A Broken Queen

by Sarah Kozloff

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  to Dawn, who believed in this the most

  SCATTERED TALENTS

  Like dice thrown down by callous Fate

  Or flotsam tossed hither and yon,

  Adrift, each tumbles ’til winds abate,

  And struggles yet to go on.

  PRELUDE

  Reign of Regent Matwyck

  YEAR 5

  1

  Off the Coast of Pexlia

  Prince Mikil of Lortherrod, the worthless second son of King-that-was Nithanil; younger brother to current King Rikil; executioner of his grievously injured half sister, Queen Cressa, clung to a bit of mast from Shark Racer for hours, weeping and raging. He hollered until his voice grew hoarse and raw, desperate to find another survivor from the fireball attacks that had crushed his ship and Sea Pearl.

  As the dark pressed in around him, waves and currents carried him farther and farther from the drowned, smoldering carcasses, out into immense solitude and guilt. He let go of his wooden spar and tried to sink into the cold depths.

  Lautan, let me drown! Lautan, I beseech you, take me to your bosom.

  He tumbled around in the waves, battered one way then another, losing all sense of direction. Seawater stung his eyes, entered his nose, burned his hoarse throat, and muffled his hearing. His energy ebbed; he couldn’t swim or float but no matter how hard he tried, he also couldn’t sink.

  Mikil heard a rumbling laugh, neither low nor high, neither male nor female. No, little human. Thou art favored. Men live but a short span, but I would not have thy time cut short. Thou shalt live. Thou shalt live.

  A wave as gentle as a giant paw lifted him up and set him down on a small half circle of gravel and sand. Each incoming wave lifted him up off the gravel. Thou shalt live. Thou shalt live, murmured the sea.

  In the dawn light Mikil lifted his head and retched seawater out of his lungs and stomach until his muscles ached. Pellish limestone cliffs hung over this small beach, hollowed out by years of water eroding the rock. The cove measured perhaps twenty paces wide, and it stretched about ten paces deep under the cliff face. This appeared to be the closest place to the ships’ destruction that collected debris; Mikil saw wood beams, rigging, sails, one of Shark Racer’s dinghies, dishware, and bits of clothing and hand tools.

  And bodies. So many charred and bloated bodies. The corpses were so disfigured he couldn’t tell whether the men were Pellish, Lorther, or Weir except when he could make out hair color or an insignia.

  “Lautan! Have you saved only me? Have you spared me to surround me with death? What cruel mockery is this? Why didn’t you save my sister!”

  He heard only laughter in the crash of the water.

  With little hope Mikil crawled over to peer into the dinghy. He was startled to find an unconscious boy sprawled at the bottom. Pug nose and darker freckles all over his brown face—he recognized one of the cooks’ lads. Mikil felt for a pulse in the boy’s wrist, finding it slow but steady, and wished he had something to give him—water or wine or anything—to bring him round.

  Mikil pushed against the dinghy’s gunwale to hoist himself upright and looked around with more interest now that he realized he was not the only survivor. Was there a waterskin? A bottle? He grabbed the biggest piece of sail in sight and stripped a few bodies of their cloaks. If he was going to save the boy, warmth would be important. And tools. He collected daggers, swords, a mallet, and rope from the assorted flotsam.

  After he finished scavenging for anything useful he strode into the cold seawater, pulling two or three corpses back into the surf each trip. He didn’t want the boy to see them when he woke up. And the sailors, all of them—Pellish, Weir, or Lorther—deserved more respectful resting places.

  Words needed to be said to mark the end of these sailors’ lives. Mikil made up a prayer for the situation, calling out to the gray-green waves:

  Lautan, take these men, brave or craven,

  Wise or doltish, devout or heathen.

  Do not desert them, to puff and float

  In the cruel sun. Take these wretches

  Fathoms down, to your Palace under the Sea,

  Where the mermen sing and the troubles

  Of life can be set aside forever more.

  As he watched, the bodies sank away. Lautan the Munificent had heard him.

  Mikil checked on the boy, finding that he hadn’t stirred. The prince bent his knees, stretched his arms under the boy’s back and knees, and summoned his waning strength to hoist the unconscious body out of the wooden craft. He laid him on his side, wrung out a cloak as best he could, and covered him up. Then he stretched the other cloaks out on the sand, hoping there might be time before the tide came in for them to dry a little.

  When he next had the time to glance toward the sea, he saw that the current had pushed a large wooden chest decorated with elaborate paintings toward the cove. Thinking it might hold something useful and afraid it might pass him by, Mikil waded out into the water to grab its edges. As he started to guide the chest to shore he was startled to hear thumping on the inner lid and—through a jaggedly formed air hole—a woman’s voice crying out.

  A woman. Could it be that his encounter with a fatally burned Cressa had been a dream or hallucination? He beached the chest and used the mallet to smash open the latch. An arm pushed the lid open, and a woman with green bangs stuck her head out.

  “Who are you?” he barked, crestfallen.

  “I am Arlettie of Pilagos, Queen Cressa’s dress maid.”

