by Karen Miller
Drenched in scarlet fury he rushed at Zandakar, fists raised. “And I thought six men dead was a slaughter? You should’ve told me! How dare you not tell me?” He shoved Zandakar so the man half tumbled from the fallen tree. “ I let you close to the princess of Ethrea! I told her to trust you. I promised her you were safe ! But you’re a murderer ! A conquerer ! You’ve destroyed entire countries ! God save me, you want to destroy my country! You and your chalava, you want to conquer Ethrea !”
Zandakar raised a hand. “Yatzhay—yatzhay—”
“And was it yatzhay to the thousands you butchered and enslaved? Yatzhay to Targa, Zandakar? Yatzhay to Zree?”
Zandakar pushed himself up from his knees. “ Wei, Dexterity. Listen. Listen.”
So angry he was fearless, he shoved Zandakar down again. “Listen to a murderer? No, I don’t think so! I think Hettie must be mad to have me rescue you. I should’ve left you on that slave ship to rot! I should have left you there to die !”
A breeze sighed through the sweet green woodland. He heard a voice sigh with it: Dexie, love. Have faith. We need him .
He spun around. “Hettie?”
The breeze died away. Hettie was silent, if she’d even been there. He turned back to Zandakar, who sat splayed on the damp ground staring up at him, his pale blue eyes wide. Almost child-like. The animal blood had dried rustred on his clothes.
“And what am I to do with you now?” he demanded, his voice ragged. “Do I pretend I never learned this? Do I pretend I don’t know you’re this chotzu for your god?”
Wearily Zandakar shook his head. “ Wei chotzu, Dexterity.”
“Then what are you now? Besides a murderer.”
“I am—I am— tcha .” Zandakar made a sharp, slashing gesture. His face twisted in disgust.
I am nothing.
More silence. Dexterity stared at him, flayed with doubt. Then Hettie’s words sounded again, an echo in his heart. We need him . Slowly the scarlet tide of fury receded, taking with it the impulse to batter, to hurt. He stepped back.
“What happened, Zandakar? Why are you no longer chotzu in Mijak? Why did your mother and brother kill your wife and son?”
Zandakar let his head thud against the fallen tree. “Yuma hate Lilit,” he said dully. “Lilit people Harjha. Slave people, Yuma say.” He spat on the ground. “Animal.”
Well, how charming. “But you didn’t think so. You loved her. You married her.”
The pain in Zandakar’s face was almost too great to look at. “ Zho . I loved Lilit.”
“And because of Lilit your mother turned away from you?”
“ Wei . Because I did not conquer Na’ha’leima.”
Na’ha’leima? Oh, Hettie. All these lands I’ve never heard of . “You didn’t conquer …” He shook his head, confused. “Why not? After all those other countries, why stop there?”
Zandakar punched a fist against his heart. “I hear chalava. Chalava say wei conquer. Dimmi is angry. I go to Et-Raklion with Dimmi. Vortka say I wei hear chalava .”
Dexterity sat on the far end of the fallen tree. His legs felt like they were stuffed with cotton. His head was aching. His throat was tight. “How would Vortka know?”
“Vortka is chalava-chaka . Like Helfred, zho? ”
“A holy man? Ah. I see.”
“Vortka hears chalava . He say chalava wants conquer. Yuma—Yuma—” Zandakar’s face twisted again. “Yuma want conquer. Yuma want to kill Zandakar. Vortka say wei .”
“So Vortka saved you twice. A friend, indeed,” he murmured. “And what happened then?”
“Yuma say Dimmi is chalava-hagra .”
“What is chalava-hagra ?”
Zandakar shrugged. “ Wei words. Chalava-hagra …” He held up both hands. Fisted one, and smashed it into his other palm. Again. Again. Again. “Chalava-hagra.”
A weapon. Like a hammer, for his bloodthirsty god. I feel sick . “So it’s Dimmi who comes to Ethrea? Dimmi who conquers the world for your god?”
“ Zho . Dimmi comes. With chotzaka . I think you say army.”
“But … you said your god told you to stop the killing. Who was right? You or Vortka?”
Zandakar’s face reflected his torment. “ Wei know, Dexterity. Wei know.”
