A Surprising Proposal

Puzzle looks sadly at the dove which he has just produced from his sleeve. Its head is cocked at a very unnatural angle; in fact, it seems to be dead. "My apologies, Highness." A frown creases the jester's gaunt face like a crumpled kerchief. A few people are laughing nastily near the back of the throne room, and one of the noblewomen makes a small and somewhat theatrical noise of grief for the mangled dove. "The trick worked most wonderfully when I was practicing earlier. Perhaps I need to find a bird of hardier constitution."

Barrick rolls his eyes and snorts, but his older brother is more of a diplomat. Puzzle is an old favorite of their father's. "An accident, good Puzzle. Doubtless you will solve it with further study."

"And a few dozen more dead birds," whispers Barrick. His sister frowns.

"But I still owe your highness the day's debt of entertainment." The old man carefully tucks the dove into the breast of his checkered outfit.

"Well, we know what he's having for supper," Barrick tells Briony, who shushes him.

"I will find some other pleasantries to amuse you," Puzzle continues, with only a brief wounded look at the whispering twins. "Or perhaps one of my other renowned antics? I have not juggled flaming brands for you for some time — not since the unfortunate accident with the Syannese tapestry. I have reduced the number of torches, so the trick is much safer now . . ."

"No need," Kendrick says gently. "No need. You have entertained us long enough — now the business of the court waits."

Puzzle nods his head sadly, then bows and backs away from the throne toward the rear of the room, putting one long leg behind the other as though he is doing something he has had to practice even more carefully than the dove trick. Barrick cannot help noticing how much the man looks like a grasshopper in motley. The assembled courtiers laugh and whisper behind their hands.

We're all fools here, Barrick thinks. His dark mood, alleviated a little by watching Puzzle's fumbling, comes sweeping back. Most of us are just better at it than he is. Even at the best of times he finds it hard to sit on the hard chairs. Despite the open windows high above, the throne room air is thick with the smell of incense and dust and other people — too many other people. He turns to watch his brother, conferring with the castellan Nynor, making a joke that sets Summerfield and the other nobles laughing and makes old Nynor blush and stammer. Look at Kendrick, pretending like he's Father. But even Father was pretending — he hated all this. In fact, King Olin had never liked either Gailon of Summerfield or his pious, well-fed father, the old duke.

Maybe Father wanted to be taken prisoner, just to get away from it all . . .

The bizarre thought does not have time to form properly, because Briony elbows him in the ribs.

"Stop it!" he snarls, and leans to the other side of his chair. She is always trying to make him smile, to force him to enjoy himself. Why can't anyone else see the trouble they are in — not just the family, but all of Southmarch? Is he the only one who understands how bad things are?

"Kendrick wants us," she says.

Barrick allows himself to be pulled toward his elder brother's chair — not the true throne, which has been covered with velvet cloth and not used since Olin left, but the second-best chair which previously stood at the head of the great dining table. They gently elbow their way past a few courtiers anxious to snatch this moment with the prince regent. Barrick's arm is throbbing. He wishes he was out on the hillside again, riding by himself, far from these people. He hates them all, loathes everyone in the castle . . . except, he must admit even to himself, his sister and brother . . . and perhaps Chaven . . .

"Lord Nynor tells me that the envoy from Hierosol will not be with us until almost the noon hour," Kendrick announces as they approach.

"He said he was unwell after his voyage." The castellan looks worried, as always; the tip of his beard has been chewed short — a truly disgusting habit, in Barrick's opinion. "But one of the servants told me that he saw this envoy talking to Shaso earlier this morning. Arguing, if the lazy fellow is to be trusted, which he is not, necessarily."

"That sounds ominous, Highness," suggests the Duke of Summerfield.

Kendrick sighs. "They are both, from appearance, anyway, from the same southern lands," he says patiently. "Shaso sees few of his own kind here in the cold north. They might have much to talk about."

"And argue about, Highness?" Summerfield asks.

