Briar King

by Keyes, Greg

  Still, it nagged at Stephen, and more so, the holter’s gruff dismissal of anything Stephen might have to add. So when the mead courage finally came on him, he leaned near Aspar White.

  “You want to know what I think?” he asked.

  The holter frowned, and for a moment Stephen thought that the older man would tell him, once again, to be silent. He decided not to give him the chance. “Listen,” he rushed on. “I know you don’t think much of me. I know you think I’m useless. But I’m not. I can help.”

  “Oh? Your thousand-year-old maps can help me with this?”

  Stephen’s lips tightened. “I understand. You’re afraid I know more than you. That I might know some damned thing that might be of use.”

  Even as the words tumbled out of his mouth, Stephen knew the mead had brought him to a bad end. But the holter was just so damned smug, and Stephen was too drunk to feel fear as more than the distant whisper of a saint.

  Then to his vast surprise, the older man laughed bitterly. “Plenty I don’t know,” he admitted. “Go ahead. Tell me what you make of all this.”

  Stephen blinked. “What?”

  “I said, go on. What do you think of Sir Symen’s story?”

  “Oh.” For a brief instant there were two Aspars, then one again. “I don’t believe it,” Stephen said, pronouncing each word very deliberately.

  The holter raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

  “Really. First of all, too many of the details aren’t right. Vlatimon, for instance. He didn’t found Crotheny; he wasn’t even of the Croatani, the tribe the country was named for. Vlatimon was Bolgoi, and he conquered a small kingdom in the Midenlands, and that lasted only a half century before it was gobbled up by the Black Jester in the first Warlock War.

  “Shec … secondly, the whole notion of some old forest demon who has that sort of power—the power to punish the entire world—flies straight in the face of church doctrine. There are powers, yes, and the church tolerates that they be called saints, or angels, or gods as it might please local custom—but they’re all shub … shubordin … they all serve the All-in-One. Not to get too technical, but—”

  “And yet you were the one who said these tales carry some truth in them. Is that the case only when the truth doesn’t clash with the teaching of your church?”

  “It’s your church, too.” But of a sudden Stephen doubted that. Might the holter be heretic?

  “The church, then?”

  “The answer is yes and no. I recall now that in Virgenya we have phay stories about a character named Baron Greenleaf, who is also said to sleep in a hidden place and wake to avenge wrongs done the forest, very mush … mush … like this Briar King. Baron Greenleaf and the Briar King are probably both based on a real person—one of the early warlock kings, perhaps, or even a Skaslos who survived beyond the rest.

  “Or perhaps he is a misunderstanding made manifest. After all, the church teaches that the Alwalder demands a balance between cultivated and wild ground. As each village must have a sacred horz, where things grow wild, so too must the world itself have wild places. In the imagination of the folk, perhaps this forest is the horz of the world, and the Briar King a personification of the punishment that comes from violating it.”

  “And these dead people? This talk of greffyns?”

  Stephen shrugged. “Murderers who kill by poison? I don’t know, but there could be many explanations.”

  “This from the fellow who only a few days ago argued for all manner of ghosts and ghoulies? Who flinched today when he thought Grim the Raver was come for him?”

  “I argue from the knowledge of the church, from what the Alwalder allows as possible. The dead do have souls, and there are spirits in the world, creatures of light and darkness. All are accepted by the church, catalogued, named. Your Briar King is not.

  “Greffyns—I can’t say. Possibly. The Skasloi and the warlock lords after them created all sorts of fell, unnatural creatures to serve them. Some of those might still exist, in the corners of the world. It’s not impossible.”

  “And this business Sir Symen spoke of, the sacrifices at the seoth? I know the church builds fanes on them.”

  “In the church we use the ancient term, sedos. They are the seats of the saints’ power on earth. By visiting the sedoi, priests commune with the saints and gather holiness to themselves, and so, yes, we build fanes on them to mark them, and to insure that those who visit them are in the proper frame of mind. But the church maintains fanes only on living sedoi, not on the dead ones.”

