Tad Williams - Shadowheart

“I am your lover, yes, but remember I am also your constable.”

“And you are admirable in both occupations. Come with me down to the retiring room. Some friends of mine have returned to Southmarch and I would like you to meet them.”

“Friends?” Vansen had a dreadful vision of more suitors, more handsome foreign princes, a line of rivals stretching out until doomsday. “What sort?”

“The educated sort. Come, now—let me show you off to the only people who will not judge me badly!”

“Makewell’s sister forbade him to come, Highness,” said Nevin Hewney. “But we have found someone to take his place. I introduce you to Matthias Tinwright, poet.”

Briony raised her eyebrow. The shamefaced Tinwright would not meet her eyes. “We’ve met. In fact, we saw each other rather recently. Master Tinwright was trying to kill my infant brother.”

Now it was Hewney’s turn to look bemused. “Truly? I never thought you disliked children so violently, Tinwright. I underestimated you.”

While Vansen tried to make sense of this, Briony turned and threw her arms wide. “Finn!” she cried, embracing the third man with a joy that Vansen did his best to ignore. “It is so good to see you again! And you, too, Hewney, disreputable soul that you are.”

The man named Finn Teodoros drew back, a little red-faced at his greeting. “All thanks to Zosim, patron of players, Princess ...”

“Not him,” Vansen growled.

Teodoros looked at him curiously for a moment, then back to Briony. “In any case, all thanks to the gods, we are here—and you are the queen! We should be down on our knees to you, not strolling in at this late hour with a couple of jugs of cheap wine!”

“By the time we finish both jugs, someone will certainly be on his knees,” Hewney said, “but I suspect it will be young Tinwright.”

“And this,” said Briony, “is Ferras Vansen, captain of the royal guard and soon to be lord constable. He, more than any other man, saved this castle and my throne.” She ordered one of her pages to fetch cups, then waved to Nevin Hewney. “Now bring that jug over here and let me tell you the truth about everything .”

Vansen regarded his beloved with growing horror. “Highness ...”

“You will have some wine, too, Captain. Tallow is in charge of the guardroom tonight and you are at liberty. These are my friends, and here we all are.” She took a cup from the page. “Here—pour! And some for my captain, too. Did you know that he is my lover?”

“Princess!”

“It was not hard to guess, the way you keep clutching at his hand,” said Finn Teodoros, grinning. “I hope you are more discreet in front of the paying public.”

“Yes. But you are my only friends, and I am tired of secrets.” She drank her wine at a gulp, then held out her cup again. “A few more of these, and I will begin declaiming Zoria’s words.” She smiled at Tinwright, who still looked a bit anxious. “I mean no blasphemy,” she said. “Teodoros wrote them for a play, and I played the part of the goddess.”

“No one could have played it better,” said Finn Teodoros fondly.

“Chaste as old Zoria herself, too,” grumbled Hewney. “No matter how often I tried to ...” He blinked. “Why is this guard captain standing so close to me? And looking as though he might like to give me a thrashing?”

“If you are jealous of these fine folk, you haven’t had enough wine yet, Captain,” Briony said, then turned to give Vansen a kiss on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered, then said much more loudly, “Fill that man’s cup again!”

Vansen and Finn Teodoros were deep in a slightly frog-mouthed discussion about the Qar, comparing their experiences, Vansen’s mostly personal, Teodoros’ mostly learned from study. Nevin Hewney, perhaps depressed by the lack of available female company or just overcome by all the wine he had downed, had fallen asleep between the two of them, so that they both had to lean forward to talk around his bobbing, bearded head.

“… But Phayallos says that when the gods walked the earth they could take any form, so why should Zosim, if it truly was him, not simply take the form of a bird or a fiery arrow and fly out of the deeps that way?”

Vansen shook his head firmly, then shook it again. “Because… because… curse it, Teodoros, I don’t know. Why should I? He was a god! If you’d have been there, you could have asked him.”

“I am not so brave, Captain ...”

Briony, who had been admiring Ferras Vansen’s face, the almost child-like earnestness that appeared so quickly even when he looked his most mature and handsome, did not notice for some moments that Matt Tinwright was standing beside her, swaying slightly from side to side.

“Yes, Master Tinwright?”

“Are you… do you still… I did not want to hurt your brother, Princess. Truly I didn’t. ...”

“I know, Tinwright. That’s why you are standing free here before me, drunk to the gills on my good Perikal red wine.”

He frowned. “I thought… that Hewney brought the wine ...”

“We’ve moved on to the royal stores long ago,” she said. “You should sit down again, man, before you fall and hurt yourself.”

“I… I wanted to talk to you, Princess Briony. To thank you for making me your poet.”

She smiled. “You are welcome.”

“I have a question.” He licked his lips, clearly uneasy. “Do you remember that… that I was writing a poem about you? How you were like Zoria?”

She nodded, although the memory was very vague indeed. It hadn’t been very good was all she could recall. “Of course, Master Tinwright.”

He smiled in relief. “Well, I was thinking I might go back to it… but I was thinking. That’s what I was doing—thinking about the poem. I was thinking that I couldn’t make a poem about you that didn’t have anything about… about, you know, the things that happened. Here and while you were in Syan. I’ve been asking people. Trying to find out the truth.”

“I’ll be happy to answer your questions, Matt,” she said kindly. “But not tonight. Tonight is for merriment.”

“I know!” He waved his hands as though accused of theft. “But I was thinking and thinking about how the whole thing has been like… well, like one of Finn’s or Nevin’s plays from the very first.”

“I’m not certain I understand.” She looked over to Vansen and Teodoros, still talking like fast friends—or maybe Finn just fancied her guard captain. She could hardly blame him. “Like a play?”

“All of it. Like a puppet play. Someone was always behind everything we saw. From what I’m told ...” he screwed up his face, trying hard to get it right, “from what I’m told, Zosim was behind it all, pretending to be Kernios. But Hendon Tolly thought it was someone else, a goddess—he sometimes seemed to think it was Zoria herself! But it was all Zosim wearing disguises, do you see? Just like a player!”

“I suppose ...”

“All of it like a play. You were a princess, but you disguised yourself, just as in so many stories. The villain of the piece hid in the shadows and had others do his bidding, like that southern king, that autarch. That’s just like one of Hewney’s plays, too. But what really made me stop and wonder was when I thought, ‘but if Zosim was behind it all, but he was beaten in the end ... who did that?’”

Briony, a little the worse for wear herself after several cups of Perikal, could only shake her head. “Who did what ?”

“Beat Zosim. Tricked him and defeated him.”

“Well, the boy Flint, that I told you about earlier… he claims that part of Crooked lives inside him. ...”

“Exactly!” said Tinwright loudly, then blushed. “Yes, Highness. And when you told me that, I really got to thinking. You know the stories from the old days about how Kupilas beat Kernios and Zosim both, right here!” He frowned. “I mean, down underneath the earth. You know, don’t you?”