The Vanished Queen

by Lisbeth Campbell

  A second meteor fell, a vanishing brightness. He was calmer.

  I will resist, he thought. His anger at Lukovian was anger at himself. Anger at his own timidity, delay, weakness. He should find the strength and courage and resolution of the woman he had freed. The king’s evil had gone on long enough. Waiting for Karolje to die was a coward’s way out.

  How to start? He skipped another stone. Whatever form his resistance took, it would have to be subtle at first, a sculptor tapping delicately at a rough form. He could not tell his brother. Tevin’s struggle was in the Citadel, gathering strands of allegiance. Perhaps fighting. Esvar’s work would be not with fire and blood and command but with small acts of justice. He would snarl Karolje’s plans and try to make a city that was not diseased.

  Stones shifting under his boots, he walked back to the steps. The lightless hill loomed over him, moonlight scattered among the darkness of the vegetation. The Citadel, obscured by the angle of the slope, waited for him in all its shadow and pain.

  He thought again of his mother. She had resisted Karolje with every breath. He would do no less.

  MIRANTHA

  FALLING IN LOVE, when it happens, is unexpected.

  She is in her public rooms, where she gives orders and performs her duties, when a man is admitted to see her. He is a priest, dressed in black, no more than thirty-five. She is accustomed to old men as priests. He is handsome, bronze-skinned, light on his feet, with black hair cropped close to the skull.

  The king’s servant who has brought him says, “My lady, this is Father Ashevi. He is to be the new priest in the Citadel.”

  “Welcome,” she says. Since the old priest died last summer, there has been a succession of men sent by the Temple, all of whom stayed only a few weeks before moving on. She suspects that the Hierarch has been trying to find a man who will satisfy both King Piyr and Karolje, yet keep his loyalty with the Temple. If Ashevi is being presented to her now, he must have made all the men happy.

  He kneels before her and says, “My lady, I am proud to serve you and counsel you, as you wish.” His voice has an accent she cannot place. His voice is beautiful.

  She has not felt passion for years. What she first felt for Karolje died soon after the wedding, and she has protected herself since. At the sound of Ashevi’s voice, desire rushes in.

  “Thank you,” she says, and the day continues. But it is too late. She is lost.

  * * *

  He comes frequently to visit her. She makes careful inquiries among the servants and the courtiers, but they yield nothing more than a rumor that he had been a teacher in the College once before being dismissed for some impropriety. She is certain he is her husband’s spy, and she speaks to him only as much as is proper. On holy days in the chapel, she kneels and avoids looking at him, staring instead at the rent limbs of the god sacrificed on the tree. The god looks down at her, the god she has lost all belief in. Her prayers have never been answered. Ashevi’s voice rings with passionate faith.

  At night, alone, she remembers his hands, the tilt of his head, the way the sun falls upon the plane of his face. He is dangerous, she says to herself. He cannot be trusted. He will betray me. And still her restless fingers find their way over her aching body, need driving her.

  * * *

  Then, despite all the efforts both diplomatic and martial by her father to keep the peace at the border, war with Tazekhor starts, and the king sends Karolje south to fight. With him gone, the pall that lies constantly over her lifts. The king is busy with his advisers, and her sons are left to her keeping more than they ever have been. She takes them out sometimes, riding in the royal hunting preserves on the lakeside. They are always surrounded by guards because of the danger from Asps, the king of Tazekhor’s assassins, who fight from shadows with explosives and cruelty. Esvar is five, fully out of the nursery, and his brother soon to be eleven. Nihalik usually accompanies them.

  One day Nihalik has twisted an ankle and is not able to ride, and it seems natural to invite Ashevi in his place. The air is hot and dry, and the cool of the shady forest falls over them like water. The boys are full of energy and scramble up trees and chase each other over the slippery pine needles while their guards try to keep up. She sits on a rug beside a stream with Ashevi next to her, soldiers ranging around but not close at hand. A ground squirrel scampers over the rocks. The stream burbles softly.

