by Tad Williams
Even to Matty Tinwright, who had never found it easy to say no to a celebration or a feast, especially if someone else was paying the tally, it seemed a bit much. Surely with an invading force just across the river—an invading force of monsters and demons at that—all these fetes and fairs were a waste, if not worse?
Perhaps Lord Hendon is only trying to divert us from our troubles. If so, he had set himself a hard task, because troubles were plentiful. The creatures across the bay had not attacked the keep, but they had certainly cut off all supplies coming to the overfilled castle from the west, and the short, terrifying war had emptied the valleys to the west and south as well, so there were no cattle or sheep being driven in from Marrinswalk and Silverside and no wool or cheese from Settland, only such supplies as could be brought in by ships, which lay crammed in Southmarch harbor like driftwood against a seawall.
Despite all this, the merriment went on. Tonight, to celebrate the first evening of Gestrimadi, the festival in honor of the Mother of the Gods, there would be a public fair in Market Square and here in the castle a great supper and masked fete, with music and dancing.
And yet surely there has not been a darker Dimenemonth since the Twilight folk last marched on us, two hundred years gone?
It was strange, Tinwright thought, that a place as solemn and silent during the day as this should spring to life so feverishly at night, as though the chambers were tombs which discharged their occupants only after sunset, so that they could dance and flirt in imitation of the living.
It was a powerful image, and he thought suddenly that he should write it down. Surely there was a poem in it, the courtiers emerging from their stony dens at nightfall, wearing masks that hid everything but their too-bright eyes... But Hendon Tolly and his circle will not like it, and these days that is a very dangerous thing. Didn’t Lord Nynor disappear after being heard criticizing the Tollys’ rule?
Still, the lure of the idea was strong. He decided that he could write it and keep it hidden until better times, when his foresight would be recognized, and his brilliance (if not his courage) honored.
Poets are not made to be hanged, he reminded himself. They are made to admired. And even if I could only be admired for being hanged, I would choose obscurity, I think. No, he would stay alive. In any case, he had other things to live for, these days... “Oh, most effective, Master Tinwright!” said Puzzle approvingly. Now that he had been picked up by Hendon Tolly’s set, however mockingly, the old jester had developed a loud heartiness to his tone that Tinwright found irritating. Strangely, though, his wrinkled face suddenly crumpled into sadness. “You will captivate many a young heart tonight, that is certain.”
Tinwright looked down at the forest-green hose, which had a disturbing tendency to twist between ankle and crotch so that each leg’s seam looked more like a winding country road than a straight royal thoroughfare. The colors were pleasing, though no real traveling minstrel ever wore such peacockery as this. It was a party costume that had belonged to Puzzle’s dead friend Robben Hulligan, and the old man was actually weeping now to see him in it.
“He was fair of face and shapely of leg, my good old Robben.” Puzzle rubbed his eyes. He had dressed for the masked fete himself in a black mantis’ robe, and it suited him strangely, making his long, dour face seem for the first time to have found its proper setting. “He too loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him.”
Tinwright didn’t say anything. He had heard this Robbentalk before and knew the old man would have his say no matter what Tinwright did.
“He was murdered by bandits, poor fellow,” said Puzzle, shaking his head. Tinwright could have recited the rest of his speech with him, so many times had he heard it. “Taken by Kernios long before his time. Have I told you of him? Sweet singing Robben.”
Tinwright was even thinking of going to the temple for the services, just to avoid the rest of the old man’s maundering, but was saved that ignominious fate by the arrival of a small boy, a page, bearing a message to Puzzle from Hendon Tolly’s squire.
“Ah, it seems I am wanted!” the old man said with a pleasure he could barely contain. “The guardian wishes me to sit with him during the feast, so that I may entertain him.”
The guardian must be trying to keep himself from eating too much, Tinwright thought but of course did not say: he was fond of Puzzle, if a bit tired of spending so much time with him. The old fellow’s recent rise in favor had made him cheerful, but had made him a bit boastful as well, and Matt Tinwright’s more dubious fortunes made it hard sometimes to enjoy his friend’s triumphs. “Does it say anything about me?”
