The Briar King

by Greg Keyes

  “I think so. Don't ask me why.”

  “You've no fine, scholarly words to explain it, then? The Briar King was supposed to come and kill us all, yah?”

  “He might yet. He left us because he had other things to do, and I suspect we will not like what those things are.” He shrugged. “He took the poison from you. He did not close your wounds or stop your blood; that was for us to do, and still you nearly went to pale.” Stephen lifted his hands. “Perhaps he thought you a creature of his kingdom. Perhaps you are—you certainly smell like one. A crippled boar, a mangy bear. You might be mistaken for such a thing.”

  Aspar stared at him for a long moment.

  “I only remember that when he touched me I felt something, something I haven't known since I was a child. It was …” He frowned. “Sceat, I haven't the words.” He waved his hands, dismissing the entire matter. He was silent for long time, and Stephen began to wish Winna would hurry her return. She had a way of easing things.

  But Aspar spoke, without looking at him.

  “I've a sense it's a lucky thing I met you, Cape Chavel Darige,” he said.

  Stephen blinked back an unexpected moistness in his eye.

  On the Very Strange and Subtle Dispositions of the Holter-Beast, he composed, in his head. Though irascible in the extreme, it must be admitted the beast has not only a talent for annoyance, but beneath its tough and leathersome skin, something that resembles, in many respects, a human heart.

  “Now what are you grinning at?” Aspar asked.

  Stephen realized he was smiling. “Nothing,” he replied. “Something I read, once.”

  When Cazio stepped into the small circle of firelight, Anne flinched involuntarily.

  Z'Acatto clucked his tongue. “No need to worry, young casnara,” he said. “We're well away from those devils.”

  “At least for the time being,” Cazio corrected. “If they are as persistent in the hunt as in leaving life, we shall see them again.”

  “Don't worry the ladies with such talk,” z'Acatto growled. “We have eluded them for the time being, of that we can be sure. A hundred crooked leagues we have put between them and us, and never leaving any sign.” He looked up significantly at the younger man. “Unless you did so tonight.”

  “I was a ghost,” Cazio replied. “A shadow entered the Inn of the Lisping Boar, a shadow left it.”

  “Left it the heavier, I hope,” z'Acatto said hopefully, eyeing the sack Cazio had slung casually over one shoulder.

  “Heavier, yes. But this is your sort of work, old man. I'm no thief, by trade.”

  “You'll do as an amateur,” the swordsmaster said. “What've you got there?”

  Anne found her own stomach rumbling. The countryside offered little in the way of sustenance, and avoiding anyone who might describe them to pursuers meant they couldn't beg the hospitality of strangers, though z'Acatto had assured them that hospitality was lacking in the poor and rustic province of Curhavia. Whatever the truth, the four of them had eaten only moldy bread the day before, and not much of that.

  “Tonight we feast,” Cazio said. He proceeded to produce a joint of ham, a spit-roasted hen, a full loaf of crusty brown bread, a small amphora of olive oil, and two black bottles of wine. Anne watched this unloading hungrily, but when she glanced at Austra she saw something that more resembled worship, which was irritating. Cazio was made of better stuff than she had first supposed, true, and she and Austra doubtless owed him their lives, but there was no reason to be silly.

  “This is the wrong year,” z'Acatto complained.

  “Ghosts drink what they can find,” Cazio replied. “I'm sure this will do.”

  Z'Acatto snatched one of the bottles, took a swallow, and swirled it about in his mouth.

  “Hardly better than vinegar,” he said. Nevertheless, he took another long drink of it.

  They ate with no thought to conversation. It was only later, when most of the wine was gone, that speech resumed.

  “In three days we'll reach the coast,” Cazio said. “I've no doubt we can find the two of you passage there to someplace safe. Your home, perhaps.”

  “You've been most kind,” Anne said.

  “You can't just put us on a ship, two women alone,” Austra protested. “What if the Hanzish knights should find us at sea?”

