“Still, these are your lands we are talking about, Rorick,” Briony pointed out, “and your people. They do not see much of you as it is. Will you not lead them?”
“But lead them to what, Highness?” Surprisingly, it was Brone who spoke up: as a general rule, he did not think much of her cousin Rorick. “We know nothing so far. We have sent out a small party and only a few of them have come back—I think it would be a mistake for Lord Longarren or anyone else to ride off to battle without due care. What if we make a stand against these invaders and the same thing happens—the madness, the confusion—but this time to an entire army? Fear will run riot and the Twilight People will be here in these halls before spring. That conquest will not be anything like the Syannese Empire either, I suspect. These creatures will want more than tribute. What did Vansen say that his little monstrosity told him? That she—whoever that might be—will burn all our houses down to black stones.”
The enormity of it struck her now, her contemptuous prodding of Rorick suddenly seemed petty. Unless Vansen was completely mad, they were soon to be at war, and not with any human foe. As if the threat of the Autarch, Kendrick’s death, and their father’s imprisonment had not been enough! Briony looked at the guard captain and, much as she might wish it, could not believe he was telling anything other than the truth. What she had been taking for dullness or priggish honor might instead be a kind of unvarnished simplicity, something she had difficulty recognizing because of where she sat. It could be that here was a man who did not know how to scheme, who would suffocate in the daily intriguing of the castle s inner chambers like an oak trying to grow beneath the strangling vines of the Xandian jungles.
I doubt he can even keep a secret. “Vansen,” she said suddenly. “Where are those you brought back?” “The guardsmen are waiting to return to their families. There is the girl, too.
“They are not to go home, any of them, or to mix with others. Open talk of this must not be permitted or we will be struggling with our own fearful people long before we ever cross swords with this fairy army.” She turned to the lord constable, who was already dispatching one of the guards to relay her order. “Who else needs to know?"
Brone looked around the chapel. “The defense of the castle and city is my task, and I thank Perin Skyfather that he put it in my head to do the repairs on the curtain wall and the water-gate last summer. We need Nynor, of course, and all his factors—we cannot put an army on foot without him. And Count Gallibert, the chancellor, because we will need gold as well as steel to protect this place. But, Highness, we cannot put an army on foot at all without everyone learning of it.
“No, but we can do as much as we can before we must make it general knowledge.” She looked at Ferras Vansen, who seemed uncomfortable. “You have a thought, Captain?"
“If you will pardon me, Highness, my men have suffered a great deal and they will be unhappy to be confined to the keep.”
“Are you questioning my decision?”
“No, Highness. But I would prefer to explain it to them myself.”
“Ah.” She considered. “Not yet. I haven’t finished with you.”
He looked as though he might say more, but didn’t. Briony was briefly grateful for the power of the regency, for the prestige of being an Eddon, she didn’t want to waste time explaining her every thought just now. In fact, she was feeling a certain pleasure, even in the midst of her great distress at what was happening and what must happen in the days ahead, to know that she was the one who must make decisions, that the nobles must listen to her no matter what they would prefer.
Pray Zoria I make the right decisions. “Bring Nynor and the chancellor and any other nobles that must know. This evening, here. It will be a war council—but do not call it so within the hearing of anyone who will not be joining us.”
“And those bloody-minded Tollys?” asked Tyne. “Hendon will still be the brother of a powerful duke whether Gailon is alive or dead, and the Tollys cannot be ignored in this.”
“No, of course not, but for the moment they will be.” However, she knew she must not be foolish. “But perhaps you could tell Hendon Tolly that I will see him later—that we will talk privately before the evening meal. That courtesy I can give him.”
Rorick excused himself—to down a cup of wine as quickly as possible, Briony guessed. As Avin Brone and Tyne Aldritch fell into a discussion of which of the other nobles must be present at so important a council, Briony rose to stretch her legs. Vansen, thinking she was leaving the room, went down on one knee.
“No, Captain, I am not done with you yet, as I said.” It was a strange, almost giddy feeling, the power that was in her now. For a moment she thought of Barrick and was stabbed by pity and sadness, but also impatience I must give him the chance to be present for this, she reminded herself. It is his due. But she wondered at her own thoughts, because it was indeed his due she was thinking of, not her own needs she was not certain she actually wanted him to be involved, and she was disturbed by that realization. “You will wait outside until I have finished with the others,Vansen.”
He bowed his head, then rose and walked out. Brone looked at him, then at Briony, one eyebrow raised inquiringly. “Before you go, good Aldritch,” she said to Tyne, ignoring the lord constable.
He turned toward her, not sure what was coming. “Yes, Highness?”
Briony examined the earl’s familiar face, the squint of suspicion, the scar beneath his eye. There was another jagged white line on his forehead only partly hidden beneath his graying hair—a fall while hunting. He was a good man but a rigid one, a man who saw almost all change as trouble. She sensed she was about to make the first of a long series of not entirely happy choices. “With Shaso imprisoned, you and Lord Brone have taken up most of his duties between you, my lord Aldritch.”
“I have done my best, Highness,” he said, a little angry color coming to his cheeks. “But this attack from behind the Shadowline, if it is true, could not have been foreseen .”
“I know. And I know . . that is, my brother and I know… that you have done what you could in a difficult time. Now it seems the times will become more difficult still.” She was aware that she was changing, that she had begun to speak less like Briony and more like a queen, or at least a princess regent. Is this what happens? Is true royalty like some wasting illness that makes you grow farther and farther from everyone even while you remain in their midst* * * * *“I wish you to continue, and in fact to become the castle’s master of arms.” She looked quickly to Brone, not for his approval, but to see how he reacted. He, in turn, was looking at Tyne, if he disagreed or agreed with her decision he gave no sign.
Earl Tyne’s cheeks were still flushed, but he seemed relieved. “I thank you, Highness. I will do my best to fulfill your trust.”
“I’m sure you will. So here is your first duty. We must assume this danger is real. We have a few hundred guards in the castle—not enough for anything except perhaps to resist a siege, and if it comes to that, it will mean we have abandoned the outer city. How quickly can we muster a proper army?”
Aldritch frowned. “We can have my Blueshoremen and Brone’s Landsenders here in days, perhaps a week. With fast riders on the Westmarch Road we might be able to draw a few companies from Daler’s Troth soon after, if we can get around this fairy army. Any levies from Marrinswalk and Helrmngsea and the outliers like Silverside and Kertewall will take longer—at the very least two tenmghts, more likely we won’t see them for a month “ His frown became a scowl—Tyne had never been one to mask his thoughts. “A cursed shame, this whole bloody business with Gailon Tolly and his brothers, because our largest and best-trained muster always comes from Summerfield.”