June 9th
As the sun set on the ninth of June, a lone barge swung gently in the turbid, brown waters of the Green River. Though the spring flood had come and gone, the waters still flowed strong with the last of the snowmelt from the far-off mountains beyond the wild frontier to the north. The barge, some sixty feet long and equipped with a stout mast to aid in navigation, drifted back and forth on its anchor line like an enormous pendulum.
A single, tiny rowboat drifted toward it from upstream. A squat figure, robed and hooded, manned the oars, working the craft slowly toward the center of the watercourse even as it drifted downstream. A woman, much taller by comparison to the diminutive oarsman, sat in the stern of the little boat. She wore a white gown, and a broad-brimmed white hat with a veil. She carried a delicate, lacy parasol against the setting sun.
Men in red coats and breeches watched them approach from the rail of the long barge. Two other men—one a grown-up, and the other a teenaged boy—stood on one rail, their hands bound behind their backs. They, too, watched the approaching rowboat with singular interest, as it bobbed slowly toward them.
“Here comes a queen to kneel down in front our general,” remarked one, laughing crudely. “Do you expect we’ll all get a turn after he’s finished?” His voice carried across the water, where it was quite audible to the woman in white.
“You will treat her Royal Highness with every shred of respect at your disposal, corporal,” remarked a steel-clad man standing just behind him, “or you will make the return journey to Uellodon attached to the underside of this barge by a stout rope about your feet.” The knight wore a black and gold surcoat over his armor, and his polished helm gleamed in the sun.
The guardsman shut his mouth, but smirked at his companions out of the knight-general’s sight. It would take many days to return to Uellodon, with many opportunities to pay a visit to a pretty young woman locked in the hold below. Lots had already been drawn with the barge crew to see who would go first.
The lonely little boat drifted closer on the current, its oarsman struggling clumsily at his work. A short set of stairs was lowered from one gunwale of the barge and secured with thick wooden pins, so the pretender could step aboard more easily. General Logwall walked briskly over to the stairs and stood at their head, his back erect and his chin thrust out like an axe waiting to fall.
At last the rowboat bumped up against the stairs, and a red-clad guardsman seized the painter. The oarsman’s face was obscured by a hood, but no one looked at him anyway. All eyes were on the slim, stately figure of the woman in white as she stepped gracefully onto the stair and ascended to the deck of the barge. She wore a richly jeweled necklace and several wrist bangles on each hand, all of which jingled promisingly as she moved. Green eyes peered out from a heavily made-up face beneath the veil. They surveyed General Logwall, and his cohort of soldiers, and the two figures standing on the opposite rail, their hands bound.
“Take my son and his lawyer down from the rail, General,” she said in a soft voice, almost inaudible. “I have come to purchase their lives.” She extended a slender, graceful arm and presented the top of her left hand.
“Of course, Highness,” said the knight-general. He removed his helm and gauntlets, took the proffered hand in his own, and pressed his lips to it lightly. His thick black hair was oiled and neatly brushed, and his steel armor gleamed in the evening sun. He nodded at two of the guardsmen, who roughly pulled the two prisoners from the rail. “We’ll all go back to Uellodon together and have a long chat with your husband. I think you’ll find there are many ladies in the capital who are eager to come and visit you again in Palace Naridium.”
Behind them, the diminutive figure that had manned the oars clambered aboard carrying a large chest, which he set down near the rail and proceeded to open. No one paid the midget the slightest attention. General Logwall, meanwhile, found that his hand was held firmly, and the woman in white stepped close to him. The green eyes flashed up through the veil.
“Have you done what is right, general?” she asked, moving her right hand behind her back.
General Logwall peered at the face beneath the veil carefully, his eyes squinting as if in some confusion. “I believe, madame,” he replied, “that I have done what was necessary.”
Behind her back, the woman’s right hand opened, and the little porter placed in it the wooden haft of a razor-sharp hatchet. The arm swung around from behind her back, dropping downward with the grim determination of the headsman’s blade. The hatchet severed Logwall’s right hand neatly from his arm. Before he could howl, the steel head came up sharply beneath his unarmored chin, and the knight-general collapsed to the deck of the barge.
