The Heart Collector Read online

  “Then why come?” The king’s annoyance is clear. “Do you plan to help us out of the goodness of your hearts?”

  “I said we want for little, not that we’re saints,” the rat catcher smiles. “There are things we lack. Like you, I have two children: a son and a daughter, strong and beautiful. I cannot let them go until I can be sure they’ve found their equal. Especially my daughter, you understand. A man cannot give his jewel to another man’s son unless he can be sure the boy is the strongest, the bravest and the best she could have. You must surely feel the same? Could you give your daughter to someone who you did not see as a brother in honour?” He lets his words echo around the great hall and the king smiles. He understands, and what’s more, he approves. Anyone can see the rat catcher, despite his title, is a man of money and power. It would not, he thinks, be so dishonourable for Aurelia to be wed to his son. And because the rat catcher’s son is not a prince, a lord, with land of his own to govern, the king can insist that the couple – and their children, with their potential gifts – remain at Tallith castle.

  He glances briefly at his daughter, whose eyes are fixed on the ground, the model of a virtuous woman, before he looks back at the rat catcher.

  “All I want for my daughter is that her husband is worthy of her and that she believes him to be someone she can respect, perhaps even come to love,” he says.

  The rat catcher smiles. “As I said: for her to have the strongest, the bravest and the best.”

  “Do you believe your son to be that?”

  “I do,” the rat catcher says. “You must think the same of yours?”

  The king gives a curt nod.

  “Then we have an accord,” the rat catcher smiles. “I will rid your country of rats, and you shall marry your son to my daughter.”

  The king’s head is tilted back, a split-second away from nodding, when the voice of the rat catcher’s daughter breaks the spell, causing him almost to slide from the throne as his bones turn to liquid with the horror of what he has almost agreed to.

  “What?” says the rat catcher’s daughter.

  “What?” the king echoes weakly.

  Aurek says nothing, for once having the wisdom to keep his mouth shut as he waits to see how this will play out.

  “You would use me as a wage?” The eyes of the rat catcher’s daughter blaze as she turns to her father. “You would sell me to that milksop?”

  “Mind your tongue!” Aurek breaks his silence, angry red blotches blooming on his cheeks.

  The rat catcher’s daughter turns her fiery gaze on him, cowing him and inflaming him simultaneously. “I am not coin to be used in a transaction,” she says as she looks back at her father.

  “You’re damned right, you’re not.” The king finally finds his voice. “The woman my son marries will be queen one day. Aurek is the heir to the throne of Tallith. He cannot marry a commoner. However lovely,” he adds with as much tact as he can muster. “I had thought you meant to take my daughter as wife for your husband, and I will consent to that. What’s more, I will allow your son a place in this castle as a prince.” The king looks expectantly at the boy.

  “I think not,” the rat catcher says. “My son is promised to another.”

  “But you said you couldn’t allow your children to be wed unless it was to the best,” the king reminds him.

  “And so it is. He is betrothed to a princess already. A witch princess from the northern lands.”

  “If you knew what Aurelia is, you’d laugh at this witch princess,” the king tells him. “For my daughter has gifts better even than witchcraft. What my daughter can offer beats any spell.”

  Aurelia, who until now has remained statue-still beside the throne, feels a blush climb her throat. She chances a glance at the rat catcher’s son but his eyes remain on the floor. Her eyes flicker to the side and she spies the rat catcher’s daughter, examining the room. When her gaze lands on Aurelia it slides straight off her almost instantly, as though she were nothing more than another piece of furniture.

  “My son’s betrothed,” the rat catcher continues, “is the daughter of a great sorceress queen. She is more than a princess, even one such as your daughter.” He inclines his head respectfully towards Aurelia.

  “Even so,” the king says, “your daughter cannot marry my son.”

  “Why not?” The rat catcher looks at the king.

  “B-because…” the king stammers.

  The rat catcher raises an eyebrow as he waits.

