Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) (9 page)

That did not mean that I wanted to face him. I would be watching him to see what he suspected, and I knew that his eyes would flick over me, looking at my face, my shoulders, my neck, where the pulse beat. He would look for lies, he would try to strip away any deception and see my soul bare.
He would watch me as if I were a courtier: a collection of desires and ambitions, motivations to be puzzled out.

And if anyone could understand why Miriel and I had come back, it would be Temar. He
would never believe any story we told about our disappearance. Whatever others might have thought, he would have known this was a plan of ours. He would have spent these months torn between the surety that we were playing our own game, and worrying, despite himself, that we had been taken against our will. When he saw us alive and well, he would hate us both for the worry he had felt.

And then, for just a moment, I saw Temar’s face in my mind’s eye: his smile, the dark eyes, the way his hair fell; I felt my face flush, and I caught my breath strangely. I missed Temar
—whatever else, whatever fear I held in my heart, I missed him. If I thought only of him like this, the little moments of humor and friendship, I could forget everything else.

I came back to myself, feeling the flush on my skin, and looked over to see Miriel
watching me; she was very still, very quiet. Once, she would have given me a fierce lecture on propriety, on knowing my enemies. Now, she watched me as if even she did not know how to play this, or even what to think, having seen me catch my breath at the thought of our enemy. She was so still, in her fear, that I found myself disquieted.

“What?” I asked,
trying to smile, trying to make a joke of it. I was inviting one of her speeches on being careful. I found that I wanted her to tell me to stop mooning after Temar. But she only shook her head and dropped her gaze away from mine.

“Nothing. Sleep well.” She undressed in silence and slipped under the covers, and as we lay together in the dark, it occurred to me
to ask the question she must have wanted: if she was terrified to face Wilhelm. She had asked, hoping that she might speak of her own fear, so I could tell her that it was unwarranted, and instead of assuring her that Wilhelm remained her ally, I had only sparked doubt in her mind about myself.

“Miriel?” I whispered into the dark. I wanted to tell her not to be afraid, that I still believed that Wilhelm loved her, whatever he had done. I did not think him capable of turning his back on the rebellion.
I waited, propped up on my elbow, for several long minutes. But, although Miriel’s breathing was not the slow, deep breaths of sleep, she did not respond. Eventually, I lay back down, but I stared into the darkness for a very long time before sleep came.

I remembered Miriel telling me that Wilhelm would wait; even then, I thought, she had known he would not, could not. A King could not remain unmarried, not in the wake of such upheaval—he must secure allies, and fast. Miriel would have brought him nothing, and she knew it. But even then,
when a logical mind should have told her that Marie was a good choice, she had not suspected it. Emotion had clouded her reason, and still did: it was beyond belief to her that Wilhelm had married her chief rival.

And while Miriel clung to the rebellion as the last link between
her and the man she loved, Wilhelm had sent only one message, as much an invitation to murder as a true offer of friendship, and there had been no proclamations on the rights of his citizens, no effort to establish the principles of the rebellion in law. What would Miriel think that the thought of seeing him, of showing him the treaty she had written? Once, she could have been sure that he would sign it—now, for I knew her, she would be terrified not only that he had turned his back on his people, but, in a very human way, that she would look a fool. She would be afraid that he would laugh in her face, and tell her that he had never cared for the rebellion, or for her. And then where would she be? Where would any of us be?

Chapter 9

We set out early in the morning,
bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and fearful dreams. Miriel and I avoided each other’s eyes as if to deny that we had ever doubted our mission, or each other, and packed our meager possessions into the saddlebags. After a few moments of indecision, I lifted Miriel’s mattress and pulled out Aron’s dagger. I wrapped it in a scrap of linen and shoved it into my saddlebag, trying not to look at it. I did not want to see it, did not want to think on what it meant—but I knew, also, that if I left it here, I would always wonder if the twin daggers had been a flight of fancy, a trick of my mind. I must bring Aron’s dagger back to Penekket, and hope that my possessions had been carried back without me, so that I could see the two daggers side by side.

As I carried the packs out to where the men waited, Miriel changed into the gown we had chosen for her—rough linen, and dirty. She had been worn pale and thin by her work, and could pass for a woman who had been held captive; but we were taking no chances. We knew that the Duke would never believe our ploy, and so Miriel was doing what she did best: painting a tableau so appealing, so scandalous, that the Court would believe it and the Duke would be forced to play along.

