The Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

  “I know you do, Highness,” said Helfred simply. “But you also need me.”

  “ Need you?” She could’ve spat. “Helfred, I need you like a case of the plague.”

  “Your Highness !” said Mr Jones. “Please! We mustn’t linger!”

  “Let me come with you,” said Helfred, defiant, “or I’ll raise the alarm. Then you’ll never escape this place, Your Highness. And Marlan will descend on you like the wrath of heaven.”

  Oh dear God . The pustuled slimy little toad .

  I’ll get you for this, Helfred. I swear I’ll get you.

  “We’ve no choice, Mr Jones,” she said to the toymaker. “Helfred comes with us … at least for now.”

  As the clerica slept behind them they hurried through the darkness and more spitting rain, to the gates of the devouts’ house and onto the road.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” panted Mr Jones, and broke into a jog-trot. “For all we know someone’s woken up by now!” Zandakar loped beside him, untroubled by his burden or the increased speed. Helfred wheezed several paces behind, his sandals slopping on the increasingly wet road.

  Rhian bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. There was fire in her flesh, threatening to consume her. As they ran she prayed with all the strength left in her.

  God, don’t let them catch me. Don’t send me back to that place. If you let them catch me I’ll never talk to you again.

  They ran and ran. A long way down the empty road there was a lane, and a peddler’s van. A woman sat in it, leaning forward to greet them in the gloom. “Have you got her, Jones? What took you so long?”

  “Yes, Ursa, I’ve got her!” said Mr Jones, almost breathless. “At least Zandakar has.”

  The woman Ursa rummaged at her feet and held up a small, smoked lamp. The dim light fell over Helfred, bent double and gasping. “ Jones? Who’s this ?”

  “A complication,” said Mr Jones, briefly. “Ursa, we have to go.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the woman Ursa. “You get up here and drive the van. The rest of us will climb inside. I hope we can fit. This girl needs physicking or we’ll all be in the suds.”

  This girl . Well. It certainly wasn’t a respectful way to describe the Queen of Ethrea. It lacked deference and a recognition of protocol, but somehow it was reassuring. Or perhaps it was the woman’s voice that reassured. Tart. Brisk. Used to being obeyed. But with a rough compassion that was of more comfort than the soft-spoken murmurings she’d received in the infirmary.

  There was a certain amount of grunting and heaving as Mr Jones clambered up on the van’s seat and the woman Ursa clambered down. Rhian felt cool fingers on her cheek, a gentle pressure against the scudding pulse in her throat.

  “Don’t just stand there, Zandakar!” snapped Ursa. “Get her in the back!”

  When Zandakar hesitated, the woman made a hissing sound of impatience, grabbed his rain-dampened sleeve and dragged him along to the rear of the van. There were steps attached there, and two wide half-doors hinged like the doors on a stable. Ursa wrenched them open, stood back and pointed.

  “In!”

  As Zandakar followed the curt instruction Rhian heard Ursa say, just as curtly, “And you, Chaplain Complication! Get in after them. Hurry! Quick!”

  Helfred staggered up the steps into the van’s cramped, lamplit interior and the woman Ursa leapt up then after him. She was remarkably spry for a woman with so much grey in her hair. Swinging the doors shut, she shouted, “Off you go, Jones! What are you waiting for?”

  The van lurched, the wheels creaked, horses’ hooves scraped against stone and mud, and they were on the move.

  “Right!” said Ursa. “You, chaplain, on the bench there, and I’ll thank you to keep quiet even though you’re a man of God. If you want to pray on the inside, that’ll be fine with me. Zandakar, put the girl down. Last thing I need is for you to fall over.”

  Zandakar fall over? Why would he do that? Rhian stared into his face and saw he hadn’t completely understood what the woman Ursa meant. Saw too, for the first time, beneath the man’s beauty and realised he’d been gravely ill, not too long ago. She knew the signs, had seen them written on her brothers and her father.

  It was a language she’d never forget.

  She patted the tall man’s chest again. “Zandakar.” When he looked down at her she pushed away from him. Wriggled, in what she hoped was some kind of common gesture. He nodded and eased her gently to her feet.