“I fear not,” said Puzzle. “Perhaps you could come with me, though. I could sing my lord one of your songs, and surely...”
Tinwright thought back on the disastrous and humiliating reception he had received the last time he had tagged after Puzzle. That made it much easier to remember something that was true, if not useful to a man in search of advancement: he had decided he truly disliked Hendon Tolly. No, more than that—Tinwright was terrified of him. “Fear not, good friend Puzzle,” he said aloud. “As you pointed out, there are doubtless many fair young faces and firm young bosoms that await my attention tonight. I hope you will have good fortune at the guardian’s table.” He could not help dispensing a little advice, though, since Puzzle these days seemed as innocently smitten of attention as a child. “Be careful of that man Havemore, though. He does not love anyone, and will go to subtle lengths to be cruel.”
“He is a good enough fellow in his way,” said Puzzle, quick to defend any of the wealthy, powerful men who had so unexpectedly taken him up. “When next you come with me, you will see and know him better.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Matt Tinwright under his breath. If Tolly was a predator, Tirnan Havemore was a scavenger, a graveyard dog that would snatch up whatever it could find and hold onto it with stinking jaws. “Be well and be merry, Uncle.”
He waved as Puzzle went out, and then realized he had forgotten to ask him whether Hulligan’s borrowed costume was buttoned correctly in the back. He wished he had a dressing-mirror, but only a rich man—or at least a man who made poems for rich men—could afford such a thing.
Ah, Princess Briony, where did you go? Your poet needs you. At least you appreciated my true quality, if scarcely anyone else did...or does... The castle was strung with parchment lanterns, and in every corner stood little altars to Madi Surazem covered with greenery, with pale hellebore blooms, firethorn, and holly surrounding white candles, each arrangement a silent prayer that the swelling within the belly of Moist Mother Earth would bear forth in another spring of healthy crops.
But what crops? Tinwright thought And who to harvest them? The fairies have laid waste to all the western and northern lands. It was strange that he should be the one fretting about such things. His father had once called him (exaggerating only slightly, Tinwright had to confess) the laziest and most self-centered youth on either side of Brenn’s Bay. Now he watched the courtiers in their masks and finery trip out into the garden and come back in, soaked from the rain and laughing, only to rush out again, and felt like a despairing parent himself. He wondered if his earlier idea, however poetic, might not be wrong: the dead could afford to make merry, having nothing to lose. The people around him seemed more like children, playing games beneath a teetering boulder.
Something bumped him and almost knocked him to the floor. “Sing us a song, minstrel!” shouted a drunken voice.
Swaying in front of him, wearing a mask with an obscenely long nose, was Durstin Crowel, one of Tolly’s closest followers, a red-faced young lord who would have looked more natural, Tinwright thought, on a platter at the center of a banquet with a quince stuffed in his mouth. Crowel stood in the middle of the corridor with four or five of his friends, none of whom looked any better for drink than the Baron of Graylock. He was soaking wet and wearing a dress. “Go on,” Crowel said, pointing an unsteady finger at Tinwright. “Sing something with some
swiving in it!” His companions laughed but they did not move on. They had sensed an edge in Crowel’s tone that meant more interesting things might be coming.
“Go to, then!” one of them shouted. “You heard! Entertain us, minstrel!”
“It is a costume, only,” Tinwright said, backing away. At least they did not seem to have recognized him behind his bird mask. Sometimes it was good to be beneath the notice of the great.
“Ah, but my dagger is real.” Crowel pulled something with a long, slender blade from his bodice—the noble seemed to be dressed as a tavern maid. “To protect my dear virtue, you see...” He paused for the laugh, which his friends dutifully provided, “so I’m afraid you will sing—or I will make you sing.” He belched and his friends laughed again. “Minstrel.”
