December 18th
In the soft, velvet darkness of the night sky, ten thousand points of brilliant starlight bled their white energy down on Merrily’s eyes. The June night was quiet, clear, and lit by nothing but the wanton stars. On the rooftop observation platform of Redbun Hall, the few lights of the city below faded into insignificance. Merrily shivered in the cool night air, and felt that ageless human smallness beneath the canopy of light. Rolly and Professor Tentimes attended nearby.
“What are they?” she asked softly, hardly daring to make sound beneath the shining heavens.
“The prevailing theory,” said Professor Tentimes, “is that they are objects like our own sun, which we know to be a sphere of extraordinarily large and energetic fire, some hundred million miles away from our planet.” The professor was a middle-aged woman with a plain face, but a sparkle in her eyes that suggested deep intelligence and a kind of cerebral humor. “They appear to be stationary, while our own planet rotates around the sun and its own axis. This gives stars the illusion of movement through the seasons that confounded our ancestors and led to all sorts of nonsense about gods and heroes and spheres and chariots. But why they burn, what makes them hang in the heavens, and how far away they hang, are all questions that our observations and calculations have so far been unable to tell us. Perhaps one day astronomers on this very rooftop will look back at our crude theories and wonder how we could ever have been so foolish. But for now, Mrs. Hunter, we think they are great balls of fire.”
“Goodness gracious,” Merrily commented.
There was a deep, almost offended silence above the city.
“Would you like to see the new one?” asked Rolly after a few minutes of communion. She nodded.
He led her to one of the larger telescopes—a ten-foot octagonal tube of wood with brass fittings, all set on a sturdy iron frame and pointed skyward. Rolly peered into the finderscope and made several small adjustments to the position of the long tube, then stood up and invited her to look. “Be careful not to touch the scope, or you might lose the view,” he cautioned.
She had to adjust the position of her head a few times before she saw it, but then it slid into view at the end of the tunnel of darkness inside the telescope. It resembled a nearly perfect circle of white light, as if someone had cut a tiny hole out of dark cloth, and revealed behind it bright daylight.
“It doesn’t look like a ball of fire,” she observed cautiously.
“Neither do the other stars,” said Tentimes with a waspish edge. “We infer their nature from what we know of our own sun.”
“But this one hasn’t been seen before,” added Rolly. “It was almost exactly a year ago that Professor Tentimes first observed it. Humans have been staring up at the stars for millennia, and in that time the more compulsive among us have made a number of fairly accurate charts. This star isn’t in any of them. And we’re fairly certain that past astronomers would have noticed it; it’s quite bright, appears irregularly, and doesn’t move like the other stars.”
“Don’t give away all my secrets, Mr. Gorp,” sniffed Tentimes. “Mrs. Hunter can read our paper when it comes out.”
Rolly winked conspiratorially at Merrily. “I’m sure you’re dying to plow through fifty pages of celestial mechanics, aren’t you? Like I’m dying to put down Thom Verasee’s latest novel so I can read your term paper on economic regulations in the old empire. Are there any love scenes?”
Merrily shook her head and looked again into the eyepiece of the telescope. She stared for another minute at the white disc of light.
Unbidden, the Second Voice spoke in her head, reciting a well-known passage of scripture.
God said: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so.
She took in a deep breath of the night air.
This is wrong, warned the Second Voice. We must tell Father.
✽✽✽
Merrily woke up in the early December afternoon, after several hours’ sleep in her quarters at the New Academy in Uellodon. She washed her face, brushed her hair, and re-applied a touch of makeup. She stared out the window, down onto the broad central lawn of the Academy grounds. There were knots of students there, speaking closely with each other, their bodies presenting tension and concern. She rubbed her eyes wearily.
I want to see Wigglus, said the First Voice. The Crown Prince, and Anne, and Hobb, and all the rest of them can go hang themselves. I want to go see if he is safe.
There was a sullen silence from the other two. The Second and Third Voices couldn’t even find enough common ground for an argument anymore, much less a temporary alliance. So Merrily made her way down to the gates of the Academy, found that no coaches were to be had, and set off toward the Old High Court on foot. Her watchers tailed along behind her openly, making no effort at discretion.
