by Tad Williams
”Dressed all in mannish black she stands, like the thunderheads of Oktamene’s dour wrath in the summer sky Yet beneath those sable billows there is virgin snow, white and pure, that will make the land in cool sweetness to he .’.”
She couldn’t help sympathizing with the lord constable’s groans, but she wished Brone might be a little more discreet—the young man was doing his best, and it had been her idea to encourage him: she didn’t want him humiliated. “Yes, very nice,” she said. “But at the moment I am in the middle of state business Perhaps you could write it down for me and send it so that I can . . appreciate its true worth without distraction.”
“My lady is too kind.” Smiling at the other courtiers, having established himself as one of their number—or at least believing so—Tinwright rose, made a leg, and melted into the crowd. There were a few titters.
“My lady is too kind by half,” Brone said quietly.
Steffans Nynor still lingered, a slightly nervous look on his face. “Yes, my lord?” Briony asked him. “May I come near the throne, Princess?”
She beckoned him forward. Brone also moved a bit closer, as though the scrawny, ancient Nynor might be some kind of threat—or perhaps simply to hear better.
“There is one other thing,” the castellan said quietly. “What are we to do with the Tollys?” “The Tollys?”
“You have not heard? They arrived two hours ago—I am shamed that I did not inform you, but I felt sure someone else would.” He gave Brone a squint-eyed look. The two were political rivals and not the best of friends. “A company from Summerfield Court is here, led by Hendon Tolly. The young man seems much aggrieved—he was talking openly about the disappearance of his brother, Duke Gailon.”
“Merciful Zoria,” she said heavily. “That is dire news Hendon Tolly? Here?”
“The middle brother, Caradon, is doubtless too pleased to find himself next in line for the dukedom to want to come stir up trouble himself,” Brone said quietly. “But I doubt he tried very hard to stop his little brother—not that it would have done him much good. Hendon is a wild one, Highness. He must be closely watched.” As the lord constable finished this little speech, one of the royal guard appeared at his shoulder and Brone turned to have words with him.
“Wild” was not the word Briony would have chosen. “Almost mad” would have been closer—the youngest Tolly was as dangerous and unpredictable as fire on a windy day. Her sigh was the only voice she gave to a heartfelt wish to be out of this, to turn back the calendar to the days when there had been nothing harder to think on than how she and Barrick would avoid their lessons.
And curse Barrick for leaving this all to me! A moment later she felt a pang of sorrow and even fear about her unkind thought: her brother needed no more curses.
“Treat theTollys with respect,” she said. “Give them Gailon’s rooms.” She remembered what Brone had said about the Summerfield folk and the agents of the Autarch. “No, do not, in case there has been some communication left behind in a secret place. Put them in the Tower of Winter so they are not underfoot and will find it harder to move around unmarked. Lord Brone, you will arrange to keep them watched, I assume? Lord Brone?”
She turned, irritated that he was not paying attention. The guardsman who had spoken to him was gone, but Brone himself had not moved and there was a look on his face Briony had never seen before—confusion and disbelief. “Lord Constable, what is wrong?”
He looked at her, then at Nynor. He leaned forward. “You must send these people away. Now.” “But what have you heard?”
He shook his great, bearded head, still as slow-moving and bewildered as a man in a dream. “Vansen has returned, Highness—Ferras Vansen, the captain of the guard.”
“He has? And what has he discovered? Has he found the caravan?”
“He hasn’t, and he has lost most of his company beside—more than a dozen good men. But, stay, Lady—that is not what is most important! Call for him. If what I hear is true, we will need to speak to him immediately.”
“If what you hear is… But what do you hear, Brone? Tell me.”
“That we are at war, Princess, or shortly will be.” “But… war? With whom?”
“The armies of all fairyland, it seems.”
