Brone looked around the small, cluttered room. There was no sign of the guards returning, but he lowered his voice anyway. “I do not. But I suspect he is alive. It would be easy enough for the Tollys to trump up some charge against him if all they wanted was an execution. I still have a few... sources around the castle, and I hear Hendon’s men are still searching for him.”
“Well, tell your sources to find him. As swiftly as possible. And it would not hurt to inquire into this moon-stone or whatever it is, either.”
“But I don’t understand—why did these little people ask you? And you said they wanted to bargain with you. How? What did they offer?”
“Ah.” Merolanna smiled, and it was almost fond this time. “Once a courtier, always a courtier, I see. Do you not believe they might have come to me because they recognized me as a person of kindness and good will?”
Brone raised an eyebrow.
“You’re right. They told me they would give me news of my child.”
Avin Brone’s eyes went wide as cartwheels. “Your... your...?”
“Child. Yes, that’s right. Don’t worry about Utta—she’s been told the whole dreadful story.”
He looked at her with a face gone pale. “You told her...?”
“You’re not speaking very well, today, Brone. I fear the drink is doing you damage. Yes, I told her of my adultery with my long-dead lover.” She turned to Utta. “Brone already knows, you see. I have few confidantes in the castle, but he has long been one of them. He was the one who arranged for the child to be fostered.” She turned back to Brone. “I told Barrick and Briony, also.”
“You what?”
“Told them, the poor dears. They had a right to know. You see, on the day of Kendrick’s funeral, I saw the child. My child.”
Brone could only shake his head again. “Surely, Merolanna, one of us is going mad.”
“It isn’t me. I thought for a time it must be, but I think I know better now. Tell me, then—what are you going to do?”
“Do? About what?”
“All of this. About finding Chaven and discovering why the fairies took my little boy.” She saw the look on Avin Brone’s face. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that, did I?” She quickly related the words of Queen Upsteeplebat and the oracular Ears. “Now, what are you going to do?”
Brone seemed dazed. “I...I can inquire quietly again after Chaven’s whereabouts, I suppose, but the trail has probably long gone cold.”
“You can do more than that. You can help Utta and myself make our way to the camp of those fairy-people, those... what are they called? Qar? We’ve always called them the Twilight Folk, I don’t know why everyone has to change. In any case, I want to go to them. After all, they are only on the other side of the bay.”
Now it was Utta’s turn to be astonished. “Your Grace, what are you saying? Go out to the Qar? They are murderous creatures—they have killed hundreds of your people.”
The duchess flapped her hands in dismissal of Utta’s concern. “Yes, I’m sure they are terrible, but if they won’t tell me where my son is then I don’t much care what they do with me. I want answers. Why steal my child? Why put me through year upon year of torture, only to send him back as young as the day he was taken? I saw him, you know, at Kendrick’s funeral. I thought I’d truly gone mad. And why should this happen now? It has something to do with all this other nonsense, mark my words.”
“You’re...you’re really certain you saw him?” Utta asked.
“He was my child.” Merolanna’s face had gone chilly, hard. “Would you fail to recognize your revered Zoria if she appeared in your chapel? I saw him—my poor, dear little boy.” She turned back to Brone. “Well?”
He took a deep, ragged breath, then let it out. “Merolanna...Duchess...you mistake me for someone who still wields some power, instead of a broken old warhorse who has been beaten out to pasture.”
“Ah. So that is how it is?” She turned to Sister Utta. “You may go, dear. If you will do me the kindness of coming to my chambers this afternoon perhaps we may talk more then. We have much to decide. In the meantime, I have a little persuasion to do here.” She turned a sharp eye toward Brone. “And tell that page waiting in the hall outside that when I’m done, his master will need a bath and something to eat. The count has work to do.”
Utta went out, awed and a little frightened by Merolanna’s strength and determination. She was going to bend Brone to her will somehow, there seemed little doubt, but would that force of character be enough when it came time to deal with all their enemies—with cruel Hendon Tolly, or the immortal and alien Twilight People?
Suddenly the castle seemed no longer any kind of refuge to Utta, but only a cold box of stone sitting in the middle of a cold, cold world.
“Don’t I know you?” the guard asked Tinwright. He took a step closer and pushed his round, stubbled face close to the poet’s own. “Wasn’t I going to smash your skull in?”
Matt Tinwright’s knees were feeling a bit wobbly. As if things weren’t bad enough already, this was indeed the same guard who had objected to Tinwright having a little adventure with his lady friend some months back in an alley behind The Badger’s Boots. “No, no, you must be thinking of someone else,” he said, trying to smile reassuringly. “But if there’s anything else I can do for you, other than having my skull smashed...”
“Leave him be,” said the other guard with more amusement than sympathy. “If Lord Tolly’s got it in for him, they’ll do worse to him soon than you could ever imagine. Besides, he might want this fellow unmarked.”
The fat-faced guard peered at the trembling poet like a shortsighted bull trying to decide whether to charge toward something. “Right. Well, if His Lordship doesn’t flog you raw or something like, then you and I still have a treat to look forward to.”
“By the gods, how sensible!” Tinwright stepped away, putting his back against the wall. “Wouldn’t want to interfere with His Lordship’s plans, of course. Well considered.”
And it would have been a narrow escape, except that Tinwright did not for a moment believe he would be alive to avoid future meetings with the vengeful guard. Surely it could not be a coincidence that Hendon Tolly had summoned him so soon after his moment of madness in the garden with Elan M’Cory, kissing her hands, protesting his love. Before this, Tolly had paid Matt Tinwright no more attention than one of the dogs under the table. He’s going to kill me. The thought of it made his knees go wobbly again and he had to dig his fingers into the cracks of the wall behind him to remain upright. He barely resisted the impulse to run. But, oh, gods, maybe it is something harmless. To run would be to declare guilt...!
Matty Tinwright had received the summons in the morning from one of the castellan Havemore’s pages. Tinwright had thought the boy was looking at him strangely as he handed over the message; when he read it, he knew why.
Matthias Tinwright will come to the throne room today after morning prayers.
It was signed with a “T” for “Tolly” and sealed with the Summerfield boar-and-spears crest. The moment the page had left the room Tinwright had been helplessly, noisily sick into the chamber pot.
Now he clung to the wall and watched the fat guard and his friend talk aimlessly of this and that. Would they or anyone else remember him when he was dead? The fat one would celebrate! And no one else in the castle would care, either, except poor, haunted Elan and perhaps old Puzzle. Such a fate for someone who hoped to do great things...!