Along the way to the courthouse lay Kavant Cathedral, with its defiant twin towers and boarded-up windows and broken glass. But the cathedral bore a new feature as well—a squad of red-cloaked Republican Guard at the massive double doors, one of which was open. More guardsmen could be seen inside, apparently conducting a search of the building. Some were carrying out small boxes and loose belongings and loading them into a nearby wagon. Merrily stopped and approached one of the red-clad men.
“What happened here?” she asked.
The guardsman gave her a hard stare. “Why do you care? Show me your papers.” He held out a demanding hand. Merrily withdrew from her satchel the diplomatic travel pass that Hobb had given her. Seeing the First Minister’s signature and the instruction that she be permitted to pass freely, the guardsman grudgingly handed it back.
“We flushed out a cell of counter-revolutionaries,” said a rough-spoken officer nearby. “Near twenty of ‘em. The Security Bureau found ‘em here. One of ‘em was a big boss that’s wanted at the highest levels. The highest levels, miss,” he emphasized, giving her a glowering look. “Tried to run out through the sewers like the rats they are, but we had men there.”
A cold shiver ran down Merrily’s spine, but she kept a studied calm on her face.
“Where were they taken?” she asked. “I may wish to interview one or two, to give a more accurate report to my lady.”
The officer scowled at her. “None of your business where they’ve gone to, miss,” he said shortly. “They’ll all be given a good stretch before the week’s out. The Security Bureau will see to their needs now. And yours too, if you keep asking questions.”
They’ve taken them to Hoel, said the First Voice. A good stretch—they’ll be hanged.
They deserve to hang, said the Third Voice. They are enemies of the State, and foreign spies.
We’ll all get what we deserve, said the Second. And Spoon and his friends deserve to burn in the Pit for eternity.
Your mindless dualism is wearing as thin as our remaining sanity, growled the First Voice. But whatever spiritual rewards Wallingford Spoon deserves, I wonder if he’d not be more use to us alive.
She abruptly turned away from the rough guards at the door to Kavant Cathedral. For a moment she glanced up at the two stone towers on the western façade, but the overcast sky and broken glass offered no insight or inspiration.
At the Old High Court, the square and surrounding streets were still filled with people, though somewhat less densely packed. A few of the Republican Guard wandered the edges of the crowd, but none made any effort to prevent Merrily’s approach. The people were surprisingly cheerful; some were singing, and others were cooking and selling food, or playing cards. Makeshift fires provided a bit of warmth against the cool, damp air of mid-December. Tents had begun to spring up here and there. The crowd’s aim, it seemed, was simply to be there.
Merrily made her way to the infirmary, passing by the open door to the courtroom where the endless hearing droned on. Glancing in, she saw a judge in black robes and a powdered wig high on the bench, idly sipping at a mug and listening in apparent interest to a lawyer standing at a small table. Another lawyer sat at a different table nearby. The room, which showed evidence of lengthy habitation, was presently populated by a crowd of curious onlookers, watching with odd reverence the ritual of justice. She wondered if Hector Quimble’s attorney knew his client was dead, or whether it mattered.
In the infirmary she found Wigglus sleeping. His chest rose and fell lightly, and his face was pale. Frederick sat quietly nearby, holding his hand. On a bench a little further away sat Prince Leeland, his clothing disheveled and his face drawn. He had several bandages on his arms and chest.
Merrily sat down next to them. Frederick gave her a thin smile and reached up a hand to grip her shoulder gently in greeting.
“Spoon’s been taken,” she said.
Frederick’s eyes widened. “When? He and the other historians disappeared early this morning. I heard him telling Wigglus they were going back to look for someone.”
She nodded. “They had a refuge at Kavant, but the Guard found them out somehow. I think they’ve been taken to Hoel.”
“Merrily,” said Frederick, his eyes and face serious. “You have to leave here. There’s nothing more you can do. Get back to the Queen.”
“I’m not leaving Wigglus like this,” she countered firmly. “And I still have to figure out how to bring the Prince home. The Old High Court may not be under siege, but Hobb is smart enough to have his people watch the streets and check anyone leaving the city.”
“What about Jonathan?” asked Frederick softly. “Don’t you think he worries for you? Don’t you worry for him? Don’t you long to be with him, like I long to be with this man?” He ran a gentle hand down Wigglus’s cheek. “He, and your home, and your people—they’re all in the North. This place is on the edge of a bloodbath, Merrily. You shouldn’t be here.”