The air was deceptively sweet with birdsong, the day already warming as the first rays of the sun illuminated the eastern sky. The Merchant and Jeram had both insisted that all goodbyes must be said the night before, and so there were no tearful embraces now. There were only the men themselves, some sullen, some hungover, and some with the wide eyes and pale faces of men who have realized that they have signed their lives away. They had spent so many nights sitting in the taverns, shouting that they knew how the country must be governed—now, they were marching to war in defense of the citizens they called their brothers and sisters, and these rebels knew that they might never come back to their fields and their families. If they fell on the battlefield, their bodies would be left and forgotten, far from home.

Jeram would not let us leave so forlornly, and he gave a speech, his voice strong, the pain in his
eyes covered, for a moment, by his passion. At Jeram’s call, the men gave a cheer, half-hearted at first, but growing stronger as they drew courage from each other, and spurred their horses to a trot. For a moment, as the flag with the circle billowed out, I felt my own heart lift. Miriel had been right, and this was right. The rebellion hoped to break down the very framework of Heddred, and if they hoped to bring a better country into being in its place, they must give their own courage to defend the people from invaders. The men believed it as well. As we trotted along country roads toward the town, a few men called out cheers, and the others responded with roars of approval.

Their attempt at good humor might have held, and been forged, by fear and necessity and patriotism, into determination, but for what we saw in the town. There was no bustle of morning activity, no sweet scent of bread baking, no calls of the vendors. Instead, the people lined the streets in utter silence, women and children, the old, the lame, all watching us with shadowed eyes. They held their hands up for us in farewell, and they marked our faces.

With a shudder, I realized that they were grieving. No matter what I had known of war, no matter what fear I had seen in the men’s faces in the past days, I had not understood it until I saw my own death written in the eyes of these townspeople. And, to pair with the fear that now chilled me, named amongst the dead, I felt an overwhelming wave of guilt. The blacksmiths, the farmers, the cobblers and bakers and millers: all of them were coming with us, at our insistence, and there would be a town bereft of fathers and brothers and sons.

And the guilt only deepened, for this—this—was what Garad had fought so hard to prevent. As Miriel railed at him for his stupidity and his short-sightedness, as we both believed that his Golden Age was more a childish dream than a reality, and that he should devote himself to the rebellion Miriel held so dear, Garad had been devoting himself to peace. Somehow,
he must have known this grief in his heart, understood the cost in lives. He had been cruel, and short-sighted, indeed, and yet we had never given him his due.

I looked over to my lady, and saw her looking down at her hands on the reins, biting her lip. Miriel was not the confident beauty she had been even a few moments before
, radiant in the sunshine and riding to her glory. She, too, felt the weight of guilt, and—I remembered our whispered conversation from the night before—she was terribly afraid, now, that she had led these people on a suicide march for nothing. She was afraid that they would lay down their lives and be granted no rights in return.

It was a miserable day. The men rode through the pristine, blooming countryside as if they were dead already; no one spoke, and there were no smiles, and no cheers. I edged my horse close to Miriel’s, to ride at her right hand in case she should need anything from me, and smiled half-heartedly at the memory of learning to do this four years ago
as we first rode to Penekket, struggling to control my horse and hating Miriel, knowing nothing of what the future held for me.

And there had been no way to know. Even if I had not been so willfully blind, even if Temar had told me everything that he knew,
I would have been just as ignorant of what was to come. For who could have known that the world would go topsy-turvy, that my greatest enemy in the world would now ride at my side as my only ally? Who could have foreseen that I would have run away to join an uprising, and that at the behest of a noblewoman?

Darker than that, who could have known that a peasant woman’s mutterings were a true prophecy, and that I would be betrayed time and again? Miriel’s words, her true belief that my fate was tied to more than my own self, had awoken both hope and fear in my heart. Hope—that this might have a greater, better purpose. Fear—that this was somehow beyond me entirely, on another scale from my life, part of a greater pattern.

For what could be more terrifying than believing that the Gods had a purpose for me? Those whom the Gods had chosen had a hard road to walk, everyone knew that. And it did not matter how often I had wondered these things myself in the darkness, or been told them by Roine. She was always talking of the old ways, of honoring fate and the Gods, and I—I was just another human, with fears and thoughts, and nightmares that disturbed my sleep. Miriel’s calm acceptance of the prophecy was another thing; this was not dreamy words in the dark, but the clear-eyed belief of a young woman who had seen death, and betrayal of her own. Miriel, so quick, so bright, so relentlessly logical, believed the prophecy my mother had made. I was afraid of that.

