Shadowrise s-3

by Tad Williams

  Ananka put a grave expression on her handsome, long-boned face. "Is it true that you challenged Hendon Tolly to a fight? A… swordfight?"

  The whispers became something louder and more violent-laughs, gasps, expressions of disbelief and disgust. Women who had never done anything in their lives more strenuous than sewing stared at Briony as though she were some freakish example of the gods' displeasure-a two-headed ram or a legless cat. The looks on their faces ignited a flame of anger in Briony's gut, and for a moment it was all she could do not to stand up and sweep her crockery onto the floor.

  Every night this woman tormented her. Gods, I wish I had my sword now!

  "If you lose your temper, you will likely lose the fight." She heard Shaso's gruff voice as if he stood at her shoulder. "The warrior who can keep his thoughts clear is always armed." Briony took a breath. "To play calm, you must remember calm." That had been Nevin Hewney in one of his sober moments. "Bring that feeling to your thoughts. Taste it like a piece of fruit." She thought of riding the wagon when they had first crossed into Syan, how the great expanse of the Esterian river valley had opened before her like the arms of a welcoming friend.

  "I did challenge him, Lady," she said, her voice light. "I regret it now, of course. It was not seemly and it put a burden on my other guests." Nothing wrong with a small feint in return, though, was there? "No hostess should ever force her guests to participate in her own bad manners."

  Another quiet chuckle ran around the table, but Briony fancied the laughter might have become a tiny bit more sympathetic.

  "You put a sword to his throat, did you not?" asked Ananka sweetly, as though she too sought only to minimize an unfortunate moment.

  "I did, my lady," she said. She was pleased to realize that much of her anger had passed through her like a storm. "I certainly did, and as I said, I am ashamed. But let us not forget, he is the man who usurped my family's throne. Imagine how you would feel if one of your loyal nobles," Briony turned with a smile, looking up and down the table, "turned out to be a traitor? Unbelievable, I know, but we trusted the Tollys, too."

  For the first time she seemed to have Enander's attention. "Did you have no idea, then?" the king asked. "Did this Duke Hendon not live at your court?"

  "The duke was his brother Gailon, Majesty," Briony gently corrected him. "And Gailon was, I must admit, a better man than I gave him credit for. Hendon killed him, too, as it turns out."

  Now the whispers were unleavened by laughter. "Terrible," said one of the women, an old duchess with a wig like a bird's nest. "You poor thing. How frightened you must have been."

  Briony smiled again, as shyly and humbly as she could. At the end of the table Ananka's face was set in a mask of polite sympathy, but Briony had no doubt that the baroness was none too happy with the way the conversation had slipped her reins. "Frightened-yes, of course. Terrified. But I did only what any young noblewoman would do when her father's throne was in jeopardy. I ran away in search of friends. Trustworthy friends, like King Enander. And again I thank him… and the Lady Ananka… for all they have done for me." She lifted her cup and bowed her head in the direction of Enander. "May the Three Brothers give you long lives and good health to equal your great kindness, your Majesty."

  "His Majesty," echoed the others, and drank up. Enander looked surprised but not unhappy. Ananka was hiding her irritation well.

  Briony considered it a victory on both counts.

  After Briony had sent her maids away, she took out the note and studied it for the fifth or sixth time since she had received it the night before.

  Come to the garden in the Vane Courtyard an hour after sunset on Stonesday.

  It had been sitting on her writing desk when she returned, a homely piece of twine around it instead of a wax seal. She did not recognize the handwriting but she had a good idea who had left it for her. Just to be on the safe side, though, she went to her chest and lifted out the boy's clothes she had worn while traveling with Makewell's Men. She had sent them to be cleaned, then packed them away-there was no telling when she might need them again. Even this, perhaps the greatest palace in Eion, felt like poor and unsafe shelter after the events of the last year.

  Underneath the homespun garments was the sack with her Yisti knives. She rucked up her long skirts, not without a great deal of puffing and gasping as she bent across the whalebone stomacher, and was about to strap the smaller knife to her leg when she realized the foolishness of what she was doing.