Merrily cast her eyes to the floor.
I love Jonny, said the First Voice. I miss him, and I want him. But I love Wigglus, and I can’t go back to Anne, knowing I could have brought her son back.
You love a phantom that will never make you happy, said the Second Voice. We’ve failed in our mission, but Father will forgive us and take care of us. Let’s go home.
We’ve committed crimes against the rightful authorities, sneered the Third. We should run and hide for a few more months, before the law hunts us down. Let’s go home.
“You look like a woman with too many voices in her head,” observed Frederick sardonically. Merrily looked up at him sharply. How could he know?
“Just a figure of speech,” he added with a smile. She relaxed slightly. “But anyone can see the conflict in you, Merrily. Go home. Find yourself again. I’ll take care of Wigglus, and Wigglus will take care of the Prince.”
He leaned close to her and whispered in her ear.
“My man in Ville Porpo has a house prepared for us. The guards at the dock are used to seeing me come and go with friends; they won’t look closely at two more. Once we’re in Ville Porpo, it will be easier to move young Leeland upriver.” He leaned back and winked at her once.
Merrily stood up, in agony.
She laid one hand on Wigglus’s chest, feeling his breath. Then a thought struck her.
“Who was Spoon looking for?” she asked.
Frederick looked up, his vivid blue eyes thoughtful.
“Really big men,” he said. “I never figured him for—"
She interrupted him sharply. “Giant-men?”
Frederick nodded. “That was it. Giant-men.”
✽✽✽
Merrily located the corpse of an officer in the Republican Guard who was about her size, and found that his red uniform fit her nearly perfectly. She tied her hair up under the tricorn hat, cleaned off her makeup, and rubbed smudges of dirt on her face where a man’s stubble might be. Going through the pockets, she also found a signed set of orders. It was the work of just a few minutes to write out new orders, forge the signature from the original, and transfer the seal with a new daub of wax. Transformed now into a captain, she walked confidently out of the Old High Court, through the milling crowd outside, and into the streets beyond.
Her newfound rank and orders were enough to procure a horse from a surprised lieutenant in the confusion at the edge of the crowd, and she trotted through the streets and out the western gate of Uellodon. Looking surreptitiously behind her, she saw no sign of her handlers, or any other pursuit.
Few civilians travelled the farm road west of the city, but she passed many small units of Republican Guard. All were headed east, toward Uellodon, and they bore long spears and heavy crossbows. Their faces were grim.
After fifteen minutes, she came upon a lone pair of guardsmen, walking briskly along the road to Uellodon. They were younger men, their beards still patchy and their clothes ill-fitting.
“Gentlemen,” she said, towering over them on her horse, “you will accompany me to Hoel, where we will retrieve several prisoners.” She flashed the sheet of orders at them, then tucked it away.
“But, uh, we were ordered back to—”
She interrupted the man furiously. “You will address me as ‘Captain,’ guardsman, or I shall have you thrown into Hoel yourself. Try it again.”
“Sorry, Captain—”
“That’s ‘Captain, sir,’ guardsman. Last chance, before your friend here ties you to the back of my horse.”
The flustered young man saluted briskly. “Sorry, Captain, sir!” he shouted. “We were ordered back to Uellodon by the prison commandant!”
“My orders come from the First Minister, guardsman,” she growled, “and I am authorized to personally flog any man who fails to obey them with alacrity.”
The two guardsmen looked at each other, visibly wondering what ‘alacrity’ meant, and then both saluted again.
“Your names?” she demanded.
“Guardsman Bedge! Guardsman Wiggs!” they replied loudly.
She nodded curtly. “Double time, gentlemen,” she said, nudging the horse into a trot. She saw, through the corner of one eye, the two guardsmen jogging along behind.
How can this possibly work? demanded the Third Voice incredulously. You don’t just bluff your way into a military command by wearing a dead man’s clothes. It doesn’t work like that.
It works exactly like that, replied the First Voice smugly. Attitude is the single most important element of any disguise, it added, quoting one Cyrus Stoat.
