Shadowmarch

conundrum. “Both of you. But you must see what we do, that justice is done.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Briony. The man Vansen, the captain of the guards, was standing behind the lord constable. He had bloody scratches on his face, and for a moment she felt a twinge of shame, thinking of how she had attacked him. But he is the one who is ahve, and my brother is murdered, she thought, and the feeling evaporated. He did not meet her eye, which made it easier to ignore him.

“I am talking about the knife that made the wounds on your brother and his guards, Princess.” Brone turned at a clattering noise. A troop of guards entered the corridor and stopped at the end, waiting. “Tell them about it, Captain Vansen.”

The man still could not look her in the face. “It was curved,” he said quietly. “The physician Chaven saw that when he looked at… at the wounds. A curved dagger.”

Brone waited for him to say more, then grunted with impatience and turned to the twins. “A Tuani dagger, Highnesses.”

It took a moment for Briony to make out what he was saying, then the mocking, handsome face of the envoy came rushing into her mind. “That man Dawat… !” She would see him skinned. Burned alive.

“No,” said Brone. “He did not leave his chambers all night. Nor did any of his entourage We had guards watching them.”

“Then… then what?” said Briony, but a moment later she began to understand.

“Shaso?” Barrick’s voice was strange, tight, full of both fear and a kind of weird exhilaration. “Are you saying that Shaso killed our brother?”

“We do not know for certain,” the lord constable said. “We must go and confront him. But he is a promoted peer of Southmarch, an honored friend of your father’s We need you two to be there.”

As Brone led them down the hall toward the armory, the troop of guards fell in behind them, faces hard, eyes shadowed beneath their helmets. The hierarch and Merolanna did not accompany them, heading for the family chapel to pray instead.

What is going on? Briony wondered Has everything in the world turned upside down at once? Shaso? It could not be true—someone must have stolen the old man’s dagger In fact, why must it have even been Shaso’s dagger? She found it hard to disbelieve Chaven, but surely there were other explanations—there must be dozens of Tuam weapons available in the waterside markets. But when she whispered this to Barrick, he only shook his head. As if he had cried out all his brotherly feeling with his tears, he barely looked at her.

Merciful Zorta, will he turn into another Kendrick now? Will he send me to Ludis because it’s best for the whole kingdom? Her skin was needled by a sudden chill.

Three guards waited in the armory outside the door of Shaso’s chamber. “He has not left,” said one of them, looking at empty air as he talked, clearly confused as to whether to speak directly to the lord constable or his captain, Vansen. “But we have heard strange noises. And the door is bolted.”

“Break it down,” said Brone, then turned to the twins. “Stand back, if you please, Highnesses.” A half dozen kicks from booted feet and the bolt splintered away from the inside. The door swung in. The guards stepped through with halberds extended, then quickly stepped back again. A dark shape appeared in the opening like a monstrous spirit summoned from the netherworld.

“Kill me then,” it growled, but the voice was strangely liquid. For a moment Briony thought that Shaso had indeed been invested by some kind of demon, one which had not learned to use its usurped body properly, for the master of arms was swaying in the doorway, unable to stand upright. “I suppose I am… a traito.r So kill me. If you can.” “He’s drunk,” Barrick said slowly, as though this was the biggest surprise the night had produced. “Take him,” Avin Brone called. “But ‘ware—he is dangerous.”

Briony could not make herself believe it. “Don’t hurt him! Alive! He must be taken alive!”

The guards moved forward, jabbing with the pike ends of their halberds, forcing the dark-skinned man out of the doorway and back into his chamber. Briony could see that the room was in disarray behind him, the bedclothes torn to pieces and scattered across the floor, the shrine in the corner knocked to flinders. He is mad, then, or sick. “Don’t hurt him!” she shouted again.

“Will you condemn some of these guardsmen to death?” Avin Brone growled. “That old man is still one of the fiercest fighters alive!”

Briony shook her head. She could only watch with Barrick as the guards tried to subdue Shaso. Barrick was right, the man was reeling, clearly drunk or damaged in some way, but even without a weapon he was a formidable quarry.

Shaso did not remain weaponless for long. He snatched a halberd away from one of the guards and stunned the man with the butt, then crashed it against the helm of another who tried to take advantage of the opening. Already two of the guards were down. The room was too small for proper pike work. Shaso put his back against the far wall and stood there, chest heaving. Blood was smeared all over his arms and some on his face as well—old blood, dried until it was scarcely visible against his skin.

“Captain,” Brone said, “bring me archers.”

“No!” Briony tried to rush forward, but the lord constable seized her arm and held her despite all her struggles.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I will not lose another Eddon tonight.”

Suddenly someone else slipped past him—Barrick. Even as Avin Brone cursed, Briony’s brother stopped just inside the doorway.

“Shaso!” he shouted. “Put that down!”

The old man lifted his head and shook it. “Is that you, boy?”

“What have you done?” The prince’s voice trembled. “Gods curse you, what have you done?”

Shaso tipped his head quizzically for a moment, then smiled a bitter, horrible smile. “What I had to—what was right. Will you kill me for it? For the honor of the family? Now there is irony for you.”

“Give yourself up,” Barrick said.

“Let the guards take me, if they can.” Even slurred with drink, his laugh was dreadful. “I do not care much if I live or not.”

For a moment no one spoke. Briony was numb with despair. The dark wings of her ominous mood had not been black at all, it seemed, but blood-red; now they had spread over the whole of the house of Eddon.

“You owe your life to our father.” Barrick’s voice was tight with misery or fear or something else that Briony could not recognize. “You speak of honor—will you give away even that last vestige of it? Kill some of these innocent men instead of surrendering?”

Shaso goggled at him. For a moment he lost his balance where he leaned on the wall, but then the halberd came up again quickly. “You would do that to me, boy? Remind me of that!”

“I would. Father saved your hfe.You swore that you would obey him and all his heirs. We are his heirs. Put up your weapon and do the honorable thing, if you have not become a stranger to honor altogether. Be a man.”

The master of arms looked at him, then at Briony. He barked a laugh that ended in a ragged tatter of breath. “You are cruder than your father ever was—than your brother, even.” He threw the halberd clattering to the floor. A moment later he swayed again and this time crumpled and fell.The guards rushed forward and swarmed on him until it was clear he was not feigning, that he had fallen senseless from drink or exhaustion or something else.

The guards heaved him up from the floor, one on each leg and arm. It was not easy—Shaso was a large man. “To the stronghold with him,” Brone commanded them. “Chain him well. When he wakes we will question him closely, but I cannot doubt we have found our murderer.”

As he was carried past Briony, Shaso’s eyes flicked open. He saw her and tried to say something but could only groan, then his eyes slid shut again. His breath smelled of drink.

“It can’t be,” she said. “I don’t believe it.”

Ferras Vansen, the captain of the guard, had found something on the floor beside Shaso’s spare bed. He picked it up with a polishing cloth and brought it to the twins and the lord constable, bearing it gingerly, like a servant carrying a royal crown.

It was a curved Tuani dagger nearly as as long as a man’s forearm—a dagger that all of them had seen before, scabbarded on Shaso’s belt.The hilt was wrapped in figured leather. The sharp blade, always kept