I was surprised to see her grow more confident as the roads widened and we approached the outlying towns. When, before, we had traveled to Penekket, or the mountains, or the Meeting of the Peacemakers, Miriel had seemed to curl inside herself. She had disappeared behind her mask, and her eyes had gone blank. I could not understand the sense of purpose I saw in her eyes until I realized that now, at last, Miriel was riding back to Court of her own free will, to fulfill her own purpose. She was no longer in a cage.

Even purpose and free will could not stave off fear, of course, but Miriel bore it well. She was attentive to the rebel soldiers, visiting each campfire at night with Jeram and the Merchant, offering kind assurances to the men and taking the time to converse with any who might wish to speak with her. She was proud to sleep in a tent, on a bedroll, as they did; at last, I understood that when I had hated her, on our first journey together, for the luxury of her wagon and her warm bed, she had known. She had seen derision in the eyes of the guards who rode with her, she had known envy and malice from us all. And so she made no complaint of the aches and pains she had in the morning, smiling cheerfully and drinking the awful camp tea we made without a grimace.

“You know that the men would be pleased enough to coddle you,” I said to her one day. The misery of the march had eased a bit, and now there were a few murmured conversations between the men. It was enough to cover our own words, but I was glad enough simply to have noise. In grim silence, it was difficult to keep my mind away from its dark thoughts.

Miriel looked over at me, one eyebrow raised, and I smiled at her. “You’re a figurehead,” I explained to her. At her instant denial, I shook my head. “No, not just that. You wrote their treaty, they know that. But you’re pretty, and nobly-born, and gently-spoken. They’re glad to know you’re on their side. They want to hold you up.” For a moment, the calm mask slipped away.

“They’re going to die because of something I said,” Miriel said bleakly.
“While I’m going to the palace.” The love of the soldiers gave her no comfort.

“They made their choice just like you did,” I said bracingly. It was the only thought that had kept me from going mad, in the first few days of the march.
Any one of these men had had the chance to walk away.

“They’re in more danger than I am,” she said stubbornly.

“They know who their enemies are,” I countered, after a pause. “If you want me to teach you to cut horses loose and ruin grain stores, I can do that, but if it’s guilt you’re feeling, you must know that you are going into danger, too. Do you think Guy de la Marque will be pleased to see you, or Gerald Conradine? Do you think that your uncle will accept us back without asking questions?” When she hesitated, I added, “And you’re the only one who can get Wilhelm to sign this. We have to go back to Court, or they’ll lay down their lives and no one will ever know of the treaty. True?”

“True,” she said finally. And, with a flash of humor, “Maybe we can ride out with the army, afterwards.”

“A fine sight you’d make with a broadsword.” I was laughing. “Donnett showed me one once, and it was taller than you are.” She giggled, and relaxed a bit, looking out over the fields of wheat and barley that lined the roads.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked at length. “Really, Catwin.” I paused. I had
tried very hard not to give myself time to doubt; I had tried to learn from Miriel’s unflagging hope.

“You said that maybe my fate was larger than just me,” I said finally. “That it was tied to the rebellion. Think about what we’ve done together—we found the leader of the rebellion, when no one else could. You would have turned the King into our ally, if he had lived.” I swallowed down guilt and went on. “And then we ran away—we’re two girls, we were only surviving before, but we made something more of it. Jacces only ever wrote letters;
you
inspired these men to ask for something more for themselves, not just sit in taverns and drink and complain.”

“And so?” Her brow was furrowed.

“And so I can’t believe we’ve come so far, just to fail now.”

“That would certainly be unfortunate,” she said drily. She saw my frown and shrugged. “Yes, I see what you mean. I’m just…”

“Afraid?” I suggested, and she nodded, wordlessly, and she smiled, but I could see tears trembling on her lashes.

“I know it doesn’t help,” she admitted, wiping her eyes.

“It lets you know you’re not insane.”

“Catwin, we’re going back to Court. We’re crazy.” At last, I laughed, and she smiled. “And so are the
courtiers, if they think we’re telling the truth,” she added.

“It’s not a bad story,” I protested. I was proud of it, our great ploy: we had been captured, to be used as surety if the King tried to send troops against the rebels. I had freed Miriel, and the two of us had escaped, making our way north to the city, where we would be properly shocked to learn that the rumors of an Ismiri invasion were true. We had prepared and practiced answers to all of the questions we were sure the Duke would ask us: Why did they not send a ransom note? What town were you kept in? What were the names of your captors? Did they hurt you? Are you sure you’re not lying, Catwin?

“It’s suspicious,” Miriel said.

“But plausible.”

“But plausible,” she agreed. She drew a deep breath. “We should split off tomorrow. Are you ready?”

“I am.”