Two Yisti Knives
When Zhafaris the Prince of Evening came to his manhood he became lord of all the gods. He took many wives, but highest among them were his nieces Ugeni and Shusayem, and I tell truth when I say they were as alike as two tamarind seeds. Soon both were heavy with the children of Zhafaris, but Ugeni was frightened and hid her children away, so that no one knew they had been born. However, Shusayem, her sister, brought forth her own children, Argal, Efiyal, and Xergal, and called them the heirs of Zhafaris.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
BRIONY SUPPOSED IT WAS POSSIBLE for a person to feel more exhausted than she did at this moment, dirtier, more sodden with sweat, and less ladylike, but she could not quite imagine it. I wanted to be treated like a boy, didn't I? At the moment she was sitting on the ground sucking air, watching Shaso drink from a jar of watered wine. The old man had recovered some of his old bowstring-taut muscle during the days upon days they had been practicing; the sinews of his forearms writhed like snakes as he lifted the heavy jar. I didn't want to be forced to wear confining dresses, or to be treated like a fragile blossom. Well, I've got my wish.
Thank you, Zoria, she prayed with only the smallest tinge of irony. Every day you teach me something new.
"Are you ready?" Shaso demanded, wiping his bearded mouth with the back of his hand. After keeping himself shaved and carefully trimmed all Briony's life he had now let his whiskers and hair grow wild, and looked
more than ever like some ancient oracle, the kind that had sailed across the sea on rafts to found the gods' temples when Hierosol was little more than a fishing village.
She groaned and sat up. No doubt the old oracles had been just as hard minded as Shaso. It explained a lot. "Ready, I suppose."
"You have learned much," he said when she was standing again. "But wooden sticks are poor weapons in many ways, and there are tricks that can only be learned with a true blade." He squatted down and unfolded the leather bundle from which he had withdrawn the wooden dowels each day. Inside it lay four more objects, each wrapped in its own piece of oiled leather. "The first day we came here," Shaso said, "I asked the boon of Effir dan-Mozan that I could choose among some of his trade goods. These were the best pieces he had." He flipped open the wrappings, revealing four daggers, one pair larger than the other. The larger had curved crosspieces, the smaller barely any crosspieces at all. "They are Sanian steel, of excellent quality."
Her hand stole toward the knives, but stopped. "Sanian?"
"Sania is a country in the west of Xand. The Yisti metalworkers there are of Funderling stock, and make weapons that all Xandians covet. These four would cost you the price of a pair of warhorses."
"That much?"
"Yisti weapons are said to be charmed." He reached down and took one of the larger daggers in his big hand, balancing it on his palm. He pointed at the simple, elegant hilt. "Polished tortoiseshell," he said. "Sacred to their god."
"Are they really magic?"
He looked up at her with amusement in his eyes. "No weapon can make a fighter out of a clumsy dolt, but a fine piece of steel will do what its wielder needs it to do. If it saves your life or takes the life from another, that is as powerful a magic as you could hope for, do you not think?"
Briony was a little breathless, and having taciturn Shaso turn poetic on her did not help. She reached out her finger and traced the length of one of the smaller, needle-sharp daggers. "Beautiful."
"And deadly." He picked up two of the knives, one large and one small, then took out their sheaths as well, hard, tanned leather with cords that could be tied around a waist or a leg. He scabbarded the two blades, then used the cords to secure the sheaths to the daggers' hilts. "Do that with yours, too," he said. "That way, we will not cut off any of each other's im¬portant parts as we work."
They worked for another hour at least as the sun slid down behind the walls and the courtyard filled with soothing shadows. Briony, who had thought she could not lift her arm one more time, instead found herself re¬vived by the fascination of sparring with actual blades, of the weight and balance of them, the new shapes they made in her hand. She was delighted to find she could block Shaso's own blade with the crosshaft of her larger knife and then disarm him with no more than a flick of the wrist. When she had managed the trick a few times, he showed her how to move in below that sudden flick with the small knife, stabbing underneath her op¬ponent's arm. It was strangely intimate, and as the point of the leather-clad blade bounced against his rib she pulled back, suddenly queasy. For the first time she truly felt what she was doing, learning how to stab someone to death, to cut skin and pierce eyes, to let out a man's guts while she stared him in the face.
