The Briar King

by Greg Keyes

“Don't be gone long.”

  “I won't.”

  The pantry was below street level, carved into the stone foundation of the island.

  Most of the bread had gone to mold, which was just as well, but he found some salted fish, venison, wild boar, a wheel of yellow cheese, and several racks of wine.

  He cut a hunk of cheese and a slab of the ham and tucked two bottles of wine under his arm. Then he returned to the top floor.

  “Is it safe to eat?” Winna asked. “They warn against breaking bread with the Halafolk.”

  Aspar chuckled. “The cheese is from someplace in Holtmarh. The wine is from the Midenlands, and the meat was poached from the King's Forest. The only food they actually grow down here is hrew, a sort of nut that lives in the water. They make bread out of it. It tastes bad, but it's safe enough. If the lake has fish, they eat that, too.” He nodded at the window. “Anything?”

  “No. But I may have missed them.” She looked up at As-par, a very young expression on her face. “I'm not afraid,” she said.

  “You're a brave girl.”

  “No, I mean it. I ought to be afraid. I was, earlier, at the pool. I was even when I told you I was coming with you. Now—it's all gone out of me.”

  “It'll come back,” Aspar said. “Take my word for it.”

  “I never thought of you as someone who could be afraid. As long as I can remember, you've always been there, As-par. When I was a little girl, you would just appear, from out of the forest, like some ancient hero from the legends.” She looked away.

  “What you must think of me,” she said.

  Aspar poured her a mazer of wine, then one for himself. It was thick, a little bitter. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was.

  “I've been afraid,” he said.

  “I know that, now,” she replied.

  He moved to the window, so he could see out. The square below was still and quiet. Winna stayed where she was, almost within touching distance.

  “Where do you think they went? The Halafolk?”

  Aspar shrugged. “The mountains, maybe. Across the eastern sea, for all I know.” He took another drink. The wine was starting a small fire in his belly. “I was too rough last night,” he murmured. “I didn't mean to grumble.”

  Her gaze fastened on his. “Well. You do know how to apologize,” she said. “I would never have guessed that either, and no one will believe me if I speak of it.”

  “I'm not good at this,” Aspar grunted.

  “No, you're not. But I forgive you.”

  He took another drink of wine, and was searching for something to say, when Winna suddenly gasped.

  “What's that?” Suddenly she was against him, gripping him, eyes wide.

  “What? Do you hear something?”

  Her face was inches from his, and smiling. “You really aren't good at this.”

  “That's not what I meant, Winna, I—” She felt good, in his arms, and he suddenly realized how long it had been since he touched anyone. Except for the kiss from a few weeks ago. The kiss.

  He never decided to do it. He knew he didn't. But suddenly his face was against hers, his lips greedy on hers, and he felt stupid and awkward, like a boy with his first woman.

  Their clothes came off, piece by piece, and fingers and lips traced the freshly exposed skin. Part of him sounded a little alarm; they had enemies outside.

  Too much of him didn't care.

  When they came together, and her ankles locked behind his knees, for a long, unblinking moment he looked into her eyes. What he saw there amazed him. She looked back, and laid her hand on his cheek.

  Much later, as they lay tangled and sated, he stroked the skin over her ribs and wondered if he could believe what he was feeling.

  He sat up to look out the window.

  “Is the Sefry army out there yet?” Winna asked languidly.

  “They might have marched around the square ten times, and I wouldn't know,” he replied.

  “I suppose that wasn't so smart just now.”

  He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “May have been the smartest thing I've done in years.”

  She chuckled and kissed him. “That was good. Now, don't say another word about it. You're sure to find some way to spoil it if you keep talking, and I want to be happy for a while.”

  “Very well.” He looked back out the window.

  “But talk about something, or I'll fall asleep.”

  “That's not a bad idea. I can keep watch.”

  “No, not yet. Who do you think they are? The men following us.”

  “From what you said, they were dressed like Sefry.”

  “Yah. I remembered something else. One of them had an eye patch.”

