Shadowmarch

yards closer to the castle—the first such movement in anyone’s memory. “I had planned to tell you of this, Your Highnesses, but the tragic events that you know of kept me busy, and then I did not wish to burden you when you still had your brother to bury.”

“That was days and days ago,” Briony said angrily. “Why have you kept silent since then?'

Gailon Tolly saved the physician from having to answer immediately. “What is all this about?” the Duke of Summerfield demanded loudly. “Scholar, you and this Helmingsea lackwit spout nurse’s tales as though you spoke of true places like Fael or Hierosol. The Shadowline? There is nothing beyond it but mist and wet lands too cold to farm and… and old stories.”

“You are young, my lord,” said Chaven gently. “But your father knew. And his father. And your grandfather several times over was one of the men who regained Southmarch and this castle from the hands of the Twilight People.” The small man shrugged, but there was something terrible in the gesture, an entire language of resignation that did not hide the fear. “It could be that after all these years the Quiet Folk seek to have it back.”

The councillors all seemed to begin shouting at once, no one listening to any other. Briony stood up and extended a trembling hand. “Silence! Chaven, you will attend my brother and me at once in the chapel, or somewhere else we can have privacy. You will tell us everything you know. But that is not enough. Dozens of our countrymen have been robbed and perhaps murdered on the Settland Road. We must find out everything we can, immediately, before all trace of the attackers is gone.” She looked at her twin, who nodded, but his face showed his unhappiness. “We must go to the place where this occurred, with force. We must find the track of these creatures and follow it. If they can take men away from the road, they will have left some mark of their passage.” She turned on Raemon Beck, who had sunk to a crouch as though his legs could no longer support him. “Do you swear you have told us the truth, man? Because if I find… if we find that you have made up this story, you will spend the rest of a short and unhappy life in chains.” The merchant could only shake his head. “It is all true!”

“Then we will send a troop of soldiers at once,” she said. “To follow the trail wherever it leads. That at least we can do while we consider what this may mean, what… message we have been sent.”

“Across the Shadowline?” Avin Brone appeared surprised by the idea. “You would send men across the Shadowline?”

“Not you,” she said scornfully. “Have no fear.”

The lord constable stood. “There is no need to insult me, Princess.” They were the only two standing. Their eyes met over the heads of the others.

“Again, you have showed me hasty, Lord Brone,” Briony said after a moment’s silence, each word crisp as the sound of a small bell being struck. “Despite the trickery you have used today to put on this little show, you do not deserve as much anger as I have shown. I apologize.”

He made a stiff little bow. “Accepted, of course, Highness. With thanks, although you do me too much honor.”

“I will go,” said Gailon suddenly. He rose, too, his face flushed as though with drink. “I will lead a troop to the spot. I will find these bandits—and I wager my good name that they will prove to be no more than that. But whatever they are, I will bring back them or their corpses to answer for the crime.”

Vansen saw Briony exchange a look with her brother that the captain of the royal guard could not interpret. “No,” said Barrick.

“What?” The duke turned on the prince in anger. Gailon Tolly seemed to have lost his usual composure. Vansen’s muscles tensed as he watched. “You cannot go yourself, Barrick! You are sick, crippled! And your sister may think she is a man, but the gods know she is not! I demand the honor of leading this troop!”

“But that is just the issue, Cousin,” said Briony, speaking with cold care. “It is not an honor. And whoever goes must go with an open heart, not with an intent to prove himself right.”

“But… !”

She turned her back on him and her gaze swept down the row of nobles at the table, Tyne and Rorick and many others, before it lit on Ferras Vansen where he stood behind the crumpled, sobbing form of the merchant Raemon Beck. For a moment her gaze met his and Vansen thought he saw a little smile flicker across her lips. It was not a kind smile. “You, Captain. You have failed to prevent my brother’s murder and you have failed to find a reason that explains why Lord Shaso, one of our family’s most loyal retainers, should have performed that murder. Perhaps you will be able to fulfill this new charge more successfully.”

He couldn’t look at her any longer. Staring at his boots, he said, “Yes, Highness. I will accept the charge.”

“No!” Gailon was out of his seat again, so angry that for a worrying moment Ferras thought the duke actually meant to attack the prince and princess.Vansen was not the only one—the nobles on either side of Gailon Tolly snatched at his arms but failed to hold him. Brone’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, but the lord constable was almost as far away as the guard captain and much slower.

Gods! Ferras took a stumbling step forward. Too late, still too late, I have failed again! But Summerfield only turned and stalked away from the great table toward the far door of the council chamber. When he turned in the doorway, the young duke’s face was composed again, almost frightemngly so.

“I see I am not needed here, either in this council or in this castle. With your permission, Prince Barrick, Princess Briony, I will return to my own lands where there may be something of use I can do.” Gailon Tolly had asked their leave, but he did not wait to receive it before departing the chamber. His bootheels banged away down the corridor.

Briony turned toVansen again, as though Gailon had never been in the room. “You will take as many men as you and the lord constable think fit to assemble, Captain.You will take this man, too…” she gestured at Beck, “and go to the place his caravan was attacked. From there, send back messengers to tell us what you find, and if you can pursue the robbers, pursue them.”

Raemon Beck realized what was being said. “Don’t send me back, Highness!” he shrieked, scrabbling across the floor toward the prince and princess. “The gods’ mercy, not there! Put me in irons, as you promised, rather than send me to that place.”

Barrick pulled his foot back -when the man would have grabbed it.

“How else will we know that the spot is the correct one?” Princess Briony asked gently. “If every trace is gone, as you have said? Your fellows may be alive. Would you steal away even the slim chance of rescuing them?” She turned to the table full of slack-mouthed councillors, a row of bewildered masks like the chorus of some antique mummer’s play. “The rest of you may go, but you are sworn to secrecy about this attack. He who speaks a word about it joins Shaso in the stronghold. Chaven, you and Lord Brone come with my brother and myself to the chapel. Rorick andTyne, come to us in an hour, please. Captain Vansen, you will leave tomorrow at dawn.”

After she was gone and the chamber was all but empty, Vansen and two of his guardsmen helped the weeping Raemon Beck up from the floor.

“The princess does not take well to begging,” Ferras Vansen told the young merchant as they led him toward the door. The guard captain’s own thoughts were slow and numbed as fish at the bottom of a frozen stream. “Her older brother was killed—did you know that? But we will do our best to take care of you. For now, let us find you some wine and a bed. That’s the best any of us will get tonight… or for some time to come, I think.”

14. Whitefire

STORM MUSIC:

This tale is told on the headlands

The great one comes up from the deeps

His eye is a shrouded pearl, his voice the ocean wind

—from The Bonefall Oracles

Barrick’s first thought was that the man looked like a chained beast, both frightening and pitiable, like the