by Tad Williams
He was tall, half a head above the biggest of the Leopards, but not as freakishly so as he first appeared it was the length of his neck and the narrowness of his face that made him seem so unusual, and the spidery stretch of his fingers as he raised his hand. Beneath the high, dome-shaped crown his face, too, seemed like an ordinary face that had been pulled a bit beyond its appropriate shape—a long jaw and a curved, bony nose like a hawk’s beak that matched oddly with his youth—smooth brown flesh stretched tight across the skull. He wore a small trimmed black beard and his eyes seemed unnaturally large and bright as he stared around the room. A few of the Nushash priests stepped forward and began chanting and swinging their censers, filling the air around the tall young man with smoke.
“Who is that?” Qinnitan whispered under cover of the priests’ noise.
Chryssa was clearly shocked that she should dare to whisper, even when it was more or less safe to do so under the cover of the priests’ voices. “The autarch, you fool girl!”
It certainly made more sense that the tall one was their ruler—he had an undeniable power to him. “But then who is that . . . who is the man in the litter?”
“The scotarch, of course—his heir. Now be silent.”
Qinnitan felt stupid. Her father had once told her that the scotarch, the autarch’s ceremonial heir, was sickly, but she had entirely forgotten, and had certainly never guessed him to be so obviously afflicted. Still, considering that the autarch’s own life and rule hinged on the health and continued well-being of the scotarch, by ancient Xixian tradition, Qinnitan couldn’t help wondering at the autarch’s choice of such a frail reed.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. These folk were as much above her—all the doings of the high house were as far above her—as the stars in the sky.
“Where is the mistress of this temple?” The autarch’s voice was high-pitched but strong; it rang in the great room like a silvery bell.
Eminence Rugan came forward, head bowed, her usual brisk walk transformed almost into the slinking of a frightened beast. That, more than the soldiers or priests or anything else, made Qinnitan understand that she was in the presence of matchless, terrifying power: Rugan bowed to no one else that Qinnitan had ever seen. “Your glory reflects on us all, O Master of the Great Tent,” Rugan said, voice quavering a little. “The Hive welcomes you and the bees are gladsome in your presence. Mother Mudry is coming to offer you any wisdom the Sacred Bees of Nushash can grant. She begs your generous indulgence, Golden One. She is too old to wait here in the drafty outer temple without great discomfort.”
The look that crossed the autarch’s corvine features was almost a smirk. “She does me too much honor, does old Mudry. You see, I haven’t come to consult the oracle. I want nothing from the bees.”
Even cowed by the presence of a hundred armed soldiers, many Sisters of the Hive couldn’t restrain a gasp of surprise—some of the noises even sounded suspiciously like disapproval. Come to the temple and not consult the sacred bees?
“I’m . . . I’m afraid I don’t understand, O Golden One.” Clearly confused, Eminence Rugan took a step back, then sank to one knee. “The high priest’s messenger said you wished to come to the Hive because you were searching for something . . .”
The autarch actually laughed. It had a strange edge to it, something that made Qinnitan’s flesh prickle on her arms. The curtain of the scotarch’s litter twitched as though the sick young man was peering out. “Yes, he did,” the autarch said. “And I am. Come, Panhyssir, where are you?”
A bulky shape in dark robes with a long, narrow beard like a gray waterfall trundled out from behind the Leopard guards—Panhyssir, the high priest of Nushash, Qinnitan guessed, and thus another of the most powerful people in the entire continent of Xand. He looked as fat and unconcerned with trivial human things as one of the drones in the sacred hives. “Yes, Golden One?”
“You said that this was the place I would find the bride I sought.”
Panhyssir didn’t look anywhere near as worried as the Hive priestesses; he had already overseen the collection of hundreds of brides for the autarch, so perhaps this seemed a bit routine. “She is definitely here, Golden One. We know that.”
“Ah, is she, now? Then I will find her myself.” The autarch took a few steps, his eyes sweeping along the rows of kneeling, terrified Hive Sisters. Qinnitan had no better an idea of what was going on than any of her comrades, but she saw the autarch and his Leopards moving across the temple toward them and so she turned her face toward the floor and tried to stay as still as the paving stones.
“This is the one,” said the autarch from somewhere nearby.
“Yes, that is the bride, Golden One,” said Panhyssir. “The Master of the Great Tent cannot be fooled.”
“Good. She will be brought to me this evening, along with her parents.”
It was only when the guards’ rough hands closed on her arms and lifted her to her feet that Qinnitan realized that this astounding, unbelievable thing had happened to no one but her.
8
The Hiding Place
MEADOW AND SKY:
Dew rises, rainfalls
Between them is mist
Between them lies all that is
—from The Bonefall Oracles
It had been the longest hour of his life. The young woman he admired beyond any other, without a hope of his affection ever being returned, had just spat on him and blamed him for her brother’s murder, and he was not at all certain she was wrong. Bleeding runnels showed where she had gouged his cheeks with her nails; the wounds burned, stinging with tears and sweat, both his own. But worst of all, his failure, the failure of every man sworn to protect the royal family, pressed on him like the walls of a lead coffin. King Olin had been gone for months, held prisoner in a far country. Now his son and heir was dead, butchered in his own bedchamber in the middle of Southmarch Castle.