  “What?” He took her by the shoulders.

  “Aspar! That hurts!”

  “An eye patch! Which eye?”

  “I don't know. Aspar, what's wrong with you? You know him?”

  He dropped his hands away. “Maybe. I don't know.”

  “Saints! Aspar, your face—” She stopped. “This has to do with her, doesn't it?”

  “Winna, I need to think.”

  “Think, then.” He could hear the hurt in her voice, even through his anger.

  “See?” he told her. “No matter what, I'll find a way to spoil it.”

  She got up and went over to the bed, wrapped herself in one of the sheets.

  “I understand if you don't want to talk about her,” she said. “But this man. He tried to kill me, Aspar.”

  “Come here,” he said.

  She hesitated a moment, then came into his arms.

  “Her name was Qerla, my wife,” he said softly. “She was of the Nere clan. We met—well, never mind. We were young, and we thought it didn't matter.”

  “What didn't matter?”

  “That Human and Sefry can't make children together. That her clan would disown her, withdraw their protection. That we would be alone, just the two of us.”

  “It sounds romantic.”

  “It was, for a while. After that it was just hard. Harder on her than on me. I never really had a clan, just old mother Jesp. Qerla was the first person I ever really—who was ever mine, in any sense.”

  “You loved her.”

  “I loved her.”

  “And the man with the eye patch. He's the one who—” She stopped.

  “He killed her,” Aspar confirmed. “If it's the same man. He was an outlaw Sefry, a man named Fend. He was setting a trap for me, but he caught them instead.”

  “Them? I thought—”

  “An old Sefry lover of hers, a Jasper clan man. A poet. Fend found them in bed and killed them there. And then I found him.” He pursed his lips. “He put a sword through my belly, and I put a dirk in his eye. We both fell, and when I came around he was gone.”

  “She betrayed you.”

  “I think I must have betrayed her first, somehow,” Aspar said.

  “I doubt that,” she whispered. “I doubt it much. Everyone gets weak. She got weak. It doesn't mean she didn't love you.” When he didn't say anything, she took his hand. “You really think the man I saw was Fend?”

  “I thought he was dead. But who knows? Maybe.”

  In his heart, there was no doubt. If his father's gods existed, this was just the sort of thing that would amuse them.

  They didn't talk, for a while, and Winna drowsed against him. Looking at her face, he felt briefly guilty. She was so young! When Qerla had been alive, Winna hadn't even been born.

  The guilt passed. In all of the important ways, Winna was older than he was.

  One day she might realize that she had no interest in a scarred old holter. Until then he would just count himself lucky, and let it go at that.

  And get her through this alive.

  And kill Fend, if it was Fend. He couldn't imagine what the outlaw might have to do with Briar Kings and greffyns. But he would find out, and he would kill him, this time.

  He was near drowsing himself when he heard the cla
tter of hooves on stone. He peered out the window and saw clumps of witchlights moving across the square. He jerked his head back in—for he had witchlights around his own head, of course. He thought he'd done it in time.

  “Horses,” he whispered. “They've found another way in.”

  “Maybe it's not the same bunch that tried to kill me.”

  “Maybe,” he said dubiously.

  From below he heard the high, shrill call of a horn, and the witchlights suddenly drifted out of the window, as if answering the call.

  “Get dressed,” he told Winna. “Fast.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BROTHERHOOD

  THE FRATREX MARCHED STEPHEN across the yard and through a small arched doorway. Stephen held his tongue, afraid that anything he might say at this point would simply dig a deeper grave for his self-respect. Instead, he tried to remember what he had heard about Decmanusian penance. What did it involve? Whippings? Confinement?

  “Come, come, hurry up!” Fratrex Pell said. “Through here.” He pointed to a very low doorway; the lintel was only as high as Stephen's waist. “Yes, yes—on your knees.”

  Stephen sank down contritely, crawling through the opening, steeling himself for whatever was to come. He said a small prayer and raised his head.

  Then he uttered a loud gasp.

