They boarded the ferry and began their short journey across the water. Above them, the castle rose like a mountain, and the city rolled down like its slopes, an avalanche of black-roofed houses stopped only by the great wall that encircled it.

As they neared the broad stone quay, Leoff saw conditions there were much as they were on the side they'd just left. Hundreds of people were huddled on the far side of the quay, though these were without wagons or tents, and their expressions held less hope.

"You said you served in my guard." Artwair spoke to their new companion. "From whence do you hail now?"

"I heard there was steading in the east, near the King's Forest. I took a wain there ten years ago and built a farm." His voice seemed broken. "Then the Briar King woke, or so they say, and the black vines came-and worse." He looked up. "There are times I can still hear the shrieks of my neighbors."

"They were killed?"

"I don't know. The tales-I could not risk to see, do you understand? I had my children to think of. I still feel them at my back, though, I still feel the shiver in my bones."

Leoff felt a shiver in his bones, as well. What was become of the world? Was the end truly at hand, when the heavens would splinter and fall like shards of a broken pot?

When they reached the quay, the crowd pressed toward them, but the city guard pushed them back, and a path cleared. A few moments later, the gate creaked wide, and they entered the city itself.

Their way led them into a courtyard, and beyond that, through a second gate. The walls above them bristled with guards, but clearly they recognized Artwair, and so the inner gate was opened.

The main thoroughfare to the castle wound through the city as if it were a great snake crawling up the hill. Leoff propped his back against the wagon to sit for a better view as they jounced past chapels of ancient marble streaked and decayed by a thousand years of rain and smoke, houses with steepled roofs stabbing skyward, low cottages with white walls and red trim crammed tightly together save where narrow alleys divided them. Most buildings were of two stories, with the upper stories overhanging a bit-some few were of three.

They rolled into another plaza, in the center of which stood a weathered bronze statue of a woman with her foot upon the throat of a winged serpent. The beast coiled and writhed beneath her boot, and her face was as cold and imperious as the north wind.

Near a hundred people were gathered in the square, and for a moment, Leoff thought it a mob, but then he heard a bright soprano and pulled himself up farther. On the broad pedestal of the statue, a troop of players was performing, accompanied by a small ensemble of instrumentalists and singers. The instruments were simple-a lesser and bass croth, a drum and three pipers. When Leoff arrived, a woman had just finished singing as another woman in a green gown and gilt crown acted out her words. The player seemed to be addressing a man on a throne. Leoff had missed the words of the song, for the crowd roared in response and drowned her out, but the tune was a simple one, a well-known tavern ballad.

The man on the throne drew himself up, grinning stupidly.

"Hold a moment," Leoff said. "Can I hear a bit of this?"

Artwair shot him an ironic look. "You may as well have your introduction to the court, I suppose. The lady in green represents our good queen Muriele, I believe."

The man coughed, as if to clear his throat. Down among the musicians, a chorus of three men sang.

He is the King,Ha, ha, ha,He is the King,Tee, hee, heeWhat shall he do,Ha, ha, haTouched by the Saints,Tee, hee, hee The player broke off into the helpless laughter of an idiot and gamboled a bit while the chorus repeated its verse. A ridiculous figure in a huge hat joined the "king" in his dance.

"Our good king Charles," Artwair said wryly. "And his jester."

The instruments fell silent, and the player acting the king suddenly spoke what seemed to Leoff to be gibberish.

A sinister figure in black robes with a long, ridiculous goatee ran onto the stage. He fawned up to the queen. He did not sing, but spoke in a theatrical fashion that resembled chant.

"Let me interpret!" the black-robed figure cried. "Good Queen, your son has proclaimed, in the voice of the saints, that I should be given the whole of the kingdom. That I should be handed the keys to the city, that I should have leave to fondle your-"

The audience finished his sentence for him in a roar.

"Our beloved praifec Hespero," Artwair explained.

"What's this!" A group of three men dressed as ministers rushed up, tripping and bumbling into one another. Below them, a chorus began singing, Here, here are nobles threeWho claim the Praifec wrong, you seeCharles speaks in Fing, not Churchalees,And they say that his thoughts are these . . .

They paused, and the music changed meter, became a rather jolly dance.

Raise the taxes,Draw the gates,Bring them damsels, bring them cakesWar's a botherThey don't see,They are nobles foolish three!

The "nobles" covered their eyes, and the chorus began another verse as they capered around the queen.

"Our wise and beloved Comven," Artwair said.

The queen drew herself up in the midst of this.

"The Queen implores!" she chanted. "Is there no one to save us in our time of darkness?"