  “Because I’m the daughter of a rat catcher,” the girl says, her voice ringing across the room. “And that means I’m not worthy. He’ll marry his daughter to us because she’s not destined for the throne. But his son… No one but a princess must rule alongside him.”

  The king lets out an involuntary bark of laughter. “His wife won’t rule alongside him! My wife did not rule alongside me! She will bear his children, the future rulers of Tallith.”

  “And my daughter is not good enough for even that?” says the rat catcher softly. “My son would be good enough to give his seed to your second child, but my daughter not enough to receive and nurture the seed of your son? What kind of madness is that?”

  “Tradition,” the king blurts. “Protocol and history. My son must marry a princess.”

  “Why?” asks the rat catcher and all of the room stills.

  Why? Aurek asks himself. It isn’t as if his bride will need to bring a vast dowry, or the promise of peace, or an army if needed. He can give all that to Tallith single-handedly. It is not that he wants to marry the rat catcher’s daughter – or anyone, for that matter, not yet – but it occurs to him that she would be an interesting wife, more stimulating than an obedient and timid one.

  Why? Aurelia asks herself. Why can she be married off as a part of a trade and yet it’s unthinkable for Aurek to be used so? Is it because he’s heir to the throne and she isn’t? Or perhaps it’s something baser and more ludicrous. Perhaps it’s because she’s female. Yes, she thinks, for why else would both men in the room be offering their daughters and withholding their sons. She looks down at the rat catcher’s daughter again to find this time she is looking right back at her. And to Aurelia’s surprise, she sees pity and solidarity in her expression. One woman silently speaking to another. Sympathising.

  The king looks at the rat catcher, who stares placidly back, his chin raised just high enough to make his question a dare. But the king of Tallith has been king for a long time, and his father and grandfather were kings before him. He carefully wipes his face clear of expression, the same way a face clears before a person falls asleep, and waits.

  Finally, the rat catcher bows. “I think perhaps I cannot help you,” he says slowly. “Forgive us for wasting your time. We will make haste to the docks and return with the boat we came on.”

  “You must feel free to stay here,” the king says, and Aurek’s eyes glint with hope. “You’ve travelled so far, why not stay until the next ship comes. Rest and take advantage of my country? It would be a shame to have come all this way and see nothing of Tallith. There is no trick to it; you will owe me nothing.”

  This is not the whole truth. The king hopes that if the rat catcher and his family stay, the bounty of Tallith will seduce him where his words have failed, and that rat catcher will change his mind about accepting Aurelia for his son.

  The rat catcher knows what the king intends; this is not the first royal he has had to bargain with and is unlikely to be the last. Matching his son with the daughter of the sorceress queen took months of skilled negotiation, days and hours of subtle word play. The rat catcher has learned from the very creatures he hunts that patience is the best weapon in any arsenal. He will have his daughter wed to prince Aurek. He can feel it, in his blood.

  “You are most generous,” he smiles. “I understand that there will be another ship three months from now. Might we avail ourselves of your hospitality until then?”

  “With pleasure,” the king says, snapping his finger
s.

  At once two servants enter the room, their eyes widening with hope at the news the rat catcher will be staying. “My guests,” the king says. “Settle them in the Tower of Courage, afford them every luxury and courtesy they demand.”

  The servants bow to their king and gesture for the rat catcher and his children to follow them. All three bow to the king and his children as they sweep from the room.

  “Tell me, Father,” Aurek says softly as the doors of the great hall close behind them. “Did you place them in the Tower of Courage because the infestation is worst there?”

  “Naturally. He’ll be a tough nut to crack,” the king says. “But he’ll at least want the tower clear if his precious son and daughter are to sleep there. We’ll have that done for free, if naught else.”

  “You believe he will not give in?” Aurek asks cautiously.

  The king rises and looks at his son. “What do you think?” he says, with amused irritation, and leaves the room. Aurek follows.

  Aurelia remains behind, standing in the statue-still way that is such a part of her, her gaze distant. The servants clear the room around her, used to her oddities, and it is not until the shadows are long across the floor that she stirs and takes her leave, her expression thoughtful.

