GUILLAM BROUSSEUI: Sometimes it’s hard to get started.

  THE INTERROGATOR: Yes, you told me about it yesterday. Of all the details in your narrative, Monsieur Guillam Broussuei, I am least interested in the workings of your bladder.

  G: No, I mean: Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start telling a story.

  INT: Are you telling me a story, monsieur?

  G: I thought that’s what you wanted—the story of Sir Richard of Enderly.

  INT: I want the truth.

  G: Truth is just a particular story.

  INT: To the contrary; truth is the only narrative that is a story. I need you to tell me the truth, monsieur. When did you last see Sir Richard?

  G: I told you yesterday. It was at Hog Hurst, last June, after Fiond and I followed him south from Nipol Grotsvor.

  INT: Why didn’t you follow him after that?

  G: Perhaps Fiond did. I haven’t seen her since that day. The grayskins in the forest took me captive, and I lost his trail.

  INT: Would you like a cup of coffee, Monsieur Broussuei?

  G: Yes, please.

  INT: Guard. Coffee. One cup. Now, monsieur, I asked some questions of my colleagues after our last conversation. You have been away from Pour Vaille for several years, yes?

  G: Three years.

  INT: Then you may not be acquainted with the latest news from your family. I regret to inform you that Fenet Broussuei passed away this winter. My deepest condolences, monsieur. But she is at peace, and the rest of your family is not. Your son-in-law Henri was in the habit of gambling, and I’m sorry to say he has neither the luck nor the skill for this particular vice. He is presently in a debtor’s prison in Vallance, and it is my understanding that your daughter Feniette and granddaughter Marika have not made payments on their apartment for six months. They are in danger of eviction.

  G: You… you found all this in the space of one night?

  INT: Hardly. When Sir Richard first hired you, our station chief in Uellodon added you and the others in his company to our special intelligence program. Our organization has business contacts throughout the Neighbor Kingdoms, and so we are able to gather a great deal of information about individuals of interest. I had only to consult our local depository. My dispatches are a week old at present, but I rather doubt that Feniette Broussuei has paid back six months of rent in that time.

  G: Why should my family and I be of such interest?

  INT: You are of no interest whatsoever, but Sir Richard is a different matter. His family is one of the wealthiest and most powerful in Uelland, and Sir Richard himself has a well-documented claim to the throne through his mother’s line. You were his second; under the circumstances, the Uellodon office was entirely justified in investigating your background.

  G: Why are you telling me all this? What do you want from me?

  INT: I can send a pigeon to Pour Vaille tonight and have your daughter’s and granddaughter’s rent paid through the end of the year, along with a handsome pension. And I can have your son-in-law released from his debts—or, if you prefer, see that he is sent off to the labor camps in Broob. In short, Monsieur Sergeant Guillam Brousseui, I can be very helpful to you. Or I can do nothing, and leave you to rot in this cell, knowing that your family rots with you. I require only that you stop lying to me, and tell me the whole truth about Sir Richard.

  G: Why do you think I am lying to you?

  INT: On one point, at least, I am convinced you are telling me the truth: Your goal remains to follow Sir Richard and find a way to free him from what he has become. In light of that, consider this. You were caught by the Billies, attempting to sneak onto Farley Island from the river two nights ago. Green Bridge is a free city, and you could have simply walked over Three Fish Bridge during the day—but instead, you tried to enter by stealth. You fear someone or something in the city, but you nonetheless feel compelled to enter. Since your background reveals no particular connection to Green Bridge, there is only one person that could possibly motivate you: Sir Richard of Enderly. I conclude, therefore, that he is here, that you are still trying to reach him, and that you have been trying to hide both of these facts from me.

  G: I don’t know what you’re talking about, madame. Truly. I was starving, and had been wandering in the deep forest for weeks after escaping from the goblins. I crossed at night because I came to the river at night, and was desperate for food. Your policemen mistook me for a spy. If the captain is here, then I don’t know anything about it. I only want to leave and find a caravan to guard heading south for Brasse, and then I promise, madame, I will never trouble your city again.

