Shadowmarch

“I only tell what I saw. What I heard.”

She turned to Brone. “Merciful Zoria preserve me, I think sometimes I’m going mad—I must be, because otherwise I can make no sense of the things that happen in this place. Do you understand any of this?”

The lord constable did not answer immediately. “I… for the most part, I am as puzzled as you, my lady. I have a few ideas, but I think it unwise to share them in front of these two.” He jabbed his bearded chin toward Tinwright and the potboy.

“Well, we must do something about them, that’s sure.” Briony frowned. Tinwright still did not find her particularly fetching, but something about the princess definitely drew his attention, and it was not just her fame and power. She was very… forceful. Like one of the warrior goddesses, he thought.

“Clearly we must at least keep the potboy until we find the secret of his knowledge,” Brone said, giving the poet a spark of hope. Perhaps they would let him go! “Not to mention discovering how he got his hands on that gold dolphin he gave to this so-called poet. I suppose I can find a place for the potboy in the guard room—he’ll be under many eyes there. But I am not sure we want this other one gossiping in the taverns about what he’s seen.” Brone frowned. “I imagine you won’t simply let me kill him.” Suddenly breathless, Tinwright could only hope it was meant as a joke. He was relieved when the princess shook her head. “Too bad,” Brone told her, “because there is little need for his shiftless sort, and Southmarch already has armies of them.”

“I don’t care what you do with the one who wrote the letter.” Briony was staring fixedly at Gil; Tinwright had an inexplicable twinge of jealousy. “I doubt he has anything to do with this matter—the potboy cannot write and needed someone to do it. Send the poet back home and tell him we’ll cut his head off if he whispers a word. I need to think.”

Tinwright had suffered a series of glum realizations. If he went back to the Quiller’s Mint, he would soon be getting that promised visit from the guard whose woman he apparently stole; not only would he be brutally beaten, but it would be for something he couldn’t even remember—drinking with Hewney nearly always ended in oblivion. He could only hope the wench had been pretty although, looking at the guard, he rather doubted it. But since the lord constable had confiscated his gold dolphin, he couldn’t afford to move elsewhere. There was no well-heeled lady in his life at the moment to take him in, only Brigid who lived at the Mint. And the cold weather had come. It would be a bad time to live in the streets.

Tinwright was now feeling extremely sorry for himself. For a moment he considered concocting a story of his own to make himself more useful and important, pretending that he shared some of the potboy’s strange knowledge, but one look at the massive Brone convinced him of the folly of that. For some reason, Gil actually did know things he shouldn’t, but Tinwright could summon no such weaponry, even in bluff. He contemplated the distracted princess and an idea struck him so abruptly that he couldn’t help wondering if Zosim was trying to make up for the fickle cruelty of his other gift. He dropped to his knees on the floor.

“My lady,” he said in his most sincere voice, the one that had kept him in food and drink since he first ran away from home, “Highness, may I beg a favor? It is far too much and I am far too lowly, but I beg you at least to hear me. She looked at him. That was a first step, at least. “What?”

“I am a poet, Princess—a humble one, one whose gifts have not always been rewarded, but those who know me will tell you of my quality.” She was losing interest so he hurried ahead. “I came here in fear and trepidation. My attempt to do a kindness for my simple friend the potboy has caused you and your brother pain. I am devastated.” She smiled sourly. “If you tell anyone about this, you certainly will be devastated.”

“Please, only hear me, Highness. Only hear your humble servant. Your attention to the cares of the land have doubtless prevented you from knowing of the panegyric I am writing about you.” That, and the fact that he had been writing no such thing before this moment.

“Panegyric?'

“A tribute to your astonishing beauty.” He saw her expression and quickly added, “And most importantly, to your wisdom and kindness. Your mercy.” She smiled again, although it still had a nasty little curl to it. “In fact, as I sit here, fortunate enough finally to be within the radiant glow of your presence instead of worshiping you like the distant moon, I see that my central conceit was even more accurate than I had hoped—that you are indeed… indeed.

She got tired of waiting. “I am indeed what?”

“The very embodiment of Zoria, warrior goddess and mistress of wisdom.” There. He could only hope that he had guessed correctly, that her odd way of dressing and her solicitation of the goddess’ mercy were not chance occurrences. “When I was young, I often dreamed of Perin’s courageous daughter, but in my dreams I was blinded by her glow—I could never truly imagine the heavenly countenance. Now I know the true face of the goddess. Now I see her born again in Southmarch’s virgin princess.” He suddenly worried he had gone a bit too far: she didn’t look as flattered as he had hoped she would, although she didn’t look angry either. He held his breath. “Shall I have him beaten before I take him back to that brothel?” Brone asked her.

“To tell the truth,” Briony said, “he… amuses me. I have not laughed in days, and just now I almost did. That is a rare gift in these times.” She looked Tinwright up and down. “You wish to be my poet, do you? To tell the world of my virtues?”

He was not sure what was happening, but this was not a moment to be wasted on truth of any sort. “Yes, my lady, my princess, it has always been my greatest dream. Indeed, Highness, your patronage would make me the happiest man on earth, the luckiest poet upon Eion.”

“Patronage?” She raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what? Money?'

“Oh, never, my lady!” In due time, he thought. “No, it would be a boon beyond price if you simply allowed me to observe you—at a distance, of course!—so that I could better construct my poem. It has already been years in the making, Highness, the chief labor of my life, but it has been difficult, composed around a few brief glimpses of you at public festivals. If you favor me with the chance to witness you even from across a crowded room as you bring your wise rule to the fortunate people of Southmarch, that would be a kindness that proves you are truly Zoria reborn.”

“In other words, you want a place to stay.” For the first time there was something like genuine amusement in her smile. “Brone, see if Puzzle can find a place for him. They can share a room—keep each other company.”

“Princess Briony… !” Brone was annoyed.

“Now I must talk to my brother. You and I will meet again before sunset, Lord Constable.” She started toward the door, then stopped, looked Tinwnght up and down. “Farewell, poet. I’ll be expecting to hear that ode very soon. I’m looking forward to it.”

As he watched her go, Matty Tinwnght was not quite sure whether this had been the best day of his life or the worst. He thought it must be the best, but there was a small, sick feeling m his stomach that surely should not be part of the day he had become an appointed poet to the royal court.

* * *

At first, it seemed that Collum Dyer would be able to follow the fairy host like a blind man tracking the sun despite the confusion of the fogbound forest and the serpentine inconstancy of the road, the guard set off in a way that Vansen would have called confident, except that the rest of the man’s demeanor spoke of nothing so humble and human as confidence. In fact, Dyer might have been a sleepwalker, stumbling and murmuring to himself like one of the crazed penitents that had followed the effigies of the god Kermos from town to town during the days of the Great Death.

Quickly, though, it became clear that if Dyer was a blind man following the sun, that sun was setting. Within what seemed no more than an hour they were staggering in circles. So maddening was the forest-maze that Vansen would not even have known that for certain except that Dyer stepped on his own sword belt, which he had lost far back in the day’s march.

Exhausted, devastated,Vansen sank to the ground and crouched with his face in his hands, half expecting that Dyer would go on without him and mostly not caring Instead, to his surprise, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Where are they, Ferras? They were so beautiful.” Despite the dark beard, Collum Dyer looked like nothing so much as a child, his eyes wide, his mouth quivering.

“Gone on,” Vansen said. “Gone on to kill our friends and families.”

“No.” But what he had said troubled Dyer. “No, they bring something, but not death. Didn’t you hear them? They only take back what was already theirs. That is all they want.”