Shadowrise s-3

by Tad Williams

  When he had finished his tale the prince stood and bowed and asked Briony's permission to leave her-a bit of southern court etiquette that amused her, as though the very presence of a noblewoman was like the pull of a whirlpool on a hapless swimmer, a death grip from which only the maelstrom itself could set the unfortunate free.

  And what if I said no? she wondered even as he kissed her hand and bowed to Ivgenia and the other ladies. What if I commanded him to stay? Would he have to do it? What nonsense etiquette was! Something that had no doubt begun as a way to keep men from raping and killing, at least for short periods of time, had taken on such force that it could sometimes cause the most ridiculous confusions.

  Ivgenia quickly broke the silence after Eneas had gone. "He seems to care for you, Princess Briony. That is the third time he has come to see you this week!"

  "I am an entertaining oddity," she said, waving the idea away. "A princess who has traveled in disguise. I am like something in a story for children." She laughed. "I suppose I should be grateful I am not the subject of a more dreadful tale, a child abandoned in the woods or one who is mistreated by a cruel stepmother." Her own laugh ended quickly. Neither of those things were far from the truth.

  "You make too much protest," Ivgenia said. "Doesn't she, ladies? " The others, maids and ladies-in-waiting, nodded their heads. "He has true affection for you, Highness. Perhaps it might become something more if you were not so stubborn!"

  "Stubborn?" She had thought she was doing everything but throwing herself into Eneas' arms to keep his attention and good will. "How have I been stubborn?"

  "You know perfectly well," her friend said. "You do not mix with the other folk at court except at meals. They think you too proud. Some say it is only that you have been so harshly treated, but others say… you must forgive me, Briony, but I will tell you the truth for your own sake… but others say that you think yourself better than the folk of the court."

  "Better!" She was astounded. That the people of this grand, decadent court should think her too proud-it beggared her imagination. "I think myself better than no one, least of all these fine lords and ladies. I do not mingle because I have lost the art, not because I despise the company."

  "There!" said Ivgenia triumphantly. "It is as I have told others-you feel out of place, but not above things. But truly, Briony, you must spend more time among the nobles here. They fall easily into gossip and Jenkin Crowel does you no favors in your absence."

  The name of Tolly's envoy was like a splash of icy water. She had avoided the man for days and he had seemed to do the same with her.

  "Ah, yes… you are no doubt right. Thank you for your concern, Ivvie, but I'm tired now and I'd like to lie down."

  "Oh, my dear Briony!" Ivgenia looked miserable. "Have I offended you, Princess?"

  "Not at all, kitten-I'm just tired, as I said. Ladies, you too may withdraw. Feival, stay for a moment so I can discuss some business with you."

  When the others were gone, or at least discreetly out of hearing, she turned on the player. "Crowel does me no favors? What does she mean?"

  Feival Ulian frowned. "You must know, Briony. He is the right hand of your enemy. What do you think he does? He works against you whenever he can."

  "How?" Anger flooded her-anger and fear. Tessis was not her home. Briony was surrounded by strangers and some people clearly wanted her dead. She threw down her needlework-a clumsy, irritating affectation for her at the best of times. "What is he doing?"

  "I have not heard any reliable news of his actual works." Feival had turned away and was admiring himself in a mirror hung on the wall, a habit of his that maddened Briony, especially when she was talking to him about serious things. "But he speaks against you-carefully, and never in general company, of course. He says a quiet word here, drops an offhand hint there… you know how it is done."

  She did her best to bank the flame of rage: it would do her no good to let it overwhelm her. "And what slanders does Jenkin Crowel spread?" She had grown heartily sick of looking at Feival's back. "By Zosim's masks, man, turn around and talk to me!"

  He faced her, surprised and perhaps even a little angry. "He says many things, or at least so I hear-he is not such a fool as to speak lies about you to me!" Feival scowled like a sulking child. "Many of them are just small insults-that you are mannish, that you like to go about in men's clothing, and not simply for disguise, that you are sour-tempered and a shrew…"

  "More true than not, so far," Briony said with a grim smile.

