“My black thorn bush,” their father had often called Barrick, alluding to the colors the boy had worn ever since he was old enough to choose his own clothing. “Fit to lash the fiercest penitent’s back,” Olin had gently mocked.

Had her father always known the curse he had passed on to his younger son? It was painful to think about it—not the thing itself, their shared ailment, although that was terrible enough, but the fact that her twin and her beloved father had conspired to keep this thing secret from her. It made all Briony’s other memories seem suspect or outright false. At best they felt shallow now, as though her entire childhood, her life, had been nothing more than something devised by her family to keep her busy while the real matters of importance were being settled.

Each thought of her lost brother and father carried enough pain that the gods would have forgiven her for trying never to think of either of them again. And yet, of course, she did think of them, and suffered anew when she did so, which was at least once in almost every hour of every single day.

As they reached the lake lands near the Syannese border the road wound between the fens and across the ridges of the tiny principality of Tyrosbridge, and Makewell’s Men went several days without encountering a town or even a village large enough to be worth mounting a performance. They were short of food and drink, so, on a large farmstead just inside the border of Syan they earned themselves a few meals and a few night’s dry lodging by helping the landowner to repair his old lambing pen and sheepfold and to build a new lambing house and several new walls around his pasture land as well. The work of carrying and stacking stones was hard, the day cold and wet, but the company was good, and to Briony’s surprise she found herself feeling almost happy.

But what kind of life is this when our family’s throne has been stolen? Up to my knees in mud like a peasant, hands red and sore, struggling in the rain to prop up a stone wall, doing nothing to save my family or get revenge on the Tollys. Still, they had reached Syan, the first of her destinations, and she had to admit it was a relief to deal with only what stood just in front of her, to think about nothing but the action of the moment. Most of the people of her kingdom worked this hard every day, she realized. No wonder they flocked to see the players. And no wonder they grew restive in hard times, when their lives were already so hard! If she ever regained her throne she would have all her courtiers join her in building sheepfolds in the dampest, most chill pasture she could find.

She laughed out loud, startling huge, kind Dowan Birch.

“Blood of the Three, boy!” he swore. “I thought I dropped a stone on you and crushed you, a noise like that.”