Tad Williams - Shadowplay

“Help me, please! Can you get a message to Funderling Town quickly?”

After a moment the little man appeared again at the top of the tapestry and shimmied down on his thread. “No, can’t, sir. Take too very long. P’raps if someone by bird went, but cote’s all the way t’other side o’ the Great Peak. Couldn’t get to Fundertown fast enough ourselves, which be why Master Scout Beetledown sent me here to find ’ee.” His tiny chest puffed up a little. “Travel faster, me, than nigh any other.”

Chert sank to the floor in despair. It was hopeless. Even if he could somehow sneak out of the residence and through the Raven Gate, running as fast as he could, Okros and the soldiers would still get there before him. All this because of Chaven and his damned, blasted mirror! Ruined by his cursed secrets...!

Then he remembered the passage underneath Chaven’s observatory. That would get him to the outskirts of Funderling Town in only moments, perhaps while Okros and the soldiers were still trying to find their way through the confusing stone warren of dark streets to locate his house —he doubted any Funderling would give the big folk much help. Nothing made Chert’s neighbors more resentful than people from aboveground throwing their weight around, especially in the little folk’s own domain.

It’s barely a chance, but it’s better than naught, he told himself. He jumped to his feet and put his head close to the Rooftopper.

“Thank you, and tell Beetledown I thank him, too,” Chert whispered. “I will ask the Earth Elders to lead him to great blessings—but now I must go save my family.”

Chert ran off down the passage, leaving his tiny savior spinning on his thread like a startled spider.

The last two days had brought Matt Tinwright attention that at any other time would have delighted him, but just now was wretchedly inconvenient. Because he had been invited to read a poem by Hendon Tolly himself, and in front of Hendon’s brother Duke Caradon, many of those at court had decided Tinwright was becoming a pet of the Tollys and therefore someone whose acquaintance was worth cultivating. People who had never bothered to speak to him before now seemed to sidle up to him wherever he went, desiring a love poem written for them or a good word spoken about them to the new masters of Southmarch.

Today he had finally found a chance to slip off on his own. Most of the castle’s inhabitants and refugees were in Market Square at the festival celebrating the third day of Kerneia, so the corridors, courtyards, and wintry gardens of the inner keep were largely empty as Tinwright made his way out of the residence and into the warren of cramped streets that lay in the shadow of the old walls behind the residence.

When he reached the two-story cottage at the end of a row of flimsy, weatherbeaten houses not far from the massive base of the Summer Tower, he went up the stairs quietly— not because he thought anyone would hear him (the street’s inhabitants were no doubt all drinking free ale in Market Square) but more because the magnitude of his crime seemed to demand a certain respect best shown by silence and slow movements. Brigid opened the door. The barmaid was dressed for the tavern, her bodice pushing up her breasts like biscuits overflowing a pan, but that was the only thing welcoming about her.

“Tinwright, you miserable lizard, you were supposed to be here an hour gone! I’ll lose my position—or worse, I’ll have to turn my tail to Conary again to keep it. I should go right to your Hendon Tolly and tell him all about you.”

His guts turned to water. “Don’t even joke, Brigid.” “Who’s joking?” She scowled, then turned to look back at the pale figure lying on the bed. “I’ll say this for you, she’s pretty enough...for a dead girl, that is.”

Tinwright swayed a little and had to grab the doorframe. “I told you, don’t joke! Please, let me in—I don’t want anyone to see me.” He edged past her and stopped. “Brigid, love, really truly, I’m grateful. I treated you badly and you’ve been more kind than I had any right to hope.”

“If you think that you can honey-talk me instead of paying me...”

“No, no! Here it is.” He pulled out the coin and put it in her hand. “I’ll never be able to thank you properly...” “No, you won’t. Ah, well, the wee thing is all yours now, right and proper.” Brigid smirked. “I always knew you were a bit of an idiot, Matty, but this goes beyond anything I’d guessed.”

“Has she showed any signs of waking?”

“Some. A bit of moaning and tossing, like having a bad dream.” She threw her shawl over her shoulders. “Must go now. Conary will be furious, but maybe I can sweeten him up by working late. I’m never swiving with that old mackerel again if I can help it.”

“You are a true friend,” he said.

“And you’re an idiot, but I think I said that already.” She stepped out into the misty afternoon and pulled the door closed behind her.

The noise of Elan’s quiet breath did not change much, but somehow he knew that she was awake. He put down the book of sonnets and hurried to the side of the bed. Her eyes were moving, her face slackly puzzled.

“Where...where am I?” It was scarcely more than a whisper. “Is this some...some waiting-place?” She saw him moving and her eyes turned toward him, but for long moments they could not fix on him. “Who are you?”

He could only pray that the tanglewife’s potion had not injured her mind. “Matt Tinwright, my lady.”

For a moment she did not understand, perhaps did not even recognize the name, then her face twisted into anguish. “Oh, Matt. Did you take the poison, too? You sweet boy. You were meant to live.”

He took a breath, then another. “I...I did not take poison. You did not either, or at least not enough to die. You are alive.”

She shook her head and her eyes sagged closed again.

He had told her. She hadn’t heard him. Did that mean he was allowed to run away into the night and never look back? Not that he dared desert her, but the gods knew that almost anything would be preferable to standing before this woman and telling her he’d betrayed her trust... “What?” Her eyes opened again, far more alert this time, but wide and frightened like those of a trapped animal. “What did you say?”

The moment to escape, if there had ever truly been such a moment, was gone. Tinwright wondered if a real man should offer to take real poison to make up for his crime. Perhaps, he reminded himself, but he wasn’t a real man— not that kind, anyway. “I said you’re not dead, my lady. Elan. You’re alive.”

She tried to lift her head, but could not. Her gaze jumped fearfully from side to side. “What...? Where am I? Oh, no, surely you are lying. You are some demon of the lands before the gate, and this is a test.”

He was surprised to discover that he felt even lower than he had thought he would. “No, Lady Elan, no. You are alive. I could not bear to see you die.” He dropped to his knees and took her hand, still cold as death. “You are in a safe place. I had confederates.” He shook his head. “I make it too grand. A woman I know, one who has been kind enough to tend you, and to help especially with...with your privacies...” He felt himself blushing and was disgusted. Matt Tinwright, man of the world! But something about this woman reduced him to childish embarrassments. “She and I stole you out of the residence.” He could not quite bear to tell her yet that they had dragged her to this place in a laundry basket.

Her eyes were now shut again. “Hendon...”

“He thinks you have run away. He seemed amused, to be honest. He is a bad man, Lady Elan...”

“Oh, the gods have mercy, he will find me. Matt Tinwright, you are a fool!”