Shadowmarch

As she walked away, she heard the page hurriedly open the door and then almost slam it closed behind him, as though he had just escaped from the cage of a lioness.

Are there people here who fear me as much as they fear Brone? As they fear Barrick’s moods? It was an odd thought. She had never conceived of herself as frightening, although she knew she was not always patient with what she deemed foolishness or dithering.

Zoria, virgin warrior, Zona of the cunning hands, give me the strength to be gentle. The prayer reminded her of that fool of a poet, and her sudden whim. Why had she decided to keep such a creature around? Just to annoy Barrick and the lord constable? Or because she truly did enjoy even such ridiculous flattery’.

Her mind muddled with these thoughts, she walked down the long hall beneath the portraits of her ancestors living and dead, her father and her grandfather Ustm and her great-grandfather, the third Anglin, without really seeing them. Even the picture of Queen Lily, scourge of the Gray Companies and the most famous woman in the history of the March Kingdoms, could not hold her attention today, although there were other times when she would stand for hours looking at the handsome, dark-haired woman who had held the realm together in one of its bleakest hours, wondering what it would be like to make such a mark on the world. But today, although the familiar sight of her other clansmen and clanswomen had not moved her, the picture of Sanasu, Kellick Eddon’s queen, caught her eye.

It was unusual for Briony to give the portrait more than a glance. What little she knew of Queen Sanasu was dreary, of her painfully long years of mourning after the great King Kellick died, an obsessively silent, solitary widowhood that had made her a phantom to her own court. So detached had Sanasu become in the last half of her life, family stories related, that the business of the kingdom had fallen entirely to her son years before he became king in fact, something that made the responsible Briony loathe the woman without knowing anything more about her. But today, even as absorbed in worries as she was, Briony could not help staring at something in the likeness she had never really noticed before. Sanasu looked very much like Barrick—or rather Barrick, her many-times-great grandson, looked much like Sanasu, which was accentuated by the black mourning garb they both favored. And these days, with his pallor and striking, haunted eyes accentuated by his bout with the fever, Barrick looked more like the long-dead queen than ever.

Briony stood on her toes for a better look, wishing the light in the ancient hall were better. The artist who had made the portrait had no doubt prettified his queen, but even so, the Sanasu in the picture had the almost transparent look of someone very ill, which only made her red hair even more shocking, like a bloody wound. She also seemed astonishingly young for someone who had lost her husband in middle age Her face was odd in other ways, too, although it was hard to say exactly why.

I can see Father’s eyes in her, too, and his coloring. Briony suddenly wished she knew more about great Kellick’s widow. The portrait made Sanasu look mysterious and foreign. Briony couldn’t recall being told anything about where the melancholy queen had come from before marrying Kelhck, but whatever distant land might have spawned her, it had now been part of the family heritage for centuries. Briony was suddenly struck by how the blood of the Eddons, her own blood, was like a great river, with things appearing and disappearing and then appearing again. And not just looks, but moods and habits and ruling passions, too, she thought Queen Sanasu had famously stopped talking to those around her and exiled herself to Wolfstooth Spire, so that she was seen by only a few servants and became all but invisible for the two or three decades before her death Was that what was in store for her moody, beloved Barrick?

That ghastly thought, and the continuing fascination of Sanasu’s white, otherworldly face, had grasped Briony’s interest so firmly that she nearly screamed when the ancient jester Puzzle stepped out of the shadows nearby.

“By the gods, fellow,” she demanded when her heart had slowed again, “what are you doing? You startled me out of my wits, creeping up like that.”

“I am sorry, Princess, very sorry I just I was waiting for you “ He seemed to be considering whether he should get down onto one extremely creaky knee.

Briony reminded herself of her own prayer for Zonan patience. “Don’t apologize, I will live What is it, Puzzle?” “I… it is just…” He looked as anxious as Barricks page. “I am told that someone will share my room.” She took a breath. Patience Kindness. “Is that too much trouble? It was a sudden thought. I’m sure we can find somewhere else to put this newcomer. I thought he might be company for you.”

“A poet?” Puzzle couldn’t seem to grasp the connection. “Well, we will see, Highness. It is possible we will get on. Certainly I do not speak to many people since… since your father has gone. And since my friend Robben died. It might be nice to have…” He blinked his rheumy eyes. It was possible that her father Olin was the only person on the continent of Eion who had ever found Puzzle amusing, or at least amusing in the way the jester tried to be. What must it be like, she wondered, to be supremely unfitted for your life’s work? Even if she was impatient with him now, Briony couldn’t help regretting the way she and Barrick had teased the bony old fellow all these years.

“If it turns out not to your liking, tell Nynor and he will find the poet some other place. Thinwight, or whatever his name is, is young and should be agreeable. Bad poets need to be agreeable.” She nodded. “Now I have much to do…”

“My lady,” the old man said, still having trouble meeting her eyes, “it was not that which I wished to speak about—well, not as much.”

“What else?”

“I have a very great worry, my lady. Something that I have remembered, and that I fear I should have told earlier.” He stopped to swallow. It did not look easy for him. “I think you know I visited your brother on the night of his death. That he called for me after supper and I came to his chamber to entertain him.”

“Brone told me, yes.” She was alert now. “And that I left before Lord Shaso came.”

“Yes? So? By the gods, Puzzle, don’t make me work it out of you word by word!”

He winced. “It is just… your brother, may the gods grant his soul peace, sent me away that night. He was . . not kind. He said that I was not diverting, that I never was—that my tricks and jests only made him feel… made him feel even more that life was wretched.”

Kendrick had only told the truth, but she knew he must have been distressed indeed to be rude to old Puzzle Her older brother had always been the most mannerly of the family. “He was unhappy,” she told him. “It was an unhappy night. I am sure those were not his true thoughts. He was worried about me, remember, about the ransom for the king and whether he should send me away.”

The jester shook his head in confusion and defeat. He was bareheaded, but the gesture was so familiar she could almost hear the tinkle of his belled cap. “That is not what I wanted to tell you, Highness. When Lord Brone asked me about that night, I told him what I remembered, but I forgot something. I think it is because I was so disturbed by what Prince Kendrick had said—a hard blow for someone who has devoted his life to the pleasure of the Eddons, you must admit…”

“Whatever the reason, what did you forget?” Gods defend me! He certainly does test a person’s patience.

“As I left the residence, I saw Duke Gailon walking toward me. I was in the main hall, so it did not occur to me he might be going to see your older brother and I did not mention it to the lord constable after… that terrible event. But I have been thinking and thinking—sometimes I lay awake at night, worrying—and I think now that he was walking the wrong direction to be going to his own chambers. I think he might have been going to see Prince Kendrick.” He bowed his head. “I have been a fool.”

Briony didn’t bother to reassure him. “Let me understand this. You are saying that you saw Gailon Tolly heading toward the residence as you were leaving. And you saw nothing of Shaso?”

“Not that night, but I went straight to my bed from there. Are you very angry, Highness? I am an old man, and sometimes I fear I am becoming a witling…”

“Enough. I will have to think about this. Have you told anyone else?”

“Only you. I… I believed you would .” He shook his head again, unable to say what he believed. “Shall I go to tell the lord constable?”

“No.” She had said it too forcefully. “No, I think for now you should tell no one else. This will be our secret.” “You will not put me in the stronghold?”

“I suspect that sharing a room with that poet fellow will be punishment enough. You may go, Puzzle.” Long