"The man is a servant of our father's captor," Kendrick points out. "That's reason enough for Shaso to argue with the man, is it not?" He turns to the twins. "I know how little you both care for standing around, so you may go and I'll send for you when this fellow from Hierosol finally graces us with his attendance." He speaks lightly, but Barrick can see that he is not very happy with the envoy's tardiness. Kendrick is beginning to develop a monarchical impatience.

"Ah, Highness, I almost forgot." Nynor snaps his fingers and one of his servants scuttles forward with a leather bag. "He gave me the letters he bears from your father and the so-called Lord Protector."

"Father's letter?" Briony is excited. "Read it to us!"

Kendrick has already broken the seal, the Eddon wolf in deep red wax, and is squinting at the words. He shakes his head. "Later, Briony."

"But Kendrick . . . !" There is real anguish in her voice.

"Enough." Her older brother looks distracted, but his voice says there will be no arguing. Barrick can feel the strain in Briony's abrupt silence.

"What's all that rumpus?" asks Summerfield a moment later, looking around. Something is happening at the other end of the throne room, a stir among the courtiers.

"Look," Briony whispers to her twin. "It's Anissa's maid."

It is indeed, and Barrick's sister is not the only one whispering. Now that the twins' stepmother is close to giving birth, she seldom comes out of her suite of rooms in the Tower of Spring. Selia, her maid, has become Queen Anissa's eyes around the great castle. As eyes go, even Barrick has to admit they are a most impressive pair.

"See her flounce." Briony does not hide her disgust. "She walks like she's got a rash on her backside and she wants to scratch it on something."

"Please, Briony," says the prince regent, but although the duke of Summerfield looks dismayed by her rude remark, Kendrick is mostly amused. Still, he has been distracted from the letter and is watching the maid's approach as carefully as anyone else.

Selia is young but well-rounded. She wears her black hair piled high in the manner of the women of Devonis, the land of her and her mistress' birth, but although she keeps her long-lashed eyes downcast, there is little of the shy peasant girl about her. Barrick watches her walk with a kind of painful greed, but the maid, when she looks up, seems to see only Barrick's older brother.

Of course, Barrick thinks. Just like all the rest of them . . .

"If it please you, Highness," she says, making a courtesy before the prince regent. She has been only a season in the Marches, and still speaks with a thick Devonisian accent. "My mistress, your stepmother, sends her fond regarding and asks leave for consult the royal physician."

"Is she unwell again?" Kendrick truly is a kind man. Although none of them much like their father's second wife, even Barrick believes his brother's concern is genuine.

"Some discomforting, Highness, yes."

"Of course, we will have the physician attend our stepmother at once. Will you carry the message to him yourself?"

Selia colors prettily. "I do not know this place so well yet."

Briony makes a noise of irritation, but Barrick speaks up. "I'll take her, Kendrick."

"Oh, that's too much trouble for the poor girl," Briony says loudly, "going all the way across to Chaven's rooms. Let her go back to assist our suffering stepmother. Barrick and I will go."

Barrick looks at his twin in fury, and for a moment regrets putting her on the list of people he does not despise. "I can do it myself."

"Go, the both of you, and argue somewhere else." Kendrick waves his hand. "Let me read these letters. Tell Chaven to go at once. You are both excused attendance until the noon hour."

Listen to him — he really does think he's king. Even accompanying the lovely Selia cannot redeem Barrick's mood, but he still takes care to make sure that his bad arm, wrapped in the folds of his cloak, is on her opposite side as they go out of the throne room into the light of a gray autumn morning, down the steps into Temple Square. Four palace guards who had been finishing a morning meal hurry to fall into step behind them, still chewing.

Barrick catches the girl's eye for a moment and she smiles shyly at him. He almost turns to make sure she is not looking over his shoulder at someone else.

"Thank you for this so very kindness. You are Prince Barrick, yes?"

"Yes," answers his twin. "He is."

"And Princess Briony, you." The girl smiles a little more carefully, but if she is startled by the growl in Briony's voice she does not show it. "Both of you, so very kind. I go from here to the queen. You are certain I do not go with you?"