For a moment it seemed as if it would be easier simply to do it—to mop and mow a little for the benefit of these drunken arsewipes, to play the part and sing a sad song of love and let them mock him. He knew enough of Crowel to know the man had beaten at least one servant to death and crippled another, just in the time he had been living in the Tollys’ wing of the residence—surely it was better simply to give the man what he wanted.
But why should I think they will stop at mockery?
“My lord’s command,” he said aloud, and bent his knee in a bow. “I will be pleased to sing for you...another day.”
Tinwright turned and ran for the residence garden. He was out into the cold rain before Crowel and the others realized what had happened.
This was the part of the plan I didn’t think about as carefully as I might, Tinwright admitted to himself as he huddled soaking wet in the lee of a tall hedge. The wind was chill and sharp as a razor—he thought he could feel his skin beginning to turn to ice. Still, he was not ready to go back inside. He was fairly certain that Graylock hadn’t recognized him, so all he had to do was stay away from them just for tonight. He considered sneaking back to the room he shared with Puzzle, but if he didn’t go back through main halls of the residence he would have a long walk back in the biting, bitter wind.
Better just to wait until they drink themselves to sleep.
In any case, he was feeling more than a little sorry for himself when he realized he had not heard voices or seen movement in the garden for some time.
If they’re not looking for me out here, at least I could find somewhere a little more warm and dry to hide, he thought. He pulled the minstrel’s floppy cap down over his ears again—he had already nearly lost it to the wind several times—and wrapped the thin cape tight around his shoulders, wishing he had picked a more sensible disguise.
I could have been a monk with a hood—or a Vuttish reaver with a fur-lined helmet! But no, I wished to show my legs to the ladies in a minstrel’s hose. Fool.
He found one of the covered arbors at last; it was only when he had thrown himself down on the bench with a loud grunt of despair that he realized someone else was already sitting there.
“Oh! Your pardon, Lady...”
The woman in the dark dress looked up. Her eyes were red —she had been crying. An ivory-colored mask sat on her lap like a temple offering bowl. Tinwright’s heart jumped, and for a moment he could not speak. He leaped to his feet, bowed, then remembered to take off his mask.
“Master Tinwright.” She turned away and lifted her kerchief, drying her tears in a slow, deliberate fashion. Her voice was hard. “You find me at a disadvantage. Have you followed me, sir?”
“No, Lady Elan, I swear. I was only...”
“Wandering in the garden? Enjoying the weather?”
He laughed ruefully. “Yes, as you can see I have quite immersed myself in it. No, I was...well, I must be frank. The Baron of Graylock and some of his friends had taken it into their heads that I should entertain them, and it wasn’t clear how much I should have to suffer for my art.” He shrugged. “I decided that I would entertain them with a game of hide and seek instead.”
“Durstin Crowel?” Her voice grew harder still. “Ah, yes, dear Lord Crowel. Do you know, when I first came here, he asked Hendon if he could have me. ‘I’ll break her for you, Tolly,’ he said—as if I were a horse.”
“You mean he wanted to marry you?”
For the first time she turned to look at him, her face a mask of bitter amusement. “Marry me? Black heart of Kernios, no, he wanted to bed me only.” Her face twisted into something else, something truly disturbing. “He did not know that Hendon had other plans for me. But yes, I know Baron Durstin.” She composed herself, even tried to smile. “Very well, Master Tinwright, you are forgiven for your intrusion. And in fact, you may keep the arbor for yourself and I’ll tell no one where you are. I must go back inside now. Doubtless my lord and master is looking for me.”
She had risen, the mask halfway to her face, when Tinwright at last found the words.
“What is he to you?”
“Who?” She sounded startled. “Do you mean Hendon Tolly? I should think that was obvious, Master Tinwright. He owns me.”
“You are not his wife but his sister-in-law. Will he marry you?”
“Why should he? Why should he pay for a cow whose milk is already his?”
