by Tad Williams
The first child led her up one more narrow staircase and then down another before stepping out onto the deck on what she guessed must be the lagoon side of the houseboat. Utta could not help thinking they seemed to have reached it by the most roundabout way possible.
The young Skimmer man looked up from the rope he was splicing. The little one, apparently now relieved of responsibility, skipped back into the boat’s ramshackle cabin. The youth looked up at her briefly, then returned his attention to the rope. “Who are you?” he asked in the throaty way of his folk.
“Utta—Sister Utta. I come with a message for you. Are you Rafe?”
He nodded, still watching the splice. “Sister Utta? I thought you smelled a bit unmanly, even for that place.” He meant the Inner Keep, she guessed, but he said it as though he were talking about a prison or a forest full of unpleasant wild beasts. “Did someone tell you we’d be after any woman, no matter how old?”
I am old, she reminded herself. Surely I can’t take offense. She looked at him; he carefully did not look back. He was as young or younger than any of the Skimmers who had come into the alley, and his arms seemed long even by the standards of his folk. He had slender, artful fingers, and a firm, good jaw.
“I was sent by the Duchess Merolanna of Southmarch,” she said. “She was given your name as someone who might help us. We need a boatsman.”
“Given?” He raised a hairless eyebrow. “Someone’s been free. Given by whom?”
“Turley Longfingers.”
He snorted. “Would be. He’d be happy to see me get myself killed on some drylander errand, wouldn’t he? He knows Ena and I will be hanging the nets come springtime and she’ll be old enough then he can’t stop us.” He stared at Sister Utta now with something like curiosity. “Does it pay well, still, this errand?”
“I think so. The duchess is no pinchpurse.”
“Then tell me what she wants done and what she’ll pay, Vuttswoman.”
“How did you know?”
“That you’re Vuttish?” He laughed. “You smell Vuttish, don’t you? Still, you’re better than most. Compared to a Syannese or Jellon-man, you’re spring seafoam and pink thrift-blossoms. Jellon-folk eat no fish, lots of pig, don’t they? You can smell one a mile distant. Now, if we’ve finished talking on how folks smell, let’s speak of silver.”
36
The False Woman
Suya wandered long in the wilderness and suffered many hardships until at last she came to the dragon gate of the palace of Xergal, and there fell down at the verge of death. But Xergal the Earthlord coveted her beauty, and instead of accepting her into his kingdom of the dead he forced her to reign beside him as his queen. She never after spoke a word.
—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
THERE WERE SKULLS FOR SALE in all the marketplaces of Syan, some baked of honey-glazed bread, others painstakingly carved from pine boughs, and even a few shaped out of beautiful, polished marble for nobles and rich merchants to put on their tables or in their family shrines. Sprigs of white aspholdel were set out on tables to be bought and then pinned to a collar or a bodice. Kerneia was coming.
Briony realized with astonishment that she had been traveling with the players for a full month now, which was nearly as strange as what she found herself doing most days—namely, acting the part of the goddess Zoria, Perin’s daughter. In truth, it was stranger than that: as a character in Finn’s play, Briony was a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a goddess pretending to be a boy, an array of nested masks so confusing she could not concentrate on it long enough to waste much time thinking about it.
Makewell’s Men had not yet performed the whole of Teodoros’ rewritten play about Zoria’s abduction, but they had worked up most of the main scenes and tried them out on the rural population of northern Syan as the company moved from place to place. It had been strange enough for Briony to speak the goddess’ words (or at least such words as Finn Teodoros had given her) in the muddy courtyard of some tiny village inn. Now the players had begun to follow the green course of the Esterian River and the towns were getting bigger as they traveled south. Audiences were growing, too.
“But there are so many words to remember,” Briony complained early one evening to Teodoros as the others trooped back from their afternoon’s sightseeing. “And I have memorized only half the play!”
“You are doing very well,” the playwright assured her. “You are a cunning child and would have done most professions proud, I’ll warrant. Besides, most of your speeches are in the parts of the play we have performed already, so there is not much left for you to learn.”
“But still, it seems so much. What if I forget? I almost did the other night but Feival whispered the words to me.”
“And he will again if you need him to. But you know the story, my girl—ah, I mean, my boy.” He grinned. “If you forget, say something to the point. Hewney and Makewell and the rest are experienced mummers. They will come to your aid and put you back on the track.”
It was the sort of thing old Steffens Nynor had always said to her about court protocols, and as with the castellan’s instructions about the intricate details of the Smoke Ceremony she had been forced to learn for the Demia’s Candle holidays, she suspected it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as everyone was telling her.
The Esterian river valley was perhaps the most fertile part of all Eion, a vast swath of black soil stretched between rolling hills that extended from the northern tip of Lake Strivothol where the city of Tessis spread wide, up the hundred-mile length of the river to the mountains northeast of the Heartwood. Briony remembered her father saying that he guessed as many as a quarter of the people in all of Eion lived in that one stretch of land, and certainly now that she saw the farms covering nearly every hillside, and the towns (many of them as large as any city in the March Kingdoms outside Southmarch itself) butting against each other on either side of the wide, cobbled thoroughfare and along the river’s eastern shore as well, she found it easy to believe.