It was an old trick, well documented in the history of confidence artistry. You present a man with the appearance of authority, and convince him to believe just one reasonable little lie. You let him absorb the lie and make it real in his mind. He becomes attached to it, and he uses it to begin building a new reality. Then you add one more piece, and one more, and one more. Never ask too much of him all at once, but rather build on the lies to which he has already committed himself. He has come so far, he feels, and it would wound his pride and his sense of dignity to admit that he has been fooled. The further along you bring him down the path of deception, the harder it is for him to escape. And then you use him to bring along others. Alfus Sogblut of Svegnia, with the aid of a fake, poorly-sewn uniform, had used the technique to impersonate a major general so convincingly that he built up an army sufficient to take several castles, before eventually disappearing one night with their entire treasuries.
Merrily had somewhat less time available to her than Herr Sogblut, but she nonetheless managed to accumulate ten loyal and obedient members of the Republican Guard until, by the fading light of the late midwinter afternoon, she arrived at the gates of Hoel.
There were fewer men at the gate now, and those that remained were slouched on crude benches, drinking beer and throwing dice. They straightened themselves hurriedly when she approached, and waved her through the gate at the mere sight of her epaulets and sizable entourage.
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A familiar black carriage stood waiting by the main gate to the inner keep. Merrily gulped and angled away, until she saw that the cabin was empty. She did not recognize the driver, and he gave no indication that he recognized her.
Two red-clad guards at the keep’s gate took a slightly longer look at her orders, and glanced up at her smudged face. But seeing the epaulets and insignia, not to mention the gaggle of soldiers, she was permitted through.
Two clerks at identical desks in the dreary entrance hall, dimly lit by sputtering oil lamps and shivering in the cold, eyed her as she entered. She walked up to one brusquely and thrust the orders at him. “I need Spoon and the other traitors from Kavant,” she said. “They’re to be brought back to Uellodon for execution.”
The clerk blinked at her and the men behind her, then took a huge, fat volume from off his colleague’s desk and flipped through it.
“Third deep,” said the man in an oddly nasal, high-pitched voice. “Row G, cell two. But we just put them on the list for Thursday—”
“They’ve been moved up,” she interrupted. “There’s a high-up that wants to see them stretch sooner.”
The bureaucrat twisted his mouth in derision. “If you want them retrieved, comrade Captain, go fetch them yourself. Almost all of our duty complement has been ordered back to Uellodon. Some civil unrest in the city, I hear. It’ll be put straight soon enough, but for now we’re on a skeleton crew. I can’t spare anyone to fetch prisoners.” He handed her a rusty iron key.
Merrily turned abruptly away from the clerk, then thought of something and turned back.
“I saw the First Minister’s coach outside. Is he here?”
The clerk who had spoken twisted his mouth again; a sneer seemed to be his most natural expression. “Oh yes,” the man said in his high nasal tone. “He’s here for one of his meetings. But don’t cross his path, Captain, whatever your orders say. The First Minister is usually in a foul mood when he comes to Hoel, and the river is well stocked with the remains of people who irritated him.”
She borrowed a bag of filthy hoods that normally saw duty on the heads of the condemned, and marched her entourage down to the third deep.
“Be alert, guardsmen,” she warned. “Spoon and his accomplices are cunning. They will try to wriggle free. Keep a tight grip.”
She found the erstwhile Chancellor of the Royal Academy in Exile chained to a wall in a damp, cold, and unlit cell.
“He could spring on you at any moment,” she warned. “You, Guardsman Bedge, open the door, then stand back. I’ll see to the chains myself.” The nervous guardsman opened the door, and Merrily strode in briskly to inspect Spoon.
One of his eyes was swollen shut, and there was a nasty cut across his face. Bloodstains marred his clothing, and his breathing was shallow. But his one visible eye was bright as he looked at her in the dim light of the guards’ torches.
“You were foolish to come back to this city, Spoon, and doubly foolish to choose such an obvious hideout,” she snarled. “You’ll soon pay for your stupidity and for your crimes against the Republic.” Then she leaned closer to his ear, and whispered: “But I’ll give you a steep discount if you tell me where you saw the Giant-men.” She stared hard into his good eye, willing him to recognize her.
“The rabble cannot rule themselves; how could they rule a kingdom?” Spoon spat, his voice dripping with contempt. But, sotto voce, he added: “They are here, in the deeps. Hobb goes to see them.”
Merrily jerked her head back and looked at him hard. He nodded slightly.
