Chapter 23

Wren's POV

The peddlers went on to talk about the price of salt, and I sat on the edge of the bed with Linnet asleep against me and didn't hear another word.

A wet nurse for the Prince's pup.

If I could get into that house, I would be behind walls Duskmere couldn't climb. The Luna could send Pell to every inn and wharf in Silverkeep, but she couldn't send her through a prince's gate. And a prince had people. He had men who rode out and men who came back with news, and if any of them had heard of a heavy carriage on the wharf road, or a pup picked up out of the grass, that would be worth more than a month of me walking the streets asking.

It was a terrible risk. A house like that would ask where I came from, and ask again, and check.

But it was the first door I had seen since the grass came up empty, and it might open onto two things at once. Somewhere to live. Somewhere to look for Sol.

I laid Linnet down on the pillow and went to the window. Over the roofs of the lower town I could see the long grey line of the palace wall, and the great houses built close against it. My hand had found the window frame. I was holding it hard enough that the wood bit into my palm.

For Linnet, I thought. And for Sol most of all.

I would go.

* * *

Evander's POV

Since the pup came, my house had not slept.

Dunne found a nurse the first afternoon, a clean, brisk woman with milk to spare. The pup took one breath of her and turned his face away. She tried him again, and again, and every time his mouth touched her he wrenched his head aside and screamed, until his voice went hoarse and his face was dark red, and still he would not suck.

In the end Dunne had the woman draw off her milk, and fed it to him herself with a little silver spoon, a drop at a time, coaxing. More of it ran down his chin than went in. He went on crying.

The night was worse. He would cry himself out and fall asleep, and wake a little later crying harder. Dunne walked him and rocked him and sang him every song she knew. Near midnight she brought him to my study, because she had run out of ideas.

"Highness, he won't take the nurse. I've given him barley water and what milk I could get into him, and he's been crying since dark." Her face was grey. "I don't know what else to do."

I put down my pen, went to her, and held out my arms.

He came into them still screaming. Then he got his nose against my collar, and the scream broke off in the middle. There was a long, shuddering string of sobs, each smaller than the last, and his eyes closed, and he was asleep.

Dunne stared at us.

I walked him the length of the room and back. He slept the whole way, his breath going slow and even. When I bent to put him into Dunne's arms his eyes flew open, and he let out a wail worse than anything before, arms and legs flailing.

I took him back. He stopped at once. One small fist closed on a fold of my shirt and held on.

We tried it twice more. It went the same way each time.

"Never mind," I said. "He sleeps here tonight. Keep looking for a nurse. Keep looking until you find one he'll have."

She went, with a look at the two of us that said she didn't understand it any more than I did. I supposed it was my scent he wanted, since mine was the strongest in the house.

I walked him most of the night. Somewhere after the second bell my arm began to ache, and then to burn, and I shifted him to the other one as carefully as I would have moved a full cup. I had never in my life carried anything for so long.

Theo kept the door. Toward morning he came in and stood a while watching, and then said in a low voice what he had evidently been chewing on for hours.

"Highness. He looks a little like you now. They all look like something, at this age. But in a year he'll look like whoever made him." He hesitated. "And when he's walking, and there's no mark on him? What will you tell the King then?"

I didn't answer. I looked down at the pup. His mouth was moving in his sleep.

After a moment Theo went back to the door.

I knew what he was afraid of. He was afraid I was getting fond of the thing, and that it couldn't stay.

* * *

By the next morning it was all over Silverkeep that Prince Evander had found his pup.

Before noon the Queen sent Mistress Orme, her oldest and most trusted woman, with two nurses she had chosen herself. Dunne didn't argue this time. She put the pup into the arms of the gentler-looking of the two.

He took one breath of her and began to fight. He twisted and arched and went red in the face, and kept his mouth clamped shut, and made a thin furious sound in his throat. The nurse tried him three times. By the third her forehead was wet and Mistress Orme had stopped smiling.

Dunne took him back. In the daytime, at least, he would let her hold him. It was only at night that he wanted me.

On the third morning I went to the nursery to see how he did, and found Dunne walking him up and down. Kit put his head round the door.

"Mistress Dunne. The women from outside, the ones His Highness said to find. They're here. They're waiting in the side hall." He lowered his voice. "Will you come and look them over?"