  INT: Food, you shall have. And look, the coffee has arrived. But until you tell me the truth about Sir Richard, you will remain in this room, where you won’t trouble the Charter City in the slightest. Only, I may tire of wasting my breath with you, and delegate this interview to certain of my associates. They’re enthusiasts, my associates, and they’re sometimes careless about not breaking thumbs. They’ve been known to accidentally put my guests on the rack for hours at a time. Regrettable mistakes, as torture is strictly against company policy. But one must make allowances for inexperience. Enjoy the coffee, monsieur. I have other matters to attend to, but we’ll speak again soon.

  ???

  G: I’m ready to talk now.

  INT: What changed your mind?

  G: The iron maiden your men installed in the corner is most persuasive.

  INT: It really ties the room together, doesn’t it?

  G: What do you want to know?

  INT: Where is Sir Richard now?

  G: I swear to you, madame, that I do not know. But Fiond might.

  INT: Where is Fiond now?

  G: I don’t know.

  INT: The iron maiden is looking a bit lonely, don’t you think, monsieur? I believe she needs a companion.

  G: Wait! I don’t know where Fiond is. But I know where she’s been. You’re a smart woman; maybe you can work it out.

  INT: Make every word count, Monsieur Brousseui.

  G: I was with Fiond for many months after we escaped from the Temple of the Giant-Men—the first time. Under cover of night, she took me and the rest of the company up and out of the valley, and led us to a hunting cabin in a thick patch of forest to the north. It was the size of a barn—small in its proportions, by comparison with its owner. Fiond gave us food and saw to our wounds as best she could, though she is a warrior, not a healer. She had picked up a bit of Uellish from Sir Richard while he was a captive in the palace, and so we could communicate with each other in a basic way.

  I remember I asked her: “Why do you help us?” And she answered: “To help my friend.” That was enough answer for us then. It was our hope, too, that he lived, and that we could bring him back. I told her that, and it seemed to satisfy her. Over the next weeks, we practiced speaking Uellish, and she got better at it. I’d rather have taught her Brassen, but we only had time for one new language.

  INT: How long did you stay in the cabin?

  G: About six weeks. We used those weeks to rest and regain our strength, and I read the Captain’s diary many times over, hoping to find something useful.

  INT: What is in the diary?

  G: I told you all I can remember of his story yesterday. When I was done reading it and memorizing as much as I could, I made a note at the end and gave it, with the Captain’s sword, to Harold the Horse, Gilward, and Wognut. They drew the short straws to take the sword and book back to Uellodon, as the Captain had made us swear to do. It was a scene to rend the heart, madame, as they left. The two groups wept, knowing they would likely never see each other again. But the Captain had made us swear an oath, and we couldn’t break it. I do not know if the three men still live, or ever made their way back to Uelland.

  During those six weeks, too, we watched the comings and goings of the Giant-men from their Temple. There was a little wooded ledge in the cliff directly above the entrance, and we could place one or two men there in relative safety. We took it in turns to observe their guard patterns. Fiond, too, helped us with what she knew of their customs.

  INT: Did you see anything useful?

  G: So we thought. From time to time, the Giant-men gather up all the babies and children from the city and its hinterland and bring them into the Temple. They arrive in large wagons. Most are infants, but occasionally there are older children. Fiond tells me that some of the parents try to hide their young ones from the soldiers who come around to gather them up, and it happens now and then that they come on a group of juveniles who’ve been hidden away.

  INT: Why do they do this?

