He was watching for her outside the room where the chroniclers worked, holding the keys in his hand. He frowned at Whaki and Vaki accompanying her, but did not voice a protest. Ciellō took up a post outside the door.
Cerúlia gasped when she entered the library. It was cool and airy. The water feature—water streaming inside two panes of glass—provided a soothing, continual play of shadows from the hot sun. From floor to ceiling she saw heavy volumes, each embossed with the name of a queen. She walked slowly through the space, her first finger sliding over the books’ spines in wonderment.
A chest-high podium and stool sat in the middle of the room, and a slim new volume had been set out on the small flat surface. It had her name on it. Cerúlia turned the pages idly. Here was the Royal Announcement of her birth. Next came a description of the Water Ceremony of her Naming. Sewel had penned a description of the day he had failed to Define her Talent. Then many pages had been left blank; but the book resumed on the day of her Dedication, and the pages thereafter were filled with her recent decisions and proclamations.
Sewel, standing quietly beside her, interrupted her quick scan of her own life. “Your Majesty, one of my most urgent duties is to fill in the pages of your exile. Will you give me permission to interview Lady Stahlia, Lady Percia, Duke Naven, and others who knew you before your return? And of course, yourself? It is most important to keep good records, especially of your Talent, to guide future queens.”
“Of course,” she answered absently. “Though it may be hard to find the time.”
“Here”—Sewel produced a very aged-looking volume and laid it gently down on a small table—“is the Chronicle of Queen Carlina, the only other Gryphling in our history. I trust you will find reading it very revealing. And it will convince you of the crucial role of our record keeping.”
Cerúlia gasped at the notion that she was actually not the first queen with this Talent.
“And here,” Sewel said, pulling down a newer-looking volume from a nearby shelf, “is the Chronicle of Queen Cressa. You will want to read this, I’m sure.”
“Oh, yes,” said Cerúlia, grabbing her mother’s volume to her chest. “Oh, yes, I’d like to know more about my mother.”
“I will leave you in privacy, then,” said Sewel, bowing. “Should you desire a repast, the table in this corner is situated at a bit of a distance to keep food away from the books. Just tell your man when you are hungry. And I will be in my office next door, should I be able to be of any further service.”
Cerúlia sat down in an upholstered chair near the water window. The dogs stretched out on the floor beside her with dramatic exhalations. She read about her mother’s birth and childhood, her Definition as an Enchanter, her trips to Lortherrod, and her engagement to Seamaster Ambrice. She read on about her mother’s sudden assumption of the throne. Hereafter the entries grew more numerous and detailed, chronicling her governing decisions, which Cerúlia would have to study in more detail later. And every twenty pages or so, first Rowatag and then Sewel had transcribed her mother’s thoughts.
The transcriptions of her mother’s voice particularly gripped her. Cerúlia read her mother’s words of pride over her healthy daughter; her growing suspicions of Matwyck; and her feelings of isolation and loneliness, except for the company of Nana and the loyalty of one councilor, Belcazar.
Cerúlia found the flood of information overwhelming. She ordered midmeal and took a break, thoughtfully drinking her tisane and conversing a little with the dogs.
These papers tell me about my mother, she told them.
Didst thou have a mother? asked Whaki.
Yes. I loved her. She loved me, she told the dogs.
Vaki sent, We love thee too, Your Majesty. His tail began to wag vigorously. Dost thou nay wish to leave here? This room reeks of animal skin and dust. Come smell the grass outside with us? Sunshine on thy back feels good.
Not just yet, Vaki. If you are bored, I can send you outside.
Vaki took crumbs from her fingers. Whaki approached, looking expectant. She gave them both the rest of her meat, then the dogs settled down to sleep again. Vaki snored.
Cerúlia turned back to her mother’s chronicle. She read:
This morning I received a very troubling missive from Oromondo claiming that a shipment of rice we traded was poisoned. The letter was full of threats. My councilors are dismissive of the danger, except for Belcazar. Belcazar feels that we must prepare for war.
