(Shadowmarch #1) Shadowmarch (99 page)

Her horse stepped nimbly over the corpses of mortals and Qar. Warriors of both armies still beat at each other in small knots across the damp downs. Screams filled the air, along with howls of many of the Changing tribe and the buzzing songs of the Elementals, which to the mortals no doubt sounded even more frightening than the other sounds. In the midst of this confusion her attention lit briefly on one of the giant servitors of Firstdeeps. The creature had killed several mortals despite his own streaming wounds, and was about to dispatch another who lay on the ground at his feet, a youth whom the giant was prodding with his club like a cat playing with a stunned mouse. She was about to turn away when something in the boy’s features and dress arrested her. The giant lifted his dripping cudgel.

“Stop.”

The servitor had never heard her voice, but he knew his mistress. He paused, the great weapon barely trembling, although it had to weigh as much as the trunk of a good-sized tree. The boy looked up as she rode toward him, his eyes bleary, face bloodlessly white. Yasammez was wearing her featureless helm and knew she must look as grotesque to his frightened eyes as the giant itself, her black armor bristling with spikes, Whitefire gleaming in her hand like one of the moon’s rays turned to stone. She lifted her helmet, stared at the momentarily reprieved prisoner. The boy’s eyes, which at first had been empty of anything but terror and a sort of resignation, opened even wider.

Yasammez looked at him. He looked back at her. His jaw worked, but he could not speak.

She extended her hand, spreading her fingers. His surprised, frightened eyes closed and he fell back on the wet grass, limp and senseless.

The Winter’s Eve pageant and its attendant temple rituals had commenced early in the morning, and even though it was not yet noon, already Briony had begun mightily to regret letting Nynor talk her into holding these most unfestive festivities. Rather than such familiar events reassuring everyone as the castellan had suggested, bringing the entire court together merely allowed rumor to travel faster and farther than ever it would have. Rose and Moina had told her that although none would admit it in public, many of the nobles seemed half-inclined to believe the Tollys’ assertion that Briony and Barrick had ordered Gailon killed. The fact that Hendon and the rest of the Tolly supporters had kept themselves away from the gathering only made it worse, made it seem that Briony was cruelly celebrating during their time of mourning.

Where are all those we have supported—where are those whose loyalty we’ve earned time and again? Do they forget what my father did for them, what Kendrick did, what Barrick and I have tried to do even in our short time?
Staring at the people crowded into the great garden, which with its border of tents put up for the pageant had somewhat the look of a military camp, she couldn’t help but believe that those she saw whispering were speaking against her. She knew she dared say nothing herself—to deny such gossip was to give it even more force—and it maddened her.

“I would like to see them all horsewhipped, every disloyal one of them,” she muttered.

“What, Highness?” asked Nynor.

“Nothing. Even on this chilly day, I am stifling in this costume.” She flicked at the confining dress of the Winter Queen that Anissa had worn the year before, the vast white hooped skirt and rock-hard stomacher, all covered with pearly beads like frozen dewdrops. On such short notice even half a dozen seamstresses had not been able to alter it enough to make it fit Briony’s larger frame in a comfortable way. “Is it not time yet for me to finish this foolish pageant? I want to eat.”

“The ceremony is almost over, Highness.” Skilled courtier that he was, Nynor tried to sound apologetic, but he clearly disapproved of her complaints. “In a moment you will . . . ah! There, now go and take what the boy offers. Do you know your speech?”

She rolled her eyes. “Such as it is.” She swept across the yard and stood while little Idrin, Gowan of Helmingsea’s youngest son, handed her a sprig of mistletoe and a posy of dried meadowsweet as he lisped his ceremonial lines about the returning of the sun and the days of bloom to come. He was an attractive child, but his nose was running in a most unflattering way; after she had already clutched it, Briony realized to her dismay that the mistletoe was sticky.

“Yes, good Orphan,” she told the boy, struggling to hold the gifts as she surreptitiously wiped her fingers with her kerchief. “Because of your sacrifice, I will allow the Summer Queen to return and take her throne at the far end of the year. Go now to the gods and be rewarded.”

Little Idrin lay down and died with a great deal of kicking and groaning, but this year the crowd—perhaps superstitious in these days of bad news—was not amused by such antics. They clapped politely, but continued to murmur after the applause had died and the smallest scion of Helmingsea arose from death and returned to his mother’s side, his shepherd’s costume now furred with wet grass.

Briony had just finished dismissing the court so that they might have a rest and a chance to change clothes before the feast began when she noticed Havemore, Avin Brone’s factor, who was standing and waiting for her in a way meant to be both unobtrusive and compelling. She sighed. It was the functionaries of busy men who were usually the most insufferable in their self-esteem.

“What does your master want?” she asked him, letting a little more of her anger show than she had meant to. “He was supposed to be here. If
I
can stomach such things, he can certainly make an appearance.”

“Begging your pardon, Highness,” said Havemore without meeting her eyes, “but Lord Brone wishes to speak to you. Urgently, he says. He humbly requests you to come to the Winter Tower as quickly as your Highness’ convenience will allow.”

She was immediately suspicious. She didn’t know Havemore all that well. He came from Brone’s wealthy fiefdom in Landsend and was known to be ambitious. Could this be some trick to get her alone—some scheme of the Tollys for which they had enlisted the lord constable’s servitor? But even they would not dare anything in the light of day. Briony decided she was letting mistrust get the better of her—she would have her guards with her, after all. It was not the first time Brone had summoned her rather than the other way around. Still, it was irritating and she wondered if the lord constable did not need a reminder about who was the regent and who was not.

