A Broken Queen

by Sarah Kozloff

  “What can I do to help anyone else?” Phénix asked.

  “Well, if you could get through to the Ward, that would be a miracle. We’ve all tried, of course, but none of us has had any success. And then Sezirō’s bandages need to be changed often. I sometimes get cramps in my stump, and massaging eases the pain. Lymbock should stay still, but he gets restless and breaks the healers’ orders. And he has to be cajoled to drink his elixirs. I think he may be losing hope that they will cure him.”

  When Damyroth left her, Phénix walked over to the other bed to look at the Ward. Her eyes were open but unfocused. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five summers, with pale gray eyes, brown hair, and thin, colorless lips. The scars where she had tried to cut her wrists had knit closed, but they were still angry and red against her caramel skin. Though her eyes were open, she gave no sign of rising.

  “Let’s get up and see what Dame Tockymora has cooked up for fastbreak,” Phénix said with fake cheer. She looked around for clothes for her roommate; a long skirt and matching top that once might have been fetching hung in the wardrobe. Phénix helped her get dressed, noticing that the dress hung loosely because she had lost weight. Spying a nearby hairbrush, she tidied the Ward’s hair, making a note that it could use a good wash.

  As she approached the fastbreak table, half leaning upon, half pulling the Ward, she was greeted by Dame Tockymora, who was setting out dishes.

  “Good health to you, damselle. Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  As she straightened up, the landlady’s glance fell more fully upon the two women. “Damselle, being a foreigner—where they have such strange customs!—probably you don’t know. Here in Wyeland, women never walk around with their hair loose. That is why they gave you the snood. Our hair must always be pinned up”—she gave her tight bun a satisfied pat—“or otherwise confined. Loose hair is so unsanitary!”

  “I’ll keep that in mind from here on,” said Phénix.

  Ten minutes later, Phénix addressed the group enjoying the egg pie, cold meats, and pickled vegetables. “We can’t keep calling her ‘Restaurà’s Ward.’ Does anybody have a name they like?”

  Syr Jitneye offered, “My sister was called—”

  “No,” Syr Lymbock interrupted. “That’s a ridiculous notion. Nobody dead. A lively name, a name full of life and hope.”

  Sezirō chimed in, “Hope. ‘Hope’ as a name, I am meaning. Damselle Hope.”

  They all agreed that this was perfect.

  Phénix asked Hope to walk with her around the recovery house to help her learn the layout of the rooms. Hope said nothing, but she allowed Phénix to take her arm to steady herself.

  The downstairs washing room had a bigger sink than the upstairs facility. Phénix gently pushed Hope into a bent-over position and washed her hair. And then fingering her own locks, which had grown during her illness and currently stretched down her back, she leaned over the sink and washed her own.

  When she emerged, Dame Tockymora was lying in wait in the hallway. “Gracious! How much water did you use?”

  Nonplussed, Phénix truthfully replied, “As little as possible.”

  Her landlady sniffed disapproval and stalked away.

  After this effort and chastisement, Phénix felt drained. She took Hope’s arm and walked back to the indoor patio.

  Syr Lymbock lay on a reclining rocker in the spring sun, as did Sezirō. Sezirō called the women over to him.

  “I love hair to fix,” he said. He threw some pillows down on the ground. “Damselles, kindly you will sit where I can reach you?”

  He combed Hope’s wet hair through and skillfully twisted it into little ringlets, then gathered the ringlets up on the top of her head with a ribbon that Jitneye fetched for him. Then he asked for scissors and meticulously trimmed the ragged ends of Phénix’s hair, catching all the cut pieces into a bag. He began braiding it, starting with one lock and then, incorporating more and more, ending up by pulling all of her hair into a complicated chignon situated precisely to cover the burn on her neck.

  While Sezirō worked and she sat there on a cushion in the sunshine, Phénix asked, “Syr Lymbock, why all the parasols?”

  “The parasols! Yes, they would be new to you. Well, the sun here will burn your skin. Wyes take great pride in their perfect complexions. Unblemished skin is the premier mark of beauty for a Wye lady.” He seemed unconscious of the irony of raising the subject of smooth skin with Phénix.