"Yes," says Barrick's sister. "We are certain."

The girl makes another courtesy and starts off across the square. Barrick watches her walk.

"Ow!" he says. "Don't push."

"Your eyes are going to fall out of your head." Briony hurries her stride and turns into the long street that winds along the wall of the inner keep. The people who see the twins move respectfully out of their way, but it is a crowded, busy street full of wagons and loud arguments, and many do not even notice them, or at least do not appear to do so. The guards exchange a look among themselves, then move a few paces closer to their charges. The twins, used to constant attention, ignore them.

"You're rude," Barrick tells his sister. "You act like a commoner."

"Speaking of common," Briony replies, "all you men are alike. Any girl who bats her eyes and swings her hips when she walks into the room turns you all into drooling apes."

"Some girls like to have men look at them." Barrick's anger has congealed into a cold unhappiness. What does it matter? What woman will fall in love with him, anyway? He will find a wife, of course, even one who will pretend to revere him — he is a prince, after all — but it will be a polite lie.

I will never know, he thinks. Not as long as I am of this family. I will never know what anyone truly thinks of me, what they think of the crippled prince. Because who would ever dare to mock the king's son to his face?

"Some girls like to have men look at them? How would you know?" Briony has turned her face from him now, which means she is truly angry. "Some men are just horrid, the way they stare."

"You think that about all of them." Barrick knows he should stop, but he feels distant and miserable. "You hate all men — Father said he couldn't imagine finding someone you would agree to marry who would also agree to put up with your hard-headedness and your mannish tricks."

There is a sharp intake of breath, then a deathly silence. Now she is not speaking to him, either. Barrick feels a pang, but tells himself it was Briony who interfered first. Still, when she does not speak for half a hundred more steps, he begins to be worried. They are too close, the pair of them, and although both are fierce by nature, wounding the other is like wounding themselves. Their word-combats almost always move to swift bloodletting, then an embrace before the wounds have even stopped seeping.

"I'm sorry," he says, although it does not sound much like an apology. "Why should you care what Summerfield and Blueshore and those other fools think, anyway? They are useless, all of them, liars and bullies. I wish that war with the Autarch would come and they would all be burned away like a field of grass."

"That's a terrible thing to say!" Briony snaps, but there is color in her cheeks again instead of the dreadful, shocked paleness of a moment before. He wonders if some of her peevishness is disappointment over having to wait for their father's letter.

"So? I don't care about any of them," he says. "But I shouldn't have told you what Father said. He meant it as a joke."

"It is no joke to me." Briony is still angry, but he can tell that the worst of the fight is over. "Oh, Barrick," she says abruptly, "you will meet hordes of women who want to make eyes at you. You're a prince – even a bastard child from you would be a prize. You don't know how some girls are, how they think, what they'll do . . ."

Her twin is surprised by the frightened sincerity in her voice. So she is trying to protect him from voracious women. He is pained but almost amused. She doesn't seem to have noticed that the fairer sex are having no trouble resisting me so far . . .

They have reached the bottom of the small hill on which Chaven's observatory-tower is set, its base nestled into the wall of the inner keep, its top looming above everything else in the castle except the four cardinal towers and the master of all, Wolfstooth Spire. As they climb the steps that spiral up the hillside they put distance between themselves and the guards in their heavy armor.

"Hoy!" Barrick calls down to the laboring soldiers. "What if there were murderers waiting for us at the top of the hill?"

"Don't be cruel," says Briony, but she is stifling a giggle.

Chaven stands in a pool of light beneath the great observatory roof, which is open to the sky, although the clouds above are dark and a few solitary drops of rain spatter the stone floors. His assistant, a tall, sullen young man, stands waiting by a complicated apparatus of ropes and wooden cranks. The physician is kneeling over a large wooden case lined with velvet that appears to contain a row of serving-plates of different sizes. At the sound of their footsteps Chaven looks up.

