The Born Queen

by Greg Keyes

  Grunting, Cazio tried to push the dead weight off, but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He summoned the image of Austra, helpless in the carriage, and finally managed to roll the man off and stagger back to his feet, leaning on Acredo just in time to meet five more of the Sefry, who were spreading to surround him.

  He heard someone behind him.

  “It’s me,” z’Acatto’s voice said.

  Cazio couldn’t help a tired grin as the old man’s back came against his.

  “We’ll hold each other up,” the mestro said.

  From that simple touch, Cazio felt a rush of strength he had no notion still lived in him. Acredo came up, fluid, almost with a life of its own. Steel rang behind him, and Cazio shouted hoarsely, parrying an attack and drilling his rapier through a yellow-eyed warrior.

  “Glad I came?” z’Acatto grunted.

  “I had the upper hand anyway,” Cazio said. “But I don’t mind the company.”

  “That’s not the impression I had.”

  Cazio thrust, parried a counter to his arm, and sent his enemy dancing back from his point.

  “I sometimes speak too quickly,” Cazio admitted.

  The two Sefry he faced came at him together. He bound the blade of the first to strike and ran through the other, then let go of the blade and punched the first man in the face. He reeled back, during which time Cazio withdrew Acredo and set it back to guard.

  He heard z’Acatto grunt, and something stung Cazio’s back. He dispatched the staggering Sefry, then turned in time to parry a blow aimed at z’Acatto. The old man thrust into the foe’s belly, and suddenly they were alone. Around them the battle was nearly over, with z’Acatto’s men surrounding a small knot of the remaining Sefry.

  Z’Acatto sat down hard, holding his side. Cazio saw blood spurting through his fingers, very dark, nearly black.

  “I think,” z’Acatto grunted, “it’s time we drank that wine.”

  “Let’s bind you up first,” Cazio said.

  “No need for that.”

  Cazio got a knife, cut a broad strip from a Sefry shirt, and started wrapping it tightly around z’Acatto’s torso. The wound was a puncture, very deep.

  “Just get the damned wine,” the mestro said.

  “Where is it?” Cazio asked, feeling the apple in his throat.

  “In my saddle pack,” z’Acatto wheezed.

  It took Cazio a while to find the horse, which wisely had moved away from the fighting.

  He dug one of the bottles of Zo Buso Brato out and then raced back to where his swordmaster still sat waiting. His head was down, and for a moment Cazio thought he was too late, but then the old man lifted his arm, proffering a corkscrew.

  “It might be vinegar,” Cazio cautioned, flopping down next to his mentor.

  “Might be,” z’Acatto agreed. “I was saving it for when we got back to Vitellio, back to your house.”

  “We can still wait.”

  “We’ll have the other bottle there.”

  “Fair enough,” Cazio agreed.

  The cork came out in one piece, which was astonishing, considering its age. Cazio handed it to z’Acatto. The older man took it weakly and smelled it.

  “Needs to breathe,” he said. “Ah, well.” He tilted it back and took a sip, eyes closed, and smiled.

  “That’s not too bad,” he murmured. “Try it.”

  Cazio took the bottle and then hesitantly took a drink.

  In an instant the battlefield was gone, and he felt the warm sun of Vitellio, smelled hay and rosemary, wild fennel, black cherry—but underneath that something enigmatic, as indescribable as an ideal sunset. Tears sprang in his eyes, unbidden.

  “It’s perfect,” he said. “Perfect. Now I understand why you’ve been trying to find it for so long.”

  Z’Acatto’s only answer was the faint smile that remained on his face.

  “I’ll tell them I did it,” Mery said. “I’ll tell them you weren’t even here.”

  Leoff shook his head and squeezed her shoulder. “No, Mery,” he said. “Don’t do that. It wouldn’t work, anyway.”

  “I don’t want them to hurt you again,” she explained.

  “They’re not going to hurt him,” Areana promised in a hushed and strained voice.