  "But the ugliest thing he will not say directly, but simply hint. He lets slip that at first everyone thought the southerner Shasto had kidnapped you…"

  "Shaso. His name was Shaso."

  "… but that now folk in Southmarch believe you were not taken against your will. That it was part of a plan you made to seize your father's throne, and that only Hendon Tolly being there prevented the two of you from carrying it off." He flushed a little. "That is the worst of it, I suppose."

  "The two of us? My brother Barrick and I?"

  "No. In the hints he lets drop, your twin brother was a victim too, sent away by you to die fighting the fairies. Your accomplice, claims Crowel, was that very southern general Shast… Shaso-the man who killed your other brother. And that he was… more than an accomplice…"

  Briony's rage was so sudden and so powerful that for a moment blackness rushed into her head and she thought she was dying. "He dares to say that? That I…" Her mouth seemed full of poison-she wanted to spit. "His master Hendon did kill his own brother-surely that is what he is thinking of! He is telling people that Shaso and I were lovers? " She lurched to her feet. It was all she could do not to snatch up her sewing and run out to stick a needle in Jenkin Crowel's eye. "The infamous… pig! It is bad enough that he should insult that good old man who died trying to get me to safety, but to suggest that I would… that I would harm my own beloved brothers! " She was weeping now and could barely catch her breath. "How can he tell such lies about me? And how can anyone believe them?"

  "Briony-Princess, please, calm yourself!" The player looked almost terrified by what he had unleashed.

  "What does Finn say? What are people saying on the street, in the taverns?"

  "It is scarcely discussed outside of court," he told her. "The Tollys are not particularly popular here, but it likely makes people wonder. Still, the king is popular and you are his guest. Most Syannese leave it to him to know what's best."

  "But not here in the court, I take it."

  Feival was trying to calm her now. "Most people in the court do not know you any better than do the drunken fools in the taverns. It is because you lock yourself away here like an anchorite."

  "So you are saying…" She paused to get her breath, to feel her heart slowing a little. "So you are saying that I should get out and mingle with the others in Broadhall Palace more often? That I should spend more time with folk like Jenkin Crowel, swapping insults and telling lies?"

  Feival took a breath and straightened, the very picture of a man who had suffered unfairly. "For your own good, yes, Princess. You should make yourself seen. You should show people simply by your presence that you have nothing to hide. Thus you will refute Crowel's lies."

  "Perhaps you are right." The heated fury was receding, but what replaced it was something no less angry, only colder. "Yes, you are right. One way or the other, I must move to prevent the spreading of such terrible, terrible stories.

  "And I will."

  The temple of Onir Plessos did not have enough beds for all the newcomers but the pilgrims were a sensible lot, happy enough just to find refuge from this year's cold spring rains. The Master Templar told them they could spread their blankets in the common room after the evening meal.

  "Will we not disturb your other guests, or the brothers?" asked the leader of the pilgrims, a heavyset fellow of obvious good nature for whom the conducting of religious seekers and penitents had become, after so many years, more a business than a religious callin
g. "You have always been generous to me, Master, and I would not wish to gain a bad name here."

  The Master Templar smiled. "You bring a respectable class of pilgrim, my good Theron. Without such travelers, our temple would be hard pressed to shelter and feed the truly needy." He lowered his voice. "An example of the kind I like less well, do you see that fellow there? The cripple? He has stayed with us for several tennights." He gestured toward a robed figure sitting in the sparse garden attended by a smaller figure, a boy of perhaps nine or ten summers. "I confess I had hoped that when the weather warmed he would move on-not only does he have a rank smell, he is strange and does not speak to us himself, but has the child speak for him… or at least pass along his words, which are usually full of doom and mystery."

  Theron looked interested. The lessened nature of his own faith, or at least of his zeal, had not made him any the less drawn to the strong faith of others-the reverse, if anything, since just such strong faith had now become his livelihood. "Perhaps he is an oracle, your cripple. Was not the blessed Zakkas unrecognized in his own lifetime?"

