by Tad Williams
When they had left the immense guard behind and were back within the walls, Luian leaned toward her and said, in a harsh whisper that might or might not have been too quiet for the Tuani servants to hear, “You must be careful. And Jeddin must not be a fool.”
“What do you mean? Why are you angry with me?”
Luian frowned. The paint on her lips had begun to smear a little into her face powder, and for the first time she appeared grotesque to Qinnitan and even a little frightening. “I’m not angry with you, although I will remind you that you are no longer a low-caste girl in the alleys behind Feather Cape Row. You have been given great honors, but you live in a dangerous world.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh? You couldn’t see what I could see as clearly as my own hand at the end of my arm? That man is in love with you.”
Even in her astonishment, Qinnitan could not help thinking that the anguish on Luian’s face seemed less like that of a guardian unheeded than a lover scorned.
16
The Grand and Worthy Nose
FLOATING ON THE POOL:
The rope, the knot, the tail, the road
Here is the place between the mountains
Where the sky freezes
—from The Bonefall Oracles
COLLUM DYER HAD BEEN cheerful all through the day’s ride, full of mocking remarks and droll assessments of life in Southmarch, and had managed to coax a few weak smiles out of the merchant Raemon Beck, but even Collum was grimly silent as they reached the crossroad. Dyer came from near the Brennish borderlands in the east and had never seen the old Northmarch Road. Ferras Vansen had passed this crossroad many times, but still found it a disturbing place.
“Gods,” said Collum. “It’s huge—you could drive three team-wagons abreast on it.”
“It is not that much wider than the Settland Road,” said Ferras, feeling a need to defend the more mundane thoroughfare that had so entranced him in his youth, which had led him to Southmarch and his current life.
“But look, Captain,” said one of the foot soldiers, pointing along the last clear stretch of the huge and disturbingly empty Northmarch Road before it vanished into the mist. “The ground drops away there on either side, but the road stays high.”
“They built it that way,” Vansen told them. “Because north of here it gets even wetter in the wintertime months. They built the roadbed up with stones and logs to keep it above the muck. They did things right back then. In the old days wagons and riders were going back and forth between Northmarch and Southmarch every day, and also the Westmarch Road joined it just on the other side of those hills.” He pointed, but the hills could only be seen in his memory; the mists were so thick today that someone might have draped a huge white quilt across the forested lands. It was strange to think of so much life here once, merchants, princes with their retinues, travelers of all sorts in what was now such a desolate place.
A thought flitted across his mind, quick and startling as a bat. Perin’s Hammer, what if we have to ride into the mist? What if we must pursue the caravan across the Shadowline into that . . . nothingness? In his life he had heard half a dozen people claim to have come back from the far side of that boundary, but he had not believed any of them. The one man of his village that everyone knew for certain had crossed the Shadowline and returned had never claimed anything. In fact, he had never spoken at all after his return, but had haunted the fringes of the village like a scavenging dog until the winter killed him. As a child, Ferras had seen that man’s constant expression of astonished horror—a look that suggested whatever had happened to him across the Shadowline was happening to him still and would continue happening every moment of every day. Although no one had said anything but what was correct and pious, everyone in the village had been relieved when the mad old man had died.
Collum’s question yanked him back to the here and now. “How far does the road lead?”
Ferras shook his head. “Northmarch Castle was about four or five days’ ride from here, I think. So the old gaffers in my village said, although it was at least a century before their time when anyone could still go there. And its lands and towns extended a good way farther north, I think.”
Collum Dyer clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Mesiya’s teats! And just think—now it’s all empty.”
Vansen stared at the wide road cutting across the hummocky land to where the fogs swallowed it. “So you think. So we hope. But I don’t want to consider it just now, to speak the plain truth. I don’t like this place.”
Collum turned and nodded toward Raemon Beck, sitting on his horse at the far side of the troop of guards, staring resolutely southward with a face pale as a fish’s belly. “Neither does he.”
Ferras Vansen felt a tug of yearning as they rode along the Settland Road past the towns and villages of Daler’s Troth—Little Stell, Candlerstown, and Dale House, the seat of Earl Rorick Longarren, who would have wed the young woman stolen from Raemon Beck’s caravan. Vansen had not returned to his hilly home since he was still a raw young soldier, and it was hard not to think about how some of the men in Creedy’s Inn at Greater Stell would sit up to see him at the head of an entire troop, undertaking a mission at the direct order of the princess regent.
Yes, a mission that’s little better than a banishment, he reminded himself.
But he was not much moved by the idea of preening in any case. His mother’s death a year before had left little to tie him to this land of his childhood. His sisters and their husbands had followed him to Southmarch Town. The folk here that he remembered would scarcely remember him, and in any case, what was the enjoyment of trying to make them feel worse about their hardscrabble lives? It was only the children of the really wealthy farmers, the ones who had mocked him for his shabbiness, for his Vuttish father’s strange way of speaking, that he would have wished to humiliate, and if they had inherited their fathers’ holdings they were undoubtedly richer than any mere guard captain, even the guard captain to the royal family.
There truly is nothing here for me now, he realized, with some surprise. Only my parents’ graves, and those are a half day’s ride off the road.