  “The Wyes also mark their social status by the parasol they carry,” he continued. “Certain patterns and colors are set aside for certain social classes, trades, and gentry, and every tassel has a meaning to the initiated. If I went strolling, I have the right to carry a parasol with an ebony handle and a geometric pattern.”

  “Everyone has a predetermined parasol pattern? What happens if you start as a tailor and become a merchant—does your parasol change?”

  “Oh goodness, damselle! That never happens,” said Lymbock. “The tailor is a tailor because his parents were tailors, and the merchant is a merchant because he inherited his business.”

  “So no one ever changes his—or her—social standing?”

  “No. In Wyeland we know that everyone is content where they are. That striving for advancement creates stress.”

  “Who does a tailor marry?”

  Syr Lymbock stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Either a tailoress or the daughter of a tailor, of course.”

  “What happens if the tailor falls in love with the daughter of a dairy farmer?”

  He looked scandalized. “That would be a very unfortunate situation. Unhealthy. Perverse.”

  Phénix pondered awhile. Sezirō had finished his labors, and she smiled her thanks at him. “What do Wyeland’s rulers say about this staying exactly where one is born?”

  “Ha!” said Syr Lymbock. “We have no royalty—we do not believe in such elitist folderol. We are governed by a Council of Ministers. Every five years the council chooses a new first minister.”

  “And how does one get to be a minister?”

  “Obviously, as a foreigner, you don’t understand the way things work here and why Wyeland is such a peaceful land,” said Syr Lymbock, trying to be patient and succeeding only in sounding patronizing. “You become a minister by being born into a ministerial family.”

  Phénix considered this information for a while and then turned to ask Sezirō about the relation between Pexlia and Zellia.

  “Ah! We come from the same forebears, but now archenemies be we! Zellia is an island large, separate from the mainland. My people moved there centuries ago, when the stinkin’ Pellish took to piracy and made our people among men pariahs! With the Pellish we are in a constant state of war.”

  “So that is why your hair is a darker shade?”

  “Ah, Phoenix-bird-from-the-fire, you have met my cousin rascals? Did you like them?”

  “I did not!” she replied, recalling the caravan drivers who had tried to steal the Sweetmeadow children.

  “See? They are heathens.”

  “Heathens? Do the Zellish worship a Spirit?”

  “Of course. We bow to Ghibli, the Spirit of the Wind, who fills our ships’ sails. Our Spirit stands for freedom, for novelty, adventure! Although Ghibli lives nowhere, we like to believe we be the Spirit’s favorite.”

  Sezirō started rhapsodizing about his Spirit, but Phénix grew more and more sleepy in the warm sunshine until—resting her head on her right arm, which lay propped upon his chair—she dozed off.

  Her new Zellish friend woke her for a tasty midmeal—a bread with mincemeat baked in the center. Afterward, properly robed in her dust-coat, and with Syr Jitneye clutching on to her elbow, she went outside and walked to the street corner. On their return five minutes later, the others greeted her with such cheers Phénix felt she had won a race.

  She devoted a good part of the late afternoon to playing Oblongs and Squares with Syr Lymbock to amuse him, discoverin
g that she had to lose because he grew peevish if she bested him. Then she took a long nap in her attic bed before supper while Syr Damyroth kept watch on Hope.

  At the dinner table everyone remarked on Hope’s hair, which had dried into perfect ringlets. She looked quite pretty, but showed no sign that she heard any of the compliments her fellow guests paid to her. From conversation, Phénix learned more about Wyeland, including that Salubriton—enormous though it appeared to her—was not the capital city. The capital, Somniton, was located some hundreds of leagues inland.

  After supper, Phénix assisted as Syr Lymbock tended to Sezirō’s wound. It was a horrifying sight: a ten-inch gash, half-open and suppurating. But recalling how important Damyroth’s impassivity had been to her, Phénix steadied herself to show no reaction whatsoever as they washed it with a rag, smeared on unguents, and rebandaged it.

