The Bone Cave Read online

  Dedication

  To Captain Debbie Adewale,

  I look forward to watching you accomplish great things.

  And to Mike Calder of Transreal Fiction in Edinburgh,

  because even from a distance you’re a man of great wit and rare kindness.

  Also, plummeting ducklings.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Dusk

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Dawn

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sarah Remy

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Dusk

  The raven was a dark blot against the evening sky. He laughed as he dived, surprising a flock of starlings from their roost on the branches of an old sycamore. The starlings scolded even as they fled, but Jacob was undeterred by their threats. He chased the small flock until they were forced to scatter for safety in the low grass. Only after they’d gone to earth did he cease the game, coming to rest on the highest branch of the sycamore the starlings had abandoned.

  He folded his black wings, ruffled his glossy feathers, and began to preen between the toes of one foot.

  “That bird is a nuisance.” The soldier with her back propped against the sycamore’s broad trunk peered up at the raven through a tapestry of green leaves. Jacob cocked his head and stared back. “He’s stealing from the merchants at the Fair, thieving away gewgaws, and ribbons, and sweet treats from the stalls. Why, just last week he started a mad stampede when he tried to pluck a locket of oud from where it was pinned on Lady Jane’s sleeve. Milady screamed ‘thief’ and soon enough half the Fair was screaming ‘fire’ and ‘murder’.”

  Jacob, who had in fact been trying for a lock of Lady Jane’s dark hair and not the container of vile perfume around her neck, blinked one shining eye, pretending ignorance.

  “He doesn’t like the city,” Avani said. She sat cross-legged in the short grass not far from the soldier. She had a pile of fresh-plucked dandelion stems on her lap and was plaiting them two at a time into bunches of twelve. The yellow flowers had long ago gone to seed; a few pieces of white fluff still clung to the green stems.

  “Oh, he likes parts of it just fine.” The soldier snorted. “His Majesty’s throne room, for example. He prefers to pace the hearth, cackling insults at all who dare approach. No one can figure how he gets in—it’s not through the doors, or the windows—but he’s driving Brother Orat mad, what with all the feathers and bird shit everywhere.”

  “Close the flue,” Avani suggested mildly. Jacob on his branch hopped once in indignation, sending a duo of spiny pods onto the ground below.

  “Aye, and wasn’t that the first thing we tried?” the soldier scoffed. “Once Brother Orat even tried kindling the hearth, a great raging conflagration, and I swear it was on the hottest day of the year. I thought for sure His Majesty would have an apoplexy, he flushed so red. And still, there was your bird, not an hour later, pacing the hearth like his tail feathers weren’t in danger of catching fire.”

  Avani paused in her plaiting to quirk a dark brow in the raven’s direction. He busied himself with an itch on his breast.

  “Not to mention he’s been hanging ’round the old wing where Renault’s quartered Baldebert’s people. Making mischief, stealing bits of decoration off the envoy’s fancy gold armor, and setting the man’s poor housemaid regularly to weeping out of fear she’ll be caned for misplacing the admiral’s jewels.”

  “Renault wouldn’t allow any of his people caned,” Avani said mildly.

  “Of course not!” It was the soldier’s turn for indignation. “But what of Roue? What do we know of their customs other than they’ve a taste for kidnapping and a penchant of war? A violent sort of people, if you take recent history into account. Likely not averse to beating a maid for imagined insult. They brought Lord Malachi back to us shackled and mad, both!”

  Avani set aside her herbs.

  “Is your quarrel with Jacob, or with Roue?” she asked quietly.

  “Neither!” The soldier jumped to her feet. She scrubbed one hand through her curls as she paced away from the sycamore then back again. “Both! I don’t know, not exactly! But so many foreigners in the palace make me uneasy. And I’m not the only one. For diplomacy’s sake His Majesty may need to pretend Baldebert and his royal sister didn’t intend to cripple Wilhaiim’s greatest asset, but I assure you in the barracks we prefer to say it like it is. We’ve a serpent’s nest in our midst.”

