by Tad Williams
“And you do not think anybody will know or discuss the fact that Barrick and I came across the castle to your rooms?”
“It will not occasion as much speculation. And there is another reason to meet here, which you will see.”
“But why this alarm?” Barrick couldn’t lose the twist of fear in his guts. Was this what being a king was always like? Fearful midnight summonses? Distrust and doubt all the time? Who would want such a thing? He had a sudden horror—he prayed it was only a horror and not some kind of premonition—of Briony lost or dead and himself left alone to rule. “What is so urgent?” he almost shouted. “What cannot wait for morning and needs to be held secret?”
“Two things, two pieces of information, both of which reached me this evening,” said Brone. “One of them will require you to get up, so I will begin with the other while you finish your wine.” He took a long swallow from his own flagon. “Thank Erilo for the blessed grape,” he said fervently. “If I could not have a cup or two of warm wine at night so I can bend my old legs, I would have to sleep standing up like a horse.”
“Talk,” said Barrick through clenched teeth.
“Your pardon, Highness.” Brone tugged at his gray-shot beard. “Here are the first tidings, whatever they may mean. Gailon Tolly seems to have disappeared.”
“What?” Barrick and Briony spoke at the same time. “The Duke of Summerfield”” he asked, unbelieving.” That Gailon Tolly?”
Avin Brone nodded. “Yes, my prince. He never reached Summerfield Court.”
“But he left here with a dozen armed men,” Briony said. “Surely, so many knights can’t simply vanish. And we would have heard something from his mother, wouldn’t we?”
“That’s right,” said Barrick. “If anything had happened to Gailon that old cow would be at our gate by now, screaming murder.”
The lord constable raised his broad hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They have only just begun to realize at Summerfield Court that he is missing. He sent word by a fast courier when he left here, and they expected him back a week ago, but no one was surprised he hadn’t arrived— I imagine they thought he had stopped for some hunting, or to visit one of his . . his cousins.” He looked at Briony, then quickly away. “It was only the day before yesterday that people began to grow alarmed. A horse that belonged to his friend, Evon Kinnay, son of the Baron of Longhowe—you remember young Kinnay, of course . . ?”
“A weasel,” snapped Barrick. “Always going on about how he wanted to become a priest, and touching up the servant girls.”
“. . Kinnay’s horse, still with saddle and saddle blanket, was found wandering a few miles from the grounds of Summerfield Court. Gailon had mentioned in his letter to his mother that Kinnay was one of the men coming back with him. The Tollys have now searched the area all around the forest. No trace.”
Briony put down her wine cup. She looked now like Barrick had felt since he first received Brone’s summons. “May the gods preserve us from evil. Do you think it is something like what happened with that merchant caravan? Could it be . . . the Twilight People?”
“But Summerfield Court is miles and miles south of the Shadowline,” Barrick hurriedly pointed out. He didn’t like the thought of dark things slipping past that barrier and roaming the lands of men. He hadn’t had even a single good night since the news of the caravan. “We are much closer than they are.”
“Nothing is impossible,” admitted Avin Brone. “I want you also to consider the possibility of something closer to home. Gailon Tolly left Southmarch a very angry man—a very powerful man, too, especially now that your brother Kendrick is dead. I do not have to tell you that there are many people of influence in the land who think you two are too young to rule. Some even say that you are my puppets.”
“Perhaps you should consider that the next time you make us walk across the castle to your chamber in the middle of the night, Brone.” Anger helped Barrick feel a little better—it was like dipping the hot poker into the wine, sharing the heat.
“What does it matter what people think?” his sister demanded. “We did nothing to Gailon! I was glad to see the back of him.”
“But think on this,” said the lord constable. “Imagine that Gailon appears again some days from now. Imagine that the Tollys cry that you sent soldiers after him to kill him, that you feared his claim on the throne . . .”
“What nonsense! Claim? Gailon has a claim only if our father and all of his family are dead!” Barrick’s anger returned, so strong that he had to get up and pace. “That means Briony and I would have to be dead, too. And our stepmother’s child as well.
Brone held up a hand, requesting quiet. Barrick stopped talking but could not make himself sit down again. “I only ask you to imagine a possibility, Highnesses. Imagine if Gailon were to reappear in a few weeks and say you tried to murder him—perhaps claim that the two of you were going to avoid paying your father’s ransom so you could continue to rule and that he had objected, or something like that.”
“That would be treachery—revolution!” Barrick slumped down in his chair again, feeling suddenly weak and miserable. “But how could we prove it wasn’t so?"
“That is the problem with rumors,” said Avin Brone. “It is very hard to prove that things are not true—much more difficult than proving they are.”
“But why do you propose such an unlikely possibility?” asked Briony. “I don’t much like Gailon, but, surely, even if the Tollys had designs on the throne, he would wait until there is some problem—a bad crop, or a plague of fevers much worse than the one that Barrick and others have had—wait until people are truly frightened before trying to turn them against us? They hardly know my brother and me. We have reigned only scarcely a season.”
“Which is exactly why they might believe lies spread about you,” said Brone.