If the world was indeed ending, thought Ferras Vansen, captain of the royal guard, then he hoped the end would come quickly. At least it would mean an end to this most horrible of nights.
Hierarch Sisel, shocked wide-eyed and murmuring to himself, had hurried from his guest chambers in the Tower of Summer, and was now struggling to remember the words to the death rite—he had not been an ordinary priest for a long time—as he leaned over Prince Kendrick’s bloodied corpse. The dead prince had been lifted onto the bed and unfolded from his death spasm; he lay now with eyes closed and arms at his sides in a semblance of peaceful rest. A cloth stitched with gold had been draped over his wounded body so that only the naked shoulders and face were showing, but scarlet flowers of blood were already beginning to bloom through the covering. Chaven the physician, as pale-faced and disturbed as Vansen had ever seen him, waited to examine the murdered prince before the royal body was taken by the Maids of Kernios to be prepared for the funeral.
Wordless as survivors of a terrible battle, the twins had not left their dead brother’s side. Blood had dried on their nightclothes—Briony in particular was so red-painted that a newcomer would be forgiven in mistaking her for the prince’s killer. She kneeled weeping on the floor by the bed, her head resting on Kendrick’s arm. The prince must be uncomfortable, Vansen thought absently, then remembered as if in a dream that the prince was now beyond all bodily discomfort.
Lord Constable Avin Brone, huge and deep-voiced and as much a part of the Eddon family as anyone not of the blood could be, was perhaps the only one who could even think of trying to move the princess from her dead brother’s side. “There are things to do, my lady,” he rumbled. “It is not meet that he should lie here untended. Come away and let the physician and the death-maids do their work.”
“I’m not leaving him.” She would not even glance at Brone.
“Talk sense to her,” the lord constable growled at her pale twin brother. Barrick looked half his years, a frightened child, his hair still tousled from bed. “Help me, Highness,” Brone asked him more gently. “We will n
ever find what happened here, never discover the cruel hand that did this if we cannot . . . if we must work with a mourning family watching us.”
“The dark man . . . !” Briony lifted her head, a sudden feverish light in her eyes. “My maid woke dreaming of a dark man. Where is that villain Dawet? Did he do this? Did he kill . . . my . . . my . . . ?” Her mouth curled, lost shape, then she was weeping again, a raw, heartbreaking sound. She pressed her head against Kendrick’s side.
“My lady, you must come,” Brone told her, tugging his beard in anxious frustration. “You will have a chance for a proper farewell to the prince, I promise you.”
“He’s not a prince—he’s my brother!”
“He was both, Highness.”
“It’s time to get up, Briony,” Barrick said weakly, as if telling a he he did not think anyone would believe.
Avin Brone looked to the guard captain for help Vansen moved forward, hating what his duty made him do Brone already had one of the girl’s arms in his broad hands Vansen took the other, but Briony resisted, glaring at him with such complete hatred that he let her pull away.
“Princess!” Brone hissed. “Your older brother is dead and you cannot change that. Look around you. Look there.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No, gods curse this night, look out the door!”
Outside the prince regent’s chamber dozens of pale faces hovered silently in the corridors, phantoms of lantern light, the castle’s residents were crowded there, watching in disbelief and horror.
“You and your brother are the heads of the Eddon family now,” Brone told her in a harsh whisper. “The people need to see you be strong. Your grief should wait until you are private. Can you not stand and be strong for your people?”
At first she seemed more likely to spit at him than speak, but after a long moment Briony shook her head, then wiped her cheeks and eyes with the back of her hand.
“You are right, Lord Constable,” she said. “But I will not forgive you for it.”
“I am not in my post to be either loved or forgiven, Mistress Come, you are in mourning, but you are still a princess. Let us all get on with what we have to do here.” He offered her his wide arm.
“No, thank you,” she said. “Barrick?”
Her twin took an unsteady step toward her. “Are we . . .?”
“We will go to the chapel.” Briony Eddon’s face was a mask now, hard and pale as fired white clay. “We will pray for Kendrick there. We will light candles. And if the lord constable and this supposed captain of the guard manage to find the one who killed our brother under their very noses, we will be composed to pass fitting sentence on him.”
Taking her brother’s arm, she stepped around Ferras Vansen without a look, as though he were a cow or sheep, something too stupid to clear the way of its own volition. As she passed, he could see that her eyes were brimming over again but that she held her head straight. The servants and others in the hall shrank back against the walls to let them pass Some called out fearful questions, but Briony and her brother walked through them as though they were no more than trees, their voices only the rush of the wind.
“Eminence, will you go with them?” Avin Brone asked Hierarch Sisel when the twins had passed from earshot. “We need them out of the way so we may do our work, but my heart sinks for them and for the kingdom. Will you go and lead them in prayers, help them to find strength?”
