(Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay

by Tad Williams

  When the baffled guards were gone, the count cleared his throat. “What was that about, may I ask?”

  “I need your help, Brone,” she said. “Something is gravely amiss, and we will not solve it without you—nor in front of Havemore’s spies, which is why I sent those two apes away.”

  He stared at her for a moment, but his eyes failed to catch light. “I can be no help to you, Duchess. You know that. I have lost my place. I have been…retired.” His laugh was a rheumy bark. “I have retreated.”

  “And so you sit and drink and feel sorry for yourself.” Utta cringed at Merolanna’s words, wondering how even a woman like the duchess could talk to Avin Brone that way, with such contemptuous familiarity. “I did not come here to help you with that, Brone, and I will thank you to sit up and pay attention. You know me. You know I would not come to you for help if I did not need it—I am not one of those women who runs weeping to a man at the first sign of trouble.”

  The specter of a smile flitted across Brone’s face. “True enough.”

  “Things may have seemed bad enough already,” Merolanna said, “with Briony and Barrick gone and the Tollys riding herd over us all—but I have news that is stranger than any of that. What do you know about the Rooftoppers?”

  For a moment Brone only stared at her as though she had suddenly started to sing and dance and strew flowers around the room. “Rooftoppers? The little people in the old stories?”

  “Yes, those Rooftoppers.” Merolanna watched him keenly. “You really do not know?”

  “On my honor, Merolanna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Look at this, then, and tell me what you think.” She pulled a sheet of parchment from out of the bodice of her dress and handed it to him. He stared at it blankly for a moment, then reached up—not without some discomfort—to take down a candle from the shelf on the wall behind him so he could read.

  “It’s…a letter from Olin,” he said at last.

  “It was the last letter from Olin, as you should know—the one that Kendrick received just before he was murdered. This is a page from it.”

  “The missing page? Truly? Where did you find it?”

  “So you know about it. Tell us.” Merolanna seemed a different woman now, more like the spymaster Brone used to be than the doddering old woman she called herself.

  “The entire letter was missing after Kendrick’s murder,” he said. “Someone put it among my papers some days later, but a page was missing.” He scanned the parchment with growing excitement. “I think this is the page. Where did you find it?”

  “Ah, now that is a story indeed. Perhaps you had better have another drink, Brone,” Merolanna said. “Or maybe some water to clear your head would be better. Understanding this is not going to be easy, and this is only the beginning.”

  “So the Rooftoppers…are real?”

  “We saw them with our own eyes. If it had been only me you might be able to blame it on my age, but Utta was there.”

  “Everything she says is true, Lord Brone.”

  “But this is fantastic. How could they be here in the castle all these years and we never knew…?”

  “Because they didn’t want us to know. And it is a big castle, after all, Brone. But here is the question. How am I going to find that piece of the moon, or whatever it is? Sister Utta thinks it is Chaven the little woman was talking about, but where is he? Do you know?”

  Brone looked around the small, cluttered room. There was no sign of the guards returning, but he lowered his voice anyway. “I do not. But I suspect he is alive. It would be easy enough for the Tollys to trump up some charge against him if all they wanted was an execution. I still have a few…sources around the castle, and I hear Hendon’s men are still searching for him.”

  “Well, tell your sources to find him. As swiftly as possible. And it would not hurt to inquire into this moon-stone or whatever it is, either.”

  “But I don’t understand—why did these little people ask you? And you said they wanted to bargain with you. How? What did they offer?”

  “Ah.” Merolanna smiled, and it was almost fond this time. “Once a courtier, always a courtier, I see. Do you not believe they might have come to me because they recognized me as a person of kindness and good will?”

  Brone raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re right. They told me they would give me news of my child.”

  Avin Brone’s eyes went wide as cartwheels. “Your…your…?”

  “Child. Yes, that’s right. Don’t worry about Utta—she’s been told the whole dreadful story.”

  He looked at her with a face gone pale. “You told her…?”

