Tad Williams - Shadowmarch

“Don’t be foolish. He shall have a proper Blue Quartz family name,” she called back. “We will call him Flint. That will be one in the eye for your brother.”

Chert could not help smiling, although he was not entirely happy about the idea of naming the child as though they were adopting him as their heir. But the thought of how his self-important brother would feel on learning that Chert and Opal had brought in one of the big folk’s children and given him miserly old Uncle Flint’s name was indeed more than a little pleasing.

“Flint, then,” he said, ruffling the boy’s fair hair. “For as long as you stay with us, anyway.”

Waves lapped at the pilings. A few seabirds bickered sleepily. A plaintive, twisting melody floated up from one of the sleeping-barges, a chorus of high voices singing an old song of moonlight on open sea, but otherwise Skimmer’s Lagoon was quiet.

Far away, the sentries on the wall called out the midnight watch and their voices echoed thinly across the water. Even as the sound faded, a light gleamed at the end of one of the docks. It burned for a moment, then went dark, then burned again. It was a shuttered lantern; its beam pointed out across the dark width of the lagoon. No one within the castle or on the walls seemed to mark it.

But the light did not go entirely unobserved. A small, black-painted skiff slid silently and almost invisibly across the misty lagoon and stopped at the end of the dock. The lantern-bearer, outline obscured by a heavy hooded cloak, crouched and whispered in a language seldom spoken in South-march, or indeed anywhere in the north. The shadowy boatman answered just as quietly in the same language, then handed something up to the one who had been waiting for almost an hour on the cold pier—a small object that disappeared immediately into the pockets of the dark cloak.

Without another word, the boatman turned his little craft and vanished back into the fogs that blanketed the dark lagoon.

The figure on the dock extinguished the lantern and turned back toward the castle, moving carefully from shadow to shadow as though it carried something extremely precious or extremely dangerous.

Puzzle looked sadly at the dove that he had just produced from his sleeve. Its head was cocked at a very unnatural angle, in fact, it seemed to be dead.

“My apologies, Highness.” A frown creased the jester’s gaunt face like a crumpled kerchief. A few people were laughing nastily near the back of the throne room. One of the noblewomen made a small and somewhat overwrought noise of grief for the luckless dove. “The trick worked most wonderfully when I was practicing earlier. Perhaps I need to find a bird of hardier constitution.

Barrick rolled his eyes and snorted, but his older brother was more of a diplomat. Puzzle was an old favorite of their father’s. “An accident, good Puzzle. Doubtless you will solve it with further study.”

“And a few dozen more dead birds,” whispered Barrick. His sister frowned.

“But I still owe Your Highness the day’s debt of entertainment.” The old man tucked the dove carefully into the breast of his checkered outfit.

“Well, we know what he’s having for supper,” Barrick told Briony, who shushed him.

“I will find some other pleasantries to amuse you,” Puzzle continued, with only a brief wounded look at the whispering twins. “Or perhaps one of my other renowned antics? I have not juggled flaming brands for you for some time—not since the unfortunate accident with the Syannese tapestry. I have reduced the number of torches, so the trick is much safer now…”

“No need,” Kendrick said gently. “No need. You have entertained us long enough—now the business of the court waits.”

Puzzle nodded his head sadly, then bowed and backed away from the throne toward the rear of the room, putting one long leg behind the other as though doing something he had been forced to practice even more carefully than the dove trick. Barrick could not help noticing how much the old man looked like a grasshopper in motley. The assembled courtiers laughed and whispered behind their hands.

We’re all fools here. His dark mood, alleviated a little by watching Puzzle’s fumbling, came sweeping back Most of us are just better at it than he is. Even at the best of times he found it difficult to sit on the hard chairs. Despite the open windows high above, the throne room was thick with the smell of incense and dust and other people—too many other people. He turned to watch his brother, conferring with Steffans Nynor the lord castellan, making a joke that set Summerfield and the other nobles laughing and made old Nynor blush and stammer. Look at Kendrick, pretending like he’s Father. But even Father was pretending — he hated all this. In fact, King Olin had never liked either priggish Gailon of Summerfield or his loud, well-fed father, the old duke.

Maybe Father wanted to be taken prisoner, just to get away from it all… The bizarre thought did not have time to form properly, because Briony elbowed him in the ribs.

“Stop it!” he snarled. His sister was always trying to make him smile, to force him to enjoy himself. Why couldn’t she see the trouble they were in—not just the family, but all of Southmarch? Could he really be the only one in the kingdom who understood how wretched things were?

“Kendrick wants us,” she said.

Barrick allowed himself to be pulled toward his elder brother’s chair— not the true throne, the Wolf’s Chair, which had been covered with velvet cloth when Olin left and not used since, but the second-best chair that previously stood at the head of the great dining table. The twins gently elbowed their way past a few courtiers anxious to snatch this moment with the prince regent. Barrick’s arm was throbbing. He wished he were out on the hillside again, riding by himself, far from these people. He hated them all, loathed everyone in the castle… except, he had to admit, his sister and brother … and perhaps Chaven…

“Lord Nynor tells me that the envoy from Hierosol will not be with us until almost the noon hour,” Kendrick announced as they approached.

“He said he was unwell after his voyage.” The ancient castellan looked worried, as always; the tip of his beard was chewed short—a truly disgusting habit, in Barrick’s opinion. “But one of the servants told me that he saw this envoy talking to Shaso earlier this morning. Arguing, if the lazy fellow is to be trusted, which he is not to be, necessarily.”

“That sounds ominous, Highness,” suggested the Duke of Summerfield.

Kendrick sighed. “They are both, from appearance, anyway, from the same southern lands,” he said patiently. “Shaso sees few of his own kind here in the cold north. They might have much to talk about.”

“And argue about, Highness?” Summerfield asked.

“The man is a servant of our father’s captor,” Kendrick pointed out. “That’s reason enough for Shaso to argue with the man, is it not?” He turned to the twins. “I know how little you both care for standing around, so you may go and I’ll send for you when this fellow from Hierosol finally graces us with his attendance.” He spoke lightly, but Barrick could see that he was not very happy with the envoy’s tardiness. His older brother, Barrick thought, was beginning to develop a monarchical impatience.

“Ah, Highness, I almost forgot.” Nynor snapped his fingers and one of his servants scuttled forward with a leather bag. “He gave me the letters he bears from your father and the so-called Lord Protector.” “Father’s letter?” Briony clapped her hands. “Read it to us!”