She gave him a look. “Why is it everyone seems to think I must be looked after like a child?”
“Because like doting parents, we none of us have anything else so precious and dare not risk it.” Dawet was pleased with himself. Vansen found himself wondering when this smooth, dangerous fellow would move on to cause trouble in some other kingdom. For him, it could not be soon enough.
Vansen was startled to find Aesi’uah standing beside him. She had appeared as if from nowhere, and her coven stood with her, faces hidden in their hoods; everyone else on the guildhall platform seemed happy to give them a wide berth. “Princess Briony,” the eremite said, “I beg your pardon for interrupting. I bring a message from your brother.”
“Really?” Briony’s voice was cool. “Surely it is not so far to your camp that he couldn’t come himself.”
“Do you wish to hear the message?”
The princess flicked her hand. “I suppose.”
“He wishes you to know that we are leaving tomorrow. The survivors of the People will go back to Qul-na-Qar. But he said he would like to speak to you one last time, if you will come to bid him farewell.”
“Where?” Briony looked angry, but there was something else in her face that Vansen could not quite understand.
“Where the two of you said good-bye the last time he left.” She brought her hands together on her breast. “The Coast Road at sunset. If you cannot come so far he will understand ...”
“I will be there.” Briony turned from her as though the Qar woman had ceased to exist. “Come, Captain Vansen, round up your men. Nynor, you may tell the castle folk that we are going back now.” She smiled, but it was the merest tightening of her lips. “We have given them all something to talk about today, haven’t we?”
Nynor shook his head and sighed. “Oh, Highness, you certainly have. You are your father’s daughter, true enough.”
Rain had swept through in the morning but by the time Sister Utta was on her way back from the shrine, the skies had cleared to a blue just barely streaked with clouds. With the help of a few royal guards loaned to her by their handsome but reticent captain, she had set most of the worst damage to right, although the mosaics had been rattled to pieces by cannon fire and spread across the floor of the shrine. Separating and reassembling them would require months of careful work. Still, it was a grand feeling to be doing something useful, and especially to be doing something useful with Zoria’s place of worship. After the events of the last months, Utta felt closer to her patroness than ever.
In fact, she thought as she made her way to Merolanna’s apartments, why settle for just rebuilding the old shrine, which had always been small? Why not build a new one better able to serve the castle’s populace? A bigger shrine could bring in more tithes, which would allow her to help some of the folk made homeless or destitute by these long seasons of war.
Utta was so caught up with these new ideas that she did not immediately notice the boy sitting on the bench in Merolanna’s antechamber like a young scholar banished from the classroom to consider his sins.
“Oh!” She took a step back when she finally saw him. He was a young boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, with hair of so pale a yellow that in the dark room it seemed white. His clothes made her think for a moment that she was looking at one of the Funderlings; his face though, despite its solemnity, was that of a child. “Hello,” she said, recovering a little. “The blessings of the Three on you, and the good grace of Zoria.”
He slid from the bench and stood up. “Blessings to you, Sister Utta. I need to leave now, but I wanted to say something to you before I went.”
The child was odd, although she could not say exactly why, but there was something so compelling about him that she did not back away again even when he came to her and took her hand. “Please, look after Merolanna. She is important to me and she will be sad when she finds I’ve gone. She doesn’t have much longer—I fear she will be called onward before spring comes again—so I think the task will not be too much for you.” As she stared at him in amazement and more than a little disquiet, the boy squeezed her hand. His eyes were as blue as a clear spring sky. “I must go to the stable now.” He continued without explaining. “You have many years still, Sister, so you need not worry that your kindness to Merolanna will cheat you of your ambitions. I can tell you that you will bring many, many hearts to my mother’s service in the days ahead.”
With these words still ringing in her head, the child let go of Utta’s hand and walked out of the dowager duchess’ apartments.
“Oh, what a morning!” Merolanna said when Utta came to her bedside. “My son came to me! Here in my room! I wish you could have seen him!”