  “You’re not speaking very well, today, Brone. I fear the drink is doing you damage. Yes, I told her of my adultery with my long-dead lover.” She turned to Utta. “Brone already knows, you see. I have few confidantes in the castle, but he has long been one of them. He was the one who arranged for the child to be fostered.” She turned back to Brone. “I told Barrick and Briony, also.”

  “You what?”

  “Told them, the poor dears. They had a right to know. You see, on the day of Kendrick’s funeral, I saw the child. My child.”

  Brone could only shake his head again. “Surely, Merolanna, one of us is going mad.”

  “It isn’t me. I thought for a time it must be, but I think I know better now. Tell me, then—what are you going to do?”

  “Do? About what?”

  “All of this. About finding Chaven and discovering why the fairies took my little boy.” She saw the look on Avin Brone’s face. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” She quickly related the words of Queen Upsteeplebat and the oracular Ears. “Now, what are you going to do?”

  Brone seemed dazed. “I…I can inquire quietly again after Chaven’s whereabouts, I suppose, but the trail has probably long gone cold.”

  “You can do more than that. You can help Utta and myself make our way to the camp of those fairy-people, those…what are they called? Qar? We’ve always called them the Twilight Folk, I don’t know why everyone has to change. In any case, I want to go to them. After all, they are only on the other side of the bay.”

  Now it was Utta’s turn to be astonished. “Your Grace, what are you saying? Go out to the Qar? They are murderous creatures—they have killed hundreds of your people.”

  The duchess flapped her hands in dismissal of Utta’s concern. “Yes, I’m sure they are terrible, but if they won’t tell me where my son is then I don’t much care what they do with me. I want answers. Why steal my child? Why put me through year upon year of torture, only to send him back as young as the day he was taken? I saw him, you know, at Kendrick’s funeral. I thought I’d truly gone mad. And why should this happen now? It has something to do with all this other nonsense, mark my words.”

  “You’re…you’re really certain you saw him?” Utta asked.

  “He was my child.” Merolanna’s face had gone chilly, hard. “Would you fail to recognize your revered Zoria if she appeared in your chapel? I saw him—my poor, dear little boy.” She turned back to Brone. “Well?”

  He took a deep, ragged breath, then let it out. “Merolanna…Duchess…you mistake me for someone who still wields some power, instead of a broken old warhorse who has been beaten out to pasture.”

  “Ah. So that is how it is?” She turned to Sister Utta. “You may go, dear. If you will do me the kindness of coming to my chambers this afternoon perhaps we may talk more then. We have much to decide. In the meantime, I have a little persuasion to do here.” She turned a sharp eye toward Brone. “And tell that page waiting in the hall outside that when I’m done, his master will need a bath and something to eat. The count has work to do.”

  Utta went out, awed and a little frightened by Merolanna’s strength and determination. She was going to bend Brone to her will somehow, there seemed little doubt, but would that force of character be enough when it came time to deal with all their enemies—with cruel
Hendon Tolly, or the immortal and alien Twilight People?

  Suddenly the castle seemed no longer any kind of refuge to Utta, but only a cold box of stone sitting in the middle of a cold, cold world.

  “Don’t I know you?” the guard asked Tinwright. He took a step closer and pushed his round, stubbled face close to the poet’s own. “Wasn’t I going to smash your skull in?”

  Matt Tinwright’s knees were feeling a bit wobbly. As if things weren’t bad enough already, this was indeed the same guard who had objected to Tinwright having a little adventure with his lady friend some months back in an alley behind The Badger’s Boots. “No, no, you must be thinking of someone else,” he said, trying to smile reassuringly. “But if there’s anything else I can do for you, other than having my skull smashed…”

  “Leave him be,” said the other guard with more amusement than sympathy. “If Lord Tolly’s got it in for him, they’ll do worse to him soon than you could ever imagine. Besides, he might want this fellow unmarked.”