There is a moment, when the small and reasonable order of things begins to collapse, that the small and reasonable mind collapses with it. At the moment Merrily severed the knight-general’s hand, the score of Republican Guard on the deck of the barge occupied a reality in which princesses wearing poofy white dresses and hats and veils did not suddenly produce wicked looking hatchets and begin to hurl them with horrific accuracy at the chests of all those nearby. It was simply not possible that knives could flash from her hands into the throats and eyes of reasonable, disciplined, orderly soldiers of the new Republic. It was, in fact, completely against the rules for the hypothetical princess to then take from the handle of her parasol a slim rapier of fine steel and proceed to systematically stab her way through a fully armed and armored squadron of vastly superior number, stationed defensively in a vessel of their own choosing.
By the time they had worked their way through this outrage against the proper order of reality, half their number were down. And Merrily, who was quite accustomed to dealing with the outrageous, unreasonable, and stupefying, was at the throats of the other half. She advanced without fear or doubt or mercy, feinting contemptuously when necessary, taking a step back before taking two forward, but invariably dipping her rapier gently into the chests of her adversaries with as much concern as a man swatting a fat and lazy fly. Her white gown and hat were soon stained red with blood, and her heavy white makeup was streaked with it.
The off-duty squadron of marines, hearing screams and shouts from their comrades, came boiling out of the forecastle. And there they might have overwhelmed the lone and furious assault of the woman in white; but a colossal boom came from the direction of the small oarsmen and his chest, and half their number melted instantly to the deck. The chest had been turned on one side to reveal a pair of stubby, wide-mouthed cannon secured within, now pointed out of its mouth, and one of these had just discharged a great load of canister shot in the general direction of the forecastle. The oarsman—his hood thrown back now to reveal The Gizzard’s gray skin and squat, hairless head—was whistling cheerfully as he touched a taper to the fuse of the second gun.
After the discharge, the few marines who still had the requisite number of body parts to do so scampered back inside the forecastle and barred the door. The barge captain and his crew made themselves entirely invisible; those who could swim, did. Merrily, meanwhile, walked calmly over to the Crown Prince of Uelland and his lawyer. The Gizzard sauntered after her, nibbling idly at Logwall’s severed hand. He had, as well, taken the liberty of setting the barge on fire.
Merrily’s eyes widened in surprise as she drew close to the captives. Leeland looked approximately the same as she recalled him—tow-headed and masculine, but otherwise a near-replica of his mother. But Wigglus Snort looked nothing at all like Wigglus Snort. Instead, he looked exactly like Frederick Wholehouse-and-a-Half.
“Where is Wigglus?” she asked in confusion.
Frederick held his hands forward, presenting the bindings. His eyes were hollow and red, and his face was dirty. His clothing was simple and shabby, and he had a nasty bruise over his right eye.
“Can I tell you the story while we make our escape?” he asked. Merrily slashed the bonds of both Frederick and Prince Leeland, but continued to look around her in confusion.
“Logwall’s note said Leeland was here with his lawyer,” she said. “You’re not his lawyer; Wigglus is.”
“I might have lied a little bit when they captured us,” shrugged Frederick. “The Crown Knights are squeamish about murdering attorneys, and anyway Logwall deserved to be lied to. Wigglus isn’t here.”
She led them back to the little rowboat. Leeland and The Gizzard crammed into the bow, and Frederick took the center seat at the oars. Merrily thoughtfully slashed away the straps of General Sir Warren Logwall’s steel armor and heaved his prone form into the bilge as well, then sat down in the stern. Frederick took the oars and rowed the overburdened little vessel away from the burning barge.
“Where is Wigglus?” asked Merrily tensely, starting to bind Logwall’s arm above the severed hand.
Frederick took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment.
✽✽✽
After you left Uellodon, Merrily, we made plans to slip across the river to Ville Porpo with Leeland. The crowds kept on gathering around the courthouse, and the Republican Guard gave no sign they would attack again. We all went out and sang carols together on Midwinter’s Eve, and some of the Guardsman joined in. There was ale and wine given out freely in the courtyard, and people brought food to share around.