  “Russel—” Avani rose. She brushed soil from the knees of her salwar before retrieving the braided dandelion stems from the grass “—Mal is not crippled.”

  Russel flushed. She clasped her hands behind her back, spine straight. She wore the red and silver with visible pride. Her boots were polished black as Jacob’s feathers. The buckles on her belt and scabbard shone silver even in the shade beneath the sycamore.

  “I don’t mind repeating, my lady,” she declared, “what the rest of us are thinking. You may be all the magus Wilhaiim has left. And I’m sure you’ll forgive me when I say that although you’ve been a boon to the city in many ways, you’re not yet the honed blade Malachi Doyle was.”

  “Thank the Goddess for that,” Avani retorted. “Poor man, carrying the weight of this kingdom’s expectations on his shoulders.” Then she sighed. “Ai, come along, Russel. We’re expected; we’re already late.”

  The soldier grunted. She cast a dour glance the raven’s way.

  “What about your irksome bird?”

  “Oh,” Avani replied, grim, “he’ll not resist good entertainment. Jacob! Come along!”

  The raven cackled. Then he spread his wings, taking again to the sky.

  From high in the air Wilhaiim was reduced to insignificance. The white walls were but paltry scars on the flesh of the wider world. The King’s Highway was reduced to a meandering fissure between green pasture, the scarlet woods a bloody stain against the teeth of the eastern mountains. If the raven banked west, leaving the miniature castle behind, he knew he would soon smell the sea.

  Instead Jacob circled east, riding sluggish summertime breezes. The spring winds were long gone. He was glad of it. There was no joy found in battling an angry tempest; he’d learned that chasing The Cutlass Wind over turbulent seas. There was no joy found trapped inside four walls, either, grounded until the howling winds and spring rains gave way to safer weather.

  Jacob tolerated summer. The heat of the sun eased his old bones and recalled to mind the brighter seasons of his youth. He had no concept of regret or nostalgia—he was still too much a bird for man’s wistful indulgences—but he wasn’t beyond basking briefly in remembered pleasures.

  He spiraled back toward the city then dived low, skirting treetops as he arrowed along the main approach toward Wilhaiim’s wide gates. There were people on the road: merchants, and travelers, and soldiers all going about their business with great hue and cry. They paid him no mind as he bolted over their heads. The Kingsmen set to guard the gates startled at his appearance, but forebear to draw arrow. They knew him by now, by his size and by his hubris. There were no other ravens near Wilhaiim; he’d chased them all away.

  Once inside the city he flapped his wings, rising toward the highest pinnacle. His effort kicked
up a private wind. It rushed past his ears, drowning out the sounds of city life in the bailey below. It did nothing to muffle the tug of Avani’s summons in his head, but he saw no advantage in haste. It would do the human king good to wait.

  Mal kept a window cracked open day and night for Jacob’s convenience. The raven took the open pane as the kindness it was meant. There were myriad of other ways into the castle but none led to rooms as interesting as Mal’s.

  He landed lightly on the window ledge, folded his pinions. He thrust his head into the chamber, muttering hopefully. It was near suppertime, which meant there would be wine, and cheese, and bread set out to tempt the magus’s unreliable appetite. Jacob expected an equal share of the repast.

  “You’ve fine timing as usual,” Mal murmured from the great leather chair he kept behind his desk. “Sanders just dropped off half a treacle tart, can you believe it?”

  Jacob bobbed his black head rapidly up and down because he could believe it indeed. Sanders was Mal’s new page and thought his master needed feeding up. Jacob tolerated Sanders but he missed Liam, and not only because Liam understood that the hunger leeching the hard-won flesh from the magus’s bones had nothing to do with food.

  “Well?” Mal prompted. “Come and have it. It’s sweeter than I like but delicious all the same.”

  Jacob fluttered beneath the lintel. He landed on the back of Mal’s chair, scarring the old leather with his claws, then walked down Mal’s arm and across the top of the desk. The tart was still warm. Mal had scraped much of the clotted cream off the top with a spoon, but left the rest of the pastry almost untouched. The spoon lay abandoned next to the tart, silver bowl licked clean.