  Yes they are, he thought. And they’ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance.

  “Listen,” he began, but then the door opened.

  It wasn’t a sacritor standing there or even Sir Ilzereik.

  It was Neil MeqVren, Queen Muriele’s bodyguard.

  It was like waking up in a strange room and not knowing how you got there. Leoff just stared, rubbing the bent fingers of his right hand on his opposite arm.

  “You’re all right?” Neil asked.

  Leoff plucked his voice from somewhere. “Sir Neil,” he said cautiously. “There are Hansan knights and warriors about. All over.”

  “I know.” The young knight walked over to Areana and cut her bonds, then Leoff’s, and helped him up.

  He only glanced at the dead men on the floor, then at Areana’s swollen face.

  “Did anyone still living do that, lady?” he softly asked her.

  “No,” Areana said.

  “And your head, Cavaor?” he asked Leoff.

  Leoff gestured at the dead. “It was one of them,” he said.

  The knight nodded and seemed satisfied.

  “What are you doing here?” Areana asked.

  The answer came from an apparition near the door. Her hair was as white as milk, and she was so pale and handsome that at first Leoff thought she might be Saint Wyndoseibh herself, come drifting down from the moon on cobwebs to see them.

  “We’ve come to meet Mery,” the White Lady said.

  Neil watched the stars appear and listened as the hum and whirr of night sounds rose around him. He sat beneath an arbor, half an arrow shot from the composwer’s cottage.

  Muriele was there, too, still wrapped in the linens from Berimund’s hideaway. She’d made most of the trip unceremoniously tied to the back of a horse, but once in Newland, they’d found a small wain for her to lie in state on.

  She needed to be buried soon. They hadn’t had any salt to pack her in, and the scent of rot was starting to remark itself.

  He noticed a slim shadow approaching.

  “May I?” Alis’ voice inquired from the darkness.

  He gestured toward a second bench.

  “I’ve not much idea what they’re talking about in there,” she said. “But I got us this.” She held up a bottle of something. “Shall we have the wake?”

  He searched for something to say, but there was too much in him to let anything come out right. He saw her tilt the bottle up, then down. She dabbed her lips and reached it toward him. He took it and pressed the glass lip against his own, held his breath, and took a mouthful. He almost didn’t manage to swallow it; his mouth told him it was poison and wanted it out.

  When he swallowed it, however, his body began to thank him almost immediately.

  He took another swallow—it was easier this time—and passed it back to her.

  “Do you think it’s true?” he asked. “About Anne?”

  “Which? That she slew forty thousand men with shinecraft or that she’s dead?”

  “That she’s dead.”

  “From what I can tell,” she said, “the news came from Eslen, not from Hansa. I don’t see what anyone there would have to gain from letting such a rumor circulate.”

  “Well, that’s a full ship, then,” he said, taking the again proffered bottle and drinking more of the horrible stuff.

  “Don’t start that,” Alis chided.

  “I was guard to both of them.”

  “And you did an amazing job. Without you they would have both been dead months ago.”

  “Months ago, now. What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know. Does it make a difference if you
live one year or eighty? Most people seem to think so.” She took the bottle and tugged at it hard. “Anyway, if anyone is to blame for Muriele’s death, it’s me. You weren’t her only bodyguard, you know.”

  He nodded, starting to feel the tide come up.

  “So the question,” Alis said, “is what do you and I do now? I don’t think we’ll be much help to the princess and the composer and Mery in whatever it is they’re doing.”

  “I reckon we find Robert,” Neil said.

  “And that is excellent thinking,” Alis agreed. “How do we do that?”

  “Brinna might be able to tell us where he is.”

  “Ah, Brinna.” Alis’ voice became more sultry. “Now there’s an interesting subject. You have acquaintances in very interesting places. How is it you two grew so fond of each other so quickly?”

  “Fond?”