26. The Considerations of Queens
THE DISTANT MOUNTAINS:
We see them
But we will never walk them
Nevertheless, we see them
—from The Bonefall Oracles
He arrived with surprisingly little ceremony, not mounted on a dove this time but on a fat white rat with a fine spread of whisker. She was accompanied only by a pair of guards on foot—their tiny faces pale and drawn because of this great responsibility—and by the scout Beetledown. Chert had been sitting longer than he would have liked and was glad he was not expected to rise; he was not certain his legs would bend that well without a little limbering first. But neither could he imagine greeting a royal personage without making some show of respect, especially when he hoped to beg a favor, so he bent his head.
“Her Exquisite and Unforgotten Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat, extends her greetings to Chert of Blue Quartz,” announced Beetledown in his small, high voice.
Chert looked up. She was watching him in an intent but friendly way. “I thank you, Majesty.” “We heard your request and we are here,” she said, as birdlike in pitch as her herald. “Also, we enjoyed your generous gift and it has joined the Great Golden Piece and the Silver Thing in our collection of crown jewels We are sad to hear that the boy is missing. What can we do?”
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth, Majesty. I was hoping you might be able to suggest something. I have searched all the places that I know—all of Funderling Town knows he is gone—but I have found no sign of him. He likes to climb and explore and I know little of the rooftops and other high places of the castle and city. I thought you might have an idea of where he might have gone, or even have seen him.”
The queen turned. “Have any of our folk seen the boy, faithful Beetledown?”
“Not hair nor hide, Majesty,” the little man said solemnly. “Asked in many holes and away down all the Hidden Hall last night, did I, without a sniff of un to be found.”
The queen spread her hands. “It seems that we can tell you nothing,” she told Chert sadly. “We, too, feel the loss, because we believe the Hand of the Sky is on that boy and thus he is important to our people, the Sm’sni’sntk-soonah, as well.”
Chert sagged. He had not truly thought that the Rooftoppers could solve the mystery, but it had been the only hope left to him. Now there was nothing he could do but wait, and the waiting would be terrible. “Thank you, anyway, Your Majesty. I am grateful that you came. It was very kind.”
She watched as he began to climb to his feet. “Hold a moment. Have you smelled for him?” “Have I what?”
“Have you smelled for his track?” When she saw Chert’s expression, she raised an eyebrow more slender than a strand of spiderweb. “Do your people know nothing of this?”
“Yes, we do, I suppose. There are animals used for hunting game and certain other things we eat. But I would not know how to try to find the boy that way.”
“Bide -with us here a while longer.” She folded her tiny hands together. “It is a pity, but the Grand and Worthy Nose is not well—a sort of ague. This often happens when the sun shines for the first time after the winter rams begin. Most pathetic he becomes, eyes red and his wonderful nose red, too. Otherwise I would send him with you. Perhaps in a few days, when the indisposition has passed…”
Chert was not exactly heartened to think that his hope of finding the boy might rest on the fat and fussy Nose, but it was something, at least, something. He tried to look grateful. “Your Majesty, if a humble Gutter-Scout can speak…” said Beetledown.
The queen was amused. “Humble? I do not think that word describes you well, my good servant.” Chert imagined that the little man was blushing, but the face was too
small and too distant to be certain. “I wish only to serve ‘ee, Majesty, and that’s skin to sky. Sometimes, it is true, I find it hard to keep quiet when I must listen to the boasting of tumblers and other pillocks who are not fit to serve you. And perhaps tha wilst deem me boastful again when I say that after the Nose, some do reckon that Beetledown the Bowman has the finest nostrils in all Southmarch Above.”
“I have heard that said, yes,” said the queen, smiling. Beetledown seemed hard-pressed not to leap in the air and cheer for himself at her admission. “Does that mean you are ofFering your services to Chert of Blue Quartz?”
“Fair is what it seems, Majesty. The boy bested me and then gave me quarter, fairly as tha might please. I reckon that un has my debt, as ‘twere. Perhaps Beetledown can help bring him back safe in un’s skin.”
“Very well. You are so commissioned. Go with Chert of Blue Quartz and carry out your duties. Farewell, good Funderling.” She tapped with her stick at the white rat’s ribs; the animal chittered, then turned and began to move back up the roof. Her guards hurried after her.