  The next day passed much the same way; she made small forays outside and cared for her fellow patients.

  On the day after, Betlyna visited. She said that Phénix no longer needed to wear the bandage on her left arm and that it was time for her to start rebuilding strength in that arm and shoulder. Since Damyroth also needed to strengthen his arms, she showed them exercises to do together. These motions caused Phénix considerable discomfort, but the apprentice healer offered her scant sympathy. All of her attention focused on Sezirō, whose wound worried her.

  However, Betlyna did pass on a note from Healer. It read:

  My dear, I trust you are regaining strength and mobility. It is best if you confine any social interactions to your housemates and nurses. Not everyone in Salubriton is to be trusted.

  With loving prayers for your recovery,

  Healer

  Phénix’s heart beat fast. To realize that even here—at the edges of Ennea Món—people might be searching for the Nargis heir sent a chill through her body. She disposed of the missive in Tockymora’s stove.

  On her fifth day, properly attired in her dust-coat, Phénix went walking on the sidewalk with Hope. She had come to enjoy the sight of the gamels on parade; at first glance their gait appeared ungainly, but they covered ground efficiently. A white cat sunned itself in the middle of a decorative rock-and-scrub pattern in front of a wealthy-looking house. Phénix almost extended her mind, but instead, she reached out her hand and called, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” as an untalented person might. The cat stood up, stretched nonchalantly, and sauntered over so that the arch of his back just barely brushed against the offered caress. This inferior contact provided Phénix little comfort. She longed for the recognition that animals had always provided.

  Hope and Phénix pushed on another block. A woman with a costly parasol jostled her, and Phénix lost her footing. She broke her fall with her hand, and she didn’t feel any scars tear open, but the incident made her frighteningly aware of how weak she still was. She pulled herself up, brushing off her knees, and turned on Hope in a fury. “You’re supposed to watch out for me! You’re supposed to balance me! I’m still so weak. Why weren’t you paying attention? Don’t you even care if someone gets hurt?”

  Hope blinked rapidly a few times at Phénix’s tirade, but as usual she didn’t speak. Phénix returned to the recovery house ashamed of her outburst. And she turned her mind to the impenetrability of Hope’s catatonia.

  When they were out-of-doors Hope walked straight beside Phénix, eyes unfocused. Inside the house she ate without tasting and used the indoor privy when so ordered with the same mechanical obedience. No one knew how well she slept, but she would rise from bed only when forced to. The breaks in her routine were distressing: occasionally, she would have a fit where she whipped her arms around in strange movements while repeatedly bending her neck so her ear touched her shoulder. Phénix questioned the other guests, but they knew almost nothing about Hope’s history; she had been brought there by healers. The only time she was known to act with true volition was the midnight her previous roommate had discovered her coiling ripped bedsheets into a noose.

  Phénix brooded on the possible causes of Hope’s melancholia. Syr Lymbock told her that Hope’s gown indicated she came from a lower middle-class background, but that was all they had concluded about her past.

  20

  Pilagos

  When the Island Breeze pulled into Pilagos harbor and Wareth and the other Raiders spotted the Commander, Tristo, and Eli-anna waiting at the dock a kind of joyful madness had seized them all. The shipboard Raiders and the dockside group whooped with excitement and relief to discover that both squads had made it out of Oromondo alive—in fact with no additional human casualties. Dalogun had thrown his hat overboard, and Jothile had burst into tears.

  Recounting the events that led Thalen’s band to Tar’s Basin, then to Slagos, and finally here—while Eldie’s group rode to Needle Pass, through the vastness of Melladrin to Metos, and then boarded the Island Breeze—led to a jabber of excited talk and back thumps. Wareth twirled Tristo around in the air, while many of the Raiders embraced Eli-anna. Then they all repaired to the Fruitful Vine to celebrate their reunion and toast one another. Of course they proceeded to toast their faithful suppliers—the mysterious demigods Olet, Quinith, and Hake, now present in the flesh—from whom all bounties had flowed and who had sent the ship to Metos as soon as they confirmed tales of a fire in Femturan.

