Shadowrise (60 page)

“I have not seen him nor heard anything of him since the night I left Southmarch.”

“Hmmm. Pity. I have sent several letters but they are never answered.”

“The castle is besieged,” she pointed out.

“Oh, certainly, certainly. But ships are landing—other letters have got through. I heard from an old friend there, Okros Dioketian, only a month past.”

Briony dimly remembered Okros, a colleague of Chaven’s who had treated her brother during his fever. “I am sorry I cannot help you, sir.”

“And I am sorry to trouble you, Highness. I hope Chaven is well, but I fear for him. He was always very reliable in the past when I needed an answer from him, very prompt.”

By the time she had returned to her own chambers, Briony was full of frustration with her lot and itching to take some action. She burst in on Feival so abruptly that he jumped with a squeak and dropped the letter he was reading on the floor. “I want Finn,” she announced.

Feival swept up the sheets of paper. “Want him for what? Zosim’s fire, you gave me a start.”

“Hurry and send for him. I want to talk to him.” She glared at the letter. “What’s that? Another admirer for me? Or a threat of death, perhaps?”

“Nothing you want to bore yourself with, Highness.” He slipped the pages into his sleeve and stood. He was wearing a beautiful green doublet of slashed silk with gold underlining, and looked every inch the young Tessian nobleman. “I’ll fetch him. Have you eaten? There’s some chicken under a dish and some good brown bread. There might be some grapes left, as well . . .”

But Briony had begun pacing back and forth and was no longer listening.

 

“Does everyone in this cursed city think I have my eyes set on marrying the prince?” she demanded.

Finn looked at Feival. “What have you said to her?”

“Nothing! She came back in this temper.”

“Do me the courtesy of talking to me, not each other.” Still, she stopped pacing and sat in her chair facing Finn, who perched anxiously on the small bench that was ordinarily the resting place of diminutive ladies-in-waiting. “What do people think?”

“Of you, Highness? To be honest, your name is not much on the tongues of the Tessian groundlings, at least on the streets of the neighborhood in which you have so kindly lodged us. Southmarch is much discussed, of course, but that is because of the siege there and the presence of the fairies. The latest news is that the fairies have finally begun their siege in earnest—that they are trying to breach the walls—may the gods protect Southmarch!”

“May they hear all our prayers, yes.” Briony made the sign of the Three. “But that is what the message from the Funderlings suggested—that the Qar were no longer content to sit and wait.” She felt a momentary lift of her spirits—if the message had been right about that, then perhaps Barrick really had returned!

Finn nodded. “But there are always fools—even now some folk in Syan still do not believe the fairy folk have come back—they dismiss an entire war as exaggeration.”

Briony scowled. “I wish they could see what I saw on Winter’s Eve, my last night in Southmarch—or hear the stories the soldiers told . . .” Thoughts of that night always troubled her, but of all the strange things that had happened it was something much smaller that tugged at her memory now.

“Pay no attention, Highness,” Finn was saying. “Such people are fools, we all know it. But you asked us to keep our ears and eyes open so I tell you all we have heard.”

“And how about you?” Briony asked, turning to Feival. “You spend a great deal of time out and about in the castle—sometimes I do not see you for hours. I hope my wayward secretary is doing more than simply following the handsome young page boys.”

She thought it was to Feival’s credit that he still had the grace to color a bit. “I . . . I hear many things, Highness, but as Finn says, so much of it is simply the babbling of fools . . .”

“Do not explain it to me, please, simply relate it. What are the courtiers saying?”

“That . . . that you are determined to have Eneas as your husband. Those are the more . . . honorable rumors.” He rolled his eyes. “Truly, Highness, it is all rubbish . . .”

“Continue.”

“Others say that you have your sights set on a . . . a higher target.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“The king.”

Briony bounced up out of her chair, her wide skirts nearly sweeping the dishes and cups from the low table. “What? Are they mad? King
Enander?
What would I want with the king?”

“They ask, what more certain way to get your throne back than to . . . to flaunt yourself to the king? Forgive me, Briony—Highness—I am only saying what I hear!”

“Go . . . on.” She was squeezing the fabric of her dress so hard that she was ruining the velvet.

“Feival is right,” Finn said. “You should not concern yourself with such dreadful gossip . . .”

She raised her hand to silence him. “I said,
go on
, Feival.”

He looked strangely angry at having to pass on this news. “Some of the folk of the court are suggesting that your idea from the first was to take Lady Ananka’s place, to use your youth and your position to catch the king’s eye. And there are uglier rumors, many of which you have already heard. That you and Shaso tried to steal the Southmarch throne. That your brother Kendrick’s death was . . . was your fault.” He wrapped his arms across his chest like a furious child. “Why do you make me say such things? You know the poison people can spout.”

Briony threw herself back down in her chair again. “I hate them all. The king? I would sooner wed Ludis Drakava—at least he is an honest villain!”

Finn Teodoros clambered from the bench and kneeled beside her, not without difficulty. “Please, Highness, I beg you, mind your words! You are surrounded by spies and enemies here. You do not know who might be listening.”

“Murder my sweet Kendrick?” She was fighting tears now. “Gods! I wish I were the one who had died instead!”

 

After Finn Teodoros left Feival seemed almost as agitated as Briony herself. He went to the writing desk and sat for a while staring at the household accounts, but soon was up again and tidying things that didn’t need to be tidied.

Briony, who had finally begun to calm a bit, was not in the mood to watch Feival Ulian march back and forth across the small sitting room. Between her confusion over Eneas, the Funderlings’ message, Ivvie’s illness and a dozen other matters she had more than enough to trouble her peace. She was considering going out to walk in the palace gardens and enjoy the last bit of evening light when Feival came and sat down across from her.

