by Tad Williams
That’s my brother you’ve set your cap on, girl. Aloud, she said,”I will do my best.” “She asks that you come and take a cup of wine with her on Winter’s Eve.”
Sweet Zona, that’s only a few days away, Briony realized. Where has the year gone? “I will do my best to come to her soon Tell her I wish her only well.”
“I will, Princess.” The young woman dropped a graceful courtesy and withdrew. Briony caught Brone and Nynor watching the maid as she walked away and was disgusted that even old men should still be such lechers. She tried to keep it off her face as they all returned to work, but not as hard as she might have.
The day’s business dragged on, as what seemed like almost every living soul in the castle came before her with a complaint or a worry or a request, with problems ranging from the crucial to the ridiculous. What she didn’t see was Hendon Tolly, nor—after her meeting in the Portrait Hall with his sister-in-law—any sign whatsoever of the Tollys or their faction.
“They are doubtless trying to decide what this discovery means,” Brone told her in a quiet aside. “I am told they were out and about as usual this morning, but when they heard the news, they beat a retreat back into their rooms.”
“I suppose it makes sense. But why did we put the Tollys and Durstin Crowel and the other troublemakers all so close together?”
“Because Crowel requested it some time back, Highness,” said Nynor. “At the end of the summer he told me he would be hosting an entertainment with the Tollys during the Orphan’s Day celebrations. I thought at the time he simply meant Duke Gailon and his entourage.”
Briony frowned. “Does that mean they were planning something even then?”
Avin Brone grunted. “I don’t trust the Tollys, but let us not pretend they’re the worst of our problems.”
Old Nynor shook his head. “It is possible they had some scheme, Highness, but it is also possible that all they were planning was a banquet. And, speaking of which, Princess, we must make some arrangements about the feasting.”
For a moment she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Feasting? Do you mean for Orphan’s Day? Are you mad? We are at war!”
“All the more reason “ Steffans Nynor could be stubborn, and had not been castellan so many years without developing ideas of his own. Briony was irritated and tempted simply to say no and dismiss him, but thought of what her father would say—something like, If you are going to give men tasks to do, then once they have proved themselves, you should let them get on without you standing over them There is no point giving responsibility without trust.
“Why, then, do you think we should do this?"
“Because these are holy days in which we praise the gods and demigods, and we need their help now more than ever. That is one reason.”
“Yes, but we can perform the sacrifices and the rituals without the feasting and merrymaking.”
“Why else do people need merrymaking, Highness, if not to take some of the thorns out of life?" The old man rapidly blinked his watery eyes, but his gaze was sharp and demanding. “Forgive me if I speak out of turn, Princess Briony, but it seems that what a city under siege most needs is courage. Also to be reminded what it is fighting to protect. A little happiness, a little ordinary life, is a powerful aid to both those things.”
She saw the wisdom in what he said, but a part of her couldn’t help feeling it would be a sham, that falsity was worse than misery.
Avin Brone seemed able to hear those thoughts as if they had been spoken. “People will not forget the true dangers, Highness. I think Nynor is right. A muted festivity perhaps—we do not want to seem to be celebrating too grandly in the shadow of war, and most especially in the shadow of Gailon’s murder—and your brother’s death, too, of course—but neither do we want to make this winter any more dreary than necessity dictates.”
“Very well, a quiet celebration it will be.”
Nynor nodded, then bowed and withdrew. He looked pleased, almost grateful, and for an unpleasant moment Briony wondered if the castellan had some other agenda, if he had manipulated her for some secret, selfish purpose.
And so it goes, she thought. I cannot do even the simplest thing without doubt anymore, without fear, without suspicion. How could Father live this way all those years? It must have been a little better in more peaceful days, but still…
Curse these times.
* * *
Before they reached the populous areas, Beetledown announced that he was taking his leave. He dismissed Chert’s worried questions. “I’ll find my way, sure. Naught else, these caves seem full of slow, stupid rat-folk. I’ll go home mounted proud, tha will see.”