Prepare for war! I am no warrior queen. My Talent for Enchantment is so undeveloped. Tonight I have perused the chronicles of other Enchanters, and I have hope that my Talents may grow as the need arises, though I hardly see how I can defeat our enemies from without or even my enemies within the palace. How I wish Ambrice were in port!
Whatever happens, I must protect Cerúlia.
The Waters of Life flow, and each of us rides along the current for but a little while. Yet we take comfort in knowing that the Waters will forever flow on. In Ambrice’s and my case—in Weirandale’s case—Cerúlia is our contribution to continuity. Every step I take in the next perilous days must take as its compass point the need to protect and shelter her.
At the worst, this may mean that I must separate from her, drawing danger away from my cub. To do this would shatter my heart. Ofttimes for the good of the country we must sacrifice our heart’s desires.
The last pages of the Chronicle of Queen Cressa were filled with Sewel’s account of the attempted assassination, her flight, broadsheet reports of her mustering of the Allied Fleet and her battle against the Pellish pirates. Sewel closed the volume with two documents: first, his own eyewitness account of the day the Dedication Fountain temporarily ceased to flow, signaling Queen Cressa’s death; second, a copy of “The Lay of Queen Cressa” that Matwyck had commissioned upon her death.
One of the things I’d most like to do, Cerúlia said to the dogs, is get the real story of my mother’s last five years and her defeat by the Pellish. My uncle Mikil would be the best source for that information. Then I will order this lay rewritten—deleting all the tired clichés. My mother’s life was heroic enough without embellishment.
Whaki lifted his head and stared at her, indicating that he was paying attention even though he couldn’t follow the import of her words.
Though her bravest act transpired in a little cottage in Wyndton one rainy night, an act for which she will never get the credit she deserves because it was a private loss, not a public battle.
The dogs got up and paced around, ostentatiously sniffing at nothing, and suddenly Cerúlia too wanted to leave this room, so crowded with history and ghosts—this room that one day would hold her own life, trapped within vellum. But just out of curiosity, she opened the volume about Queen Carlina.
This slim book was different. Carlina’s chronicler was not so assiduous—fewer pages were in his or her handwriting. Also, it was filled with Carlina’s own drawings, which were all of animals. A rabbit nibbling in a vegetable garden. A raccoon scratching its back. A cat sleeping in the sun. Each animal was named, and Carlina had written a phrase about its personality. Interspersed among the pages she saw many pictures of a small pig, white with black splotches, with shining eyes and an upturned nose. Captions, in a childish hand, said, “Muffin likes peas,” “Muffin is my best friend,” and later, accompanying a sketch of a Cici-sized pig, “Muffin rooted up the herb garden today, and Mummy was very mad.”
Midway through, when the queen had grown older, she had drawn pictures of people, but she had drawn them to resemble animals. A councilor looked rather like a mule. A suitor resembled a crafty fox. She gave her consort the features of a bull.
Cerúlia laughed out loud, but she was also disturbed. Carlina’s Talent had blurred the line between humans and animals.
Was she happy with a bull for a husband? And she draws her daughter as a piglet. A darling piglet, but a piglet just the same.
“Ciellō is right,” she said out loud to the dogs, startling th
em awake. They looked at her with their ears pricked up. “You are dogs—all right, yes, lovely dogs, my wonderful dogs—but dogs just the same. In many ways it is easier to get along with you than to sort out messy relationships with people.
“But since I am condemned to be human, I must try harder.”
31
The Honor of Your Presence Is Requested
At a Harvest Day Fest
At Which the Realm Will Acclaim Weirs and Treasured Allies
Who Joined Queen Cressa the Enchanter
In Battles against Pexlia and Oromondo,
And at Which the Realm Will Celebrate
The Safe Return Of Those Unjustly Confined
And
The Restoration of the Nargis Queen
(Fashioned by Lemle of Wyndton)
32
Alpetar
Sent by Saulė’s Mirror, Peddler stood on the end of the dock in Tar’s Basin, waiting for Gunnit’s ship to tie up at the rickety wharf. His spirits rose at the sight of the boy’s snub nose and wide grin; he missed him more than he had realized.