“Highness, may I speak with you? I truly must say something.” He took a breath. “I think . . . I wish . . . I think you should leave Tessis.”

“What? Why?”

He straightened his stockings. “Because it is too dangerous for you. Because twice someone has tried to kill you. Because the people here in court are liars and traitors—you can trust no one.”

“I trust you. I trust Finn.”

“You can trust no one.” He got up and began to walk around the room, picking up and replacing things he had already moved several times. “Because everyone has a price.”

Briony was astonished. “Are you trying to tell me something about Finn?”

He turned, his face red with what looked like anger. “No! I am trying to tell you that this place is a nest of serpents! I know! I hear them talk every day—I see what they do! You are too . . . too good for this place, Briony Eddon. Go away. Don’t you have family in Brenland? Go to them instead. That’s a small court—I’ve been there. People aren’t so . . . ambitious.”

She shook her head. “What are you talking about, Feival? If I didn’t know you, I’d think you had lost your mind. Brenland? My mother’s family? I’ve scarcely even met them . . .”

“Then go somewhere else.” Feival turned back to her, his face distraught. “This is a terrible place.”

He went out then and shut himself in the tiny room, little more than a closet, where he had his bed. He would not explain what had upset him so, and by the next day seemed too embarrassed even to discuss the incident.

Qinnitan awoke dizzy and unhappy and sick to her stomach. Half a tennight had passed since she and the nameless man had left Agamid and her life had settled into a familiar round of misery.

Her ankle was tied to a short length of rope knotted around one of the cleats on the boat’s rail. She could stand up and stretch, and sit awkwardly on the gunwale to urinate, but if she let herself fall overboard she would only dangle helplessly a little way above the water until someone pulled her back. Now that Pigeon was gone and her captor could not compel her with the boy’s life, he was making certain she could not kill herself. He was going to give her to the autarch alive, whether she wanted it or not.

Her tormentor had allies now, as well. The survivors of the fire, decimated and now without a ship, were waiting in Agamid for the rest of the autarch’s fleet to arrive, so her captor had been forced into other arrangements. This fishing shallop he had hired came complete with a dour captain named Vilas and his two thick-bodied sons. All three of them were burned brown by long exposure to sun, but still somehow gave the impression of dampness and stickiness, as if they had crawled from under a tidepool rock. They also shared a family trait of a single thick eyebrow and seemed to speak only gutter Perikalese, a language that her captor could understand but which sounded to Qinnitan like they were constantly clearing their throats to spit. Except for leering at her whenever the nameless man was looking away, the three fishermen seemed utterly uninterested in her: the fact that she was clearly a prisoner did not bother them in the least.

So Qinnitan had little to do as the coastline bobbed past but watch and wait . . . and think. As she gnawed the piece of tack one of Vilas’ sons had tossed her as offhandedly as if she had been a dog she wondered how long she had until the nameless man handed her over to the autarch. Agamid was days behind them but the Jellonian headlands were still out of sight ahead. Where were they going? If they were following the autarch, why was Sulepis traveling so far north? Surely he would gain more from conquering vast Hierosol with all its treasure and its control of the northern side of the Osteian Sea. Why would the most powerful monarch in the world sail all the way north to the forested hinterlands of Eion?

For that matter, why had the autarch gone to such trouble to take Qinnitan from her family in the first place? It had never made any sense, never once. Why choose a girl for a royal wife whose father was a petty priest? Why do nothing with her or to her except for some kind of bizarre religious instruction?

And why had the northern king Olin taken an interest in her as well? He had been a kind man, but that alone should not have made him single her out from all the other girls working in the Hierosoline stronghold.

Hold a moment.
Qinnitan stood, suddenly full of excited thought, but within two steps she had come to the limit of the rope that bound her. She swallowed her frustration, determined to hang onto the thought. The autarch had chosen her for something that she had never understood. Now he was heading north, up the coast of Eion. The foreign king, the prisoner, had thought he recognized something in Qinnitan—a resemblance, had he said? Was that where the autarch was going—to the land of the foreign king, Olin? Was that where everyone was headed?

It still made no real sense, but for that moment, out on the featureless, trackless ocean and surrounded by enemies, she felt as though she had touched something true.

 

With nothing to do and little to eat Qinnitan did not sleep well. At night she often huddled in her thin blanket for hours, trying to push away imaginings of what the autarch had in store for her as she waited for the blessed release of sleep. In the mornings she kept her eyes closed long past the time she was completely awake, listening to the keening of seabirds and praying to fall asleep again, to flee back into oblivion for even a short time, but it seldom happened. Often she woke while even her captor was still asleep, only Vilas or one of his sons on duty at the tiller.

After a few days of watching her nameless jailer Qinnitan came to realize he was a creature of patterns: he woke up every morning at the same time, just as the first coppery light of dawn was bleeding up from the eastern horizon. Then, directly after waking each day he put himself through a series of stretching movements, going from one to the other with the predictability of the great clock in the Orchard Palace’s main tower, as though he were made of wheels and gears instead of flesh and blood. Then, as Qinnitan watched through slitted eyes, pretending to be asleep, this pale, unexceptional man who held her life in his hands would take a small black bottle out of his cloak, pull out the stopper, then dip what looked like a needle or a tiny twig into the bottle before withdrawing it and licking whatever he had drawn out. The container would then be stopped with great care and bottle and needle would disappear into his cloak once more. He would then generally eat some dried fish and drink a little water. Morning after morning the stretching rituals and the bottle continued, unchanged.