  There is food and wine and pleasant conversation. He tells her about his travels to the eastern edge of Vetia to see the Firefalls, the stories he has heard from Milaya about ancient heroes. His world is so much wider than hers. She eats and drinks a little too much and gets drowsy. Ashevi’s voice is smooth and lulling. His eyes are a warm, inviting brown as he offers her a refilled cup. Her hands tremble as she receives it, and dark wine splashes over the brim of the cup and onto her skin and dress. “Oh,” she says, and lifts the cup to her mouth with both hands. She drinks deeply.

  She puts the cup down and dabs at the spots with a napkin. “That needs water,” he says. He takes the napkin and goes to the stream. Reflected light makes his face shine. When he wrings the napkin, the drops fall like diamonds back to the water.

  He gives her the damp cloth. She wipes her mouth. She has enough caution left to look around for any observant guards before she scrubs at the spots on her bodice. She is aware of her breasts moving with her quickened breath.

  She folds the napkin and returns it, careful not to touch him. Somewhere distant, the boys are shouting. A jay squawks high up in the tree branches. The sky is a cloudless, shining blue, and the air is thick with the scent of pine needles and water. She feels light and faint with happiness.

  * * *

  No words or gestures pass between them, but they know. It takes three days for them to find a way to each other. She comes to the chapel, an ancient room far removed from the busy places of the Citadel, purportedly to pour libations in prayer for her husband’s safety. The libations are doubly a lie, because she neither believes in the gods nor wants Karolje to live.

  The room is small, dim, hot. A single oil lamp burns near the door. The floor, the walls, and the dais are a beautiful, highly polished red-gold wood. The smell of incense has permeated everything in the room and is a faint harmony to the other odors, wood and wax and oil.

  He waits for her in his ceremonial red robe. She shuts the door and walks toward the altar and the sacred water. The air is heavy with the past, with centuries of worship, hymns and invocation of many gods. Prayers repeated over and over are a faint murmur in her mind, like the crash of distant waves. People have come in fear and thanks and hope, in despair and triumph. Kings knelt, widows wept.

  He takes the flask of oil from her and puts it on the altar. His hands come to her breasts, his mouth to hers. She feels the hardness of his teeth beneath his lips. He slides his fingers inside her bodice and slips her dress off her shoulder. He squeezes her nipple. It is painful and exquisite, and she draws in breath. She shivers and sinks to the floor.

  Quick and urgent, neither of them undressing, he pushes hard into her. She bites her thumb to keep months of anticipation from releasing in a shout. The pleasure is immediate, dizzying. He holds her tightly while she jerks with the cascade of ecstasy.

  He withdraws, and as she pulls her skirt down, she realizes he is unfulfilled.

  “Later,” he says, smiling. “It is enough for me to have pleased you, my lady.”

  “We can’t keep on,” she says. “Karolje will find out when he comes back.”

  “I am a priest,” he says. He kisses her and pulls her sleeve back up. Then he steps back and smooths the fabric. “Priests are allowed secrets other men are not. The gods will protect you.”

  The gods are no protection at all. She remembers Nihalik’s story of the avenging harpy goddess and wishes desperately that it was more than a story, that the goddess could free her from her husband and let her have Ashevi without fear. But no shadow fills the room, no wings flutter the air. Her hands are onl
y hands that crave the feel of Ashevi’s body beneath them.

  She kisses him again. Then she turns, takes a steadying breath, and leaves without looking back.

  THE ANCHOR WAS even worse than Anza had imagined. Narrow glassless windows set in bowed boards, an unconscious vagrant whose eyes were swollen and suppurating lying next to it, the door painted a dull peeling black. The roof of a warehouse across the street sagged. The stink of rotted grapes and urine underlay the greasy odor of fish cooked in cheap and repeatedly used oil. The lake water under the nearby bridge was still and scummed and vile. It was a hot, hazy day, the setting sun lacking any clarity of light that could have made the place look less miserable.