In the week between Midwinter and the new year we made our plans. I sent a message to my banker on the Carolese side, and told him to make a place ready for us. We worked out a route, and a disguise for the Prince, and a cover story. And all that time Wigglus kept working in the court. They were getting ready to finally try the Foregrub and Quimble lawsuit—the one about giving their businesses back to Samuel Foregrub and Hector Quimble’s daughter. Wigglus and the other attorneys spent all day and late into the night haggling with the two King’s Counsel and the judge and going over witnesses and evidence. I don’t know all the details; I’m not really a lawyer, after all. But Wigglus seemed to think it was important that he help get ready, even if secretly we meant not to be at the trial. I’d never seen him so full of life.
But then in the new year the KCs did something odd. The details are above my head, to be honest, but apparently they appealed the judge’s decision to go ahead with the trial. The way Wigglus explained it, that sort of thing is normally supposed to happen after the trial is finished, but they did it beforehand. So the High Justices gathered and read the papers, and scheduled arguments for the third of January.
After the new year, we began to see more and more of the Republican Guard in the city. Hobb must have called up units from the countryside, because overnight it seemed as though Uellodon was carpeted in red cloaks and those silly three-cornered hats. They weren’t singing with us anymore, either; they began to push people around in the streets, and to find foolish little infractions of the new rules and regulations everywhere they looked. The civil service put out a curfew, which everyone ignored. But there began to be more arrests, and more people disappeared off to Hoel.
On the third of January the High Court heard arguments on the Crown’s appeal. The Justices were quite sharp with King’s Counsel, and the KCs seemed almost apologetic, as if they were making arguments they didn’t really believe. The whole thing seemed to turn on whether the courts have the power to decide whether an order of the King is valid. Wigglus was brilliant; he had all kinds of soaring language about right and wrong and the source of law and all kinds of other things I don’t remember now. The Justices retired for about fifteen minutes, then came out again, and said the trial had to go on.
We all thought it was over then, but about an hour later an order came back from Palace Naridium forbidding them to start the trial. It said the King himself had heard an appeal from the High Court’s order, and flipped them. Well, the Justices didn’t take that well, let me tell you. Foregrub and Quimble’s side made a motion right on the spot to overrule the King’s order, and the High Court set a hearing for the next morning so the KCs could come up with an argument they could make with a straight face.
We all stayed in the courthouse that night—me, Wigglus, the attorneys for Foregrub and Quimble, the King’s Counsel; even the Justices and the lower judges. It was like the siege all over again, with everyone sleeping in their offices and taking turns on watch. But most of the other attorneys had gone home to their families and their own offices, as they weren’t trapped in the building anymore. The old court was lonely.
Wigglus and I stayed up late that night. I persuaded him to put aside his papers for a little while, and we sat on the roof in coats and looked up at the stars. The other attorneys and the judges had never made much bother about him and me, you know; they treated us like some old married couple. So we had that night together, alone on the rooftop.
Just give me a moment.
It didn’t last. No night, however perfect, survives the dawn. We cleaned ourselves up, and Wigglus shaved his face and fixed his hair and put on his best coat and tie. We went down to the hearing, and Prince Leeland sat with me, while Wigglus went up inside the well of the court. A whole gang of lawyers from the city had shown up there, and they were just sitting quietly as it got started; all coats and white shirts and ties on the men, and black dresses on the women. I remember the KCs looked like they’d just swallowed poison and hadn’t gotten quite around to toppling over. But they all stood up when the High Court came in, and both sides said their piece.
Chief Justice Woodbrow spoke for the Court, and he had some very colorful things to say about the King’s writ. He didn’t curse; a judge doesn’t curse in court, at least not in the way that mere mortals understand. But he used some very long words that made the lawyers around me blush.
And then… well, it all got to be quite a surprise.
You remember, Merrily, that old rule that a sitting court can’t be interfered with by anyone, even the king? It’s why they held one long hearing, all the way through the siege. Well, the Justices hadn’t forgotten that rule. Their clerks all came out, and they ran poles under the Justices’ benches, and lifted them up in the air on their shoulders. And others lifted up the chairs, and carried them, four clerks to a judge. Woodbrow was talking the whole time—he never took a break from explaining why the King’s order was a pile of tripe. It started to dawn on us, then, that he wasn’t just striking down the order; he was working his way around to holding King Leeland in contempt of the High Court.
