Shadowmarch

And we are not even truly at war. Not yet, He had a sudden chill of presentiment, What will it be like when things begin to go bad?

And where will the gods be then?

* * *

The noise of hammers was almost deafening, as though a flock of monstrous woodpeckers had descended on Southmarch Castle Men clambered on every wall and tower, it seemed, putting up wooden boardings against the possibility of a siege. After the torpor that had gripped the castle in the past months, it was almost a relief to see so much activity, but Briony knew this was no mere attack from a neighboring kingdom against which they must defend themselves. The March Kingdoms were at war with a completely unknown and perhaps unknowable enemy When the men on the walls and towers looked out toward the still innocent western horizon, and they looked often, the fear on their faces was plain even from the ground Not only the workers found their attention compromised the princess regent was so busy watching the work that she stumbled into a low boxwood hedge Rose and Moina hurried forward to help her, but she shook them off, murmuring angrily.

“These cursed hedges! How can a person even walk?” Sister Utta appeared in one of the gallery archways. Despite the cool gray skies she wore only a light wrap over her plain gown. A wimple of the same color covered her hair, so that her handsome face seemed almost to hang in the air like a mask on a wall. “It would be hard to make a knot garden without hedges,” the Zorian sister said gently. “I hope you haven’t hurt yourself, Highness.”

“I’m well, I suppose.” Briony rubbed at her lower leg. She had discovered one of the disadvantages of wearing hose like a man—there was nothing to protect your shins from pokes and bumps.

Utta seemed to know what the princess regent was thinking; in any case, she smiled. “It was kind of you to visit me.”

“Not kind. I’m miserable. I have no one to talk to.” She looked up in time to catch the hurt glance that jumped from Moina to Rose. “No one but these two,” she said hastily, “and I have complained to them so much that they are surely tired of hearing my voice.”

“Never, Highness!” Rose said it in such a clattering hurry to make her feel better that Briony almost laughed. Now she knew that they were tired of listening to her.

“We worry for you, Briony, that’s all,” Moina agreed, and by forgetting to use her mistress’ title she proved that she was speaking the truth.

They are good and kind, these girls, she thought, and for a moment felt herself old enough to be their grown sister, even their mother, although small, yellow-haired Rose was her own age and dark Moina almost a full year her elder.

“How is your great-aunt?” asked Utta.

“Merolanna? Feeling better. With these musters of soldiers marching in and all these guests in the castle, she is in her element—like a sea captain in a storm. She’s been looking in on my stepmother, too, since Anissa’s time is close and Chaven has seen fit to disappear.” It was hard for Briony to keep her anger at the physician to a polite growl. Finished brushing the bits of boxwood off her hose and the bottom of her tunic, she straightened up. The smell of hyssop and especially lavender were strong here despite the cold breeze off the bay, but they were not soothing. She wondered if anything would soothe her. “And you, Sister—are you well?”

“My joints are sore—it always happens when the wind freshens. If you wish to go in out of the garden, I will not complain.”

“I can barely hear you with all this clattering, anyway, and it won’t be better anywhere else out of doors. Where shall we go?”

“I was about to go to the shrine and make an offering for the safety of your brother and the rest. It is quiet there. What do you think?”

“I think that would be lovely,” Briony told her. “Rose, Moina—stop making eyes at those men on the wall and come along.”

The castle’s Zorian shrine had none of the ostentation of the Erivor Chapel, let alone the huge and grand Trigonate temple. Little more than a single large room, it stood in a corner of the keep near the residence, just below the Tower of Summer. The altar was simple and only one small stained-glass window brought in the daylight, a rendition crafted in the previous century of Zona with her arms outstretched and seabirds landing on her hands and flying about her head. It was a strangely beautiful picture, Briony had always thought, and even in today’s poor sunlight the colors glowed. The shrine was empty, although Briony knew that an older Zorian priestess and at least two or three young novices lived in the apartment beside the chapel. They were Utta’s friends—her family, really, since her true kin were far away in theVuttish Isles and far in the past as well.

“When did you last see any of your family?” she asked her tutor. “Your blood family.” Utta appeared startled by the question. “My brother visited me here once some years ago. Before that—oh, my, Princess Briony, I have not seen any of them since I joined the Sisters.”

Which must have been thirty years or more, Briony guessed. “Don’t you miss them?”

“I miss the time when I was young. I miss the sense of being in that house, on that island, and feeling that it was the center of the whole world. I miss how I felt about my mother then, although later I came to feel differently.” She bowed her head for a moment. “Yes, I do, I suppose.”

Briony thought it strange to have to consider whether or not you missed your family. She hid her puzzlement in the act of choosing and lighting a candle and setting it on the altar before the statue of Zoria.This version of the goddess was much more staid than the one in the colorful window; her arms hung at her side and her eyes were cast down as though she looked at her own feet, but there was a faint smile on her lips that Briony had always liked, the smile of a woman who kept her own counsel. Moina and Rose came forward and lit candles also, although they both seemed a little confused and made the three-fingered sign of the Trigon over their breasts as they set the candles down. They were doing their best, Briony reminded herself, fighting annoyance: they were both girls from country families and had barely been exposed to Zoria’s worship or sisterhood at all until coming to live in Southmarch castle.

Merciful Zoria, robed in wisdom, bring my brother Barrick home safe, Briony prayed. Bring them all back safe, even Guard Captain Vansen. He is not such a bad man. And help me do what is best for Southmarch and her people. She looked up, hoping to see something in Zoria’s face that would tell her the goddess had heard her and would honor her request (she was the princess regent, after all—didn’t that count for something?) but the serene features of Perin’s virgin daughter were unchanged.

She suddenly remembered. And bring Father home safe again from Hierosol. She had prayed for that thing every day, but today she had almost forgotten. A quick chill moved over her. Did it mean anything? Was a god whispering to her, trying to tell her something had happened to him? Could it be her fault—had she shown too much pride in her own abilities as ruler of Southmarch?

“I hoped this place would bring you some peace, Princess,” said her tutor. “But you look troubled.” “Oh, Utta, how could I look otherwise?”

* * *

Brother and sister were silent as they rode down the causeway across Brenn’s Bay toward the great field where the mustered soldiers had been quartered, a swath of harvested land an hour’s ride distant, at the southernmost edge of Avin Brone’s fiefdom of Landsend. The day was cold and clear but the wind was rising. It wrapped the new cloak Merolanna had embroidered for him around Barrick’s neck in a strangler’s grip. He grunted as he used his crippled arm to free himself, but still did not speak. He knew Briony wanted him to, but he did not want to hear what she would say in turn. He had heard it enough times already.

From the center of the causeway they could see that the low-tide shallows and mud flats at the base of the castle mount were full of workers— almost another army, it seemed, swarming above the mud on makeshift platforms. They had demolished the ramshackle market town before the gate, and now were pulling apart the stones of the causeway itself beneath the castle walls, preparing to replace it with a wooden bridge that could be torn down in moments, thus completely cutting the castle off from the land and forcing any invader to ride over sucking mud with water up to the horses’ necks, or else find a way to get boats across the bay’s tricky currents under fire from the walls when the tide came back in. Little wonder, Barrick reflected, that Envor of the Dark Seas had always been held the special patron of the Eddons. Who else but the sea god had given them this almost unconquerable vantage? Briony and the others will be safe here no matter what, he thought.