Tad Williams - Shadowmarch

“Then go get him. If he’s asleep, wake him up, although I can’t imagine why he would be asleep on Winter’s Eve.” But could it truly still be the same night? It had to be, but the thought was unmanageably strange. “Tell him to bring soldiers and meet me here. Tell him the princess regent needs him now.” Until she knew why the witch-maid Selia had done what she did, until she found whether the southern girl had allies in the murder of Kendrick, no one must sleep. “But…”

“By all the gods, now!”

The man dropped the keys in his alarm. Briony cursed in a very unladylike way and bent and snatched them from the floor. The guard hesitated for only a moment, then threw open the door and scuttled up the stairs.

The lock on the cell was stiff and hard to turn, but with both hands she managed to twist the key and at last the door groaned open. The shape huddled on the floor at the back of the cell did not move, did not even look up.

He’s dead! Her heart, already so weary, sped again and for a moment the darkness of the damp, cold room threatened to swallow her up. “Shaso! Shaso, it’s me, Briony! The gods forgive us for what we’ve done!”

She ran to his side and tugged at him, relieved to hear the rasp of breath but horrified by how thin the old man had become. He began to stir. “Briony . . ?”

“We were wrong. Forgive us—forgive me Kendrick…” She helped him sit upright. He smelled dreadful and she couldn’t help taking a step back. “I know who killed Kendrick.”

He shook his head. It was dark in the cell, the single brazier outside not enough to illuminate even such a small space. She couldn’t see his eyes. “Killed…”

“Shaso, I know you didn’t do it! It was Selia, Anissa’s maid. She’s . . she’s some kind of witch, a shape-changer. She turned into… oh, merciful Zoria, some… some thing! I saw it!”

“Help me up.” His voice was rough with disuse. “For the love of all the gods, girl, help me up.” She did her best, tugging on his arm as he struggled to get to his feet. She babbled out the night’s story to him, not certain if he could even understand her in his sick and weary state. The chains clanked and he slumped back down, defeated by their weight. “Where are the keys for these?" she asked.

Shaso pointed. “On that board on the wall.” It was taking him a long time to say each word. “I do not know which key fits these shackles. They have scarcely ever been taken off.”

Briony s eyes filled with tears as she hurried to the board. She could see no difference between any of the dozen rings so she brought them all, weight that pulled her arms down straight at her sides as she hurried back to the cell. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She began to fumble through the keys. She had to lean close as she tried each in the lock of his shackles. The old man’s stench reminded her of the thing in Anissa’s chamber, but at least it was a more natural odor. “You didn’t do it, so why didn’t you tell me? What happened between you and Kendrick?”

He was silent. First one, then the second of the shackles opened with a click of sprung iron. She could not help feeling the wet wounds they had made on his wrists as she helped him to stand. He was smeared up and down with blood—but then, so was she.

Shaso wavered, then managed to stand erect. He held out his hands, struggling for balance. “I did tell you that I did not kill your brother. I cannot speak of any more than that,” he said at last.

Briony loosed a small shriek of frustration. “What do you mean? I told you, I know who murdered Kendrick. Don’t you understand? Now you must tell me why you let us imprison you when it wasn’t your fault!”

He shook his head wearily. “My oath prevented me. It still prevents me.” “No,” she said, “I will not allow your stubbornness to…”

The door of the stronghold creaked open and the guard she had dispatched appeared in the doorway. He wore a distracted expression and his hands were pressed against his stomach as though he cradled something small and precious. He took a step into the chamber then stumbled and fell onto his face. In her anger and confusion it took Briony a moment to realize that he was not getting up, another instant to notice the dark pool spreading beneath him.

“Your master of arms is still the perfect knight, isn’t he?" Hendon Tolly stepped out of the stairwell and into the room. He was dressed as though for a funeral, but smiling like a child who had just been given a sweet. “A Xandian savage who would actually die to preserve his honor.” Three more men filed into the room behind him, all wearing the Tollys’ livery, all with drawn swords. “That is what makes my life easy, you know—all these fools willing to die for honor.”

“I have found out who killed my brother,” Briony said, startled and frightened. “I did not believe you had anything to do with it. Why have you killed this guard? And why do you come before me in this threatening way?” She drew herself up to her full height. “Did you have something to do with it?” She didn’t believe she could make Hendon Tolly hesitate about harming the reigning princess, but she might at least cause his minions to have second thoughts.

“Yes, you really might have made a queen in time,” Tolly said. “But you are green, girl-child, green. You have come here without guards. You have left a trail of confusion and bloody deeds behind you all across the castle tonight. The story I will tell will explain it all—but not to your credit.”

“Traitor,” rumbled Shaso. He slumped back against the wall, his strength apparently at an end. “It was… you and your brother who caused all this.”

“Some of it, yes.” Hendon Tolly laughed. “And you, old man, like a drunkard wandering in front of a heavy coach, did not get out of my way. And now you will become the official murderer of the princess as well as of Prince Kendrick.”

“What are you babbling about?” Briony demanded, hoping that Tolly would speak long enough for her to think of something, or for someone to come and save her. “Have you lost your mind?” But no one would come, she knew that. It was why he had stabbed the guard and let him die in front of her, as an illustration of her helplessness. The youngest Tolly was a cat who liked to sport with cornered prey, and this was a quality of sport he had been waiting for his entire life.

“Briony, little Briony.” He shook his head like a doting uncle. “So angry with my brother Gailon because he wanted to marry you and turn you into a respectable woman instead of the headstrong little trollop your father allowed you to be. Such a monster, you thought him. But in truth, he was the only thing that stood between my brother Caradon and I and our plans for Southmarch. Which is why he had to die.”

“You… you killed Gailon?”

“Of course. He opposed our contacts with the Autarch from the first— he even came to argue with Kendrick about it on the night your brother died. Caiadon and I had contacted Kendrick separately, you see, because Gailon would not do it, and we had promised him that the Autarch would help him free your father in return for a few small concessions about the sovereignty of certain southern nations. Kendrick had decided to take up our ally in Xis on his generous offer, you see.”

“My brother would never do that!”

“Ah, but he did, or at least he agreed to do so. His murder ruined what would have been a very useful bargain, at least for Caradon and myself. And for the Autarch, too, I suppose.” He shook his head. “It is still a puzzlement to me—I can make no sense out of this Devonisian servant girl and her place in things at all.”

Briony was about to ask him another question, just to keep him talking— she was far too stunned and terrified at the moment to absorb much of what Hendon Tolly was saying—but he raised his hand to silence her, then nodded at his guards.