Briony frowned. “But even so, aren’t you stretching for an answer? If Gailon is truly lost and not just hunting, as people thought, there are a dozen explanations more likely than him preparing to accuse us of trying to harm him.”
“Perhaps.” The big man stood slowly, putting his hand on the seat of the stool to steady himself. He picked up an oil lamp and the room’s shadows writhed. “But now we come to the next part of my concern. Will you come with me?”
They followed him out of the sitting room and down a narrow, unornamented hallway Brone paused outside a door. “This is why I am not in my own bed tonight, Highnesses.” He pushed the door open.
The room was lit by many lamps and candles—far more than would seem normal in a bedchamber. At first, even with all this light, Barrick had trouble making sense of the knot of shapes at the center of the bed: only after a few moments had passed could he see that it was one man kneeling atop the bed next to another, the kneeling one with his head pressed against the other’s chest in a pose almost like a lover’s embrace. The one on top held a finger against his lips, asking for silence. His lined face was familiar to Barrick, something he thought he had seen in one of the nightmares, and he had to suppress a gasp of fear.
“I think you two must both know Brother Okros of the Eastmarch Academy of scholars,” Brone said. “He came to help you when you were ill, Barrick. Now he is caring for . . . for one of my servants.”
There was blood on the bed, on the sheets; Brother Okros’ hands were wet with it. The monk gave them a quick, distracted smile. “You will forgive me, Highnesses. This man is not yet beyond danger and I am very occupied.”
The man on the red-smeared sheets had a dark, untammed beard, and his skin, hair, his clothes were all very dirty, but even groomed and clean he would not have made anyone look twice. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, his teeth clenched as if to hold in his straining, rasping breath. His shirt had been pulled open and Brother Okros had his fingers deep in a ghastly hole in the man’s chest just below the shoulder.
“Just a moment,” said the physician-priest, and finally Barrick recalled the voice if not the face, r
emembered hearing it float through one of his fever dreams, talking about correct alignments and improved balances. “There is a broken arrowhead still lodged here. I . . ah! There it is.” Brother Okros sat up, a pair of bloodied tongs clutched in his fingertips with a small piece of what looked like metal between the tines. “There. At least this will not now make its way to his lungs or his heart.” He rolled his patient over, gently but firmly—a deep groan came up from the wounded man, only partially muffled in the bed linens—and began to wipe at another bloody hole above the man’s shoulder blade. “This is where it went in—do you see? I will need to pack the wound with comfrey and a willow bark poultice . . .”
Briony’s face was pale, as Barrick felt sure his own was, but his sister swallowed and spoke calmly. “Why is this man lying bloodied in your rooms, Lord Brone? And why is Brother . . . Brother Okros . . . tending him? Why not our castle doctor? Chaven has been back several days.”
“I will explain everything in a moment, but I wanted you to hear this from the man’s own lips. Turn him back over, Okros, I beg of you. Then we will leave you alone to bind his wounds and give him whatever other physick he needs.”
Together Brone and the little priest got the bearded man onto his back again. Okros held pieces of cloth tightly against the wounds on both sides.
“Rule,” said the lord constable. “It’s me, Brone. Do you recognize me?”
The man’s eyes flickered across him. “Yes, Master,” he grunted.
“Tell me again what you saw at Summerfield Court, Rule. Tell me what sent you riding back here in such a hurry, and probably earned you an arrow in the back.” Brone looked at the twins. “This man should have died on the road. Clearly someone thought he would.”
Rule groaned again. “Autarch’s men,” he said at last. “In Summerfield.” He fought to moisten his lips, swallowed hard. “The cursed Xixy bastards were . . . honored guests of the old duchess.”
“The Autarch’s men . . . ? With the Tollys?” Barrick couldn’t help looking around as though at any moment the shroud-faced men of his nightmares might appear from the shadows.
“Aye.” Brone was grim. “Now come and I will tell you the rest of the tale.”
Paying the cold night its due, Brone had wrapped a blanket around his massive shoulders. Half his beard was covered. He looked like a giant from an old story, Barrick thought, like something that gnawed bones and toppled stone walls with his hands.
How much do we really know about him? Barrick was struggling to keep his mind straight. He felt light-headed, as though fever were plucking at him again with fingers both hot and cold. Our father trusted him, but is that enough? Someone has killed Kendrick. Now Brone tells us that Gailon Tolly has disappeared, and also that Gailon’s family makes alliance with the Autarch What if the criminal is our lord constable himself? I might not like Tolly—in fact, I never liked him or his bloody father, with his red nose and his shouting voice—but is it enough just to take Brone’s word or the word of his spy that he’s some kind of traitor?
As if she shared his thoughts, his sister said, “We are certainly grateful for your efforts on behalf of the crown, Count Avin, but this is a bit much to swallow in one mouthful. Who is that man on the bed? Why didn’t you summon the royal physician?”
“More to the point, where’s Gailon?” Barrick asked. “It’s convenient that he’s not around to defend himself and his family.”