  Later that night, many hours after the moon has risen, Aurek is back in his seat in the Tower of Love, trying to think of ways to get the rat catcher’s daughter out of the Tower of Courage and into his bed – or himself into hers. The idea of not having her is impossible. To find out if her skin tastes as delicious as it looks, it might even be worth marrying her. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat and pours himself another glass of wine, before throwing the empty carafe at a rat that is trying to edge into the room.

  Aurelia is sitting in the window seat of her room in the Tower of Wisdom, and she too is thinking of the rat catcher’s daughter. She wants to know what kind of land it is that makes girls who stand up for themselves in such a fashion, who blaze and rebel and speak from the heart. She wants to know how the words of the rat catcher’s daughter would taste on her tongue. She feels the tendrils of want twine around her innards, and they whisper of freedom. Of choices. When she doesn’t immediately push them away, they wind a little tighter.

  The king is lying under the gold metal cage that is fitted over his bed to stop the rats clambering over him as he sleeps. He doesn’t like the cage; it makes him think of what it must be like to lie inside a coffin, which in turn reminds him of his age. He must ask Aurelia to make him more elixir. It keeps him handsome, and virile, manly and mature, a man to the boy his son is. Perhaps it’s time he took a new wife… As he drifts off to sleep, trying to ignore the scraping of tiny claws on the metal that protects him, he wonders whether the rat catcher would give his daughter to him to wed. She would be queen, the most any girl could aspire to, and leave Aurek free to marry someone more fitting. He thinks of the girl, of her flashing eyes and her temper, and smiles to himself.

  The following morning the king pulls out all of the stops to impress the rat catcher and his children. Breakfast is a lavish, luxurious affair: bowls of honey oozing from fresh honeycomb to slather on to hunks of soft bread that belch steam when they’re torn apart. Tiny cakes flavoured with roses and violets, sprinkled with sugar and candied petals. Fresh fish, caught that morning and roasted with garlic and onions and oil. Fat tomatoes bursting their juices. Brown eggs with yolks as golden as the crown that sits on the king’s head as he smiles at his guests, urging them to eat.

  The rat catcher leans forward to serve himself when a rat drops on to the table from the chandelier above. It makes off with the very piece of bread the rat catcher had been reaching for, and he smiles as the king turns crimson. “They’re bold, your rats,” he says, picking up another piece of bread and wiping it around the honey dish.

  “That’s why we called for you,” the king says too sharply before he remembers himself. “Have you thought any more on my offer?”

  “Have you on mine?”

  The king is about to mention himself as a prize for the rat catcher’s daughter, but something in the way his own children are looking at him stops him. “I feel as I ever did,” he says finally.

  “As do I,” the rat catcher agrees. “So if your majesty wishes us to leave…”

  The king shakes his head gruffly. “You are my guests for the next three months,” he says as he pushes his chair from the table.

  The rat catcher and his children spend that first day exploring Tallith. They refuse an escort and seem immune to the stares and mutterings of the people. They assume it’s because of their dark skin and ignore the eyes that follow them. The father draws his daughter to his side, preparing to defend her. Then a small girl darts away from her mother, racing across the dusty courtyard in a faded pinafore dress and tugging shyly on the skirt of the rat catcher’s daughter.

  “Thank you,” she says quietly, so quietly the rat catcher’s daughter has to lean down and ask her to speak again.

  “For what?”

  “Coming to save us.”

  The girl runs away again and folds herself in her mother’s skirts. When the eyes of the rat catcher and his children turn to the small crowd gathered around the girl and her mother, they all bow their heads. The rat catcher and his family turn to leave, but the citizens of Tallith will not let them, instead pressing gifts upon them: sweet, perfumed oranges, candied plums, and bread studded with nuts and fruit. Children offer up their favourite toys, women blow kisses and look at the rat catcher from under thick lashes. As the rat catcher and his family hurry back to the castle, refusing all offerings, the crowd begin to applaud and cheer, the joyous sound ringing out long after the gates are closed behind them. They lock themselves away that night, all three of them staying in their own quarters, wondering what they have unknowingly agreed to by staying in the castle, and what the cost of it might be.