Utta could think of nothing she trusted herself to say, except, “That must have been a blessing.”
“A blessing, yes, that is just the word. He came to me and told me so many wonderful things that he will show me one day! I can scarcely wait.”
Utta looked at the old woman’s smile for a long moment, then turned away to dab discreetly at her eyes. “All things come in the gods’ time.”
“You sound as if you don’t think he’ll be back soon,” the duchess said, “but he had better not dawdle. After all, it is my coach and driver he’s taken!” Merolanna arranged her cushions and sat back, then reached out for Utta’s hand. “But until then, dear friend, sit with me for an hour, if you would be so kind. What is the weather like today? Is it truly summer at last?”
Utta let herself be pulled down into the chair, her thoughts skittering like mice. “Summer? Oh, yes, I . . . I think so, Duchess. It is not overly warm today, but the sky is bright and big ...”
“She is guilty of murder. More importantly, she is guilty of conniving at the death of a ruling prince. You cannot let her live, Princess.”
Rose was fussing with a loose ribbon on her stomacher and it was beginning to annoy Briony severely. She waved the young woman away. “Master Dan-Faar, this is my stepmother we are talking about—my father’s widow. It is nothing so simple as you make it sound.”
“It is just as simple as that. If there is discontent with your rule, Anissa will become the center of all resistance—she’s the baby’s mother, after all. “Put King Olin’s son on the throne!” they will say. “We need a king!”
“As opposed to a queen?” Briony asked. “You do not know the history of my folk as well as you think you do, Dawet. ...”
“Yes, we all have heard of Queen Lily, pride of the Eddons, yes, yes.” He laughed in that infuriating way he had, as if everyone else’s thoughts had already occurred to him, been considered, then dismissed. “But that was long ago and nobody dared speak against Anglin’s blood. Times have changed, Highness. The world has turned topsy-turvy, especially here in Southmarch, and nobody will ever again feel quite so certain about what is important and what is not.”
Briony shook her head. “Not all you say is wrong, Master Dan-Faar, but I am not you, this is not Tuan or any other Xandian satrapy, and we do not kill our relatives.”
“Any prince would execute a relative who has already tried to kill him. We are not so uncivilized in the south as you think us, Princess.”
She felt herself caught out. “I meant no offense, Dawet.”
He made a little bow. “I know, Highness. But the facts remain.”
“Enough. Tell me of something else. What of the Xixians? Did the last of them take ship this afternoon?”
“They did—the new Autarch Prusus and the minister and the remainder of the Leopard guards. They sailed in a Helmingsea coastal trader, so they will have a slow journey home.” He grinned. “It was quite satisfying to watch, actually—what remains of the great Xixian army forced to hire ships and slink away. Perhaps someday my own country will joy in such a sight.”
“Perhaps. And Prince Eneas?”
“He and his men are set to begin their own journey home tomorrow. As you know, his father is ill and he is needed at home.”
“Poisoned by
the bitch Ananka, I have no doubt. I hope Eneas can put things right there. Meanwhile, we will miss him. I will miss him.” She sighed. “I am glad you are here, Master Dan-Faar. In a time when so much else is in doubt, you have been a good adviser and a good friend. I am grateful.”
“I am happy to take your gold, Princess,” he said, still smiling. “I assure you, my helpfulness is mostly mercenary.”
She laughed. “Oh, yes, you are a famous villain, are you not? I had forgotten.” Her brightened mood was short-lived. “I will never forget that . . . that you brought Shaso home. I know you were enemies in life, Dawet.”
He shrugged. “In the end, I could not forget that he and I shared something important—a love and admiration for the same young woman.”
“Ah.” Briony nodded wisely. “Shaso’s daughter—the one who died. Of course.”
Dawet seemed surprised but did his best not to show it. “Ah. Yes, her. Of course.”
52
The Crooked Piece
“... And so the Orphan boy was taken up to heaven to live with the gods, where he lives still ...”