  “We come to the saints on our knees,” Fratrex Pell said, behind him. “And so we come to knowledge—humbly.”

  “It's wonderful,” Stephen said. Tears stung his eyes. “It's like a hundred thousand presents, all waiting to be opened.”

  “Move through, son, that I may follow.”

  Stephen did so, mute with awe.

  The scriftorium rose around him, a tower with walls of tomes, scrolls, tablets, parchment cases, maps. Nowhere could he see bare stone; the whole structure might have been held together by the insectile scaffolding of ladders that spindled up from the floor to the next level. There he saw no more than a narrow walkspace that ran around the base of yet another level of shelves and provided a footing for the ladders that climbed up to the third level. Four levels in all, then a dome set with crystal panes, so the sun's light fell in to illuminate it all.

  Tables at ground level overflowed with scrifti, and studious monks remained absorbed in their studies and copywork as Stephen and the fratrex entered. Others worked at tables set precariously on balconies jutting at strange intervals up and down the wall. Ropes and pulleys were working everywhere, as monks lowered and raised baskets of manuscrifts from level to level or sent them hurtling horizontally across the room.

  And the smell! Ink and vellum, paper and chalk and melted wax. Stephen realized he was beaming like a fool.

  “Here is your punishment,” Fratrex Pell said quietly.

  “How do you mean?” Stephen asked. “The sight of this room brings me nothing but joy.”

  “Your sin was pride; you think you are knowledgeable, and indeed you are. But when you stand here, you must be reminded of how very much you do not know. Can never know. Be humble, Stephen. You will be a better man, and a better member of this order.”

  “Thank you, Reverend Fratrex. I'm so …” He shook his head. “So grateful. And eager! When may I begin? What should I do?”

  “Today? Anything you want. Familiarize yourself with the scriftorium. Browse. Tomorrow we'll see how you are with Vadhiian. We have a pressing obligation to translate those texts; it's one of the reasons I pushed to have you appointed here.”

  “You mean you—”

  “Go to it, son. I'll see you at vespers.”

  “Well. You must be the new fellow.”

  Stephen glanced up from the text he was hunched over and found a pleasant-faced man with cropped brown hair regarding him.

  “Ah—yes, Brother.” He carefully put the scrift aside and stood, finding himself a head shorter than the stranger. “My name is Stephen Darige.”

  “Desmond Spendlove.”

  “You're a Virgenyan!”

  “Indeed I am,” Spendlove replied.

  “What part?”

  “Just south of Quick, on the Nerih River.”

  “I know the place!” Stephen said. “We used to take the boat down to Cheter-by-Sea. We'd stop there in the little town—the one with the statue of the pig—”

  “Wildeaston. Yes, that's just a furlong from where I grew up.”

  “Well. I'm pleased to meet you,” Stephen told him.

  “Finding your way around the scriftorium, are you?”

  Stephen chuckled. “I haven't got very far. I ran across this right away. It's an original text of the Amena Tirson, a sort of geography of this region from—”

  “—pre-Hegemonic times,” Spendlove finished. “Yes, I'm quite familiar with the Amena Tirson. It was my project in the college at Pennwys.”

  “Really? Sorry, I've just got a lesson in humility, and here I am condescending to you.”

  “It's no matter. The old man got you with the wood-carrying trick, yes?”

  “Trick?”

  “No one can approach d'Ef without his knowledge. He greets most of the novices, in some similar fashion.”

  “Oh.”

  Spendlove gestured at the scrift. “But you were going to say something about the Amena Tirson,” he reminded.

  “Yes. This version is different from the ones I've seen.”

  “It's a little different. The chapter on trees goes on longer.”

  “That's not what I meant. There's a list of fane names and other locations I've never heard of, and talk of walking them.”

  “Well, there is the faneway here, the way of Saint Decmanus.”

  “Yes, of course. But these others—”

  Desmond shrugged. “Are surely dead now, or so faint with the sainted presence as to be unwalkable.”