The old man looked at her for a long moment. "Yes, you must get close to kill with a knife-close enough to kiss, almost. Umeyana, the blood-kiss, we call it. It takes courage. If you fail to land a deadly blow your enemy will be able to grab and hold. Most will be bigger than you." He frowned, then sank to his knees and began putting his blades back in their oilcloth wrap¬ping. "That is enough for today. You have done well, Highness."
She tried to hand him the knives she had been using but he shook his head. "They are yours, Princess. From now on, I do not want you apart from them. Examine your clothes and find places you can keep them and then draw them without snagging. Many a soldier has died with his knife or sword-hilt caught in his belt, useless."
"They… they're mine?"
He nodded, eyes cold and bright. "The responsibility for one's own safety is no gift," he said. "It is much more pleasant to be a child and let someone else bear the burden. But you do not have that luxury anymore, Briony Eddon. You lost that with your castle."
That stung. For a moment she thought he was being intentionally cruel to her, humbling her further so she would be easier for him to mold. Then she realized that he meant every word he said: Briony, offspring of a royal family, was used to people who gave gifts with the idea of being remem¬bered and needed-to make themselves indispensable. Shaso was giving her the only kind of gift he trusted, one that would make her better able to sur¬vive without Shaso's own help. He wanted to be unnecessary.
"Thank you," she said.
"Go now and get something to eat." Suddenly lie would not meet her eye. "It has been a long day's exercise."
Strange, stubborn, sour old man! The only way he knows how to show low is by teaching me how to kill people.
The thought arrested her, and she stopped to watch the Tuani walk away. It is love, she thought. /t must be. And after all we did to him.
She sat in the growing twilight for some time, thinking.
"How well do you know Lord Shaso?" she asked Idite. As much as she had been offended at first by not eating with the men of the house, she had come to enjoy these quiet evenings with the hadar's female inhabitants. She still could not speak the women's tongue and doubted she ever would, but some of the others beside Idite had proved able to speak Briony's once they had got over their initial shyness.
"Oh, not at all, Briony-zisaya." Idite always made the name sound like a child's counting game, one-two-three, one-two-three. "I have never met him before you came to our door twelve nights ago."
"But you speak of him as though you had known him all your life."
"It is true that I have, in some ways." Idite allowed a delicate frown to crease her lips as she considered. One of the young women whispered a translation to the others. "He is as famous as any man who ever lived, ex¬cept for of course the Great Tuan, his cousin. I mean the old Great Tuan, of course. Where his eldest son is, the new Tuan, no one knows. He escaped before the autarch's armies reached Nyoru, and some say he is hiding in the desert, waiting to return and lift the autarch's cruel hand from our home¬land. But he has waited a long time already." She forced a little laugh. "But listen to me, talking and talking and saying nothing, croaking like an ibis. Lord Shaso's name is known to every Tuani, his deeds spoken of around the cooking-fire. People still argue over Shaso's Choice, of course-so much so that the old Tuan made it a crime to discuss it, because people died from the arguments."
Briony shook her head. "Shaso's… choice?"
"Yes." Idite turned to the other women and said something in Tuani- Briony could make out Shaso's name. The women all nodded solemnly, some saying, "sesa, sesa," which Briony had come to learn meant "yes, yes."
It was strange to think of Shaso as someone who had his own history- his own legends, even, although she had known that in his day he had been
a much respected warrior."What choice, Idite? 1 mean, surely you can talk of n now without breaking the law. lie's only a few rooms away."
Idite laughed."I was thinking of Tuan. There is no law here in Marrins-walk." In her accented speech it became "Mah-reens-oo-woke," an exotic name that for a moment made it seem an exotic place to Briony, too. "But there is custom, and sometimes that is as strong as law. His choice was to honor the vow he made on the battlefield, to a foreign king, to leave his country and live in exile. Even when the Autarch of Xis attacked us, Shaso was not allowed to return and defend us. Some say that without his strong hand, without the fear he made when he led our armies, the Great Tuan had no chance against Xis."
It took Briony a moment to understand. "You're talking about how he came to serve my father? How he came to Southmarch?"
"Yes, of course-I almost forget." Idite lifted her hands in a gesture of embarrassment. "You are the daughter of Olin,"-"Aw-leen" was how she rendered it. "I meant no offense."
