“My child. My son. I am told he was taken by the Twilight... by the Qar. Your people. I wish to know what happened to him.” She gained strength as she spoke. Utta could not help admiring her: whatever her other foibles, Merolanna was no coward.
“Do you hear?” said Kayyin suddenly. “She is appealing to you as one woman to another. As one parent to another.” There was something oddly barbed in his tone. “Surely you will not harden your heart to her—will you, Mother?”
Yasammez shot him a look of venom unlike anything Utta had ever seen. If it had been directed at her, she felt sure she would have shriveled and burned like a dry leaf fallen into a fire. A stream of the sharp-edged yet strangely fluid speech rushed out of the woman in the black armor. Kayyin smiled, but it was the miserable smile of someone who had, with great effort, cut off his own nose to spite his face.
Death’s kinswoman swiveled around to stare at Utta and Merolanna—this time, Utta could not meet her fierce gaze. “You come to me on a day when I have learned of the death of my treasured Gyir, when I have felt him die—the one who should have been my son instead of this changeling traitor. And with Gyir the Storm Lantern dead, the Pact of the Glass must be ended, because the Glass itself will never reach the House of the People.” The armored woman slammed her hand down on the arm of the rough chair and the wood snapped into flinders, but she did not seem to notice. “I will now wage war again on your people until the place you call Southmarch is mine, and if I must kill every sunlander man, woman, and child within its walls, I will do so without a qualm.” She stared again. Her anger faded and her expression hardened as though ice covered it. “It could be, though, that you will be more use to me as messengers, so I will not kill you yet. But speak no more to me of your child, sunlander bitch. I could not care if my people stole an entire litter of human whelps from you.” She waved. Several guards stepped forward and took possession of Utta and Merolanna, although the duchess seemed to have fainted. Utta could make no sense out of what was happening, only that they had stumbled into something more dreadful than her worst fears.
“It will be a joy to hear again the screams of your kind,” the monstrous woman said to Utta, then waved the prisoners away.
42. The Raven’s Friend
So it is that the true gods have reigned in peace ever since, thanks to Habbili and the wisdom of Nushash. After they die, those who bow their heads and do them homage will find themselves serving at the right hand of the mighty in the ultimate west. So say the prophets. So says the god of fire. It is truth, my children, it is true.
Briony’s male disguise, which had already been compromised by her stage costume representing the goddess Zoria, had not survived a search for weapons by the Syannese soldiers who had arrested her and the other players.
(Feival Ulian, who had left the stage as Zuriyal, wife of the rebel god black Zmeos, had also been led off to the palace in a gown. It was an open question as to which of them, he or Briony, felt more comfortably dressed.) Briony and Estir Makewell had been shoved into a room that wasn’t quite a dungeon cell, but was no chamber for honored guests, either: dank and windowless, it smelled of mold and sweat and urine, and contained no furniture but a single crude bench; the sound of the outside bar being lowered had a distressing thump of finality.
“Should have known there was more to you than a chance meeting,” Estir sneered. “That old mare Teodoros, up to his same old tricks. Did he bring you along to get into someone’s bed, then, winkle out secrets that way? Now we’re all for the headsman’s block, thanks to you two.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not a spy—I had nothing to do with any of this!”
“Oh, that’s likely.” Estir Makewell sat back with her arms folded across her dirty dress, but Briony could see that the woman was shaking with fear, and her own anger turned to something like pity.
“Truly, I knew nothing about this. I was running away from... from my home when I fell in with you.” Estir sniffed in an unconvinced manner. “What do you mean, same old tricks?” Briony asked. “Has he done something like this before?”
The woman glared at her. “Don’t pretend with me, girl. I saw you talking to that black fellow like he was an old friend— that Xixian. How would you know someone like that if you weren’t one of Finn’s coneys?”
Briony shook her head. At least Dawet had escaped, not that it would do Briony any good. “I know him a little, but it’s nothing to do with Finn. I had met him before, in Southmarch. But I swear on...on the honor of Zoria herself,” she thumped her fist against her chest, bleakly amused to be swearing on herself, or at least her costumed self, “that I knew nothing about any spying.” She suddenly looked at the closed door. “Do you think they’re listening?” she asked in a quieter voice. “Did we say anything we shouldn’t have?”
“What do you care if you’ve nothing to hide?” sniffed Estir, but she seemed a little less angry. “You’re right, though. We should keep our mouths closed. If that fat know-it-all’s got himself in trouble, it won’t be the first time. That’s all I’ll say, except to curse him for dragging us all into it this time.”
Briony looked at the walls, so damp they seemed to be sweating. They had trudged for the better part of an hour to reach this place, which she assumed must be in the royal palace, but they were several floors below the main body of the castle. I could disappear here very easily, she thought. Executed as a spy, and that would be the last of me. King Enander would be doing Hendon Tolly’s work for him without even knowing it. Unless they’re already in league...? It was hard to believe—Southmarch had never been a threat or even a real rival to Syan. What could Tolly offer to the more powerful Syannese monarchy except the uncomfortable possibility of dynastic upheavals? What king would would want to encourage that unless it benefited him personally?
But what had Finn Teodoros been up to? Was it a coincidence Dawet had come to the innyard?
Briony fell into a frowning, miserable silence, trying to understand what had happened and decide what she could do about it. Me, she thought, it’s down to me. Keep drifting or stand up. At last she went to the door of the room in which they were prisoned and rapped on it hard, with both hands.
“Tell your captain or whoever is in charge that I want to talk to him. I want to make a deal.”
“What are you doing, girl?” Estir demanded, but Briony ignored her.
After a moment the door swung open. Two guards stood in the doorway, only a little less bored than when they had thrown the two women into the room. “What do you want? Make it fast,” said one.
“I want to make a bargain. Tell your commanding officer that if you’ll bring me the man called Finn Teodoros and let me speak to him, I swear on the gods themselves that afterward I’ll tell you something that will make even the king of Syan sit up and take notice.”
Estir was watching her with her mouth open. “You traitorous bitch,” she said at last. “Trying to buy yourself out? You will get us all killed!”
“And take this woman out,” Briony said. “She knows nothing. Let her go or put her somewhere else, it makes no difference to me.”
The soldiers, actually interested now, exchanged a brief glance with each other, then closed the door and tramped away up the corridor.
“How dare you!” Estir Makewell said, striding forward to stand over her. Wearily, Briony stared up at her, hoping she wouldn’t have to fight the woman. “How dare you tell them what to do with me?”