Tad Williams - Shadowheart

Briony smiled a hard smile. “Then he would be an ill fit in most courts, where it is generally the other way around—but come into our tent and we will speak. There is no forgiveness in my heart for Xis, but I want no more fighting if it can be avoided.”

“Please, Princess Briony,” said ancient Vash, “it was your father’s own scheme that brought Prusus and I together—he alone saw through the scotarch’s outer seeming and made me aware as well. That is why at the last I found a few sympathetic men to help me carry the scotarch and we escaped. That is why we did not die in the caverns beneath your castle. It was your father’s cleverness that saved us.”

“Do not think to flatter me with what my father did while he struggled for his life—a life your master eventually took from him.” Vansen could see that Briony was fighting to stay calm. He longed more than anything to be able to put his hand upon her, to let her know she was not alone—but of course he couldn’t. “From what I have been told about your people, it is scarcely worth our while to negotiate. As soon as you return to Xis, this man ...” she gestured to the new autarch, who was being helped to drink watered wine by a servant, “will be replaced by another member of your mad royal family. So why should I not simply leave you all to make your way across Eion by land and let things fall out as they will?” Her smile this time was even harder. “I do not think you would have a happy time leading your survivors through Syan and Hierosol.”

Vash nodded, but it was plain he too was nettled. “Yes, and more innocents would be killed. I do not speak of our soldiers here, Highness. We invaded you… or rather, the previous autarch forced us to invade. And ordinarily you would be correct—Prusus would have only a short time to rule before a successor was chosen. But he and I think we have a better plan. There is an old law among our people that the scotarch will rule until a successor has been chosen. However, if the autarch is not dead but simply gone, the successor cannot be chosen until five years have passed.” Vash smiled. For all his age he had the confident smile of a younger man. “We will be able to do much in five years, I think, to change that which we like least about our country. For one, if you let us take passage from here, we will withdraw our army from Hierosol as well.”

“Truly?” said Eneas. His skepticism was plain. “Why should you do that?”

Prusus abruptly spoke up. Vansen could make out an occasional word now, but much of it still sounded like animal noises.

“He says, ‘Because conquest is expensive, and maintaining it is more so,’” the old man explained. “Xis has overstretched its boundaries and resources. We have enough to do taking care of our empire in Xand. All of the adventuring here in the north was the obsession of Sulepis, all bent toward what he thought to do here, in Southmarch.” Vash bowed. “But Prusus says that he, who is scarcely a man, has no illusions that he is fit to be a god. He thinks he can be a goodly autarch, however, for as long as the gods give him to rule.”

“You promise this?” Briony said, looking not at Vash now but at Prusus. “If we let you and your men take ship—and you Xixians will pay for those ships and pay for everything that goes upon them—then you promise you will withdraw your armies from the rest of Eion?”

Prusus’ head wagged several times before he could get out the words. They were hard to understand, but not impossible.

“Yiy ... I ... do. I ... puh ... rah ... misss.”

“You and Minister Vash may return to your camp in the hills. My counselors, Prince Eneas, and I must talk together.”

“I am disposed to trust them, not because I believe everything they say—Vash, it is clear to me, is a man who has long acquaintance with the manipulation of truth—but because I see no choice.” In the privacy of the tent she had taken off her headpiece. A sheen of sweat flecked her brow. Vansen realized he was staring.

“I do not like it, Briony,” said Prince Eneas. “Don’t do it. I think it is a mistake.”

She gave him enough of a nettled look to make Ferras Vansen happier than he had been in hours. “I’m grateful for your advice, Eneas, but please remember, this is Southmarch soil, and although I will never be able to repay all you have done for me and my people, I am still the mistress here, even if I have not yet been crowned.”

She truly has changed, Vansen realized. Most of the petty angers have gone. What remains is just and necessary… even queenly.

Briony frowned. “In any case, what can we do? Imprison them all? Execute them… ?”

As she spoke a guard came in, clearly in haste. He bent and whispered his message to Vansen, who immediately stepped forward.

“Princess,” he said, “my men say that a boat is coming, not from the Southmarch mainland but across the bay from Oscastle ...”

“Surely that is not so unusual, Captain Vansen? Or is it a warship?”

“No, but ...” He did not know what to say. “Perhaps you should come and see.”

It took only a short time to throw back the curtains again and open the pavilion to the blue sky and the green bay all around. The Marrinswalk ship was impossible to mistake, a single-masted cog of the type usually meant for fast travel and vital news, but what caught Vansen’s attention were the three flags she flew. One was the owl of the Marrinswalk’s ducal family, but she also showed the black and silver of the Eddons and another pennant with a strange sigil that Vansen did not recognize.

“By the gods,” said Steffens Nynor, his wispy hair a little disarranged with drink and the heat of the day, “they’re flying the battle standard of the Southmarch master of arms. But we have no master of arms. Not since ...”

“Do not say it,” Briony told him. “Do not tempt the gods to cruelty or tricks.”

The ship anchored a short distance out in the bay and a boat rowed across to the causeway and tied up on the opposite side from the Xixian falcon boat, which was just raising anchor. As if in studied imitation of the southern delegation, this boat too disgorged a man in dark traveling clothes and a broad hat; the man at the front of the landing boat was even darker of skin than Pinimmon Vash.

“Oh, merciful Zoria, is that truly Dawet?” Briony said. She stood up and waved her hand. “Master Dan-Faar, is it you?”

The newcomer waved from the end of the causeway, but Vansen thought it a subdued gesture. The dark man climbed out as the boat was still being tied and walked up the road toward the pavilion.

Briony clapped her hands. “I am so pleased you have come to us!” she called. “I feared something had happened to you—that you would never see the happy result of all our labors together in Syan.”

The man Vansen had last seen as the envoy of Ludis Drakava mounted the wooden steps to the pavilion. He bowed and kissed Briony’s hand. “I rejoice to see you back on your throne again, Princess.” He turned and made a bow to the prince as well. “Your Royal Highness.”

Eneas and Ferras Vansen looked at each other, unhappy with the arrival of this handsome newcomer and with Briony’s obvious affection for him.

“But why did you come in such a manner, Master Dan-Faar, flying the flag of the master of arms?” Briony asked him. “Do you seek to fill the position?” She laughed, but suddenly looked unsure. “And why are you dressed so, all in black? Has something happened?

Dawet was still on his knees, as if he were too weary to rise. He took a square of parchment from his cloak and offered it to her. “Here, Princess. This is for you.”

Watching the way Briony flinched at the letter, Vansen wanted to leap forward and snatch it from her hand, but he knew he could not. She took it and broke the seal, then spread it on her lap. For a moment she read it in silence, then held it out to Dan-Faar, blinking away tears. “I cannot… I ...” She shook her head. “Please read it to me.”