The Born Queen

by Greg Keyes

  “You’ll win there, too,” she said.

  Later that night, in their tent, she seemed less certain.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Is this really your task, to challenge the queen of Crotheny?”

  He rolled back a bit and propped himself on his elbows. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said. “We went through this back in the mountain. It was you and the Aitivar who were so convinced I was Kauron’s heir, back when I believed it was mere insanity. Well, you were right. Where is this sudden doubt coming from? Are your allegiences still mixed? Do you still think Anne is a savior?”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “No. I suppose it’s that I never quite believed it. But I believed in the shy, smart man I met in Demsted. I thought he would find a way to help somehow.”

  “Am I so different?”

  “No. Stronger. Bolder. All of the things you were becoming anyway, now that I look back. It just happened so quickly.”

  “Well, do you still believe in me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good, then. Do you still want to help me?”

  “I don’t see what help I can be,” she said.

  He smiled. “You just said it. You believed in me. You still do. That is a strength I can always use.”

  “And I love you,” she said.

  “And I love you, too,” he said.

  He knew she would be a lovely queen. Or mistress, depending on how things went.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SIR HARRIOT’S TASK

  “YOU’RE GIVING us too much,” Aspar said, lashing a pack onto one of the spare horses. “You’ll starve.”

  “No,” Symen said. “Like as I won’t, since I’m going with you. There’s not much sense in staying at Tor Scath anymore.”

  “You can’t be sure what the Church’s army intends,” Aspar said.

  “That’s true,” Symen replied. “But even if they leave us be, what will we eat in a year? Two? And who’s going to hunt here, anyway? No, I’ll give you whatever I can. This world is lost, and the only thing or person in it I have any trust in is you, holter. So pack quickly, and let’s be on.”

  Aspar nodded and resumed packing.

  A moment later he heard someone cough softly behind him. It was Emfrith.

  Sceat, Aspar thought. And again.

  “I don’t understand why we’re leaving,” the young man said. “This is the perfect place to keep Winna safe.”

  “Keeps monsters out, not men, and we’ll never hold off five hundred.”

  “It’s an army of the Church,” Emfrith said.

  “That’s the same Church that has been hanging every other villager from here to Brogswell, yah?”

  “They didn’t hang anyone in Haemeth,” Emfrith pointed out. “We follow the saints there.”

  “Good for you. But we’ve had some experiences to make us skittish of anyone under saintly armor. Ask Winna. It’s not worth the chance. We’ve this one moment to escape, and here it is—werlic?”

  “Raiht,” Emfrith agreed, sounding reluctant. Then he sighed. “Look, why don’t I just go talk to them? See what they want? If you’re right and they mean no good, we can still flee. But if you’re wrong, then we can stay here, where the monsters can’t get in, until Winna has the baby.”

  “There’s not enough food for five months.”

  “Me and my men can ride out and get some when it’s needed.”

  “From where? The blight is moving outward.”

  “Yes, but we’re riding straight into it.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to question me anymore.”

  “That was when I thought this was the safe place you meant.”

  “There’s a safer one,” Aspar said.

  “Is there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well,” he said after a moment. Then he walked away.

  You really love her, don’t you? Aspar thought. Grim, but I wish I could speak my mind.

  His leg was throbbing as he mounted the horse he’d begun calling Grimla in hopes that a stout name would make the beast stronger.

  They started southwest, off the Old King’s Road, fording the shallows of the Little Moon River before the end of the first day, then starting up into the Walham foothills. He and Winna hadn’t come this way the last time, because they had been along the Slaghish River, following the trail of the first greffyn. That had led them to Rewn Aluth and the strange, possibly dead Sefry who called herself Mother Gastya. She had sent them into the Mountains of the Hare to find a hidden valley that Aspar knew for a fact couldn’t be there.

  But as with so many things, he’d been wrong. The valley had been there, and the Briar King, and Fend, and for him and Winna it had all very nearly ended there, as well. But it hadn’t, and Stephen had had a large hand in that.

  He tried not to wonder where Stephen was, and he didn’t like to talk to Winna about it, because the simple fact was that the boy was most probably dead. Even if the slinders hadn’t killed him, the woorm probably had, and if not the woorm, the explosion of monastery d’Ef or one of a thousand other things. Stephen was smart and a good fellow, but surviving on his own even before the world went mad was not exactly his strongest talent.

  He’d done all he could to help Stephen, hadn’t he? Followed the slinders, chased the woorm. He’d found no sign whatever of the lad.

  He shifted his gaze to Winna and Ehawk. At least Ehawk had found them again. It was good to know the Watau wasn’t a lonely ghost wandering in the Bairghs.

  The foothills rose and fell in ever-sharper undulating folds and ridges. It had always been easy to get turned around in the Walhams, but now, without the usual reference points, it was more difficult than ever to keep a true path. He could see that there had been a lot of rain in the last several months and much flooding. The invading growth didn’t have the same deep roots as the natural flora, and many of the ways he knew were closed by massive mud slides. Most of the ridges had washed down to bedrock, and the valleys were filled with viscous muck.