  Just the sort of spot for the resistance to meet.

  Anza pushed the door open and stepped into a dim room. Two pitch torches and a fish-oil lamp provided inadequate light. Years of ground-in dust greyed the floorboards. A creature moved under a table, and flies buzzed around congealed grease. Something smelled rotten.

  The woman who must be Sparrow—the only other woman present was much too young—sat at a table in the back. She was dressed in men’s clothing and had a yellow scarf tied loosely around her neck. A cap was on the table in front of her, next to a tin plate with chicken bones on it. Ignoring the glances of the few people in the room, Anza crossed and took a seat next to Sparrow.

  “I hope you weren’t the one who ate that chicken,” she said before she could stop herself.

  Sparrow grinned. Her teeth were good. She was about forty-five, with short hair that might have been silver or white-blond and a strong, slender build. The hard edge to her face suggested she would kill without a second thought.

  She said, “I have a stomach made of lead. Spoiled food isn’t going to be what kills me. You surprise me, showing up. I didn’t think you would.”

  “It never occurred to me to do anything else,” said Anza. She took a deep breath, which she then regretted as it brought the smells of the place more strongly to her. She said, “Why did you want to see me? Is this about what went wrong three days ago?”

  The message had come that morning, a note delivered with a code phrase as she left the public baths. The Anchor, Beggar Island by the bridge, sunset. Sparrow. The tavern was four miles from Radd’s office, and Anza had had to hurry.

  “In part,” said Sparrow. “How did you escape if they got hold of you enough to beat you?”

  Anza touched her cheek. The swelling was going down, and the purple-black was beginning to fade, not that it was possible to tell in this place. “That was a different incident,” she said. “They weren’t connected.”

  “Did Rumil hit you?”

  How much did Sparrow know about her? “No. And as it happens, I’ve left him.”

  “Are those marks on your wrists from the same event?”

  “Yes. I work for Radd Orescu. A lawyer. I had the misfortune of being at a client’s house when king’s men came to arrest him. They took everyone. They didn’t use a weapon on me, but I was knocked out.” Radd had been furious when she told him, furious and ready to send her south to his wife’s family for protection.

  “And you were released?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Who decided to release you?”

  Prince Esvar, she was supposed to say, but the words would not form. “They didn’t explain things to me. They were in charge. I must have been more bother than I was worth.”

  She had expected Esvar’s face to show cruelty, inflicted upon him, inflicted by him. Instead she would have thought him attractive if she had not known who he was. He had been firm. Neither gentle nor vicious. And surprisingly deliberate with his words for a man who was accustomed to being obeyed. Why had he pulled an ordinary woman out of the clutches of the examiners? Her safety was not what had driven him. He wanted to see her for some other reason.

  His voice, amber instead of stone, was clear in her head. If I ask the examiner, he’ll lie. What did he use? The controlled anger had not been directed at her.

  Her father had spoken little about things that transpired in the Citadel, but he had said enough for her to know one had to tread carefully among the different alliances and factions. The hostility between the prince’s captain and the examiner had not been feigned. Esvar had not cared who she was; freeing her had been a strike against Karolje, a claim of authority superseding the king’s. Did he want the crown himself? What about his brother? Rumor said that neither prince was as cruel as Karolje, but since the king hadn’t killed them, she had counted them loyal. Perhaps she was wrong.

  Sparrow broke into her thoughts. “Why was he arrested?”

  “Who?” Anza said, startled. “Oh. The client. Smuggling.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure that’s what they said. I have no idea if that’s true.”

  To her surprise, Sparrow laughed. It was not malicious. “Who was the client, and where does he live?”

  “Andrei Nikovili. He lives on the Old Wall Road. His business is somewhere in the Teak District.”

  “Did they ask you about us? Or use a Truth Finder?”