  The fat-faced guard peered at the trembling poet like a shortsighted bull trying to decide whether to charge toward something. “Right. Well, if His Lordship doesn’t flog you raw or something like, then you and I still have a treat to look forward to.”

  “By the gods, how sensible!” Tinwright stepped away, putting his back against the wall. “Wouldn’t want to interfere with His Lordship’s plans, of course. Well considered.”

  And it would have been a narrow escape, except that Tinwright did not for a moment believe he would be alive to avoid future meetings with the vengeful guard. Surely it could not be a coincidence that Hendon Tolly had summoned him so soon after his moment of madness in the garden with Elan M’Cory, kissing her hands, protesting his love. Before this, Tolly had paid Matt Tinwright no more attention than one of the dogs under the table.

  He’s going to kill me. The thought of it made his knees go wobbly again and he had to dig his fingers into the cracks of the wall behind him to remain upright. He barely resisted the impulse to run. But, oh, gods, maybe it is something harmless. To run would be to declare guilt…!

  Matty Tinwright had received the summons in the morning from one of the castellan Havemore’s pages. Tinwright had thought the boy was looking at him strangely as he handed over the message; when he read it, he knew why.

  Matthias Tinwright will come to the throne room today after morning prayers.

  It was signed with a “T” for “Tolly” and sealed with the Summerfield boar-and-spears crest. The moment the page had left the room Tinwright had been helplessly, noisily sick into the chamber pot.

  Now he clung to the wall and watched the fat guard and his friend talk aimlessly of this and that. Would they or anyone else remember him when he was dead? The fat one would celebrate! And no one else in the castle would care, either, except poor, haunted Elan and perhaps old Puzzle. Such a fate for someone who hoped to do great things…!

  But I have done no great things. Nor, to be honest (and I might as well try to get in practice if I’m going to be standing before the gods soon) have I really tried. I thought becoming a court poet would bring greatness with it, but I have done no work of note. A few lines about Zoria for the princess, but nothing since Dekamene—a poem I thought might be my making, but with Briony gone it has ground to a halt. Not my best work, anyway, if I’m telling the truth. And what else? A few scribbles for Puzzle, songs, amusements. A commission or two for young nobles wanting some words to put their sweethearts in a bedable mood. In all—nothing. I’ve wasted my life and talent, if I ever truly had any.

  He was still cold as ice behind his ribs, but the numbness above the waist was coupled with a sudden, fierce need to piss.

  That’s a man in his last hour, Tinwright thought miserably. Thinking about poetry, looking for the privy.

  The door to the throne room crashed open. “Where’s the poet?” said a brawny guardsman. “There you are. Come on, don’t pull away—it’ll all be over soon enough.”

  The throne room was crowded, as usual. A pentecount of royal guards dressed in full armor and the wolf-and-stars livery of the Eddons stood by the walls, along with nearly that many of Hendon Tolly’s own armed bravos, distinguishable from the nobles and rich merchants by the coldness of their stares and the way that even as they talked, they never looked at the person with whom they were speaking, but let their eyes rove around the room. The other courtiers were more conventionally occupied, quietly arguing or gossiping. Almost none of them looked up as Tinwright was led through the room, too deeply occupied in the business of the moment. In the current court of Southmarch, with much property newly masterless and hundreds of nobles vanished in the war against the fairies, the pickings were rich. A man of dubious breeding could quickly become a man of fortune.

  Still, the court had always been a bustling place, a hive of ambition and vanity, but one thing was certainly different from the way things had been here only a few months ago: during the short regency of Barrick and Briony the throne room had been raucous, less quiet and orderly than in Olin’s day (or so Tinwright had been told, since he had never been in the throne room, or even the Inner Keep, in Olin’s day) but even at its most respectful and ritualistic, the missing king’s throne room had been a place of clamorous conversation. Now it was nearly silent. As Tinwright was led across the room by the guard, the knots of people unraveling before them so they could pass, the noise never rose above a loud whisper. It was like being in a dovecote at night—nothing but quiet rustling.