  But in those low-lying places the eldritch vegetation was very strong. It was starting to sicken, but it wasn’t nearly as far gone as what he’d seen back in the Lean Gables. They had to cut their way through it in places.

  They progressed very slowly. Aspar reckoned that in three days they’d managed only five leagues as the raven wings toward their destination.

  And that evening, Henne, Sir Symen’s tracker, turned up with bad news.

  “The churchmen are boxing you in,” he said. “Don’t know how. It’s like they know where you’re going.”

  “Where are they exactly?” Aspar asked him.

  Henne sketched a map on the ground, and when he was done, Aspar cursed Grim and ground his teeth.

  I reckon Fend was telling the truth about this at least.

  Because it looked like they were going to need some help.

  The knight woke when Aspar’s dirk pricked his neck. To his credit, he didn’t scream or wet himself; in fact, he hardly flinched. His eyes registered first shock, then chagrin, and finally, as he understood he wasn’t dead already, curiosity.

  “That’s a good man,” Aspar whispered.

  “You must be Holter White.”

  “Ah, I’m famous,” Aspar replied. “But I’ve not your name in my word horde.”

  “That would be Roger Harriot. Sir Roger Harriot.”

  “Virgenyan?”

  “Yes, from St. Clement Danes.”

  “But you’re not just on your way home.”

  “Regrettably, no. I have several tasks to accomplish, and none involves returning to my home.”

  “And these tasks?”

  “Well, one would be to bring to heel a certain renegade holter, should I run across him.”

  “By whose order?”

  “The Fratrex Prismo of the holy Church.”

  “And for what reason?”

  Sir Roger seemed to wonder how to answer that for a moment. “There are
many I could give,” he finally replied. “But I’ve heard a lot about you, and I think I’ll tell you the truth. My primary task isn’t to find you; it’s to find the valley where you first discovered the Briar King. I’m to go there and hold it against all invaders until Niro Marco sends word.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t rightly know. I don’t care. But as you seem to be going there, I thought I would best discharge my mission by stopping you here in the foothills.”

  “How do you even know where you’re going?”

  “You made a report to the praifec of Crotheny, and he dispatched scouts to find the place. It’s on our maps now.”

  Hespero, Aspar thought darkly.

  “Well,” Aspar said, “I reckon you ought to turn back.”

  “Why? Because you’ve got a knife to my throat? Everything I know about you says you won’t kill me.”

  “You don’t know everything, though, do you?” Aspar asked.

  “Well, we all have our secrets.”

  His eyes shifted the barest bit, and Aspar suddenly found himself airborne, then pinned by two fantastically strong monks.

  Stupid, he thought. Was it the geos making him an idiot or just old age?

  It didn’t matter now. Had they caught Leshya, too?

  “Are you here alone, holter?” the knight asked, answering that question.

  “Yah.”

  “Well, I’ll try to have someone keep you company, at least until we’ve detained your friends. Do you think they will fight? It would be foolish.”

  “They might not,” Aspar said. “Take me there. I’ll talk them out of it.”

  Harriot shrugged. “It doesn’t make that much difference to me. Anyway, my men have already started closing. I expect this to be over before sunrise.”

  Aspar relaxed his muscles and sighed, then put everything he had into breaking loose from the monks.

  It was like trying to snap iron bands.

  “You’ve no chance, holter,” Harriot said.

  “You have to let me go,” Aspar said. “You’ve no idea what you’re doing. You said it yourself. Unless I get to that valley, everything will die.”

  “That’s very dramatic,” Sir Roger replied. “In fact, the Fratrex Prismo makes similar claims about what will happen if you do reach the valley. Imagine who I believe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to oversee this. I promise you, I will spare whoever I can.”

  “Harm any of them and I’ll send you straight to Grim,” Aspar said.

  “Grim? How quaint. A mountain heretic.”

  “I’m serious,” Aspar said. “I’ll kill you.”

  “Well that is as may be,” the knight replied. “I’ll trust you to think about the method.”

  They tied him up and put him under guard, leaving him to continue contemplating his mistake. He knew that there were monks who could hear a butterfly’s wing against the breeze; Stephen had been one such. But when he’d been able to slip into camp, apparently unnoticed, he’d reckoned this bunch didn’t have any of those.

  And maybe they didn’t. Leshya seemed to have escaped without being seen.

  Maybe part of him wanted to be caught. This way, at least, the Sarnwood witch wouldn’t get her way.

  But what if Fend was right?

  It was hard to even consider that. It was also moot; it no longer mattered what he thought.

  A bell or so before dawn, the monks broke down the tent and lashed him over the back of a horse, then set off at a fast trot. There was a lot of shouting about formations and such, so Aspar figured that Emfrith must be giving better than Harriot had imagined he would. He wished they would set him upright so that he could see.

  They reached a ridge top, and the horsemen started forming ranks.

  Aspar smelled autumn leaves.

  A sudden marrow-scraping scream went up, and he tried to lift his head higher. Then something knocked the horse out from under him. Blood came down like hot rain, and he had to blink it out of his eyes to see.

