Shadowmarch

“I cannot sit through this,” Barrick abruptly declared.

Briony felt ambushed that he should turn on her in front of Avin Brone and the other nobles. “What do you mean?” she whispered. Her voice seemed a sharp hiss like a snake; she could feel the councillors, all men, looking at her with disapproval. “Shaso has not confessed, Barrick. It is not a certain thing that he has killed Kendrick. After all these years, you owe the man something!”

Barrick waved his hand—dismissively, it seemed, and for a moment Briony felt a stab of anger sharp as any Tuani knife. Then she saw that Barrick’s eyes were closed, his face even more pale than usual. “No. I do not… feel well,” he said.

So terrible had this morning been, so topsy-turvy, that despite the clutch at her heart to see his waxy face —so frighteningly like Kendrick’s bloodless, lifeless mask—she still felt a squeezing suspicion. Did Barrick want nothing to do with what was coming next, for some reason? Had Lord Constable Brone and the others been talking to him already?

Her brother staggered a little as he got up One of the guards stepped forward to take his elbow. “Go on,” Barrick told her. “Must he down.”

Another and even more horrifying thought: What if he is not just ill — what if he has been poisoned? What if someone had set on a track of killing all the Eddons? Horrified and frightened, she murmured a quick prayer to Zoria, then dutifully asked the Trigon’s help as well Who would do such a thing? Who could even conceive of such moon-madness?

Someone who wanted the throne… She looked at Gailon of Summerfield, but the duke looked quite normally concerned to see Barrick so sweaty and weak. “Get him straight to bed, and send for Chaven,” she directed the man holding his arm. “No, let one of the pages fetch Chaven now, so that he can meet my brother in his chambers.”

When Barrick had been helped from the room, Briony noted with some approval that her own mask was still in place—the public mask of imperturbability that her father had taught her to make of her features. She had despised Avin Brone for a heartless bully on the night of Kendrick’s murder, but she was grateful to him for reminding her of her duty. She had a responsibility to the Eddon family as well as to her people: she would not give away the truth of her feelings so easily again. But, oh, it was hard to be stiff and stern when she was so frightened!

“My brother, Prince Barrick, will not be coming back,” she said. “So there is no sense in making our guest wait longer. Send him in.”

“But, Highness… !” began Duke Gailon.

“What, Summerfield, do you think I have no wit at all? That I am a marionette who can only speak when one of my brothers or my father is present to work my strings? I said bring him in.” She turned away. Zona give me strength, she prayed. If you have ever loved me, love me now. Help me.

The intensity with which the councillors whispered among themselves would in ordinary circumstances have made Briony very uneasy, but circumstances were not ordinary and they might never be so again. Gailon Tolly and Earl Tyne of Blueshore did not even try to hide their anger at her. These men had seldom had to take an order from any woman, even a princess.

I cannot afford to care what they think, and I cannot even be as forbearing with them as Father. In him, they think it an odd humor. In me, they will be certain to mark it as weakness…

The door opened and the dark man was led in by the royal guard. Guard Captain Ferras Vansen was again pointedly not looking at her—another man, she felt certain, who held her as worthless. Briony had not decided yet what she wanted to do with Vansen, but surely some example would have to be made. Could the reigning prince of the March Kingdoms be murdered in his bed and no more come of it than if an apple were stolen off a peddler’s cart?

At her nod the guards stopped and allowed the man they had escorted to continue by himself to the foot of the dais and the twins’ two chairs, which for the moment stood side by side in front of King Olin’s throne.

“My deepest condolences,” said Dawet dan-Faar, bowing. He had exchanged his finery of a few days before for restrained black. On him, it somehow looked exotically handsome. “Of course there is nothing I can say to ease your loss, my lady, but it is painful to see your family so bereft. I am certain that my lord Ludis would wish me to send his deep sympathies as well.”

Briony scanned his face for some trace of mockery, the faintest gleam of dark amusement in his eye. For the first time she could see that he was not a young man, that he was perhaps only a decade younger than her own father, though his brown skin was unlined, his jaw firm as a youth’s. Beyond that, she saw nothing untoward. If he was dissembling, he did it splendidly.

Still, that is his skill —it must be. Were he not a veteran dissembler and flatterer he would not be an envoy for ambitious Ludis. And there was also the story of Shaso’s daughter, which Barrick had told her—another reason to despise this man. But there was no denying he was good to look upon.

“You are not entirely beyond suspicion yourself, Lord Dawet, but my guards say you and your party did not stray from your chambers…”

“It is gracious of them to speak what is only the honest truth.” The attractive and completely untrustworthy smile that she remembered made its first appearance of the day, but only for an instant, then the seriousness of the matter chased it away again. “We slept, my lady.”

“Perhaps. But murder must not always be committed by the hand of its principal.” She was finding it easier and easier to keep her face hard, her gaze stern and unblinking. “Murder can be bought, just as easily as a pie in a pie shop.”

Now his smile returned. He seemed genuinely amused. “And what would you know of buying things in pie shops, Princess?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Sadly, I know a bit more of murder, these days.”

He nodded. “True. And a useful reminder that as much as I enjoy bandying words with you—and I do, my lady—there are more sad and serious matters before us. So rather than indulge myself with a great sham of indignation, Highness, let me instead ask you a question. What benefit would it be to me to kill your poor brother?”

She had to bite down hard on her lip to keep the sudden noise of misery from escaping. Only a very short time ago Kendrick had been alive. If only there were some way to reach back into the day before yesterday, like reaching into a house through a window instead of walking all the way around to the door—some way to change those horrible events or prevent them entirely. “What benefit?” she asked, rallying her thoughts. “I don’t know.” Her voice was less firm than she would have liked. Avin Brone and the others were watching closely—mistrustfully, it seemed to her. As if because the man was comely and well-spoken, she would be any the less careful and doubting! Her cheeks grew hot with resentment.

“Let us speak honestly, my lady. This is a terrible time and honesty may be the best friend to us all. My master, Ludis Drakava, holds your father hostage, whatever name we put on it. We await either a vast ransom in gold or a ransom worth even more—because you, lovely princess, will be part of it.” His smile was gently mocking again. But was he making sport of her or something else? Perhaps even himself? “From Hierosol’s vantage, all that your elder brothers death will do is muddy the waters and slow down the paying of that ransom. We have the king and have not harmed him—why should we murder the prince now? In fact, the only reason you even ask me is because I am a stranger in the castle… and not precisely a friend. But I regret the last. I do sincerely.”

She could not let herself be distracted. He was too smooth, too quick— it must be how a mouse felt in front of a snake. But this mouse would not be so easily confused. “Because you are a stranger and no friend, yes. And because, as you may know, my brother seems to have been killed with a Tuani knife. Like the one on your belt.”

Dawet looked down. “I would take it out to let you see that there is no blood upon it, Princess, but your guard captain tied it tightly in its sheath before I was brought to you.”

Briony looked up to see that Ferras Vansen, who had ignored her earlier, was now staring at her fixedly. But upon catching her eye he colored and turned his gaze to the floor. Is the man mad?

“He would have preferred to take it away entirely,” Dawet continued, “but among my people we do not take off our knives once we have reached the age of manhood. Unless we are in bed.”