  “I'd be more worried about the sailors,” z'Acatto said. “They're the more known and obvious danger.”

  “Well, go with them, then,” Cazio said. “Me, I'm returning to my house in Avella and pretending I never saw a knight who wouldn't die.”

  “Anne's father will reward you,” Austra blurted.

  “Austra, hush,” Anne said. “Casnars da Chiovattio and z'Acatto have done more than we could ever repay them for already.”

  “A gentleman does not require payment for saving young ladies in need,” Cazio pointed out.

  “But a gentleman without funds can't pay off the lien on his property,” z'Acatto said, “even if certain legal complications have vanished, which cannot be taken for granted.”

  Cazio looked pained. “Must you trouble me with such mundane matters?” he asked. But he turned to Anne. “Who is your father, by the by?”

  Anne hesitated. “A wealthy man,” she said.

  “From what country?”

  “The empire of Crotheny.”

  “That's a long journey,” Cazio noticed.

  “Hah!” z'Acatto shouted. “You don't even know where it is! You've no idea! To you, z'Irbina is the end of the world.”

  “I am content in Vitellio, if that's what you mean,” Cazio said. “I've my father's estates to win back.”

  “You'll pardon him, casnaras,” z'Acatto said. “The experience with your Hanzish knights has taught Cazio here a certain reluctance when it comes to things foreign. You see, in Avella, he can fancy himself a great swordsmaster. In the wider world, he might find himself proven wrong.”

  Cazio looked stung. “That is purest slander,” he said, “and you know it.”

  “I know what I see. Dessrata is deeds, not words.”

  “And you've told me on many occasions that I am no dessrator,” Cazio replied.

  “And, on occasion, I tend toward pessimism,” z'Acatto murmured.

  “Meaning?” Cazio's eyebrows leapt in surprise.

  “Meaning there might be hope for you,” z'Acatto said. He wagged the wine bottle at his student. “Might.”

  “So you admit—!”

  “I admit nothing!”

  “You drunken old fool, I—”

  They argued on, but Anne knew the battle was won. She and Austra would have their escort back to Crotheny.

  She thought again of her visions, of the thing she had done to the Hanzish knight, and wished everything in the world was as simple as Cazio. For her, the world would never be simple again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE EMPEROR SITS

  THE EMPER OR OF CROTHENY counted to three and then clapped his hands in delight as Hound Hat produced a partridge from what appeared to be thin air.

  “Most excellent, Sire!” the Sefry said. “And now I shall produce a fire, if to you I might implore, please this time to count to four.”

  Muriele glanced hard at the Sefry and then more gently at her son. “Charles,” she said. “It is time to hold court.”

  Charles looked at her, his face working. “Mother,” he whispered, “I can't count to four. What am I to do?”

  “Charles,” she said, her voice a bit more insistent. “It is time for court. You must concentrate and be king.”

  “But Father is king.”

  “Your father is away. In his place, you must be king. Do you understand?”

  He must have heard the frustration in her voice, for his face fell. Charles didn't always understand words, but at times he could be surprisingly sensitive to mood.

  “How do I do that, Mother? How do I be king?”

  She patted his hand. “I will teach you. Some men are going to come in, in a mom
ent. You will know some of them. Your uncle Fail de Liery, for instance.”

  “Uncle Fail?”

  “Yes. I will talk to them, and you will remain silent. If you do this, then afterwards you can have fried apples and cream, and play games on the lawn.”

  “I don't know that I want to go to the lawn,” Charles replied dubiously.

  “Then you can do whatever you wish. But you must be silent while I talk to these men, unless I look at you. If I look at you, then you are to say, ‘That is my command.’ Only that, and nothing more. Can you do that?”

  “That is how a king behaves?”

  “It is exactly how a king behaves.”

  Charles nodded earnestly. “That is my command,” he practiced.

  Muriele flinched, for in that instant he sounded almost exactly like her dead William. Charles must have listened more than she'd thought, the few times he had been to court.

