How can I talk about the things I have seen in front of the prince regent? Chert wondered. He could not help contemplating the urge to hide anything unusual from those with more power. There was also an opposing impulse that was nearly as strong, the desire to pass any strange situation on to someone else. I am more the type who wishes to know what I am doing first, Chert decided. And certainly I am not going to blurt out this mishmash of fears and suspicions and old-tales-come-to-life in front of one of the royal family.
“I wished only to hear of your journeying,” he said out loud, then reallzed he did not want to wait days more before sharing his concerns with the physician. “And perhaps talk a little more of that matter we discussed last time…”
Prince Barrick rose from the stool on which he had been perched off-balance and almost tipping over, Chert realized, like any ordinary young man. “I will not keep you, then,” he told the physician. The prince spoke lightly, but Chert thought he heard disappointment and something else in the boy’s words—anger? Worry? “But I would speak to you again. Tomorrow, perhaps?”
“Of course, Highness, I am at your service always. In the meantime, perhaps a glass of fortified wine before bed would help a bit. And please remember what I said. Things always look different when night is on the world. Let me escort you to the door.”
Barrick rolled his eyes. “My guards are in the kitchen bothering your housekeeper and her daughter. Since Kendrick was killed, I cannot go anywhere without bumping elbows with men in armor. It was all I could do to convince them I did not want them in the room with me here.” He waved his good hand. “I will find my own way out. Perhaps I can sneak past the kitchen and have an hour to myself before they know I’m gone.”
“Don’t do that, Highness!” Chaven’s voice was hearty, even cheerful, but there was an edge to it. “People are frightened. If you disappear, even for a short time, some of those guardsmen will suffer.”
Barrick scowled, then laughed a little. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll go and give them some warning before I run for it.” He nodded in a distracted way toward Chert as he left.
“The Rooftoppers, eh?” Chaven took off the spectacles perched on his nose and wiped them on the cuff of his robe—a robe surprisingly stained considering he had worn it while receiving royalty—then put them back on and gave Chert a shrewd look. “It is very unusual news, this, but I confess that there are many you could tell it to who would be more surprised than me.”
“You already knew?”
“No—or at least I have never seen them, let alone met their queen in such an unusual audience. But I have encountered… signs over the years that suggested to me that the Rooftoppers might be more than fable.”
“But what does it mean? All this talk of shadows and the coming storm? Is it because the Shadowline is moving? There is talk back home in Quarry Square that something came across the Shadowline in the hills to the west and took an entire caravan.”
“For once, the talk is right,” said Chaven, and quickly told his guest the merchant Raemon Beck’s story. “Even now the prince and princess have sent a company of soldiers to the place it happened.”
Chert shook his head. “I cannot believe it—I am more than ever certain that the old tales are coming to hfe. It is a curse to live in such times.”
“Perhaps. But out of great fear and danger, heroism and beauty can come, too.” “I am not your man for heroes,” said Chert. “Give me a soft seam and a hot meal at the end of the day.”
Chaven smiled. “I am not so fond of heroism myself,” he said, “but there is a part of me—my curiosity, I suppose—that dislikes too much comfort. It is, I think, the despoiler of learning, or at least of true understanding.”
Chert suppressed a shudder. “Whatever sort of lessons the Rooftoppers spoke of—Old Night! That has a terrible sound. And the Lord of the Peak who warned them, some Rooftopper god, no doubt In any case, those are the sort of lessons I would rather avoid.”
“The Lord of the Peak?” Chaven’s demeanor seemed to grow a little cool. “Is that what they said?”
“Y—yes—didn’t I tell you? I must have forgot. They said the truth of all this was spoken to them by the Lord of the Peak.”
Chaven stared at him for a moment as from a distance, and Chert feared he had offended somehow against their old but constrained friendship. “Well, I expect you are right,” the physician said at last. “It is some god of theirs.” He moved suddenly, rubbed his hands together. “It is good of you to bring this all to me.Your pardon, but you have given me much that is new to think on, and I have more than the royal family’s physical bodies in my care.”
“It… it was strange to see Prince Barrick. He is so young!”
“He and his sister are both growing older quickly. These are harsh times. Now I hope you will pardon me, good Chert—I have much to do.”
With the distinct feeling that he was being hurried out, Chert had almost reached the door when he remembered. “Oh! And I have something else for you.” He fumbled in the pocket of his jerkin, withdrew the unusual stone. “The child Flint, the one you met—he found this near the Eddon family graveyard. I have lived with and worked with stone as man and boy, but I have never seen anything like it. I thought perhaps you could tell me what it is.” A sudden thought: “It did not occur to me, but it was with me when I met the Rooftoppers. Their little Nose-man said he could smell evil. I thought perhaps it was the scent of the shadowlands still on Flint… but perhaps it was this.”
Chaven took it, gave it a quick glance. He did not seem impressed. “Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps it was all part of the incomprehensible politick of the Rooftoppers—they are an old race about which we know little in these days. In any case, I will examine it carefully, good Chert.” He gave it another look, then slipped it into one of the sleeves of his robe. “And now, good morning. We will talk longer when I am not just come back from the countryside.”
Chert hesitated again. Chaven had never before made him feel unwelcome. He wanted to probe the unfamiliar situation like a sore tooth. “And your journey went well?”
“As well as could be hoped. The fever that struck the prince has come to many houses, but I do not think it was what I once feared—something that comes from beyond the Shadowline.” He stood patiently by the door.
“Thank you for your time,” the Funderling told him. “Farewell, and I hope I will see you again soon.” “I shall look forward to it,” Chaven said as he closed the door firmly behind him.
The sky was high and clear today, but cold air stabbed down from the north and Briony was glad of her warm boots. Not everyone seemed to approve of her manlike choice of clothing: woolen hose and a tunic that had once been Barrick’s; Avin Brone took one look at her and snorted, but then hurried into the day’s business as if he did not trust himself to comment on her apparel. Instead, he complained about the fact that her brother apparently could not be bothered to attend.
“The prince’s time and reasons are his own,” Briony said, but secretly she was not displeased. She had reasons to hurry, and although she did her best to attend to the matters to be settled, the taxes to be assessed, the countless stories whose only desired audience was her royal self, she was distracted and paid only intermittent attention.
Finished, she stopped and went to a meal of cold chicken and bread in her own chambers. She would rather have had something warmer on such a day, but she had an assignation to keep…