The Barrow (13 page)

Behind him, Guizo wheezed and laughed.

Gilgwyr stood beneath the arches of the Forum's arcade, breathing heavily and watching the sea of people flow past.
By the gods we're fucked
, he thought. He thought of turning to another Prince of the Guild, perhaps to Bad Mowbray or the Gilded Lady, to see if there was a way he could appeal to the entire Court, but in his heart he knew there was no way around it. He wondered when the decision had been made, and why no one had told him directly, and he grew even angrier;
they've been watching and waiting, waiting for me to come to them, just to see me twist in the wind
. He toyed with the notion that Guizo might have just been spinning the tale out of spite because of that last botched job, but he knew that was just false hope, as no sane man would ever lie about the rulings of the Princes and expect to live, not even one of the Princes themselves. No, better to abandon any thought of a Guild crew on this barrow run, he knew, and instead start thinking of the independents that worked in the margins of the city, scratching their living out on the scraps and leavings of the Guild.
Better that way anyway
, he rationalized;
less quality, but more control
. He'd have to move fast, however. Now that he'd been told, word would start to trickle down that the Guild had blacklisted Black-Heart, and then everyone would want to say no.

And so Gilgwyr launched himself into the flowing crowds on the Promenade, trying in his mind to sort out whom to ask first. Their old friend Jonas the Grey and his crew would probably say yes, but Harvald didn't like Jonas very much, too much history there. Tyrius and his Hooded Men had broken up the month before, squabbling over the spoils of a minor robbery. The Temple Street Irregulars had just been jailed, the entire lot of them, for raping the daughter of a minor spice merchant; since the merchant was not particularly wealthy and had no noble patron, Gilgwyr wondered if perhaps a few coins in the right hands at the City Watch could get them sprung. There was that Amoran crew over in the Foreign Quarter that did good work, under Rafaelas Huelas, but they'd never been outside the city before. Pellas, perhaps, fresh from his robbery of the Baron of Chesterton? The gutter rats that belonged to Jon Deering down by Old South Road? Red Rob Asprin's men, themselves already blacklisted by the Guild?

As the honor roll of the city's worst ran through Gilgwyr's head, he pressed through the jostling throng, his mind divided between finding just the right name and gleefully devising ways to murder Stjepan Black-Heart. He thought of the beautiful dreams he'd been having, and the feeling of a young Templar's sweet lips on his cock.
Today is a great day, a blessed day
, he thought to himself,
and soon will come the best day of all
.

And he whistled jauntily while he walked, his codpiece bright red and bulging.

Today will be a day like any other
, Annwyn thought.
A day in which I will pray to die, and yet will live
. She looked at the candle-lit reflection in her finely polished mirror and would have wept, had the last of her tears not left her years ago.

The beauty for which she'd once been famous had not been drained from her face with her tears; if anything, she might have been even more beautiful than when she was younger. Smooth, pale alabaster skin that had not seen direct sun in years; straight golden hair like silk, being pulled back and worked into a bun by her handmaidens; full pale lips, wet and glistening. She wore no rouge or powder. Her beauty was not marred by the overwrought efforts that other women took to improve upon what the gods had given them, and so perhaps for that reason the gods had rewarded her by making her beauty seemingly impossible to improve upon. Her clear blue eyes were the only things to tarnish her looks, being, as poets and bards had long ago declared, the so-called windows to the soul; for as her soul was dead, so too were her eyes.

Not that that mattered much in the minds of men when they had the now-rare opportunity to look upon her, for she had always found that most men looked at the surface of a woman and rarely looked inside. She was hardly the first to think that, and she knew she would not be the last. But the very predictability of their stares and banality of their pleasant compliments came down on her like a crushing weight, made her feel like she was drowning; and so even if she had been allowed to step outside the doors to her father's house on her own, she would not have done so willingly.

Had she been allowed to lie in bed all day, and simply wait to die, she would have gladly done so. But since her mother was herself long dead, Annwyn was now the Lady of the house, with a myriad of small duties to attend to and a household to run. And so that morning she allowed her handmaidens to rouse her from her bed before the coming of the Dawn Maiden, and dress her in her daily mourning clothes: first a silk shift and hose as her undergarments, then a plain black petticoat, and finally a long full-length dress of black brocade silk. For footwear, the more daring fashion of the moment in Therapoli was for thickly heeled shoes and boots, a style imported from decadent and censured Palatia, and once upon a time she might have enjoyed the sense of danger; but only once upon a time, and all she had were flat black shoes to choose from. The fashion for the upper garment was still either the square-cut or arched front bodice; amongst the younger and more fashionable, the cut would come quite low, exposing what cleavage was available to show. But Annwyn wore a black velvet brocaded bodice that buttoned clear up to her chin, with hanging half-sleeves over a black silk shirt, and was thus more in the style of the conservative women of the Hemapoline League of Cities across the
Mera Argenta
.

