James Clemens: Hinterland

“ Pupp… ”

Then the cloaked figure stiffened and went silent, spotting their approach. Under the hood, a pair of eyes widened, flashing from Liannora to Brant. The figure then glanced away, but not before a surprised second twitch in Brant’s direction.

“I’m sorry,” the figure squeaked out, proving herself to be a girl or young woman. She bowed her head slightly. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Here was plainly one of the visitors from Tashijan.

Brant noted a black stripe tattooed on each side of her face, running jaggedly from the outside corner of each eye to each ear. But it was not one of the illustrious Shadowknights of Tashijan. The girl here had earned only her first stripe, marking her as a page. It would take a second stripe to be called squire, and a third to be a full knight. Even her cloak was ordinary cloth, not the shadow-shifting cloak of a true knight.

“Be not afraid,” Liannora said with surprising warmth, almost oily. “Any servant of Tashijan is always welcome in our halls.”

“I only came to look.”

“Certainly,” Liannora said. “And we’d be honored to have you escort us to the greeting hall to join the others.”

The page bowed and retreated back through the door. “It-it would be my honor,” she mumbled, but in fact it looked as though she would prefer to run and hide.

Liannora stepped between the page and Brant. She touched the young woman’s shoulder lightly, in an oddly possessive gesture. “So I hear that Castellan Vail herself will be seeking audience with Lord Jessup. What a distinct honor to have one so highly ranked at Tashijan coming to visit Oldenbrook. I can’t imagine what would warrant such a strange appointment.”

The silence that followed hung heavily in the air.

Plainly Liannora sought to extract knowledge from the page, perhaps something more than would be formally revealed during the high assembly here.

The girl did not bend. She even stepped away from Liannora’s touch, not enough to be rude, but refusing to be lured.

Brant found a ghost of a smile rising unbidden to his lips, suddenly liking this girl very, very much. He remembered that second startled glance a moment before when they had first met. He had dismissed it as surprise at his rough clothes and poor appearance. But now he wondered. He sensed that such things would not matter to the black-cloaked girl.

So why the second glance?

The trio passed through the anteroom to Lord Jessup’s rooms, down a short curved hall, and ended up before the door to the greeting room. The door was already open. Voices, polite and jovial, reached them.

As he stepped to the doorway, Brant noted a mix of familiar figures, dressed resplendently in jewels and fine cuts of cloth. The other Hands of Jessup. Amid them mingled five black shapes, the entourage from Tashijan.

The leader stood near the center. A bright diadem at her throat marked her as castellan of Tashijan, the second in command of the mighty Citadel, after the warden himself.

Brant focused upon her. Castellan Kathryn Vail had played a critical role in ridding Chrismferry of the daemon in its midst. Few in Myrillia didn’t know her story-or that of her former lover, Tylar ser Noche, once named godslayer but now the regent of Chrismferry.

The castellan’s gaze swept over the latecomers. Above her masklin, Kathryn Vail’s eyes found her page and hardened to fire-agates. The young girl hurried to the castellan’s side. So the page served the castellan. No wonder the girl had been so sturdy in the face of Liannora. She had been forged in fires hotter than any Liannora could muster.

As the girl reached the castellan’s side, she glanced once more back at them. No, back at him. Then away again.

This time, Brant knew what lay behind those cornflower blue eyes.

Recognition.

And with that realization, the same occurred to him. As she turned, a slip of hair fell from beneath her hood. She tucked it back, but not before Brant recognized the distinct yellow-blond curl.

Memories disassembled and came together in a flash. He stumbled as he entered the hall, bumping into Liannora, who shot him a daggered look, then left his side, as if proximity to him might taint her.

Brant stared at the girl. He remembered the night he had been chosen from among his fellow students, when Jessup’s Oracle had placed a stone into his waiting palm, claiming him as his new Hand of blood. Prior to that, down below in the chamber beneath the High Chapel, Brant had defended a young girl from the bitter words of other students.

The same girl now hid in black here.

Like Brant, she had been chosen that night, to serve as a Hand of blood for the daemon-possessed Chrism. But then after the Battle of Myrrwood, when the daemon had been vanquished, she had vanished. Few noted her disappearance on a night when gods were slain.

Now she was here.

Alive.

A girl named Dart.

For a full quarter bell, Brant kept to the shadows of the gathering and edged along the room. He kept watch on his quarry as he maneuvered around the chattering islands of castle gentlefolk and mingling visitors. He approached no closer, preferring to study the castellan’s page from afar.

What was the girl doing here?

Before any answers could be discerned, the resonant strike of a gong echoed across the greeting hall. All chatter stopped, and eyes turned toward the arched back door as it swung open.

Lord Jessup, god of Oldenbrook, entered the reception hall. As was his custom, he wore the simple cloths and leathers of the sailfolk that plied the great lake: soft bleached boots into which were tucked the hems of his baggy black trousers, a billowing white shirt hooked at the neck, and a peaked cap of blue velvet.

The only bit of true decoration was an azure sapphire fixed at the base of his throat, an ancient gift granted to Lord Jessup shortly after settling this realm. The sapphire had been discovered by a fishwife as she scaled and gutted one of the mighty lake shaddocks, the fierce bottom dwellers found only in the deepest depths of Oldenbrook Lake. Pulled from the shaddock’s gullet, the gem was a blue that matched exactly the hue of the lake, and all knew its portent, the lake welcoming its new guardian and god. Lord Jessup had come to cherish the gem as much as he did the people and the lands here.

As the god strode slowly through the gathering, the jewel glowed slightly, a reflection of the god’s shining Grace, like moonlight on still waters. Reaching the high seat in the room’s center, Lord Jessup settled to the cushions.

The god’s eight Hands, including Brant, lowered to one knee.

The emissaries from Tashijan bowed, even Castellan Vail.

Lord Jessup waved them all up. “Kathryn ser Vail, Castellan of Tashijan, Magistrate of the Order of the Shadowknights, be welcome,” he said formally. His manner then melted to warmer tones with a tired smile. “It is an honor to have you gracing Oldenbrook once again.”

“My lord,” the castellan said, bowing more deeply, then straightening with a shift of her cloak.

“How long have you been away from our shores?”

“I believe six years, my lord.”

Brant recognized the slight pause, the inflected lowered timbre in her voice. It was an awkward subject, one to be skirted. And with good reason. It surely had to be a tender matter still to the castellan. She had been betrothed to Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight once in service to Lord Jessup. All in Oldenbrook knew their story. Balladeers still struggled to capture the pain and tragedy in strum of string and chord. For the ballad of Tylar ser Noche, a shadowknight stripped of cloak and love, remained unfinished. First lover, then murderer, then broken knight and slave, and finally godslayer…now risen anew as regent of neighboring Chrismferry.