  Like a cold wind through dry leaves, he thought, and felt his stomach lurch again. Gods of hill and valley, they’re going to kill me! The oath, one of his mother’s that he hadn’t thought of, much less used, for years, brought him no solace. Zosim, cleverest of gods, are you listening? Save me from this monstrous fate and I…I’ll build you a temple. When I have the money. Even to himself, this sounded like a hollow promise. What else would the patron of poets and drunkards desire? I’ll put a bottle of the finest Xandian red wine on your altar. Don’t let Hendon Tolly kill me! But Zosim was famous for his fickleness. The sickening weight pressed down on Tinwright and he struggled not to weep. Zoria, blessed virgin, if you ever loved mankind, if you ever pitied fools who meant no harm, help me now! I will be a better man. I promise I will be a better man.

  Hendon Tolly was not in the chair where he ordinarily held court. Tirnan Havemore stood beside the empty seat instead, peering at a sheaf of papers in his hand, his spectacles halfway down his nose.

  “Who is this wretch?” Havemore asked, looking at the poet over the rim of his lenses. “Tinwright, isn’t that it?” He turned and held out his hand. The page standing behind him put a piece of thick, official-looking parchment in his hand. Havemore squinted at it. “Ah, yes. He’s to be executed, it says here.”

  Matty Tinwright screeched. The world spun wildly, it seemed, then he realized it was himself—or rather it wasn’t him, it was the world: he was flat on his back and the world wasn’t simply spinning, it was whirling like a child’s top, and he was about to be sick. He only just swallowed the bile back down.

  As he lay with his cheek against the stones and the sour taste of vomit in his mouth, he heard Havemore speak again, in irritation. “Look at what you’ve done, lackwit! It’s not Tinwright at all to be executed, this says someone named Wainwright—fellow who strangled a reeve.” The poet heard a grunt and a squeak of pain as the castellan struck his page. “Can’t you read, idiot child? I wanted the order for ‘Tinwright,’ not ‘Wainwright’!” Matt Tinwright could hear more rustling of parchment and the whispering of the surrounding courtiers rose again like a flock of bats taking flight. “Here it is. He’s to wait for His Lordship.”

  “No need—I am here,” said a new voice. A pair of black boots trimmed with silver chains stopped beside Tinwright’s face where it rested against the floor. “And here is the poet. Still, it seems a strange place to wait.”

  Tinwright had just enough sense to scramble to his feet. Hendo
n Tolly watched him rise, the corner of his mouth cocked in a charmless grin, then turned away and moved to his regent’s chair, which he dropped himself into with the practiced ease of a cat jumping down off a low wall. “Tinwright, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Lord. I was…I was told you wanted to see me.”

  “I did, yes, but not necessarily in that strange position. What were you doing on the floor?”

  “I…I was told I was to be executed.”

  Hendon Tolly laughed. “Really? And so you fainted, did you? I suppose it would be the kind thing, then, for me to tell you that nothing like that is planned.” He was grinning, but his eyes were absolutely cold. “Unless I decide to execute you anyway. The day has been short on amusements.”

  Oh, merciful gods, Tinwright thought. He plays with me as if I were a mouse. He swallowed, tried to take a breath without bursting into helpless sobs. “Do…do you plan to kill me, then, Lord Guardian?”

  Tolly cocked his head. He was dressed in the finery of a Syannese court dandy, with pleated scarlet tunic and black sleeves immensely puffed above the elbow, and his hair was dressed in foppish strands that hung down into his eyes, but Tinwright knew beyond doubt that if the mood took him this overdressed dandy could murder the poet or anyone else as quickly and easily as an ordinary man could kick over a chair.

  The guardian of Southmarch narrowed his eyes until they were almost closed, but his stare still glinted. “I am told you are…ambitious.”

  Elan. He does know. “I–I’m not sure…what you mean, Lord.”

  Tolly flicked his fingers as if they were wet. “Don’t parse words with me. You know what the word ‘ambitious’ means. Are you? Do you have eyes above your station, poet?”