‘I have,’ said Violet. Will’s eyes flew to her face. ‘He came to see my father, and he met Tom too, in my father’s office. I wasn’t allowed to join them.’
‘What was he like?’
‘I only caught a glimpse of him – I was watching from the stairs. A shadowed figure in rich clothes. Honestly, what I remember most was how my father was acting. He was so toadying, maybe even … scared.’
‘Scared,’ said Will.
His mother had been scared. Years moving from one place to another, of hurriedly packing, looking over her shoulder, until Bowhill, where Simon’s men had found her after she had stayed too long.
Violet clambered up onto her elbows.
‘Have you ever noticed that there are no old Stewards?’ said Violet.
‘What do you mean?’
‘They die,’ said Violet. ‘They die in battle, like they died on Simon’s ship. There are old janissaries. But no old Stewards.’
She was right. The only old Steward in the Hall was the Elder Steward.
‘It’s the price they pay,’ said Will, thinking of Carver and the other novitiates. ‘They all believe the Dark King is coming, and that it’s their duty to stop him.’
‘What happens if Simon attacks the Hall?’
‘You can fight and I’ll flicker the candles,’ said Will.
And she let out a shaky breath, stopping to punch him in the arm as she rose to pick up her sword.
‘You spoil him,’ said Farah.
Will had come to the stables before his lesson to see the black cart horse, carrying an apple he’d saved from his breakfast as a thank-you for the horse’s courage. When the black horse saw him, he cantered over to the railing tossing his head, then whinnied softly and whuffled the new apple up from Will’s hand. Will rubbed his neck, the strong curve of muscle under the satiny fall of his black mane.
Farah was the stablemaster, a Steward of about twenty-five years. Her brown skin was streaked with dust from her work in the training yard, and her hair was tied all the way up. She had come over from the stalls, only a few Stewards and janissaries at work this early.
‘He helped me,’ Will said softly, feeling the warm, strong arch of the horse’s neck beneath his hand and remembering their race across the marsh. ‘He’s brave.’
And perhaps there was something in the food or the air here, because the black horse had changed in even a short time: his neck was arched, his black coat had grown glossier, and there was a gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there before. He was beginning to look like a battlefield steed, one that could lead a charge.
‘He’s a Friesian,’ said Farah. ‘One of the ancient breeds … made for war. Brave, yes, and powerful enough to carry a knight in full armour. But the days of the warhorse are gone. Now Friesians pull carts in the city. Does he have a name?’
‘Valdithar,’ Will said, and the horse tossed his head and seemed to respond to the name. ‘It means dauntless.’ The word from the language of the old world came to him instinctively.
When he looked up, Farah was looking at him strangely.
‘What is it?’ said Will.
‘Nothing, I—’ She broke off. And then: ‘It is a long time since that language was spoken in this place.’
Valdithar. The black horse seemed to grow taller, as if the name had made him more himself.
Will came back to the stables every morning. He loved to brush Valdithar until his coat shone and his mane was a black waterfall. Once or twice he went out to ride with the novitiates, and the Steward horses they rode were a strange delight. Graceful, otherworldly creatures, with silvery-white coats and high, flowing tails, they had the arresting beauty of a Pegasus. Farah said they were descendants of some of the great horses of the old world, the last herd of their kind. In motion they were as mighty as a wave crest, as light as foam, as intoxicating as spray from the ocean.
But Will secretly preferred Valdithar’s powerful earthy gallop, and he was pleased that Valdithar held his own among them, a single black gelding in a herd of white.
When Farah took him to ride outside the walls – safe with pairs of Stewards carrying ward stones – the Steward horses transformed the marsh into a place of wonder. They were fine as the mist that blanketed the marsh in the early morning, running so lightly over the watery earth it seemed like they never touched it. Watching them, Will’s breath caught in his throat, as if he had glimpsed the old world. This was why he was trying to move the flame: to preserve what was left from the danger that was coming.