  “Good, Zandakar,” said the woman Ursa, pointing to the small space of bench left beside Helfred. “You sit down too. I’ll see to the princess.”

  Helfred looked horrified. Despite the pain and faintness, Rhian felt herself smile. Zandakar was still holding her arm. She looked up at him again, standing hunched and patient beneath the van’s low ceiling. “Zandakar. Thank you.”

  He smiled, so he must know what those words meant. Then he said something in a tongue she’d never heard before. It sounded harsh but oddly compelling. She turned to Ursa.

  “Don’t ask me,” said the woman, shrugging. “We don’t even know where he comes from, let alone how to make head-or-tail of his heathen speech.”

  How extraordinary. “Then—”

  “Never mind that,” said Ursa. “There’s plenty of time ahead of us for questions and answers. Just you come and lie down. Jones said you’d been poorly dealt with and for once I can see he’s not letting his rackety imagination run away with him.” She shifted her sharp gaze. “Zandakar! Sit!”

  If the tall man minded she spoke to him as though he were a dog, he didn’t show it. He just nodded and sat beside the appalled, staring Helfred.

  “Right,” said Ursa. “You sit down too, Your Highness. There.”

  Guided by the brusque woman’s pointing finger Rhian shuffled painfully to the other side of the van, where two sleeping-shelves had been attached to the wall, one above the other. They looked cramped and hardly comfortable. But there was nowhere else to put herself and at any moment she was going to fall flat on her face, so …

  “What now?” she said faintly.

  “Now we undo a little of the damage,” said Ursa, then reached out and pulled a curtain, rattling along its rail to shut out the sight of Helfred and Zandakar sitting side by unlikely side. “I’m a physick,” she added, rummaging under the bottom sleeping-shelf and pulling out a battered leather bag. “A good one. You needn’t fear I’ll make matters worse. Just you shrug out of that robe and lie belly-down on the mattress so I can see what mischief you’ve got yourself in.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Rhian asked, shedding her clerica clothes with much wincing and hissing.

  “Why do you think?” said Ursa, helping her. “You’re the Queen of Ethrea and I’m a loyal subject.”

  “Yes. Of course. I mean, how did you—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Ursa. “I told you, didn’t I? Questions and answers can wait.”

  After a lifetime of having every whim obeyed, of being surrounded by bowing, scraping courtiers and servants, it felt most odd to be spoken to like that. Even though her parents had impressed upon her from the time she could talk how important it was not to abuse her position, still … she’d never been dealt with so abruptly before. Well, except by Marlan, and even then it was different.

  This woman Ursa treats everyone the same. She snaps at Mr Jones, she snaps at Zandakar. She snaps at me, even though I’m her queen and she knows it. It’s reassuring. It’s honest. I think it means I can trust her.

  And in the days to come, trust would be something in short supply.

  With a groan partly of pain, and partly relief, she let Ursa help her lie down on the sleeping-shelf. Tried not to groan again as the woman’s competent fingers investigated her whip-scored back. There was more pain as a strong-smelling ointment was smeared on her cuts and welts. It stung abominably, far more than the salve Devout Agitha had used. She trapped a whimper in her throat but couldn’t stop hot tears escaping her eyes. Her fingers tightened o
n the thin mattress and her heart thudded hard.

  A gentle hand came to rest on her head and began stroking her damp, tangled hair. No-one had stroked her hair like that since her mother, so many years ago when she was still a little girl. The tears came faster, pouring like the rain now drumming on the van’s wooden roof.

  If Marlan had been kind to her, she might never have stood against him.

  “There, there,” said Ursa. “Poor child. It’s been a hard road and it’ll get even harder before it comes to an end. You try to sleep now, Rhian. You’re safe with us, at least for now.”

  She couldn’t speak so she nodded, her eyes tightly closed. Ursa’s gentle hand kept stroking, stroking.

  After a while it lulled her to sleep.

  When she woke it was to the sound of a heated discussion. The van had stopped moving but she had no idea if daylight had broken yet or not. Lamplight still danced shadows across the thin curtain drawn across her makeshift bed.

  Ursa was saying: “—your decision, Jones, it’s mine. I’m the physick. You’re just the driver. So why don’t you drive and leave the physicking to me?”

