Tad Williams - Shadowmarch

Kendrick had already broken the seal, the Eddon wolf and crescent of stars in deep red wax, and was squinting at the words. He shook his head. “Later, Briony.”

“But Kendrick… !” There was real anguish in her voice.

“Enough.” Her older brother looked distracted, but his voice said there would be no arguing. Barrick could feel the strain in Briony’s abrupt silence.

“What’s all that rumpus?” asked Gailon Tolly a moment later, looking around. Something was happening at the other end of the throne room, a stir among the courtiers.

“Look,” Briony whispered to her twin. “It’s Arissa’s maid.”

It was indeed, and Barrick’s sister was not the only one whispering. Now that the twins’ stepmother was close to giving birth, she seldom left her suite of rooms in the Tower of Spring. Selia, her maid, had become Queen Arissa’s envoy to the rest of the great castle, her ears and eyes. And as eyes went, even Barrick had to admit they were a most impressive pair.

“See her flounce.” Briony did not hide her disgust. “She walks like she’s got a rash on her backside and she wants to scratch it on something.”

“Please, Briony,” said the prince regent, but although the Duke of Summerfield looked dismayed by her rude remark, Kendrick was mostly amused Still, he had been distracted from the letter and was watching the maid’s approach as carefully as anyone else.

Selia was young but well-rounded. She wore her black hair piled high in the manner of the women of Devonis, the land of her and her mistress’ birth, but although she kept her long-lashed eyes downcast, there was little of the shy peasant girl about her. Barrick watched her walk with a kind of painful greed, but the maid, when she looked up, seemed to see only his brother, the prince regent.

Of course, Barrick thought. Why should she be any different than the rest of them…?

“If it please you, Highness.” She had been only a season in the marches, and still spoke with a thick Devonisian accent. “My mistress, your stepmother, sends her fond regarding and asks leave for talking to the royal physician.”

“Is she unwell again?” Kendrick truly was a kind man although none of them much liked their father’s second wife, even Barrick believed his brother’s concern was genuine.

“Some discomforting, Highness, yes.”

“Of course, we will have the physician attend our stepmother at once. Will you carry the message to him yourself?” Selia colored prettily. “I do not know this place so well yet.”

Briony made a noise of irritation, but Barrick spoke up. “I’ll take her, Kendrick.”

“Oh, that’s too much trouble for the poor girl,” Briony said loudly, “going all the way across to Chaven’s rooms. Let her go back to assist our suffering stepmother. Barrick and I will go.”

He looked at his twin in fury, and for a moment regretted putting her on the list of people he did not despise. “I can do it myself.”

“Go, the both of you, and argue somewhere else. “ Kendrick waved his hand. “Let me read these letters. Tell Chaven to see to our stepmother at once. You are both excused attendance until the noon hour.”

Listen to him, Barrick thought. He really does think he’s king.

Even accompanying the lovely Selia could not redeem Barrick’s mood, but he still took care to make sure that his bad arm, wrapped in the folds of his cloak, was on her opposite side as they went out of the throne room into the light of a gray autumn morning. As they descended the steps into the shadowed depths of Temple Square, four palace guards who had been finishing a morning meal hurried to fall in behind them, still chewing. Barrick caught the girl’s eye for a moment and she smiled shyly at him. He almost turned to make sure she was not looking over his shoulder at someone else.

“Thank you, Prince Barrick. You are very kind.” “Yes,” answered his twin. “He is.”

“And Princess Briony, of course.” The girl smiled a little more carefully, but if she was startled by the growl in Briony s voice she did not show it. “Both of you, so very kind.”

When they had passed through the Raven’s Gate and acknowledged the salutes of the guards there, Selia paused. “I go from here to the queen. You are certain I do not go with you?"

“Yes,” said Barrick’s sister. “We are certain.”

The girl made another courtesy and started off toward the Tower of Spring in the keep s outer wall. Barrick watched her walk.

“Ow!” he said. “Don’t push.”

“Your eyes are going to fall out of your head.” Briony hurried her stride and turned into the long street that wound along the wall of the keep. The people who saw the twins moved respectfully out of their way, but it was a crowded, busy road full of wagons and loud arguments, and many scarcely noticed them, or did their best to make it appear that way. King Olin’s court had never been as formal as his father’s, and the people of the castle were used to his children walking around the keep without fanfare, accompanied only by a few guards.

“You’re rude,” Barrick told his sister. “You act like a commoner.”

“Speaking of common,” Briony replied, “all you men are alike. Any girl who bats her eyes and swings her hips when she walks into the room turns you all into drooling bears.”

“Some girls like to have men look at them.” Barrick’s anger had congealed into a cold unhappiness. What did it matter? What woman would fall in love with him, anyway, with all his problems, his ruined arm and all his… strangeness? He would find a wife, of course, even one who would pretend to revere him—he was a prince, after all—but it would be a polite he.

I will never know, he thought. Not as long as I am of this family I will never know what anyone truly thinks of me, what they think of the crippled prince. Because who would ever dare to mock the king’s son to his face?

“Some girls like to have men look at them, you say? How would you know?” Briony had turned her face from him now, which meant she was truly angry. “Some men are just horrid, the way they stare.”

“You think that about all of them.” Barrick knew he should stop, but he felt distant and miserable. “You hate all men. Father said he couldn’t imagine finding someone you would agree to marry who would also agree to put up with your hardheadedness and your mannish tricks.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, then a deathly silence Now she was not speaking to him either. Barrick felt a pang, but told himself it was Briony who interfered first. It was also true, everyone talked about it. His sister kept the other women of the court at arm’s length and the men even farther. Still, when she did not speak for half a hundred more steps, he began to worry They were too close, the pair of them, and although both were fierce by nature, wounding the other was like wounding themselves Their word-combats almost always moved to swift bloodletting, then an embrace before the wounds had even stopped seeping.

“I’m sorry,” he said, although it didn’t sound much like an apology. “Why should you care what Summerfield and Blueshore and those other fools think, anyway? They are useless, all of them, liars and bullies. I wish that war with the Autarch really would come and they would all be burned away like a field of grass.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” Briony snapped, but there was color in her cheeks again instead of the dreadful, shocked paleness of a moment before.

“So? I don’t care about any of them,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have told you what Father said. He meant it as a joke.” “It is no joke to me.” Briony was still angry, but he could tell that the worst of the fight was over. “Oh, Barrick,” she said abruptly, “you will meet hordes of women who want to make eyes at you You’re a prince—even a bastard child from you would be a prize. You don’t know how some girls are, how they think, what they’ll do…”