Shadowplay Read online

  The murmuring began again, louder. “Where is the prince?” someone near the front shouted. “Where is her brother?”

  Brone’s shoulders rose and he balled his fists. “Silence! Must you all jabber like Xandy savages? Hear my words and you will learn something. Prince Barrick was with Tyne of Blueshore and the others, fighting the invaders at Kolkan’s Field. We have had no word from Tyne for days, and the survivors who have made their way back can tell us little.” Several in the crowd looked out across the narrow strait toward the city, still now and apparently empty. They had all heard the singing and the drums that echoed there at night, and had seen the fires. “We hold out hope, of course, but for now we must assume our prince is lost, killed or captured. It is in the hands of the gods.” Brone paused at the uprush of sound, the cries and curses which started out low but quickly began to swell. When he spoke again his voice was still loud, but not as clear and composed as it had been; that by itself helped still the crowd. “Please! Remember, Olin is still king here in Southmarch! He may be imprisoned in the south, but he is still king—and his line still survives!” He pointed to a young woman standing next to Hendon Tolly, plump, and plain—a wet nurse holding what was apparently an infant, although it could have been an empty tangle of blankets for all Matt Tinwright could make it out. “See, there is the king’s youngest,” Brone declared,”—a new son, born on Winter’s Eve! Queen Anissa lives. The child is healthy. The Eddon line survives.”

  Now Drone waved his hands, imploring the crowd for quiet rather than ordering them, and Tinwright could not help wondering at how this man who had terrified him down to the soles of his feet could have changed so, as if something inside of him had torn and not been fully mended.

  But why should that surprise? Briony, our gracious, wonderful princess, is gone, and young Barrick is doubtless dead, killed by those supernatural monsters. Tin-wright’s poetic soul could feel the romantic correctness of that, the symmetry of the lost twins, but could not work up as much sympathy for the brother. He truly, truly missed Briony, and feared for her—she had been Matt Tinwright s champion. Barrick, on the other hand, had never hidden his contempt.

  Brone now’ gave way to Hendon Tolly, who was dressed in unusually somber attire—somber for him, anyway—black hose, gray tunic, and fur-lined black cloak, his clothes touched here and there with hints of gold and emerald. Hendon was known as one of the leading blades of fashion north of the great court at Tessis. Tinwright, who admired him without liking him, had always been sensitive to the nuances of dress among those above his own station, and thought the youngest Tolly brother seemed to be enjoying his new role as sober guardian of the populace.

  Hendon raised his hand, which was mostly hidden by the long ruff on his sleeve. His thin, usually mobile face was a mask of refined sorrow. “We Tollys share the same ancient blood as the Eddons—King Olin is my uncle as well as my liegelord, and despite the bull on our shield, the wolf blood runs in our veins. We swear we will protect his young heir with every drop of that blood.” Hendon lowered his head for a moment as if in prayer, or perhaps merely overcome by humility at the weight of his task. “We have all been pained by great loss this terrible winter, we Tollys most of all, because we have also lost our brother Gailon, the duke. But fear not! My other brother Caradon, the new duke of Summerfield, has sworn that the ties between our houses will become even stronger.” Hendon Tolly straightened. “Many of you are frightened because of worrisome news from the battlefield and the presence of our enemy from the north—the enemy that even now waits at our doorstep, just across the bay. I have heard some speak of a siege. I say to you, what siege?” He swept his arm toward the haunted, silent city beyond the water, sleeve flaring like a crow’s wing. “Not an arrow, not a stone, has passed our walls. I see no enemy—do you? It could be that someday these goblins will come against us, but it is more likely that they have seen the majesty of the walls of

  Southmarch and their hearts have grown faint. Otherwise, why would they give no sign of their presence?”

  A murmur drifted up from the crowd, but it seemed, for the first time, to have something of hope in it. Hendon Tolly sensed it and smiled.

  “And even if they did, how will they defeat us, my fellow South-marchers? We cannot be starved, not as long as we have our harbor and good neighbors. And already my brother the duke is sending men to help protect this castle and all who dwell in it. Never fear, Olin’s heir will someday sit proudly on Olin’s throne!”

  Now a few cheers broke out from the heartened crowd, although in the windswept square it did not make a very heroic sound. Still, even Matt Tinwright found himself reassured.

  / may not like the man overmuch, but imagine the trouble we would have been in if Hendon Tolly and his soldiers had not been here! There would have been riots and all manner of madness. Still, he had not slept well ever since hearing about the supernatural creatures on their doorstep, and he noticed that Tolly, for all his confidence, had said nothing about rooting the shadow folk out of the abandoned city.

  Hierarch Sisel now came forth to bless the crowd on behalf of the Trigonate gods. As the hierarch intoned the ritual of Perin’s Forgiveness, Lord Tolly—the castle’s new protector—fell into deep conversation with Tirnan Havemore, the new castellan. The king’s old counselor Nynor had retired from his position, and Havemore, who had been Avin Brone’s factor, had been the surprising choice to replace him. Tinwright could not resist looking at the man with envy. To rise so quickly, and to such importance! Brone must have been very pleased with him to give him such honor. But as Avin Brone now watched Tolly and Havemore, Tinwright could not help thinking he did not look either pleased or proud. Tinwright shrugged. There were always intrigues at court. It was the way of the world.