The general store, Everything You Desire, doubled as a tavern, though the space was small and crowded. Gunnit sat on a cask, and strings of peppers and herbs hung from the ceiling. Over their meal of mutton stew, Gunnit told Peddler about his adventures with the Nargis heir and Water Bearer, while in turn Peddler conveyed that Gunnit’s family and friends in Cloverfield prospered. He had reassured them that Gunnit was hale and coming home soon, and though Dame Saggeta looked daggers at him, his mother’s face had lit up. Addigale was walking now, and Limpett seemed more confident with Kiki at his side.
After the meal, Peddler suggested they enjoy the bathhouse. Fortunately, the sailors had already moved on, so they had the place to themselves and could continue their confidential conversations. The wooden building smelled of soap and the cedar shavings used to feed the coals that heated the water. As they undressed, the older man noticed a chain now hung around Gunnit’s neck.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Gunnit pulled it forward and squinted down his nose so he could see it too. “This was a leave-taking present from the queen and Water Bearer. Underneath this little gold token—it’s a cat face, see? I think it’s supposed to be a catamount—there’s a glass vial, see? And inside the vial is one swallow of Nargis Water. Nana said that if I or someone I love is sick unto death, I should crack the glass and give them the water and it will revive them!”
“Whoa!” said Peddler. “That’s a gift worthy of a king. Keep it safe, lad.”
“I will,” said Gunnit, carefully laying it with his clothes so as not to take it in the bathwater. “It’s funny that for a shepherd boy with nothing to my name, I now have two pieces of gold jewelry!”
As they washed and soaked, Peddler explained the state of the Sun Spirit’s chosen realm.
The Oro refugees from Femturan, spread across a series of five camps established down the length of the Trade Corridor, had now occupied Alpetar for a year and a half. Peddler had done everything he could to ameliorate the harm the Oros wreaked. Their presence, always an affront and intrusion, had become intolerable when the bored soldiers began ranging afield, raiding more hamlets. They pillaged, raped, and took slaves, causing suffering in Saulė’s chosen land. Peddler desperately wanted to push the invaders back into their home country.
Alpetar had no army, and many of the men who might have been able to resist had died in Oro slave camps. So Peddler didn’t have any ideas of how to force this retreat, but he hoped that now that he had been reunited with his apprentice, together they would come up with a plan.
After the bath, Peddler said his goodbyes to the folk of Tar’s Basin, hitched Aurora up to his wagon, and the two of them jingled their way along the High Road.
When the strategy came to them, it arrived—as most blessings did—from Saulė.
One evening two days later, Peddler was consulting Saulė’s Mirror (which steadfastly refused to show him anything but his own reflection), when a yellow jacket landed on the glass surface. Peddler impatiently swept the insect away, but it stung him in the forearm.
“Ouch!” he shouted.
“What happened?” asked Gunnit.
Peddler showed him the sting, already starting to puff, and Gunnit commented, “During our travels on the High Road, wasps almost killed Sheleen when she stepped on a nest. They may be small, but they pack a wallop. An army of yellow jackets could drive the Oros away.”
“That’s harebrained, boy. We don’t have an army of yellow jackets, nor any way of mustering one,” Peddler said.
In the morning the sting area had grown red and hot, and it had swollen as large as an apple. It bothered Peddler constantly; he kept rubbing it and watching its progress.
“I do have a friend who is a beekeeper,” he conceded. “Culpepper’s sister, Dame Dewpepper, lives about ten days south of here. Let’s go pay her a visit and see if she can help us.
“Aurora! Get along!” He snapped the reins at the mule. “Pick up your feet, old gal.”
Dame Dewpepper and her family welcomed them warmly in their cottage. When Peddler settled Aurora in the small, fenced paddock, he noticed a new mare—a small gray horse with such an expressive face she looked as if she wanted to talk to him.
“That’s Cinders,” the Dame told him as she laid food for them at her big table. “We got her over a year ago; Culpepper found her for me. She’s just the sweetest thing. All of us dote on her, and we argue over who gets to take the honey to market.