“I will come,” she said. “But tell him he must wait until I get this outlandish costume off and something more sensible on.”

 

“What is your name?” she asked the young guard who had insisted on walking before her into the Tower of Winter. It had occurred to her that she knew less about these men who guarded her life than she knew about her horse or her dogs, despite the fact that she had been seeing some of the faces for years.

“Heryn, Princess Briony. Heryn Millward.”

“And where do you come from?”

“Suttler’s Wall, Highness. Just north of Blueshore lands, on the Sandy.”

“And who is your lord?”

He flushed. “You, Highness. We Wall folk owe our fealty direct to Southmarch and the Eddons.” He seemed unsure, perhaps feared he had spoken too much. Certainly the other three guards who had stepped into the antechamber were looking at him as though they were going to make him regret his volubility in the guardroom later. “Most of the royal guards are from Suttler’s Wall or Redtree or one of the other Eddon holdings.”

It only made sense. “But your captain, Vansen, he is not an Eddon vassal by birth.”

“No, Highness. He’s a dalesman, is Captain Vansen . . . but he’s steadfast loyal, Ma’am.”

The sergeant stepped forward. “Is he troubling you, Highness?”

“No, not at all. I asked him a question, he answered.” She looked at the rawboned sergeant, who seemed nervous and irritated.
He does not like having a girl my age on the throne,
she realized.
He’d like to tell me to be quiet and hurry up—that I am keeping that wise old man Brone waiting, not to mention giving this guardsman thoughts above his station.
For once she was more wearily amused by this sort of thing than angered. There were bigger foes and fears just now, after all. “Let us go, then.”

The summons was no Tolly trickery. Avin Brone was waiting for her in the wide room on the third floor, a public room once when the Tower of Winter was a residence, although it was now largely given over to storage. “Highness,” he said, “thank you. Please come with me.”

Masking her irritation, she directed her guards to wait and allowed him to lead her out to the chilly air of the balcony. She looked down and saw a handkerchief with a heel of bread and a few crumbs of cheese on it lying on the boards at her feet. At first she thought Brone himself had carelessly dropped it, but the bread was sodden and gray as though it had lain there a day or two.

“Have you brought me to see where some spy has snuck into the Tower of Winter and dropped his midday meal?”

Brone looked at her for a moment, uncomprehending, then glanced down at the bread on the kerchief and frowned. “That? I care not for that—some workman or guard shirking, nothing more. No, Highness, it is something more fearful I brought you here to see.” He pointed out across the rooftops of the castle, out to the narrow sleeve of Brenn’s Bay and the city beyond. The city was covered in mist, so that only the temple towers and the roofs of the tallest buildings were visible through the murk—a cloak of fog or low-lying cloud that extended out across the fields and downs beyond the city so that most of the land on this side of the hills was invisible. But as she stared at this gloomy though largely unsurprising sight, Briony saw a few bright spots deep in the fog, as though torches and even some bonfires burned there.

“What is it, Lord Brone? I confess I can’t make out much.”

“Do you see the fires, Highness?”

“Yes, I think so. What of it?”

“The city is empty, Highness, the people gone.”

“Not completely, as seems apparent. A few brave or foolish souls have stayed behind.” She should have been afraid for them, but she had come almost to the end of her ability to feel for others, the suffering of displaced and frightened people had now become so universal.

“I might guess the same,” Brone said, “had not this message come this morning.” He pulled a tiny curl of parchment from his purse, held it out to her.

Briony squinted at it for a moment. “It is from Tyne, it says, although I would never think him to write such a small and careful hand.”

“Written by one of his servants, no doubt, but it is indeed from Tyne, Highness. Read it, please.”

Before she had digested more than a few lines she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. “Merciful Zoria!” It was scarcely a whisper, although she felt like screaming it. “What is he saying? That they have been tricked? That the Twilight People have crept past them and are coming down on the castle even now?” She read on, felt a little relieved. “But he says they are going to catch them up—that we must be ready to ride out in support.” She fought down a rising wash of terror. “Oh, my poor Barrick. It says nothing of him!”

“It says at the end to tell you he is safe—or was when this was written.” Brone looked very grim, bristle-bearded and lowering like one of the hoary old gods thrown down by Perin, Thane of Lightnings.

“What do you mean—‘when this was written’?”

“He sent it yester-morning, Highness. I have only just received it, although from what he says of the spot where they were deceived, it cannot be much more than a score of miles outside the city.”

“Then how could they have not caught up to them yet . . . ?” But she was beginning to guess at the terrifying truth.

“The sentries heard noises last evening and into the night, noises they thought came from madmen left behind in the town—clashes of weapons, groans, screams, strange singing and shouting—but faint, as though from behind the city’s closed doors . . . or from far away, in the fields on the city’s far side.”

“What does that mean? Do you think that Barrick and the others have already caught the Twilight People?”

“I think perhaps they have caught up with them, Highness. Briony. And I think perhaps they have failed.”

“Failed . . . ?” She couldn’t make sense of the word. It was a common one, but suddenly it had become cryptic, meaningless.

“Tyne writes of the fog of madness that surrounds the fairy folk. What is that covering the city below? Have you seen a mist like that before, even in winter, that was still forming at midday? And who is lighting fires there?”

Briony wanted to argue with him, to come up with reasons the old man must be wrong, answers that would explain all he had said and more, but for some reason she could not. A cold horror had stolen over her and she could only stare out at the mostly invisible city—separated from the place where she stood by nothing except less than half a mile of water—and the fires that burned in that gray mist like the eyes of animals watching a forest camp.