  “What do you mean, dead?”

  “A sedos is a spot where a saint left some of his power, some virtue of his essence. Over time, that fades. Once the sacredness has faded, the church ceases maintaining the fanes. Most of those in the King’s Forest are dead. But dead or alive, I’ve never heard of human sacrifice at a sedos—even among heretics. Not for centuries, anyway.”

  “Wait. Then you have heard of it.”

  “The blackest of the sorcerers in the Warlock Wars sacrificed victims to the nine Damned Saints. But this couldn’t have anything to do with that.”

  Aspar stroked his chin. He glanced up. “Why not?”

  “Because the end of the wars was the end of that. The church has kept careful watch for that sort of evil.”

  “Ah.” Aspar took another swallow of mead and nodded. “Thank you, Cape Chavel Darige,” he said. “For once you’ve given me something to think about.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve had a lot of mead.”

  “Still, thank you for listening.”

  The holter shrugged. “I’ve arranged for you to leave for d’Ef tomorrow.”

  “I could stay a bit longer, go with you to this creek—”

  The holter shook his head. “So I can see this meal come back up out of you when we find the corpses? No thank you. I’ll do well enough on my own.”

  “I suppose you can,” Stephen flared, reaching for the mead jug. Somehow he miscalculated, however, and the next thing he knew it was spilling across the table, a honey flood.

  “Anfalthy!” Aspar shouted. “Could you show this young fellow his bedchamber?”

  “I’m not a child,” Stephen muttered. But the room had begun to spin, and he suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near the arrogant holter, the morose knight, or any of the rest of these rustics.

  “Come on, lad,” Anfalthy said, taking his hand.

  Mutely he nodded and followed, the light and noise fading behind him.

  “He’s right,” Stephen heard himself say. His faraway voice sounded angry.

  “Who’s right?” Anfalthy asked.

  “The holter. I’m no use wi’ arms an’ such. Blood makes me sick.”

  “Aspar is a fine man, good at what he does,” Anfalthy said. “He is not a patient man.”

  “Just wanted to help.”

  Anfalthy led him into a room, where she used her candle to light another, already in a sconce on the wall. He sat heavily on the bed. Anfalthy stood over him for a moment, her broad, comforting face looking down at him.

  “Aspar has too many ghosts following him already, lad. He wouldn’t want to add you to them. I think he likes you.”

  “He hates me.”

  “I doubt that,” she said softly. “There’s only one person in the world Aspar White hates, and it’s not you. Now go to sleep; tomorrow you’re off, yah?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said.

  “Then I’ll see you for breakfast.”

  When Stephen rose the next morning, nursing a pounding head, Aspar White was already gone. Sir Symen supplied Stephen with two fresh horses and a young huntsman to be his guide, and wished him well. Anfalthy gave him a bundle of bread, cheese, and meat and kissed him on the cheek.

  As his headache improved, so did Stephen’s mood. After all, in two days, he realized, he would finally be at d’Ef, where his work would start. Where his knowledge would be appreciated, valued, rewarded. The scriftorium at d’Ef was one of the most
complete in the world, and he would have access to it!

  The eagerness he had felt when he started from Cape Chavel more than a month ago began to return. Bandits, kidnapping, and a crude holter had overshadowed it, but he figured he had had his run of trouble. What more could happen?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BLACK ROSES

  ANNE FELT A FEATHERY TREMBLING in her belly and goosebumps on her flesh, even though the night wind came from the sea—warm, heavy, wet, and salty. The air seemed to sag with the need to rain, and the moon came and went fitfully in the cloud-bruised sky. Around her, neat rows of apple trees swayed and rustled in the wind.