  And perhaps there is a place for me there, too, he thought hopefully, even without my beloved patroness. Perhaps if I make myself noticed, I too will be lifted up.

  Turning, the blessing forgotten, Matty Tinwright began to work his way out through the crowd, thinking of ways his own splendid light might be revealed to those in the new Southmarch who would recognize its gleam.

  To her credit, Opal handled the discovery of a bleeding, burned man twice her size sprawling on her floor with no little grace.

  “Oh!” she said, peering out from the sleeping room, “What’s this? I’m not dressed. Are you well, Chert?”

  “I am well, but this friend is not. He has wounds that need tending ...”

  “Don’t touch him! I’ll be out in a moment.”

  At first Chert thought she feared for her dear husband, that he might take some contagion from their wounded visitor, or that the injured man, in pain and delirium, might lash out like a dying animal. After some consideration, though, he realized that Opal didn’t trust him not to make things worse.

  “The boy’s still asleep,” she said as she emerged, still pulling her wrap around herself. “He had another poor night. What’s this, then? Who is this big fellow and why is he here at this hour?”

  “It is Chaven, the royal physician. I’ve told you about him. As to why ...”

  “Crawled.” Chaven’s laugh was dry and painful to hear. “Crawled across the castle in darkness ... to here. I need help with my ... my wounds. But I cannot stay. You are in danger if I do.”

  “Nobody’s in anywhere near as much danger as you, looking at those burns,” Opal said, scowling at the physician’s pitiful, crusted hands. “Hurry, bring me some water and my herb-basket, old man, and be quiet about it. We don’t need the boy underfoot as well.”

  Chert did as he was told.

  By the time Opal had finished cleaning Chaven’s burns with weak brine, covered them with poultices of moss paste, and begun to bind them with clean cloth, the wounded physician was asleep, his chin bumping against his chest every time she pulled a bandage snug.

  Opal stood and looked down at her handiwork. “Is he trustworthy?” she asked quietly.

  “He is the best of the big folk I kn
ow.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question, you old fool.”

  Chert couldn’t help smiling. “I’m glad to see the difficulties we’ve been through lately haven’t cost you your talent for endearments, my sweet. Who can say? The whole world up there is topsy-turvy. Up there? We have a child of the big folk living in our own house who plays some part in this war with the fairy folk. Everything has gone mad both upground and here.”

  “Injured or not, I won’t have the fellow in the house unless you tell me he can be trusted. We have a child to think of.”

  Chert sighed. “He is one of the best men 1 know, ordinary or big. And he might understand something of what’s happened to Flint.”

  Opal nodded. “Right. He’ll sleep for hours—he drank a whole cup of mossbrew, and he can’t have much blood left to mix it with. We’d best get what sleep we can ourselves.”

  “You are a marvel,” he told her as they climbed back under the blanket. “All these years and I still cannot believe my luck.”

  “I can’t believe your luck, either.” But she sounded at least a little pleased. Better than that, Chert had seen in her eyes as she tended the doctor’s wounds something he had not seen there since he had brought Flint back home—purpose. It was worth a great deal of risk to see his good wife become something like herself again.

  Chaven could barely hold the bread in his hands, but he ate like a dog who had been shut for days in an abandoned cottage. Which, as he began to tell Chert and Opal his story, was not so far from the truth.

  “I have been hiding in the tunnels just outside my own house.” He paused to wipe his face with his sleeve, trying to dab away some of the water that had escaped his clumsy handling of the cup. “The secret door, Chert, the one you know—there is a panel that comes out of the wall of the inside hallway and hides the door from prying eyes. I closed that behind me and went to ground in the tunnels like a hunted fox. I managed to bring a water bottle that had gone with me on my last journey, but had no time to find food.”

  “Eat more, then,” Chert said, “—but slowly. Why should you be hiding? What has happened to the world up there? We hear stories, and even if they are only half true or less, they are still astonishing and terrifying—the fairy folk defeating our army, the princess and her brother dead or run away ...”

  “Briony has not run away,” said Chaven, scowling. “I would stake my life on that. In fact, I already have.”

  Chert shook his head, lost. “What are you talking about?”

  “It is a long tale, and as full of madness as anything you have heard about fairy armies . . .”

  Opal stood abruptly as a noise came from behind them. Flint, pale and bleary-eyed, stood in the doorway. “What are you doing out of bed?” she demanded.

  The boy looked at her, his face chillingly dull. With all the things that had been strange or even frightening about him before, Chert could not help thinking, this lifeless, disinterested look was worse by far. “Thirsty.”

  “I’ll bring you in water, child. You are not ready to be out of bed yet, so soon after the fever has passed.” She gave Chert and Chaven a significant glance. “Keep your voices down,” she told them.