"I'm not offended, I'm just… tell me. Tell me about it."
"But… you must know all, yourself."
"Not what it meant to your people." It was Briony's turn to feel shamed. "I've never thought much about Shaso's life before now. Of course, that's in part because he's so closemouthed. Until a few months ago, I didn't even know he had a daughter."
"Ah, yes, Hanede." Idite shook her head. "Very sad."
"I was told she died because… because Dawet ruined her. Made love to her and then deserted her. Is that true?"
Idite looked a little alarmed. Some of the other women, bored or con¬fused by the long stretch of conversation in Briony's tongue, seemed to beg for translation. Idite waved them to silence. "I do not know the facts-I am only a merchant's wife and it is not for me to speak of noble ones like the Dan-Heza and the Dan-Faar. They are above me like stars-like you are yourself, Lady."
"Huh. I'm not above you or anyone. I've been wearing borrowed clothes for nearly a month. At the moment I'm just grateful you've taken me into your house."
"No, it is our honor, Briony-zisaya!
"Do… do your people hate my father? For what he did to Shaso?"
Idite eyed her, the soft brown eyes full of shrewd intelligence. "1 will
speak honestly with you, Princess, because I believe you truly wish it. Yes, many of my people hated your father, but as with most things, it has more complicatedness-complication? — than that. Some respected him lor Ion ing his own nobles to spare Shaso's life, but making a servant out of the Dan-Heza still was seen as dishonorable. Giving him land and honors, that was surprising, and many thought your father a very wise man, but then the people were furious that Shaso was not allowed to come back and fight against the old autarch (may he have to cross each of the seven hells twice!). These are things much discussed among our folk even now, and your fa¬ther is seen as both hero and villain." Idite bowed her head. "I hope I have not offended."
"No. No, not at all." Briony was overwhelmed. She had been painfully reminded again how little she knew about Shaso despite his importance to both her father and herself, and she was just as ignorant about many oth¬ers who had been her helpers and guardians and advisers. Avin Brone, Chaven, old Nynor the castellan-what did she know about any of them beyond the obvious? How had she dared to think of herself as a ruler for even one moment?
"You seem sad, my lady." Idite waved for one of the younger women to refill their guest's cup with flower-scented tea-Briony had not developed a taste for the Tuani's gawa as yet and she doubted she ever would. "I have said too much."
"You've made me think, that's all. Surely that's nothing to apologize for." Briony took a breath. "Sometimes we don't see the shape of things until we're a long way away, do we?"
"If I had learned that at your age," said Idite, "I would have been on the road to deep wisdom instead of becoming the foolish old woman that I am."
Briony ignored Idite's ritualized self-deprecation. "But all the wisdom of the world can't take you back to change a mistake you've already made, can it?"
"There." Idite smiled. "That is another step down the road. Now drink your tea and let us talk of happier things. Fanu and her sister have a song they will sing for you."
Briony woke on her thirteenth day in the house of the Dan-Mozan to find the women's quarters bustling. She had still not developed the habit of rising as early as the others-they seemed to get out of bed before the sun
WAS above the horizon but even so she was surprised by the degree of activity.
"All, she awake!" cried pretty young Fanu, and then added something in the i'uani tongue; Briony thought she recognized Idite's name in the fast slur of sounds.
Briony began sluggishly to pull off her nightdress so she could don her own garments, but the women gathered around her, waving their hands and laughing.
"Don't do!" said Fanu. "Later. For Idite wait."
Briony was grateful that she was at least allowed to wash her face and scrape her teeth clean before Idite arrived. The older woman was beautifully dressed in a robe of spotless white silk with a fringed girdle of deep red.
"They won't let me dress," Briony complained, shamed by Idite's splen¬did clothes and feeling more than ever that she was too large and too pale for this household.
"That is because we will dress you," Idite explained. "Today is a special day, and special care must be taken, especially for you, Uriony-zisaya!
"Why? Is someone getting married?"
