Shadowplay s-2

by Tad Williams

  “No, no one is to be married. Today is Godsday, and just as you go to your temple, so do we.”

  “But you didn’t take me the last time.” She remembered well the long morning she had spent on her own in the women’s quarters, wishing she had something to read or even some sewing with which to occupy herself, much as she disliked it.

  “Nor will we take you this time,” Idite said kindly, patting Briony’s hand. “You would be welcome, but you are a stranger to the Great Mother and Dan-Mozan my husband says it would be wrong to teach you the rituals, since you are a guest.”

  “So why do I have to dress in a special way?”

  “Because afterward we are going out to the town,” said Idite. The women behind her all murmured and smiled. “You have not been outside the walls of the hadar since you came. My husband thought you deserved to go outside today with the rest of us.”

  She was not certain she liked the word “deserved,” which made her feel like a child or a prisoner, but she was excited at the thought of seeing something other than the inside of the merchant’s house. A cautious thought occurred to her. “And Lord Shaso...? He says it is allowed?”

  “He is coming, too.”

  “But how can I go out? My face is well-known, at least to some...”

  “Ah, that is why we must begin to work on you now, king’s daughter.” Idite smiled with mischievous pleasure. “You will see!”

  By the time the sun had crept above the walls and morning had truly come, Briony sat alone in the women’s quarters waiting for the others to return from their prayers, which were apparently led by a Tuani priest who came to the hadar and held forth in the courtyard. She lifted the beautiful little lotus mirror Idite had placed in her hands, wondering at the changes the women had made. Briony’s skin, fair and freckled, at least in summertime, had been covered all over in powdery light brown paint from one of Idite’s pots, so that she was now only a shade or two paler than Shaso himself. Her eyes had been heavily lined with kohl, her golden hair pulled back so that not a wisp of it showed beneath the tight-fitting white hood. Only her eyes had not changed, the green she had shared with her brother Kendrick as pale as Akaris jade. Idite and the other women had laughed at the contrast, saying that her eyes in that dark skin made her look like a Xixian witch, that she needed only flame-colored hair to complete the picture. This had made her think of redling Barrick, and to her horror she had suddenly found herself weeping, at which point everything had stopped while her eyes and cheeks were dabbed dry and repairs were made. The kohl had to be reapplied completely. As she looked in the mirror now, Briony saw a black spot of it that had dripped from her jaw to her wrist, and she dabbed it away.

  Where was he? Where was her brother now? For a moment a wave of such pure pain washed over her that she could barely breathe and she had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut. Every kindness that the people of this house did her only made her feel more lost, the life she knew farther away. She could live without the throne of Southmarch, even without Southmarch itself, strange and lonely as that was to contemplate, but if she could not ever see her father or her brother again she felt sure she would die.

  Barrick, where are you? Where have you gone? Are you safe? Do you ever think of me?

  Suddenly, prodded by something she could not understand, could barely feel, she opened her eyes. There, hovering in the mirror behind her own sorrowing features like the bottom of a pond seen through reflections on its surface, was her twin’s death-pale face, eyes closed. His arms lay across his chest and his wrists were chained.

  “Barrick!” she shrieked, but a moment later he was gone; only her own, now-alien face looked back. I’m going mad, she thought, staring at the horrified, dark-skinned stranger in the mirror, and again began to weep, this time with no thought for the painstaking work of Idite and the other women.

  As they wound their way through the narrow streets of LandersPort, Briony, a little recovered but still shaken, was surprised by how nice it was merely to be in the chill open air. Still, despite her mummer’s paint and head-to-toe garb, she felt almost naked being out among strangers, and every time she noticed someone looking at her she had to fight an urge to turn and hurry back to the shelter of the merchant’s house. For the first time she really felt what Shaso had said so many times: if the wrong person saw her, it could mean her death. She kept her head down as much as she could, but after so long inside it was hard not to look around a little.