  “Very well.” She started to nod at the Royal Footguard, but paused, briefly, to glance at Sir Neil, who stood stiffly a few feet from her.

  “Sir Neil?” she asked. “Are you fit for this?”

  Sir Neil turned his dark, hollowed eyes to her. “I can serve, Your Majesty,” he said.

  She took a deep breath. “Come close, Sir Neil,” she said.

  He did so, kneeling before her.

  “Rise, and sit with me.”

  The young knight with the old eyes did as he was told, taking a seat on the armless chair to the left of her own.

  “Sir Neil,” she said softly, “I need you with me. With Erren gone, I need all of you here. Are you here?”

  “I am with you, Majesty,” Neil replied. “I will not fail you again.”

  “You have never failed me, Sir Neil,” she said. “How can you think you did? I owe you my life more than twice. No other man in the kingdom could have preserved me at Cal Azroth, and yet you did.”

  Neil did not answer, but his lips tightened, and she saw the doubt.

  “I know you loved my daughter,” she said softly. “And no, Erren never told me. I never saw it on your face, either, but I saw it in Fastia's.

  “Sir Neil, we do not lead lives aimed toward happiness, here near the throne. We lead the lives we are given, and we do as best we can. My daughter had little happiness in her life. I watched her wither from a joyful maid to a bitter old woman in the space of a few years. You brought happiness and hope back to her, before her end. I could not have asked a better service of you.”

  “You could have asked me to save her,” he said bitterly.

  “That was not your charge,” Muriele said. “Your duty was to me. That duty you discharged. Sir Neil, you are my one true knight.”

  “I do not feel worthy of that, Majesty.”

  “I do not care what you feel, Sir Neil,” she said, letting anger creep into her voice. “When this court begins, look around you. You will see Praifec Hespero, a man of ambition and influence. You will see Lady Gramme, and next to her my hus-band's bastard, and you will notice a keen glint of avarice in her eyes. You will see twice five nobles who believe this is an opportune time to substitute their fat bottoms for my son's on the throne. You will see my own family and your old companions from Liery, spoiling for a war with us, wondering if perhaps it isn't time that Crotheny returned to a Lierish patrimony. And always there is Hansa, building her armies, weaving her plots against us.

  “Who among them killed my husband? It could have been any of them. He was feathered with Lierish arrows, but that is a most transparent ploy. Someone here killed him, Sir Neil, and my daughters, and Prince Robert. Someone in this very court, but who? Here in Eslen you will see nothing but my enemies, Sir Neil, and all I have between them and me is you. So I do not care what you think your shortcomings are. I do not care how much you grieve, for I swear to you it is no tenth of what I feel. But I will command you, as your queen and the mother of your king, that you will protect me, keeping your senses sharp and your wits about you. With you, I may last a few months at this game. Without you, I will not survive the day.”

  He bowed his head, and then raised it, and at last she recognized something of the young man she had first seen praying in the chapel of Saint Lier.

  “I am here, Majesty,” he said, firmly this time. “I am with you.”

  “Good. That is fortunate.”

  “Majesty? May I ask a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it be war with Liery?”

  She measured that a moment before answering. “If it is,” she asked, “can you kill those you once fought beside?”

  He frowned as if he did not understand the question. “Of course, Majesty. I will kill whoever needs killing, for you. I want to know only so I can better prepare the guard.”

  “The war with Liery is the least of my concerns,” she said. “In me they see a way to eventually have this throne without a fight, and they have Saltmark and Hansa to concern them. I need only suggest that in me they have a powerful influence on the throne; let one of my cousins court me, perhaps. The facts surrounding my husband's death and the Sorrovian ships we sank can be quietly forgotten, and they will be. I do not know what William and Robert were about, and probably never will, but I can sweep up the mess. It is Hansa that concerns me, and daggers in my own house.”

  “Yes, Majesty,” Neil said.

  She inclined her head. “Now, as I said, you must watch what I cannot. Hespero will be admitted first, and I will make him my prime minister.”

