Secret? Barrick saw that Vansen was listening raptly, too— might even be carrying on his own conversation with Gyir. Instead of the burst of jealously such a realization usually caused, this time he felt oddly connected to the man. There were moments he hated the guard captain, but others when he felt as though he were closer to Ferras Vansen than to any other living mortal—except Briony, of course. Gods protect you, he thought, his heart suddenly, achingly full. Oh, strawhead, what I would give just to see your face, your real face, in front of me...!
I have not wasted the time while you were lost in fever dreams, Gyir told him. I have found a guard who works sometimes in the pit—one who watches over the prisoners who put the bodies on the platform and send them up to the wagon-slaves. Can you...see his thoughts? Can you see what’s down below us?
No. The guard has a curious emptiness where those memories should be.
Then what good is he to us? Barrick was weary again. How absurd, when he had been awake such a short time!
I can follow him—stand inside him as I stood inside the thoughts and feelings of the woodsprite. I can see what he sees down in the depths.
Then I will go with you again, like last time, Barrick said. I want to see. Gyir and Vansen actually exchanged a look, which infuriated him. I know you two think me weak, but I will not be left behind in this cell.
I do not think you are weak, Barrick Eddon, but I do think you are in danger. Whatever about this place troubles you grew worse when I carried your thoughts with me last time. And Ferras Vansen and I will not leave—only our thoughts will. You will not be alone.
Barrick should have been too weak for fury, but he wasn’t.
Don’t speak in my head and tell me lies. Alone? How could I be more alone than stuck here with your empty bodies? What if something happens to you and your thoughts are...lost, or something like that? I would rather it happens to me, too, than to be left here with your corpses.
Gyir stared at him a long time. I will consider it. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, either,” Vansen said out loud.
Barrick did his best to regain his mask of cold control. “I know you don’t follow orders you don’t like, Captain Vansen, but unless you have given up your allegiance to me entirely, you are still sworn to my family as your liegelords. I am the prince of Southmarch. Do you think to order me as to what I may and may not do?”
Vansen stared at him, a dozen different expressions moving across his face like oil spreading on a pool of water. “No, Highness,” he said at last. “You will do what you think best. As always.”
The guardsman was right, of course, and Barrick hated that. He was a fool to take such a risk, but he had told the truth—he was far more terrified of being left alone.
“Doirrean, what are you doing? He is too far from the fire— he will be cold and then ill.” Queen Anissa leaned forward in her bed to glare at the nurse, a sturdy, sullen girl with pale, Connordic features.
“Yes, Highness.” The young woman picked up both the baby and the cushion underneath him, taking care to show just how much trouble she was being put to, and then used her foot to move the chair closer to the large fireplace. Sister Utta could not help wondering whether a healthy baby was not at more risk from flying sparks than from a few moments naked in an otherwise warm room. Of course, I’ve never had a child, though I’ve been present for my share of births. Perhaps it feels different when it’s your own.
“I just cannot understand why I am saying things over and over,” Anissa declared. Her thin frame had rounded a little during her pregnancy, but now the skin seemed to hang loosely on her bones. “Does no one listen? Have I not had enough pain and suffer...sufferance?”
“Don’t fret yourself too much, dear,” Merolanna told her. “You have had a terrible time, yes, but you have a fine, fine son. His father will be very proud.”
“Yes, he is fine, is he not?” Anissa smiled at the infant, who was staring raptly up at his nurse in that guileless, hearttugging way that babies had—the only thing about them that ever made Utta regret her own choices in life. It would be appealing, she thought, perhaps even deeply satisfying, to have an innocent young soul in your care, to fill it like a jewel case with only good things, with kindness and reverent thoughts and love and friendship. “Oh, I pray that his father comes back soon to see him,” the queen said, “to see what I have done, what a handsome boy I have made for him.”
“What will you name him?” Utta asked. “If you do not mind saying before the ceremony.”
“Olin, of course. Like his father. Well, Olin Alessandros— Alessandros was my grandfather’s name, the grand viscount of Devonis.” Anissa sounded a bit nettled. “Olin. What else would I name him?”
Utta did not point out that the king had already had two other sons, neither of whom had been given his name. Anissa was an insecure creature, but she had reason to be: her husband was imprisoned, her stepchildren all gone, and her only claim to authority was this tiny child. Small surprise she would want to remind everyone constantly of who the father was and what the child represented.
Somebody knocked at the chamber door. One of the queen’s other maids left the group of whispering women and opened it, then exchanged a few words with one of the wolf-liveried guards who stood outside. “It is the physician, Highness,” she called.
Merolanna and Utta exchanged a startled look as the door swung open, but it was Brother Okros, not Chaven, who stepped into the room. The scholar, dressed in the winecolored robes of Eastmarch Academy, bowed deeply and stayed down on one knee. “Your Highness,” he said. “Ah, and Your Grace.” He rose, then added a bow for Utta and the others. “Ladies.”
“You may come to me, Okros,” called Anissa. “I am all in a trouble. My milk, it hardly ever flows. If I did not have Doirrean, I do not know what I would do.”
Utta, who was impressed that Anissa was nursing at all—it was not terribly common among the upper classes, and she would have guessed the queen would be only too glad to hand the child over to a wet nurse—turned away to let the physician talk to his patient. The other ladies-in-waiting came forward and surrounded the queen’s bed, listening.
“We haven’t spoken to Okros yet,” said Merolanna quietly, “and this would be a good time.”
“Speak to him about what?”
“We can ask him about those strange things the little person said. That House of the Moon jabber. If it’s to do with Chaven, then perhaps Okros will recognize what it means. Perhaps it’s something that any of those doctoring fellows would know.”
Utta felt a sudden pang of fear, although she could not say exactly why. “You want to...tell him? About what the Queen’s Ears said?”
Merolanna waved her beringed hand. “Not all of it—I’m no fool. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that we heard all this from a Rooftopper—a little person the size of my finger.”
“But...but these matters are secret!”
“It’s been a tennight or more and I’m no closer to finding out what happened to my son. Okros is a good man—a smart one, too. He’ll tell us if he recognizes any of this. You let me take charge, Utta. You worry too much.”