Shadowmarch

Qinnitan waited, listening to the silence, then bent to the task of cleaning the blood from the floor, blotting it up with another of her own rags. The thought of reading what Jeddin had to say filled her with a sour dismay Was it some foolish love poem that had almost cost a child his life? Or was it something newer and more dangerous, him ordering her to meet him somewhere, with the same sort of threats he had used to cow Luian into cooperation?

Finished, with the room exactly as it had been before the midnight vis-ltors arrival, she set the lamp on her bedside table and sat cross-legged on the bed, leaning close so she could read.

Beloved, it began. She stared at Jeddin’s precise and surprisingly delicate script. At least he’s left my name off it, she thought, but a moment later the power of that single word reached out and struck her as powerfully as a blow How had things come to this? It was like something out of an old story, that this powerful man should risk both their lives to prove his love, and that another even more powerful man—the mightiest on earth—should have already claimed her as his own.

Me! Me, Qinnttan. It was impossible to compass.

I was a fool to take the risk of meeting you. You were right to tell me so. There is talk. One of my enemies suspects. It must be Vash the chief minister but he can prove nothing.

Dread seized her, so powerful it almost stopped her breath. She did not want to read any more. But she did.

However the day may come when he can act against me despite the favor the autarch all praise to His name has shown me. No it is because of the favor that the Golden One has shown me. He hates me. Vash I mean. As do others here.

I must prepare for a day when things might change. I have my own followers loyal to me but my own safety would mean nothing to me without you. If such a day should come I will send a messenger to you who will speak the sacred name Habbih. And just as the son of the great god went down from the mountains and his enemies and onto the boat that brought him wounded to Xis so we will sail to freedom. In the harbor in a ship near to the Habbih temple there is a small fast ship named Morning Star of Kirous. I did not name it after you my beautiful star. I have had it since I was first lifted to my place over the autarch’s Leopards but when I learned that some in the Seclusion called you by that name it only proved to me that the fates have meant this for us from the first. When you go there show the captain this ring. He will know it and show you all courtesy and when I join you you will see how sweetly that morning star sails.

I hope it will not come to this beloved. I may yet defeat Pinimmon Vash and my other enemies and perhaps find some way that our love can grow under the Golden One’s sunshine. But as the saying goes there is no rest in a viper’s den —not even for vipers.

He had signed his name with a flourish.

Fool, she thought Oh Jeddin, you fool! Had the boy woken up the guards or even her servants, had this fallen into anyone’s hand, she and Jeddin and probably Luian would all be kneeling before the executioner this very moment. The captain of the Leopards was infected with a particularly dangerous sort of madness, Qinnitan thought, one in which he could praise the autarch even as he schemed to rob the ruler of the earth of his chosen bride.

She did not love Jeddin, she knew that, but something in his madness touched her. Beneath that powerful body beat the heart of a child—a sad child, running after the rest but forever too slow. And as a grown man he was handsome in a way she could not ignore, that was also true. Qinnitan caught her breath. Could there be something to it after all? Did she dare to have feelings for him? Was there a way he actually could save her from this horrid place?

She thought about it for only a very short time, then burned the parchment in the lamp’s flame until it was powdery, black ash. But she saved the ring.

32. In This Circle of the World

TEARS:

Laugh and be joyous

Says the wolf

Howl at the sky

—from The Bonefall Oracles

The cold rain was slapping down and Fitters Row was a river of mud. Matty Tinwright stepped gingerly from board to board—some of which, like foundering boats, had sunk into the ooze until only the tip of one end protruded—in a determined effort to keep his shoes clean. His new clothing allowance had not run to wooden clogs, or at least the choice between clogs and the largest, most ostentatious ruff for his collar had been no choice at all as far as he was concerned. More than ever, he was determined to make a good appearance.

One of the boards in mid-street had now disappeared entirely and old Puzzle stood like an allegorical statue of his own name, marooned and peering shortsightedly at the gap in front of him, two full yards of mud as sticky as overboiled marrow. An oxcart was rumbling downhill toward him, filling the road, its drovers making a great clamor as they guided it through the most treacherous spots. Others coming into Fitters Row from Squeak-step Alley— several tradesmen, some soaked apprentices, and more than a few soldiers mustered out of the provinces—now stopped in the shelter beneath the overhanging buildings to watch the unfolding events. The oxcart would not arrive in a hurry, but neither did the ancient jester seem to see it coming.

Tinwright sighed in irritation. He absolutely did not want to go back into the muddy street to drag the man out of danger, but Puzzle was the closest thing to a friend he had these days and he was reluctant to see the old fellow crushed by a wagon.

“Puzzle! The gods damn your shoes, man, come on! That beast will be standing on you in another moment!”

The jester looked up, blinking. Puzzle was dressed in what Tinwright thought of as his civilian attire, funereal dark hose and hooded cloak and a hat whose giant, bedraggled brim made it hard for him to see beyond his own muddy feet. It was a far more comic outfit than his motley could ever be; Tinwright thought the old man should wear it to entertain the nobility.

“Hoy!” shouted Tinwright. The jester seemed to see him at last, then looked around at the approaching oxcart, the irritated animal and its team of cursing drovers so intent on skidding down the muddy street that Puzzle might as well be invisible. He blinked and swallowed, finally understanding his peril. One storklike leg went out, his muck-covered slipper reaching unreasonably for the distant board, then he stepped off and directly into the mud and with a few squeaks and thrashes sank in up to his skinny thighs.

It was fortunate for Puzzle that the oxcart and its drovers were more at tentive than they had seemed. He suffered nothing worse than a further splattering as the cart slewed to a stop a yard or two away. The ox lowered its head and stared at the blinking, mud-slathered jester as though it had never seen such a strange creature.

It was not the entrance that Tinwright had planned, so it was just as well that his old haunt the Quiller’s Mint was dark and crowded and scarcely anyone even glanced up to see them come in. A trio of outland soldiers laughed at the brown shell hardening on Puzzle’s lower extremities, but made a little room for the shivering old man as Tinwright deposited him beside the fire. He snagged the potboy as he ran past—a child of nine or ten had replaced Gil, he noticed, doubtless one of Conary’s multitude of relatives, but young enough not to have become work-shy yet—and bade the boy bring a brush and some rags to get ofFthe worst of the mud. This done, Tinwright sauntered up to the serving table where Conary was breaching a cask. It was a real table now, not just a trestle- board; the poet couldn’t help being impressed and a little irritated. The coming siege had brought some good to someone, as the crowd of unfamiliar drinkers gathered in the Quiller s Mint proved, but it did take a bit of the luster offTin-wright’s own advancement in the world.

Conary’s look was sour, but it took in the huge ruff and the new jacket. “Tinwright, you whoreson, you stole my potboy.”

“Stole him? Not I. Rather, it was him that nearly got me banged up in the stronghold under the keep. But