  Sir Neil raised his brow. “I thought you did not trust him.”

  “Not in the least, but he must not know that. He must be lulled and coddled. He must be watched, and that were easiest if he is always at my right hand. After I have spoken to him, then the sea lords will come, and we will make our peace with them.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Yes.” She drew a deep breath.

  “That is my command!” Charles shouted experimentally.

  Neil bowed to Charles. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he told the emperor. “As in all things, I am your servant.”

  Charles grinned, a boyish, silly grin. “This will amuse,” he said.

  EPILOGUE

  A FINAL CURSE

  AS THE LAST ECHOES of her footsteps were eaten by the hungry darkness, Muriele Dare perceived a low moan, like talons scratching across the skin of a kettle drum. Something unseen shifted, and though no light appeared in the darkness, she felt eyes like two hot coals pressed against her flesh.

  “The stink of woman,” a voice graveled. “Many long centuries since I have scented that.” A soft clicking, then, and the voice continued thoughtfully. “You are not her. Like, but not.”

  Muriele's nose twitched at a resiny scent that censed the chamber.

  “Are you what this man says you are?” she asked. “Are you a Skaslos?”

  “Am I, was I, will I.” The words seemed to creep through the air like centipedes. “How come you here if you do not know me?”

  “I found a key in my husband's chambers. I inquired about it. Qexqaneh, answer my question.”

  “My name,” the Kept said. It sounded like an imprecation. “I have forgotten much of what I was. But yes, I was once called that.”

  “You've been here for two thousand years?”

  “I remember years no more than I remember the moon.” Another scraping in the darkness. “I mislike your scent.”

  “I care not what you like,” Muriele told him.

  “Then what care you for? Why do you disturb me?”

  “Your race had knowledge of things mine does not.”

  “To make little of much, yes.”

  “Tell me—can you see things unseen? Do you know who killed my daughters and my husband? Can you tell me if my youngest daughter still lives?”

  “I see,” the Kept replied. “I see a smoke spreading in the wind. I see the cloak of death brushing the world. I see a sickle in you, eager to reap.”

  “Who murdered my daughters?” Muriele demande
d.

  “Kissssss,” he wheezed. “Their shapes are too vague. They stand behind the pall.” He raised his voice to a shout. “Queen! You have a knife in you, eager for poking and twisting.”

  “Is he lying?” Muriele asked the Keeper.

  “He cannot lie,” the ancient Sefry told her.

  “What did you tell my husband?” Muriele asked.

  “To be death or die. I see which he chose. Would you be death, you who stink of motherhood?”

  “I would see the murderers of my family dead.”

  “Sssssssssssss! That is a simpler matter than seeing who did the deed,” the Kept said. “I can tell you a curse. It is a most terrible curse, the most terrible I remember.”

  “Majesty,” the Keeper said. “Do not listen to him.”

  She ignored the old man. “I can curse those who took my children?”

  “Oh, easily. Very easily.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “Majesty—” the Keeper began again, but Muriele cut him off.

  “You have warned me thrice, Keeper,” she said. “Do not warn me again, or I shall have the drums of your ears broken. How then will you delight in your solitary music?”

  The Sefry fell momentarily silent at the threat. “As you say, Majesty,” he finally submitted.

  “Await me where you cannot hear this conversation. I will call for you when I need guidance.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  She heard him shuffle away.

  “A daughter of the queen are you,” the Kept said, once the Sefry was gone.

  “I am the queen,” Muriele replied. “Tell me of this curse.”

  “I will tell you a thing to write, and you will scrive it on a lead tissue and place it in a certain sarcophagus you will find beneath the horz in the city of the dead. Who sleeps there will take your message to one who knows well how to curse.”

  Muriele considered that a moment, remembering the breath leaving Fastia.

  “Tell me what to write,” she said.

  The candles in the chapel flickered as if some unseen wing beat above them. Sacritor Hohn looked around nervously, feeling as if he had just awoken from a night terror, though he hadn't been asleep.