And then the whole procession—Justices, clerks, benches, chairs, lawyers and all—just marched right out the door of the courtroom, and out of the courthouse.
The bailiffs went out in front, and they cleared a way through the crowd outside. People gawked at first, but then once a few heard what the Chief Justice was saying they gave up a cheer, and crowded along behind. The lawyers who had been watching came too, after the court, and Prince Leeland and I went with them. They walked right through the square, underneath those two bronze statues of the ladies of justice, and started up the street toward Palace Naridium. King’s Counsel were right there at the head, and they suddenly looked whole and healthy again, like men who’d been given back an arm they lost.
You probably remember, Merrily, that it’s not a long walk to the palace from the Old High Court. You can see the Rose Tower from the plaza. Well, the whole procession marched along Sheepford Street. And out of all those hundreds of law offices clustered around the court, there suddenly came spilling out every attorney in the city. They dropped what they were doing when they saw the Justices go bobbing along in the street, and ran out, carrying whatever big thick law books happened to be near at hand. They gathered around the procession like an honor guard, holding up their books in their air or in front of their chests.
At some point Woodbrow finished his pronouncement, and he recognized Justice Ellen Willoughsby, and she started to give a concurrence. Wigglus and Leeland and I were back in the crowd a bit—the young prince had come along, though I tried to convince him not to. Said he was safer in the middle of a crowd of lawyers than anywhere else, and I had to give him the point. So there we were, marching along behind Justice Willoughsby while she bellowed out her concurrence, in the middle of every lawyer in Uellodon and a whole host of regular citizens too.
For a little while, it seemed as though we might make it to the palace. The Republican Guard were all over the streets around us, but when we set out they didn’t make any move to stop us. But then, when we were about two blocks away, there was a whole army of them in the street ahead. The front rank had tall shields that they set on the ground, and all the ones behind had heavy crossbows or longbows. We could see archers, too, in the windows and on the roofs of the buildings on either side of Sheepford Street. And more soldiers appeared in the streets on the sides—Republican Guard, not the regular army—so we couldn’t get out. We’d been allowed to come only so far, just so we could be penned in. The crowd drew close together, but they didn’t run, and didn’t push.
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The clerks carried their judges right up to the edge of the shields. Woodbrow sized up the mass of guardsmen ahead of them, and then he spoke directly to them, still perched in his chair behind his bench, all on the shoulders of clerks and lawyers. I remember what he said.
“If you would live, sirs, in a world where your freedom is the highest and most precious charge of the law, then you must make way for this Court do its duty.”
The first arrow from the mass of soldiers was a keen shot, and took him in the throat, coming out the other side. He toppled off the chair, and his clerks caught him and lowered him to the ground. More arrows and bolts followed, raking the crowd from all sides. The Justices held up books in front of their faces and chests to protect themselves, and soon they looked like pincushions. Then the soldiers started in with long spears. You must understand, Merrily, that other than the bailiffs the crowd was entirely unarmed.
From the back, Leeland and Wigglus and I couldn’t see what happened after the Justices fell. But we could hear it. There were so many screams, they merged into one voice, as if every man and woman and child in the city were one creature, crying out together.
I remember turning to Wigglus, certain we were going to die. But in all the chaos and blood and death, he was the only one that still had his head on straight. He took out of his satchel three red cloaks and hats, captured from guardsmen during the siege. We put them on, and he led us toward the back, where the soldiers were still thin. There was pushing and shouting and trampling, now, but we made our way through, dragging Leeland behind us. It occurred to me, then, that if we could make it to the docks, with all the soldiers right here, we might stand a chance of slipping across the river. When we reached the edge of the crowd we saw the guardsmen stabbing at the bodies of the people in the street with long spears. But we just held our backs straight and our chests out and walked through their ranks. In the heat of mass murder, I suppose the mind has little room for anything beyond the color of a cloak to distinguish men from animals.