Ugenion, once a great trading city, now much reduced, Onir Diotrodos with its famous water temple, Doros Kallida—the company’s wagons passed through them all, sometimes traveling only a few hours down the Royal Highway (still called King Karal’s Road in some parts) before they stopped again in another prosperous village or town. Syan was at the same time so much like and unlike what Briony had known most of her life that it made her even more homesick than usual. The people spoke the common tongue with a slurring accent she sometimes found hard to understand (although it had been their tongue first, Finn Teodoros enjoyed pointing out, so by rights Briony was the one speaking with an accent). Some of the folk who came to see the players even made fun of how Makewell and the others spoke, loudly repeating their words with an emphasis on what they clearly felt was the harsh, chopping March Kingdoms way of talking. But the Syannese also seemed to enjoy the diversion, and Nevin Hewney told her one day it was because they were more used to such things than were the rustic folk of the March Kingdoms, or even many of the city dwellers of Southmarch.
“This is where playmaking grew,” Hewney explained. His broad gesture took in the whole of the surrounding valley, which in this unusually empty spot looked like a place that had scarcely seen a farm croft, let alone a theater. As always when he had downed a few drinks, the infamous poet was enjoying his own discourse. Seeing Briony’s confusion, he scowled in a broadly beleaguered way. “No, not here by this particular oak tree, but in the land of Syan. The festival plays of Hierosol—dry tales not of the gods but of pious mortals, most of them, the oniri and other martyrs—here became the mummeries of Greater and Little Zosimia and the Wildsong Night comedies. They have had plays, playmakers, and players here for a thousand years.”
“And never once paid any of them what they’re worth,” growled Pedder Makewell.
“It’s only because there are so many of them around,” said Feival. “Too many cobblers drives down the price of shoes, as ev
eryone knows.”
“So then why did we…did you, I mean…come here?” asked Briony. “Would there not be places to go where players would be a rare and greatly appreciated thing?”
Hewney looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “You speak very well for a servant girl, our Tim. How did you learn to turn a phrase so nimbly?”
Finn Teodoros cleared his throat loudly. “Are you boring the child again with your history of stagecraft, Nevin? Suffice it to say that the Syannese love our art, and there is a sufficiency of people here who will be glad to see us. And now we have something new to show them, as well!”
She frowned. “What?”
“You. Our dear, sweet little goddess. The groundlings will water at the mouth when they see you.”
“You’re a pig, Finn!” Feival Ulian laughed, but also seemed a little hurt—he was the company’s stage beauty, after all. “Don’t mock her.”
“Oh, but Tim here is special,” said Teodoros. “Trust me.”
Half the time I don’t understand what these people are talking about, Briony thought. The other half the time, I’m too tired to care.
The town of Ardos Perinous sat on a hilltop. It had once been a nobleman’s fortress, but the castle was now occupied by no one more exalted than a demi-hierarch of the church, a distaff relative of the Syannese king, Enander. Briony’s ears had pricked up when she heard that—Enander was the man whom Shaso had thought might help her, if only for a price.
“What’s he like, the king of Syan?” Briony asked Teodoros, who was walking beside the wagon for once, sparing the horse having to carry his weight up the steep road. She had never met King Enander or any of his family except a few of the more distant nephews and nieces—the lord of Syan would never send his own children to a place as backward and remote as Southmarch, of course—but she knew of him by reputation. Her father had a grudging respect for Enander, and no one disputed the Syannese king’s many deeds of bravery, but most of what she had heard were tales from his younger days. He must now be past sixty winters of age.
The playwright shrugged. “He is a well-liked monarch, I believe. A warrior but no great lover of war, and not so crazed by the gods that he beggars the people to build new temples, either. But now that he is old I have heard that some say he is disinterested in anything except his mistress, a rather infamous Jellonian baroness named Ananka—a castoff of King Hesper’s, it is said, who somehow found an even better perch for herself.” His forehead wrinkled as he thought about it. “There is a play in that, if one could only keep one’s head on one’s neck after performing it—The Cuckoo Bride, perhaps…”
Briony had to struggle to concentrate on what Finn was saying—she had been distracted by the mention of Hesper of Jellon, the traitor-king who had sold her father to Ludis Drakava. He was another one she wanted desperately to have at the point of a sword, begging for mercy…
“And there is the heir, too—Eneas, a rather delicious young man, if a bit mature and hearty for my tastes.” Teodoros showed his best wicked grin. “He waits patiently. They say he is a good man, too, pious and brave. Of course, they say that about every prince, even those who prove to be monsters the instant their fundaments touch the throne.”
Briony certainly knew about Eneas. He was another young man on whom her girlish fancies had once fixed when she had been only seven or eight. She had never actually seen him, not even a portrait, but one of the girls who watched over her had been Syannese (one of Enander’s disregarded nieces) and had told her what a kind and handsome youth Eneas was. For months Briony had dreamed that someday he would come to visit her father, take one look at her, and declare that he could have no other bride. Briony had little doubt she would look on him differently now.