  “I know,” Stephen replied. “It's just odd. There were murders—” He broke off. “Saints! How could I have forgotten that? I was just so overwhelmed, I mean, first carrying the wood, and then discovering he was the fratrex, and then all of this!”

  “What are you going on about?” Desmond inquired mildly.

  “There have been murders in the King's Forest.”

  “That's hardly new. The place is swarming with bandits.”

  “Yes, I know. But this is different, I think. Blood rituals on the old sedoi, and some sort of monster involved.”

  “Monster? Does this have to do with old Symen up at Tor Scath?”

  “Yes, yes. That's where I heard about it.”

  “Then I have to warn you, the old knight is well known for his exaggerations. He sent a man down here a fortnight ago, to warn us of some evil in the forest. We set extra watches, just in case, and the fratrex made a report to the praifec in Eslen. Yet the search parties we sent out for you didn't find anything strange.”

  “Oh, I'd had my doubts about his story, too, but—” But Sir Symen had seen something. Of that Stephen was certain.

  But the holter had gone to find the truth, and he hadn't wanted Stephen along. Whatever it was, Aspar White would surely kill it. Stephen would write a report for the fratrex, but there his obligations ceased. Then he could throw himself head-to-toe into his studies.

  “Come on,” Desmond said, clapping him on the shoulder. “It's just a bit before vespers and evening meal. Let's go for a walk. There are things about life at d'Ef that the fratrex wouldn't have told you.”

  Stephen glanced reluctantly at the Amena Tirson, then nodded. He recased the thin sheets of vellum in their cedar box and replaced it on the shelf.

  “Ready!” he said.

  Evening calm had settled outside. In the distance, cows lowed, the crickets had begun their nightly stridulations, and the frogs in the Ef lowlands warbled throaty tunes. The evening star was a jewel on velvet in the eastern sky, while the west was still a bed of fading embers. The forest was distant and green across acres of rolling pasture and vineyard. Stephen and Desmond stood upslope of the monastery, where soft candlelight was beginning to glow in wind
ows.

  “The faneway starts in the chapel,” Desmond said, “and finishes out there. It takes about two days to walk.”

  “You've walked it, then?”

  “Yes. You will, too, soon enough. You aren't a normal novice, from what I hear. The mysteries will be unfolded to you more quickly, I think.”

  “I hardly deserve it.”

  “No. You don't.”

  Something in Desmond's voice didn't sound right. Stephen looked at his companion and saw a hardness set on his face.

  “There is an order to things,” Desmond explained. “Or ought to be. I'm here to see that order is kept, do you understand?”

  Stephen took a few steps back from the monk. “What do you mean?”

  Desmond smiled. It wasn't a very comforting smile. Stephen backed up further, wondering if he should run. He backed right into another monk. It was Brother Lewes, the giant who had lifted the firewood like a willow wand. Stephen tried to jump away from him, but the monk grabbed him by the arm.

  Stephen started to shout, but a meaty hand clamped over his mouth. It smelled like hay and cow manure.

  “You're new,” Desmond explained. “As I said, there are some things you ought to know. It starts with this: I don't care who you are, or who your family was. Here, you start over. Here, your life begins again. And here, I am your father, your brother, your best friend. I will help you through everything, but you have to trust me. You have to believe me.

  “The fratrex thinks you're special. That means nothing to the rest of us. To us, you have to prove yourself. It won't matter what the fratrex thinks of you if you slip and hit your head on a rock, or fall on a pitchfork, or eat the wrong mushroom. It's only the rest of us that can keep you safe from things like that. Do you see what I'm saying?”

  There were other monks gathered around now, at least ten of them. They had their cowls up, and Stephen couldn't see their faces. He was beyond panic; he knew he shouldn't struggle, but he couldn't stop. Since being kidnapped, the very thought of being restrained was intolerable. Now, caught in this steel grip, it was reality, and still intolerable. He could barely think, he was so frightened and angry. Tears started in his eyes.

  “Brother, release Brother Stephen's tongue, so he can tell me he understands.”