Tad Williams - Shadowheart

He lost track then of exactly what the queen of the Rooftoppers was saying, his thoughts spinning in unhappy circles until the ceremony was over.

The tiny man with the trumpet stood at Chert’s feet, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Her Majesty wishes to speak to you, Chert of Blue Quartz.”

Antimony patted him on the back. “You go. I will wait for you on the stairs. I am too fretful I will step on someone here.”

“Don’t take long with your flirtations, old man,” his wife told him. “We have a great deal to see to at home.”

“What are you talking about?” said Chert. “You must meet the queen, Opal. It is an honor. How many queens have you met?”

“Really? But I’m not dressed for it ...”

“Gods of raw earth, woman, you spent the entire morning making certain you had on the right garb. Come along. Beetledown was my friend—and he helped rescue Flint, too.”

His wife’s face suddenly betrayed such deep unhappiness that he wished he hadn’t said anything, but it was too late to take it back. He took her arm and led her forward, walking with small, sliding steps to give their hosts ample time to get out of his way.

Queen Upsteeplebat had been lifted up onto her saddled dove and waited for them with the serenity of a small but artful carving. When Chert and Opal had shuffled close enough, they carefully lowered themselves to their knees so they could see her better.

“You are very kind to come, Chert of Blue Quartz,” the queen said. “And this must be your wife, the Lady Opal.” She nodded. “We have heard so much good of you from Flint and Chert, Mistress. I thank you also for coming. Beetledown the Bowman meant much to us.” She shook her head. “We will never forget him, nor will we ever be able to replace him.”

To Chert’s surprise and pleasure, Opal was clearly charmed by the miniature queen. “You are too kind, Your Majesty. I liked Beetledown so much, too. A lovely lit… a lovely man. So many have been lost in the war—what terrible times!”

As he listened to his wife and the queen, Chert’s attention was caught by Antimony, who was standing in the doorway of the Rooftoppers’ sanctuary trying to catch his eye, beckoning. Chert carefully made his way back across the floor.

“You had better come.” Antimony’s face betrayed nothing.

“What is it?”

“Bring your wife, too, Master Chert.”

He went back and made apologies to the Rooftoppers’ monarch, who did not seem either insulted or unduly surprised, and led Opal out.

“What is this about?” his wife demanded. “You wanted me to meet her, then as soon as we’re talking friendly-like, you yank me off as though I were a ...” She stopped in the doorway, looking past Antimony at something Chert could not yet see. “Oh,” she said. “Oh!” And then she was hurrying across the landing. “Praise the Elders!” she shouted. “Oh, come see!”

It was the boy, of course—Chert had known that by the sound of his wife’s voice. As Opal squeezed him and rubbed tears all over his shoulder and neck—he had grown even taller in the past days, it seemed—Flint gave Chert a look that seemed to mix amusement and bafflement.

“But Mama Opal, I’m well,” he said as she wept and touched his face. “I said I would see you again. Didn’t they tell you?”

She laughed through her tears. “Hark to the boy. As if I shouldn’t worry when he’s vanished and half the world’s tumbled down—and him right at the center of it all!”

Chert joined the embrace, if a little awkwardly. The boy was almost a head taller than he was now but still looked as though he might have seen nine summers at most. “Still, you shouldn’t have made your mother worry so, lad. We didn’t know where you were ...”

“Come home,” Opal said. “Come home and I will make your favorite—muldywarp stew. Oh, Chert, let’s take him home.”

Chert could not help noticing that Brother Antimony looked uncomfortable, even troubled. As the boy tried to get down the stairs under Opal’s continued assault, hugging him and trying to hold his hands and several times almost toppling them both off the steep steps, Chert slowed until he was walking beside Antimony.

“Why the worried face?” he asked the monk as lightly as he could.

“Oh, it is nothing,” Antimony said. “It only troubled me that bad luck should have forced me to leave Beetledown behind just so I could carry Nickel to safety—that… that ...” He looked around as though Brother Nickel’s supporters might even be there, in the upper floors of the Tower of Summer. “That miserly, self-important creature. What a waste to lose little Beetledown instead of him!”

“The Elders’ plans are not always written clear,” Chert said.

“But then I was thinking about how Flint knew just where to be—just where to be! Of all the tunnels of the Mysteries, he knew just where Beetledown would be coming and where the owl would catch him ...” Antimony shook his head. “And I was thinking of that, and how he disappeared, and wondering how a mere boy could know such things… and then there he was! Standing directly in front of me on the stairs as if I had… as if I had conjured him up.”

Chert felt a bit of a chill, too—not the first that his adopted son’s actions had given him. “We have all had to get used to that. The boy… the boy is not like others.”

Antimony’s laugh was almost angry. “You are a wise man, Chert Blue Quartz, but that is far from the cleverest thing you’ve ever said. The boy is not like any other!”

“Chert!” Opal called back. “Did you hear what Flint said? You’re going to have an audience with the princess—and I will be going, too!”

“What? Flint, what are you talking about?”

“An audience with the princess and many others, in two days’ time,” the boy said. “It is very important, Papa Chert. You really must go.”

“With Princess Briony? And how did you hear of this?” he asked. “Did someone in the princess’ household tell you?”

“Oh, no,” he said, opening the door as they reached the bottommost floor. The late afternoon sun flooded in, so that for a moment Chert could not entirely make out the boy’s shape and he seemed something else, something unknown. “No,” Flint told him. “No one told me. I just thought of it.”

To His Royal Highness, Eneas Karallios, Prince of Syan and North Krace,

My dear friend and protector,

It is with a heart still mourning my beloved father as well as pained by the loss of my twin brother, although at this moment he lives and breathes only a short walk from the room where I write this letter, that I come to this, a task I have been avoiding all day. I would rather tend to any number of dreary chores, such as the examination of the accounts with Nynor, which demonstrate my kingdom to be in just as shocking a condition of poverty and mismanagement as anyone might guess, than to write this. But write it I will, because the alternative would be to speak these painful words to your person, and to see their effect in your kind face.

Eneas, I cannot marry you. I promised I would consider it when I knew what fate awaited me here in Southmarch, and so I have pondered your proposal with the deepest and most grateful attention. Who would not be honored to have received such an offer? More importantly, what woman, even if she did not admire you as I do, would be foolish enough to turn such an offer down? Having traveled with you these months and seen your quality, I can promise you I am more honored than I can ever say, but I still cannot be your wife. The woman who will someday have that good fortune and reign at your side as queen, whoever she may be, will be perhaps the most fortunate of my sex in all of Eion.