She curled up one first and punched Spoon in the ribs, where she knew it would hurt her more than him.
“Give my regards to the hangman, dog,” she said. Then she turned back to her soldiers. “Take him, and all the others from Kavant. Put hoods on them and wait for me in the barracks. This must be handled with discretion, guardsmen. Gag them, and wait quietly. I will rejoin you soon, and we’ll all be back in Uellodon in time for beer and supper.”
Merrily made sure that all of Spoon’s students had been gathered up, and then watched the credulous squad of soldiers escort them upstairs. She borrowed an oil lamp from Wiggs. Then she turned and, her heart thumping with the need to move quickly, started searching for a way down.
It was at the back of the level, in a disused cell. A section of the floor appeared to have collapsed, and then been widened out, leading to an open space below. A sturdy stairway of wood led downward.
To Merrily’s surprise, there was a light coming from somewhere far ahead of her. It did not flicker like flame, but was steady, like moonlight. It did not greatly illuminate the passageway, yet Merrily could see that she stood in a stone tunnel, rigidly square and nearly twelve feet tall. The tunnel ran straight forward into the distance, blocked behind her by the fall of rock. Rows of rigidly straight conduits, worn with age but still intact, ran horizontally along the walls. Metal protrusions punctuated these at regular intervals, though the metal was mightily corroded. Merrily felt a surge of recognition, as her mind snapped back to square tunnels beneath the ruined cathedral outside Roosterfoot.
She began forward slowly, gripping the lantern and feeling for the dagger strapped to one thigh.
There were voices in the darkness. She froze; but they were not coming closer, and seemed to be talking to each other. They were men’s voices. She drifted forward again, drawing out the dagger.
When she came to the precipice, she nearly fell over it. The regular stone passageway ended abruptly at a vast overhang, though a broad ledge followed its circumference to her left and right.
There was a great circular depression in the chamber before her, plunging down perhaps a hundred feet into the bedrock, from which emanated the steady light. She saw that there was some bright light source at the bottom of the pit. All along its base, and climbing up the walls, were a vast array of strange shapes; some hulking and dark, others like long cables, neatly bundled in groups that ran among the huge, dark shapes. There was a smell of metal in the air, and of rust.
Smaller lights flickered on some of the dark shapes, and they illuminated the forms of people moving around among them. Merrily could not tell what they were doing, but only that they were occupied with tasks that looked directed, deliberate, and focused.
There was another light as well, at her own level, some distance along the lip that ran around the edge of the pit. Peering cautiously out of the tunnel from which she entered, Merrily glimpsed two people sitting, facing each other across a small table. The one facing her was Hobb the Wise, First Minister of Uelland. The second was plainly the form of a man, though he had long, blond hair and his back was turned to her. She could tell that he was perhaps six feet tall. She could not see his face. Their bodies were leaned toward each other, and their heads tilted inward, though the faint sound of voices carried across the open space. Other tunnels from other directions joined into the ledge that ringed the lip of the pit.
From one of these other tunnels there emerged a nine-foot tall man.
His proportions were like a human, though his body was fantastically muscled and sculpted. Merrily could not see the features of his face, but he wore a plain white robe. The hair on his head was blond, and his face was shaved. Behind him came three more giants. They wore plate armor of some metal that glinted in the dim light, and helms of what appeared to be steel. They moved, though, as if they wore nothing heavier than silk.
The giant figures began walking toward the First Minister and his human-sized counterpart. Their movements were fluid and graceful, unhurried but potent.
Merrily drew back, holding her breath. A sudden wash of fear swept over her. These things, whatever they were—they were not human. They were something else. Merrily had encountered many inhuman creatures in her young career: goblins, fey, snarfs—even, briefly, a Greater Snorl. Her training at Triad had prepared her to react quickly to surprise and novelty. But the appearance of these Giant-men filled her with a dread that she struggled to control or even understand. It was not the fear of their form; their features were pleasant, if imposing in scale. No, it was what they represented. They were like her, but better. They were perfect. They were creatures that, by their nature, could and would supplant humans.
They are demons, said the Second Voice. Run. Run, before they find us and drag us into the Pit at our feet.
Merrily glanced out again. The small group of Giant-men had reached the First Minister and the other man, and stood around them. Hobb rose to his feet and addressed the one in the white robe, angling his head sharply upward. Then the First Minister turned and began to walk toward the tunnel from which Merrily watched with one eye.