It sickened him to hear her speak so. He took a breath, tried to find calm words. “Does he at least treat you well, my lady?”
She laughed, a cracked, unpleasant sound, and put the white mask to her face so that she seemed a corpse or a ghost. “Oh, he is most attentive.” Her shoulders slumped and she turned away again. “Truly, I must go.”
Tinwright grabbed at the sleeve of her velvet gown. She tried to pull away and something tore. For a moment they both stood, half in, half out of the rain.
“I would kill him for causing you unhappiness,” he said, and realized in that moment it was true. “I would.”
She lowered the mask in surprise. “Gods help us, do not say such things! Do not even go near him. He...you do not know. You cannot guess what evil is in him.”
Tinwright still held her sleeve. “I...would not treat you so, Lady Elan. If you were mine, that is. I would love you. As it is, I think of you day and night.”
She stared at him. Tears welled in her eyes again. “Ah, but you are a boy, Master Tinwright.”
“I am grown!”
“In years. But your heart is still innocent. I am filthy and I would begrime you, too. I would stain you as I myself am stained, corrupted...”
“No. Please, do not say such things!”
“I must go.” She gently pulled free of his grip. “You are kind —you cannot know how kind—to say such things to me. But you must not think of me. I could not bear to have another’s soul on my conscience.”
Before she could turn away again he stepped forward and took her shoulders, felt her trembling. Could it be she had some feelings for him? She looked so startled at his touch, so frightened, as if she expected to be hit, that he did not kiss her mouth, although he wished to at this moment beyond any dream of riches or fame he had ever coveted. Instead he let his hands slide down her arms. As if his fingers stole her vitality where they passed, she let the mask drop clattering to the walkway. He took both her hands in his, lifted them to his lips, and kissed her cold fingers.
“I love you, Lady Elan. I cannot bear to see you, and to know you are in pain.”
Her cheeks were wet, her eyes bright and frightened. “Oh, Master Tinwright, it cannot be.”
“Matthias. My name is Matthias.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then pulled his hands up to her mouth and kissed them in turn. “Would you really help me? Truly?
He was soaking with rain, but he could feel her tears on his hands like streaks of hot lead. “I would do anything—I swear by all the gods. Ask me.”
She turned to look out into the darkness. When she turned back her face was strange. “Then bring me poison. Something that will cause a quick death.”
For a moment Matt Tinwright could not breathe. “You...you would kill Tolly?”
She let go of his hands and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Are you mad? With my sister married to his brother Caradon? The Tollys would destroy her. They would burn my parents’ house to the ground and murder them both. Not to mention that Southmarch Castle would be left in the hands of Crowel and Havemore and others almost as blackhearted as Hendon, but not as clever. The March Kingdoms would be drowned in blood in half a year.” She took a breath. “No. I want the poison for myself.”
She pulled away from him again, bent and picked up her mask. When she stood, she was again a phantom. “If you love me, you will bring me that release. It is the only gift I can ever take from you, sweet Matthias.”
And then she was gone into the rain.
21. The Deathwatch Chamber
Brave Nushash was out riding and saw Suya the Dawnflower, the beautiful daughter of Argal, and instantly knew she must be his. He stopped beside her and held out his hand, and at once she too fell in love with him. Thus it is when the heart speaks louder than the head—even gods must listen. She reached up to him and let the fire god draw her up into the saddle. Together they rode away.
—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
Vansen lay on his face, still trembling, unable to find the strings to make his limbs lift him again and uncertain that he wanted to. The terrible voice that had blasted through his head like a crack of thunder was still echoing, although whether that was inside or outside his skull, or both, he could not have said.
“DO MY WORDS PAIN YOU? OR IS IT THE WAY I SPEAK THEM?”
Vansen whimpered despite himself. He felt as though an ocean wave had picked him up and dashed him onto the rocks. He clung to the floor and wondered if he could hit his head hard enough on the stone flags to kill himself and end this throbbing, agonizing clamor.