  What, shall I ask an enemy to wait while I roll around on the ground trying to reach past my petticoats for my dagger? What had Shaso said? "Examine your clothes… find places you can keep them and draw them without snagging." What would he have thought of her struggling red-faced to reach her leg?

  She gave up and stood. She pulled on her mantle, then slipped the smaller of the two blades into her sleeve just as somebody knocked on her chamber door. Briony waited for a moment before remembering the maids were gone, Feival was out collecting gossip in the servants' hall, and she was alone. "Who's there?" she called.

  "Just me, Princess."

  She opened it but did not step aside to let her friend in. "Gods keep you, Ivvie. I don't think I'm going down to dinner."

  Ivgenia looked at her clothes. "Are you going out, Snowbear?" The name was a little joke-her friend liked to pretend Briony came from the far, frozen north.

  "No, no, I'm just cold." It was hard to lie to someone she thought of as a friend, but she could not bring herself to trust anyone in the court, even sweet, kindly Ivgenia e'Doursos. "I'm not feeling well, dear-just a little chill on my heart tonight. Please give the king and Lady Ananka my best wishes."

  When Ivgenia was gone Briony found her shoes and slipped into them. It had been a dry week, which was good-it made the prospect of waiting out of doors more appealing. Still, as she walked quietly down the corridor she was already netted with gooseflesh.

  The Vane Courtyard was named for an immense weathervane in the shape of Perin's flying horse. It stood atop a tall tower at one end of the courtyard, a monument that could be seen halfway across Tessis and was often used as the reference point in local directions. On the far side of the highest courtyard wall ran the Lantern Broad itself, the massive, ancient street that gave Broadhall Palace its name: Briony could hear the lowing of oxen, the scrape and thunk of cartwheels, and the shouts of peddlers. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to walk out of the palace and into that great street and simply follow where it led her-find a life that had nothing to do with courtly connivance or family responsibility, a life without monsters, fairies, traitors, or poisoners. If only she could…

  "Hello, Lady," said a deep voice beside her ear.

  Before the second syllable was finished she had whirled and snugged her knife against his throat.

  "I gather you are not pleased to see me," said Dawet dan-Faar, his voice only a little thickened by the blade pushing against his gorge. "I am not certain why, Princess Briony, but I will be happy to apologize directly you remove your pretty blade from my windpipe."

  "Did you enjoy yourself?" She lowered the knife and backed a step away. She had forgotten the smell of his skin and the quiet rumble of his voice and she did not like the way those things made her feel. "Sneaking into my rooms to leave a note? You men, you are all boys when it comes to it, playing at games of war and spycraft even when you do not need to."

  "Games?" He raised an eyebrow. "I think what happened to you and your family shows that these are not merely games. Lives are at stake."

  "Why? Because of other men." She slipped the knife back into her sleeve. "What will happen to you if you are caught here, Master dan-Faar?"

  "In truth? Nothing that cannot be fixed, but I would prefer not to have to set my energies to such repairs if I can avoid it."

  "Then let's go sit on the bench beneath that apple tree. It is mostly out of sight from the colonnades." She led him toward the bench and swept her skirts carefully to the side so she could
sit down. She patted the wood a decorous distance away. "Here, sit. Tell me what has happened to you since I've seen you last. We had no time to talk at the inn."

  "Ah, yes," he said. "The False Woman, with its grubby little proprietor. That was an unpleasant afternoon-they almost had me."

  "Oh, stop." Briony shook her head. "I told you, these games bore me. Do you truly expect me to believe you escaped all on your own?"

  He looked more than a little startled. "What do you mean, Princess?"

  "Really, Master dan-Faar. What was it you said to the guard captain? 'I swear by Zosim Salamandros, you have the wrong man!' What, swearing by the Trickster god himself as a pass code and you think I could not guess? And then that… charade of an escape, conveniently out of everyone's sight? After spending months with a troupe of players, did you think I would not recognize sham and playacting? The guard captain let you go."