The tall man who had sat with him at the table rose, and turned to walk with Hobb. As she saw the front of his body, Merrily’s stomach lurched, and she fought her rising gorge.
Where the man’s face should have been, there was instead a smooth, silvery, featureless surface.
Merrily ducked back behind the tunnel entrance. She hurriedly removed the dead man’s boots from her feet, and then, in her stockings only, she turned and ran as swiftly and as silently as she could back up the tunnel. She ascended the wooden steps, noticing as she went that they had been designed to be taller and broader than normal.
She put on the boots again, and forced herself to slow to a brisk walk as she ascended out of the dungeons. She nodded imperiously to the two clerks in the entrance hall, then joined her hijacked squad of soldiers and prisoners. She waited for long minutes at the door, posing as if in boredom at some tedious task. But her wait was rewarded when she saw the tall, rail-thin frame of Hobb the Wise emerge into the hall, ignore the clerks, and depart.
Merrily waited for another fifteen minutes, counting the seconds in her head. Her guardsmen looked curiously at her, but remained dutifully silent. When she judged that the First Minister had likely departed, she marched the squad and their prisoners out of the keep, through the courtyard with its gallows, and out the front gate of Hoel.
✽✽✽
When Merrily and her entourage drew near to Uellodon, she sent six of the guardsmen ahead to a nonexistent barracks on the east side of the city, to report to a nonexistent colonel that she was arriving with prisoners who would certainly not exist by the time they arrived. Four red-clad men remained, with twenty bound and chained prisoners moving in a slow file. She sent two of the remaining guardsmen back to Hoel with a message for the commandant. That left two.
“Now, Guardsman Bedge, Guardsman Wiggs. Give me your spears for inspection.”
The two Republican Guard looked at each other incredulously, but dutifully handed over their spears. She looked at their tips for a moment, and noted that they had begun to accumulate some spots of rust. Then she carefully and deliberately laid them on the ground. She turned to the two guardsmen.
“Is that the First Minister’s carriage?” she asked, looking at a nonexistent carriage on the road behind them. The two soldiers spun around and searched the road.
Merrily landed a carefully placed blow on the side of each man’s head, just behind the ear. Bedge collapsed immediately, but Wiggs staggered backward and turned unsteadily, grunting in pain. Merrily drove one fist into his gut, knocking the breath out of him, and then kneed him vigorously in the groin. Once he was on the ground, she kicked him briskly in the side of the head.
Then she set about releasing the prisoners.
“What do you know of the Giant-men?” she asked Spoon, once the Applied Historians were free.
Chancellor Spoon stared at her with his one uninjured eye. “We have not only lurked in the city, throwing pies and distributing pamphlets, Mrs. Hunter. I set two of my students to watch the Hoel Road, thinking they might transport political prisoners that way. While we did see many of these, we also saw that Hobb’s carriage made regular trips to the prison. It made little sense for him to visit Hoel two or three times per week, and yet there he was. So I set more of my company to spy on the prison.
“These watchers first saw the Giant-men coming and going from a tunnel in an abandoned quarry at night. They would leave with great sacks and chests, storing them in an old outbuilding, and then return with food. They can run with tremendous speed, and we weren’t able to follow them; but I fear the former owners of the supplies were not left alive to report the thefts. There have been rumors of murders and disappearances in the villages around Hoel.
“We have watched them for two weeks, since shortly after you and Hobb returned from Roosterfoot. If they were here before that, we did not know of it. But we are certain that they operate from Hoel, and I suspect the First Minister has an understanding with them. We saw him in the passage beyond our cells, before you came. What he does with them in Hoel, I do not know.”
Merrily thought, silently, of Hobb seated across the table from the man with the metal face. She said nothing to Spoon.
In her head, the Voices held council.
It’s time to put aside this infatuation with Hobb and his Republic, said the First Voice. He is in league with creatures that steal and murder and are more perfect than us in every way. Whatever else they are, they are every bit the danger he claimed them to be.
Whether they are demons or monsters, said the Second Voice, they are outside God’s creation. There is no place for them in our world, and we cannot support a man who would make allies of them.
There have been three of us for too long, added the First Voice. It is time to let go of one.