  Jacob rattled his feathers before setting to. He watched the magus while he ate. There were shadows under the man’s green eyes and new hollows in his cheeks, making his prominent nose sharp. His dark hair had grown ragged during their ocean voyage. He’d yet to cut it into some semblance of order, although he had scraped the beard from his cheeks. He wore soft, dark robes cinched about his waist with a twist of tasseled black rope. His fingers wandered restlessly along the surface of the desk. The yellow gem set in the ring on his finger caught the afternoon light. There was a book open in front of him, and a stylus dipped in ink, but it was apparent his mind was not on his work, nor had it been since they’d returned from Roue.

  “You smell of sunshine,” Mal said. His mouth curved in secret amusement. “And deep roots in damp earth. Avani’s been out hunting herbs again, has she?”

  Poised with one foot in the tart, Jacob stilled. He could see the tendrils of Mal’s curiosity as clearly as he did the multicolored lanterns sitting cold throughout the chamber, the velvet curtains pulled tight around the bed, and the bits of colorful treasure he kept hidden amongst the oranges in the magus’s fruit bowl. The magic wreathed in the air between them, ropes of pale green smoke questing gently from man to bird.

  Jacob cocked his head. Mal smiled fondly in his direction, fingers tapping a discordant rhythm on wood. If the magus was aware of the net he cast, he certainly couldn’t see it, not as Jacob did: magic gone unwieldy, dangerous as a spring gale. More perilous by far because the man was blind to the spill of his power.

  Jacob split his beak. He hissed. Mal flinched, eyes widening. His brow furrowed, and the cunning tendrils disintegrated, gone to small green sparks in the air.

  “You’re in a mood.” The magus scowled. His long fingers rested quiet on the surface of his desk. “Tart disagree with you? I warned you it was sweet.”

  Jacob croaked derision. He left the tabletop for the hearth, busying himself with sorting pieces of his treasure from fruit bowl to mantel. Mal leaned back in his chair, watching without comment. The heat of the day drifted through the open window and it slowly lulled him into a listless doze.

  Jacob was admiring a large emerald earring he’d found abandoned in the Royal Gardens when a relentless pounding on the chamber door woke the magus with a start.

  “Come!” Mal called, straightening in his seat. He covered a yawn with the back of his hand, ignoring Jacob’s piercing stare.

  “And there you both are.” Avani swept into the chamber. Her mouth was pressed into a flat line, her cheeks flushed with exertion. “I should have guessed. You’re worse than children, you two, hiding away up here.”

  “Not hiding,” Mal retorted, dry as old bone. “Only enacting provisional retreat. Baldebert and Renault together in the same room are exhausting.”

  “Impossible, you mean. They’ve been snapping like two hounds scrabbling over a single bone all morning. Peter’s near to losing his patience. The theists are threatening excommunication. They’re asking for you, all of them. Even the Masterhealer.” Her dark eyes glinted with secret amusement. “I never thought I’d see the day that one lowers himself to begging.”

  Mal lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “He doesn’t really want to anathematize the king. Even the most devout would have trouble swallowing a schism of that nature. But he’s drawn a line in the sand and can’t see a way of backing down and saving face both.”

  “He needs you to fix it.” Avani wrinkled her nose in disgust. Then her gaze fell on the decimated tart. She smiled. “You’ve eaten.”

  Up on the mantel Jacob admired a golden badge shaped like the sun. The badge was his prize of the moment, for all that it was heavy and difficult to hide. It shone bright as a mirror, flashing when he struck it with his beak.

  “Ai, you menace!” Forgetting the treacle, Avani was across the room in two strides. She plucked the raven’s treasure from beneath his foot. “How many times must I tell you? Roue gold is off-limits!”

  Mal chuckled as he stood. He ran a palm over his hair, neatening it away from his forehead, then smoothed his robes. “Tell him it’s not allowed and he’ll only want it more.”