  On the wall of the keep above, she could hear two guards talking, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  She felt faintly dizzy, a slight vertigo that had come and gone in the month since she had visited Eslen-of-Shadows. She stepped under one of the trees and leaned against the trunk, her head swimming with the scent of the blossoms. She lifted the scrap of paper that the stablehand had passed to her when she had put up Faster.

  Meet me in the orchard by the west gate at tenth bell.

  —R.

  “You work fast, Virgenya,” she whispered.

  Though Fastia seemed unaffected by her request to Saint Cer.

  It was surely tenth bell by now. Had they forgotten to ring it?

  She shouldn’t be doing this. What if he didn’t come, anyway?

  What if he came, and it was just a cruel joke, something to laugh about with the other knights and the stablehands? Silly. What did she know about this fellow?

  Nothing.

  She brushed nervously at her dress of Vitellian brocade, feeling sillier by the instant.

  The hairs on her neck suddenly pricked up. A shaft of the inconstant moonlight cast the silhouette of something big and dark moving through the branches of the apple tree nearest her.

  “She is like a dream, like a mist, like the phay dancers seen only from the corner of the eye in the woodland glade,” a voice whispered.

  “Roderick?”

  She jumped as the tenth bell began to chime, high up in the August Tower, and jumped again when the long shadow dropped from the tree and landed with a soft thump.

  “At your service.” The shadow bowed.

  “You startled me,” Anne said. “Were you a thief before you became a knight?” she asked. “Certainly you aren’t a poet.”

  “That wounds, Princess.”

  “Go to a physician or a rinn witch, then. What do you want, Roderick?”

  He moved into the moonlight. His eyes were shades in an ivory carving. “I wanted to see you in something other than riding dress.”

  “You said you had seen me in court.”

  “True. But you look lovelier now.”

  “Because it’s darker?”

  “No. Because I’ve met you now. It makes all the difference.”

  “I suppose you want to kiss me again.”

  “No, not at all. I want you to kiss me.”

  “But we just met!”

  “Yes, and got off to a good start.” He suddenly reached and took her hand. “You’re the lady who rode down the Snake like a madman. There’s nothing cautious about you, Princess. I kissed you, and I’ve kissed enough to know you liked it. If I’m wrong, tell me so, and off I’ll go. If I’m right … why don’t we try it again?”

  She folded her arms and cocked her head, trying to think of a good response. He didn’t give her time.

  “I brought you this.” He held something out to her. She reached for it and found herself clutching the stem of a flower.

  “I cut off the thorns for you,” he said. “It’s a black rose.”

  She gasped, genuinely surprised. “Where did you find it?”

  “I bought it from a sea captain, who got it in Liery.”

  Anne breathed in its strange scent of plum and anise. “They grow only in Liery,” she told him. “My mother talks about them all the time. I’ve never seen one.”

  “Well,” Roderick replied, moving a little closer. “I got it to please you, not to remind you of your mother.”

  “Shh. Not so loud.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Roderick said.

  “You should be. Do you know what will happen to you if we’re caught here?”

  “We won’t be.”

  His hand found hers, and she suddenly felt her head go funny. She couldn’t think anything. She felt frozen, almost uncomprehending, as he pulled her against him. His face was so near she could feel his breath on her lips.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered.

  And she did. A sound like the sea rushed into her ears. She could feel the hard muscles of Roderick’s back through his linen shirt, and a prickly, itchy sort of heat. He took her face in his hands and stroked lightly behind her ears as his lips pressed hers, now nibbling, now opening greedily.

  He whispered things, but she hardly heard them. All sense of words dissolved when his lips crept down her neck, and she thought she was going to cry out, and then the guards would hear her, and then—well, who knew what would happen then. Something bad. She could almost hear her mother now …

  “Anne. Anne!” Someone was calling her.

  “Who’s that? Who’s there?” Roderick panted.

  “It’s my maid, Austra. I—”

  He kissed her again. “Send her away.” He said the words right into her earlobe. It tickled, and suddenly she giggled.