The Third Voice screamed, and Merrily heard it in the air around her. She felt the conflict begin between them as a tearing, twisting, ravening battle of wills and of blood and viscera. The certainty and comfort and order of the Third Voice was pierced by the others, then ripped open and devoured. She shuddered deeply as a perspective, a view, an understanding of the world, died. And she felt a shocking absence as the Third Voice dissipated.
She found she was sweating, and that Spoon was still staring at her closely. He did not ask if she was alright. Instead, he said:
“We have all discovered something we did not expect, Mrs. Hunter. It changes us, and it changes the world. But I think Stoat was right to put his trust in you. You will choose what to make of this new world and new self.”
She blinked, still feeling slightly unbalanced.
“What will you do now?” she asked.
Spoon took a deep breath, and looked around at the gathering dusk.
“I have gambled very much with the lives of these men and women. Not too much, but close. Had you not come along, we would soon be decorating the gallows at Hoel. We will slip back to Carelon, to rest and heal and make new plans. I will take some satisfaction in leaving Hobb with a mouthful of ashes.”
He offered a hand, and she shook it.
“I hope our paths cross again, Mrs. Hunter,” he said. “If you see him, give me warmest regards to Professor Stoat, and tell him that the seeds he planted have grown tall and healthy.”
And with that he turned and led his students off into the gathering dark, toward the Green River.
✽✽✽
Three days later, before Merrily left Green Bridge, she made a pair of social calls. The first was at Palace Naridium, where she was admitted to see Hobb the Wise.
The First Minister’s face was drawn and pale, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. His few wisps of hair were disheveled. But his suit was freshly pressed, his shirt was crisp, and his voice was steady.
“I will conclude my visit, First Minister, and return to Queen Anne. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to resolve the situation at the Old High Court to your satisfaction.”
Hobb nodded slowly. “As you wish. You are here with the privileges of a diplomat, and you may depart with those privileges. As for the matter at the courthouse—it will be resolved soon enough. The people in the square won’t remain there for long when their food begins to run out and the sanitation becomes questionable. The Crown Prince cannot leave the city without being detected by the Security Bureau. And I’m afraid the traitors who presently occupy the courthouse will realize the legal consequences that are due to all traitors.
“Nonetheless, Mrs. Hunter, I am grateful that you have come. I wish we could be friends, you and I. You are already among the most consequential of citizens, and I truly believe that one day you will see that our way is right. When that day comes, I will be the first to welcome you back to the Republic.”
She kept an expression of polite neutrality on her face, in the way of diplomats who must suggest a thing is possible when it is not.
“Do you still desire a settlement with Queen Anne against a common enemy?” she asked.
Hobb leaned forward across the table eagerly.
“I do, Mrs. Hunter. Please tell her. The threat we face is one we absolutely must face together—or it will consume us. If she will meet us in a neutral venue—Roosterfoot, perhaps, or even on the river itself—then I am sure we can come to an agreement.”
Merrily rose to her feet.
“I will give her your message,” she said. “Will you excuse me, First Minister?”
He nodded, and rose to see her out. As he opened the door for her, he suddenly stared hard into her eyes.
“Where were you on the eighteenth?” he asked. “The day after the fighting at the Old High Court. The men I assigned to your protection reported that you vanished from their watch after you entered the courthouse.”
She smiled slightly.
“There was a great deal of chaos outside, that day,” she said. “I’m sure they just missed me. Be well, First Minister.”
“Be well, Merrily Hunter,” Hobb said softly. “Be joyful, if you can. And do great things.”
✽✽✽
Her second call—now openly flanked by two uniformed guardsmen—was to the courthouse. The guardsmen were made to wait outside by bailiffs, but Merrily promised she would return through the front gate and collect them. And then she went to see Wigglus and Frederick.
She found them in Wigglus’s small office in the upper reaches of the courthouse. He was awake again, and his color had improved. He was eating from a bowl of soup when she found him, though his right arm was still in a sling. Prince Leeland was seated nearby when she approached, and he stood to leave. Frederick, dressed elegantly once again and sipping from a glass of red wine, stood as well, and winked at her.
“It’s alright, Your Highness,” said Merrily to the prince. “You may remain, if you wish. I won’t be long. I have things to say to you too.”
They all sat together in the little office, looking out at the pale midwinter light.