The chorus then launched into a song of loss and mourning for the queen's children, while she danced a pavane for the dead, and the other songs came back as counterpoint.

"Is that the sort of thing you compose?" Artwair asked.

"Not really," Leoff murmured, fascinated by the spectacle. "Is that the sort of thing that's common around here?"

"The lustspell lustspell? Auy, but it's a thing for the street, you understand. The common folk like it. The aristocracy pretends it doesn't exist-save when it goes too far in mocking them. Then the players might have a more tragic end to their play."

He glanced back at the singers. "We'd best move on."

Leoff nodded thoughtfully as Artwair spoke to the driver and the wagon creaked back to life, climbing through steadily wealthier neighborhoods.

"The people seem to have scant faith in their leaders," Leoff remarked, reflecting on the content of the tale.

"Times are hard," Artwair answered. "William was only a middling good king, but the kingdom was prosperous and at peace, and everyone liked him. Now he's dead, along with Elseny and Lesbeth, who were truly beloved. The new king, Charles-well, the portrayal you just saw of him was not unfair. He's a nice enough lad, but saint-touched.

"Our allies, even Lier, have turned against us, and Hansa threatens war. Demons come from the woodwork, refugees crowd the streets, and the marshwitches all foretell doom. People need a strong leader in times like this, and they don't have one." He sighed. "Would that unflattering portrayals of the court were the worst of it, but the guilds are up in arms, and I fear bread riots are not far away. Half the crops withered in the field the night of the purple moon, and the sea catch has been bad."

"What of the queen? You said she was strong."

"Auy. Strong and beautiful and as distant from her people as the stars. And she's Lierish, of course. In these times, with Liery making renegade noise, some don't trust her."

Leoff absorbed that. "The news from Broogh won't make things any better, will it?"

"Not a bit. But better than if Newland had been drowned." He clapped Leoff on the shoulder. "Worry not. After what you've done, we'll find you a stipend of some sort."

"Oh," Leoff said. He hadn't been thinking about his own worries.

The eyes of Broogh would not let him.

CHAPTER NINE.

PROPOSALS.

THE VIEW FROM THE throne was a long one, a vista of knifepoints and poison. throne was a long one, a vista of knifepoints and poison.

The buttresses of the greater hall rose like the massive, spreading trunks of trees into a pale haze of cold light coming from the high window slits. Above that smoky atmosphere lay another, deeper vault of darkness. Pigeons cooed and fluttered there, for they were impossible to keep out of the vast space, as were the cats that prowled behind the curtains and tapestries in search of them.

Muriele often wondered how such an immense space could feel so heavy heavy. It was as if-in entering the great bronze valves that were its entrance-one were transported so far beneath the earth that the very air itself became a sort of stone. At the same time, she felt perilously high, as if in stepping through one of the windows, she might find herself falling from a mountaintop.

It seemed like all the worst of Heaven and Hell were present in the symmetries of the place.

Her husband-the late King William-had seldom used the great hall, preferring the lesser court for his audiences. It was easier to heat, for one thing, and today the great hall was freezing.

Let them freeze, Muriele thought of the assembled faces. Let their teeth chatter Let their teeth chatter. Let pigeon shit fall upon their brocades and velvets. Let this place crush them down Let pigeon shit fall upon their brocades and velvets. Let this place crush them down.

Examining the people who had gathered before the throne, she hated them all. Someone-probably someone who was out there staring up at her now-had arranged or helped to arrange the murder of her children. Someone out there had killed her husband. Someone out there had left her with this this, a life of fear and grief, and as far as she was concerned, it might as well have been all of them.

Knifepoints and poison. Five hundred people, all wanting something from her, some wanting her very life.

A few of the latter were easy to spot. There was the pale face of Ambria Gramme, the black lace of mourning on her head, as if she she had been the queen and not merely the king's mistress. There was Ambria's eldest bastard, Renwald, dressed as a prince might dress. There were Gramme's three lovers from the Comven, pressed near as if to hold her up above the crowd, blissfully unaware-or perhaps uncaring-that each was cuckold to the other. had been the queen and not merely the king's mistress. There was Ambria's eldest bastard, Renwald, dressed as a prince might dress. There were Gramme's three lovers from the Comven, pressed near as if to hold her up above the crowd, blissfully unaware-or perhaps uncaring-that each was cuckold to the other.

Gramme would kill her in a heartbeat if she thought she could get away with it.

