The Born Queen

by Greg Keyes

  The earl entered a moment later. Rob left, too, and they were alone in the Red Hall.

  Cape Chavel looked very fine, and she felt the ghostly tingle of the memory of his hands on her. Her heart felt very tender for a moment, very full.

  “I’m so pleased to see you well,” he said.

  “I’m pleased to see you, Tam.”

  His jaw dropped for a moment. “You’ve never called me that,” he said. “Of course I’m pleased.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t had time to speak to you before this,” she said. “There was a lot to do. The circumstances of that night—I don’t know how much you remember.”

  “I remember it well, until our own soldiers trampled me,” he said. “I remember you rising from the dead, for instance.”

  “I was never dead,” she said. “My soul fled my body for a time so it could heal, that’s all.”

  “That’s all,” he said. “You say that as if it were nothing. I thought you were dead, Anne. I believed I loved you, but when I thought you were gone, I went mad. I don’t know how you came back to me, and I don’t care, only that you are back, and I love you even more dearly than before.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. “Simply, honestly, without pretense. The way I have always wanted to love.”

  He closed his eyes. “Then why wait? You’ve already made me king of Virgenya. Surely everyone will agree we make a good match.”

  She tried to smile.

  “We make a good match,” she said. “We do not make the best match.”

  He wrinkled a confused frown. “What do you mean?”

  Anne wished just for a moment that she had the cold, terrible nature of that night back, but that Anne was dead, stillborn. Whatever she might become now had never been foreseen, and she meant to make the best of that.

  “I must marry Berimund of Hansa,” she said.

  “But you just said you love me.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And so I wanted to tell you in person before you found out through the court. It will bring peace between us and Hansa.”

  “They hate you there. They think you’re a witch.”

  “Marcomir died five days ago. He was the heart of that hatred, but even so, yes—in Hansa I will not be loved. But it is, very simply, what must be done.”

  “I don’t accept that.”

  “You must. I hope to always be your friend, Tam, but no matter what, you will accept my word as your empress.”

  He stood there red-faced for several heart-wrenching moments before he finally bowed.

  “Yes, Majesty,” he said.

  “That will be all for now.”

  He left, and so she freed the last of those she loved, and felt another crack in her heart, and knew that this was what being a queen was.

  I saw Anne cede her power to the Briar King, and then I helped Aspar—I still call him that sometimes—conceal the thrones again, better than before, I hope. The power wanes, and Anne passed laws against the use of the fanes. Time only will tell, for men and women are foolish. I’m proof of that.

  Leoff kissed his son’s tiny forehead. The child looked about aimlessly with unfocused eyes, and he wondered what strange melodies might be in there, waiting for an instrument to give them life.

  Areana looked pale and beautiful in her sleep, and the glare of the midwife forbade him to wake her. He gave the child carefully back to the old woman and went out onto the grounds, whistling.

  “Not a new singspell, I trust?” a raised voice asked from some distance off. It was Artwair, approaching on a dun mare.

  “No,” he said. “Just a lullaby I’m working on.”

  “So, well?” Artwair dismounted and let the horse have its head.

  “All is well,” Leoff told him. “The child is healthy, and so is Areana.”

  “Saints bless, that’s good news,” Artwair said. “You deserve some good fortune.”

  “I don’t know if I deserve it,” Leoff replied. “But I’m grateful for it. How are things in Eslen?”

  “Quieting slowly,” the duke replied. “There are still rumors, of course, that the queen is really a demon, a saint, a man, or a Sefry beneath her clothes. Liery is still making noise about the wedding, and the winter was hard. But we have peace, and the early crops are good. Few monsters have been seen, and those only in the deep forests, far from town or village. And the Church—well, that might take time to settle out. Anne intends to establish her own, you know. One free of z’Irbina’s influence.”

  “I wish her luck there.”

  “She actually sent me to talk to you regarding that,” he said. “She’d like you to compose a hymn of thanksgiving to be sung at the lustration of the clergy.”

  “That’s interesting,” Leoff said.

  “You don’t want to?”

  Leoff smiled. “I’ve already started on it.”

  “I think we’re being followed, by the way,” Artwair said.

  Leoff nodded. He had seen the flash of dress through the trees.