  It soon becomes apparent that infestation of Tallith is much worse than they could have imagined. The rat catcher has seen only two infestations to rival this one, both of them when he was a boy in training, and he is shaken by the hold that rats have here, in such a relatively short amount of time. As the king predicted, the Tower of Courage is cleared of rats overnight, and the number inside the castle walls diminishes daily, but the rest of the country languishes under the plague. A whole village near the mountains sickens when rats urinate into the well at the centre of the square. Many die, including children and the elderly. The food stores are tainted, and for the first time in written history, there will be shortages of grain over winter. The constant gnawing weakens buildings, causes collapses and accidents. The rats are winning.

  After that sole excursion out of the castle, the rat catcher and his children remain within its confines, spending their time in the gardens and olive groves, whispering amongst themselves. Separately, Aurek and Aurelia haunt their steps, both of them watching the rat catcher’s daughter. Their presence seems to annoy the rat catcher’s family, particularly his son, who scowls when he sees them.

  Each morning at breakfast the king asks again if the rat catcher has changed his mind, and by way of reply, the rat catcher asks the king if he has changed his. The atmosphere as they dine grows chillier by the day, the array of the food less extravagant: the bread coarser, the fish less fresh and fried too long in grease. After the first month the king stops attending at all, too busy placating his frantic subjects. He has forgotten his plans to offer his own suit to the rat catcher, instead asking only about his son. The message arrives with the rat catcher each morning on a scroll. The rat catcher’s answer remains the same.

  It is the final month of the rat catcher’s sojourn in Tallith. He and his family have spent the last two weeks hidden in the Tower of Courage, and plan to remain there until they have word that their ship is ready to depart. In the time they have been here, the death toll has risen to the hundreds. They can no longer use the castle grounds: the mere sight of them crossing the bridges between the t
owers is enough to send the citizens into a violent frenzy, baying for their blood.

  The Tallithi are furious with them now, their hatred a fug that settles over the castle. How dare they come? How dare they eat Tallithi food, drink Tallithi wine, while the people die of disease and sepsis, all born from the rats. Mutterings begin that the rat catcher sent the rats; after all, it’s known his son refused beautiful Aurelia’s hand. It is whispered that his betrothed, some sort of sorceress, with blood-gifts of her own, cursed the country with the rats and sent her lover’s family to pretend to aid them, only to wait for the country to fall so they could steal it.

  The rat catcher’s daughter hates to be cooped up, and longs to leave this wretched, golden place. While her brother writes to his fiancée, receiving regular letters by return, and her father reads, keeping to his rooms, she works hard to amuse herself. She spends her time exploring the tower, climbing into the eaves and disturbing the birds there, going through every room, mentally cataloguing the things she comes across.

  She finds, to her surprise, that as well as the bridges between the towers, that there are tunnels too. A half-forgotten door in the bowels of the Tower of Courage is easily shattered by a few kicks. The air beyond smells musty and stale, but also exciting. New. She descends into the labyrinth beneath, walking slowly, her footsteps echoing. She opens every door she comes across, marvelling at old wine cellars, storage rooms, even a small crypt where the coffins turn to dust under her fingers. Every day for two weeks she descends and explores the underside of Tallith Castle, climbing every staircase she finds, trying to force the doors at the top of them.

  When the last of them gives way, she is not the only one surprised by what she finds.

  Aurek, who has always been restless, is almost frantic these days. With the rat catcher’s daughter never leaving the tower, and too many maids either scarred by illness, sickening, or fled, he is constantly bored. His father is chained to his desk, seeing advisor after advisor, and growing thinner and greyer by the day. Aurelia keeps to her own tower, rarely even attending meals. His attempts to gain access to the Tower of Courage have been rebuffed with increasing rudeness. With nothing to occupy him, Aurek has, unthinkingly, spent the last two weeks working.