“Thank you, Queen Upsteeplebat!” Chert called, although he was not really sure how much help he was going to get from a man the size of a peapod. Her hand went up as the rat disappeared over the roofcrest, but even small queens did not wave good-bye, so he imagined it must have been an acknowledgment of his gratitude. He turned to Beetledown, with whom he was now alone on the rooftop. “So… what should we do?”
“Take me to something of the boy’s,” suggested the little man. “Let me get my fill of un’s scent.”
“We’ve got his other shirt and his bed, so I suppose I should take you home. Do you want to ride down on my shoulder?”
Beetledown gave him an unfathomable look. “Seen ‘ee climb, I have. Beetledown will make un’s own way and meet up at bottom.”
Not surprisingly, the Gutter-Scout was already waiting on the ground by the time Chert set his feet on the cobbles once more. The morning sun was high behind the clouds—perhaps an hour remained until noon. Chert was tired and hungry and not very happy. “Do you want to walk?" he asked, trying to be considerate of the Rooftopper’s feelings.
“Oh, aye, if we had three days for wandering,” Beetledown replied a bit snappishly. “Said tha hast shoulder for riding. Ride, I will.”
Chert put his hand down and let the little man climb into it. It was an oddly ticklish feeling. As he put Beetledown on his shoulder, he imagined for the first time what a vast expanse even this small cobbled courtyard must seem to a man of such small size. “Have you been on the ground much?”
“Proper bottom ground? Aye, oncet or twice or more,” Beetledown said. “Not one of your stay-at-homes am I. Not afraid of rat or hawk or nowt but cats is Beetledown the Bowman, if I have my good bow to hand.” He brandished the small, slender curve of wood, but when he spoke again, he sounded a little less confident. “Be there cats in your house?”
“Scarcely a one in all Funderling Town. The dragons eat them.”
“Having sport, th’art,” said the little man with dignity. Chert suddenly felt ashamed. The tiny fellow might be a bit boastful, he might not think much of Chert’s climbing, but he was offering his help out of a sense of obligation, entering a world of monstrous giants. Chert tried to imagine what that would feel like and decided that Beetledown was entitled to a little swagger.
“I apologize. There are cats in Funderling Town but none m my house. My wife doesn’t like them much.” “Walk on, then,” said the Rooftopper. “It has been a century or more since any Gutter-Scout has been to the deep places and today Beetledown the Bowman will go where no other dares.”
“No other Rooftopper, you mean,” said Chert as he started across the temple-yard toward the gate. “After all, we Funderlings go there rather often.”
* * *
“Where is your brother? Prince Barrick should be here.” Avin Brone could not sound more disapproving if Briony had informed him that she planned to hand over governance of the March Kingdoms to an assembly of landless yokels. “He is ill, Lord Brone. He would be here if he could.”
“But he is the co-regent.
“He is ill! Do you doubt me?"
The lord constable had learned that despite the differences in their size, age, and sex, he could not outstare her. He tangled his fingers in his beard and muttered something. She was sensible enough not to inquire what he had said.
“Hendon Tolly is causing trouble already,” said Tyne Aldritch of Blueshore, one of the few nobles she had asked to join her to hear the news from the west. Aldritch was terse, especially with her, often to the point of near-rudeness, but she believed it was a symptom of basic honesty. Evidence over the years supported this conclusion, although she knew she might still be wrong—none of the people of the innermost circles around the throne were as guileless or straightforward as they seemed. Briony had learned that at a young age. Who could afford to be? Briony had ancestors in the Portrait Hall who had killed more of their own nobles than they had slain enemies on the battlefield.
“And what is my charming cousin Hendon up to?” She nodded as another, only slightly more beloved relative joined the council, Rorick Longarren. The apparent invasion seemed to be on the borders of his Daler’s Troth fiefdom, one of the few things that could lure him away from dicing and drinking. He took his place at the table and yawned behind his hand.
