those cobalt eyes. “I trust Her Majesty told you your duties an’ all.”
“Tedious bitch.” Amayon yawned elaborately, though John had already seen that the demon did not breathe. “I suppose you know she uses the mucus of donkeys as a complexion cream? You haven’t, I hope, been taken in by that antiquated lust spell she throws over everyone she encounters.”
“Like the one you used on Rocklys’ cavalry corps?” John returned, refusing to be goaded.
“Oh, darling, did Jenny tell you that was me?” The demon simpered, but he was watching John’s eyes. “How very simple of her.”
Not for nothing, however, had John grown up his father’s son, his heart and his face a fist closed in defense. He merely regarded Amayon without expression, and the demon shrugged and smiled.
“Well, I’m sure if it makes you feel better to believe that … The gate’s this way, Lordship.” He threw a mocking flex into the title. “Generally only the small fry can leak through, but Her Reechiness has given me a word.”
“Do you hate that animal?” he added, raising delicate brows at Battlehammer, who stood, ears flat to his neck and muscles bunched, regarding him as he would have a snake.
“Should I?”
“It’s up to you, of course, Lordship. But unless there’s some reason you’d like to see him die, I suggest you don’t bring him with us. Your mistress has made arrangements.”
“Ah,” John said. “Thinks of everythin’, she does.” And he dropped the seeds into the bottle.
It was Aversin’s intention simply to keep the demonwhere he couldn’t do mischief while he took Battle-hammer to the nearest farm, which was old Dan Dar-row’s walled enclave in the bottomlands adjacent to the Mire. But with the snow and the wind, and his exhaustion from a sleepless night, it took him nearly two hours to reach the place.
“’Twill be black as pitch by the time you get back to the Mire,” the farmer protested when John explained that he wanted the loan of a donkey and a boy to lead it back to the farm again.
A little uneasily, he acceded to the patriarch’s invitation to spend the night. He was conscious of the demon bottle around his neck as he sat at supper with the Darrow clan and their hired men and women, watching the old man’s fair-haired grandchildren tumble and play before the hearth. He guessed that Amayon was perfectly aware of his surroundings; he had no business, he thought, bringing even a bottled demon into a house where there were children.
When he slept, he dreamed again and again of a rat, or some huge insect, creeping up the frame of each child’s bed, demon light glittering in its berry-blue eyes. Reaching toward them…
He woke at the touch of a hand on his neck.
The Darrow farm was a big place, but simple and rustic. John had bedded down among the men of the household in the loft, on blankets and straw tickings spread around where the chimney came through from the floor below. They’d have put the King himself there, had he come calling. Remembering that demons had spoken to Caradoc in his dreams, offering him greater power and wider wisdom if he would but open a gate for them, he’d tied the red ribbon that held the ink bottle in a knot upclose to his throat so it couldn’t be slipped off over his head while he slept.
Sure enough, as he opened his eyes he felt a man’s hands fumbling with the ribbon and heard the slow thick breathing of a sleeper near his face, not the short breaths of a man nervous about robbing a guest. John caught the sleepwalker by wrist and shoulder and flung him bodily onto as many men as he could; there were shouts and curses, and by the thread of dim hearthlight that leaked up through the ladder hole at the far end of the loft he saw his attacker bound to his feet, eyes blank, knife in hand.
The attacker—a huge stablehand named Browson who’d helped unsaddle Battlehammer—lunged at him, but men were scrambling up, grabbing, clutching. Shouts of
“Tedious bitch.” Amayon yawned elaborately, though John had already seen that the demon did not breathe. “I suppose you know she uses the mucus of donkeys as a complexion cream? You haven’t, I hope, been taken in by that antiquated lust spell she throws over everyone she encounters.”
“Like the one you used on Rocklys’ cavalry corps?” John returned, refusing to be goaded.
“Oh, darling, did Jenny tell you that was me?” The demon simpered, but he was watching John’s eyes. “How very simple of her.”
Not for nothing, however, had John grown up his father’s son, his heart and his face a fist closed in defense. He merely regarded Amayon without expression, and the demon shrugged and smiled.
“Well, I’m sure if it makes you feel better to believe that … The gate’s this way, Lordship.” He threw a mocking flex into the title. “Generally only the small fry can leak through, but Her Reechiness has given me a word.”
“Do you hate that animal?” he added, raising delicate brows at Battlehammer, who stood, ears flat to his neck and muscles bunched, regarding him as he would have a snake.
“Should I?”
“It’s up to you, of course, Lordship. But unless there’s some reason you’d like to see him die, I suggest you don’t bring him with us. Your mistress has made arrangements.”
“Ah,” John said. “Thinks of everythin’, she does.” And he dropped the seeds into the bottle.
It was Aversin’s intention simply to keep the demonwhere he couldn’t do mischief while he took Battle-hammer to the nearest farm, which was old Dan Dar-row’s walled enclave in the bottomlands adjacent to the Mire. But with the snow and the wind, and his exhaustion from a sleepless night, it took him nearly two hours to reach the place.
“’Twill be black as pitch by the time you get back to the Mire,” the farmer protested when John explained that he wanted the loan of a donkey and a boy to lead it back to the farm again.
A little uneasily, he acceded to the patriarch’s invitation to spend the night. He was conscious of the demon bottle around his neck as he sat at supper with the Darrow clan and their hired men and women, watching the old man’s fair-haired grandchildren tumble and play before the hearth. He guessed that Amayon was perfectly aware of his surroundings; he had no business, he thought, bringing even a bottled demon into a house where there were children.
When he slept, he dreamed again and again of a rat, or some huge insect, creeping up the frame of each child’s bed, demon light glittering in its berry-blue eyes. Reaching toward them…
He woke at the touch of a hand on his neck.
The Darrow farm was a big place, but simple and rustic. John had bedded down among the men of the household in the loft, on blankets and straw tickings spread around where the chimney came through from the floor below. They’d have put the King himself there, had he come calling. Remembering that demons had spoken to Caradoc in his dreams, offering him greater power and wider wisdom if he would but open a gate for them, he’d tied the red ribbon that held the ink bottle in a knot upclose to his throat so it couldn’t be slipped off over his head while he slept.
Sure enough, as he opened his eyes he felt a man’s hands fumbling with the ribbon and heard the slow thick breathing of a sleeper near his face, not the short breaths of a man nervous about robbing a guest. John caught the sleepwalker by wrist and shoulder and flung him bodily onto as many men as he could; there were shouts and curses, and by the thread of dim hearthlight that leaked up through the ladder hole at the far end of the loft he saw his attacker bound to his feet, eyes blank, knife in hand.
The attacker—a huge stablehand named Browson who’d helped unsaddle Battlehammer—lunged at him, but men were scrambling up, grabbing, clutching. Shouts of
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