Idite laughed and repeated her remark. The other young women gig¬gled. Idite had explained to Briony that most of them were the daughters of other well-to-do families, that they were not Effir's wives but closer to the ladies-in-waiting of Briony's own court. Only a few were true servants, and some, like Fanu, were relatives of Idite or her husband. Although Effir dan-Mozan was not a Tuani noble, not in the sense Briony understood it, it was clear that he was an important man and this was an important house¬hold, a fine place to send a daughter to learn from a respected woman like Idite.
"No, no one is to be married. Today is Godsday, and just as you go to your temple, so do we."
"But you didn't take me the last time." She remembered well the long morning she had spent on her own in the women's quarters, wishing she had something to read or even some sewing with which to occupy herself, much as she disliked it.
"Nor will we take you this time," Idite said kindly, patting Briony's hand. "You would be welcome, but you are a stranger to the Great Mother and Dan-Mozan my husband says it would be wrong to teach you the rituals, since you are a guest."
"So why do I have to dress in a special way?"
"Because afterward we are going out to the town," said Idite. The women behind her all murmured and smiled. "You have not been outside the walls of the hadar since you came. My husband thought you deserved to go outside today with the rest of us."
She was not certain she liked the word "deserved," which made her feci like a child or a prisoner, but she was excited at the thought of seeing something other than the inside of the merchant's house. A cautious thought occurred to her. "And Lord Shaso…? He says it is allowed?"
"He is coming, too."
"But how can I go out? My face is well-known, at least to some…"
"Ah, that is why we must begin to work on you now, king's daughter." Idite smiled with mischievous pleasure. "You will see!"
By the time the sun had crept above the walls and morning had truly come, Briony sat alone in the women's quarters waiting for the others to return from their prayers, which were apparently led by a Tuani priest who came to the hadar and held forth in the courtyard. She lifted the beautiful little lotus mirror Idite had placed in her hands, wondering at the changes the women had made. Briony's skin, fair and freckled, at least in summer¬time, had been covered all over in powdery light brown paint from one of Idite's pots, so that she was now only a shade or two paler than Shaso him¬self. Her eyes had been heavily lined with kohl, her golden hair pulled back so that not a wisp of it showed beneath the tight-fitting white hood. Only her eyes had not changed, the green she had shared with her brother Kendrick as pale as Akaris jade. Idite and the other women had laughed at the contrast, saying that her eyes in that dark skin made her look like a Xix-ian witch, that she needed only flame-colored hair to complete the picture. This had made her think of redling Barrick, and to her horror she had sud¬denly found herself weeping, at which point everything had stopped while her eyes and cheeks were dabbed dry and repairs were made. The kohl had to be reapplied completely. As she looked in the mirror now, Briony saw a black spot of it that had dripped from her jaw to her wrist, and she dabbed it away.
Where was he? Where was her brother now?
For a moment a wave of such pure pain washed over her that she could barely breathe and she had to squeeze her eyes tightly shut. Every kindness that the people of this house did her only made her feel more lost, the life she knew farther away. She could live without the throne of Southmarch,
even without Southmarch itself, strange and lonely as that: was to contem¬plate, but if she could not ever see her father or her brother again she felt sure she would die.
Barrick, where are you? Where have you gone? Are you safe? Do you ever think of me?
Suddenly, prodded by something she could not understand, could barely feel, she opened her eyes. There, hovering in the mirror behind her own sorrowing features like the bottom of a pond seen through reflections on its surface, was her twin's death-pale face, eyes closed. His arms lay across his chest and his wrists were chained.
"Barrick!" she shrieked, but a moment later he was gone; only her own, now-alien face looked back. I'm going mad, she thought, staring at the hor¬rified, dark-skinned stranger in the mirror, and again began to weep, this time with no thought for the painstaking work of Idite and the other women.
As they wound their way through the narrow streets of Landers Port, Briony, a little recovered but still shaken, was surprised by how nice it was merely to be in the chill open air. Still, despite her mummer's paint and head-to-toe garb, she felt almost naked being out among strangers, and every time she noticed someone looking at her she had to fight an urge to turn and hurry back to the shelter of the merchant's house. For the first time she really felt what Shaso had said so many times: if the wrong person saw her, it could mean her death. She kept her head down as much as she could, but after so long inside it was hard not to look around a little.