What Barrick felt sure was an angry light glinted for a moment in the lord constable’s eye. Brone paused to drink more wine; when he spoke, his voice was even. “I cannot blame you for being surprised, Highnesses, or for being mistrustful. And for the last question I have no answers. I wish I did.” He scowled. “This has gone cold—the wine, I mean.” He stumped to the fireplace and began heating the poker. “As to the other matters, I will tell you and then you must make up your own minds.” He grunted, flashed a sour smile. “As you always do.
“The man Rule is, as you’ve guessed, a spy. He is a rough fellow, not the sort I would prefer to use in a place like Summerfield Court, but I have had to make shift. Do you remember that musician fellow, Robben Hulligan? Red hair?”
“Yes,” said Briony. “He was a friend of old Puzzle’s. He died, didn’t he? Killed by robbers on the South Road last year.”
“By robbers . . . perhaps. He died on his way back from Summerfield, within a few weeks after we heard that your father was a prisoner, although even I did not think much of it at the time, except the inconvenience to me. It may or may not surprise you to learn that much of what I knew about the Tollys and Summerfield came from Hulligan. He was close with many in the court there and the old duchess loved him. He was allowed to roam where he pleased, like a pet dog.”
“You think . . . you think he was killed? Because he was your spy?”
Brone grimaced. “I do not want to jump at every shadow. The only certain thing is that since Robben’s death I have known little about what happens in Summerfield, and it has bothered me enough that I sent Rule. He has many skills and usually has little trouble finding work in a great house— tinkering, fletching, acting the groom.”
“These spies,” Barrick said slowly. “Do you have them in all the great houses of the March Kingdoms?”
“Of course. And to save you a question, Highness—yes, I have spies in this household as well. I hope you do not think I could do without them. We have already lost one member of the royal family.”
“Which your spies did nothing to prevent!”
Brone looked at him coolly. “No, Highness, they did not, and I have lost many nights’ sleep thinking about just that, wondering what I might have done more carefully. But that does not change what is before us. Rule is a careful man. If he says there are agents of the Autarch at Summerfield Court, I believe him, and I suggest very strongly you do not dismiss what he has to say.”
“Before we go on,” Briony said, “I still wish to know why that priest was seeing to him, not Chaven.”
Brone nodded. “Fair enough. Here is the answer. Brother Okros was not in the castle when your brother was killed. Chaven was.”
“What?” Briony sat up straight. “Do you suspect Chaven of my brother’s murder? A brutal stabbing? He is the family physician! Surely if he wanted Kendrick dead, he could poison him, make it appear an illness . . .” She broke off, looking suddenly at her twin. It took him a moment to understand her thoughts.
“But I’m alive,” Barrick said. “If someone tried to kill me, they failed.” All the same, he did not feel well. Barrick shook his head, wishing he had never come to the lord constable’s rooms, that he had stayed in bed, struggling against nightmares that were at least arguably imaginary. “Brone, are you saying that Chaven might have murdered Kendrick, or been in league with whoever did?”
The old man slid the poker into his flagon, then blew the steam away so he could watch the wine bubble. “No. I am saying no such thing, Prince Barrick. But I am saying that I trust almost no one, and until we know who did kill your brother, everyone who could come near to him is suspect.”
“Including me?” Barrick almost laughed, but he was furious again. “Including my sister?”
“If I had not had you watched, yes.” Avin Brone’s smile was a grim twitch deep in his beard. “The next in succession are always the likeliest murderers. Take no offense, my lord and lady. It is my duty.”
Barrick sat back, overwhelmed. “So we can trust no one except you?”
“Me least of all, Highness—I have been here too long, know too many secrets. And I have killed men in my day.” He looked hard at them both, almost challenging them. “If you have no other sources of information than me, Prince Barrick, Princess Briony, then you are not being careful enough “ He stumped back to his stool. “But whatever else you may learn tonight, this news of the Autarch’s men in Summerfield is very grave, and of that there is no question. I cannot but fear that Gailon Tolly’s disappearance may have something to do with it. And certainly someo
ne took enough of a dislike to Rule to put an arrow in his back as he rode up the Three Brothers Road, heading back here. If he were not a tough old soldier and made mostly of sticks and leather, we would not have this information.”
Briony drank her wine. She was pale, miserable. “This is too much What are we to think?”
“Think whatever you like, as long as you do think.” Brone grunted in discomfort as he tried to find a more comfortable position. “Please understand, I have no serious reason to doubt Chaven’s loyalty, but it is an unfortunate fact that he is one of the very few people in the castle who knows much about the Autarch. Did you know his brother was in the Autarch’s service?”
Barrick leaned forward. “Chaven’s brother? Is this true?”
“Chaven is Ulosian—you knew that, I’m sure. But you did not know that his family was one of the first to welcome the Autarch into Ulos, the first conquest of Xis in our lands of Eion.The story is that Chaven fell out with his brother and father over just that matter and fled to Hierosol, and that is why your father King Olin brought him here—because he knows many things more than just how to physick the ill, not least the gossip that his own family brought back from the Xixian court. He has never shown himself to be anything other than loyal, but as I said, from my point of view it is unfortunate that he is one of the few who knows much of the Autarch. One of the few others with any direct knowledge is locked in the stronghold even as we speak.”