Her handmaidens dressed in imitation of her, when in her presence. She knew that when they went out on errands without her most of them changed into more fashionable bodices and higher heels, particularly the youngest of them, Henriette and Ilona, both unmarried and hopeful for husbands. Well, almost all of them except Malia Morwin, the oldest and closest of her handmaidens and the sole Danian girl in her personal service, who had seemingly chosen a life of spinsterhood. Malia always wore a high-buttoned bodice in the style of her mistress no matter whether she was in Annwyn's presence or not.
Lady Annwyn's Widows
, she knew that they were sometimes called, particularly when on the rare occasion she had to accompany her father or her brothers on some duty about the city, and brought her full entourage. She supposed they were quite the sight to the twittering mocking birds of the High King's Court.

When she was finally dressed and presentable as Annwyn Aliss Orwain, only daughter of Baron Leonas Orwain of Araswell, she and her handmaidens descended in the dark to the first floor of the great tower house, to the household shrine to their ancestors and the Divine King. Once upon a time, when the household was in its full power, almost a hundred members of the household staff would have awaited her arrival; but now, with the family out of favor in the years after the scandal, just under forty were left. Her father and two of her older brothers, Conrad and Leon, were unexpectedly out in the field with the Grand Duke Owen Lis Red, Crown Prince Edrick, and King Colin of Dainphalia, somewhere on the Plain of Gavant, and were not expected back in the city for weeks, not until before the Feast of Herrata. Campaign season and tourney season were not yet upon them, but once the first of spring had come, they had lit out for the plains to shake off the winter doldrums and prepare for the duties of the coming summer, and brownnose with those who would still entertain their presence. When she had been younger, she would have accompanied them, for all sorts of girlish reasons, but she did not ever think upon those lovely days now.

Archpriest Oslac, the highest Divine King priest of their baronial canton, held his duties to be at their household temple in their country estates at Araswell, as was good and proper, and so remained there even when her father was in Therapoli. Instead he sent one of his assistants, Theodras the Learned, to serve as her father's personal priest and advisor when he was away from Araswell, and Theodras had left with him for the Plain of Gavant. Once upon a time they would have had more priests to go around, but the scandal had made it much harder to keep the posts filled. Her eldest brother, Arduin, was left in charge of the household and the family's affairs at the High King's Court, but she knew he would not appear for the morning prayers, while her second eldest brother, Albrecht, held the family's home castle at Araswell with his knights. And as for her younger brother, Harvald, well, she had not seen him for weeks, and she cared not at all to find out where he was hiding himself.

So that left it to her as lady of the house to lead the morning rites. There in the shrine she lit candles and made libations to Islik, the Divine King of Heaven, and to Ami the Morning Star, the Dawn Maiden who would soon herald the sun's arrival. She offered prayers for the health and safety of Awain Gauwes Urfortian, High King of the Middle Kingdoms, King of Atallica, Dragon King of Therapoli, Seated King of the Sun Court, True Vassal of the Divine King, and for his Court and household. She offered prayers for the health and safety of her father and brothers, and to the memory of her beloved mother. She offered prayers and libations to the noble ancestors of her family, a storied Aurian lineage that could be traced back to the very shield-thanes of the household of King Orfeydda himself, conqueror of this great city; a prouder lineage, in some ways, than even that of the High King, who was not descended of Orfeydda or his household, as her father was sometimes proud to point out. Over a thousand years ago her ancestors had been amongst the first to step foot on the Gift of Heth, the Aurian name for the eastern shore of the Middle Kingdoms, and bring fire and sword first to the eastern Danians and then to the Athairi. Things were gladly different in the present age, of course, and now Aurian, Danian, Athairi, and Maecite Kings and nobles and their subjects all lived peaceably, side by side, united under the High King.

If she wanted to add another name to her prayers, she gave no sign, but everyone in the shrine knew she wished to, and as all that still remained in their household all loved her, their hearts broke for her when hers could not.

And when her duties in the shrine were finally done, she dispatched the household to begin their own. The windows of the first floor were thrown open, and the slowly brightening light of dawn allowed to enter into the dark house. The kitchens on the ground floor began to hum and crackle with the preparations for the morning meal and the stoking of the cooking fires, and soon the smell of baking bread was wafting through the house. Groomsmen tended to the horses in the rear stables, and lit the fires and braziers in the first floor great hall. The floors were swept, and fresh rushes strewn about to freshen the scent. The squires were dispatched upstairs to prepare the clothes of her brother and the knights of the household that still remained. And then slowly one by one those same worthies arrived in the great hall to take their seats and break their nightly fasts, with those of the knights that were married joining their wives from amongst the household and her handmaidens at their tables. Finally her brother arrived and set himself at the head table, and many of the rest of the household then sat down at their places, and though others still bustled about the house on their duties the meal finally commenced: bread and pastries with butter and olive oil for dipping, hard and soft cheeses, roasted chestnuts and hazelnuts with dried figs, fresh oranges and pears, Danian
tourtels
(herbed egg-and-spinach tarts that had become quite popular amongst their Aurian overlords), and poached eggs in a savory mushroom sauce.

Had her father been present, she would have been expected to take her place at the head table between him and her brother Arduin; but she gave silent thanks whenever he was abroad in the field, as that allowed her to claim her duties drew her elsewhere, and Arduin at least never pressed her. She ate sparingly, and alone, as was her wont, in a small room off the kitchens that served as her day chamber while the meal was being prepared for everyone else.