  A smile tugged at the edge of Dawet's mouth, just visible in the torchlight. "I am… speechless," he said at last.

  "I can even guess with whom you made that arrangement," she said. "Lord Jino, the king's spymaster-would it by any chance be him? No, you need not answer. The only real questions, Master dan-Faar, would be about your true relationship with the Syannese court. Secret envoy from Ludis Drakava in Hierosol? Or a double agent working originally for King Enander, but pretending to serve Drakava?"

  "I am impressed, my lady," said Dawet. "You have been thinking, I see, and thinking carefully and well… but I am afraid you are not yet the mistress of intrigue you think yourself to be."

  "Oh?" The air was growing cold now that the night had come on. She tucked her hands inside her sleeves. "And what have I missed?"

  "You are assuming that I am your friend and not your enemy."

  A moment later Dawet had clutched her two wrists through the sleeve and prisoned them together in the firm grip of a single hand. In the other hand he held a knife, longer and more slender than Briony's as he laid the blade gently against her cheek.

  "You dastard! You… you traitor! I trusted you!"

  "Exactly, my lady. You trusted me… but why? Because I admired you? Because my leg looks shapely in woolen hose? Yet I was your father's captor's man when you met me-poor grounds for friendship."

  "And I treated you well when no one else would." Briony was trying slowly to tilt her balance so that she could kick Dawet hard in the leg, hoping it would hurt him enough that she could jerk free from his grasp and draw her own blade. She would rather have kicked him higher-Shaso had been most thorough in teaching her the best places to strike in close combat-but neither her angle nor her petticoats would permit it.

  "Which matters not, my lady. I am trying to make a point, here." He leaned close, so that the thin blade of his knife was as near his face as hers. "You mistake men for moral creatures, as if each must measure up the good and bad done to him and then act accordingly, as though they were incorruptible judges weighing out a sentence."

  Briony did her best not to tense. "Oh, I know men are corruptible… and corrupted… never fear."

  She lashed out with her foot, hoping to surprise him. Instead, Dawet kept his hold on her wrists and hooked her leg with his, knocking her remaining foot from beneath her. Briony slid off the bench and would have fallen but Dawet held her up, so that she dangled between his hand and the bench like a deer carcass hung in front of a hunter's lodge. Her shame and fury almost exceeded her fear. "Let me go!"

  "As you wish, Lady." He let go and she dropped the short distance to the ground.

  Briony was up an instant later with her knife in her hand. "You! How dare you? How…"

  "How dare I what?" His expression was flat, almost cruel, which was just as well. If he had smiled at her she might have tried to kill him. "Show you what a fool you are being? You are a very clever girl, Briony Eddon, but you are still only that-a girl. A maiden, even, I do not doubt. Do you understand what you have risked of your own safety and your family's fortunes coming here like this?"

  The Yisti dagger wavered in her hand. "You… you do not mean to harm me?"

  "By the Great Mother, Princess, do you think I am such a fool as to try to do injury to a white-skinned northern girl in a northern castle, within the hearing of a hundred armed guards or more, and not even put a hand over her mouth?" He shook his head. "Tell me I have not so far misestimated your intelligence, or you mine."

  "You had a knife to my throat!"

  "If I truly meant you harm, I would have disarmed you." He reached out, fast as Shaso himself had been, faster perhaps, and used his own blade to flip her dagger out of her hand. It spun into the darkness, disappearing into the shadowy garden border without a sound. "Now go find it. I will wait. That did not look the sort of knife anyone would like to lose."

  When she came back, she had hidden the Yisti dagger in her sleeve again. "If it weren't for this wretched dress I would have had both knives out, and you would have had one of them in your shin, at the very least."

  He grinned, but there was no mirth in it. "Then let us both be glad you didn't, for I feel pretty certain that things would not have gone so easily or happily as you suppose."

  "But why did you do that?" She sat down again, much more warily this time, but Dawet did not make any movement toward her. "You frightened me."

  "Good, my lady. That is the first thing I have heard since I met you here that makes me happy. I want you frightened. You are in terrible danger. Have you not realized that?"