Many other people were out walking, most of them heading in the same direction as Briony's party, and the numbers grew as their small procession wound down toward the seafront. Most seemed to be Xandians, dressed in similar fashion to the merchant's family, the women in long robes, hoods, and veils, the men's pale garb made festive by long vests in bright colors, sparkling with gold thread. Effir dan-Mozan was at the front of their own little company, nodding gravely to other robed men, and even to a few workaday Marrinswalk folk who called greetings to him. His nephew Tal-ibo walked behind him but in front of the women, head held high like a shepherd with a flock of prize sheep. Even Shaso had come, although he hid his features under high neck-scarf and a four-cornered Tuani hat pulled low over his eyes.
The women, with Briony at their center to keep her as far as possible from curious stares, her disguise notwithstanding, followed in a whispering, laughing crowd. This, as far as Briony could tell, was the one day they were always allowed out of the house, and despite the presence of the important men of the household, they seemed as confident and cheerful as they did in the privacy of the women's quarters.
Landers Port seemed bigger than Briony remembered-not that she had found much chance to examine it when she'd arrived after dark, exhausted and hungry and dripping wet. It was set on a hillside by a wide, shallow bay. A walled manor house and a gray stone temple watched over it all from the hill's crest. Shaso had told her that the manor belonged to a baron named Iomer, whom she had apparently met but did not remember, a stout land¬holder with more interest in his fruit trees and pigs than in life at South-march court, which perhaps explained his relative anonymity.
The poor part of town, of which the Dan-Mozan house was one of the few jewels, was located on the south side of the hill near the base, far from the ocean and far from the manor. Thus they did not climb now or de¬scend on this journey so much as they made their way around the bulk of the hill. Since the rich lived high and the poor lived low, as in so many other towns in the March Kingdoms, they passed not from poor neighbor¬hoods to wealthy ones, but from the part of town where the poor had mostly dark skin, or had the Skimmer cast, to places where poverty wore a skin as pale as Briony's own.
Or as pale as mine before they put all this paint on me, at least.
It was interesting and a little disturbing to be stared at for once, not for who she was-something she had grown used to over the years but was never fond of-but because she was traveling in a group of brown-skinned folk. Some people looked only with curiosity, but others, for no reason Briony could tell, stared with unhidden loathing. A few drunken men even leaned out of their doors to shout after them, but seemed to lose interest when they saw the knives on the Tuani men's belts.
Briony found it surprisingly hard to be glared at by people she did not know, although she was clever enough to understand it was the other side of the coin from all those folk who had cheered her and showered bless¬ings on her only because she was part of King Olin's privileged family. But, other side of the coin or not, it was one thing to be loved by strangers, most definitely another to be hated by them.
So this is how it has been for Shaso as long as he's been here. She could make
nothing of the thought just now, with so much happening around Iter, but she folded it like a letter and put it away to be examined later.
Soon, as the narrow road wound between the close-leaning houses, nearing the waterfront, Briony discovered that they were seeing more brown faces again and more wide-eyed, closemouthed Skimmer folk. The smell of the bay also grew stronger, a slightly spoiled tang that seemed to flavor every breath, every thought. She wondered if she would ever again cross the wide waters of Brenn's Bay to return home openly and safely, whether her family would ever be together again. Seeing Barrick in the mirror that way had frightened her-was it an omen? Were the gods try¬ing to tell her something? But she knew that people sometimes dreamed of things that worried them, and whether the gods had sent her this wak¬ing dream or not; it was certain that Barrick and his fate were the things that most worried her.
They reached a row of ramshackle warehouse buildings along a canal that emptied into Brenn's Bay, the bay itself visible only a stone's throw away between buildings, the masts of at least a dozen ships tilting gently just beyond the rooftops.
Effir dan-Mozan led them in through the doorway of one of the larger structures. Once through, Briony saw it was not a warehouse at all: the first room was long and low, but the walls were covered with beautiful tapes¬tries in unfamiliar designs-birds and deer and trees of strange shape. A man even smaller and rounder than Effir stood in the center of the room, his arms spread wide, his bearded face stretched by a broad smile. "Ziya Dan-Mozan! You and your family grace my humble place of business!"
"You do me too much honor, Baddara," the merchant replied with a small bow.
"Come, come, I have saved the best room for you." Baddara took Dan-Mozan s hand and led him toward a door at the back of the room, gestic¬ulating broadly and talking rapidly of ships and the price of gawa. The rest of the merchant's household followed.