  “But Ursa,” Mr Jones protested. “It’s not my decision, it’s Princess Rhian’s. You’ll have to wake her so I can—”

  “I’m not going to wake her! The poor girl’s in desperate need of her rest!”

  “All right then, I’ll take you closer to Kingseat so it’s less distance for you to walk home in the rain,” said Mr Jones, being stubborn. “Maybe by that time Rhian will have woken and—”

  “I’m awake now, Mr Jones,” she said, lifting her head from the pillow.

  “There! Now see what you’ve done!” said Ursa, aggravated. The curtain twitched, revealing two inches of cross face. “You’ve scarcely been asleep for an hour, Your Highness. Never you mind what Jones and I are saying, just you—”

  She sat up. “Thank you but no. Mr Jones is right. Any decisions that need to be made here will be made by me. I’d like to know what you’re arguing about.” She reached to the floor and picked up the rough wool clerica robe, pulled it over her head and rolled a little unsteadily to her feet. Once she was sure of her balance she arranged the robe properly, making sure all her bare skin was covered, then looked at Ursa expect-antly.

  Ursa’s lips pinched in deep disapproval but she shuffled backwards to make some room and pulled the makeshift curtain aside. Beyond it, Helfred and Zandakar still sat on their bench. The dark man’s eyes were closed, it seemed he was sleeping. Helfred was squashed in the corner as far away as he could get, a greenish cast to his pasty pimpled face.

  “Your chaplain’s road-sick,” said Ursa, seeing her stare. “I’ve given him a lozenge to suck but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”

  I couldn’t care less about Helfred’s queasy insides.

  She nodded. “How were you speaking to Mr Jones?”

  Ursa shifted sideways, revealing a little hatch in the van’s rear wall. It was open, and Mr Jones was peering worriedly inside. “Your Highness,” he said. “I’m so pleased you’re awake. Perhaps you can talk some sense into Ursa.”

  “Jones, she could make it a royal decree and I still wouldn’t pay a blind bit of difference,” said Ursa. “When it comes to physicking I’m the queen here.”

  Rhian lifted a hand to silence her and looked at Mr Jones. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Ursa wants to change the plan,” he said, plaintive. “She says you’re not well enough to travel without a physick attending you. She says Zandakar isn’t either, though that’s not what she said before we left Kingseat.”

  She looked at Ursa. “So, you want to continue travelling with us?”

  “‘Want’ has nothing to do with it,” said Ursa. “This is about ‘need’. This kingdom needs a strong queen, a healthy queen, to stand up to those who’d see you stripped of your birthright.”

  “You could leave your salves and ointments with me,” said Mr Jones. “I could—”

  “What?” said Ursa, scathing. “Muck about in the back of this van with a half-naked girl young enough to be your daughter who just happens to be the next ruler of Ethrea?”

  Even through the little hatch it was easy to see Mr Jones blush. “Well—well—there’s the chaplain there, he could stand as a chaperone! He—”

  “Oh no, he couldn’t,” said Rhian, grimly. “He’s a disgrace to the Church. As soon as the matter of my succession is settled I intend to see him stripped of his divinity.”

  In the corner, Helfred stirred. “You can’t,” he said feebly. “That’s not your prerogative.”

  She turned on him. “I’ll make it my prerogative, Helfred! And unless you want me to see you’re arrested for gross assault on a royal personage I suggest you shut your mouth now .”

  Helfred subsided, looking greener than ever.

  Ursa was staring at her, salt-and-pepper eyebrows raised. “Are you going to tell me I’m wrong, Your Highness?”

  More than anything, she wanted to say yes. But she knew she couldn’t. It was more than just her mistreatment by Marlan and Helfred. She felt fragile. Battered. Grief was an illness, an accumulation of pains. They were lodged deep in her chest, in an aching hollowness of loss. She felt sick with grief. Infected with grief. Prey to the cruel depredations of grief.

  There must be a pill she could take for that.

  She looked at Mr Jones. “Why are you so set on not letting Ursa come with us?”

  “Because it’s dangerous !” he said, anguished, his face pressed against the hatchway. “You of all people know the men we stand against, Highness. Ursa has devoted her whole life to helping others. She could lose everything if this goes wrong.”