We might well have escaped, had we not been spotted by someone with more than the normal aptitude for murder. We heard a cry from behind us, and turned to see a little man with spectacles and a clerk’s gray coat and tie. It was Mr. Robe, who I think you have met. He was standing on a cart, surveying the carnage from this vantage point with a little notebook and a pencil. But he had seen Wigglus walk past, and by some dark miracle recognized his face.
“It’s Snort, the traitor!” Mr. Robe screamed, abruptly animated by emotion. He turned and waved frantically at the nearby soldiers.
Wigglus grabbed me, and he pressed his lips to mine for the briefest moment. Then he shoved me and Leeland around roughly, so our backs were to Robe; and he walked back toward the cart.
I knew what he wanted me to do, and I could not dishonor his sacrifice by failing to do it. I took Leeland by the hand and led him away from the killing. As we left, I made the terrible mistake of looking back, and I saw his body. Robe was crouched above it, like some vaguely anthropomorphic vulture, and he did not look up at us.
I did not weep then. I held my tears for later. We ran to the docks, and we found a fisherman to whom a gold crown was precious enough to risk an unlicensed departure. That night we were in Ville Porpo. And there I wept, long and hard enough for the loss of ten true loves. Leeland stayed with me, and held me, and then we went to find my banker and take refuge.
The next months were horrible. There was no news from the city, and no safe way to voyage upriver. We dared not send a pigeon; my people in Ville Porpo told me that Hobb’s spies had deeply compromised the Merchants’ Post on the Carolese side. So we waited for the winter to pass, and the river to become safer for travel.
I cannot tell you how I mourned him, Merrily, and you would not want to hear it. You will understand yourself, as you walk through that valley. It is enough for me to say that I did mourn, long and bitterly and in the blackest dissolution.
We tried to come north in May. I sent messages with men I trusted, but your look tells me that none arrived. It must be that one of them was intercepted, and led to the undoing of our plans. The Security Bureau men caught up with us in Lesser Sack, and Logwall made a special trip from Roosterfoot to see to us personally. Leeland and I have spent the last week convinced that we’d soon be making a personal survey of the riverbed. And then you stepped onto the barge with that goblin, killed everyone, and set us free.
I wish it were me that Mr. Robe had recognized that day, and not Wigglus. But wishes are cheap. He is gone, and I am here, and the only thing left for us is to bend our backs and walk on through the valley.
✽✽✽
Merrily stared at Frederick for many minutes after he finished his story, while he bent his back to the oars. Then she looked off into the empty blue sky, and smelled the blood of men on her clothes, and felt the caked white makeup on her cheeks where she had not yet begun to weep. She dipped her hands in the river and washed off the makeup.
They landed on the sparsely populated west bank of the river. Even this far south, the wilderness crept close to the Green River; Uelland’s foothold to the west was tenuous. Merrily bought a horse and cart from a woodcutter who had decided to move on to the north, and they laid Logwall in the bed with the rowboat above him. And then, moving as quickly as they could on the rough paths of the wastes, they made their way upriver again.
As they hiked through the day and night, pausing only for brief rests, Merrily’s mind was blank, and her eyes glazed. The silence inside was overwhelming.
The younger Leeland came and sat down next to her one night, as they prepared for a short, cold rest beneath the dark canopy of trees. He had a few whisps of beard coming in now, and his light blond hair glistened in the starlight. Merrily looked up at him dully.
“He was a good man, Mrs. Hunter,” said the Crown Prince. “He’s the sort of man that they ought to make statues of but never do. He died, I think, in just the time and place he needed to. That’s no comfort to you, right now. Maybe it will be sometime later on.”
She narrowed her eyes at this. These were not the words of a teenaged boy.
“Alright,” said Leeland with a rueful smile, shaking his head. “I didn’t make that up. Frederick told me to say that to you. He thought it might mean more coming from me. But I think it’s true. I don’t know about how you’ll feel later, because I’ve never lost anyone like that. The philosophers that Hobb made me read all say grief dulls with time, until eventually you forget it’s there. I wouldn’t know if that’s true, or if they’re just writing it to sound smart. But for you, Mrs. Hunter, I hope it’s true.”
She sighed, and closed her eyes slowly. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she managed. “Get a few hours rest. We still have a long walk tomorrow.”