He is small and round, with large, capable hands. The twins have often joked about the unpredictability of Fate, since tall, rawboned Puzzle, with his gloomy, absorbed manner, would have made a much better royal astrologer and physician, and the mercurial, dexterous Chaven seems perfectly formed to be a court jester.

But of course, Chaven is also very, very clever — when he can be bothered.

"Yes?" he says impatiently, glancing in their direction. "Do you seek someone?"

The twins have had this before. "It's us, Chaven," Briony tells him.

A smile lights his face. "Your highnesses! Apologies — I am much absorbed with something I have just received, tools that will help me examine a star or a mote of dust with equal facility . . ." He carefully lifts one of the plates, which proves to be made of solid glass, transparent as water. "Say what you wish about the unpleasantness of its governor, there are none in all the rest of Eion who can make a lens like the grinders of Hierosol." His mobile face darkens. "I am sorry — that was thoughtless, with the king a prisoner there."

Briony is kneeling beside the case. She reaches a tentative hand toward one of the circles of glass, which gleams in an angled beam of sunlight. "We have received something from this ship as well, a letter from our father, but Kendrick has not let us read it yet . . ."

"Please, my lady!" Chaven says quickly, loudly. "Do not touch them! Even the smallest flaw can spoil their utility . . ."

Briony snatches her hand back and catches it on the clasp of the wooden case. She grunts and lifts her finger. A drop of red grows on it, dribbles down toward her palm.

"Terrible! I am sorry. It is my fault for startling you." Chaven fusses in the pockets of his capacious robe, producing a handful of black cubes, a curved glass pipe, a fistful of feathers, and at last a kerchief that looks like it has been used to polish old brass.

Briony glances at it, thanks him as she takes it, then unobtrusively pockets the dirty kerchief and sucks the blood from her finger instead.

"So you have received no news yet?" the physician asks.

"The envoy is not to see Kendrick until noon." Barrick feels angry again, out of sorts. The sight of blood on his sister's hand troubles him. "Meanwhile, we are running an errand. Our stepmother wishes to see you, and Kendrick sent us deliver the message."

"Ah." Chaven looks around as though wondering where his kerchief has got to, then shuts the lenses back in their case. "Then I will go now. Will you come with me? I wish to hear about the wyvern hunt. Your brother has promised me the carcass for examination and dissection, but I have not received it yet. I hear he has already given the best parts of it away as trophies." He is already bustling toward the door as he calls back over his shoulder, "Shut the roof, Toby. I have changed my mind — I think it will be too cloudy tonight for observation, in any case."

With a look of pure, weary despair, the young man begins turning the huge crank. Slowly, inch by inch, with a noise like the death-groan of some mythological beast, the great ceiling begins to close.

Outside, the twins' four heavily-armored guards have reached the observatory door and have just stopped to catch their breath when the trio appears and hurries past them down the stairs, bound for the Tower of Spring.

A girl of no more than six years old opens the door to Anissa's chambers in the tower, makes a courtesy, then steps out of the way. The room is surprisingly bright. Dozens of candles burn in front of a shrine to Madi Surazem, goddess of childbirth, and in each corner of the room new sheaves of wheat stand in pots to encourage the blessing of fruitful Erilo. Several women sit or stand around the great bed like cockindrills in a one of the moats of Xis. An older woman, with the sourly practical appearance of a midwife or hedge-witch takes one look at Barrick and says, "He can't come in here. This is a place for women."

Before Barrick can do more than bristle, his stepmother pulls aside the bed's curtains and peers out. Her hair is down, and she wears a voluminous white nightdress. "Who is it? Is it the doctor? Of course he can come to me."

"But it is the young prince as well, my lady," the old woman says.

"Barrick?" She pronounces it bah-reek. "Why are you such a fool, woman? I am respectably dressed. I am not giving birth today." She lets out a sigh and collapses back out of sight.