He was too tired to do more than thank the Rooftopper again. After all they had shared, it was a hasty and strangely muted parting, but Chert didn’t have long to consider it.
In the midst of such strange times their little procession was not the oddest thing the people of Funderling Town had heard of, but it was certainly one of the odder things they had actually seen: by the time Chert reached his house with Flint and the acolyte he was surrounded by a ragtag parade of children and more than a few adults. He did his best to ignore their questions and fondly mocking comments. He had no idea what time it was, or even what day. The young temple brother Antimony at the front end of the litter told him it was Skyday, fourth chime. Chert was astonished to realize that he had been almost three days in the lower depths.
Poor Opal! She must be cracked with worry.
The news had run ahead on child feet; a crowd of neighbors waited at the mouth of Wedge Road to join the throng. The tale had reached his own house as well: Opal ran out before he had even reached the dooryard, her face a confusion of joy and terror.
He tried not to be upset that the first thing she did was throw her arms around the senseless boy, even though it nearly upset the litter. He was even wearier than he had realized, and could only struggle to hold his end up and shake his head in silent dismissal of his neighbors’ questions. Burly Antimony helped clear a path to the door.
“He isn’t dead,” Opal said, kneeling beside the boy. “Tell me that he isn’t dead.” “He’s alive, just… sleeping.”
“Praise the Elders—but he’s so cold!”
“He needs your nursing, dear wife.” Chert slumped onto a bench.
She paused, then suddenly rushed to him and put her arms around his neck, kissed his cheeks. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re not dead either, you old fool. Disappearing for days! I’ve been fretting over you, too, you know.”
“I’ve been fretting over me as well, my girl. Go on, now. I’ll tell you all this strange story later.” Antimony helped Opal move the boy to his bed, then turned down her distracted offer of food or drink and went out instead to placate the waiting crowd with some unspecific answers. Chert suspected the acolyte didn’t find this too dreadful a chore. From what he knew, the temple brothers, especially the younger ones, didn’t get much chance to come up to Funderling Town the market trips and other such opportunities for distraction and temptation were reserved for the older, more trustworthy brothers.
He could hear Opal in the bedroom, crooning over the boy as she took off his dirty rags, cleaning him and checking for injuries just as the Metamorphic Brothers had done. Chert didn’t think fresh smallclothes would be the thing that woke the boy, but he knew very well his wife needed to do something.
Chert looked up at a rustling noise, aware for the first time that he was not alone in the room. A very young woman, one of the big folk, sat on their long bench in the shadows against the wall, staring back at him with an air of patient detachment. Her dark hair was gathered untidily and she wore a dress that did not quite fit her thin frame. Chert had never seen her before, could thmk of no reason on or under the earth why someone like her should be in his house, even on a day of such bizarre branchings and cross-tunnels.
“Who are you?”
Opal came out of the back room with a look close to embarrassment on her face. �
��I forgot to tell you, what with the boy and all. She came about the second chime or so and she’s been waiting ever since. Said she must speak to you, only to you. I… I thought it might be something to do with Flint…”
The young woman stirred on the bench. She seemed almost half-asleep. “You are Chert of the Blue Quartz?” “Yes. Who are you?”
“My name is Willow, but I am nothing.” She stood up; her head almost touched the ceiling. She extended a hand. “Come. I have been sent to bring you to my master.”