“Tolly showed up with his little court of complainers just as you left the throne room,” Tyne Aldritch told her, “and was talking loudly about how sometimes people try to avoid those they have wronged.”
Briony took a deep breath. “I thank you, Earl Tyne I would be surprised if he was not talking against me—against us, I mean, Prince Barrick and myself. The Tollys are admirable allies in time of war but cursedly difficult in peacetime.”
“But is this still peacetime?" the Earl of Blueshore asked with heavy significance.
She sighed. “That is what we hope to find out Lord Brone, where is your guard captain?" “He insisted on bathing before being brought to you.”
Briony snorted. “I had doubts about his competence, but I didn’t take him for a fop. Is a bath more important than news of an attack on Southmarch?"
“To be fair, Highness,” said Brone, “they rode almost without stopping for three days to get here and he has already written everything down while he waited for me to come to him from the throne room.” Brone lifted a handful of parchment. “He felt it would be discourteous to appear before you in torn and dirty clothes.”
Briony stared at the parchment covered with neat letters. “He can write?” “Yes, Highness.”
“I was told he was born in the country—a crofters son or something like. So where did he learn to write?” For some reason this did not fit the picture in her head of Vansen the guard captain, the man who had stood close-mouthed and emotionless while her brother lay dead in his own blood a few yards away, the fellow who had let her strike at him as though he were a statue of unfeeling stone. “Can he read, too?”
“I imagine so, Highness,” Brone said. “But here he comes. You may ask him yourself.”
His hair was still wet and he had put on not a dress tunic and armor but simple clothes that she suspected by their fit were not even his own, but she was still irritated. “Captain Vansen. Your news must be terrible indeed that you would make the princess regent wait for it.”
He looked surprised, even shocked. “I am sorry, Highness. I was told that you would be in the throne room until after midday and could not see me until then. I gave my news to Lord Brone’s man and then…” He seemed suddenly to realize he was perilously close to arguing with his monarch; he dropped to one knee. “I beg your pardon, Highness. Clearly the mistake is mine. Please do not let your anger at me cloud your feelings toward my men, who have suffered much and done so bravely to bring this news back to Southmarch.”
He is too honorable by half, she thought. He had a good chin, she had to admit—a proud chin. Perhaps
he was one of those men like the famous King Brenn, so in love with honor that it ate him up with pride. She didn’t like the suggestion that she needed permission to be angry at someone, even permission given by the someone in question. She decided she would teach this crafty—and no doubt ambitious—young soldier a lesson by not being angry at all.
Besides, she thought, if what Brone says is true, we do have more important things to talk about. “We will speak of this some other tune, Captain Vansen,” she said. “Tell us your news.”
* * *
By the time he had finished, Briony felt as if she had stepped into one of the stories the maids used to tell when she was a child.
“You saw this… this fairy army?”
Vansen nodded. “Yes, Highness. Not very well, as I’ve said. It was…” He hesitated. “It was strange there.”
“By the gods!” cried Rorick, who had just divined the reason for his own presence, “they are coming down onto my land! They must be invading Daler’s Troth even as we speak—someone must stop them!”
Briony had not particularly wanted him present, but since it was near his fiefdom, and his bride-to-be had been kidnapped with the convoy, she could not think of a reason to keep him out of the council. Still, she found it telling that he had not mentioned the Settish prince’s daughter once. “Yes, it sounds that way, Cousin Rorick,” she said. “You will, no doubt, want to ride out as soon as you can to muster and lead your people.” She kept her tone equable, but to her surprise she saw a small reaction from Vansen, not a smile—the matters at hand were too serious—but a recognition by him that she didn’t think Rorick was likely to follow this selfless course.
Ah, but Vansen is a dalesman, isn’t he? And not as dull as I supposed him, either.
She turned her attention back to her cousin Rorick, who was not even trying to hide his fear. “Ride there?” he stammered. “Into the gods alone know what kind of terrors?”