by Tad Williams
None of the stories said anything about the sound of her laughter, except that it was terrible.
Yasammez stood in her garden of low, dark plants and tall gray rocks shaped like the shadows of terrified dreamers, and looked out over her steep lands. The wind was as fierce as ever, wrapping her cloak tightly around her, blowing her hair loose from the bone pins that held it, but was still not strong enough to disperse the mist lurking in the ravines that gouged the hillside below like claw-scratches. Still, it blew loudly enough that even if any of her pale servants had been standing beside her they would not have been able to hear the melody Lady Yasammez was singing to herself, nor would they even have believed their mistress might do such a thing. They certainly would not have known the song, which had been old before the mountain on which she stood had risen from the earth.
A voice began to speak in her ear and the ancient music stopped. She did not turn because she knew the voice came from no one in the stark garden or high house. Secretive, angry, and solitary as she was, Yasammez still knew this voice almost better than she knew her own. It was the only voice that ever called her by her true name.
It called that name again now.
“I hear, O my heart,” said Lady Porcupine, speaking without words.
“I must know.”
“It has already begun,” the mistress of the ridgetop house replied, but it stabbed her to hear such disquiet in the thoughts of her beloved, her great ruler, the single star in her dark, cold sky. After all, this was the time for wills to become stony, for hearts to grow thorns. “All has been put into motion. As you wished. As you commanded.”
“There is no turning back, then.”
It almost seemed a question, but Yasammez knew it could not be. “No turning back,” she agreed. “So, then. In the full raveling of time we will see what new pages will be written in the Book.” “We shall.” She yearned to say more, to ask why this sudden concern that almost seemed like weakness in the one who was not just her ruler but her teacher as well, but the words did not come; she could not form the question even in the silence of shared thought. Words had never been friends to Yasammez; in this, they were like almost everything else beneath the moon or sun.
“Farewell, then. We will speak again soon, when your great task reaches fulfillment. You have my gratitude.”
Then Lady Porcupine was alone again with the wind and her thoughts, her strange, bitter thoughts, in the garden of the house called Weeping.
* * *
The longer, heavier sword skimmed off Barrick’s falchion and crashed down against the small buckler on his left arm. A lightning flash of pain leaped through his shoulder. He cried out, sagged to one knee, and only just managed to throw his blade up in time to deflect the second blow. He climbed to his feet and stood, gasping for breath. The air was full of sawdust. He could barely hold even his own slender sword upright.
“Stop.” He stepped back, letting the falchion sag, but instead of lowering his own longer sword, Shaso suddenly lunged forward, the point of his blade jabbing down at Barrick’s ankles. Caught by surprise, the prince hesitated for an instant before jumping to avoid the thrust. It was a mistake. As the prince landed awkwardly, the old man had already turned his sword around so he clutched the blade in his gauntlets. He thumped Barrick hard in the chest with the sword’s pommel, forcing out the rest of the boy’s air. Gasping, Barrick took one step backward and collapsed. For a moment black clouds closed in. When he could see again, Shaso was standing over him.
“Curse you!” Barrick wheezed. He kicked out at Shaso’s leg, but the old man stepped neatly away. “Didn’t you hear? I said stop!”
“Because your arm was tired? Because you did not sleep well last night? Is that what you will do in battle? Cry mercy because you fight only with one hand and it has weaned?” Shaso made a noise of disgust and turned his back on the young prince. It was all Barrick could do not to scramble to his feet at this display of contempt and skull the old Tuani with the padded falchion.
But it was not just his remaining shreds of civility and honor that stopped him, nor his exhaustion, even in his rage, Barrick doubted he would actually land the blow.
He got up slowly instead and pulled off the buckler and gauntlets so he could rub his arm. Although his left hand was curled into something like a bird’s claw and his forearm was thin as a child’s, after countless painful hours lifting the iron-headed weights called poises. Barrick had strengthened the sinews of his upper arm and shoulder enough that he could use the buckler effectively. But—and he hated to admit it, and certainly would not do so aloud—Shaso was right he still was not strong enough, not even in the good arm which had to wield his only blade, since even a dagger was too much for his crippled fingers.