Briony had edged up beside Shaso. "Why is he speaking our language?"
"Because he is not Tuani," the old man growled. "He is from Sania, and they speak a different language there. On the southern continent, Xixian and Mihanni are the tongues everyone shares. Here it is yours."
They were led through a large room filled with tables, many of them oc¬cupied by men in both southern and northern dress, several of whom greeted Effir dan-Mozan with obvious respect; just as obvious was his easy
acceptance of their deference. Shaso, on the other hand, kept his head down, meeting no one's gaze, and Briony suddenly remembered that she, with her un-Tuani eyes, should most certainly be doing the same. Maddara led them to a private room whose walls were covered by more hangings, hunting scenes and boating scenes on shimmery fabrics done in a style Briony did not recognize. The little man shouted orders to several older bearded men who were clearly meant to serve the guests; then, after an¬other elaborate bow, he hurried out.
Although the room was theirs alone, Briony noticed with some irrita¬tion that the Tuani notion of propriety was still present: she and the other women were seated at one end of the table, the men at the other, with an empty seat between the groups on each side. Still, it was a chance to see something other than the inside walls of the hadar, and she did her best to enjoy the change. The tapestries at least were beautiful to look at, many of them ornately decorated with thread of what looked like real gold, all of them woven with elaborate attention to color and detail-in fact, the tap¬estries were so compelling that she did not notice for some time that the room had no windows. The woven pictures themselves seemed to look out onto scenes far more soothing and uplifting than anything she could have seen in this small seaport.
Baddara's servers brought in several courses, pieces of fruit with a creamy sauce for dipping, and bread, cheese, and salted meats. The women and men both drank wine, although Briony suspected from the separate pitchers and the weak character of what was in her cup that the women's was more heavily watered. Watered or not, the combination of wine and unusual freedom cheered her companions immensely, and although they spoke in low voices there seemed to be a greater than usual amount of joking and giggling between the women, especially Fanu and the other young ones.
Meanwhile, as the courses came and went, men both of Xand and Eion wandered in from the rooms outside to engage in what looked like re¬spectful audiences with Effir dan-Mozan, some clearly seafaring folk, others in the fine robes of merchants or bankers. Briony could see that although Shaso spoke to no one and did his best to be inconspicuous, he was listen¬ing carefully. She wondered how Dan-Mozan introduced him-as a rela¬tive? A stranger? Another merchant? And she wondered even more at what these men were saying. It was infuriating to have to sit here this way, amid this flock of ignored women, while important things about the state of the kingdom were doubtless being discussed.
If Shaso was paying close attention to the merchant's conversations, Dan-Mozans nephew was not. In fact, Talibo appeared more interested in Briony, watching her with a fixation that unnerved her. At first she did her best to avoid his gaze, looking away whenever she caught him glanc¬ing her direction, but after a while the liberty he was taking began to annoy her. He was a child, practically-a handsome, stupid child! What right did he have to stare at her, and even more important, why should she feel compelled to look away? It touched her on the memory of Hen-don Tolly humiliating her in front of her own court; it made the old in-jury sting all over again.
The next time she caught Tal looking at her she stared back coolly until at last it was the youth who looked away, his cheeks darkening with what she hoped was embarrassment or even shame.
Insolent boy. For a moment she found herself angry with everyone in the room, Shaso, Dan-Mozan, Idite, the other women, all of them. She was a princess, an Eddon! Why must she hide and skulk like a criminal? Why should she be grateful to people who were only doing their duty? If the Tollys were the active agents of her misfortune, all those who did not rise up against the usurpers and cast them out of Southmarch Castle, even these Tuani merchants, were their passive collaborators. They were all guilty!
Now she was the one feeling her face grow hot, and she stared down at her bowl, trying to compose herself. She should enjoy the meal- Baddara's kitchen was a good one, and many of the dishes were pleasura-bly unfamiliar-instead of brooding.
She took a deep breath and looked up again, composing herself, and found to her immense irritation that the merchant's nephew was looking at her again, his expression even more unreadable than before.
Gods curse him, anyway, she thought sourly, blocking him from view with her lifted cup. And curse all men, young or old. And curse the Tollys, of course- curse them a thousand times!