“You needn’t call me that,” he answered.
“It’s proper,” she replied. “There’s an awful lot that depends on you being the Crown Prince of Uelland.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not.”
Her eyes snapped open. “What?”
He sighed. “I’m not the Crown Prince of Uelland. Leeland III isn’t my father.”
“How can you know that?” she demanded.
“Because he told me. My father was a Crown Knight that mother loved years ago. I never met him, but I’m told he died in the August Uprising.” The young man stood up. In the starlight, she studied his features. The blond hair certainly didn’t run in his father’s line, and Anne was a brunette. His nose and cheeks strongly resembled his mother… but not the King.
“Does Hobb know?” she asked quietly, glancing at the sleeping forms of Frederick, Logwall, and The Gizzard.
Leeland shrugged. “I assume so. He knows everything else. I don’t think it matters to him, as long as everyone believes I’m the heir. But I don’t believe it anymore. And I won’t let him use me to prop up his Republic anymore.”
Merrily lay alone under the stars. Sleep did not come, and she stared, alone, into the darkness.
They crossed the river again at Green Bridge on the eleventh of June, in the late morning. Merrily abandoned the cart that had borne Logwall and turned the horse loose; there was no way for it to safely cross the river, and one of the few settlers on the west bank would likely welcome a new beast of burden. As they passed the fortified perimeter of Farley Island, she heard the sound of a great crowd. But she could not see over the new walls, and the only landings were on the mainland. So she rowed the little boat to the ashen remains of the commercial docks and put ashore with Frederick, Logwall, Prince Leeland, and The Gizzard. A few Billies were standing a despondent guard over the ruins of the waterfront, and she deposited the injured Logwall into their care.
“Take him to Bastings Hall,” she instructed the surprised policemen. “I expect the Queen will want to have a few words with General Logwall.”
“Today’s the execution, Mistress,” stammered one of the Billies. “The Queen’s presiding over the beheading of the Traitor of the North.”
Merrily cursed under her breath. An execution was not the ideal moment to show up unexpectedly with the Crown Prince. “Then take him to William Hall, and lock him up,” she said. “And have a physician see to his arm, before it turns gangrenous. He’s far more valuable to the Queen if he’s alive.”
Logwall moaned as he was led away, but made no move to resist. His face was pale, and he could barely stand.
Merrily turned her eyes to the long spans of Three Fish Bridge, and then looked at Frederick, Prince Leeland, and The Gizzard.
“There’s no sense in waiting,” she said. “Your mother won’t fault us for getting you to safety sooner rather than later.” She surveyed the ash and ruin of Green Bridge, the little tents here and there, and the knots of people. “And anyway, there’s nowhere else to go,” she added.
“I will go to the Gray Kingdom,” said The Gizzard. “The ferals will hear that King Simon is alive, and I’ll need to knock some heads and kick some balls to get things ready for him to return. And the Quiet Ones need to be brought back from Devi Valley before they get mashed by giants and roasted by the dragon.”
Merrily shook her head in bemusement. The Gizzard, at least, had not given up any of his lurid imagination. She knelt down and looked him in the eyes.
“Thank you, The Gizzard,” she said. “If you hadn’t come along and brought that mimic gun, I would have been overwhelmed on the barge. I owe you a debt.”
The goblin’s eyes widened in confusion, and he stared at her. Then, to Merrily’s enduring surprise, he threw his arms around her neck. It was an oddly human gesture; goblins didn’t hug.
“You and Cyrus Stoat saved my life, and King Simon’s life, and the lives of all our tribe, when you first met us,” he said solemnly. “And you brought us the magic of trade and beer and sandwiches. You and Cyrus and Jonathan may be gangly big-folk with too-small heads and ugly teeth, but you will always be friends of the Gray Kingdom.”
Then he disentangled himself, and walked away, nibbling on the upper half of a rabbit he’d brought from over the river. Merrily shook her head in amazement at the oddity of the world. But as the small gray person disappeared from view, the full weight of grief and horror and disbelief came crushing down on her again. She focused as best she could on the task at hand, and led Frederick and Leeland across the bridge to Farley Island.