  As the night wore on, however, everyone’s high spirits evaporated; the Raiders turned morose, mourning the comrades who had fallen before the retreat. Wareth wrote Codek’s name in the moisture on the table and then wiped it out. Several fell asleep with their heads on the liquor-stained tables, and in the end Olet and Quinith were forced to carry them to their beds.

  Yet despite the rum he had consumed, instead of sleeping all day in the Fruitful Vine’s featherbed, Wareth awoke at daybreak in the room he shared with three others (which had painted grapevines running up the walls), beset by anxiety about a duty unfulfilled. Lying on the soft mattress, listening to his friends’ snoring, nursing the pain from both his shoulder and his hangover, he realized they’d all totally forgotten about their horses. He assumed that the crew of Island Breeze would have off-loaded and stabled them, but the Raiders should tend to their own mounts. Custard had saved his life more than once.

  In the inn’s kitchen, Wareth found Cerf and Dalogun making free with the proprietor’s brew pot while the kitchen help clustered together on the other side of the room, wanting to rid themselves of these intruders but not knowing exactly how to get them to leave.

  “Come with me, fellas. We need to find our horses,” Wareth urged, and the two agreed to join him. The three Raiders stomped the streets of Pilagos, taking in the sights of an island city, but not breaking their long strides. Wareth noticed that the townsfolk, garbed in some loose garment tied at the waist and wearing straw hats, moved away from them and grabbed on to their children as if the three of them posed a threat. He found this odd and insulting until he glanced at his companions in their travel-stained leathers. Cerf wore a sword and a dagger, and his crushed beaver hat tied under his chin resembled a dead and mangled animal. His expression warned all and sundry against casual conversation. The same could be said of the surviving twin, whose face had lost all its youthfulness and who now boasted a scruff of a beard. As for himself, Wareth shivered to think of how disreputable he must look.

  Or how hardened he had become, compared to his prewar cheerful self.

  A short tramp brought them to the wharf. Cerf approached a couple of men shifting cargo to ask about the nearest livery stable. They suggested two. The first one didn’t have the Raiders’ horses. But at the second they found their reduced string: Brandy, Cinnamon, Cloves, Custard, Gander, and Sandy. Two horses had died of water poisoning on their trip through Oromondo, and because the Raiders had been able to transport only six horses on Island Breeze, they had given the other survivors to the Mellies as gifts. (As was only fair, given the aid the Mellies had provided in helping the troop, so injured and dispirited, safely return to
the coast.)

  The horses nickered with excitement at their approach. Dalogun immediately entered the stalls, checking on his sea-stressed charges, stroking and cooing. Custard, Wareth’s own mare, nodded and blew at him when he whistled to her. He leaned his pounding head against the mare’s neck a moment, but after a while she pulled away to nibble at her hay.

  Cerf and Wareth went outside to talk to the stable owners, who were currying a stallion in a front yard in choreographed partnership.

  “So you brought ’em back safely after all,” said the woman.

  “I don’t take your meaning,” said Wareth.

  “Our horses—the ones Olet bought from us, the ones he named after spices—you brought some of them home. We miss the gelding with the reddish patchwork. We called him Chichi: I disremember what Olet named him.”

  “Chili,” said Wareth, recalling the horse that had died. “And there was Pepper too, a black.”

  “Aye!” said the male owner. “Anyways, we was right joyful to see them. We had a time last night, didn’t we, Wife, moving all the others around so your string could clump together, but we did manage it.”

  “Thank you,” said Cerf. “Yes, they are accustomed to being together, as their riders are.”

  “How long are you planning on boarding them with us?” said the wife. “We need a deposit, for so many. Though if you’re friends of Olet, mayhap that’s not really necessary.”

  Wareth said, “We’re not the owners, just a few of the riders. I don’t know the plans for the horses, whether we are going to take ’em with us or sell ’em, but I’ll convey their whereabouts to the money folk. Either way, we leave Pilagos in less than a week.”

  They took their leave of the stable owners, and the three Raiders strode onward.