“I will leave tomorrow morning,” she said finally. She found she was fighting back tears. “I have to return to Green Bridge, and to Queen Anne. There are things she needs to know, that I can only tell her in person.”
And I want to see Jonny, said the First Voice. I miss him. I love him. I said things that were wrong, and hurt him.
We do NOT want to see Jonathan Miller, said the Second Voice. We will go and see Father, and we will tell him all we have learned and done. We will beg forgiveness and rejoin the Elect.
“I understand,” said Wigglus. “I agree. You must go back to your home, and your queen, and your husband. Whatever you make of your destiny, Merrily, I think it will be there. And mine—ours—” he turned to smile at Frederick—“is here.”
She looked at the Crown Prince. “Your mother wishes you would come home,” she said. “I know you want to come as well. But you know you can’t come with me, right now. I and my belongings will be searched thoroughly when I leave. You would be found out, no matter how we try to hide you.”
Leeland nodded. “I have been speaking with Mr. Wholehouse-and-a-Half,” he said. “He’s told me his plan, and I agree. I hope I will see you again soon, Mrs. Hunter. Please tell my mother—I will come home to her if I can. This place is not home any longer.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I understand why you want to be with your mother—but, if you will forgive my curiosity, Prince, I don’t fully understand why you wish to leave Uellodon, and your father.”
“Perhaps,” said the young man with a smile, “if we meet again in Green Bridge, I can tell you the story.”
She turned back to Wigglus. Frederick stood and motioned with his head to Leeland; they both left the room, closing the door behind them.
Merrily and Wigglus sat in silence for a long time. She found it difficult to speak.
“I’m afraid I can’t play my violin with you any longer,” he said with a wry smile, glancing down at the sling.
“You will again, one day,” she said, feeling a tinge of desperation.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Merrily. I’m not a seer; just a lawyer. But when I look at what’s happening around us, I think this is likely where we say goodbye.”
She squeezed his hand fiercely, and he winced. “Why don’t you go over the river with Frederick?” she asked. “You can recover in Ville Porpo, and maybe make your way to the Royal Academy in Exile. They’d welcome you there. You can write pamphlets and essays and help organize people to fight against Hobb and the King and Mr. Robe and all the rest of them. You’d do more good there than here, getting yourself killed. And I don’t want you to die. I want to see you again, and make more music together.”
He gently withdrew his left hand from her grip, and held her own hand.
“Perhaps I will,” he said. “But everything is uncertain. It may not come to be. We fear death, don’t we Merrily? We fear the end. Life is sweet, no matter the circumstances. We want nothing more, really, than to keep struggling, keep reaching for some future where everything is better and wiser and happier and more just. We want to see the people we love one more time, and hold them, and kiss them, and laugh together. And we fear beyond all reason that moment of blankness and void at the end, when ‘I’ becomes nothing, and all perception and thought cease. But for all that fear and sorrow, death is the completion of every life. It’s the moment when everything we’ve done is finished and weighed, and judged—not by some old man in the sky, but by ourselves. When death comes for me, I will judge my life in that moment, and know whether I have led the best and most brilliant life I can. And here, in Uellodon, if death comes for me, I want to know that I lived and died, as best I could, for what I care about the most.”
She nodded. There were no tears. She felt acceptance, and love.
He stood up then, and reached up with his left hand to take his violin and bow down from the shelf. He carefully put them into a long, leather-clad case, closed it, and handed the case to her.
“It’s Midwinter tomorrow,” he said with a smile. “There should be gifts. Take this with you. Find someone to play it for me.”
She stood up and took the violin case from him and ran a hand along the soft leather. Then, thinking carefully, she unstrapped the sheathed dagger from her thigh.
“This was a gift to me from Lady Triggle,” she said. “You remember her, don’t you? We played together at her parties. She gave it to me before we left for Uellodon last year. I’ve carried it in fights, and classes, and travels, and sneaking around, and everywhere else. I’ve taken lives with it—once to protect you, when we were attacked in the streets here.”
She handed it to him.
“Will you keep it with you?” she asked. He nodded solemnly and took the sheathed dagger.
She embraced him carefully, and kissed his cheek.
“Goodbye,” she said.
“Goodbye,” he answered.
✽✽✽
The next morning, on Midwinter’s Day, Merrily rode out of Uellodon, alone.