As he pulled on the loose deerskin glove he wore to hide his twisted hand, Barrick was still furious. “Does it make you feel strong, beating a man who can only fight one-armed?”
The armorers, who today had the comparatively quiet task of cutting new leather straps at the huge bench along the room’s south wall, looked up, but only for a moment—they were used to such things. Barrick had no doubt they all thought him a spoiled child. He flushed and slammed down his gauntlets.
Shaso, who was unstitching his padded practice-vest, curled his lip. “By the hundred tits of the Great Mother, boy, I am not beating you. I am teaching you.”
They had been out of balance all day. Even as a way to spend the tedious, stretching hours until his brother convened the council, this had been a mistake. Briony might have made it something civil, even enjoyable, but Briony was not there.
Barrick lowered himself to the ground and began removing his leg pads. He stared at Shaso’s back, irritated by the old man’s graceful, unhurried movements. Who was he, to be so calm when everything was falling apart? Barrick wanted to sting the master of arms somehow. “Why did he call you ‘teacher’?”
Shaso’s fingers slowed, but he did not turn. “What?”
“You know. The envoy from Hierosol—that man Dawet. Why did he call you ‘teacher?’And he called you something else—’Mor-ja.’What does that mean?”
Shaso shrugged off the vest His linen undershirt was soaked with sweat, so that every muscle on his broad, brown back was apparent. Barrick had seen this so many times, and even in the midst of anger, he felt something like love for the old Tuani—a love for the known and familiar, however unsatisfying.
What if Briony really leaves? he thought suddenly. What if Kendrick really sends her to Hierosol to marry Ludis? I will never see her again. His outrage that a bandit should demand his sister in marriage, and that his brother should even consider it, suddenly chilled into a simpler and far more devastating thought—Southmarch Castle empty of Briony.
“I have been asked to answer that for the council,” Shaso said slowly. “You will hear what I say there, Prince Barrick. I do not want to speak of it twice.” He dropped the vest to the floor and walked away from it. Barrick could not help staring. Shaso was usually not only meticulous in the care of his weapons and equipment, but sharp-tongued to any who were not—Barrick most definitely included. The master of arms set the long sword in the rack without oiling it or even taking off the padding, took his shirt from a hook, and walked out of the armory without another word.
Barrick sat, as short of breath as if Shaso had struck him again in the stomach. He had long felt that among all the heedless folk in Southmarch, he was the only one who understood how truly bad things had become, who saw the deceptions and cruelties others missed or deliberately ignored, who sensed the growing danger to his family and their kingdom Now that proof was blossoming before him, he wished he could make it all go away—that he could turn and run headlong back into his own childhood.
* * *
After supper Chert’s belly was full, but his head was still unsettled. Opal was fussing happily over Flint, measuring the boy with a knotted string while he squirmed. She had used the few copper chips she had put aside for a new
cooking pot to buy some cloth, since she planned to make a shirt for the child.
“Don’t look at me that way,” she told her husband. “I wasn’t the one who took him out and let him rip and dirty this one so badly.”
Chert shook his head. It was not paying for the boy’s new shirt that concerned him.
The bell for the front door rang, a couple of short tugs on the cord. Opal handed the boy her measuring string and went to answer it Chert heard her say, “Oh, my—come in, please.”
Her eyebrows were up when she returned trailed by Cinnabar, a handsome, big-boned Funderling, the leader of the important Quicksilver family.
Chert rose. “Magister, you do me an honor. Will you sit down?”
Cinnabar nodded, grunting as he seated himself. Although he was younger than Chert by some dozen years, his muscled bulk was already turning to fat. His mind was still lean, though; Chert respected the man’s wits.
“Can we offer you something, Magister?” Opal asked. “Beer? Some blueroot tea?” She was both excited and worried, trying to catch her husband’s eye, but he would not be distracted.
“Tea will do me well, Mistress, thank you.”
Flint had gone stock-still on the floor beside Opal’s stool, watching the newcomer like a cat spying an unfamiliar dog Chert knew he should wait until the tea was served, but his curiosity was strong. “Your family is well?”