A light rain had begun to fall; it took him a moment to pick Raemon Beck from the crowd of hooded riders. Vansen guided his horse over to the young merchant’s side.
“You have a wife and some young ones at home, I think you said.”
Beck nodded. His face was grim, but it was the grimness of a child who was one harsh word away from tears.
“What are their names?”
The young merchant looked at him with suspicion. Not all of Collum Dyer’s rough jokes had been kind, and clearly he wondered whether Vansen was going to make sport of him, too. “Derla. My wife’s name is Derla. And I have two boys.” He took a deep breath, let it out in an unsteady hiss. “Little Raemon, he’s the eldest. And Finton, he’s still . . . still in swaddling . . .” Beck turned away.
“I envy you.”
“Envy? I have not seen them in almost two months! And now . . .”
“And now you must wait weeks longer. I know. But we have sent them word that you are well, that you are doing the crown’s business . . .”
Beck’s laugh had a ragged edge. “Weeks . . . ? You’re a fool, Captain. You didn’t see what I saw. They’re going to take you all, and me with you. I will never see my family again.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps the gods mean our end. They have their own plans, their own ways.” Ferras shrugged. “I would fear it more if I had more to lose, perhaps. I honestly hope you come safe to your family again, Beck. I will do my best to see that it happens.”
The young merchant stared at his horse’s neck. Beck had a good face, Vansen thought, with strong nose and clear eyes, but not much of a chin. He wondered what the man’s wife looked like. Depends on Beck’s prospects with the family venture, he decided: a man could become surprisingly taller and handsomer merely by the addition of wealthy relatives.
“D
o you . . . are you married?” Beck asked him suddenly.
“To the royal guard!” shouted Collum Dyer from a few yards away. “And it is a warm coupling—the guard gives us all a swiving every payday!”
Ferras grunted, amused. “No, not married,” he said. “Nor likely to be. One thing Dyer says is true—I am married to the guard.” There had been a few over the years he had almost thought possible, especially a merchant’s daughter he had met in the marketplace. They had liked each other, and had met and spoken several times, but she had already been pledged and so was duly married to a Marrinswalk furrier’s son with lucrative Brennish connections. Other than that, his dalliances had reached too low or too high, the taverner’s daughter at an inn called the Quiller’s Mint, friendly but twice widowed and five years his senior, and when he had first joined the guard, a woman of the minor nobility whose husband ignored her.
Too high . . . ? he thought. No, that was not too high—not compared to the madness that is in my heart these days. The image of Princess Briony’s face as she sent him away came to him, the strangeness of it, as though she did not entirely hate him after all. A year now I have felt it, this terrible, hopeless ache. There is nothing higher that I could aspire to, or more foolish. How could I marry someone else, except for companionship? But how could I settle for any woman when I would think only of her?
Well, he thought, perhaps her wish will come true. Perhaps this journey will provide me with a chance to die honorably and everyone will be satisfied.
No, not everyone would be satisified, he realized. What Ferras Vansen really wanted was to live honorably, even happily. And to marry a princess, although that would not happen in this world or any other he could imagine.
He was meeting her near Merolanna’s chambers, in the back hallway of the main residence, known as the Wolf Hall for the faded tapestry of the family crest that took up a large portion of its south wall. It had too many stars and a mysterious crescent moon hung above the wolf’s snarling head, showing it to be a remnant of some earlier generation of Eddons. How long it had hung there no one could remember or even guess.
Like Briony, he had promised Merolanna he would come alone—no guards, no pages. She had been forced to speak sharply to Rose and Moina to get them to let her be, of course. Clearly her ladies feared she had an assignation with Dawet, but their resistance upset her just enough that she did not bother to tell them otherwise.
She watched her brother saunter up the corridor through the slanting colums of autumn light that filtered down from the windows, uneven light that made the passage seem as though it were under water and which turned the bucket and mop left inexplicably in the middle of the floor and the small offering-shrine to Zoria on the broad table into dully glimmering things that might have spilled from the belly of a sunken ship. For a moment, as Briony noted by the way her twin held his arm close to his body that it was hurting him, they might have been children again, escaped from their tutors for a morning to play scapegrace around the great castle.
But something was different, she saw. He seemed better—he no longer moved like a dying man, draggled and slow—but instead of becoming again the disdainful, unhappy Barrick Eddon she knew nearly as well as herself, he had a bounce in his step that seemed equally foreign, and his eyes as he neared her seemed to burn with a mischievous vigor.
“So someone in our family finally agrees to speak to us.” Barrick did not stop to give her a kiss, did not stop at all, but swept past, still talking swiftly, leading her toward Merolanna’s door as though he had been waiting for Briony, not the other way around. “After our stepmother, I begin to think they fear taking the plague from me.”
“Anissa said she did not feel well herself. She is pregnant, after all.”
“And it came on an hour before we were to dine with her? Perhaps that is all it is. Perhaps.”
“You are jumping at shadows.”
He turned to look at her, and again she wondered if the fever had truly left him. Why otherwise this eye bright as a bird’s, this strange air, as though at any moment he might fly into pieces? “Shadows? A strange word to use.” He paused and seemed to find himself a little. “All I’m saying is, why won’t our stepmother talk to us?”
