The Hidden Coronet Read Free Page A

gathering strength, sending sense-lines out into the frozen land, waking stones and soil and the bare trees, searching for any Maker-life, any energies.
    Raffi was quiet too. After the strain and racket of the fair, weariness washed over him like a wave. Despite the cold he dozed, slumping against the woman. As the cart hit a stone he jolted awake, muttering, “Sorry.” She grinned at him. “My lad was like you once. Eat and sleep. That’s all boys are good for.”
    He smiled, wan.
    The evening closed in. Above in the darkening sky the seven moons brightened, the crescent of Cyrax far off on the horizon; glinting through torn cloud above the black land. Stars were suddenly there too, vast scatterings of light, brilliant in the frost-cold.
    The road ran down, into a hollow. Raffi felt trees, dark shapes on each side, old hollies and some yew, the faint turpy smell of their needles crushed under the wheels.
    The track ran smoother. The trees closed in, became a dim avenue, their branches tangling overhead. Bats flitted in a narrow strip of sky.
    And then he felt the house.
    His eyes widened; the skin crawled on his neck. Behind him, he heard Galen scramble up.
    Halenden was dark; a cluster of roofs and gables rising above the trees. He could see windows, most of them boarded up, and a great mass of ivy and spidervine that sprawled over half the façade, smothering walls and chimneys.
    As they drove up to it, the house seemed to grow. Owls called in its leaves; a skeat answered in the woods, and then a whole pack of them was howling, the farm dogs barking furiously in return.
    The cart creaked to a halt.
    Galen climbed out, stiff, then stood tall in his dark coat, looking up at the building, noting the battered, rainstained door, the high windows, some with broken glass, glittering with reflections of the climbing moons.
    The dogs went quiet with a yelp, as if he’d ordered them to.
    Raffi stood behind him. The stillness of the place made him wary. The woods were infected by its gloom; the house had eyes inside, and for a second he looked through them, seeing himself and Galen and Majella from some high place.
    “Come around the back,” the woman said, climbing down awkwardly.
    But when Galen turned, her face went suddenly still because there was something changed about him, some power that crackled in the air; his face was gaunt and his eyes dark in the shadows.
    “I know,” he said.
    Barely breathing she mumbled, “Keeper?”
    He stepped toward her. Now he was the Crow, the dark energies moving in blue sparks through his fingers. “I know. The Makers have told me. The very trees have told me. Do you believe you could really hide this from me?”
    The woman gasped. For a moment Raffi thought she would kneel down in the mud, her fingers making the half-forgotten signs of honor. But then she looked up boldly, her face set.
    “You’re right. I should have told you.”
    “Told us what?” Raffi blurted out. He couldn’t bear it. “Is this a trap? Are the Watch here?”
    Galen grinned sourly. “In a manner of speaking. What she hasn’t told us is that this is the house of a Watchman. Her son’s house. Isn’t that so?”
    She nodded bleakly.
    Raffi was aghast. “We’ve got to get out!”
    To his horror Galen just laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he even knows.”
    “He doesn’t.” She looked up at him, her small eyes measuring his anger. “He’d have us all killed if he found out.”
    “Your own son!” Raffi couldn’t believe it.
    “My own son.” Watching Galen she said, “The keeper knows. He knows we don’t stop loving our children, however they turn out. Yes, my son is a Watchman. He wasn’t taken as a child; he joined them of his own will. He enjoys power. He hates the Order. You’ve even seen him, lad. He was the one who searched you back at the checkpoint.”
    Raffi’s chest was tight with fear. “We have to go. He’ll recognize me!”
    But Galen was watching the woman,