  “Oh, stop it. You don’t seem the woman conqueror on the face of it, but first Fastia, now the princess of Hansa who is also, ne’er you mind, one of the Faiths. That is quite a record.”

  “I met her—we had met before,” Neil tried to explain.

  “You said you had never been to Kaithbaurg before.”

  “And I hadn’t. We met on a ship, in Vitellio. This isn’t the first time she’s run away from Hansa.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Alis said. “Why did she go back?”

  “She said she had a vision of Anne bringing ruin to the whole world.”

  “Well, she was wrong about that, at least.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, if Anne is dead…” She sighed and handed him the bottle. “She was supposed to save us, or so I thought before I quit caring. The Faiths told us that.”

  “Your order?”

  “Yes. The Order of Saint Dare. There’s no point in keeping it secret now.”

  “Brinna said that she and the other Faiths had been wrong. That’s all I know.”

  He took two drinks.

  “Did you know Anne well?” Alis asked.

  He took another pull. “I knew her. I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly.”

  “I barely knew her. I hardly knew Muriele until last year.”

  “I don’t suppose mistresses and wives socialize that much.”

  “No. But—” She closed her eyes. “Strong stuff.”

  “Yes.”

  “She helped me, Sir Neil. She took me in despite what I had been. I try not to love, because there’s nothing but heartbreak in it. But I loved her. I did.”

  Her voice only barely quavered, but her face was wet in the moonlight.

  “I know,” he said.

  She sat that way a moment, staring at the bottle. Then she raised it. “To Robert,” she said. “He killed my king and lover, he killed my queen and friend. So to him, and his legs severed at the hip, and his arms cut from his shoulders, and all buried in different places—” She choked off into a sob.

  He took the bottle. “To Robert,” he said, and drank.

  The White Lady—Brinna, her name was—looked up from Leoff’s music. “Will this do it?” she asked.

  Leoff regarded the strange woman for a moment. He was tired, his head hurt, and what he mostly wanted was to go to bed.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  “Yes, he does,” Mery said.

  He shot the girl a warning glance, but she just smiled at him.

  “You don’t trust me?” Brinna asked.

  “Milady, I don’t know you. I’ve been deceived before—often. It’s been a very long day, and I’m finding it hard to understand why you’re here. We had another visitor, you know, pretending to be a relative of Mery’s, and you remind me a lot of her.”

  “That was one of my sisters,” Brinna said. “She might have dissembled about who she was, but everything else she told you is true. Like me, she was a seer. Like me, she knew that if anyone can mend the law of death, it’s you two. I’ve come to help.”

  “How can you help?”

  “I don’t know, but I felt called here.”

  “That’s not too useful,” Leoff said.

  Brinna leaned forward a bit. “I broke the law of death,” she said quietly. “I am responsible. Do you understand?”

  Leoff exhaled and pushed his hand through his hair, wincing as he touched the sore spot. “No,” he said. “I don’t really understand any of it.”

  “It will work,” Mery insisted.

  Leoff nodded. “I compose more with my heart than with my head, and my heart says it would work if it could be performed, which it can’t. That’s the problem, you see.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “You read music, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can play the harp and lute. I can sing.”

  “Then you notice that there are three voices, yes? The low, the middle, and the high.”

  “Not unusual,” she said.

  “No. Quite the norm. Except that if you look closely, you’ll see that there are two distinct lines in each voice.”

  “I noticed that, too. But I’ve seen that before, too, in the Armaio of Roger Hlaivensen, for instance.”

  “Very good,” Leoff said. “But here’s the difference. The second lines—the one with the strokes turned down—those have to be sung by…ah, well—by the dead.”

  When she didn’t even blink at that, he went on. “The upturned lines are to be sung by the living, and for the piece to be done properly, all the singers must be able to hear one another. I can’t imagine any way for that to happen.”

  But Mery and Brinna were looking at each other, both with the same odd smile on their faces.

  “That’s no problem, is it, Mery?” Brinna said.

  “No,” the girl replied.