Dexterity jumped up from the fallen tree and stamped a few paces up and down the woodland path. “Well I do, Zandakar. You were right. Your people have no business thinking to conquer the rest of us. You should have stayed in Mijak where you belong.”
I thought he was gentle. I thought I sensed something good in him. And now I find he’s slaughtered thousands. Enslaved thousands more. Helfred was right. He’s a brute, from a brute race. A race of people who are coming to kill us in the name of their dreadful god.
Unbidden, his fingers found the carved chalava hanging round his neck. They tightened on it, and he went to tear it off its twine so he could throw it away.
“Wei!” shouted Zandakar, lurching to his feet. “Dexterity, wei. Chalava for you.”
“I don’t want it! I want nothing to do with this god of yours.”
“ Wei, Dexterity,” said Zandakar, looming over him. “Keep chalava . Please.” He touched his eye. “ Chalava see Dexterity. Chalava wei kill.”
Dexterity stared at him. He said please. He’s never said please before. And if I say no he might turn uncooperative . He let his hand drop. “All right. I’ll wear it.”
Zandakar nodded. He seemed relieved. Then he pressed his fist to his heart. “ Yatzhay, Dexterity. Yatzhay for Targa. Yatzhay for Drohne, and Harjha, and Bryzin, and Zree. Yatzhay for Ethrea if Dmitrak comes.”
Against all commonsense he believed Zandakar’s sorrow. Something in the tone of his voice … the pain in his eyes … a shadow of memory darkening his face. But he couldn’t forgive the man. At least not yet. He jabbed his finger into Zandakar’s chest.
I think I know now why you had me save him, Hettie …
“If Dmitrak comes, Zandakar, you’re going to stop him. You’re going to be chalava-hagra for Ethrea. Understand?”
“ Zho . Understand.”
“And you never speak of what you’ve told me today. This is our secret . If anyone learns who you are, where you’re from, what you’ve done and what your people plan to do … I think they’ll kill you outright. And that’s not what Hettie has planned. You’re here to save Ethrea and that’s exactly what you’ll do.”
Zandakar frowned. “ Wei tell Rhian?”
Dexterity jabbed him again. “Especially wei Rhian! She can’t know this, Zandakar. She’s about to face a terrible trial, she’s about to fight for her right to the Crown! God alone knows the kind of powers she’ll be up against. She might even have to fight the whole Church. She can’t be distracted with tidings like this . We’ll tell her when it’s over and she’s safe on the throne. Not a minute before.”
Did Zandakar understand? It was hard to say. But he nodded, as though he did. “ Zho, Dexterity. Secret.”
“Good,” he said, stepping back. “Now we’d best make our way home to the manor. Else they’ll be sending out someone to look for us and I’d rather not be found here. Let’s go.”
Zandakar held out his hand. “Knife, Dexterity.”
The knife. Yes. It was still stuck through his belt. He pulled it out and looked at it, then at Zandakar. It would seem odd, after all this time, if Zandakar didn’t carry it. Odder still if a toymaker did.
“If I give this back to you, I want your promise,” he said sternly. “ No more cutting yourself . And no more blood ! It’s disgusting .”
Zandakar nodded. “ Zho . No more blood.”
“All right then,” he muttered, and gave the knife back.
On returning to the manor house, Zandakar went to the stables. Dexterity, pleased to see him go for the moment, fetched his abandoned whittling tools and carving from the garden and took them inside. He found Ursa in the dining room, safely back from her physicking and enjoying a bowl of soup. The day had slipped away from hi
m. It was late afternoon and the air was cooling.
“You’ll spoil your appetite,” he said, smiling briefly.
“Tcha!” she scoffed, and swallowed another spoonful. “Sixty years of living and it hasn’t happened yet.”
In need of support, he leaned against the wall. “Things go all right today then, did they?”
Another spoonful of soup. “They went fine. The outbreak wasn’t as bad as first thought. Which is a mercy, considering.” She sat back, her eyebrows lowered. “What’s wrong, Jones? You look like your donkey just died.”
The urge to tell her was overwhelming.