Sisel nodded and followed the prince and princess. Vansen could not help being impressed at the way his master had dispatched the hierarch—a man of the gods who answered only to the Trigonarch himself in distant Syan—as though he were a lowly groom.
When they were all gone, Brone scowled and spat. Such disrespect in the prince’s death chamber shocked Vansen, but the lord constable seemed caught up with other things. “At least the Raven’s Gate is closed for the night,” he growled. “But, tomorrow, word of this will move from house to house through the city like a fire, and will be carried to all the lands around, whether we like it or not. We cannot shut out questions or seal in the truth. The young prince and princess will need to show themselves soon or we will have great fear in the people.”
There is a hole in the kingdom now, Ferras Vansen realized. A terrible hole. This might be the time when a strong man could step in and fill it. What if Avin Brone thought of himself as that sort of man?
He certainly looked the type. The lord constable was as tall as Vansen, who was not a small fellow, but Brone was almost twice as wide, with a huge bushy beard and shoulders as broad as his substantial belly. In his black cloak—which Ferras suspected he had simply thrown over his night things, then stuffed his feet into boots—the older man looked like a rock on which a ship might founder . . . or on which a great house might be built. And there were others in the kingdom who might also think themselves a good size to wear a crown.
As the physician Chaven busied himself with the prince’s body, Avin Brone moved to stand over the two slain guardsmen. “This one is Gwatkin, yes? I do not recognize the other.”
“Caddick—a new fellow.” Ferras frowned Just days earlier the men had been mocking Caddick Longlegs for never having kissed a girl. Now the youth was new in death as well. “There would have been two more here, but I thought I would rather keep an eye on the end of the keep where the foreigners are lodged.” He swallowed an abrupt surge of bile. “There should have been two more to guard the prince . . .”
“And have you spoken to those guards yet? By the gods, man, what if they are all dead and the foreigners are now ranging the keep with bloody swords?”
“I have long since sent a messenger and had one back One of my best men leads them—Dyer, you know him—and he swears the Hierosoline envoy and his company have not left their rooms.”
“Ah.” Brone nudged one of the guards’ bodies with his boot toe. “Slashed. A bit fine for swordplay, looks like. But how could a troop of men attack and murder the prince without anyone knowing? And how could something smaller than a troop do such grim work?"
“I do not know how it could be a troop and go unnoticed, my lord. The corridors were not empty.” Ferras stared at Gwatkin’s wide-eyed face, the jaw hanging open as though death had been more a surprise than anything else. “But the servants did hear something earlier in the evening—arguing, some shouting, but muffled. They could make out no words and did not recognize the voices, but all agreed it did not sound like men fighting for their lives.”
“Where are the prince’s bodyservants? Where are his pages?”
“Sent away.” Ferras could not help but smart a little under Brone s questioning. Did the lord constable think that because Guard Captain Vansen’s father was a farmer, the son had no wit? That he hadn’t thought to see to these things himself? “The prince himself sent them away. They thought it was because he wanted to be alone, either to think or perhaps to discuss his sister’s fate privately with someone.”
“Someone?"
“They do not know, Lord. He was alone when he sent them away. They ended by sleeping in the kitchen with the potboys. It was one of the pages, returning for a religious trinket of some sort, who found the dying prince and raised the alarm.”
“I will speak to that one, then.” Brone carefully lowered his heavy frame into a squat beside the murdered guardsmen. He pulled at the nearest man’s jerkin. “He is wearing armor.”
“Most of the blood on him comes from a slashed throat. That is what killed him.”
“The other, too?”
“His throat was slashed and bleeding, but that wasn’t what did for him, my lord. Look at his face.”
Brone squinted at the second body. “What happened to his eye?”
“Something sharp went through it, my lord. And deep into his skull, too, from what I can see.”
Avin Brone whistled in surprise and levered himself upright like a bear stumbling out of its cave in spring. “If we cannot find a troop of assassins, then have we but one killer? Our murderer m
ust be a fine fighter, to kill two armored men. And Kendrick is not clumsy with a sword either.” Startled by his own words, Brone made a pass-evil. “Was not. Did he have a chance to arm himself?”
“We have seen no sign of any weapon yet except the guards.’ ” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps somehow the prince was attacked first. Perhaps he sent these guards out on some errand as he did his other servants, and they returned to find the murderer had already struck.”
Brone turned to Chaven, who had removed the golden cloth and was probing at the body. The prince regent already looked like a tomb-statue, Ferras thought, cold and white as marble. “Can you guess what killed him?” the lord constable asked.
The royal physician looked up, his round face troubled. “Oh, yes. No, better to say, I can show you why he died. Come look.”
Ferras and the lord constable moved to the bedside. Now it was Ferras who helplessly made the pass-evil—a fist around his thumb to keep Kernios the death god from noticing him. He had seen many score of violent deaths since his childhood, but he had not made the gesture for as long as he could remember.