The small riverine island was packed with hundreds of people, and the square was so tight that Merrily could barely move. Whatever sorrows waited for them in the ruins of the city on the mainland, the people of Green Bridge had come to be amused for a few hours by the death of a man they could all hate together. There was laughter and raucous shouting, and food vendors plying the crowd. Some dandy with a lute was standing on one of the low rooftops, giving an impromptu rendition of the Battle of Hog Hurst. Merrily felt slightly sick, recalling how many of her friends had died that day. She elbowed her way sharply through the crowd, making for the broad wooden doors of Bastings Hall.
And then suddenly she was face to face with a man she recognized. He had a fringe of brown hair around his head, a wide girth, and a simple brown robe with a rope belt. Four armed Billies walked in a tight escort around him, and his hands were tied in front of him. A muscular, broad-shouldered woman walked behind. The man’s eyes were peaceful.
Gregory and his escort stopped for a moment. The crowd immediately behind Merrily began to shout in recognition and anger as they saw him, and a roar went up from the square.
“Hello, Merrily Hunter,” he said calmly. He gave her a smile that looked like it teetered between weary and sad.
“Hello Gregory,” she replied. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to call him ‘Traitor of the North.’ Once upon a time he had been too pathetic to deserve it; now he was somehow too dignified.
“We are at a crossing, you and I,” he said. One of the Billies prodded him, but Merrily held up a hand. “A point of inflection,” he went on, “where the branching pathways come together and then split apart in a million, million new directions.”
She just stared at him, remembering the echoes of the fey-speech that lurked in her thought and memory. It was a language of indeterminacy and possibility, evolved to recognize and describe the vast concurrent web of existence.
“Which way lies/lay the Bright Path?” she asked, instinctively switching to that other mode of thought. “Our paths cross, and the paths of my love-self are far distant. I cannot perceive/walk the way toward that land we share.”
He smiled at her, and the weariness was gone. The crowd jostled and screamed, and a stone struck him in the head; blood sprang from the wound. But he smiled.
“It is a matter of choice, Merrily,” he answered, as if he had understood her. “Your choice. This time is ending for me. You will have to choose where you go next, and why. If you seek her, Ash will open all choices to you.”
Another rock struck him, and he winced.
“I am sorry, Merrily, for the way I behaved when we met. I hope you will see in time that the man I passed through opened pathways of choice that led you toward that final and perfect happiness. But there is no excuse for me; I can only ask forgiveness, and only from you.”
The Billies shoved him forward, and he began to move past Merrily into the crowd.
“I forgive you,” she said. And then he was gone.
The woman who walked behind him stopped for a moment and looked closely at Merrily, holding her eyes.
“You are one of us, even if you don’t know it yet,” she said, with a soft accent from the eastern borderlands. “I will see you again, and soon. Ash loves you, as she loves all.” And then the woman too was gone, into the crowd after Gregory and his escort.
Merrily was jostled to the side of the building, and slowly made her way back around the outside of the great throng. Frederick and Leeland trailed after her. She could see a platform at the far end of the square, next to the gates of Triad University. Queen Anne was there, and a man with a large sword. Gregory was making his way up onto the platform. Merrily worked her way into the crowd, lost in the sea of angry humanity and lost inside herself.
What choice do I make? Why can’t I see the way?
“Gregory!” came Queen Anne’s clear, ringing voice from across the square. The crowd hushed. “You have admitted, before a court of law and a judge of my bench, to the crime of treason!”
Merrily was looking into the crowd, away from the platform. She was searching for someone—anyone—to fill the void of doubt and endless choice. Someone who would know just what to do, without any mystery or hidden meaning.
“You gave aid and comfort to an enemy who sent armed soldiers to wrest the sovereignty of Uelland from its rightful monarch!” continued the queen.
A man pushed through the crowd roughly, and stood in front of her. He wore a floppy hat and a battered old breastplate.
“Cyrus,” she breathed in recognition. Her shoulders collapsed a bit, laying down the burden that Gregory had placed on her.
“Cyrus,” said Frederick, behind her.
“Frederick?” Cyrus asked in shock. “Frederick née Halfhouse?”
“Just Frederick,” said the man. “It’s just Frederick now. It’s good to see you, Cyrus.”