Funny you should ask, Ursa. As it happens, I’ve just discovered Zandakar’s an exiled warrior prince from a land full of marauding warriors. He’s slaughtered thousands of innocents. He’s conquered entire countries. He’s got a mother and brother twice as bad as he is and apparently they’re on their way here to kill or enslave every last breathing one of us. Apart from that, everything’s fine.
He wanted to tell her, oh, he wanted to share the news. To let her carry some of its burden. To make himself not so alone . Except he’d promised Hettie he’d say nothing. He’d promised Zandakar too. The thought of keeping his promise to a man like Zandakar struck him as odd in the extreme, but that couldn’t be helped.
Besides, if I tell her she’ll have a conniption. It’ll be the end of Zandakar. Hettie’s trusting me to keep him safe. So I’ll hold my tongue no matter the cost.
And there would be a cost. He could feel that in his hollowed bones.
Forcing a smile, he shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. A touch of megrim, perhaps. I fell asleep in the sun, whittling.” The lie stung. Never before had he told an untruth to Ursa. It felt like a betrayal. As though he’d broken something that might never be mended.
“Fool of a man,” Ursa scolded, and put down her spoon. “I’ve a potion for that. You come with me.”
She led him upstairs to her room where she handed him a vial of something horrible and watched him drink it.
“Thank you,” he said, his mouth shrivelled, and handed the empty vial back.
“Don’t suppose you’ve seen the prin—the queen today, have you?” said Ursa, washing the vial clean in the privy basin on its stand under the window.
“No. But then I was outside and—and sleeping a good few hours.” The lie stung him a second time. He thrust the pain aside. “Besides, they are newly married, Ursa. They’ll want a day to themselves, I’m thinking.”
She sniffed. “A day, perhaps. But no longer. We’ve a kingdom in crisis and dukes arriving soon. This is no time for dalliance, Jones. She’s a long, rocky road ahead of her. She needs her wits sharp.”
“I think she knows what’s ahead of her, Ursa.” Some of it, anyway. “It’s because of what’s ahead of her she needs this one day.”
“I know,” said Ursa. She put the cleaned vial aside to dry then perched on the end of her enormous four-poster bed. “And I don’t mind telling you, Jones … what’s ahead of her’s got me nervous. It’s all very well her standing up in that tiny manor-house chapel in front of a handful of servants and nobodies and declaring herself queen, but a queen’s only queen when the dukes and the Church say she is. And Prolate Marlan’s not going to say so. Helfred might’ve had the law on his side when he married the girl to Alasdair but he’s not got the power to declare her queen.”
Dexterity perched on the bed beside her. “He doesn’t need it, Ursa. There’s no law that says Rhian can’t rule. She’s Eberg’s heir, that’s the start and finish of it.”
“Tcha. Law . What’s the law when you’ve tradition behind you, Jones? What’s the law when the Church says you’ve done the wrong thing? I tell you, we’ve landed ourselves in an ugly business. I don’t like it. I wish we were home.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “And if we were home, Ursa, who’d’ve saved those poor villagers from a nasty case of scaleytoe?”
“Stop humouring me,” she said, and shrugged his arm away. “I won’t be humoured, Jones. I’m right to be worried.”
He sighed. “What’s going to happen will happen. We just have to have faith.”
“Hark at him!” said Ursa, snorting. “Have faith, he says, a man who’s not set foot in Church for twenty years!”
“What are you talking about? I was in a church yesterday.”
She glowered. “You know what I mean, Jones.”
He rarely saw her this upset. Putting his arm around her again, he let his cheek rest on the top of her head. “Yes. I know. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Things are stirring here, grand things, frightening things, that we don’t understand, or aren’t meant to know of yet. But we’re on the right side of them, Ursa. We’re fighting for good, you and me. We’re fighting for Ethrea. We must hold on to that.”
“You’re getting philosophical in your old age, Jones,” said Ursa. She didn’t shrug him away this time. “I don’t like it. Next thing I know you’ll be on your knees in a church properly, and then I’ll have to take to my bed.”
He kissed her hair. He’d never done that before. It’s because I feel guilty . “You should take to your bed anyway. You look tired. Why not sleep awhile, before the servants call us for dinner?”