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
VANSEN RODE AS FAR FROM THEM as he decently could, but wished Briony had not insisted he come along. Just the kindness and intimacy with which she spoke to Eneas, the obvious fact of her admiration for the Syannese prince, pained him.
“Do not take them yet,” he heard her beg Eneas. “Let me thank them again.”
He frowned. “They are soldiers, Princess. They do not expect to be thanked for what it was their honor to perform.”
“Most men like to be praised when it is well deserved. I think your soldiers will not think too ill of me if I speak again of their bravery and sacrifice.” She rode to the spot where Lord Helkis, Eneas’ lieutenant, had assembled the troops at the crossing of the broad Coast Road. “Men of Syan!” she called. “I have been fortunate enough to ride with you. I count my pride at being allowed to ride as a Temple Dog as second only to the blood of Anglin running in my veins . . . !”
“She will give everything she has to this country of yours,” Eneas said, watching the rapt soldiers. It took Ferras Vansen a moment to realize the prince was speaking to him. “Someone must watch over her. Protect her.”
Vansen felt a moment of resentment. “We have soldiers in this country, too, Prince Eneas.”
The prince laughed and turned toward him. “Did I say that aloud? My apologies, Captain. I meant no slight on you or the men of Southmarch—I only spoke what was in my heart. I knew I would never hold her, never tame her. She is too noble and singular a creature.”
“She is not a creature, Your Highness.” Vansen knew it was foolish to argue with a prince, but something more primal was going on beneath the words and he could not easily let go of it, either. “But we will agree that she is singular.”
“Fairly spoken!” Oddly, the prince did not seem to take offense. “I meant only that her . . . determination is such a pure thing. Like a bird’s need to fly ...”
A great cheer went up, although it faded quickly beside the open, windy road. Several of the Temple Dogs were waving their swords and standards in the air, crowding around Briony to call their farewells, all semblance of military order gone. But men are so few and the world is so big, thought Vansen, looking from the knot of soldiers and mounted men to the empty hills. How will we live without the gods?
Fool, he chided himself a moment later. We have exactly as much of the gods as we have always had.
When Prince Eneas and the others had at last turned south toward their homeland, Briony rode with her retinue back through the mainland city, as empty and haunted as the places Vansen had seen on Northmarch Road that day so long ago, when he rode with Collum Dyer and the poor merchant lad, Raemon Beck.
“I go to meet my brother now,” Briony told him. “There is much for you to do back home and Sergeant Dawley can look after me.”
Young Dab Dawley, Vansen knew, was nearly as enthralled with the princess as was Ferras Vansen himself, and had no love for the Qar. Vansen had no doubt he would look after her carefully, but that was not his only concern. “No,” he said. “You may dismiss me, of course, Highness, but if you will permit me, I would like to see your brother once more. We traveled together for a long time.”
“What happened to him behind the Shadowline, dear Captain?”
He shook his head in frustration. “I cannot tell you, not truly. When I saw him last in Greatdeeps he had not changed much from what you knew. A little harder, perhaps. A little quieter. Becoming a man, I would say, because he wouldn’t have survived that terrible place any other way.” The sun was dropping down toward the tops of the western hills as they rode up Market Road toward the Coast Road crossing just outside the city. “Then Gyir, the fairy I’ve told you about, gave him a commission to take a mirror from Yasammez to the king of the Qar. I am still not entirely certain why, but it was meant to wake Saqri the queen, so he must have succeeded.” He shrugged. “The next time I saw him was a few hours before you did. It was like meeting another person.”
“Not entirely.” She shielded her eyes against the sun as she looked up the road. “He was always full of secrets. It is just like him to wish to meet me out here, away from everyone else. When we were young we used to hide from our family and servants—or at least Barrick would. But I always found him.” She looked so sad that Ferras Vansen almost pulled her to him and kissed her, despite the presence of all her guards and grooms and pages. “We would hide from the world together. I suppose that is what most galls me. Again, he runs away to hide, but this time I cannot go. Someone has to stay. Someone has to play the ruler.”