“We will give her a few more days. Then we will make it a command.”
Barrick arched an eyebrow. “Can we do that?”
“We’ll find out.” She reached out and knocked on Merolanna’s door. Eilis, the duchess’ little serving maid, opened it and stood for a long moment stock-still and blinking like a mouse caught on a tabletop. At last she made a curtsy, found her voice. “She’s lying down, Highnesses. She wants me to bring you to her.”
Inside, several older women and a few young ones sat doing needlework. They rose and made their own curtsies to the prince and princess. Briony said a few words to each. Barrick nodded his head, but smiled only at those who were young and pretty. He was bouncingly impatient, as though he already wished he had not come.
Merolanna sat up in bed as the serving maid drew the curtain. “Eilis? Bid the other ladies go, please. You, too. I want to be alone with Barrick and Briony.” Their great-aunt did not look ill, Briony thought with some relief, but she did look old and tired. These days Briony was not used to seeing Merolanna without face paint, so it was hard to know for certain whether the changes were real or just the ordinary punishments of time left unhidden, but there was no mistaking the swollen eyes. The duchess had been crying.
“There,” the old woman said when the room was clear. “I cannot abide being listened to.” There was an unusual violence in her voice. She fanned herself. “Some things are not for others to know.”
“How are you, Auntie? We’ve been worried about you.”
She manufactured a smile for Briony. “As well as can be expected, dear one. It’s kind of you to ask.” She turned to Barrick. “And you, boy? How are you feeling?”
Barrick’s smile was almost a smirk. “The grip of old Kernios is a bit more slippery than everyone thinks, it seems.”
Merolanna went quite pale. She brought her hand to her breast as though to keep her heart inside it. “Don’t say such things! Merciful Zoria, Barrick, don’t tempt the gods. Not now, when they have done us so much mischief already.”
Briony was irritated with her brother, not least because it did seem foolish to make such a boast, but she was also puzzled by Merolanna’s reaction, her frightened eyes and trembling hands. All through the time before Kendrick’s funeral their great-aunt had been the strongest pillar of the family and the household. Was it just that her strength had run out?
“I’ll say it again, Auntie.” Briony reached out and took her hand. “We have been worried about you. Are you ill?”
A sad smile. “Not in the sense you mean, dear. No, not like our poor Barrick has been.”
“I’m well now, Auntie.”
“I can see that.” But she looked at him as though she did not entirely believe it. “No, I have just . . . had a turn, I suppose. A bad moment. But it frightened me, and made me think I’ve not done right. I’ve spent time, a great deal of time lately, talking to the Hierarch Sisel about it, you know. He’s a very kind man, really. A good listener.”
“But not to Father Timoid?” It seemed odd—usually Merolanna and the Eddon family priest were a conspiracy of two.
“He’s a terrible gossip.”
“That’s never bothered you before.”
Merolanna gave her a flat look, almost as though she spoke to a stranger. “I’ve never had to worry about it before.”
Barrick laughed suddenly, harshly. “What, Auntie? Have you begun a love affair with someone? Or are you plotting to take the crown yourself?”
“Barrick!” Briony almost slapped him. “What a terrible thing to say!”
Merolanna looked at him and shook her head, but to Briony’s eyes the old woman still seemed oddly detached. “A few weeks ago, I would have been after you with a stick, boy. How can you talk like that to me
, who raised you almost like a mother?”
“It was a jest!” He folded his arms and leaned against the bedpost, his face a resentful mask. “A jest.”
“What is it, then?” Briony asked. “Something is happening here, Auntie. What is it?”
Merolanna fanned herself. “I’m going mad, that’s all.”
“What are you talking about? You’re not going mad.” But Briony saw Barrick lean forward, his sullenness gone. “Auntie?” she asked.
“Fetch me a cup of wine. That pitcher, there. And not too much water.” When she had the cup in her hand, Merolanna sipped it, then sat up straighter. “Come, sit on the bed, both of you. I cannot bear to have you standing there, looking down on me.” She patted the bed, almost begging. “Please. There. Now listen. And please don’t ask me any questions, not until I finish. Because if you do, I will start crying and then I’ll never stop.”
It was finally Godsday, with Lastday to follow; Chert welcomed the days of rest. His bones ached and he had a hot throb in his back that would not go away. He was glad to bid the tennight good-bye for other reasons, too. The prince’s funeral that began it, with its weight of hard work and terrible sadness, had taken much out of him, and the boy’s disappearance that day had frightened him badly.
What is he? Chert wondered. Not just his strangeness, but what is he to us? Is he a son? Will someone, his true parents, come and take him away from us? He looked at Opal, who was sniffing at a row of pots she had set up on the far side of the table. My old woman will be stabbed in the heart if the boy leaves us.
As will I, he realized suddenly. The child had brought life to the house, a life that Chert had never realized was missing until now.
“I don’t think this bilberry jam is much good,” Opal said, “although it cost me three chips. Here, try it.”
Chert scowled. “What am I, a dog? ‘Here, this has gone off, you try it’?”