“Do you know, Jones? I think I might,” she said. “Treating scaleytoe is no simple business. And what’s more, I’ll say the same to you. Get some rest. Potion or no potion you still look like your donkey died.”
He took her advice. In his own room, with the door closed, he sagged onto his bed, aching as though he’d just tumbled down a hill. The weight of what he knew, now, was enough to grind his bones to dust. The weight of his promises. The weight of Zandakar’s terrible secret …
Oh, Hettie, my darling. I hope I’ve done the right thing.
“Alasdair … Alasdair, tell me I’m doing the right thing,” whispered Rhian.
In the bed Alasdair shifted, mumbling. In her chair by the window, dressed again in her boy’s clothes, Rhian stared at the plain, bony lines of his face and wished she could lay her cheek against his. Wished his bed was hers so when she opened her eyes tomorrow morning the first thing she’d see was his sleeping face.
But that couldn’t be. Not yet. The marriage had been consummated, as was only prudent. A fumbling affair with much awkwardness on both sides. Not … unpleasant, however. At least not entirely. And there’d been certain hints that things might improve upon practice.
Though when we’ll get to that practice I’ve no idea.
Because from tonight she and her new husband would sleep apart until the matter of her right to rule was settled. They had to. The last thing she needed was to fall pregnant when she could be facing civil war. There were herbs, Ursa said, and had given some to her, but herbs weren’t always reliable. She needed reliable. She didn’t need complications.
My life is complicated enough as it is.
The dukes would be arriving tomorrow, and she would face them as Ethrea’s uncrowned queen. If they supported her, if they recognised her right to rule as Eberg’s legitimate heir, she might just manage to keep the kingdom together in the face of Marlan’s certain opposition and the rallied opposition of his widespread Church. If they didn’t …
It will be civil war. Ethrean turned against Ethrean. Blood will be spilled.
“Alasdair,” she whispered. “Please. I need to know. Am I being unreasonable? Greedy? Spoilt? Should I stop this now before it truly begins?” Renounce her right to rule. Let the House of Havrell’s time come to a quiet end. Live out her days in duchy Linfoi as a simple duchess and let the dukes fight it out amongst themselves to make a new king.
Would that even be possible? Or would I just be a lightning rod for trouble? I don’t know, I don’t know.
“You’re my husband, Alasdair. Tell me what to do!”
Alasdair snuffled, and pulled the blankets over his head.
Right. Yes. Thank you. That’s enormously helpful.
Except …
he was right. She was Ethrea’s queen. It wasn’t his place to tell her what to do. And if he tried he’d only make her angry. He knew that. In many ways he knew her better than anyone ever had. Knew her. Loved her. And she loved him. Even if things were strained between them …
Everything’s happening too fast, that’s the problem. And there’s too much trouble brewing that he wasn’t prepared for. And with his father newly dead …
Beyond the curtained windows the light was slowly fading. Restless, lost, she unfolded herself from the deep velvet chair and slipped from the chamber. Manor servants about their business curtsied as she passed. Nodding brief acknowledgement, she trounced lightly down the staircase to the ground-floor reception hall then outside into the approaching dusk.
Zandakar was in the gardens, dancing, the slow, steady limbering steps that warmed the body so it could tolerate the more energetic hotas without injury. He turned, hearing her approach, and stopped. Acknowledged her with a brief dip of his head. He’d stopped shaving it, so now a blue sheen shimmered. So odd. She wondered if she should order him to shave it again, to make him less conspicuous.
Perhaps she would. But not yet. In truth she was curious to see what it would look like, grown …
“Rhian,” he said, one eyebrow lifted.
“Zandakar.” She frowned. “Is something the matter? You look …” Wrong. Somehow upset. Beneath his familiar composure she could sense a deep unquiet. And there was something in his eyes … “Are you all right?”
“ Zho . All right.”
“You’re sure?” she said, unconvinced. “No-one’s been bothering you, have they? No-one’s made you feel unwelcome? Because you’re part of my retinue. I won’t have you made to feel unwelcome just because you’re… different.”
“ Wei . Zandakar all right.”
Relieved, she smiled at him. “Good. That’s good.” She slid her knife from its sheath on her belt and pressed her fist to her heart in the ritual of pupil to master. “May I join you?”