After the meal and their long walk back through town to the hadar, Briony was summoned to talk with Shaso and Effir dan-Mozan. She joined them in the courtyard garden where only a day before she had been trying to stick a real dagger-albeit with its blade wrapped in leather-into Shaso dan-Heza's ribs. She thought of the Yisti knives hidden beneath her bet! and felt a moment of guilt: Shaso had told her she should keep them with her. She hoped he would not ask to see them.
But where are you supposed to carry knives while wearing such ridiculous clothes-no belts, billowing sleeves…?
Shaso was standing, examining the quince tree as though he were an orchardman, but EfEr dan-Mozan levered his small, round body out of his chair to greet her.
"Thank you for joining us, Princess Briony. We learned many things today and we knew you would want to hear as soon as possible what was said."
"Thank you, Effr." She looked at Shaso, wondering if he had been less eager to share the information than the merchant was suggesting: he had the look of a man who had eaten something sour.
"First off, a company of soldiers from Southmarch have been asking questions in Landers Port. They do not seem to have learned anything use¬ful, however, and they moved on to other towns a day or two ago, so that will be some relief to you, I think."
"Yes. Yes, it is." The day's outing had made her realize how little she liked being out where people could see her, but she also knew she could not hide here in the merchant's house forever.
"Also," Dan-Mozan said, "everyone who has come from the south seems to agree that the autarch is pushing forward his shipbuilding at a great pace, which does make it seem as though he plans an attack on Hierosol. Most of the other nations in Xand are already pacified, and the strongest of those which resist him are in the mountainous regions to the south. There would be little use of a great navy there."
"But Hierosol… that is where my father is prisoner!"
"Of course, Highness." Dan-Mozan bowed as though acknowledging a sad but immutable fact, some ancient tragedy. "Still, I do not think you should be overly worried. Autarch Sulepis, even if he can put three hun¬dred warships in the water, will not be able to overcome Hierosol."
"Why do you say that?" She wanted to believe it. It was horrid to think of being stuck here with Hierosol coming under attack. Foolish and prob¬ably fatal as it would be, it was all she could do these days not to steal a few days' worth of food and sneak out of the house, heading southward.
"Because the walls of Hierosol are the strongest defense on either of the two continents. No one has ever conquered them by force, not in almost two thousand years. And the Hierosolines have a mighty fleet of their own."
"But for all that, Hieorsol has been conquered several times," growled Shaso, who had been silent until now, staring at the barren tree as though
he had never seen anything so fascinating. "By treachery, usually. And Sulepis has made more than a few of his conquests that way-have you for¬gotten Talleno and Ulos?"
Effir dan-Mozan smiled and waved his hand as though swatting away the smallest of flying insects. "No, and Ludis Drakava has not forgotten either, I promise you. Remember, his followers can have no illusions about what comes in the wake of one of the autarch's triumphs. The Ulosians who turned to Xis did not have that knowledge and they paid dearly for it. Recall that Ludis and his men are interlopers, with no power except that which they hold in the great city itself. Not one of the lord protector's followers will believe he can make himself a better deal with Sulepis."
"Yes, but there are many that Ludis displaced, the old nobility of Hier-osol, who might think precisely that."
Again the merchant waved a dismissive hand. "We will bore Princess Briony with this talk. She wants assurances and we give her debate." He turned his sharp gaze onto her. "You have my word, Highness. As the ora¬cles teach us, only a fool says 'Forever, but I promise you that the autarch will not take Hierosol this year or even next year. There is time enough to get your father back."
Shaso muttered something, but Briony could not make out the words.
"What else did you learn today?" she asked. "Anything about my brother or Southmarch?"
"Nothing we did not already know, at least in general terms. The only thing of interest I heard was that there is a new castellan at Southmarch- a man named Havemore."
Shaso cursed, but Briony did not recognize the name at first. "Hold-is that Brone's factor?" She felt sudden anger boil through her. "If he has ap¬pointed his own factor as castellan, then Avin Brone must be prospering under the Tollys." Could the lord constable, one of her father's oldest friends and closest advisers, have been with them all along? But if so, why had he told her and Barrick about the contact between the autarch and Summerfield Court? "It is all too confusing," she said at last.