  She stared at him, doing her best to remember the lessons again, not of warcraft but of mummery. It would not do to let the tears well up. It would be altogether too… girlish. "Yes, Master dan-Faar, I have certainly realized that, most notably when someone tried to poison me three days gone, but I thank you for the reminder."

  "Your sarcasm serves you poorly, Princess. You should thank me in truth for being honest with you when others would not or cannot." He reached out his hand and gently placed it on her arm. "In truth, I wish that were not my role. I would someone had given me a fairer, kinder part to play…"

  This time he did not anticipate her strike. She moved so quickly that the point of her blade pinked the fat of his hand before he could pull back. He stood up, anger clouding his face, and yanked off his glove to examine the wound. It was not, Briony thought, a very serious spite. "You little…! Why did you do that?"

  "You are the one who counseled mistrust, Master dan-Faar." She was breathing hard and her heart was drumming. "You speak to me of how kind you are, how thoughtful, how you have my best interests in mind where no one else does. Very well. Start by answering this question, please-what are you? Are you an enemy with a soft spot toward me? Or a friend? Would you be my brother, or would you be a lover? I have spent my life at the center of public doings. I am not so flattered by your attention as to lose all sense of who I am and what I'm after, nor to forget that you seem to want to have things all ways at once." She stared at him. "Well, sir, what would you be to me?"

  For a moment Dawet simply stared at her over his hand as he sucked on the place where she had pinked him. "Princess, I do not know. In truth, I am not certain I know who you are anymore. Your time in exile has changed you."

  "Well, that should be no surprise, should it?" She once more tucked away her dagger. "If you decide you want to speak to me again-perhaps to give me some information I could truly use, like what you know of my father-you will know where to find me."

  "Wait." Dawet lifted his hand to her as though conceding a wager. "Enough, Briony."

  "Princess Briony, Master dan-Faar. We do not know each other so well, nor have you proved your friendship yet."

  He drew back. "You are hard, Lady. Did I not warn you back in Southmarch that someone in your court meant you harm?"

  "Come now. Without naming any names to me, what use was that? Of what ruler in all the world is that not true? You have not done me any unkindnesses, Envoy, but as far as I can see you have done me no services either, except to share the gift of your
company." She unbent enough to give him a half-smile. "A gift not without merit, but hardly the stuff of undying loyalty."

  He shook his head. "You have become a hard-shelled girl, Princess."

  "I have stayed a living woman when many wished it were otherwise. Now tell me of my father or let us say farewell and get out of this cold night."

  "There is nothing much to say. When I left Hierosol to come here he was still Ludis Drakava's prisoner. Since then I have heard the same rumors as you-that Ludis has fled, that your father has been given to the autarch, that Hierosol will fall at any moment…"

  "What? Given to… to the autarch? I have never heard… oh, Merciful Zoria, say it is not true! What madness is this?"

  "But… surely you have heard the tale. Many people here in Tessis are repeating it-Ludis traded him for his own escape, it's said. But do not fear too much, lady, it is only rumor so far. Nothing is known for certain…"

  She hissed her anger. "Blood of the Brothers! Not one of these cursed Syannese has spoken a word of it to me!" She reached out and plucked a blossom from the branch near her head and held it for a moment. No tears, she reminded herself. She crushed it in her fingers and let the petals fall. "Tell me everything you have heard." The tears had ebbed without ever reaching her eyes. She felt a cold hardness in her breast, as though ice grew on her heart.

  "As I said, Lady, these are only tales, much confused and…"

  "Do not soothe me, dan-Faar. I am no longer a child. Just… inform me." She took a breath. The night seemed to bend close; the chilly darkness inside her rose to greet it. "I may have lost my family's throne but I will take it back, that I swear, and our enemies will suffer for what they've done. Yes, I promise that on the heads of the gods themselves." She looked up at Dawet's surprised face, just visible in the light from an open window above. "You are staring, man. Put the time to better use. Tell me what I wish to know."

  12

  A Good Woman, a Good Man, and a Poet