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  G: Because they don’t age as we do. They can be killed, though it’s damned hard. Their bodies are nearly perfect once they grow up—strong, tough, beautiful, never sick, never diseased. And they don’t grow old and die. They just go on, and on. Fiond told me she’d seen over a thousand winters, and King Vekelm has ruled nearly two thousand. Officially, the children are taken to the Temple to see which ones are fit to be priests and serve the Kapleswed. But none of them ever come out, and Fiond said that really it’s a way to control the size of the population. The land around Nipol Grotsvor can only support so many Giant-men. What happens to the kids who don’t make the cut, I don’t like to think.

  INT: I’m having trouble taking this seriously, monsieur.

  G: It’s the truth! I have no reason to lie to you about this. I saw the carts full of babies and children with my own eyes. And that, we thought, was our way in. Fiond used her authority as the King’s niece to get one of the carts, and we planned to make ourselves out as a gang of young Giant-men. We loaded in one night, dressed ourselves up in their clothes, and Fiond press-ganged a couple of the lower sort of Giant-men into pulling us.

  It worked out pretty well at first. Fiond knew what to say to the guards at the temple entrance, and they unloaded us and herded us inside. She couldn’t come with us, though. Females aren’t allowed in. They handed us off to other priests, who began to march us deeper inside. When we pulled out our weapons, they were surprised, and we swarmed over the ones who were walking with us, and cut them down. We hid their bodies in a little room, and made our way down toward the cells where we’d been imprisoned before.

  INT: You didn’t meet any other Giant-men? That seems improbable.

  G: Lady luck smiled on us, madame.

  INT: What have I told you about lying, monsieur? The iron maiden still awaits.

  G: I have no desire to visit the inside of that particular maiden. I swear that what I tell you is true. The number of priests inside the temple is relatively small, compared to its size. We were careful, and moved in small groups, and avoided any encounters. At least—we did, until we reached the jails. And then it wasn’t a Giant-man we met.

  INT: Who was it?

  G: It was the Captain. Or else, it was something that used to be the Captain. He was there in the dark, waiting for us, like some hunting beast. He knew we would be there; must have seen us in the upper levels and gone down to set a trap. The first we saw of him was a tall human figure swinging at us with a long staff, smashing it on the heads of the nearest men with just enough force to knock them out. Only, when we got a good look at him, we saw that metal face that he wears now. No eyes, no mouth, no nose—can’t imagine how he sees or breathes. But he saw and moved well enough to bring down half the men before we realized what we were facing.

  We knew him by his shape, and his long blonde hair. And the men wouldn’t fight him. They tried to parry his blows, but wouldn’t swing back. We pleaded with him and begged him to stop, but he said nothing; just kept knocking down the men. When it was just me and two others, I ran. I’m not proud of it, madame, but I couldn’t stand to face him, and couldn’t stand to go back to those cells. So I ran as the other men fell, up and out, and escaped from the temple again. I went back to the little hunting cabin, where Fiond found me the next morning.

  INT: Were you the only one to escape?

  G: As far as I know, that’s right. I haven’t seen a single one of my men since then.

  INT: What did you and Fiond do after your rescue failed?

  G: Fiond kept on going to court. I’d only see her at the cabin every few days. I stayed inside, too afraid to go out for fear of meeting one of the other Giant-men. She would come back when she could, and give me news. It was from her that I learned that the Captain had turned up outside the Temple, and taken over as the power behind King Vekelm’s throne.

  INT: How did he do that?

  G: He must have made some kind of deal with the priests. Maybe also with Vekelm’s son, Prince Moro. All Fiond could tell me was that he was suddenly at court, metal face and all, giving orders and commanding the absolute obedience of any Giant-man he encountered.

  INT: Fiond was close with Sir Richard, you said. Didn’t she try to speak with him to learn more?

  G: She told me she didn’t dare approach him, but kept well out of his way. She was afraid he’d give her an order, she said. If they ever did meet, she didn’t tell me about it.

  INT: Either she was lying to you then, our you’re lying to me now.

  G: If there are any lies in this story, madame, they are not mine.

  INT: Go on.