  The Master Templar was not amused. "Do not seek to teach piety to a priest, Master Caravaner. This fellow does not talk of holy things, but of… well, it is hard to say without you hear him yourself-or hear what the child says for him."

  "I doubt we will have time," said Theron shortly, smarting a little from the priest's rebuke. "We must leave early tomorrow. There is at least one more snow coming to the Whitewood this year, and I would not be caught in it. The north has become strange enough these days without fighting the storms. I miss the warm springs we enjoyed here in Summerfield when the king was on his throne in Southmarch."

  "I miss many things about those days," said the Master Templar, and on this safer ground the conversation continued for a while as the two men regained their old friendship.

  The fire in the common room had burned low and most of the pilgrims had fallen asleep after a long, cold day's walking. Theron was having a quiet conversation with his wagoneer when the holy man-or so Theron was already disposed to think of him-limped slowly into the room, leaning on a dirty, sullen, dark-skinned child. The boy helped him to sit down by the hearth, close to the embers, and then took a cup from the beggar's hand and carried it off to fill it from the bucket.

  Theron waved the wagoneer off to finish what he had to do before sleeping, then watched the frail holy man for a moment. It was hard to make out much of anything about him: his face was hidden by the long hood of his stained and tattered robe, his hands wrapped in dirty old bandages. The strange shape sat still as stone but for a faint trembling. As Theron stared at the beggar he felt not an apprehension of holiness but of sudden dread. It was not that the man himself seemed particularly threatening, but there was something about him that suddenly made Theron think of old stories-not those of holy pilgrims, but of unquiet spirits and dead men who cannot rest in their graves.

  Theron ran his fingers through the swaying, clicking collection of religious ornaments around his neck, some he had gained himself on his travels as a younger man to various holy sites, others given to him as gifts (or sometimes as partial payment) by the pilgrims he conducted. His hand lingered for a moment on a wooden dove, one of his favorites and long-since polished to a deep sheen by handling. It had come from one of his earliest pilgrimages, to a famous Zorian shrine in Akaris, and he found it particularly soothing to think of the White Daughter when he was troubled.

  Theron felt a presence at his shoulder and looked up. It was the Master Templar. Theron wondered at this, since it was not the older man's habit to come down to the common room after evening prayers. "You do me an honor, Master," he said. "Will you share a glass of wine with me?"

  The master nodded. "I will. I wanted to ask you a question and you said you had to leave early in the morning."

  Theron was a little ashamed to be reminded of this, since he had said it in anger. He poured wine from his own jar into a cup and passed it to his friend. "Of course, Master. What can I tell you?"

  "One of your travelers told me that King Olin's daughter is in Tessis-that she has been found alive. Is it true?"

  "It is, as far as I can say-she appeared just before we left, or so everyone said. It was the talk of Syan in our last days there."

  "And does anyone know what brings… what is her name? Buttercup? "

  "Briony. Princess Briony."

  "Of course-I shame myself. We do not hear much of doings at the court here and I grow forgetful in my age. Briony. Does anyone know why she is in Syan and what it means?"

  Theron noticed that the hooded beggar near the fire had raised his head as if listening. He wondered if he should lower his voice, but then decided that was foolish: what he was saying was no secret, but news that would soon be on everyone's lips. Still, it would not be a wise idea to name the Tollys here in their own dukedom. "Some claim she escaped from… her enemies… and fled Southmarch. Others say no, that she fled after she was thwarted in her own attempt to take the throne with the help of a southerner-a black soldier who was once Olin's friend."

  The Master Templar shook his head in wonder. "It is like the old days-the bad days of the second Kellick, when there were spies and plots everywhere."

  "Do you remember that?" asked Theron, mildly surprised.

  "Fool!" The Templar laughed. "A century and a half? Do I look so old?"