  Chert had barely begun to describe the bizarre events of Winter’s Eve when Opal returned from getting Flint back into bed, so he started again. His tale, which would have been an incredible one coming from the mouth of someone recently returned from exotic foreign lands, let alone the familiar precincts of Southmarch, would have been impossible to believe had it not been Chaven himself speaking, a man Chert knew to be not just honest, but rigorously careful about what he knew and did not know, about what could be proved or only surmised. “Built on bedrock,” as Chert’s father had always said of someone trustworthy, “not on sand, sliding this way and that with every shrug of the Elders.”

  “So do you think that this Tolly villain had something to do with the southern witch, Selia?” Chert asked. “With the death of poor Prince Kendrick and the attack on the princess?” From his one brief meeting with her, Chert had a proprietorial fondness for Briony Eddon, and already loathed Hendon Tolly and his entire family with an unquenchable hatred.

  “I can’t say, but the snatches of conversation I heard from him and his guards made them sound just as surprised as me. But their treachery to the royal family cannot be questioned, nor their desire to murder me, a witness of what really happened.”

  “They truly would have killed you?” asked Opal.

  “Definitely, had I remained to be killed,” Chaven said with a pained smile. “As I hid from them in the Tower of Spring, I heard Hendon Tolly telling his minions that I was by no means to survive my capture—that he would reward the man who finished me.”

  “Elders!” breathed Opal. “The castle’s in the hands of bandits and murderers!”

  “For the moment, certainly. Without Princess Briony or her brother, I see no way to change things.” All the talking had tired the physician; he seemed barely able to keep his head up.

  “We must get you to one of the powerful lords,” Chert said. “Someone still loyal to the king, who will protect you until your story is told.”

  “Who is left? Tyne Aldritch is dead in Kolkan’s Field, Nynor retreated to his country house in fear,” Chaven said flatly. “And Avin Brone seems to have made his own peace with the Tollys. I trust no one.” He shook his head as if it were a heavy stone he had carried too long. “And worst of all, the Tollys have taken my house, my splendid observatory!”

  “But why would they do that? Do they think you’re still hiding there?”

  “No. They want something, and I fear I know what. They are tearing things apart—I could hear them through the walls from my tunnel hiding-places—searching. Searching ...”

  “Why? For what?”

  Chaven groaned. “Even if I am right about what they seek, I am not certain why they want it—but I am frightened, Chert. There is more afoot here and in the world outside than simply a struggle for the throne of the March Kingdoms.”

  Chert suddenly realized that Chaven did not know the story of his own adventures, about the inexplicable events surrounding the boy in the other room. “There is more,” he said suddenly. “Now you must rest, but later I will tell you of our own experiences. I met the Twilight folk. And the boy got into the Mysteries.”

  “What? Tell me now!”

  “Let the poor man sleep.” Opal sounded weary, too, or perhaps just weighed down again with unhappiness. “He is weak as a weanling.”

  “Thank you ...” Chaven said, barely able to form words. “But... I must hear this tale . . . immediately. I said once that I feared what the moving of the Shadowline might mean. But now I think I feared . . . too little.” His head sagged, nodded. “Too little . . .” he sighed,”... and too . . . late . . .” Within a few breaths he was asleep, leaving Chert and Opal to stare at each other, eyes wide with apprehension and confusion.

  4. The Hada~d’in~Mozan

  The greatest offspring of Void and Light was Daystar, and by his shining all was better known and the songs had new shapes. And in this new light Daystar found Bird Mother and together they engendered many things, children, and music, and ideas.

  But all beginnings contain their own endings.

  When the Song of All was much older, Daystar lost his own song and went away into the sky to sing only of the sun. Bird Mother did not die, though her grief was mighty, but instead she birthed a great egg, and from it the beautiful twins Breeze and Moisture came forth to scatter the seeds of living thought, to bring the earth sustenance and fruitfulness.

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

  A

  STORM SWEPT IN from the ocean in the wake of the setting sun, but although cold rain pelted them and the little boat pitched until Briony felt quite ill, the air was actually warmer than it had been on their first trip across Brenn’s Bay. It was still, however, a chilly, miserable jouney

  Winter, Briony t
hought ruefully. Only a fool would lose her throne and be forced to run for her life in this fatal season. The Tollys won’t need to kill me—/’// probably drown myself or simply freeze. She was even more worried about Shaso soaking in the cold rain so soon after his fever had broken, but as usual the old man showed less evidence of discomfort than a stone statue, That was reassuring, at least: if he was well enough for his stiff-necked pride to rule him, he had unquestionably improved.

  By comparison, the Skimmer girl Ena seemed neither to be made miserable by the storm nor to bear it bravely—in fact, she hardly seemed to notice it. Her hood was back and she rowed with the ease and carelessness of someone steering a punt through the gentle waters of a summertime lake. They owed this Skimmer girl much, Briony knew: without her knowledge of the bay and its tides they would have had little hope of escape.