  G: I stayed there in the cabin all winter, living on what Fiond brought me to eat. I confess to you, madame, that all hope left me. I’d failed to rescue the Captain, I’d gotten the whole company captured again, and here I was, alone in a distant land with just one friend—and that one I didn’t know well, despite our time together. Fiond was very closed off about herself, and warmed up to me only slowly.

  INT: You must have seemed as a child to her, if, as you say, she was over a thousand years old.

  G: Not was; is. I’m sure she’s still alive.

  INT: What did Sir Richard do at King Vekelm’s court?

  G: To hear Fiond tell it, quite a lot. He set about organizing the supplies and logistics for a massive military campaign. It seems he meant to mobilize nearly the entire adult population of the Giant-men. He had new weapons and armor forged, and reorganized and retrained their entire military, incorporating civilians into the ranks. What he means to do with that army, I don’t know, and don’t like to think. But it was only a small force that he took with him in the spring. About a thousand.

  INT: Where did he go in the spring?

  G: I learned from Fiond in early April that he was planning to leave Nipol Grotsvor with Prince Moro and a host of their most elite warriors. We talked it over, and agreed that we should follow. Maybe there would be some way for us to sneak into their camp and hustle the Captain out, then pry that metal thing off his face. We didn’t know if that would work, but it seemed the likeliest thing to try.

  It was mid-April when they left; the fifteenth, near as I can make it, though my count of days had gotten confused. The company marched out of the city, and the Giant-men lined up to watch them go. It was strangely quiet. There was no cheering or hollering, like we would do for an army going off to war.

  INT: Did the Giant-women line up to see them leave as well?

  G: I just said that.

  INT: You keep referring to them as Giant-men. You use the term imprecisely, as is the custom in Uellish and Brassen. “Giant-men,” like “men,” could refer to both sexes as a species, or only to the males as individuals. I’ve always found it irritating; if a man is a man, tell me he is a man, and if a woman is a woman, tell me she is a woman. It would be helpful if you could avoid ambiguity, monsieur.

  G: Anything I can do to be helpful, madame. The Giant-people lined up to watch the army depart, and the Giant-people were strangely silent.

  INT: God’s tits, that’s even worse. Can’t we just call them giants?

  G: But in the folktales they’re always called “Giant-men.” “Giants” could be confused with particularly large humans. You asked for precision, madame.

  INT: Forget it. Call them whatever you like. Scribe, record Monsieur Brousseui’s words exactly, and if I later decide to put him in the maiden, we’ll add a minute for each time he’s used the term “Giant-men.”

  THE SCRIBE (in Uellish): Yes, Miss Snipe.

  INT: Where did Sir Richard and his small army of very large people go after they left Nipol Grotsvor?

  G: They went underground, almost immediately. There was a broad, wide cave opening in the plateau near the city, and they descended into it. Fiond and I followed at a distance. Once underground, I had no idea where we were, but Fiond seemed to know the way. She told me that the Giant-men maintain a system of underground highways throughout their realm, stretching far into the wilderness beyond. It was one of these highways that our party found by accident in Shelter Valley. And indeed, it was this path that the host took.

  They moved swiftly in the dark tunnel, and Fiond had to carry me on her back to keep up with them. I could not run fast enough for us to stay close to the host. Each night we would creep up to their pickets, then creep back, afraid of being seen. We spent nervous dark days in the tunnels, talking little, never daring to light a fire or a lantern. We lived on dried and salted meat that Fiond had brought with us, as well as a hard, tacky bread that any seasoned campaigner will know well and despise. Fortunately, the Giant-men keep cisterns at regular distances along the way, and we could drink.

  I asked her one night why she was following the host with me, and why she had helped me. Her Uellish had gotten better by then, and she could explain herself more fully.

  “There is an ancient rot in our people and our land,” she said—I’m paraphrasing you understand, madame, so you don’t think I’m just making this up—“and I believed Richard could be its cure. The rot has him now, but I will not give up my hope. And I will not give up on him.”