  Theron laughed too, shamed by his own bad memory. The doings of kings and history had never been his strength. "My book learning is mostly forgotten…"

  He was started by a figure at his shoulder and turned to find the hooded beggar looming there like the shadow of Death itself. For all that his back and legs seemed bent, he still stood as tall as Theron and must have been a powerful man once. The bandaged hands came up and a dry, scraping rustle issued from the darkness of the hood. Theron recoiled in fear, but for long moments the hooded man only stood silently.

  "Where is the boy? " asked the Templar irritably. "Ah, there. Boy, come here and tell us what your master wants."

  The boy, who had apparently been cadging food in the temple kitchen, duly appeared, still chewing on a lump of dough. Now that Theron looked at the child with more attention he noticed that not all the darkness of the black-haired boy's face was because of dirt or sun, that he had somewhat the look of a southerner himself, a color of skin usually only seen on the waterfronts of Oscastle or Landers Port. Yes, Theron thought, that was it: he had the look of one of those street urchins who lived like a harbor rat, by his wits and quickness.

  "What is the cripple saying?" the Master Templar demanded.

  The boy put his head close to the hood. It was impossible to hear any of the beggar's words above the crackling of the fire, but the boy stood up at last.

  "He says that Death has turned loose of her for now."

  The master shook his head in irritation. "Loose of whom? The princess? Tell him to go and find his bed and not disturb the talk of his betters." A moment later his expression changed. "No, that is unkind of me. The gods and oniri would not have us treat the afflicted so."

  The boy was leaning close to the dark hood again. "He says that he knows death-that he dwelt for a while in Death's own house. But then he was let go again."

  "What? He is saying that he lived in the house of Kernios?" The Master Templar clearly did not like this blasphemous turn the conversation had taken.

  The boy leaned close to the hooded figure again. "And he says that since Briony has escaped he must find her."

  "What nonsense!" said the house's master. "Take this beggar out to the stable, boy. I will not send the poor fool out into the cold but he must find someplace else to sleep tonight where he will not plague our guests." The priest waited, but although the boy apparently whispered these words to him the beggar did not respond. Theron was both interested and disturbed. "You are taking advantage of our charity," the Templar chief warned. This still produced no movement. "Very well, I will get some of the brothers to help me escor
t him to sleep with the horses and donkeys," he said, and strode briskly off across the common room.

  The beggar was whispering to his young helper again.

  "He wants to know if you are going north," the boy said to Theron.

  The leader of the pilgrimage was confused: why should the old cripple want to know such a thing? "We go north through Marrinswalk, yes. This pilgrimage began in Blueshore and that is where we are returning."

  The beggar pulled the boy toward him as if his next words could not wait.

  "He wishes to go with you," the child said when the murmuring had finished.

  Theron rolled his eyes. "I mean no disrepect to one whom the gods have already burdened," he said, "but the only members of our pilgrimage who walk are those who are young and fit-we travel fast. I have seen this man move. He could not keep up and we could not afford to wait for him."

  The boy looked at him in puzzlement, although Theron thought what he'd said made perfect sense. Then the young beggar turned to look at his hooded master, who suddenly reached out toward Theron with his bandaged hand. Theron started back, unnerved, then saw something glinting there on the dirty linen. A gold coin.

  "He will pay you for a place on one of the horses," the boy said after the hooded beggar had whispered to him.

  "That… that is a dolphin!" said Theron, astonished. "An entire dolphin!" It was ten times as much as he had earned in fees from the whole of his caravan of pilgrims. The boy turned as the hooded one plucked at his sleeve, whispered to him again.

  "He says to take it. The dead have no need of gold."

  She was lost in the forest, but not frightened-not too frightened, anyway. The trees swayed but she felt no wind. As she passed they bent toward her, reaching with brushy fingers, but never touched her. The world was night-dark but she could see: a light moved with her, illuminating her path and surroundings.

  Something scuttled across the track ahead of her, something silvery and swift, moving close to the ground. She changed direction, following it, and the path moved with her.