  Avani swatted at Jacob as he pecked at her fingers. She pinned the many-rayed sun on the front of her salwar, next to the barrow key and vocent’s ring she wore on a chain around her neck.

  “You know better,” she scolded the raven. “What, are you trying to make things worse?”

  “Baldebert will hardly miss a little gold,” said Mal. He indicated the true gold hoops he wore in both ears. “The metal’s easy to come by in Roue. It’s as plentiful there as red leaves in the king’s wood. Besides, it’s unlikely even Jacob can make things worse than they already are.”

  He clucked his tongue imperatively. Jacob weighed his options, then flapped to Mal’s shoulder. He hunched there, glaring at the bit of shine on Avani’s breast. He had no desire to join the human king’s council table, but Baldebert would be there and Mal was right: gold was common as grass in Roue, and the admiral was careless with his treasures.

  Renault sat his throne as if it was made of thorny bramble, spine rigid, fists clenched on his thighs. Fifteen narrow steps below the royal chair, the supreme commander of Roue’s small navy stood alongside Wilhaiim’s most revered theist. Baldebert had traded his captain’s togs for simple linen. He’d drawn his blond curls up into a sailor’s knot atop his head and tied a colorful kerchief around his brow. He sipped from a flagon of chilled wine as he waited. He looked bored and, despite the cool drink in his hand, uncomfortably warm.

  The Masterhealer was sweating profusely. His tonsured head was damp with perspiration, his robes soaked through around the throat and in swathes beneath his arms. His whole body shook with tiny, angry tremors. His yellow eyes were hooded, his expression stony. Some kind soul had placed a chair to his left but it was apparent he had made no use of it and didn’t plan to.

  Two red-liveried Kingsmen closed and barred the great portals behind Mal and Avani. Six more stood ranged about the edges of the large stone chamber. Every pane in the floor-to-ceiling oriel behind the throne was cranked open to offset the heat. Lethargic breezes ruffled the edges of a scroll laid out on a small table near Renault’s elbow but did nothing to cool the room.

  “What kept you?” Russel murmured. Lingering in th
e shadows just inside the doors, she grimaced at Mal. “The admiral’s just demanded Master Paul meet him at dawn in the Royal Gardens with his choice of a second. I fear His Majesty’s taken a liking to the idea.”

  “I haven’t,” the king corrected from his throne. Of all the people in the chamber, he was the only one who seemed immune to the swelter. “It’s an archaic proposal, if an entertaining and admittedly attractive idea. Nevertheless, I know my temple scripture—” he raised a hand, forestalling the Masterhealer’s indignant protest “—and don’t expect we’ll have to resort to unsanctioned violence over such a paltry issue as my nuptial state.”

  “Hardly paltry!” growled Master Paul. “The fate of this kingdom hangs upon your decision. I tell you again, and again, and yet again: I have seen it!”

  “Malachi,” King Renault ordered grimly. “You and Baldebert have contrived this betrothal, and while I will not argue it behooves us to enlist Roue’s aid against the encroaching desert tribes, and I do not—on the whole—find the Rani’s terms unpalatable, I will point out you may not have considered carefully the temple’s objection to a foreign queen on Wilhaiim’s throne. This is your mess. Attend to it before I forget I’m overjoyed to have you back by my side and clap this meddling pirate princeling in chains.”

  Baldebert snorted but otherwise refrained from answer. Jacob felt Mal’s rib cage expand as he sighed. Mal crossed the chamber, pausing only to decant a mug of iced wine from the pitcher set alongside cheese and bread on a sideboard. The Masterhealer watched Mal narrowly as he poured. The wine, a deep red the color of blood, smelled of cardamom and ginger. It made the raven sneeze. Grumbling, he abandoned Mal’s shoulder for a rafter near the open windows. The king turned a wary stare his way as he passed.

  “That bird has been driving my guardsmen to distraction,” he mused. “They’ll swear he spends more time near the throne of late than I.”

  “Best be chary, then.” Baldebert smiled across the rim of his flagon. “Very bad things happen around that animal.”