They were nearing the top of the hill. The walls of the castle loomed over them like the shell of some huge ancient creature left behind by retreating tides. It was a strange day: although the weather was winter-cold, the sun was clear and sharp overhead, yet the sky just above the river valley was shrouded with thick clouds. “How long until we reach Tessis?”
Teodoros waved his hand. He was breathing heavily, unused to such exercise. “There,” he gasped.
“What do you mean?” she said, staring up at the stone walls she had thought belonged to the keep of Ardos Perinous. “Are you saying that’s Tessis?” It seemed impossible—it was far smaller than even Southmarch Castle, whose growing populace had spilled over onto the mainland centuries earlier.
“No,” said the playwright, still fighting to get his breath back. “Turn…around, fool child. Look…behind you.”
She did, and gasped. They had climbed up above the treeline and now she could see what had been blocked by the bend of the river. Only a few miles ahead the valley opened out into a bowl so wide she could not see its farthest reach. Everywhere she looked there were houses and more—walls, towers, steeples, and thousands of chimneys, the latter all puffing trails of smoke into the sky so that the entire valley lay under a pall of gray, like a fog that only began a hundred feet in the air. Channels led out from the Esterian River in all directions and crisscrossed the valley floor, the water reflecting in the late light so that the city seemed caught in a web of silver.
“Merciful Zoria,” she said quietly. “It’s huge!”
“Some say Hierosol is bigger,” Teodoros replied, wiping at his streaming forehead and cheeks. “But I think that is not true anymore.” He smiled. “I forgot, you haven’t seen Tessis before, have you?”
Briony shook her head, unable to think of anything to say. She felt very small. How could she ever have felt that Southmarch was so important—an equal sister to nations like Syan? Any thought of revealing herself to the Syannese and asking for help suddenly seemed foolish. They would laugh at her, or ignore her.
“None other like it,” Teodoros said. “‘Fair white walls on which the gods themselves did smile, and towers that stirred the clouds,’ as the poet Vanderin put it. Once the entire world was theirs.”
“It…it looks as though they still own a good share,” said Briony.
By all the gods, she thought as they rolled down the wide thoroughfare, jostled and surrounded by dozens of other wagons and hundreds of other foot travelers, Finn says this is not even the biggest street in Tessis—that Lantern Broad is twice the size—but it’s still wider across than Market Square!
She had never before in her life felt so much like—what had Finn called her that first day? “A straw-covered bumpkin just off the channel boat from Connord.” Well, she might have been annoyed at the time, but it had turned out to be a fair assessment, because here she was gaping at everything like the ripest peasant at his first fair. They were still at least a mile from the city gates—she could see the crowned guard towers looming ahead like armored giants out of legend—but they were already passing through a thriving metropolis bigger and busier than the heart of Southmarch.
“Where are we going to stay?” she asked Teodoros, who was happily ensconced in the wagon again, watching it all pass by.
“An agreeable inn just in the shadow of the eastern gate,” he called down. “We have stayed there before. I have made the arrangements for a tennight’s stay, which will give us plenty of time to smooth the wrinkles out of Zoria before we go looking for a spot closer to the center of town.”
Feival Ulian wandered back. “You know, Finn, I know the fellow who built the Zosimion Theater near Hierarch’s College Bridge. I heard that he’s having trouble finding anyone to mount some work—a feud with the Royal Master of Revels or some such. I’ll wager it’s free.”
“Good. Perhaps we shall move there after the inn.”
“It might be free now…”
“No!” Teodoros seemed to realize that he’d been a bit harsh in his refusal. “No, I’ve just…I’ve made the arrangements, already, good Feival. At the inn in Chakki’s Hole. We would not get our money back.”
Feival shrugged. “Certainly. But should I see if I can find out, for later…?”
“By all means.” Teodoros smiled and nodded, as if trying to make up for his earlier loud refusal.
Briony was a little puzzled by Finn’s vehemence, but she had other things on her mind. She was merely floating, she realized—letting herself be swept along this road and through this foreign land like a leaf on a stream. In fact, she had been swept along ever since meeting the demigoddess Lisiya—only some three dozens day ago, yet already it seemed like a dream from her distant childhoold. She reached into her shirt and patted the charm Lisiya had given her, stroked the small, smooth bird skull. What should she do now? The demigoddess had only pointed her toward the players, but had told her nothing of what she should do or where she should go next. Briony suspected Lisiya wanted her to make her own decisions, that in some way she was being tested—wasn’t that what gods did to mortals?
But why? No one ever explained that curious whim. Why should the gods care whether mortals are worthy of anything? It was a bit like a person walking around in a stable, testing all the animals to see which were pure of heart or particularly clever, so they could be rewarded and the other beasts punished. She supposed people might do that to find which were the most obedient animals—was that the gods’ reasoning?