  “She has a bit of a crush on you, I’m afraid.”

  “And here I thought you were teaching her good taste.”

  Leoff raised his voice. “Come on out, Mery, and say hello to the duke. And after that we have work to do, you and I.”

  He heard her giggle, and then she appeared, skipping toward them.

  When the law of death was mended, those creatures caught between fell one way or the other. He thanked the saints every day that she had fallen his way.

  I see the last of the Faiths.

  The boom swung and the sail caught wind, and the Swanmay cut through the rising waves. Neil leaned on the rail, staring out over the rough water at the rugged coastline.

  “It’s beautiful,” Brinna said.

  He nodded in agreement. “She’s a hard old rock, but I love her. I think you’ll like her, too.”

  She made a single fist of both of their hands. He winced a bit, for the whole arm was still tender, but he treasured the touch.

  “We’ll stay here, then?” she asked.

  He laughed, and she only looked puzzled.

  “Would you make a liar of me?” he asked.

  “I don’t even know what you mean.”

  “I said I would take you away to where neither of us has duties. Now, the queen gave me my freedom and Berimund gave you yours, but we are still very far from that place.”

  “And where, husband, would that be?”

  “We will have to hunt it,” he said. “It could take the rest of our lives. Who knows how much of the world we shall have to see?”

  And she kissed him and seemed young for the first time since he had known her. Together they watched Skern grow before them.

  I saw Zemlé grow old, never knowing what happened to me. When I walked the world again, healed as much as I could heal, she was years dead.

  So I returned to the empty Witchhorn. I grieve and write. And I remember what I can.

  There is one thing I won’t forget until the river finally takes me out into everything. That was the time I saw through his eyes.

  I never imagined such a beautiful thing—to gaze with every eye of the forest, feel and hear through every leaf and fern. It was only once, years after the battle.

  It happened where the tyrants once stood, the great ironoaks Aspar loved so well. They were all fallen, but acorns had sprouted, and for those first years things grew with unnatural speed. So many of the trees were already four or five kingsyards high, slender young things, but already starting to shadow out the underbrush, reconquering their territory.

  A woman came there, still young, her face rosy from the winds, for that year was cooler. She was bundled in a wool coat, and she wore elkhide boots. I knew her, of course, for I once thought I loved her, and I did in a way.

  Holding her hand was a girl of perhaps six or seven years. She had a bright, intelligent face that was full of wonder as she stared about the place.

  “Here he is,” Winna told the girl. “Here is y
our father.”

  And, through him, I felt every tree strain, and shudder, and yearn toward them, and all the birds sang at once.

  It was the last truly human thing I ever felt from him, and not long after that he slept, as sleep he must.

  When he slept, I awoke, and found the world changed.

  —The Codex Tereminnam, Author anon.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GREG KEYES was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Briar King, The Charnel Prince, The Blood Knight, and the Age of Unreason tetralogy, as well as The Waterborn, The Blackgod, and the Star Wars® New Jedi Order novels Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, and The Final Prophecy. He lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife, Nell, and son, Archer.

  By Greg Keyes

  The Chosen of the Changeling

  THE WATERBORN

  THE BLACKGOD

  The Age of Unreason

  NEWTON’S CANNON

  A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

  EMPIRE OF UNREASON

  THE SHADOWS OF GOD

  The Psi Corps Trilogy

  BABYLON 5: DARK GENESIS

  BABYLON 5: DEADLY RELATIONS

  BABYLON 5: FINAL RECKONING

  Star Wars®: The New Jedi Order

  EDGE OF VICTORY I: CONQUEST

  EDGE OF VICTORY II: REBIRTH

  THE FINAL PROPHECY

  The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone

  THE BRIAR KING

  THE CHARNEL PRINCE

  THE BLOOD KNIGHT

  THE BORN QUEEN

  The Born Queen is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by J. Gregory Keyes

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Keyes, J. Gregory.

  The born queen / Greg Keyes.

  p. cm.—(The kingdoms of Thorn and Bone; bk. 4)

  I. Title.

  PS3561.E79B67 2008

  813'.54—dc22 2007041832

  www.delreybooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-345-50479-1

  v3.0