“What are you doing here?” demanded Cyrus. “You were in Uellodon with my—with—” he struggled with the words. “—with Wigglus,” he concluded lamely.
“I know he is your son, Cyrus,” said Frederick. “He knew too, at the end. Mari wrote to him.”
Cyrus stared at him.
“What do you mean? ‘At the end?’”
“He is dead, Cyrus,” answered Frederick. “Wigglus is dead. He died when the judges and lawyers marched to Palace Naridium. He gave his life so that I could escape with Leeland.” Fresh tears stained the dirt and grime on Frederick’s face.
Cyrus, true to form, fixated on an utterly irrelevant detail.
“King Leeland? You escaped Uellodon with the King of Uelland?”
Frederick shook his head. “No. Not King Leeland. Prince Leeland.” He nodded at the crown prince standing next to him.
Cyrus looked down. He scrutinized the boy’s face.
“I would like to go to my mother,” said Leeland.
“I’m going to check out now,” said Cyrus confidently. “This is too much. It’s too much for one man to carry. Well—anyway, it’s too much for me. I shall be in my room, gibbering madly to a potted plant. Berble-berble-berble. Gibbering. Goodbye…”
Merrily slapped him, hard. The people in the crowd looked at them in irritation, but neither Merrily nor Cyrus paid any attention.
“Shut up, Stoat,” she said. Her voice was soft, but sharp.
“Who do you think—”
“Shut up and listen. Somewhere under that ridiculous breastplate is the old Cyrus Stoat, who always knew what to do. He always had the right answer. I looked up to that man, because he was smart and wise and cunning and better prepared than anyone else, and never let the world turn him around, and never tried to kiss me. He’s still in there. This cripple you’ve become is someone else, but you need to find the real Cyrus Stoat. Right now. I need him. I need him, Stoat.” She shook him by the collar.
Cyrus wobbled his head in confusion. He looked at Merrily for a long moment; and then he turned to Frederick.
“Take the Crown Prince to his mother,” he instructed. “After the execution. Be quiet. Don’t make a scene. Hobb probably has people here. Go to the Billies in William Hall, and tell them that Cyrus Stoat was right about Obilly Smallhat and they’d better listen to you too.”
Frederick, looking at him in astonishment, nodded mutely.
He turned back to Merrily. “Will you help me?” he asked. She smiled in response.
Duty and love, she thought.
✽✽✽
She stood and watched as Queen Anne sentenced Gregory, Traitor of the North, to die for his crimes. But as the sword flashed and fell, her sight was obstructed by the crowd. She turned away as the silence fell with the sword, and there was a sad, dull thud from the other end of the square.
“I’m going with Cyrus,” she said to Frederick and Leeland. “I see it now. It’s in Devi Valley. I have to go there with him. I don’t know what’s waiting for us, but that’s where I have to go, because that’s where the Bright Path is. Maybe it’s peace, or maybe it’s death, or maybe it’s both. But whatever it is—now I know what I choose.”
She turned to the Crown Prince. “Your Highness; tell your mother that I love her and I will return if I can.” The young man nodded silently, and squeezed her hand.
Then she raised her eyes to Frederick.
“Don’t say anything,” he said. He held her fiercely, and then pulled back and looked at her for a long moment. His eyes were that old, startling electric blue again. He gave a half-smile, as if they shared some secret; and he was so convincing that Merrily was suddenly sure they did.
There was a growing murmur from the front of the crowd. Merrily gave another look at the ugly platform; but whatever was happening there now was out of her view, and she was not a witness. She turned and walked out of the square, going to meet Cyrus at the east gate.
✽✽✽
Merrily and Cyrus and Gmork travelled north many days along the east branch of the Green River. They left the settled farmland of Uelland behind, and ventured into the wilds that lay between them and that wind-swept valley where not so long ago Merrily’s and Jonathan’s lives had been wrenched in a new direction. At night, they made camp and shared food, drink, stories, tears, and laughter. Merrily and Cyrus told each other everything.
And then, on the twentieth of June, they arrived in Devi Valley to hear the big guns booming in the north, and to see the great, black form of a dragon flying high above.