The sun was very low, but the crossroad was still empty. At Vansen’s insistence a tent had been erected so that the princess could rest out of the sun and the wind while she waited for her brother, and she was there taking a cup of wine and thinking her own silent thoughts when the scouts brought the news that someone was approaching. It was not the army of fairies Vansen had expected, but a single two-horse carriage that was rattling toward them along the rutted road.
If Vansen was surprised by the vehicle, which bore the crest of the late Duke Daman, King Olin’s brother, and a coachman in full livery, he was even more surprised by the passengers who clambered down its narrow folding steps when it stopped—the Funderlings, Chert and Opal, followed by their adoptive child Flint.
“Master Blue Quartz!” Vansen said in astonishment. “What are you doing here, so far from Funderling Town?”
Chert did not speak until he was certain Opal’s feet were safely on the ground. “I am not certain myself, Captain Vansen. It is all our son’s idea—our son and Duchess Merolanna, whose cart this is.”
“Good excuse to take it out of the stable, sir,” said the coachman cheerfully.
“Did you come to see the princess?” Vansen asked. “Or to say farewell to Prince Barrick?”
Chert shook his head and pointed to Flint, who was already leading Opal toward Briony’s tent. “You’ll have to speak to the boy. I know it sounds foolish, but I promised I would ask no more questions until he was ready to explain.”
Vansen knew the boy’s history, so he was not surprised that Chert had been forced to come along, if only because Opal would have insisted. But why the strange child wanted to bring them here of all places, and just at this time, he couldn’t understand.
By the time Vansen led Chert into the tent, Opal and Flint were sitting on cushions at Briony’s feet. Chert reluctantly allowed himself to be convinced to sit beside them, but Vansen chose to stand beside the door flap so he could hear what was going on outside. He had no fear of Chert and his Funderling family, but he did not much like the notion of more unexpected arrivals.
“Well, Mistress Opal,” Briony said, “we have not met before, but you must know that your husband means much to me. He likely saved my life.”
Opal colored a little. “Wel
l, he’s always up to something, my Chert. It’s a bit much for me to keep up with it all, sometimes.”
“It has been difficult for all of us lately,” Briony said. “These have been confusing, sorrowful times. But if I am not mistaken, we may learn a little more today about some of the mysteries that have plagued us.”
“Not from me!” Opal said breathlessly. “Goodness, no, I don’t think so ...!”
Briony turned toward the boy. “You have flitted in and out through many of the tales I have been told in the last few days, young Master Flint. Is it time now to talk about you? It is plain enough that whatever your relationship with Chert and Opal, you are not a Funderling by birth.”
“That is true, Briony Eddon,” the boy said gravely.
Vansen was a little shocked. “Lad, it is polite to address the princess as ‘Highness’ or ‘Your Royal Highness ...’”
Briony lifted her hand. “Generally that is true, Captain. But I suspect we are facing something a bit different than the ordinary here.”
The boy nodded. “I’m not Chert and Opal’s child, that is commonly known.” Watching the boy speak, Vansen felt the hackles lift on his neck and arms. He did not act like any child Vansen had ever known. Flint was not even acting much like himself—surely the child never spoke this formally when Vansen had seen him before.
“Where were you born, then?” Briony asked.
“Here in Southmarch . . . but it was a long time ago, as you measure it. Fifty years and more.” The boy nodded. “Merolanna is my mother. My father is Avin Brone, count of Landsend.”
Through everything that had happened, Vansen had never seen Briony truly astonished . . . until now.
“Avin Brone?” she cried. “Avin Brone was your father? He was Merolanna’s secret lover? But she said the child’s father was dead!” Her eyes narrowed. “And whatever else you may be, you are no comfortable old man of fifty years . . . !”