  Many other people were out walking, most of them heading in the same direction as Briony’s party, and the numbers grew as their small procession wound down toward the seafront. Most seemed to be Xandians, dressed in similar fashion to the merchant’s family, the women in long robes, hoods, and veils, the men’s pale garb made festive by long vests in bright colors, sparkling with gold thread. Effir danMozan was at the front of their own little company, nodding gravely to other robed men, and even to a few workaday Marrinswalk folk who called greetings to him. His nephew Talibo walked behind him but in front of the women, head held high like a shepherd with a flock of prize sheep. Even Shaso had come, although he hid his features under high neck-scarf and a four-cornered Tuani hat pulled low over his eyes.

  The women, with Briony at their center to keep her as far as possible from curious stares, her disguise notwithstanding, followed in a whispering, laughing crowd. This, as far as Briony could tell, was the one day they were always allowed out of the house, and despite the presence of the important men of the household, they seemed as confident and cheerful as they did in the privacy of the women’s quarters.

  LandersPort seemed bigger than Briony remembered—not that she had found much chance to examine it when she’d arrived after dark, exhausted and hungry and dripping wet. It was set on a hillside by a wide, shallow bay. A walled manor house and a gray stone temple watched over it all from the hill’s crest. Shaso had told her that the manor belonged to a baron named Iomer, whom she had apparently met but did not remember, a stout landholder with more interest in his fruit trees and pigs than in life at Southmarch court, which perhaps explained his relative anonymity.

  The poor part of town, of which the Dan-Mozan house was one of the few jewels, was located on the south side of the hill near the base, far from the ocean and far from the manor. Thus they did not climb now or descend on this journey so much as they made their way around the bulk of the hill. Since the rich lived high and the poor lived low, as in so many other towns in the March Kingdoms, they passed not from poor neighborhoods to wealthy ones, but from the part of town where the poor had mostly dark skin, or had the Skimmer cast, to places where poverty wore a skin as pale as Briony’s own.

  Or as pale as mine before they put all this paint on me, at least.

  It was interesting and a little disturbing to be stared at for once, not for who she was—something she had grown used to over the years but was never fond of—but because she was traveling in a group of brown-skinned folk. Some people looked only with curiosity, but others, for no reason Briony could tell, stared with unhidden loathing. A few drunken men even leaned out of their doors to shout after them, but seemed to lose interest when they saw the knives on the Tuani men’s belts.

  Briony found it surprisingly hard to be glared at by people she did not know, although she was clever enough to understand it was the other side of the coin from all those folk who had cheered her and showered blessings on her only because she was part of King Olin’s privileged family. But, other side of the coin or not, it was one thing to be loved by strangers, most definitely another to be hated by them.

  So this is how it has been for Shaso as long as he’s been here. She could make nothing of the thought just now, with so much happening around her, but she folded it like a letter and put it away to be examined later.

  Soon, as the narrow road wound between the close-leaning houses, nearing the waterfront, Briony discovered that they were seeing more brown faces again and more wide-eyed, closemouthed Skimmer folk. The smell of the
bay also grew stronger, a slightly spoiled tang that seemed to flavor every breath, every thought. She wondered if she would ever again cross the wide waters of Brenn’s Bay to return home openly and safely, whether her family would ever be together again. Seeing Barrick in the mirror that way had frightened her—was it an omen? Were the gods trying to tell her something? But she knew that people sometimes dreamed of things that worried them, and whether the gods had sent her this waking dream or not, it was certain that Barrick and his fate were the things that most worried her.

  They reached a row of ramshackle warehouse buildings along a canal that emptied into Brenn’s Bay, the bay itself visible only a stone’s throw away between buildings, the masts of at least a dozen ships tilting gently just beyond the rooftops.

