David looked at him. Alec's eyes were even darker up close. He was smiling, but as David looked at him his smile faded and he looked off to the side, as if seeing him was something he didn't want to do.
"No," David said softly. "I'm just‑‑I'm‑‑I'm sorry I didn't know what to do with the horse."
"It's all right," Alec said. "Go get in the cart."
As the forest thinned they began to see homes. David stared at them, tiny stone houses made wet, dark by the snow. There were people too, and not one of them looked like anyone he'd ever seen before. He was used to the glow of pictures, saints in a prayer book or portraits lined up in hallways, to the drape and colors of the castle and the people who swept through it, even the servants dressed in bright colors that showed who owned them.
The only color he saw now was on the faces of slow‑moving children whose cheeks and noses were red from cold, in the dark circles under most everyone's eyes, in the white circle scars that pitted almost everyone's face. Everyone was shrunken and grayer than people he'd seen in the castle or in pictures, as if they were sketches waiting to be filled in. He looked over at Alec.
Alec's lips were cracked from the cold and he had circles under his eyes and his fingertips were still cracked dark. He had two white circle scars on his neck, just below one ear, and another one high up on one cheekbone. He didn't really look any different from anyone David had just seen.
But he was different somehow. Maybe it was how he was sitting. He sat‑‑not like anyone David had ever seen, not languidly like everyone in the castle, not wearily like everyone they'd just passed. He sat as if he was ready to move, as if everything around him wasn't enough to contain him and he knew it. Or maybe it was how he looked at things. At him. Not with fear or sorrow or strange heated expectation or as if past him was someone or something else. Just looking at him, directly at him. He liked it. He smiled at Alec.
Alec turned away. David was used to that from people so he didn't mind. Not really. He went back to looking at the houses, the people, the slowly fading forest.
It started to snow.
Alec wrapped the horse's reins around one hand and reached under the seat, pulled out something dark and shapeless. As David watched he pushed it down over his head, the fabric fanning out around and over him. It wasn't like any coat David had ever seen. It was covered with pockets around the hem, neat little rows of them, and the whole thing was covered with something, small shining flakes like starlight.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the flakes.
"Mine dust," Alec said tightly. "You have a problem with that?"
"No. You have some in your hair too. It‑‑"
"Put on your coat."
"It shines," David said, still looking at Alec, who was determinedly looking straight ahead. "It looks like stars."
"Just put on your coat, will you?"
"I don't have one."
Alec's face was now flushed like the scullery maid's had once been, stripes of color across his cheekbones. David wished he could see his eyes. He moved a little, so he could see them, but Alec moved too.
"There's a blanket in the back," he said shortly, and his voice was another different thing about him, David thought. Looking at him you'd think‑‑you wouldn't think about his voice at all. You wouldn't expect to notice it. But it was impossible not to. Everything he said came out quick and light and edged sharp. He moved closer again.
Alec shot him a glance then. The color was gone from his face and he just looked exasperated.
"Grab the damn blanket and wrap it around yourself so you don't freeze to death. And please don't tell me you don't know what a blanket is."
"I know what a blanket is," David said, and smiled.
Alec's mouth parted and his face flushed again. "Then stop talking and get it already." And the words sounded angry but his voice‑‑his voice didn't sound angry at all. David grabbed the blanket out of the back and wrapped it around himself. It smelled like the horse and Alec. He felt‑‑awake, he thought. Real.
"And now, of course, it's not snowing," Alec said. "Never fails. Get out the jacket and all of sudden it's sunny and..." He kept talking. David tucked the blanket tightly around himself and looked up at the sky, watched blue push past gray. He felt as light as the clouds racing across the sky. He liked the feeling.
Chapter 5
They reached town as night was starting to fall. David wished he could see more but all he could make out were close clusters of buildings, the huddled shapes of people moving through the streets, bowed against the cold, and the occasional flicker of fire or candlelight in a window. The ground sounded different though, like the inside of the castle, and when he peered over the edge of the cart he saw they were riding over stones buried in the ground, slicked by ice and snow but still barely visible.
The cart stopped. David straightened up and looked at Alec, who said, "We're here," and didn't quite look back at him.
"Oh," David said. "Okay." He put the blanket away and grabbed his bag, climbed off the cart.
The stones felt strange under his feet. They weren't smooth like the ones in the castle. They were pitted, cracked from where they'd iced over and split open again and again. He looked around.
There was a child sitting huddled in a doorway nearby, scrawny with white pitted scars all over his face and too‑wise eyes that met his and quickly looked away. Some of the buildings had signs on them, a few with words but most with pictures. One had an eye, another a pot. The stones led off in three directions, one back the way they'd come, one branching up and off into a curl that snaked out of sight, and one that went straight ahead. David squinted, but all he saw in that direction was dark.
"The pale," Alec said. "You do know about that, right?"
"No," David said, because he didn't. "It doesn't look very pale. What is it?" The child in the doorway laughed, a sharp coughing bark.
Alec looked at him for a long moment, eyes glinting. Then he sighed and said, "Never mind.
There's an inn down by what used to be the river. They probably won't overcharge you too much.
You do have money, right?"
"Yes," David said, because he did. He'd packed the coin his nurse had kept in her coat.
"Great," Alec said and lifted the reins, turning to look out at the street. "Good luck with…whatever it is you're doing."
"You too," David said. "Thank you for being so nice to me."
Alec's mouth tightened. "How much?" he said abruptly.
"What?"
"How much money do you have?"
David fished in his bag and held up the coin.
"Why did I even ask?" Alec muttered. "All I had to do was keep driving. I swear I am never ever‑‑" He got out of the cart and pointed at the child, said, "If you have someone steal this I'll find you and cut off your thumbs."
"Four bits to watch the horse," the child said disinterestedly. "Eight to watch so your stuff don't get taken."
"Eight? Do you think you're bargaining with‑‑" he pointed at David. "Five."
"Seven."
"Okay, three."
"Five," the child said quickly. Alec nodded and walked off. After a minute he turned around and beckoned to David.
"Come on," he said impatiently. "One glass of ale and you'd better not order anything that comes covered in sauce because that always costs extra. And then that's it, you understand?"
"Not really," David said.
"I supposed I asked for that one," Alec muttered.
He took David inside a building that had a sign hanging from it, a swinging picture of a cup and a swirling word underneath. The first letter looked like a tree, long with two branches winding off it on either side. Inside it was smoky and dark and smelled like his nurse used to on holidays, a warm yeasty smell. It was hot too, almost furiously so, and David saw two fireplaces, one on either side of the room, both of them glowing red bright. It seemed every inch of space was filled with people, all of who were looking at them. At Alec. And the expressions on their faces at the sight of him were ugly, twisted mean smiles and angry frowns. Alec didn't seem to notice them.