  “How soon can we perform it?” Brinna asked.

  “Wait,” Leoff said. “What are you two talking about?”

  “The dead can hear us through Mery,” Brinna explained. “You can hear the dead through me. You see? I am the last piece of your puzzle. Now I know why I’m here.”

  “Mery?” Leoff turned his gaze on the girl, who merely nodded.

  “Fine,” he said, trying to resist the sudden dizzying hope. “If you say so.”

  “How soon?”

  “I can sing the middle part,” he said. “Areana can sing the upper. We need someone for the low.”

  “Edwyn Mylton,” Areana said.

  “Of course,” Leoff said cautiously. “He could do it. If he’s still in Haundwarpen and if we could get to him.”

  “Haundwarpen is under siege,” Areana explained.

  “No,” Brinna said. “Haundwarpen is fallen. But that’s actually good for us.”

  “How so?”

  “My brother is a prince of Hansa. They won’t stop him entering or leaving the city, and they won’t ask him questions. Not yet.”

  “A pri—” He stopped. “Then you’re a princess of Hansa?”

  She nodded.

  “Then I really don’t understand,” he said.

  “My brother and I are here at our peril,” she said. “Understand, it doesn’t matter who wins the war. If the barrier between life and death deteriorates further, all of our empires will be dust.”

  “What do you mean,” Areana asked, “at your peril?”

  “My brother tried to help your queen, and I am run away,” she said. “If we’re caught, we may well both be executed. That’s why we need to move quickly. At the moment, the army here recognizes my brother as their prince. But word from my father will reach here very soon, and we will be found, so all must go quickly.”

  We’ll do the piece, his thoughts rushed. We’ll cure Mery.

  He clung to that thought and shied from the next: Brinna was prepared to die, perhaps expected it, perhaps had seen it. That did not bode well for the rest of them.

  “Well,” he said, “we’d best find Mylton, then, and get on with this.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  REUNIONS STRANGE AND NATURAL
>
  “WHAT NOW, sir?” Jan asked Cazio.

  Cazio stared at the freshly turned earth and took a few deep breaths. The morning smelled clean despite the carnage.

  “I don’t know,” he said. If Anne’s Sefry guards were traitors, Mother Uun probably was, too. If he took Austra to her, they might be walking right into the spider’s web.

  But what else was there to do? Only in Eslen was he likely to find anyone who could help Austra.

  “I’m still going on to Eslen,” he said. “Nothing’s changed about that.”

  “I reckon we’ll be going with you, then,” the soldier said. “The empire is a month behind on our salary, and we’ve worked hard enough for it.”

  Cazio shook his head. “From what I hear, you’ll only walk into slaughter. Go back and keep the duchess safe. I know she’ll pay you.”

  “Can’t let you walk into slaughter alone,” the soldier replied.

  “I won’t get in by fighting,” Cazio said, “with or without your help. I’ll have to use my wits somehow.”

  “That’s a bloody shame,” Jan said. “You’re bound to come to a bad end that way.”

  “Thanks for the confidence,” Cazio replied. “I think it’s for the best. You fellows will just draw a fight we can’t win. The two of us might be able to slip in the back way.”

  Jan held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and stuck out his hand. Cazio took it.

  “The Cassro was a good man,” the soldier said.

  “He was,” Cazio agreed.

  “He raised a good man, too.”

  They broke camp a bell later. The soldiers headed back to Glenchest, and Cazio and Austra were alone again.

  It was along about midday that Cazio felt a strange, hot wind carrying an acrid scent he had smelled before, deep in the tunnels below Eslen. He drew Acredo and turned on the board, searching. There wasn’t much to see; the road was bounded on both sides by hedges and had been for nearly a league. Until now he’d been enjoying the change from open landscape; he could almost pretend he was back in Vitellio, taking a tour of one of the grand trivii with z’Acatto, working up an appetite for pigeon with white beans and garlic and a thirst for a light vino verio.