Shadowplay

as powerful a magic as you could hope for, do you not think?”

Briony was a little breathless, and having taciturn Shaso turn poetic on her did not help. She reached out her finger and traced the length of one of the smaller, needle-sharp daggers. “Beautiful.”

“And deadly.” He picked up two of the knives, one large and one small, then took out their sheaths as well, hard, tanned leather with cords that could be tied around a waist or a leg. He scabbarded the two blades, then used the cords to secure the sheaths to the daggers’ hilts. “Do that with yours, too,” he said. “That way, we will not cut off any of each other’s important parts as we work.”

They worked for another hour at least as the sun slid down behind the walls and the courtyard filled with soothing shadows. Briony, who had thought she could not lift her arm one more time, instead found herself revived by the fascination of sparring with actual blades, of the weight and balance of them, the new shapes they made in her hand. She was delighted to find she could block Shaso’s own blade with the crosshaft of her larger knife and then disarm him with no more than a flick of the wrist. When she had managed the trick a few times, he showed her how to move in below that sudden flick with the small knife, stabbing underneath her opponent’s arm. It was strangely intimate, and as the point of the leather-clad blade bounced against his rib she pulled back, suddenly queasy. For the first time she truly felt what she was doing, learning how to stab someone to death, to cut skin and pierce eyes, to let out a man’s guts while she stared him in the face.

The old man looked at her for a long moment. “Yes, you must get close to kill with a knife—close enough to kiss, almost. Umeyana, the blood-kiss, we call it. It takes courage. If you fail to land a deadly blow your enemy will be able to grab and hold. Most will be bigger than you.” He frowned, then sank to his knees and began putting his blades back in their oilcloth wrapping. “That is enough for today. You have done well, Highness.”

She tried to hand him the knives she had been using but he shook his head. “They are yours, Princess. From now on, I do not want you apart from them. Examine your clothes and find places you can keep them and then draw them without snagging. Many a soldier has died with his knife or swordhilt caught in his belt, useless.”

“They...they’re mine?”

He nodded, eyes cold and bright. “The responsibility for one’s own safety is no gift,” he said. “It is much more pleasant to be a child and let someone else bear the burden. But you do not have that luxury anymore, Briony Eddon. You lost that with your castle.”

That stung. For a moment she thought he was being intentionally cruel to her, humbling her further so she would be easier for him to mold. Then she realized that he meant every word he said: Briony, offspring of a royal family, was used to people who gave gifts with the idea of being remembered and needed—to make themselves indispensable. Shaso was giving her the only kind of gift he trusted, one that would make her better able to survive without Shaso’s own help. He wanted to be unnecessary.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Go now and get something to eat.” Suddenly he would not meet her eye. “It has been a long day’s exercise.”

Strange, stubborn, sour old man! The only way he knows how to show love is by teaching me how to kill people.

The thought arrested her, and she stopped to watch the Tuani walk away. It is love, she thought. It must be. And after all we did to him.

She sat in the growing twilight for some time, thinking.

“How well do you know Lord Shaso?” she asked Idite. As much as she had been offended at first by not eating with the men of the house, she had come to enjoy these quiet evenings with the hadar’s female inhabitants. She still could not speak the women’s tongue and doubted she ever would, but some of the others beside Idite had proved able to speak Briony’s once they had got over their initial shyness.

“Oh, not at all, Briony-zisaya.” Idite always made the name sound like a child’s counting game, one-two-three, one-twothree. “I have never met him before you came to our door twelve nights ago.”

“But you speak of him as though you had known him all your life.”

“It is true that I have, in some ways.” Idite allowed a delicate frown to crease her lips as she considered. One of the young women whispered a translation to the others. “He is as famous as any man who ever lived, except for of course the Great Tuan, his cousin. I mean the old Great Tuan, of course. Where his eldest son is, the new Tuan, no one knows. He escaped before the autarch’s armies reached Nyoru, and some say he is hiding in the desert, waiting to return and lift the autarch’s cruel hand from our homeland. But he has waited a long time already.” She forced a little laugh. “But listen to me, talking and talking and saying nothing, croaking like an ibis. Lord Shaso’s name is known to every Tuani, his deeds spoken of around the cookingfire. People still argue over Shaso’s Choice, of course—so much so that the old Tuan made it a crime to discuss it, because people died from the arguments.” Briony shook her head. “Shaso’s...choice?”

“Yes.” Idite turned to the other women and said something in Tuani—Briony could make out Shaso’s name. The women all nodded solemnly, some saying, “sesa, sesa,” which Briony had come to learn meant “yes, yes.”

It was strange to think of Shaso as someone who had his own history—his own legends, even, although she had known that in his day he had been a much-respected warrior. “What choice, Idite? I mean, surely you can talk of it now without breaking the law. He’s only a few rooms away.”

Idite laughed. “I was thinking of Tuan. There is no law here in Marrinswalk.” In her accented speech it became “Mahreens-oo-woke,” an exotic name that for a moment made it seem an exotic place to Briony, too. “But there is custom, and sometimes that is as strong as law. His choice was to honor the vow he made on the battlefield, to a foreign king, to leave his country and live in exile. Even when the Autarch of Xis attacked us, Shaso was not allowed to return and defend us. Some say that without his strong hand, without the fear he made when he led our armies, the Great Tuan had no chance against Xis.”

It took Briony a moment to understand. “You’re talking about how he came to serve my father? How he came to Southmarch?”

“Yes, of course—I almost forget.” Idite lifted her hands in a gesture of embarrassment. “You are the daughter of Olin,”—“Aw-leen” was how she rendered it. “I meant no offense.”

“I’m not offended, I’m just...tell me. Tell me about it.” “But...you must know all, yourself.”

“Not what it meant to your people.” It was Briony’s turn to feel shamed. “I’ve never thought much about Shaso’s life before now. Of course, that’s in part because he’s so closemouthed. Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know he had a daughter.”

“Ah, yes, Hanede.” Idite shook her head. “Very sad.”

“I was told she died because...because Dawet ruined her. Made love to her and then deserted her. Is that true?”

Idite looked a little alarmed. Some of the other women, bored or confused by the long stretch of conversation in Briony’s tongue, seemed to beg for translation. Idite waved them to silence. “I do not know the facts—I am only a merchant’s wife and it is not for me to speak of noble ones like the Dan-Heza and the Dan-Faar. They are above me like stars—like you are yourself, Lady.”

“Huh. I’m not above you or anyone. I’ve been wearing borrowed clothes for nearly a month. At the moment I’m just grateful you’ve taken me into your house.”

“No, it is our honor, Briony-zisaya.”

“Do...do your people hate my father? For what he did to Shaso?”

Idite eyed her, the soft brown eyes full of shrewd intelligence. “I will speak honestly with you, Princess, because I believe you truly wish it. Yes, many of my people hated your father, but as with most things, it has more complicatedness—complication?—than that. Some respected him for forcing his own nobles to spare Shaso’s life, but making a servant out of the Dan-Heza still was seen as dishonorable. Giving him land and honors, that was surprising, and many thought your father a very wise man, but then the people were furious that Shaso was not allowed to come back and fight against the old autarch (may he have to cross each of the seven hells twice!). These are things much discussed among our folk even now, and your father is seen as both hero and villain.” Idite bowed her head. “I hope I have not offended.”

“No. No, not at all.” Briony was overwhelmed. She had been painfully reminded again how little she knew