Shadowplay

Olin smiled. “I think that might be an exaggeration, Count Perivos, from the things your daughter has said about you. I have a headstrong girl child myself, so I appreciate your position and I thank you for indulging me when you did not need to.” He lowered his voice so the bodyguard standing a dozen steps away could not hear. “Did you receive the letter? And is it any help to you?”

Pelaya’s father would not be so easily swayed. “Perhaps. We will talk about it at some other time. For now I will leave you to your conversation...if you will swear to me on your honor that it is nothing against the interests of Hierosol. It goes without saying that it is nothing lewd or immoral, either.”

“Yes, it goes without saying,” said Olin with a touch of asperity. “You have my word, Count Perivos.”

Her father bowed and withdrew himself a little way.

“Do not be frightened, child,” Olin said to the laundry girl. “Your name is Nira, I am told. Is that correct?”

She nodded, watching the bearded man with a different kind of attention than she had given to the garden or Pelaya or anything else, almost as if she recognized him—as if they had met before and the girl was trying to remember where and when. For a moment Pelaya felt a kind of chill. Had she done something truly wrong here after all? Was she unwittingly helping an escape plan, something that would cost her father his honor or maybe even his life?

“Yes,” the girl said slowly. “Nira.”

“All I want to know from you is a little about your family,” Olin said gently. “That red in your hair—I think it is rare in this part of the world, is it not?”

The girl only shrugged. Pelaya felt a need to say something, if only to remind the man that she was still sitting here, part of the gathering. “Not so rare,” she told him. “There have been northerners in Xand for years— mercenaries and folk of that sort. My father often talks about the autarch’s White Hounds. They are famous traitors to Eion.”

Olin nodded. “But still, I think such a shade is uncommon.” He smiled and turned to the laundry girl. “Are there mercenaries from Eion in your family, young Nira? Northerners with fair hair?”

The girl hesitated for a moment as she made sense of his question. Her fingers moved up to the place where another little curl of hair escaped her scarf and pushed it back beneath the stained homespun cloth. “No. All...like me.”

“I see something in you of a family that I know well, Nira. Be brave—you have done nothing wrong. Can you tell me if your family came from the north? Are there any family stories about such things?”

She looked at him a long time, as though trying to decide whether this entire conversation might be some kind of trick. “No. Always Xis.” She shrugged. “Think always Xis. Until me.”

“Until you, of course.” He nodded. “Someone told me that your parents died. I am very sorry to hear it. If I can do anything—not that I have much favor here, but I have made a couple of kind friends—let me know.”

She stared at him again, clearly puzzled by something. At last she nodded.

“Let her go now,” Olin said, straightening. “I am sure she hasn’t had her supper yet and I have no doubt she works hard all the day.” He stood. “Thank you, Pelaya, and thank you, Count Perivos. My curiosity is satisfied. Doubtless it was just a fluke of light and shadow that tricked me into seeing a resemblance that was not there— that could not be there.”

Pelaya’s little maid took Nira back to the servants’ dormitory, and Olin went with his guards back to his chambers. As she walked back across the garden toward their residence, a part of the citadel only a little less sumptuous than the lord protector’s own quarters, Pelaya took her father’s hand.

“Thank you, Babba,” she said. “You are the best, kindest father. You truly are.”

“But what in the name of the gods was that all about?” he said, scowling. “Has the man lost his wits? What connection could he be searching for with a laundry girl?”

“I don’t know,” Pelaya said. “But they both seem sad.”

Her father shook his head. “That is what you said about that stray cat, and now I awake every morning to the sound of that creature yowling for fish. Both your King Olin and his laundry girl have places to live. Do not think to bring them home.”

“No, Papa.” But she too wondered what had brought two such strange, different people together in a Hierosol garden.

The sky thundered again and the first drops of rain began to spatter down. Pelaya, her father, and the bodyguard all hurried to get out of the open air.

19. Voices in the Forest

But each night Pale Daughter heard Silvergleam singing and her heart ached for him, until at last she fled her father’s house and ran to her beloved. So beautiful was she that he could not bear to send her away, although his brother and sister warned him that only evil would come of it. But Silvergleam made Pale Daughter his wife, and together they conceived a child who would make a new and greater song of their two melodies, a strange song which would thereafter sound through all the Tale of Years.

—from One Hundred Considerations, out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

Even with her injuries, Briony knew she should put as much distance as she could between herself and Landers Port, but instead she stayed close to the walls of the city in the two days after the attack, sheltering where she could and eavesdropping on the conversations of other travelers, trying to find out for certain what had happened to Shaso. The destructive fire that had taken the life of one of the city’s wealthiest merchants was on everyone’s lips, of course, and all seemed to agree that except for the one lone manservant she’d seen, only the women of DanMozan’s house had survived the night’s terrible events.

Her last unlikely hopes finally dashed, Briony realized that if the baron’s guards knew that more than one fugitive had taken refuge in the Dan-Mozan hadar, they would be looking for her. Young man’s clothing was an indifferent disguise, especially when it was a young Tuani man’s clothing and she no longer had the tools to make herself look like someone of that race. She daubed her face and hair with dirt, trying to make herself less noticeable, but she knew her disguise would not survive real scrutiny for more than a few moments. She had to leave Landers Port, that was all: if she was caught mooning around the town gates Shaso would have died for nothing—a bitter thought, but the only one that moved her when her own desires were muted by grief and rage. She missed the old man fiercely. Had Effir’s nephew Talibo stood before her again, she would gladly have killed the little traitor a second time.

Foolishly thinking she had already lost everything, Briony was learning daily that the gods could always take more from you if they wished.

She quickly discovered that she was not suited for life as an outlaw—in fact, all the tales of romantic banditry she had ever heard now began to seem like the cruelest lies imaginable. It was impossible to live out of doors in even as mild a winter as this, even with the gods-sent gift of the woolen cloak she had taken from the hadar when she ran; Briony spent a large part of each day’s travel just searching for unguarded barns or storehouses where she could sleep without freezing. Even so, after only a few nights she found herself with a wracking cough.

The cough and her sore mouth (still tender from where Talibo had struck her) made it difficult to eat, but she soaked bread in the little pot of wine so it would soften, then chewed very slowly and carefully so as not to pain her loosened teeth and split lips any more than necessary. Even so, her small cache of food was gone in a couple of days.

The only thing that saved her at first was the number of small towns and villages dotting the hillsides along the coast road west of Landers Port. She moved from one to the next, taking shelter where she could and finding an occasional scrap of untended food. She dared not attract attention when her enemies were doubtless searching for her, so she could not beg for help in public places. Despite her hunger, though, Briony did her best to avoid real theft— not for moral reasons so much as practical ones: what good to have escaped an attempt on her life only to