By the time Chaven and the twins have crossed the open floor to the bed, the curtains are open again, tied up by the maid Selia, who gives Barrick a quick smile, then catches sight of Briony and changes it to a respectful nod for both of them. Anissa is propped upright on many pillows. Two tiny growling dogs tug at a piece of cloth between her slippered feet. She does not wear her usual pale face-paint, and so looks almost ruddy with health. Barrick, who unlike Briony has not even tried to like his stepmother, is certain they have been sent on a pointless errand whose real purpose is only to relieve Anissa's boredom.

"Children," she says to them, fanning herself. "It is kind of you to come. I am so ill, I see no one these days." Barrick can feel Briony's tiny flinch at being called a child by this woman. In fact, seeing her with her dark hair loose, and without her usual paint, he is surprised by how young their stepmother looks. She is only five or six years older than Kendrick, after all. She is pretty, too, in a fussy sort of way, although Barrick thinks her nose a little too long for true beauty.

She does not compare to her maid, he thinks, sneaking a glance, but Selia is looking solicitously at her mistress.

"You are feeling poorly, my queen?" asks Chaven.

"Pains in my stomach," Anissa says. "Oh, I cannot tell you." Although she is small-boned and still slender even this close to giving birth, she has a certain knack for dominating a room. Briony sometimes calls her the Loud Mouse.

"And have you been faithfully taking the elixir I have made up for you?"

She waves her hand. "That? It binds up my insides. Can I say this, or is it impolite? My bowels have not moved for days."

Barrick has had enough of the secrets of the sickbed for one day. He bows to his stepmother, then backs toward the door and waits there. Anissa holds Briony for a moment with impatient questions about the lack of news from the Hierosoline envoy, then his twin at last makes a courtesy and edges away to join him. Together they watch Chaven kindly and quickly examine the queen, asking questions in such a normal tone of voice that it almost escape's Barrick's notice that the little round doctor is folding back her eyelid or sniffing her breath while doing so. The other women in the room have gone back to their stitching and conversation, excepting the old midwife, who watches the physician's activities with a fiercely proprietorial jealousy, and the maid Selia, who holds Anissa's hand and listens as though everything her mistress says is pure wisdom.

"Your highnesses?" Despite the fact that he has one hand down the back of the queen's nightdress, Chaven has managed to take the small clock he wears on a chain out of the pocket of his robe. He holds it up for them to see. "Noon is fast approaching."

It is a long way back across the inner keep. Barrick and Briony make excuses, then hurry out of the Tower of Spring. Their guards, who have been gossiping with the queen's warders, wearily push themselves away from the tower wall and trot after them.

The crowd gathered in the huge Hall of the March Kings — only the Eddon family, perhaps because the castle is their home as well as their seat of power, call it "the throne room" — looks a much more serious group than the morning's disorganized rout. Briony again feels a clutch of worry. It looks like the castle is on war-footing: half a pentecount of guardsmen are arranged around the great room, not slouching and talking quietly among themselves like the twins' bodyguard, but rigidly erect and silent. Avin Brone of Landsend, the castle's lord constable, is one of the many nobles who have appeared for the audience, and even in the midst of conversation with the court ladies or gentlemen, his eye is always roving to his troop, looking for sagging shoulders, bent knees, or a mouth moving in whispered conversation with a comrade.

Gailon of Summerfield is there, as well as most of the rest of the King's Council — Nynor the castellan, the twins' cousin Rorick, Earl of Daler's Troth, Count Tyne, and a dozen others, all wearing their best clothes.

Briony feels a flame of indignation. This ambassador comes from the man who has kidnapped my father. What are we doing, dressing up for him as though he were some honored visitor? But when she whispers this thought to Barrick, he only shrugs.

"As you well know, it is for display. Here is our power, our nobility," he says sourly. "It is like letting the roosters strut before the cockfight."

She looks at her brother's all-black garb and bites back a remark. And they say we women are consumed with our appearances! It is hard to imagine a woman wearing the equivalent of the outrageous codpieces that Earl Rorick and some of the courtiers sport — massive protrusions spangled with gems and intricate stitching. Trying to imagine what the women's equivalent would be threatens to set her laughing out loud, but it is not a pleasant feeling. The fear that has been gnawing at her all morning makes her feel that such a laugh, once started, would not stop — that she might end having to be carried from the room, laughing and weeping together.