Cinnabar snorted. “Greedy as blindshrews, but that’s nothing new. It strikes me you’ve had an addition yourself.” “His name is Flint.” Chert felt sure this was the point of the visit. “He’s one of the big folk.” “Yes, I can see that. And of course I’ve heard much about him already— it’s all over town.” “Is there a problem that he stays with us? He has no memory of his real name or parents.” Opal bustled into the room with a tray, the best teapot, and three cups. Her smile was a little too bright as she poured for the magister first. Chert could see that she was frightened.
Fissure and fracture, is she so attached to the boy already?
Cinnabar blew on the cup nestled in his big hands. “As long as he breaks none of the laws of Funderling Town, you could guest a badger for all it matters to me.” He turned his keen eyes on Opal. “But people do talk, and they are slow to welcome change. Still, I suppose it is too late to reveal this secret more delicately.”
“It is no secret!” said Opal, a little sharply.
“Obviously.” Cinnabar sighed. “It is your affair. That’s not why I’m here tonight.”
Now Chert was puzzled. He watched Cinnabar snuffle at his tea. The man was not only head of his own family, but was one of the most powerful men in the Guild of Stonecutters Chert could only be patient.
“That is good, Mistress,” Cinnabar said at last. “My own lady, she will boil the same roots over and over until it is like drinking rainwater.” He looked from her expectant, worried face to Chert’s and smiled. It cracked his broad, heavy-jawed face into little wrinkles, like a hammerblow on slate. “Ah, I am tormenting you, but do not mean to. There’s nothing ill in this visit, that’s a promise. I need your help, Chert.”
“You do?”
“Aye. You know we’re cutting in the bedrock of the inner keep? Tricky work. The king’s family wants to expand the burial vaults and stitch together various of their buildings with tunnels.”
“I’ve heard, of course. That’s old Hornblende in charge, isn’t it? He’s a good man.”
“Was in charge. He’s quit. Says it’s because of his back, but I have my doubts, though he is of an age.” Cinnabar nodded slowly. “That’s why I need your help, Chert.”
He shook his head, confused. “What…?”
“I want you to chief the job. It’s a careful matter, as you know—digging under the castle. I don’t need to say more, do I? I hear the men are skittish, which may have something to do with Hornblende’s wanting nothing more of it.”
Chert was stunned. At least a dozen other Funderlings had the experience to take Hornblende’s place, all more senior or more important than he was, including one of his own brothers. “Why me?”
“Because you have sense. Because I need someone I can trust as chief over this task. You’ve worked with the big folk before and made out well.” He flicked a glance at Opal, who had finished her tea and was again measuring the child, although Chert knew she was listening to every word. “We can speak more of it later, if you tell me you will do it.” How could he say no? “Of course, Magister. It’s an honor.”
“Good. Very good.” Cinnabar rose, not without a small noise of effort. “Here, give me your hand on it. Come to me tomorrow and I’ll give you the plans and your list of men. Oh, and thanking you for your hospitality, Mistress Opal.”
Her smile was genuine now. “Our pleasure, Magister.”
He did not leave, but took a step forward and stood over Flint. “What do you say, boy?” he asked, mock-stern. “Do you like stone?”
The child regarded him carefully. “Which kind?”
Cinnabar laughed. “Well questioned! Ah, Master Chert, perhaps he has the making of a Fundering at that, if he grows not too big for the tunnels.” He was still chuckling as Chert let him out.
“Such wonderful news!” Opal’s eyes were shining. “Your family will regret their snubs now.” “Perhaps.” Chert was glad, of course, but he knew old Hornblende for a levelheaded fellow. Was there a reason he had given up such a prestigious post? Could there be something of a poisoned offering about it? Chert was not used to kindnesses from the town leaders, although he had no reason to mistrust Cinnabar, who was reputed for fair-dealing.
“Little Flint has brought us good luck,” Opal purred. “He will have a shirt, and I -will have that winter shawl and . . and you, my husband, you must have a handsome new pair of boots. You cannot go walking through the big folk’s castle in those miserable old things.”