35. The Silken Cord
THE CRABS:
All are dancing
The moon is crouching low for fear
He will see the naked Mother of All
—from The Bonefall Oracles
His the great hand closed around her, she felt it ringing like a crystal, a deep, shuddering vibration that had nothing to do with her, but which ran through that monstrous hand like a blood pulse, as if she were bound to a temple bell big as a mountain. The impossibly vast shape lifted her and although she could not see its face—it stood in the center of some kind of fog, light-shot but still deeply shadowed, as if a lightning storm raged inside the earth— she could see the greater darkness that was its mouth as it brought her nearer, nearer…
She shrieked, or tried to, but there was only silence in that damp, empty place, silence and mist and the dark maw that grew ever larger, spreading above her like a rolling thundercloud. The titanic thing was going to swallow her, she knew, and she was frightened almost to death… but it was also somehow exciting too, like the shrieking, terrified childhood joy of being whirled in the air by her father or wrestling with her brothers until she was pinned and helpless…
Qinnitan awakened wet with perspiration, heart galloping. Her wits were utterly jangled and her skin twitched as though she lay in the middle of one of the great hives in the temple covered in a slow-buzzing blanket of sacred bees. She felt used by something—by her dream, perhaps—even defiled, and yet as her heart slowed a languid warmth began to spread through her limbs, a feeling almost of pleasure, or at least of release.
Qinnitan slumped back in her bed, breathing shallowly, overwhelmed Her hand strayed down to her breasts and she discovered the tips had grown achingly hard beneath the fabric of her nightdress. She sat up again, shocked and disturbed. The idea of that dark, all-swallowing mouth still hung over her thoughts as it had hung over her dream. She leaped to her feet and went to the washing tub. The water had been sitting since the previous night and was quite cold, but instead of calling for the servants to bring her hot water, she squatted in it gladly and pulled her nightdress up to her neck, then splashed herself all over until she began to shiver. She sank down into the shallow bath, still trembling, and put her chin on her knees, letting the water wick up the linen nightdress until it clung to her like a clammy second skin.
The rest of the day was quieter and more mundane, although the torments of the endlessly droning prayers and the drinking of the Sun’s Blood were as bad as ever If Panhyssir or the autarch were trying to kill her with that potion, they were taking a ridiculously long time about it, she had to admit, but whatever they intended, they were certainly making her miserable.
Just after Qinnitan’s evening meal the hairdressing servant came to dye her red streak—her witch streak, as her childhood friends had named it— which was beginning to show at the roots again- Luian and the other Favored had decreed within days of her arrival that such a mongrel mark had no place on one of the autarch’s queens. The hairdresser also dried her hair and arranged it into a pleasing style, on the one-in-a-thousand chance the autarch should finally call for her that very evening Qinnitan tried to sit quietly, this hairdresser had a way of poking you with a hairpin—and then apologizing profusely, of course—when you moved too much.
I doubt she pulls that trick with Arimone.
But Qinnitan didn’t like thinking about the Paramount Wife Since the day Qinnitan had gone to her palace, there had been no further invitations and no outward sign of hostility, but it was not hard to see the way those wives and wives-to-be who considered themselves friends of the Evening Star watched Qinnitan and made clear their dislike of her Well, they might think themselves friends of the great woman, but she doubted Arimone looked on them the same way; Qinnitan felt sure there was little room for friends or equals of any kind in the world of the Paramount Wife.
The hairdresser was finishing up just as the soldiers on the walls outside began to call out the old ritual words for the sunset change of the guard— “Hawks return! To the glove! To the glove!” Qinnitan, reasonably certain that the autarch was not going to break his nearly year-long habit and summon her tonight, was looking forward to an hour or two of time to herself before sleep and whatever unsettling dreams might come with it. She thought she might say her evening orisons, then read. One of the other brides, youngest daughter of the king of some tiny desert land on the southern edge of Xis, had loaned her a beautifully illustrated book of poetry by the famous Baz’u Jev Qinnitan had read some of it and enjoyed it very much—his descriptions of sheepherders in the and mountains who lived so close to the sky they called themselves “Cloud People” spoke of a freedom and simplicity that seemed achingly attractive to her. The young desert princess seemed quite nice, really, and Qinnitan entertained a hope that one day they might become friends, since they were two of the youngest in the Seclusion This did not mean she had abandoned all sense, of course. She never touched the book without wearing gloves. The tale of a Paramount Wife from a century or so before who had dispatched a rival by having poison painted on the edges of a book’s pages was one of the first cautionary stories Qinnitan had heard upon coming to her new home.
