.

“It will designate you to anyone else of Elizabeth’s that you may run into.

A way of identifying other loyal Englishmen.

” He glares at me, a tight, tense look. “You are never to take it off. Do you understand me? At the end of this, I will have it back, so don’t think of selling it either.

It remains around your neck at all times. ”

“What if someone in Mary’s court has learned what this amulet means?” I press.

Cecil’s smile is humorless. “We change our symbol regularly. No one will know. By your tone, Sammy, it is almost as though you do not trust me.”

Behind us, back about two paces, the mounted guards both chuckle.

My shoulders tense. I’ll keep the damn necklace tucked into my shirt. No one will know.

And I’ll figure out what game Cecil’s really playing. I’ve got years of working for him under my belt now. I’m not as green as I once was; I know how he operates, and my eyes are wide open going into this.

A flash of memory cuts across my mind, quick as a blink.

That highborn man. Cecil’s rival. His house, dark and shadowed, his body lying sprawled on the floor. My knuckles aching, the smell of blood ripe and putrid on the air.

“Anything else?” I face the land ahead of me.

“Remember to send your updates in code,” Cecil tells me. The way he always wrote to me in Southwark so no one else could read it. “Report anything you hear about plots against the queen or fae weapons.”

My hands fist around my horse’s reins, but before I can urge it into motion again, Cecil makes a grunt of negation.

“Ah-ah. You continue on foot from here. There’s a town straight on the other side of the border. You can hire a ride to Stirling.”

I blink at him. “The border itself is four miles deep.”

“You remembered,” Cecil notes, and the tensing in his jaw says he isn’t happy about that. What else have I remembered that he was hoping I’d forget?

I scowl at him, but he doesn’t budge.

“Dismount,” he says. “Taking a horse is a quick way to get Border Reivers set on you. You don’t want that, do you?”

Border Reivers—roving mercenaries who take advantage of the border’s instability to raid and pillage their hearts out. Part of the reason crossing’s so dangerous; it’s not necessarily any wars you gotta watch out for. It’s the vultures who pick through the remains left behind.

I eye the land ahead of me. It’s growing more and more threatening with every passing moment, and the sun’s setting, heading fast to night.

No way I’ll make it across before it sets, which means I’ll be stuck sleeping on a bedroll in the elements without risking a fire in unclaimed territory, which is likely Cecil’s intention.

He could’ve timed us getting here earlier.

Prickles start in my fingertips. They rise up my arms, and my breathing ramps faster, heart thudding relentlessly against my ribs. A wash of anger starts to set in, dropping over me quicker than it has in a while.

Palms sweating, back straining, I fight down the anger. Push it deep, deep inside me, like I always do.

He isn’t worth attacking. Not until he breaks this curse.

I dismount and shoulder my supplies: a bag with my Latimer paperwork, another one full of travel gear. I’ve got a knife too, but it feels woefully small compared to whatever might be waiting ahead.

I start off without another word.

When I get a good bit away, I allow myself to look over my shoulder.

Cecil and his two guards are right where I left them, watching me from a copse of trees. It doesn’t matter much what he wants out of this, what he expects of me. I’m gonna survive this. I’m gonna find the item that cursed me, and I’m gonna be free.

I turn my back on my father and walk north.

***

Night sets in, but I don’t stop to camp. I can easily make it across by morning if I push.

All this wild, free air suddenly feels too wild, too free, and I find myself missing the cramped quarters of London. There at least you could wedge yourself in tight spaces and know no one could see you; here, eyes can be anywhere.

There are noises too. Noises like the hooting of birds that reminds me with a pang of Oskar, Hal, and the others in Southwark and how they’d communicate with birdcalls.

But there are other sounds too. The clang of metal far off.

A bray that might be a scream. A wolf—no, not a wolf, just a trick of mist and shadow.

At one point, I spot the glow of a campfire in the distance, and I veer away to put more space between it and me, though it might be too late.

The Border Reivers aren’t out in droves since there’s no blood in the water to draw ’em, so I keep picking my way north, actually grateful Cecil had me leave the horse behind.

He wouldn’t want me to die this early anyway; I’d draw attention with the clatter-clop of hooves.

Even though I’m sweating through my undershirt and doublet and cloak, even though I’m bloody knackered from the prior days of travel, I press on, a shadow in shadows.

The going’s slower thanks to the terrain in the dark. I have to feel my way down hills and around stone outcroppings, taking each step carefully to avoid snapping an ankle or toppling down an incline. The later it gets, the more exhaustion tugs at me, but I shake it off and keep my focus.

The sky starts getting pink against the gray snow clouds, and my eyes trail the land behind me, keeping watch—

A person stands between two trees back the way I’ve come.

I shake my head, rub my eyes, and look again. They’re here, aren’t they? I’m not losing it.

They’re too far, and it’s not yet bright enough, but I squint at what I can make out—livery, clothes I’ve seen recently.

That’s one of the guards that was traveling with me and Cecil.

Has he been trailing me this whole time?

I scan the area, but it looks like it’s just the one guard. He’ll report back to Cecil. Probably waiting to see if I actually make it to the border.

I lift my hand in a rude gesture.

The guard doesn’t react.

Putting my back to the man, I carry on, coming to a flat bit of land—a road. I’ve crossed onto a road.

This is Scotland. Not the no-man’s-land anymore.

I don’t know how I know, but it’s a bone-deep certainty that has me pivoting to look back at Cecil’s man.

But the guard is where I left him. Far away now. Watching me.

We stare at each other for a good long moment before he turns and walks back the way he came.

“Give him my best!” I shout, but it’s a far distance, and the wind steals the words.

He and Cecil can both go straight to hell.

There are trees up ahead, the same type of gnarled, twisted ones I’ve passed dozens of times, and beyond them, just off another small rise, is a town, no more than half a dozen buildings all hugged up on each other, confirming that this is the border; I’ve made it to Scotland.

Relief doesn’t have a chance to settle before I notice the flock of birds.

A great big group of ’em hovers over the town, twisting in and out in a cyclone shape.

It’s so odd, I come to a stop, head cocking, wondering if my sleeplessness has finally gotten me. It’s only been one night of no sleep though; I’ve gone longer. This can’t be a hallucination.

Then, a scream.

From the town, from beneath the birds. Another follows, terror incarnate, and the oddity shatters in the panic that grabs my shoulders and pulls.

For half a beat, I resist.

If I go into the town and whatever’s causing the screams triggers my curse, I could just add to the horror. A monster on a rampage amid whatever’s harming people.

Another wail rings out, soul-cutting horror that jabs straight through me.

I sprint for the town, heart in my throat, and dig for that small knife I’ve got.

Some welcome to Scotland this is.