  I saw it clear as day, as you must also see it, madame. So I asked her: “Do you love him?” She did not answer me, in the dark, but I took that to be a yes. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth about Sir Richard, for fear that in her anger she might leave me alone in that forsaken tunnel.

  INT: I’m well aware of Sir Richard of Enderly’s preferences. The secret is not so well kept as he and the King pretend.

  G: Well, then you know why I didn’t want to disabuse this pining giantess of her illusions. So I shut my mouth, and we followed in the dark.

  I realized where we had been going once we reached the great open space with the three trees. It’s the same place I told you about yesterday; giant, ancient old trees growing underground, reaching up to a light far above. And old, rotting machines. The whole place smells of rust. Fiond and I couldn’t tell what they were doing among the old machines, but they were busy from dawn to dusk and beyond.

  Then one day we felt a great humming and throbbing in the ground, and both Fiond and I withdrew further away from the host. There was a terrible roar, a cry of some angry beast that made my blood feel like acid in my veins. It roared for some time, and then grew distant. When we dared to approach again, the host had moved on, and we followed.

  INT: Did you ever find out what made the noise?

  G: I did not, madame.

  INT: Just as well. It would make your story even less credible. Go on; where did Sir Richard and his army go after they left the chamber with the trees?

  G: They returned to the surface at the very same place we had previously entered, in Shelter Valley. I’ve always wondered if the Captain recognized it. In his new form, I couldn’t read his face at all. The main body of the army went east from there, and I don’t know where they got to. But Sir Richard and a much smaller group went on south, and these we followed. There were perhaps a dozen of them.

  INT: Where did they go?

  G: To Hog Hurst. I crept close by, alone, and saw Sir Richard as he was walking across the river.

  INT: Wait. You said this happened in June. The Green is open by late April every year. There’s no way he could have walked across the ice.

  G: I didn’t say he walked across the ice. I said he walked across the river.

  INT: On top of the water? On liquid water?

  G: Yes. He and all his company walked right across it, like it was made of thick glass.

  INT: Scribe, make a note that I am having Guillam Brousseui placed in the iron maiden.

  G: No! No madame! It’s true, as I live and breathe! I swear by God and by my father and my freedom and whatever else you want me to swear by! He walked across the water! I could have told you just now that he swam it, or found a boat, and you wouldn’t be angry with me. But I tell you, he and his whole company walked across the water. Why would I lie about this?

  INT: Your logic is inescapable. You have nothing to gain by lying. And I’ve seen things in the last nine months at least as strange as a man with a face made entirely of metal walking across the Green River with a party of Giant-men. Now tell me, monsieur, when did you last see Sir Richard? And if you tell me it was at Hog Hurst, this interview will be concluded.

  G: It was not at Hog Hurst that I last saw Sir Richard. I was captured by the grayskins shortly after he walked across the river, but that was not the last time I saw him. I am sorry I deceived you before.

  INT: You didn’t deceive me. When did you last see him? And where is he now?

  G: I saw him two nights ago, on the west bank of the Green River. We spoke, briefly. And he is now in this very city. I do not know where, exactly.

  INT: What is Sir Richard of Enderly—or whatever he is—doing in Green Bridge?

  G: He is going to assassinate Queen Anne and burn Green Bridge to the ground.

  INT: Scribe, come with me. Monsieur Brousseui, we will return.

  THE SCRIBE : Yes ma’am.

  INT: Bring him another coffee, and whatever other food or comforts he desires. Certain matters have arisen that require my attention, but I’ll be back later today. And put the iron maiden back in the warehouse with the other junk.

  S: You know that thing’s an anachronism, don’t you? It was fabricated by Albert Flogpenny to sell tickets to his torture museum. It’s never actually been used.

  INT: I’m well aware of that, Mr. Miller. But our guest isn’t. Take care of matters here and meet me at Bastings Hall. We need to get Anne out of the city immediately. And Miller—you can stop taking notes now.