The inner keep was still packed with refugees, homeless subjects from the surrounding countryside, from mainland Southmarch, and from the castle’s outer keep as well; everywhere they went they had to force their way through the stink and gabble of frightened people. Some recognized her, or thought they did—Briony did not stay to confirm their beliefs—and after a while she began wearing a cloth wrapped around her face. She did not want a vulnerable procession of well-wishers and curiosity-seekers following her in her search for Hendon.
She still could not understand why Hendon had taken the infant, Alessandros. Briony’s frightened stepmother had said something about summoning a god, and about magical blood. Her father had said something about it, too. Was Hendon Tolly a victim of the same madness as the Autarch of Xis? Worse, was it something other than madness?
Stupid woman. Stop it. All she was doing was frightening herself. She needed to find Hendon Tolly; she needed no magical terrors to give her reasons to hurry.
Several hours had passed and the light was all but gone from the sky above Southmarch. As Briony, Stephanas, and the others finished a fruitless search of the residence gardens and turned back toward the center of the keep, the wind from the ocean grew stronger. The evening was warm, but the clouds had closed in and darkened the sky. The air was as damp as if a storm was sweeping in.
The cannons were still roaring as they crossed the colonnade and stepped out into the nest of narrow streets between the armory and the Throne hall. Briony’s attention was caught by something stuck in the branches of one of the tall trees near the corner of the hall that contained the Erivor Chapel—a pale shape, reaching and fluttering as though it struggled for the housetops and freedom. She doubted it was anything significant—the castle was full of blowing scraps—but she was still squinting at it in the dying light when the cannonball struck. A slower, louder round had just passed over their heads, shrieking like one of the skeletal daughters of Kernios and disappearing into the commons behind them. A moment later, the wall of the Throne hall burst into pieces as big as hay wagons, crushing Sir Gennadas and three of Briony’s Syannese foot soldiers and spilling bodies out of the building along with the flying rubble.
Stephanas and Briony and the other two soldiers did their best to dig the men out but it quickly became clear it was hopeless. A bedraggled priest, one of the crowd of homeless refugees, came forward and began to pray over the bodies. Others worked by lamplight, trying to dig out the other victims who had either been inside or beneath the walls of the great Throne hall when the cannonball smashed it open.
Overwhelmed by the dust and the smell of blood, Briony at last wandered away to catch her breath. One of the sections of the wall had fallen only an arm’s length from her, taking Gennadas but sparing Briony. She had imagined her death would be a personal thing, something she could face bravely, like a true Eddon. She had never thought of death being so swift and uncaring, an event that could obliterate not just her but also several strangers at the same time.
Briony realized she had wandered away from the destruction, and she was shaking as though the weather had suddenly turned freezing. That wouldn’t do—she was a princess, after all. These were her people, and she had no right to walk away and leave them, however frightened she might be.
As she turned she saw something flapping just to one side—the pale thing in the tree that had caught her attention earlier. Shocked loose by the crash of the cannonball into the Throne hall, it had floated down a short way before catching in the branches again. It was a shawl or something similar, doubtless once some woman’s admired possession, lost now as so many other things had been. She walked toward it and yanked it down, only half looking, marveling that something so delicate and finely made should have survived in the midst of this destructive madness when the great stone walls themselves could not.
Perhaps there is something to be learned here… she thought absently, staring at the fine texture of the cloth. If it was a woolen shawl, it was a small one and its owners’ initials had been worked into the design of flowers and birds. No, it wasn’t a shawl at all, it was a Naming blanket, the kind children were wrapped in for the important religious ceremonies, and this one had four initials on it, which seemed unusuaclass="underline" OABE.
Her heart fluttered and threatened to stop entirely. She gasped for breath. Could it be? Who else but a royal child would have four names? And what would make more sense than for little Alessandros to have his father’s name, too—Olin. And Anissa’s father had been named Benediktos…
Olin Alessandros Benediktos Eddon. It was baby Alessandros’ blanket.
“Sir Stephanas!” Briony shouted. “Come here!”
The tone of her voice was such that Stephanas and the other two soldiers did not hesitate, but left the death rites of their comrades and ran to her side. She showed them the blanket, then turned and looked past the ruined wall to the dark slopes beyond, a place of tangled old trees and few lights. Even the homeless might hesitate to make their camp in such a place.
“The graveyard?” asked Stephanas. He did not sound as if he liked the idea.
“It makes sense. There are more than a few tombs there big enough to hide in—some of them go very deep.” This thought chimed strangely, but she pushed it aside. “I would bet my life that Hendon is hiding in there somewhere with my half brother.” She turned to one of the two surviving infantrymen. “Hurry back to the residence. Tell Prince Eneas where we’re going—ask him to send more men.”
“Where we are going?” Stephanas was still staring out into the dismal shadows of the temple yard. “Why don’t we wait for the prince?”
“Because it might be hours. Because we might be wrong, and if Hendon’s not here, we need to know so we can look elsewhere. Don’t you understand—he has one of my family as a hostage!” She turned back to the newly appointed messenger. “Go! Swiftly!”
He hurried off. Briony turned to her remaining two companions. “Stay close to me. I know the place better than you do.”
“We will need torches,” said Sir Stephanas.
“That’s the last thing we need,” she told him. “No light to give us away! And we will have to be quiet, too. Don’t you know anything about Hendon Tolly? He’s like a serpent—he will always try to bite.”
As they reached the ancient, leaning gate, she held her finger to her lips to remind them to remain silent, then guided the reluctant soldiers through into the land of the dead.
35. His Dearie-Dove
“As he passed through the great Marches, the shell of the egg became so hot that it crumbled to ash and fell away...”
It was the last conversation Ferras Vansen would have expected to have.
“Moping, then, Captain?” someone asked him as he sharpened the blade of his ax. “Got a dearie-dove back home you wish you could see once more?” It was Sledge Jasper, cheerful despite a face that looked like a burned roast. His thickset right-hand man, Dolomite, squatted beside him.
“A what? A dearie-dove?” Vansen couldn’t help laughing a little. The hopelessness of his choice on that front mirrored the likelihood of him having picked the winning side in the war. He had been the gods’ fool for so long he could barely remember the time before his hopeless love had settled over him like a storm cloud.
“A sweetheart, Captain,” said Jasper with an offended tone. “You know what I mean.”