“But back to your project. My bees won’t help you, Peddler. Honeybees almost never sting. Yellow jackets are different—very aggressive, especially now in the late summer. If you could get yellow jacket colonies to converge on an Oro camp, they might raise a ruckus.”
“But why would getting stung by yellow jackets send the Oros back north?” Gunnit pondered. “Why wouldn’t they just scatter every whichaway from a swarm?”
“There’s a gambit in Oblongs and Squares where you block all the directions your opponent can move except one,” said Peddler.
Dame Dewpepper and Gunnit didn’t understand what he was talking about, but that wasn’t an immediate concern. After they’d eaten their honey sandwiches and tisane, on Peddler’s insistence Dewpepper accompanied them out in the summer dusk to demonstrate where yellow jackets like to nest, either in the ground or in the shadowed recesses of evergreen shrubs. Dewpepper was stunned by what they found in just a few minutes.
Gently pulling back a branch of a juniper, she exclaimed, “Peddler, look at these nests! They’re as big as soup kettles! And so many! I never seen so many afore! Mayhap something about conditions this summer has led to bumper colonies.”
One of Dewpepper’s older sons had tagged along behind them. “Ma,” he called in a careful voice.
“What is it?” she replied, still staring with wide eyes at the size of the hives under a bush.
“Ma!”
Everyone looked at the boy. Twenty yellow jackets swarmed on the toe of his boot.
“Stand very still,” she said in that fake calm voice one uses when trying not to panic.
Gunnit slowly took off his weskit and wadded it up in his hand as a potential weapon. Peddler noticed that the insects ignored everyone else and landed nowhere else on the boy.
“What’s on your boot?” he asked.
“I might have dripped honey on it,” said the lad, watching the insects with wide eyes.
Dewpepper said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re attracted to honey. Like bees, they might love sweet tastes. We’re all just going to stand still while they lick the boot clean. No sudden movements.”
It took longer than any of them wished, but eventually the wasps lost interest in the boot. The instant he was freed from immobility, the boy scampered back to his cottage. Dewpepper, Gunnit, and Peddler followed behind, conversing and calculating.
“How would I get the nests and the critters into my wagon wit
hout getting stung to pieces myself?” he asked her.
“I dunno. The only thing that comes to mind is when I wants to get into a honeybee hive I set a torch on fire—the smoke seems to calm bees down some.”
After his experience with just one sting, which was still paining him, Peddler needed more surety. When Dame Dewpepper went back inside the cottage, he pulled out Saulė’s Mirror again. The last ray of sunlight hit the surface, and Peddler saw a vision of the flatlands of Alpetar, of one of the fields of hemp grown for fiber and oil.
Saulė—are you telling me to smoke the nests by burning hemp?
It was worth a try. In the morning Peddler drove his wagon to one of those fields and traded a bolt of woven cashmere for a large bale of hemp. The next day it only took Gunnit and him a few tries of parting branches of evergreen bushes to spot a gray nest with yellow sentries.
“Let’s do a little test,” Peddler suggested. “Find out if this is even possible.”
Gunnit and he put on all the clothes Peddler had in the wagon (cursing that he carried no gloves), grabbed a long knife, and twisted three strands of hemp together to make a rough torch as long as Gunnit’s arm. Gunnit tried to set the strands themselves alight, but the hemp was too fresh and green to catch; so Peddler rooted around in his wagon until he found his kerosene, which he doused on the tip.
Sweating under his layers of clothing from the heat (and terror), Gunnit finally succeeded in setting the hemp alight. Peddler heard him coughing and choking. “Stand upwind from the nest, boy!” The insects’ droning slowed, and they moved much more slowly.
Whispering “May Saulė light my road,” Peddler reached over and cut the nest off the branch, keeping it on his knifepoint so it didn’t smash through falling. He moved the nest about three paces, set it down gently under the same evergreen, and sprang away. A dozen wasps buzzed lazily around their home, but none showed interest in attacking.
The Cerulean Queen Page 23