That tale spoke much of the Seclusion, not just the murderousness of the place, but the fact that the older wife had been willing to wait weeks or even months for the autarch’s new favorite to cut her finger in such a way that the poison could enter when she turned the pages. Whatever men might say about women and their reputed fickleness, the Seclusion was a place of immense patience and subtlety, especially when the stakes were high. And what stakes could be higher than to be certain it was your own child who would one day sit on the throne of the most powerful empire in the world between the seas’
Gloves or no, Qinnitan was looking forward to a little time with the epic simplicity of Baz’u Jev, so it was disappointing—and, as always in the Seclusion, a little frightening—when a messenger came just as the hairdresser was leaving.
She was startled to recognize the mute boy who had come into her room not a fortnight before. He was wearing a loose tunic tonight, so she could not see how his wound had healed, although he seemed perfectly well. He would hardly meet her eyes as he handed her the roll of parchment, but although that saddened her, it was not as though she was surprised that he didn’t want to be her friend; she had almost stabbed him to death with a dressing pin, after all.
Strangely, the message was not tied or sealed in any way, although she could tell from the strong violet perfume that the paper was Luian’s. She waited until the hairdresser had gone out into the passageway before unrolling it. The letters had been made in a great hurry. It read:
Come now.
There was nothing else.
Qinnitan did her best to be calm Perhaps this was just an example of Luian in a bad mood They had spoken only occasionally in the last weeks, and had taken tea together in their old way just once, an awkward occasion in which the subject of Jeddin was in the air the entire time but never acknowledged. The two of them had labored through a conversation of what should have been interesting gossip, but which had instead seemed like wearying labor. Yes, it was unusual for Luian to write in this hurried, informal way, but it might be evidence of some great swing of feeling—after all, Favored Luian was prone to moments of heightened emotion that might have come out of a folktale, or even from a book of love poetry Perhaps she planned to shame Qinnitan for being a bad friend. Perhaps she planned a weeping renunci
ation of her own rights to Jeddin—if even Luian could be that self-deceiving. Or perhaps she just wished them to be on good terms again.
All the same, Qinnitan found herself following the mute boy across the Seclusion with a heavy, untrusting heart.
Qinnitan was shocked to find a huge, ugly man weeping in Luian’s bed. Several heartbeats passed before she realized it was Luian herself she was seeing, a Luian without face paint or wig or elaborate dress, wearing only a simple white nightgown damp with tears and sweat.
“Qinnitan, Qinnitan! Praise to the gods, you’re here.” Luian threw her arms wide. Qinnitan could not help staring. It really had been Dudon under that paint, after all—the lumpy, self-absorbed boy who had walked up and down the streets muttering the Nushash prayers. Qinnitan had known it, of course, but until now she had not really seen it. “Why do you shy away from me?” Luian’s face was red and mottled, wet with tears. “Do you hate me?”
“No!” But she could not bring herself to enter that embrace, not from fastidiousness so much as the sudden fear of swimming too close to someone who might be drowning and dangerous. “No, I don’t hate you, Luian, of course not. You’ve been very kind to me. What’s wrong?”
It was a wail that just avoided turning into a scream. “Jeddin has been arrested!”
Qinnitan, for the second time that day, felt as though her body was no longer her own. This time it seemed to have become a statue of cold stone in which her thoughts were trapped. She could not speak.
“It is all so unfair!” Luian snuffled and tried to cover her face with her sleeve. “What… what are you talking about?” she finally managed.
“He has been arrested! It is the talk of the Seclusion, as you would know if you came out to eat the evening meal instead of sitting in your ch—chambers like a h—hermit.” She wept a little more, as though at Qinnitan’s unsocial behavior.