To Muriele's left stood Praifec Hespero in his black robes and square hat, hand lifted idly to stroke his narrow goatee, his eyes nearly unblinking as he absorbed each word around him and arranged them in his plans. What did he want? He played the friend, of course, the advocate, but those who had slain her daughters had worn churchly robes. They were said to have been renegade, but how could she take anything for granted?

And here, just approaching her feet, a new pack of dogs dressed in silk were crouching, peering at her, looking to see if her neck was exposed to their teeth. She wished she could have them killed out of hand, slaughtered like animals and fed to pigs.

But she could not. Truly, she had few weapons.

And one of them was her smile.

So she smiled at the leader of the pack and nodded her head, and to her left, her son on the emperor's throne copied her by nodding his head, indicating that the dog could rise from his bended knee and bark.

"Your Majesty," he said, speaking to her son, "it is pleasing to see you in good health."

Charles, the emperor-her son-widened his eyes. "Your cloak is pretty," he said.

It was indeed. The archgreft Valamhar af Aradal liked his clothes. The cloak her son so admired was an ivory-and-gold brocade worn over a doublet of sea green that matched the archgreft's eyes. It did not, however, match his florid pink face with its standing veins or his corpulent form.

His guard, in black-and-sanguine surcoats, were trimmer but no less garish.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," he said in a tone of absolute seriousness, ignoring the snickers, as if that were a perfectly reasonable response from an emperor.

But she saw the ridicule hiding in his eyes.

"Queen Mother," Aradal purred, bowing now to Muriele, "I hope I find you well."

"Very well indeed," Muriele said brightly. "It is always a pleasure to welcome our cousins from Hansa. Please convey my delight at your presence to your sovereign Marcomir."

Aradal bowed again. "In that I will not fail. I hope to convey more to him, however."

"Indeed," Muriele said. "You may convey my condolences on the recent death of the Duke of Austrobaurg. I believe the duke was a close friend to His Majesty."

Aradal frowned, very briefly, and Muriele watched him closely. Austrobaurg and her husband had died together on the windswept headland of Aenah in some sort of secret meeting. Austrobaurg was a Hansan vassal.

"That is most gracious, Your Majesty. The whole matter is as puzzling as it is tragic. Austrobaurg will be missed, as shall Emperor William and Prince Robert. I hope-as I know you hope-that the villains behind that atrocity will be brought soon to light."

As he said it, he cast a brief glance at Sir Fail de Liery. The corpses on the headland had been riddled by Lierish arrows.

Sir Fail purpled, but said nothing-which for him showed admirable and nearly unheard-of restraint.

Muriele sighed, wishing she still had Erren by her side. Erren would have known in an instant whether Aradal was concealing something. To Muriele he sounded sincere.

"There has been much regrettable loss of life, these past months," he continued, glancing back at Charles. He bowed. "Your Majesty, I know your time is valuable. I wonder if I might come directly to the point."

"So I command," Charles said, looking slightly aside at Muriele to see if he had spoken properly.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. As you well know, these are unsettling times in many other ways. Uncanny things walk in the night, terrible prophecies seem to be fulfilled. Tragedy looms everywhere, most terribly for your family."

My face is stone, Muriele told herself.

But even stone would melt if it contained her fury. She didn't know for certain who had arranged the slaughter of her husband and daughters, but there could be little doubt that Hansa was involved, despite the puzzle of Austrobaurg. Hansan kings had once sat the throne her son now occupied, and they never ceased dreaming of taking it back and placing it once more beneath their buttocks.

But if there was little doubt of their involvement, there was also little proof. So she did her best to keep her composure, but worried that she was not entirely succeeding.

"His Majesty sent me here to offer our friendship in these troubled times. We are all one beneath the eyes of the saints. We would hope to put any past unpleasantness behind us."

"It is a commendable gesture," Muriele said.

"My lord offers more than gesture, milady," Aradal said. He snapped his fingers, and one of his servants placed a box of polished rosewood in his hands. He bowed, and handed it toward Muriele.

"Surely that is meant for my son, archgreft," Muriele said.

"Present?" Charles mumbled.

"No, milady. It is for you. A token of affection."

"From King Marcomir?" she said. "A married man? Not too affectionate, I should hope."

Aradal smiled. "No, milady. It is from his son, Prince Berimund."

"Berimund?" She had last seen Berimund when he was five, and it didn't seem that long ago. "Little Berimund?" Berimund?"

"The prince is now twenty and three, Queen Mother."

"Yes, and so I could easily be his his mother," Muriele said. mother," Muriele said.

A chuckle went around the court at that. Aradal's face reddened.

"Milady-"

"Dear Aradal, I am only joking," she said. "Let us see what the prince has sent us."