  Gasping, he tucked his legs up and brought his bound hands from behind, cursing at the pain, eyes searching wildly for the source of the horse’s disembowelment. But all he saw were the stamping hooves of other horses, and all he heard were screams of pain, terror, and defiance.

  He got his hands under his boots and pulled forward, then started working at the knots keeping his feet together.

  As he did that, the fighting moved away from him. By the time he could stand up, it was well down the ridge, leaving only carnage behind. Almost twenty horses were down, and nearly as many men. He took a dirk from one of the corpses and whittled through what remained of his bonds. He found a throwing ax on a headless body and stuck it in his belt.

  From his vantage, he could see two battles being fought. One was up on the ridge with him, albeit farther down. He could see only part of it, but he could make out a couple of greffyns and an utin tearing at what remained of Harriot’s rear guard.

  Most of the rest of the army of the Church lay dead in the valley below, sprawled side by side with dozens of dead and dying sedhmhari. Only a few dozen men remained, and he recognized some of them as Emfrith’s horsemen.

  That was his fight, then. He started down the slope as quickly as he dared and as his legs allowed him.

  He picked his way through the corpses, and by the time he reached the knot of men, only half a dozen of Emfrith’s men were still on their feet. They faced about ten churchmen, three of them still mounted. Of Winna there was no sign.

  One of the knights saw him and wheeled his way but was unable to come to a full charge because of the heaped bodies. Aspar took the ax out of his belt and hurled it from four kingsyards away. It smacked into the knight’s visor, and his head popped back. Aspar followed close behind the missile, grabbing the man’s arm, hauling him out of the saddle, and slamming him to the ground. Then he stabbed the dirk up under the helm and though his neck.

  With bleak purpose he turned to the next man, and then the next…

  When it was over, Aspar, Emfrith, and two of his warriors were all that remained.

  But Emfrith didn’t have long. He had been stabbed through the lungs, and blood was choking out with his breath.

  “Holter,” he managed to gasp. “You have a berry for this?” He was trying to sound brave, but Aspar could see the terror on his face.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, lad,” he said. “Do you know what happened to Winna?”

  “Leshya took her before the fighting started. Said you had sent for her.”

  “I sent for her?”

  Emfrith nodded. “Some of the knights broke off and went north. I think they may have gone after them.”

  “Maybe. I’ll find her.”

  “I wish I could help.”

  “You’ve helped plenty,” Aspar said.

  “Be good to her,” Emfrith said. “You don’t deserve her. You’re a damned fine man, but you don’t deserve her.”

  “I know,” Aspar said.

  “It’s a good death, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a good death,” Aspar agreed. “I’m proud of you. Your father will be, too.”

  “Don’t you tell him. He’ll hang you.”

  Aspar nodded. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Aspar rose and collected the ax. He found a bow and a few arrows, a dirk, then a horse. Emfrith’s men stayed with him.

  He wondered where Ehawk was. He hoped he was with Leshya but didn’t have time to search the dead.

  The battle on the ridge seemed to be over, too. At least he didn’t see anything moving up there anymore.

  He rode south, along the valley bottom.

  Fend was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OVER BLUFF AND DOWN SLOUGH

  NEIL’S STEED stumbled, tried to catch her stride, then stopped and tossed her head, blowing. Her coat was slick with foam, and her withers trembled. Neil leaned forward and stroked her neck, speak
ing to her in his native language.

  “It’ll be fine, girl,” he told her. “The prince says we’ll be giving you a rest in less than a league. But I need you to go now, yes? Let’s do it.”

  He gave her a gentle nudge, and she started gamely forward, finally working up to match the canter of the others.

  “It’s a beautiful evening,” he told the mare. “Look at the sun there, on the water.”

  Three days of hard riding had brought them to an old coastal trail that wound over bluff and down slough. The sun was going home, and Saltmark Sound was skinned copper.

  Part of him yearned toward that water, those islands, to be adrift in those terrible and familiar waters. He had been too long landlocked.

  But he had things to do, didn’t he? What his heart wanted was no matter at all.

  That sent him glancing ahead to where Brinna rode behind her brother, looking paler and less well than he had ever seen her. She had never ridden a horse, much less endured the tortures of a hard ride of many days. He was sore to the bone; he couldn’t imagine how she must feel. To even remain mounted she had to be belted to Berimund. He feared in his bones she wouldn’t survive.

  As the sun touched the water, they came to an old castle on a little spit of stone sticking out into the sea. Barnacles up its walls showed that during the highest tides it must be cut off entirely from land. The tide was rising now but was far from high enough to cover the causeway, so they rode in to change their horses, the third time they had done so since starting their push for Crotheny. Berimund was being careful. The first of his friends he had visited had told him his father had put a price on his head and on the head of every man who aided him.

  So they traveled ways less straight and warded than the great Vitellian Way.

  They didn’t stop for long. Neil kissed the mare on her soaking forehead as they led her away and met his new mount, Friufahs, a roan gelding. He was introducing himself when he heard Brinna say something he couldn’t make out.

  “It’s not seemly,” he heard Berimund answer.