Tad Williams - Shadowheart

Somehow it also seemed pointless to go back to doing what he had done before, however necessary it might be. Once you had fought both a god-king and an actual god, it would not be easy to return to daily duty rosters and the other more mundane parts of his profession. He was looking forward to peacetime—what soldier who had survived this madness wouldn’t be?—but not to the problems of keeping five pentecounts of men occupied and battle-ready while protecting the rulers at every moment.

Everybody had been waiting in the garden since midday as the long shadow of Wolfstooth Spire passed from west to east, but though the mood was somber, the people themselves seemed gathered for a more festive occasion, their places on the sunny grass marked off with blankets and cloaks, the remains of meals still to be seen. The royal family had been through the funeral service already as King Olin lay in state in the hall of the residence. Now, with his body hidden inside a somber, sparsely decorated coffin draped in the Eddons’ wolf and stars, the mourning chorus sang the threnody and Sisel spoke the good words that had to be spoken over the dead. Olin the just ruler, Olin the protector of his people, Olin the diplomat—Vansen thought the hierarch spoke of him as though he were one of the deathless Trigonate gods. He thought he would rather have known the man who had fathered Briony, Barrick, and Kendrick, the man who had inspired so much feeling in all of them, but it was not to be. That man had been mortal and now he was dead. Now he was only a story.

“Though the terror and gratitude of those who pray fill thine ears always with myriad voice, O brothers who abide on the holy mountain Xand, yet hearken to us also, and grant this day your favor, that good Olin’s exile now may have an end, and that he may return to you and to his native land, at rest from labor of long journeys ...”

The salt had been sprinkled and Sisel had just begun to chant the final prayer meant to guide the spirit of the departed king when Ferras Vansen felt a stirring among the mourners, as if the crowd were a field of flowers rippled by the wind. Was something amiss? He looked quickly to Briony, who had felt it, too.

A procession was coming up the road between the armory and Wolfstooth Spire; the people at the far end of the commons had already turned to watch it. At first Vansen could see little of the newcomers as they passed through the tower’s shadow, but as their leader stepped out into the sun Vansen saw hair that dazzled like flame. Barrick Eddon had arrived at his father’s funeral. The prince wore clothes of loose-fitting white cloth and a hooded white cloak, much as Queen Saqri had done the few times Vansen had seen her; Vansen realized now that white must be the Qar’s mourning color.

He glanced again to Briony Eddon, but her expression was unreadable. Barrick and the company of fairies who came with him made their silent way up the colonnade beside the commons and then emerged into the sunshine again just short of the residence’s front steps and the king’s body, where Barrick stopped and stood, straight as a sentry.

After a confused few moments Hierarch Sisel continued the prayer. When it was ended the mantises came with their rattles and flutes to lead the procession, and the pallbearers lifted the coffin onto the wagon that would carry it toward the graveyard. It seemed the Eddons meant to keep using their family vault, Vansen noted, no matter what had taken place there or what lay beneath it. But before the pallbearers could take a step, Barrick abruptly stepped forward and laid two sprigs atop the coffin, one of meadowsweet and one of mistletoe, the Orphan’s flowers of immortality. As he did so, he paused for a moment. A look of pain and confusion twisted Barrick’s features and he snatched back his hand—the one that had once been withered and useless—almost as though he had burned it.

The prince and his followers did not accompany the coffin all the way to the graveyard, but turned away near the crumbled walls of the Throne hall and walked back toward the Raven’s Gate and their camp in Funderling Town. Some in the crowd turned to watch them depart, making the sign for the pass-evil, but most paid scant attention, as if the king’s son and his odd companions were only another clutch of mourners.

The funeral feast had ended nearly an hour before, and many of the guests had already retired, though a group of older nobles remained in the residence’s long, low dining room drinking wine and telling tales of the late king and of all that had happened since last Olin had sat on Anglin’s throne. Doubtless, many of them also expressed quiet reservations over the fitness of his daughter to rule, and questioned why her brother had made himself so absent from the business of governing the country, but Vansen ignored their conversations as he pulled a few of his more trustworthy guards from their duties in the dining room and led them to the residence parlor that served as Briony’s royal retiring room. The princess was waiting there already, her face carefully empty. To Ferras Vansen, her expression was like a sort of wound: it hurt him to see it.

When his guards had filed in, he turned to Briony. “Shall I go and get Lord Brone, Your Highness?”

She nodded, but scarcely seemed to see him.

To Vansen’s surprise, Avin Brone was waiting just outside the door of the hall—he had arrived while Vansen had been arranging the guards. The big man nodded. “It is good to see you, Captain Vansen. I assume you will not remain much longer in that low rank… ?”

“No one has spoken to me of any promotion, Lord Brone.”

“Ah, but I am sure you will be rewarded. I hear you did noble, brave-minded work since your return to Southmarch. Many say that if you hadn’t stiffened the Funderling resistance we would all be slaves now. You must tell me everything that happened one day, Vansen. I wish to hear what you saw. I trust your eyes and thoughts more than any others save my own.”

“Thank you, your lordship.”

The count smiled but he looked tired. “Let us not keep our mistress waiting. After all, she will soon be our queen.” He walked past Vansen to the door.

When Brone had bowed to Briony (not without a little difficulty; the old man had gotten even stouter and his limp was now pronounced) she asked for a bench to be brought so he could sit down.

“Before we get to the meat of things,” she said, “I have a question for you, Brone. Berkan Hood will soon be captured or dead. The post of lord constable is empty. Do you have anyone to recommend?”

Brone cleared his throat. “I can think of no one better than this man here, Ferras Vansen.”

“Not yourself, Lord Brone? You held the post a long time. Do you no longer have confidence in your own abilities?”

“With respect, Highness, do not play games with me. I am too old for that, and also too old to try to be what I was. If you did not want my advice, you should not have asked.”

“Very well, then, let’s not circle like two tavern bullies.” Briony’s smile was hard. “You were my father’s trusted adviser, Brone. You were that to my brother and to me as well.”

“I have been lucky enough to serve the throne and the people of the March Kingdoms. That is well known. Many would say I did it well.”

“Many would, yes—but that is not my complaint.” For the first time, Vansen saw that the emotion she had hidden was not weariness or fear, but rage. Her cheeks were red and her eyes narrowed in fury; for the first time he saw how much like her brother she really was. “You betrayed us, Brone, or you planned to. You schemed to see us all dead—my father, my brothers, and me. What do you say to that?”

Brone did not burst out into a torrent of denials, which made Vansen feel even more that the world had tilted on its foundations. Instead, the old man pressed his chin deep into his beard and frowned with his bushy brows until he seemed like a bear staring out of a cave. “And why do you say that, Your Highness? Who has told you such a thing of me?”