“Let’s not spend silver we haven’t seen yet,” he said, but mildly. He might have been a little uncertain about this surprising good fortune, but it was good to see Opal so happy.
“And you would have left the boy there,” she said, almost giddy. “Left our luck sitting in the grass!”
“Luck’s a strange thing,” Chert reminded her, “and as they say, there is much digging before the entire vein is uncovered.” He sat down to finish his tea.
* * *
Kendrick had convened the council in the castle’s Chapel of Erivor, dedicated to the sea god who had always been the Eddon family’s special protector. The main chamber was dominated by the statue of the god in green soapstone trimmed with bright metal, with golden kelp coiling in Erivor s hair and beard and his great golden spear held high to calm the waters so Anglin’s ancestors could cross the sea from Connord. Generations of Eddons had been named and married at the low stone altar beneath the statue, and many had lain in state there, too, after they had died the echoes that drifted back from the chapel’s high, tiled ceiling sometimes seemed to be voices from other times.
Barrick had enough difficulty with unwanted voices as it was he didn’t like the chapel much. Today a ring of chairs had been set up on the floor just beneath the steps that led to the low stone altar. “It is the only chamber m this castle where we can close the door and find any privacy,” Kendrick explained to the nobles. “Anything important said in the throne room or the Oak Chamber will be spread across Southmarch before the speaker has finished.”
Bamck moved uncomfortably in the hard, high-backed chair. He had been chewing willow bark since supper but his crippled arm still ached miserably from Shaso’s blows. He darted a sour look at the master of arms. Shaso’s face was a mask, his eyes fixed on the frescoes that, with so many lamps lit, gleamed daytime-bright, as though the birth and triumph of Erivor was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. Barrick had not attended many of these councils he and Briony had only been invited since their father’s departure, and this was his first without her, which added to his discomfort. He could not shake off the feeling that a part o
f him was gone, as though he had woken up to find he had only one leg.
Gailon of Summerfield was talking quietly into the prince regent’s left ear Sisel, Hierarch of Southmarch, had been given the position of honor on Kendrick’s other hand. The hierarch, a slender, active man of sixty winters or so, was the leading priest of the rnarchlands, and although in some things he was forced to act as the hand of the Trigonarch in distant Syan, he was also the first northerner to hold the position, and thus unusually loyal to the Eddons. The Trigonarchy had been unhappy that Barrick’s father Olin had chosen to elevate one of the local priests over their own candidate, but neither Syan nor theTrigon itself wielded as much power in the north as they once had.
Ranged around the table were many of the other leading nobles of the realm, Blueshore’s Tyne, Lord Nynor the castellan, the bearlike lord constable, Avin Brone, and Barrick’s dandified cousin Rorick Longarren, who was Earl of Daler’s Troth (strangely matched with those dour, plainspoken folk, Barrick always felt) as well as a half dozen more nobles, some clearly sleepy after the midday meal, others indifferently hiding their irritation at giving up a day of hunting or hawking. That sort would not even have been present were it not for their interest in seeing some relief from the royal levy, Barrick felt sure. The fact that his sister was the bargaining chip bothered them not at all.
He would gladly have seen them all skewered on Erivor’s golden fish spear.
Shaso alone seemed suitably grave. He had taken a place at the table’s far end, with a space between himself and the nearest nobles on either side. Barrick thought he looked a bit like a prisoner brought to judgment.
“Your argument should be made to all,” Kendrick loudly told Gailon, who was still whispering to him. At this signal, the other nobles turned their attention to the head of the table.
Duke Gailon paused. A bit of a flush crept up his neck and onto his handsome face. Other than Barrick and the prince regent, he was the youngest man at the gathering. “I simply said that I think we would be making a mistake to so easily give the princess to Ludis Drakava,” he began. “We all want nothing more than to have our King Olin back, but even if Ludis honors the bargain and delivers him without treachery, what then? Olin, may the gods long preserve him, will grow old one day and die. Much can happen before that day, and only the unsleeping Fates know all, but one thing is certain—when our liege is gone, Ludis and his heirs will have a perpetual claim on the throne of the March Kings.”