  “But how—?”

  “I was panicked. She let me hide in here. The chest slid—boom!—into the water. At first I was terrified it would sink, but the water only made the wood swell tighter.”

  Mikil was too disappointed to make any move to assist her as she stiffly climbed out of the chest onto their small, sandy haven.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I am Mikil of Liddlecup,” he answered.

  “Ah. Prince Mikil. I recognize you. And who is that?” She pointed at the galley boy.

  “I don’t know his name.” At the thought of his charge, Mikil stirred himself a bit. “Are there smelling salts in that chest? Anything we could use to bring him round?”

  “I wonder if this would do?” said Arlettie, offering a bottle of brandy.

  “Indeed,” said Mikil.

  He grabbed the bottle from her and took a long gulp himself. It pained his raw throat and made his eyes water, but it washed the salt and vomit tastes out of his mouth, and its warmth spread through his limbs. Then Mikil strode over to the boy, placed an arm behind his back, and tipped a little in his mouth. The liquid just dribbled out.

  Arlettie came over and repeatedly t
apped the boy’s cheeks. His eyes began to flutter. He swallowed. Mikil poured another small amount in and was pleased to see him swallow it down right away. The boy opened his eyes.

  “Hey there,” said Arlettie, smiling. “Welcome back to us, darlin’.”

  “What is your name?” asked Mikil.

  “Boy.”

  Mikil thought the lad’s senses were addled. “No, I asked what you are called.”

  “Boy. My name is ‘Boy,’ Prince. My parents first had three sons, then five girls before they had me, and they were all out of names. Lucky, really. All the cooks knew my name right off.”

  “Cheeky scut. Well, are you hurt, Boy?”

  Boy wiggled about, trying his limbs. “Not a bit. And you, my prince?”

  “I received nary a scratch. And you?” He turned to the maid, belatedly remembering a bit of manners.

  She shook her head. “Queasy, from all that bobbing around. And so cold. What happened to Sea Pearl?”

  “She was lost. Some devilment of the Magi. Sea Pearl and Shark Racer sank with all hands. I believe we may be the only survivors.”

  The woman’s and the boy’s faces reflected shock and fear.

  As much as his own grief consumed him, Mikil realized that these two were helpless. Being accustomed to assuming responsibility for others’ welfare, he straightened his back and spoke firmly. “Look, it’s a calamity, but we’re fortunate we found each other. We haven’t much time to stand around. We have to decide what to do and quickly.”

  “Can we stay here? Can’t we rest?” said Arlettie. She stamped her feet on the sand. “I’m standing on solid ground for the first time in hours. Actually, it might be moons.”

  “No,” said Mikil, “we can’t. Look at the tidemark on the cliff wall. Soon the water will be over our heads. I judge we only have a few hours.”

  Arlettie shuddered, and Boy, still sitting on the small beach, grabbed handfuls of sand as if to cling to solidity.

  “But we have the dinghy,” said Mikil, forcing some hope into his voice. “Won’t you help me load it with things that may be useful?”

  The prince rigged a large piece of sailcloth on a handy spar while his new crew sorted through the contents of the chest, keeping all the clothing and a small sack of valuables, and then turned again to the washed-up debris scattered on the sand. Mikil found a plank of wood that could serve as a rough oar and makeshift tiller. Then he loaded his companions into the dinghy and pushed their craft off the spit of sand into the rising tide.

  The cobbled-together craft proved seaworthy, but only just. Parts of the dinghy had been touched by fire and bashed in by a collision. In his heart, Mikil knew that Lautan guided their desperate escape from under the cliffs of Pexlia. How else to account for the favorable tide that pulled them away from the danger of the shoals and reefs, and the winds that billowed his fragile sail without tearing it? How else to explain the bobbing cask of drinking water that miraculously floated into view just as they became unbearably thirsty, or the large cod that literally leapt into their boat when hunger pangs had them doubled over?

  Studying the stars, Mikil guided them northeast, away from the forbidding coasts of Pexlia and Oromondo. In the long midnight hours, holding his oar as a rudder, Mikil berated himself for the death of his Lorther crew. Why had his Anticipation not alerted him that the fleeing Oro ships were leading them into a trap? Why had he listened to Cressa’s plea for an end to her suffering? Could he have saved her or healed her?

  The splash against the dinghy’s hull murmured, ’Twas a mercy; ’twas a mercy.

  When guilt or exhaustion consumed Mikil, he would nudge one of the others awake to take the plank and throw himself down to sleep. As days and nights melted into one another, the prince found he could lean on the unexpected stamina and determined good cheer of his companions whenever his own resiliency faltered. He suspected that these qualities explained why Lautan had chosen—out of all the people on the ships—to save Boy and Arlettie.

  As far as he could judge, they were still hundreds of leagues from the shipping lanes and inhabited lands of the Green Isles. Just as their energy and spirits started to ebb away and the dinghy began to weep seawater more rapidly than they could bail it, Boy spotted a verdant island. If this island could support them, they would rest and recuperate there. Mikil beached their little craft in a small cove.