She looks around the massive hall, lit mostly by candles even at mid-day. The dark tapestries on every wall, figured with scenes of dead ancestors and dead times, make her feel close and hot, as though they were heavy blankets draped over her. Beyond the high windows she sees only the surrounding towers and an occasional, blessed chink of cool sky. Why, she thinks, in a castle surrounded by the water should there be nowhere in this great hall that a person can look out on the sea? Briony feels suddenly out of breath. Gods, why can't it all start?

As if the heavenly powers have taken pity on her, a murmur rises from the crowd near the doorway as a small company of unfamiliar knights take up stations on either side of the entrance.

When the figure comes through the door, she has a moment of bewilderment, wondering Why is everyone making such a fuss for Shaso? Then she remembers what Summerfield has said. As the envoy comes closer to the dais and Kendrick's makeshift throne, which he has set in front of his father's grander seat, she can see that this dark-skinned man is much younger than the master of arms. He is handsome, too, or Briony thinks he is, but she finds herself suddenly uncertain of how to judge one so different. His skin is darker than Shaso's, his long, tightly-curled hair is tied behind his head, and he is tall and thin where the Master of Arms is stocky. He moves with a compact, self-assured grace, the cut of his black hose and slashed gray doublet as stylish as that of any Syannese court favorite. The knights of Hierosol who follow him along the open space where the courtiers have moved out of his path seem like clanking, pale-skinned puppets by comparison.

At the last moment, when it seems to the entire room as though the envoy means to do the unthinkable, to walk up onto the very dais where the prince-regent sits, the slender man stops. One of the foreign knights steps forward, clears his throat.

"May it please your highness, I present Lord Dawet dan-Faar, envoy of Ludis Drakava, Lord Protector of Hiersol and the Kracian Territories."

"Ludis may be Protector of Hierosol," Kendrick says slowly, "but he is also master of forced hospitality — of which my father is a recipient."

Dawet nods once, smiles. His voice is like a big cat rumbling when it has no need yet to roar. "Yes, the Lord Protector is a famous host. Very few of his guests leave Hierosol unchanged."

There is a stir in the crowd at this calculated threat, but also a sort of grudging admiration for the envoy, even surprise to find this dark-skinned southerner so clearly capable of holding his own. Briony finds her dread mingling with disgust at the courtiers. These people have lived with Shaso for years, and she is angry on the old man's behalf. The folk of Southmarch may not like their master of arms, but they know he is wise, and well-spoken when he takes the trouble. Do they still believe all the darker races are savages?

The envoy Dawet starts to say something else, then stops, his attention drawn to the great doors. As if Briony's thoughts had summoned him, Shaso stands there in his leather armor, his face set in an expressionless mask. "Ah," Dawet says, "I had hoped to see my old teacher again. Greetings, Mordiya Shaso."

The crowd whispers again. Briony looks at Barrick, but he is just as confused as she is. What can the dark man's words mean?

"You have business," Kendrick says impatiently. "When you are finished, we will all have time to talk, even to remake old friendships, if friendships they are. Since I have not said so yet, let it be known to all that Lord Dawet is under the protection of the March King's Seal, and while he is engaged on his peaceful mission here, none may harm or threaten him." His face is grim. He has done only what civility requires. "Now, sir, speak."

Kendrick did not smile, but Dawet does, examining the glowering faces around him with a look of quiet contentment, as though everything he could wish is assembled in this one chamber. His eyes pass across Briony then stop and return to her. She shivers. His smile widens. Did she not know him, she might find it intriguing, even pleasing, but now it is like the touch of the dark wing she had imagined the day before, the shadow hovering over them all.

The envoy's long silence, his unashamed assessment, makes her feel like she is naked in the center of the room. "What of our father?" she says out loud, her voice rough when she wishes it could be calm and assured. "Is he well? I hope for your master's sake he is in good health."

