“Where did you learn to do that?” Briony asked him.
“I was not always as you see me now, Highness,” her royal historian said with a sniff. “I have been on the road since I was small. I have made my living in ways honest and… not so much. Most of my juggling I had from my first master, Bingulou the Kracian—he was the best I have ever seen. Men used to go straight to church after watching him, certain that the gods had granted a miracle ...”
Two things they heard again and again wherever they stopped, in every town or city of the Esterian Valley: that the Syannese soldiers had not given up looking for them, and that strange things were going on in the north. Many of those they questioned, especially the traders and religious mendicants who traveled there frequently, spoke of a sort of darkness that seemed to have settled over the March Kingdoms—not just the weather, although to all it seemed grayer and cloudier than the season warranted, but a darkness of the heart as well. The roads were empty, the travelers said, and the fairs and markets that were always such an important part of the year were poorly attended if they were held at all. City dwellers were reluctant to travel, and those country folk who could do so had moved into the cities for safety, or at least huddled now in the shadows of their walls.
At the same time, though, not even those who had been there most recently, such as a tinker they met north of Doros Kallida, could describe exactly what was happening. Everyone agreed that the Twilight People had come down out of the mist-shrouded north, just as they had two centuries before, and had destroyed Candlerstown and several other cities as they moved on Southmarch. But the siege that had begun before Briony left home seemed to have been prosecuted for most of the time since in a most strangely offhand manner, with the fairies camped almost peaceably outside the walls for months, and no fighting at all between shadowlanders and men.
But more recently that had changed, the tinker told them, or so he had heard from other travelers he had met farther north. Sometime in the last few tennights the siege had resumed, this time in earnest, and the reports were horrendous and frightening, almost impossible to credit—giant tree-creatures pulling down the walls of Southmarch, the outer keep in flames, demon-things slaughtering the defenders and raping and murdering helpless citizens.
“By now it must surely be over, may the gods help them,” the man said piously, making the sign of the Three. “There can be nothing left.”
Briony was so miserable after hearing the tinker’s words that she could scarcely speak for the rest of the day.
“These are only traveler’s tales, Highness,” Finn told her. “Do not take them to heart. Listen to a historian, one who searches such tales for truth—the first reports, especially if they are passed by people who were not there, are always far more grisly and exaggerated than what has actually happened.”
“So how should that soothe me?” she demanded. “Only half my subjects dead? Only half my home on fire?”
Finn and the others did their best, but that night and for several days afterward, Briony could not be cheered.
And what if Barrick really did come back? she thought over and over. After all that, have I lost him now forever? Have the fairies killed him? She lay awake in the small hours, tormented. If they have, I will see every one of those godless creatures slaughtered.
“We have a problem,” Finn announced as they sat eating their mutton stew. Estir had cooked it, making up for the paltry amount of meat with a generous helping of peppercorns they had bought in the last market, so although it was not as filling as it could be, it was at least warming.
“Yes, we do,” said Pedder Makewell. “My sister spends all our money on spices and we are almost copperless again.”
“You are a fool,” Estir said. “You spend far more of our money on drink than I do on pepper and cinnamon.”
“Because drink is the food of the mind,” declared Nevin Hewney. “Starve the mind of an artist with sobriety and he will be too weak to ply his craft.”
Finn waved his hands. “Enough, enough. If we are careful, Princess Briony’s money should last us all the way home, so enough of your carping, Pedder—and you too, Nevin.”
“As long as careful does not mean drinking water,” Hewney said crossly.
“The problem is what the farmers we met today said,” Finn continued, ignoring him. “You heard them. They claim that Syannese guardsmen are camped outside the walls of Layandros. Now, what do you think they are doing there?”
“Making friends with the local sheep?” Hewney suggested.
Finn gave him a look. “Your mouth is your greatest possession, old friend—even more valuable than your purse. I suggest you keep both tightly shut. Now, if you have all finished filling the air with the fumes of your ignorance, give some attention. The soldiers are looking for Princess Briony, of course—and for us. We have been fortunate enough to avoid capture so far, although we were nearly found out in Ugenion and one or two other places.” He shook his head. “We may not be so lucky this time, I fear. These are Enander’s trained soldiers, not the local boobs and strawheads we have cozened—I doubt I shall be able to convince them we are on pilgrimage.”
Briony spoke up. “Then there is only one thing to do. I must leave you. It’s me they’re searching for.”
“Spoken like the heroine of a tragic tale,” said Finn. “But with all respect to your station, Princess, if you believe that you are a fool.”
For a moment she bristled—it was one thing to be talked to in a familiar way, another to be called a fool by a commoner!—but then she thought of how poorly she had been served by flatterers and thought better of it. I cannot have friends who will not tell me what they truly think. Otherwise they are not friends, only servants.
“Why shouldn’t I leave you, Finn?” she said. “I broke the king’s law by running away—went against his express order. And I am certain the Lady Ananka has been poisoning his ear even more busily ever since. By now, I am probably guilty of the loss of the entire Syannese Empire…”
“You are certainly the one they are most interested in, my lady,” said Finn. “But do not think for a second they are not searching for us, too. Why do you think we’ve so often made Dowan fold his long legs like a grasshopper and squeeze into the wagon with you? Because he is the easiest of us all for someone to recognize. Even if you were not with us, Princess Briony, they would not let us go. We would be taken, and then… persuaded… to tell all we know of your whereabouts. I doubt any of us would ever see freedom again.”
A sudden misery washed through her, so strong that she could only put her face into her hands. “Merciful Zoria! I am so sorry—I had no right to do this to you all… !”
“It is too late to change that,” said Hewney. “So waste no tears on us. Well, on Makewell, perhaps, who hoped for an easy life buggering orphan boys back in Tessis, but he was outvoted.”
“I will not bother to answer such a ridiculous charge,” said Pedder Makewell. “Except to say that my interest in boys is purely defensive, since they are the one thing I can be sure you haven’t given the pox to ...”
Finn rolled his eyes as the others laughed. “Gods, you are a crude lot. Have you forgotten that the mistress of all the March Kingdoms is traveling with us?”
“Too late to worry about her, Finn my old blossom,” said Makewell. “She curses like one of us, now. Did you hear what she called Hewney the other night?”
“And without cause,” the playwright said. “I simply stumbled against her in the dark ...”
“Enough!” said Finn. “You all jest because you do not want to talk about what is before us. The Royal Highway is not safe. The king’s men are waiting for us outside Layandros, and even if we manage to sneak past them, it is still several days walk to the Syannese border.”