Shadowplay by Tad Williams
“These northern lands can poison a young man,” said Shaso, managing to look grim even as he piled mushrooms in his bowl.
“Of course, of course,” Dan-Mozan said with a smile. “But young men are particularly susceptible wherever they find themselves. He will go back to Tuan after his year here, marry a good girl, and find himself again. Now, let us bless our food.” He said a few words under his breath.
“Back to Tuan,” Shaso said darkly. He looked drawn and tired despite the early hour. “There have been times when I wished I could do that, too, but it is not my Tuan, not anymore. How can it be, when it belongs to Xis?” He pursed his lips as though he might spit on the floor, but then seemed to think better of it. Effir dan-Mozan, who for a moment had looked concerned for his beautiful carpets, smiled again, but more sadly this time.
“You are right, my lord. Even though some of us unworthy ones must still keep ties there because of our trade, it is not the place we loved, not as long as those Xixian sons of whores—ah, your pardon, my lady, I forgot you were here—hold the keys to our gates. But that will change. All things change if the Great Mother wills it.” He briefly assumed a pious face as he brought his hands together, then turned brightly to Briony. “Your food, Highness—is it to your liking?”
“Yes... yes, it’s very nice.” She had been eating slowly, wary of appearing too much of a pig in front of this small, neat man, but she was very hun-gry indeed and the food was excellent, full of tangy, unfamiliar flavors.
“Good. Well, my Lord Shaso, you wished to speak with me and here I sit, at your command. I am very pleased, of course, simply to see you free, and amazed by your story.” The merchant turned to smile at Briony. “Your bravery was, it need not be said, a large and impressive part of Lord Shaso’s tale.” ,
Her mouth was full; she nodded her head carefully. She was also the person who had locked Shaso up in the first place and she was not entirely certain whether this small, amiable man might not be mocking her.
“I need information,” Shaso said, “and I wished the princess to be here since it saves me the work of repeating it.” He saw her irritated look. “And of course it is her right to be here, since she is heir to her father’s throne.”
“Ah, yes,” said Dan-Mozan gravely. “We all pray for King Olin’s safe and speedy return, may the gods give him health.”
“Information,” repeated Shaso, a bit of impatience coloring his voice. “Your ships go everywhere up and down the coasts, Dan-Mozan, and you have many eyes and ears on the inland waterways as well. What have you hearci of the fairy-invasion, of the autarch, of anything I should know? Assume 1 know nothing.”
“I would never be foolish enough to assume that, Lord Shaso,” said Dan-Mozan. “But 1 take your meaning. Well, I will make as much sense of it as the Mother grants me to make. The north is all confusion, of course, because of the strange d’shinna army that has come from behind the Line of Shadows.” He nodded, as though this was something he had long predicted. “The great army of Southmarch has been broken—I crave your pardon for saying it, estimable princess, but it is true. Those that have survived but could not reach the castle have scattered, some fleeing south toward Kerte-wall or into Silverside—they say that the streets of Onsilpia’s Veil are crowded with weeping soldiers. Many others are heading on toward Sett-land or down into Brenland, convinced that the north will fall, hoping to find shelter in those places or take ship for the south. But the southern lands, they may find, will soon offer no safe harbor, either ...”
Barrick, Barrick . . . ! She tried to imagine him free and alive, perhaps leading a group of survivors toward Settesyard. Her beloved other half—surely she would know if someone she had known and loved like a part of herself were dead! “What of the city and Southmarch Castle itself?” she asked. “Does it still stand? And how did you discover all this so quickly?”
“From the boats that fish in Brain’s Bay and supply the castle goods from the south, many of which belong to me,” said Dan-Mozan, smiling. “And of course, my captains also hear much in port from the river-men Coming down from the other parts of the March Kingdoms. Even in time of war, people must send their wool and beer to market. Yes, Southmarch Clastle still stands, but the city on its shore has fallen. The countryside is emptied all around. The place is full of demons.”
It all suddenly seemed so bleak, so hopeless. Briony clenched her jaw. She would not cry in front of these older men, would not be reassured or coddled. It was her kingdom—her father’s, yes, but Olin was a prisoner in Hierosol. Southmarch needed her, and it especially needed her to be strong. “My father, the king—have you heard anything of him?”
The merchant nodded soberly. “Nothing that suggests he is not safe, I lighness, or that anything has changed, but I hear rumors that Drakava’s grip on Hierosol is not as strong as it might be. And there are other tales, mere whispers, that the autarch is readying a great fleet—that he might wish Hierosol for himself.”
“What?” Shaso sat up, almost spilling his cup of gawa. Clearly this was new to him. “The autarch surely cannot be ready for that—he has only just pacified his own vassals in Xand—surely half his army must be garrisoned in Mihan, Marash, and our own miserable country. How could he move so soon against Hierosol and its mighty walls?”