  “Um. No, I can’t. My sister Fastia will check my bed soon, and if I am not in it, she will raise the alarm. Austra is keeping watch of the time. If she’s calling, I have to go.”

  “It cannot be, not yet!”

  “It is. It is. But we can meet again.”

  “Not soon enough for me.”

  “My sister’s birthday is tomorrow. I’ll arrange something. Austra will carry the word.”

  “Anne!”

  “I’m coming, Austra.”

  She turned to go, but he took her by the waist and spun her into the crook of his arm, like a dancer, and kissed her again. She laughed and gave it back. When she finally turned and left, she felt an ache beneath her breast.

  “Hurry!” Austra took her hand and pulled her insistently. “Fastia may be there already!”

  “Figs for Fastia. Fastia never comes until eleventh bell.”

  “It’s nearly eleventh bell now, you ninny!” Austra practically dragged Anne up the staircase that wound to the top of the orchard wall. On the last step, Anne cast one more look down at the garden but saw only the inky shadow of the looming keep on the other side.

  “Come on!” Austra commanded. “Through here.”

  Anne clutched the back of Austra’s dress as they rushed through the dark. A few moments later they tripped up another staircase and emerged into a wider hall lit with long tapers. At a high, narrow door, Austra fumbled the key from her girdle and pushed it into the brass lock. Just as the door swung open, the sound of footsteps echoed up from the stairwell at the far end of the hall.

  “Fastia!” Anne hissed.

  They ducked through the door and into the anteroom of her chambers. Austra closed and locked the door, while Anne kicked off her damp slippers and dropped them into the empty vase on the table next to the divan. She fell back onto the little couch and yanked off both stockings at once, then ran barefoot through the curtained doorway to her bedchamber. She flung the stockings on the other side of the canopied bed and began trying to reach the fastenings of her gown. “Help me with this!”

  “We haven’t time,” Austra said. “Just throw your nightdress over it.”

  “The train will show!”

  “Not if you’re in bed, under the covers!”

  Austra, meanwhile, shucked her own dress right over her head. Anne stifled an amused shriek, for Austra wore no underskirt, no corset; she was naked as a clam in soup.

  “Hush!” Austra said, wriggling into a nightgown and kicking her discarded dress under the bed. “Don’t laugh at me!”
/>
  “You’d think you were the one out to meet someone.”

  “Hush! Don’t be sick! It’s just faster this way, and it’s not like anyone was going to notice I was uncorseted. Get under the covers!”

  A key scraped in the lock. Austra squeaked, pointing to Anne, and pantomimed letting down her hair.

  Anne yanked the netting from her locks, threw it vaguely toward the wardrobe, and dived under the covers. Austra hit the mattress at almost the same instant, hairbrush in hand.

  “Ouch!” Anne yelped, as the curtain parted and the brush caught in a tangle.

  “Hello, you two.”

  Anne blinked. It wasn’t Fastia.

  “Lesbeth!” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed and rushing to embrace her aunt.

  Lesbeth gathered her in, laughing. “Saint Loy, but we’re almost the same height, now, aren’t we? How could you grow this much in two years? How old are you now, fourteen?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen. And look at you—a Dare, through and through.”

  In fact, Anne realized she did look like Lesbeth. Which wasn’t good, because while Lesbeth was very pretty, Elseny and Fastia and her mother were beautiful. She would take after the wrong side of the family.

  “You’re warm,” Lesbeth said. “Your face is burning up! Do you have a fever?”

  That drew a stifled giggle from Austra.

  “What?” Lesbeth asked, her voice suddenly suspicious. She stepped back. “Is that a dress you have on under your nightgown? At this hour? You’ve been out!”

  “Please don’t tell Fastia. Or Mother. It was really all very innocent—”

  “I won’t have to tell them. Fastia is on the way up.”

  “Still?”

  “Of course. You don’t think she’d trust me with her duty?”