  The ligature marks on her neck had faded, but she could still feel the tightening belt. “No,” she said. “It was to be quite ordinary torture, just for their entertainment. The examiner was going to kill me before even asking questions. That was how I knew he didn’t think I was guilty of the smuggling. I was—I wasn’t part of the household. I think he saw me as an unexpected treat.” That was what Esvar had realized. She had been lucky.

  “How did you survive?”

  “He was interrupted by something more important.” Why was she withholding the truth from this woman?

  Because truth was the coin she had, and she did not want to spend it yet.

  Sparrow considered this. “You’re quite calm about it.”

  The cook slapped something on the griddle, which sizzled noisily. Anza shrugged and said, “I just pretended it was happening to someone else. It didn’t go on all that long.”

  “That strategy works for a while,” said Sparrow. “If you do it too much, you do become another person. Remind me why you joined us.” Her tone changed; the conversation had become an examination. When Anza first joined the resistance, she had been asked similar questions by her contact and by the people in her group. Now Sparrow was making her own assessment.

  “Karolje had my father executed.”

  “Executed. Not murdered? What was he to the king?”

  Anza said, “A soldier. A captain. I don’t know why he was killed.” She could have said more, but she remembered Radd’s words: Answer the question asked. No more, no less. He had said that when she told him about Nikovili’s capture. She had not expected to use the advice so soon.

  “A soldier. You know how to shoot. Did he teach you?”

  “Yes. He brought me a hunting bow and arrows. Good ones, when I could shoot well enough.” She had not asked him where they came from, because she knew he would not tell her.

  “Why did he teach you?”

  The smack of an arrow into a straw target, the shape and smoothness of the bow, the precise movement of her fingers when nocking, had all pleased her. The curve of an arrow in flight.

  “I wanted to learn. He taught me other weapons too, he wanted me to be safe.”

  “Which of your friends knew about him?”

  “None. They thought I had an uncle I visited sometimes.” Her relationship with Rumil—and with her other lovers—had never reached that point of honesty. To protect her father, she had told herself. It was his secret, not hers.

  She wondered now if it was shame that had kept her silent, shame that her father served Karolje. It would not have been a shameful thing to any of the people she knew at the College, except perhaps Irini, who flirted with defiance. Had she been embarrassed that her father was so common? Or was it just the instinctive fear that came with living under a tyrant, the hoarding away of any information that could make her vulnerable?

 
; “When was he executed?”

  “Three, almost four, months ago.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “He didn’t meet me when he was supposed to. When I hadn’t heard anything two days later, I went to his house. It had the king’s Mark on the door.” She had suspected by then but had hoped his absence was something else, sickness or forgetfulness. When she saw the Mark, those fantasies vanished and a painful nausea settled in her stomach, there for days. Just thinking about it brought it back.

  “Where is his house?”

  “Near the Citadel. We didn’t usually meet there, but I knew where it was.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Alcu Havidian.”

  “I can probably find out the reason he was executed,” Sparrow said. “Do you want to know?”

  Did she? What if it had been for some reason dishonorable? Or worse, stupid? If she didn’t know, there would always be a place on the edge of her life like an unhealed wound, scabbed over perhaps but tempting to pick at.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And if it turns out to have been one of Karolje’s rare acts of justice?”

  “There are a thousand other reasons to fight.”

  Sparrow said, “Can they get at you through any of your father’s friends? Other soldiers?”

  “He never told anyone about me. He didn’t marry my mother, and she died when I was eight. That was near Mirsk. My father came north when I was six, and I didn’t see him again for ten years.” Mirsk was four hundred miles away; there had been no visits, not even when her mother was alive. Anza herself had gone back only once to see her aunt, three years ago.

  “Who else can Karolje use to hurt you?”

  She had drifted from most of the friends she made at the College. They had all scattered to different places in the city, and though she saw them occasionally, they were not confidants. Nor were Rumil’s friends, boisterous rich young men who had no interest in her. She had not talked to Irini for over a year. Without Rumil, the only person she cared about was Radd.