Dan-Mozan shook his head. “I cannot answer you, my lord. All I can tell you is what I hear, and the whisper is that Sulepis has been assembling a fleet with great speed, as though something has happened which has pushed forward his plans.” He turned to Briony, almost apologetically. “We all know that the Xixians have desired greater conquest on Eion, and that taking Hierosol would let them control all the Osteian Sea and the southern oceans on either side.”
Briony waved away all this detail, angry and intent. “The autarch plans to attack Hierosol? Where my father is?”
“Rumors, only,” said Dan-Mozan. “Do not let yourself be too alarmed, Princess. It is probably only these uncertain times, which tend to set tongues wagging even when there is nothing useful to say”
“We must go and get my father,” she told Shaso. “If we take ship now we could be there before spring!”
He scowled and shook his head. “You will forgive me for being blunt, Highness, but that is foolishness. What could we do there? Join him in captivity, that is all. No, in fact you would be married by force to Drakava and I would go to the gibbet. There are many in Hierosol who wish me dead, not least of which is my onetime pupil, Dawet.”
“But if the autarch is coming ... !”
“If the autarch is coming to Eion, then we have many problems, and your father is only one of them.”
“Please, please, honored guests!” Effir dan-Mozan lifted his hands and clapped. “Have more gawa, and we have some very nice almond pastries as well. Do not let yourself be frightened, Princess. These are the merest whispers, as I said, and likely not true.”
“I’m not frightened. I’m angry.” But she fell into an unhappy silence as Dan-Mozan’s nephew Talibo returned and served more food and hot drinks. Briony looked at her hands, which she was having trouble keeping decorously still: if the youth was staring at her again, she was not going to give him the satisfaction of noticing.
Shaso, though, watched with a calculating eye as the young man went out again. “Do you think your nephew might have some spare garments he could lend us?” Shaso asked suddenly.
“Garments?” Dan-Mozan raised an eyebrow.
“Rough ones, not fine cloth. Suitable for some hard labor.”
“I do not understand.”
“He looks as though clothing of his might fit the princess. We can roll up the cuffs and sleeves.” He turned to Briony. “We will put that anger of yours to some good work this afternoon.”
“But surely you will come,” Puzzle said. “I asked for you, Matty—I told them you were a poet, a very gifted poet.”
Ordinarily, the chance to perform at table for the masters of Southmarch would have been the first and last th
Perhaps I am too sensitive, he told himself. My poet’s nature. The Tollys have done nothing but good in an ill time, surely. Still, he had begun to hear tales from the kitchen workers and sonic of the other servitors with whom lie shared quarters in the back of the residence that made him uneasy—tales of people disappearing and others being badly beaten or even executed for minor mistakes. One of the kitchen potboys had seen a young page’s fingers cut off at the table by Tolly’s lieutenant Berkan Hood for spilling a cup of wine, and Tinwright knew it was true because he had seen the poor lad being tended in a bed with a bandage over his bloody stumps.
“I ... I am not certain I am ready to perform for them myself,” he told I’uzzle. “But I will help you. A new song, perhaps?”
“Aye, truly? Something I could dedicate to Lord Tolly . . . ?” As Puzzle paused to consider this and its possible results, Tinwright noticed movement on the wall of the Inner Keep where it passed around Wolfstooth Spire, a short arrow’s flight from the residence garden where he and Puzzle had met to share some cooking wine that Puzzle had filched from the lesser buttery. For a moment he thought it was a phantom, a transparent thing of dark mists, but then he realized that the woman walking atop the wall was wearing veils and a net shawl over her black dress and he knew at once who it was.
“We will talk later, yes?” he said to Puzzle, giving the jester a clap on the back that almost knocked the old man over. “There is something I need to do.”
Tinwright ran across the garden, dodging wandering sheep and goats as though in some village festival game. He knew Puzzle must be staring at his sudden retreat as though he were mad, but if this was madness it was the sweetest kind, the sort that a man could catch and never wish to lose.
He slowed near the armory and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a sleeve, then straightened his breeches and hose. It was strange: he felt almost a little shamefaced, as though he were betraying his patroness Briony Eddon, but he shrugged the feeling away. Just because he did not wish to recite his poems before the whole of the Tolly contingent did not mean that he had no ambitions whatsoever.
He walked around the base of Wolfstooth Spire and made his way up its outer staircase, so that when he reached the wall he should seem to be encountering her by accident. He was gratified to see she had not continued on, which would have necessitated him trying to hide the fact of walking swiftly after her to catch up. She was leaning on the high top of the outer wall, peering out through a crenellation across the Outer Keep, her weeds fluttering about her.
When he thought he was close enough to be heard above the fluting of the wind, he cleared his throat. “Oh! Your pardon, Lady. I did not know anyone else was walking on the walls. It is something 1 like to do—to dunk, to feel the air.” He hoped that sounded sufficiently poetic. The truth was, it was cold and damp here at the edge of the Inner Keep with the bay churning just below them. Were it not for her, he would much rather be under roof and by a fire, with a cup full of something to warm his guts.
