Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6)(53)

“Today?” Redman made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “If it was sylphs you met, my boy, it was likely a hundred years ago. Or a hundred years from now, perhaps.” He gave Foxbrush a sideways glance. “Or more than that.”

“Is that . . . so?”

It was difficult to discern any detail in the evening gloom, and Foxbrush was such a mess by now that his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him. But it wasn’t his appearance that gave him away. It was his voice. And Redman was no fool.

“You’re not from this time,” he said.

Foxbrush drew a long breath. “I don’t believe so. No.”

“But you are a man of the South Land?”

Foxbrush said, “Yes.” He hesitated. Then, “I’m soon to be Eldest.”

Redman was not a man to be easily surprised. He had seen a number of strange sights in his day, met a number of strange folk. He had walked dark roads in dark lands unknown to other men and faced monsters in that darkness. But the idea of Foxbrush being Eldest of anywhere or any time very nearly undid him. “I think,” Redman said, his mouth twitching against a laugh, choosing his words carefully as he spoke, “that you should tell me everything.”

So Foxbrush did. In a haphazard, backward, and circular manner, he told Redman all that he could, from Daylily’s flight, to Lionheart’s disgrace, back to a certain childhood summer holiday when Leo befriended a goat girl and left Foxbrush behind with algebraic equations. He spoke of the Dragon, the poison, the dying Eldest Hawkeye, Nidawi and the Lioness, the Baron of Middlecrescent, the sylphs . . . even the figs! Everything spilled out, and Redman listened and asked no questions, and it was a wonder if he made any sense of it.

They were still in the jungle when Foxbrush ran out of air. Redman paused and leaned Foxbrush up against a tree, giving both of them a much needed reprieve. Foxbrush couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked so much in so short a span of minutes, and he was quite gasping from the effort. He wiped sweat from his brow, which wrinkled with a sudden thought.

“What distresses me most,” he said, not speaking so much to Redman as to himself in that moment, “is that all it took was my letter. I’ve never seen Daylily falter. Not when the Dragon came, not when the kingdom was poisoned, not when Leo was banished . . . not once did I see her flinch! I thought she was—” He shook his head ruefully. “I thought she was invincible. But all it took was one letter. One stupid letter. And she broke.”

He sagged against the tree trunk then, and the pain in his feet disappeared as the worms in his belly once more resumed their wretched gnawing.

Redman watched him. The scars of his ugly face throbbed with a flood of memories all his own. He had listened to Foxbrush’s rambling tale with interest and not a little disbelief. But now it was at its end, he regarded the young man who claimed to be prince, and could not decide what he felt. Pity? Disgust?

Hope?

“The funny thing about stories,” Redman said after a silence (which wasn’t really a silence with the night so alive around them), “is their way of happening again. And again.”

“Pardon?” Foxbrush, still leaning against his tree, looked up.

“Stories, a friend of mine once told me, cling to a certain pattern,” Redman continued. “Like the seasons, cycling round and round. And they always find ways to fit back into that cycle, and nothing we do can stop them.”

Foxbrush made no answer. He squinted and frowned and stood like a lump.

Redman heaved a great sigh, perhaps of sorrow, perhaps of mere tiredness, perhaps of neither at all. Then he grinned at the forest floor, shaking his head. “I too was meant to be a king,” he said. “Once upon a time, long ago and far away. I was like your Leo. I too was born to be crowned. I too was pledged to wed the daughter of my most powerful supporter.” He sighed again, but his grin remained in place. “I too had a cousin who took both my throne and my bride.”

Foxbrush stared at the dark shadow from whence came Redman’s voice.

“I suppose this means I was in your cousin’s shoes,” Redman said, “and I should resent you for his sake. Perhaps I do. A little. That is, of course, if any of the wild tale you’ve just spun me is true!”

“It is true,” Foxbrush whispered.

“I think it must be. Because only true stories cycle with such precision. Only a true story would have led you to me so that I find myself once again coming to the aid of one who would take the throne his cousin will never sit upon. For some, unlikely though they may be, are born to be king. And some, however likely, are not. Such is the truth of stories.” He shrugged. “It all comes back to blood and love in the end.”

Foxbrush tried to swallow. There was sap in his mouth, and it tasted sickly upon his tongue. This conversation had quite gotten away from him, and he wasn’t certain what to do about it. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore. Perhaps he never had been certain of anything.

“I’ve got to find Daylily,” he said quietly. “That’s all that matters. I’ve got to find her.”

Redman shook himself suddenly, like a dog after a bath, and smiled at Foxbrush, who was just as blessed that he could not see it. On Redman’s scarred face, smiles were gruesome.

“Well, Prince Foxbrush, I don’t know how to find your lady or how to get you back to your time. But never fear! No doubt the rest of the story will present itself. And in the meanwhile, I do know where a warm meal waits and a bed upon which you may rest your head. Will you stop awhile in the Eldest’s House?”