  Effir dan-Mozan led them in through the doorway of one of the larger structures. Once through, Briony saw it was not a warehouse at all: the first room was long and low, but the walls were covered with beautiful tapestries in unfamiliar designs—birds and deer and trees of strange shape. A man even smaller and rounder than Effir stood in the center of the room, his arms spread wide, his bearded face stretched by a broad smile. “Ziya Dan-Mozan! You and your family grace my humble place of business!”

  “You do me too much honor, Baddara,” the merchant replied with a small bow.

  “Come, come, I have saved the best room for you.” Baddara took Dan-Mozan’s hand and led him toward a door at the back of the room, gesticulating broadly and talking rapidly of ships and the price of gawa. The rest of the merchant’s household followed.

  Briony had edged up beside Shaso. “Why is he speaking our language?”

  “Because he is not Tuani,” the old man growled. “He is from Sania, and they speak a different language there. On the southern continent, Xixian and Mihanni are the tongues everyone shares. Here it is yours.”

  They were led through a large room filled with tables, many of them occupied by men in both southern and northern dress, several of whom greeted Effir dan-Mozan with obvious respect; just as obvious was his easy acceptance of their deference. Shaso, on the other hand, kept his head down, meeting no one’s gaze, and Briony suddenly remembered that she, with her un-Tuani eyes, should most certainly be doing the same. Baddara led them to a private room whose walls were covered by more hangings, hunting scenes and boating scenes on shimmery fabrics done in a style Briony did not recognize. The little man shouted orders to several older bearded men who were clearly meant to serve the guests; then, after another elaborate bow, he hurried out.

  Although the room was theirs alone, Briony noticed with some irritation that the Tuani notion of propriety was still present: she and the other women were seated at one end of the table, the men at the other, with an empty seat between the groups on each side. Still, it was a chance to see something other than the inside walls of the hadar, and she did her best to enjoy the change. The tapestries at least were beautiful to look at, many of them ornately decorated with thread of what looked like real gold, all of them woven with elaborate attention to color and detail—in fact, the tapestries were so compelling that she did not notice for some time that the room had no windows. The woven pictures themselves seemed to look out onto scenes far more soothing and uplifting than anything she could have seen in this small seaport.

  Baddara’s servers brought in several courses, pieces of fruit with a creamy sauce for dipping, and bread, cheese, and salted meats. The women and men both drank wine, although Briony suspected from the separate pitchers and the weak character of what was in her cup that the women’s was more heavily watered. Watered or not, the combination of wine and unusual freedom cheered her companions immensely, and although they spoke in low voices there seemed to be a greater than usual amount of joking and giggling between the women, especially Fanu and the other young ones.

  Meanwhile, as the courses came and went, men both of Xand and Eion wandered in from the rooms outside to engage in what looked like respectful audiences with Effir dan-Mozan, some clearly seafaring folk, others in the fine robes of merchants or bankers. Briony could see that although Shaso spoke to no one and did his best to be inconspicuous, he was listening carefully. She wondered how Dan-Mozan introduced him—as a relative? A stranger? Another merchant? And she wondered even more at what these men were saying. It was infuriating to have to sit here this way, amid this flock of ignored women, while important things about the state of the kingdom were doubtless being discussed.

  If Shaso was paying close attention to the merchant’s conversations, Dan-Mozan’s nephew was not. In fact, Talibo appeared more interested in Briony, watching her with a fixation that unnerved her. At first she did her best to avoid his gaze, looking away whenever she caught him glancing her direction, but after a while the liberty he was taking began to annoy her. He was a child, practically—a handsome, stupid child! What right did he have to stare at her, and even more important, why should she feel compelled to look away? It touched her on the memory of Hendon Tolly humiliating her in front of her own court; it made the old injury sting all over again.

  The next time she caught Tal looking at her she stared back coolly until at last it was the youth who looked away, his cheeks darkening with what she hoped was embarrassment or even shame.