She turned toward him and brushed back the veil to stare with cool, gray eyes. Her skin would be pale at the best of times, but here, on this dank, overcast day, with her black clothes and hat, her face almost disappeared except for her eyes and fever-red mouth. “Who are you?”
He suppressed an exultant shout. She had asked his name! “Matthias Tinwright, my lady.” He made his best bow and prepared to kiss her hand, but it did not emerge from the dark folds of her cloak. “A humble poet. I was bard to Princess Briony.” He realized phrasing things that way might seem disloyal, not to mention suggesting he was out of work. “I am bard to Princess Briony,” he said, putting on his best, most pious aspect. “Because, with the mercy of Zoria and the Three, she will come back to us.”
An expression he could not read passed across Elan M’Cory’s face as she turned slowly back to the view. Why did she wear those widow’s clothes, when he knew for a fact—he had pursued the questionacarefully—that she was not married? Was it truly in mourning for Gailon Tolly? They had not even been betrothed, or so at least the servants said. Many of them thought her a little mad, but Tinwright didn’t care. One view of her with her hair hanging copper-brown against her white neck, her large, sad eyes watching nothing as the rest laughed and gibed at one of Puzzle’s entertainments, and he had been smitten.
He hesitated, unsure of whether to go or not.
“A poet,” she said suddenly. “Truly?”
He suppressed a boast and thus surprised himself.”I have long called myself so. Sometimes I doubt my skills.”
She turned again and looked at him with a little more interest. “But surely this is a poet’s world, Master . . .”
“Tinwright.”
“Master Tinwright. Surely this your time of glory. Legends of the old days walk beneath the sun. Men are killed and no one can say why. Ghosts walk the battlements.” She smiled, but it was not pleasant to see. Tinwright took a step back. “Do you know, I have even heard that mariners have lately returned with tales of a new continent in the west beyond the Smoking Is—
Kinds,,a great, unexplored land full of savages and gold.’Think of it! I’erhaps there are plaees where life still runs strong, where people are full of hope.”
“Why should that not be true of this place, Lady Elan? Are we truly so weak and hopeless?”
She laughed, a small sound like scissors cutting string. “This place? Our world is old, Master Tinwright. Old and palsied—doddering, and even the young ones gasping in their cots. The end is coming soon, don’t you think?”
While he was considering what to say to this strange assertion, he heard noises and looked up to see two young women hurrying along the battlements toward them, slipping a little on the wet stones in their haste. He recognized them as Princess Briony’s ladies-in-waiting—the yellow-haired one was Rose or some other such flower name. They looked at Tinwright suspiciously as they approached, and for the first time he wished he was wearing better clothes. Oddly, it had not occurred to him during his conversation with Elan M’Cory.
“Lady Elan,” the dark one cried, “you should not be walking here by yourself! Not after what happened to the princess!’
She laughed. “What, you think someone will climb the wall of the Inner Keep and steal me away? I can promise you, I have nothing to offer any kidnapper.”
Ah, but you are wrong, thought Tinwright: if Briony Eddon was the bright morning sun, Elan M’Cory was the sullen, alluring moon. In truth, he thought, his mind as always leaping to the tropes of myth and story, the goddess Mesiya must look much like this, so pale and mysterious, she who walks the night sky with her retinue oj clouds.
He remembered then that Mesiya was the wife of Erivor and mother of the Eddon family line, or so it was claimed, her wolf their battle-standard. How quickly these poetic thoughts grew muddled . ..
“Come with us,” the two ladies-in-waiting were saying, tugging gently at the black-clad Elan’s arms. “It is damp here—you will catch your death.”
“Ho!” a voice cried from below, lazy and cheerful. “There you are.”
“Never fear,” Elan M’Cory said, but so quietly that only Tinwright heard her. “It has caught me instead.”
Hendon Tolly stood at the base of the wall on the Inner Keep side, a small crowd of guardsmen in Tolly livery standing near him but at a respectful distance. “Come down, good lady. I have been looking for you.”
“Surely you should go and lie down instead,” said yellow-haired Rose, almost whispering. “Let us take care of you, Lady Elan.”
“No, if my brother-in-law calls me, I must go.” She turned to Tinwright “It ha
“I am waiting, my lady!” Hendon Tolly seemed full of rich humor, as though at a joke only he understood. “I have things I wish to show you.”
She turned and walked behind the ladies, heading back toward the steps that Tinwright had climbed and the waiting master of Southmarch.Just be fore she reached them, when Tolly had looked away to talk to his guards, she turned back toward Tinwright for a brief moment. He thought she might nod or give some other sign of farewell, but she only looked at him with an expression as bizarrely full of mixed shame and excitement as a dog who has been caught gorging on the last of the family’s dinner, who knows he will be fiercely beaten but cannot even run.