  “So could you, Jones,” said Ursa. “Danger doesn’t play favourites. Besides. Who’s going to save you from yourself if I don’t?”

  “Oh … well …”

  Clearly Mr Jones was used to losing arguments with Ursa. Hiding a smile, Rhian turned to consider Zandakar, who was awake again and closely watching. “How sick has he been?”

  “Very sick,” said Ursa promptly. “Rattling death’s doorknocker. It’s a miracle the door stayed closed. He’s on the mend now, I won’t deny it, but that might change. I can’t in conscience leave him, Your Highness. Or you. I’d be betraying my physick’s oath.”

  “Well, we can’t have that. Mr Jones …”

  He sighed. “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “I’d feel better if Ursa stayed, at least for a while. She’s right. I’m not well. And I must be well if I’m to triumph over the forces ranged against me.”

  Another sigh and a slow resigned nod. “Of course, Your Highness. If it’s what you want …”

  “It’s what I want for the moment,” she said, then looked at Ursa. “But if that should change for any reason I expect you to accede without question. I stand barefoot before you, beaten and laid low, a fugitive in my own realm. But I am Ethrea’s queen, whether I wear a crown or not. Today you are my royal physick, Ursa. Tomorrow? Who knows?”

  Ursa nodded. “Your Highness,” she said mildly. “I can live with that.”

  “Well, if that’s how it must be,” said Mr Jones, still unhappy, “we should get on our way. I think the nearest river-station to here is—”

  “River-station?” said Helfred, rousing. “Where are we going?”

  Rhian had to sit again, even her bones were on fire. “North,” she said, dropping stiffly to the sleeping-shelf. “To duchy Linfoi and the duke’s son Alasdair.”

  Or he could be the duke by now. His father was as ill as mine when he left …

  Helfred squawked and flailed to his feet. “Linfoi?” he demanded, incredulous. “Princess, are you demented? You would run to Alasdair Linfoi after the council— your father —forbade you expressly to—”

  “Zandakar!” said Mr Jones. “Wei! Wei!”

  Breathless, Rhian stared at Zandakar. He towered over Helfred, who was forced to his knees with his neck bent impossibly sideways. A fraction more pressure fr
om those dark, steady hands and Helfred’s neck would surely snap. Her chaplain was sobbing, his greenish face drained chalky-white. The welt on his cheek burned starkly livid. Zandakar’s face was calm, his expression sternly disapproving.

  Dear God, who is he?

  “Jones, do something!” said Ursa, harshly. Her eyes were wide, her breathing rapid.

  “No. I will,” said Rhian. She glanced at Mr Jones. “What did you tell him?”

  “ Wei . It means no.” His fingers were bloodless on the edge of the hatchway. “Your Highness …”

  Though it hurt almost beyond bearing she made herself stand. Reached a hand out to Zandakar and touched his arm. “ Wei, Zandakar. Let go of him. He can’t hurt me. You understand? Let him go .”

  Zandakar looked at her, then took his hands from Helfred and returned to the bench. Helfred dropped to the floor and curled into himself, gasping. Biting back a groan, she knelt beside him.

  “Never raise your voice to me again, Helfred. Your days of authority over me are ended. The council’s authority over me is ended. I will travel to duchy Linfoi. I will meet with Alasdair. And after that I’ll do what I must to make Ethrea safe from your uncle the prolate and all men of his ilk. Is that clear?”

  Helfred nodded. “It’s clear, Your Highness.” His voice was meagre, a soft puff of sound.

  Ursa had to help her back on her feet, then help her some more to lie down again as Mr Jones roused the horses and the van creaked forward again through the night and the rain. Oblivion descended to the sound of the physick and Mr Jones arguing once more, this time about the best road to take them up to the river. As darkness claimed her she thought:

  Please, God, don’t let them kill each other. I’ve the feeling I’ll need them before I’m done.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rhian woke to the tantalising aroma and sound of frying sausages. She sat up cautiously, relieved to discover her pains much muted. Peering around the edge of the curtain, she found herself alone within the stationary peddler’s van. The top half of its hinged door stood open, letting in shafts of early light and a sense of space unfettered by street or buildings. Voices murmured indistinctly somewhere close by.