  Insolent boy. For a moment she found herself angry with everyone in the room, Shaso, Dan-Mozan, Idite, the other women, all of them. She was a princess, an Eddon! Why must she hide and skulk like a criminal? Why should she be grateful to people who were only doing their duty? If the Tollys were the active agents of her misfortune, all those who did not rise up against the usurpers and cast them out of SouthmarchCastle, even these Tuani merchants, were their passive collaborators. They were all guilty!

  Now she was the one feeling her face grow hot, and she stared down at her bowl, trying to compose herself. She should enjoy the meal—Baddara’s kitchen was a good one, and many of the dishes were pleasurably unfamiliar— instead of brooding.

  She took a deep breath and looked up again, composing herself, and found to her immense irritation that the merchant’s nephew was looking at her again, his expression even more unreadable than before.

  Gods curse him, anyway, she thought sourly, blocking him from view with her lifted cup. And curse all men, young or old. And curse the Tollys, of course—curse them a thousand times!

  After the meal and their long walk back through town to the hadar, Briony was summoned to talk with Shaso and Effir dan-Mozan. She joined them in the courtyard garden where only a day before she had been trying to stick a real dagger —albeit with its blade wrapped in leather—into Shaso danHeza’s ribs. She thought of the Yisti knives hidden beneath her bed and felt a moment of guilt: Shaso had told her she should keep them with her. She hoped he would not ask to see them.

  But where are you supposed to carry knives while wearing such ridiculous clothes—no belts, billowing sleeves...?

  Shaso was standing, examining the quince tree as though he were an orchardman, but Effir dan-Mozan levered his small, round body out of his chair to greet her.

  “Thank you for joining us, Princess Briony. We learned many things today and we knew you would want to hear as soon as possible what was said.”

  “Thank you, Effir.” She looked at Shaso, wondering if he had been less eager to share the information than the merchant was suggesting: he had the look of a man who had eaten something sour.

  “First off, a company of soldiers from Southmarch have been asking questions in LandersPort. They do not seem to have learned anything useful, however, and they moved on to other towns a day or two ago, so that will be some relief to you, I think.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.” The day’s outing had made her realize how little she liked being out where people could see her, but she also knew she could not hide here in the merchant’s house forever.

  “Also,” Dan-Mozan said, “everyone who has come from the south seems to agree that the autarch is pushing forward his shipbuilding at a great pace, which does make
it seem as though he plans an attack on Hierosol. Most of the other nations in Xand are already pacified, and the strongest of those which resist him are in the mountainous regions to the south. There would be little use of a great navy there.”

  “But Hierosol...that is where my father is prisoner!”

  “Of course, Highness.” Dan-Mozan bowed as though acknowledging a sad but immutable fact, some ancient tragedy. “Still, I do not think you should be overly worried. Autarch Sulepis, even if he can put three hundred warships in the water, will not be able to overcome Hierosol.”

  “Why do you say that?” She wanted to believe it. It was horrid to think of being stuck here with Hierosol coming under attack. Foolish and probably fatal as it would be, it was all she could do these days not to steal a few days’ worth of food and sneak out of the house, heading southward.

  “Because the walls of Hierosol are the strongest defense on either of the two continents. No one has ever conquered them by force, not in almost two thousand years. And the Hierosolines have a mighty fleet of their own.”

  “But for all that, Hieorsol has been conquered several times,” growled Shaso, who had been silent until now, staring at the barren tree as though he had never seen anything so fascinating. “By treachery, usually. And Sulepis has made more than a few of his conquests that way—have you forgotten Talleno and Ulos?”

  Effir dan-Mozan smiled and waved his hand as though swatting away the smallest of flying insects. “No, and Ludis Drakava has not forgotten either, I promise you. Remember, his followers can have no illusions about what comes in the wake of one of the autarch’s triumphs. The Ulosians who turned to Xis did not have that knowledge and they paid dearly for it. Recall that Ludis and his men are interlopers, with no power except that which they hold in the great city itself. Not one of the lord protector’s followers will believe he can make himself a better deal with Sulepis.”