"Not so confusing, at least in one respect." Shaso looked as though he wanted to swim back to Southmarch and get his large hands around someone's neck. "Tirnan Havemore is well-named. He has always been ambitious. If anyone would profit from the Tollys being in power, he would."
•**
Shaso and Effir had gone in, and Briony had been left alone in the gar-den to mull over the latest tidings from Southmarch and elsewhere, large and small. She paced slowly, pulling her shawl close around her loose gar¬ment. Havemore being made castellan and the Tollys' liegeman Berkan Hood being made lord constable, those changes were not all that surpris¬ing, just evidence of Hendon tightening his fist on power. No one knew much about Anissa, Briony's stepmother, and the new baby, but they had been seen, or at least Anissa and a baby had been seen.
It's not as if Hendon Tolly even needs a real heir, Briony thought bitterly. The baby might have died that night, for all anyone will ever know. As long as Anissa swears it's true, any baby she claims is hers will be the heir, and the Tollys will protect the heir-which means the Tollys will rule. It was especially bizarre to think that this child, if it was the real one, was her own half brother.
A sudden pang touched her. Maybe he looks like Father, or like Kendrick or Barrick. For me, that would be reason enough to protect him. For a moment she did not realize that she had made another promise to herself and the gods, but she had. If that child is truly my father's, then Zoria, hear me-/ will save him from the Tollys, too! He's an Eddon, after all. I won't let him be their mask.
She was so deep in these thoughts that she had not noticed the man standing across the courtyard from her, watching her in the growing twi¬light gloom, until he began to move toward her.
"You are thinking," said Talibo, the merchant's nephew. His curly hair was wet, combed close against his head, and he wore a robe so clean and white it seemed to glow in the garden shadows. "What do you think about, lady?"
She tried to suppress her anger. How was he to know she wished to be alone with her thoughts? "Matters of my family."
"Ah, yes. Families are very important. All the wise men say this." He put his hand to his chin in a gesture so transparently meant to look like a wise man's pondering that Briony actually giggled. His eyes widened, then nar¬rowed. "Why do you laugh?"
"Sorry. I thought of something funny, that's all. What brings you to the garden? I will be happy to let you walk in peace-I should go join the other women for the evening meal."
He looked at her f'or a moment with something like defiance. "You do not want to go. Not truly."
"What?"
"You do not want to go. I know this. I saw you look at me."
She shook her head. He was using words, simple words in her own language, but he was not making any sense to her at all. "What do you mean, Tal?"
"Do not call me that. That is a name for a child. I am Talibo dan-Mozan. You watch me. I see you watch me."
"Watch you…?"
"A woman does not look at a man so unless she is interested in him. No woman makes such shameful eyes at a man if she does not want him."
Briony did not know whether to laugh again or to shout at him. He was mad! "You… you don't know what you're talking about. You were staring at me. You have been staring at me since I came here."
"You are a handsome woman, for an Eioni." He shrugged. "A girl, really. But still, not bad to the eye."
"How dare you? How dare you talk to me like… like I was a serving wench!"
"You are only a woman and you have no husband to protect you. You cannot make eyes at men, you know." He said this with the calm certainty of someone describing the weather. "Other men would take advantage of you." He stepped forward, trying to pull her toward him, first her hands, then-when she slapped his fingers away-moving even closer to put his arms around her.
Zoria, save me! She was so astonished she almost could not fight. He was going to try to kiss her! A small, sane part of her was glad she had left her knives behind, because at this moment she would happily have stabbed him through the heart.
She fought him off, but it was difficult: he was pushing blindly forward, as though determined on something he knew might be painful but needed to be done, and her own knees were weak with surprise and even fear. She was terrified and did not entirely know why. He was a boy, and Shaso and the others were only a few paces away-one shout and they would come to her aid.
She got her arm free and slapped at him, missing his face but striking him hard against the neck. He stopped in surprise, then began to step toward
her again but she used one of Shaso's holds to grab his arm and shove him to one side, then she fled across the courtyard back toward the women's quarters, tears of rage and shame making it hard to see.
"You will come to me," he called after her, no more shaken than if someone at the market had rejected his first price. "You know that I am right." A moment later his last words came, now with a hot edge of anger. "You will not make a fool of me!"