Looking at this cold, powerful man, Matt Tinwright felt sick at his stomach. What am I thinking, meddling in the Tollys’ affairs? I am far out of my depth—they could kill me in an instant! Remembering how certain he had been only a few days ago that he would be executed, he almost lost his place in the poem. He had to swallow down this sudden fright and force himself back into his words, spreading his arms as he declaimed, “...But those three treacherous siblings, theft-bred, Plotted long Perin’s heritage to steal When Sveros, fearsome sire of all, was dead. ’Til then, they’d follow meekly at the heel And by soft words and smiles their lies conceal While Zmeos, their chief, banked his envious fires...”
A few courtiers shifted restlessly. Matt Tinwright, sliding back and forth between terror of death and the nearly equal terror of having his work ridiculed, could not help wondering if he had made the beginning of the poem too long. After all, every child raised in the Trigonate faith heard the tale of the three brothers and their infamous step-siblings at almost every religious festival. But Hendon Tolly wanted legitimacy, and so he had wanted as much in the poem as possible about the selfless purity of Madi Surazem and the perfidy of old Sveros, Lord of Twilight—the better to prop his own family’s claim to virtue, Tinwright supposed.
He did feel a little ashamed to be trumpeting the selfserving nonsense of such a serpent as Hendon Tolly, but he consoled himself with the thought that no one in Southmarch would ever actually believe such things: Olin Eddon had been one of the best-loved kings in memory, a bold warrior in his youth, fair and wise in his age. He was no Sveros.
Also, Tinwright was a poet, and he told himself that poets could not fight the powers of the world, at least not with anything but words—and even with words, they had to be careful. We worshipers of the Harmonies are easy to kill, he thought. The hoi polloi might weep after we are gone, when they realize what they’ve lost, but that does us no good if we’re already dead.
In any case, only Hendon Tolly appeared to be following the words with anything more than perfunctory interest. Now that his brother Caradon was no longer surveying the crowd, and had turned to stare disinterestedly at the banquet hall hangings, the rest of the courtiers were free to watch the duke and whisper behind their hands. Almost all of them had been out in the cold wind that morning when Caradon Tolly and his entourage had disembarked from their ship and paraded into Southmarch at the head of four pentecounts of fully armed men wearing the Tolly’s boar and spears on their shields. Something in the soldiers’ grim faces had made it clear to even the most heedless castlefolk that the Tollys were not just making a show, but making a claim.
As Tinwright declaimed the verses in which the Trigon brothers finally defeated their ferocious father, Caradon continued to tap his fingers absently and stare at nothing, but his brother Hendon leaned forward, eyes unnaturally bright and a smile playing across his lips. By contrast, Elan M’Cory seemed to shrink deeper and deeper into herself, so that even though Tinwright could see her eyes, they seemed as cold and lifeless as one of the eerie pictures in the portrait hall, the dead nobility that watched upstart poets with disapproving gazes. Matt Tinwright’s longing and dread were too great to look at her for more than a moment.
As with all the stories of the immortals, he had discovered he could only make an ending happy by a careful choice of stopping point. This was a poem in honor of a childblessing, after all—he could not very well go on to describe the hatred that grew between the Onyenai and Perin’s Surazemai. Tinwright did not think even Hendon Tolly expected him to celebrate young Olin Alessandros’ naming day with a poem about one set of royal brothers destroying the children of another royal wife. If Olin or one of the twins ever regained the throne, that would be the kind of thing remembered at treason trials.
Treason. As he raised his voice to begin the last stanzas, Tinwright felt cold sweat prickle his forehead again. Let Zosim, god of poets, stand beside him now! Why was he worrying about something as far away as a treason trial? He was planning to do something tonight that could get him beheaded without any trial at all!
He faltered for a moment, just as Perin was about to throw down his cruel, drunken father. Ordinarily Tinwright didn’t think much about the actual gods except as almost inexhaustible subjects for poetry, but there were moments like this when his childhood terror of them came sweeping back, moments when he stood again in their long cold shadow and knew that someday he must face their judgment.
“Great Sveros, Twilight Lord, roared in his rage, ‘How, shall sons spit into their father’s face? My curse shall rain like blood on all this age And pursue each whelp of my cursed race Until Time doth all who now live erase.’ They bound him then in chains Kernios made And cast him into dusky vaults of space To drift unfleshed in sempiternal shade ’Til thought and feeling both should frameless fade...”
His legs shaky, as much from misgiving as from being so long on his feet, he spoke the final lines and Puzzle gave a last flourish on the lute. Tinwright bowed. As the courtiers lazily followed Hendon Tolly’s lead, applauding and calling a few words of praise, Elan M’Cory rose from her seat beside the guardian of Southmarch and made to go. For a moment Tinwright caught a flick of her eyes beneath the veil, then Hendon Tolly extended a hand and stopped her.
“But where are you off to, dear sister-in-law? The poet has labored hard to deliver this work to us. Surely you have a few words of praise for him.”
“Let her go,” growled Caradon Tolly. “Let them all go. You and I have things to talk about, brother.”
“But our poor poet, swooning for want of kind words from fair ladies...” prompted Hendon, grinning.
Elan swayed, and Tinwright had a sudden terror she would crumple, that she would faint and be surrounded by lady’s maids, the physician would be called, and all Tinwright’s careful plans to free her from her misery would be upset. “Of course, my dear brother-in-law,” she said wearily. “I extend my praise and gratitude to the poet. It is always instructive to hear of the lives of the gods, that we mortals can learn to comport ourselves properly.” She gave a half a courtesy, then reached out a trembling hand, letting one of her maids support her arm as she made her way slowly out of the room. The murmur of conversation, which had dropped almost to silence, now rose again.
“Thank all the gods my wife is not such a frail flower,” Caradon said with his lip curled. “Little Elan has always been the doleful one of that family.”
Hendon Tolly beckoned Tinwright forward. He produced a bag that clinked and put it in Tinwright’s hands.
“Thank you, Lord Tolly.” He tucked it away quickly, without testing the weight—to receive anything other than a blow from this man was a gift in itself. “You are too kind. I am glad my words...”
“Yes, yes. It amused me, and there is little that does so these days. Did you see old Brone squirming when you spoke the part about ‘Ever must the blood of tyrants water That free and sovereign soil of our fair honor’? It was very funny.”
“I...I didn’t notice, my lord.”
Tolly shrugged. “Still, it is like spearing fish in a soup bowl. I miss the Syannese court. They are sharp as daggers, there. A good jest is appreciated. Not like here, or in my family’s house, which is like dining with the local deacon in some Helmingsea village.”