"Briony!" Barrick is embarrassed — ashamed, perhaps, that she should speak out this way. But she is not one to be gawked at like a horse for sale. She is a king's daughter.

Dawet gives a little bow. "My lady. Yes, your father is well, and in fact I have brought a letter from him to his family. Perhaps the prince regent has not shown it to you yet . . . ?"

"Get on with it." Kendrick sounds oddly defensive. Something is going on, Briony knows, but she cannot make out what it is.

"If he has read it, Prince Kendrick will perhaps have some inkling of what brings me here. There is, of course, the matter of the ransom."

"We were given a year," protests Gailon of Summerfield angrily. Kendrick does not look at him, although the duke too has spoken out of turn.

"Yes, but my master, Ludis, has decided to offer you another proposition, one to your advantage. The Lord Protector of Hierosol is a good man, whatever you may think of him, a wise man. He understands that we all have a common enemy, and thus should be seeking ways to draw our two countries together as twin bulwarks against the threat of the greedy lord of Xis, rather than squabbling over reparations."

"Reparations?" Kendrick says, struggling to keep his voice level. "Call it what it is, sir. Ransom. Ransom for an innocent man — a king! — kidnapped while he was trying to do just what you claim to want, organize a league against the Autarch."

Dawet gives a sinuous shrug. "Words can separate us or bring us together, so I will not quibble with you. There are more important issues, and I am here to present you with the Lord Protector's new and generous offer."

Kendrick nods. "Continue." The prince-regent's face is as empty as Shaso's, who is still watching from the far end of the throne room.

"The Lord Protector will reduce the ransom to twenty thousand gold dolphins — a fifth of what was asked and what you agreed to. In return he asks only something that will cost you little, and will be of benefit to you as well as to us."

The courtiers are murmuring now, trying to make sense of what is going on. Some of them, especially those whose peasantry has grown restive under the taxes for the king's ransom, even have hope in their faces. By contrast, Kendrick looks ashy.

"Damn you, speak your piece," he says at last — a croak.

Lord Dawet displays an expression of carefully constructed surprise. He looks like a warrior, Briony thinks, but he plays the scene like a mummer. He is enjoying this. But her older brother is not, and seeing him so pale and unhappy sets her heart beating swiftly. Kendrick looks like a man trapped in an evil dream. "Very well," Dawet says. "In return for reducing the ransom for King Olin's return, Ludis Drakava, Lord Protector of Hierosol, will accept Princess Briony of Southmarch in marriage."

Suddenly, she is the one who is tumbling into nightmare. Faces turn toward her like a field of meadowsweet following the sun, pale faces, startled faces, calculating faces. She hears Barrick gasp beside her, feels his good hand clutch at her arm, but she is already pulling away. Her ears are roaring, the whispers of the assembled court suddenly as loud as thunder.

"No!" she cries out, taking a step toward the envoy. "Never!" She turns to Kendrick, suddenly understanding his chilled, miserable mask. "I will never do it!"

"It is not your turn to speak, Briony," he rasps. There is something moving behind his eyes — despair? Anger? Surrender? "And this is not the place to discuss this matter."

"She can't!" Barrick shouts. The courtiers are talking loudly now, surprised and titillated. Some echo Briony's own refusal, but not many. "I won't let you!"

"You are not the prince regent," Kendrick declares. "Father is gone. Until he comes back, I am your father. Both of you."

He means to do it. Briony is certain. He is going to sell her to the bandit prince, the cruel mercenary Ludis, to reduce the ransom and keep the nobles happy. The ceiling of the great throne room and its tiled pictures of the gods seems to swirl and drop down upon her in a cloud of whirling colors. Feeling that she is about to faint, she turns and staggers through the murmuring, leering crowd, ignoring Barrick's worried cries and Kendrick's shouts. She slaps away Shaso's restraining hand and shoves her way through the great doors, already weeping so hard that the sky and the castle stones run together and blur.