“It is no simple thing to kill someone,” he said. “Even less so when you care for that person as much as I care for you, Lady Elan.”
She opened her eyes again, and for a moment he thought she would shout at him, but the wildness went out of her face and her eyes filled with tears. “If your love and concern could have saved me, Matt Tinwright, it would have saved me already. But I am damned. I belong to Kernios and his dark country.”
“No, you do not!” He lifted his hand to thump it down on the bedclothes, then thought better of it. “You were misused by a villainous man. If it were in my power to kill Hendon Tolly, I would, but I am not a swords-man. I am a poet—and sometimes, I think, not much of that, either.”
If he hoped she would disagree with him he was disappointed. “It is so… so hard to be alive,” she said quietly. “A nightmare I cannot wake from. I sometimes think we are all Death’s servants and he only lends us to the temporary service of other masters.”
He hated when she spoke this way. “But you are safe now, Elan. Hendon Tolly is not even looking for you.”
A little of the hardness came back to her face. “Oh, Matthias Tinwright, you are a fool! Of course he searches for me. Not because he misses me, or even because he hates me—I could live with that—but because I belonged to him, and he does not let anyone steal from him.”
“You do not…”
She held up her hand. “Please. It does no good to say such things—you do not know.” Her expression changed again, became altogether more disturbing. There was nothing hard about her now—she looked absolutely defenseless, a soft-bodied thing with its shell torn away. “He has a mirror. He can… there are… there are things inside it. Things that… laugh… and… and talk. They know terrible secrets.” A shiver ran up her frail chest, made her hands shake where she clasped them before her. “He made me look into it…”
Tinwright could not speak, could not even move when what he wanted most of all was to take her in his arms and protect her from the vile memories that troubled her so, but the sheer, haunted hopelessness in her voice made his limbs seem heavy and bloodless.
“He made me look,” she said, whispering now. “He took me down into a basement room and held my head. It… it spoke to me. That thing spoke to me. It knew who I was! It knew things about me that no one should know, not even Hendon Tolly—not even my mother and father! I tried to run away but I couldn’t. Whatever lived in there, it held me and it played with me like… like a cat who dandles a mouse, claps hold of it, takes off its paw, lets it run, then catches it up again. I… I…” She was weeping wholeheartedly now, but did not even raise her hand to wipe her face. “I do not want to live in such a world as this, Matt Tinwright. A world that has such… filth, such terrible things hiding behind every looking glass… every ref lection…”
Tinwright found his voice at last. “It was a trick… something he did to frighten you…”
She shook her head, tears still running down her cheeks. “No. He is frightened of it too. I think that was why he took me to it. It is like a beast in a cage. He thought to keep it as a pet, but it is demanding. He was going to let it feed on me. That is another reason he will not lightly let me go, Matt. I was going to keep the beast… occupied.”
It was some time before Tinwright could calm Elan M’Cory enough for her to take a little cold broth and then fall asleep. It was a relief to see her put aside the worst of her cares and rest, but how long could he sit here and guard her? How much time could he take for these secret errands before someone in Hendon Tolly’s court noticed his absences? The Inner Keep was packed with spies and sycophants, all of them fiercely jealous of their master’s attentions—some of them even jealous of poor Matt Tinwright, who had never had a day’s luck that didn’t turn immediately into horse dung!
If Brigid won’t come, I must find someone to help me with Elan. But who can I trust? Just as important, who can I afford? He looked down at the silver sturgeon, which barring a miracle on the order of Onir Diotrodos and the jars of beer, would have to last him for a fortnight. It seemed impossible. Anyone low enough to work for such wages would recognize Elan’s status, sniff Tinwright’s need for secrecy, and make him out as a prime candidate for blackmail. He needed someone with no money and few scruples, but who would not immediately turn around and stab him in the back, or who would at least wait a little while before doing so.
On the face of it, it seemed impossible. To his sorrow, though, Tinwright knew better.
There’s only one person like that in all of Southmarch, he thought with a heavy heart. My mother.
But before he could hire her, he’d have to find her.
For Briony, despite being surrounded by the comfort and pageantry of the Syannese court, the days crawled by. She had no cause to cause to complain about how she was treated—she was given accommodations suited to her station, a suite of chambers in the Broadhall Palace’s long eastern wing with windows overlooking the river. She had also been gifted with serving maids and ladies-in-waiting and chests full of jewelry and clothes to wear, all chosen, she was told, by the king’s favorite, Lady Ananka. Briony had been raised on nursery tales of jealous witches and evil fairies: before wearing any of the clothes she carefully searched them for poison pins.
The nobles of the court treated her with deference when they saw her, although in truth she did not leave her rooms very often at first. It was too strange for her, this world of not-this, not-that in which she found herself—not a real princess, but not a simple player among other players either (although at times she certainly felt herself to be playing a role again). It was hard to exchange pleasantries with the pampered, overdressed folk of Enander’s glittering court and not feel that by doing so, by biding her time, she was somehow betraying her own family and folk. But in a foreign court and without trustworthy friends she could only snatch at those few bits of news she could get from her home. The fairy-siege, she learned, still continued, but since it had taken on a more peaceful cast in the last months the Syannese people thought of Southmarch less and less. Tolly still reigned there as the nominal protector of the king’s youngest child, Alessandros. And Briony herself was still a mystery—some people in Southmarch thought she had been kidnapped, perhaps even by the Autarch of Xis. Until recently, the rumor most believed in Tessis was that she had been killed and her body hidden, but her appearance at Broadhall Palace had taken some of the wind from that particular story’s sails.
The four young women that the king’s mistress Ananka had sent to wait on her (to spy on her, Briony felt certain) seemed nice enough, but she found it hard to talk to them, let alone trust them, even the youngest, little Talia, who was not even twelve years old. Briony had been so lonely those first weeks after Shaso’s death and her escape from Landers Port that she had dreamed of just such homely pleasures as this, having her hair brushed, chattering of this and that, but either these young women were far more foolish than her favorite maids Rose and Moina had been at home or Briony had lost her taste for such conversation. Excited speculation about this ambitious courtier or that romance, pointed comments about who was aiming above his or her station, and the endless speculation about Prince Eneas and his romances and adventures did not much interest her. Briony had thought the prince impressive when she saw him, of course, but all she wanted was help for her people and her family’s throne; she could think of no decent way even to approach him, let alone ask him for help. As for going to the king himself—well, Lady Ananka had already made it clear that she considered King Enander her private territory.