  The thickly wooded volcanic isle loomed before them, the only sounds unfamiliar birdsongs. Gathering their courage, the three castaways started to search, first clustering together in trepidation, then, with more confidence, spreading out and excitedly calling out their finds, including freshwater ponds and rivulets and fruit trees. They found no inhabitants, nor any signs of human occupation. Nevertheless, grateful for the shelter it offered, they settled in, choosing a glen half bordered by rock, some twenty paces up from the beach, as their “home.”

  Electing himself the major provider, every morning Mikil’s first task was to catch fish or collect clams, mussels, or other shellfish. Arlettie made them beds out of dried seaweed. She patched their clothes or sewed them new ones, using fish bones as needles, and then she wove them hats against the strong sun out of palm fronds. Boy gathered fruit, berries, nuts, and curiosities. The lad also discovered he could pound aloe plants to make a soothing cream for their sun-damaged skin. When weeks slipped away into spring, the youngster nimbly climbed trees to bring down birds’ eggs as a change from their steady diet of seafood. And every day Boy gathered beach driftwood to provide fuel for their nighttime fires—fires that chased away the shades of their drowned companions.

  The goal that drove Mikil, however, was not mere survival. He wanted to build a sturdier boat that eventually could carry them from the Gray Ocean into the Turquoise Sea, back to civilization. But how could he do this, with so few tools suited for shipbuilding?

  He recalled his father’s instructions to start with the best wood available. Painstakingly, he combed the island’s steep and barely passable slopes, looking for cedars, firs, or oaks that grew straight and strong.

  From their earliest days together, Mikil and Arlettie discovered that Boy had endured an impoverished childhood with scant parental care. The lad didn’t know how old he was, but from his teeth Arlettie estimated that he had less than ten summers. Mikil found he enjoyed teaching Boy simple things, such as how to tie a real knot or read the weather. Arlettie combed his hair and made him wash. If the lad stumbled across a pretty flower, he picked it and brought it back to her and was often rewarded with a hug. Mikil doubted if the lad had ever been hugged before.

  “We should give him a real name,” Arlettie mentioned to Mikil one morning.

  “I’ve been thinking that too,” he agreed. “What about if we added a ‘d’ and made it ‘Boyd’?”

  “But don’t most Lorther names have an ‘il’ sound? What about ‘Boyil’?”

  Mikil laughed for the first time in weeks. “No, not that! He’ll think we’re going to cook him!”

  “Right.” Arlettie giggled. “Well, I’ll ask him what name he fancies. Also, would you help me teach him his letters? He should know how to read. And it would be good for all of us, to have a project for the evenings. Mayhap it would help with your bad dreams.”

  Mikil was not pleased that Arlettie had noticed his thrashing about at night, reliving the Magi’s attack on the fleet. But dwelling so closely together, they could hardly keep secrets from each other.

  In fact, Mikil often found himself studying Arlettie. With an adventurous disposition and the cachet of a wealthy, royal family, he had known scores of women, from all stations in life. Many were smarter, wittier, or more beautiful than this Green Isles dress maid. But none of them lived on this island with him. And none, Mikil soon became convinced, were as unfailingly kind as Arlettie. In a short period of time, Mikil found himself hungrily marking every time she gave Gilboy an affectionate smile or caress and often trying to read the expression in her gray eyes.

  Each morning, Arle
ttie offered him food wrapped in large leaves, to take with him on the day’s survey of the tangled, steep hillsides. Packaged in with the cold fish, boiled egg, or piece of fruit she habitually included a flower blossom.

  One hot afternoon, when Mikil tried a sword against a tree trunk and in three swings the metal had snapped in two, he returned to their dwelling grove in a temper. Gilboy was off foraging, but Arlettie knelt on the cloak she used as a rug, trying to whittle a bowl out of a chunk of balsa wood.

  “Why do you do this?” Mikil asked, throwing the wilted blossom in her lap. “Are you so stupid you don’t know it will wither by the time I eat? Or that if I wanted a flower I need only pluck one from any branch around me? Or that the flowers leave ants walking on the food and stain it with pollen? Do you think that a flower will make me work harder?”

  She didn’t respond to his tirade, just looked up at him with hurt in her eyes, which made him angrier.

  “Do you think a flower will protect you from me?” Mikil growled. “We’re alone on a deserted island. I’m a sister-murderer after all—nothing is beneath me.”

  “You had no choice with Queen Cressa,” Arlettie said in the tone of voice she habitually adopted whenever Mikil talked about his sister, a tone that vibrated with both regret and forgiveness. “You followed her wishes.” Arlettie had said this a dozen times before, and she would patiently repeat it every day if it would help him to hear it.

  She hacked at the rim of the bowl a few more times while he glared at her. “I include the flower because I want you to know that I am thinking of you and hoping your day will bring you contentment. If you don’t like it, of course I’ll stop.

  “As for lovemaking between the two of us”—although she kept her eyes on her work, she stressed the word, chastising him for being too embarrassed to even speak plainly—“no matter how you tantrum, I’m confident you would never molest me.”