The Hidden Queen

by Alma Alexander

  “It’s all very silly, isn’t it?” said Brynna with a self-conscious little giggle.

  “We’re all allowed a little silliness once a year,” said Keda lightly. “I saw apples on the tables and there must be a loose knife in that chaos out on the lawn; wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  Ansen, standing by the main door, saw her as she was returning from the assemblage of trestle tables already groaning under fresh bread and roast beef. She was moving with what seemed swift purpose, with an apple held in one hand and a small paring knife in the other. Everything Keda did was of great interest to him; curious, he followed at a distance, halting just out of sight as he heard Brynna’s voice.

  “There’s no moonlight,” she said, recalling part of Keda’s charm.

  “No matter,” Keda said, “the stars are just as good. Here’s the peel.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Just think of your question, and throw the peel with your left hand over your right shoulder, like so. That’s right.”

  “Where did it go?”

  “It’s right here. Look, it works; it’s made a C.”

  “But I don’t know anyone whose name begins with a C,” said Brynna plaintively after a moment.

  Ansen heard Keda’s low, throaty laugh. “There’s time enough for that,” she said.

  “You do it,” said Brynna impulsively.

  “The peel’s only supposed to be good for one throw.”

  “Well, we’ve done it by starlight and not moonlight, and already the charm’s changed. Try!”

  “Oh, all right, then,” said Keda. “How this takes me back! I haven’t done it for years.”

  There was a silence, and Ansen dared to come a little bit closer and peer around a large, leafy lilac bush. He saw the two girls bending over something on the grass.

  “It doesn’t look like anything,” said Keda skeptically. “Perhaps the peel really was only good for one…”

  “No, but look! If I just move this bit out of the way, it’s an A!”

  Keda bent a bit closer, and then straightened up with an other rich laugh. “I suppose you could say so, with a little bit of imagination.”

  They linked arms and wandered away across the lawn, each eating one half of the apple, which Keda had split with her knife. Smiling to himself, Ansen slipped into the house through the half-open door they had left behind, closing it carefully in his wake.

  By the time he strolled into the great hall again, it was to hear once more the sound of Keda’s laughter, this time coming from the dining hall. It was followed by other voices—Kieran, Brynna, the man March who had come down from Miranei with Brynna, Lady Chella, even, incongruously, Feor’s own lugubrious tones. Ansen glanced out into the milling throng on the lawn, caught the hot eye of a young maidservant he had bedded a few days ago, less than a week after his fourteenth birthday, and decided against going outside. He remembered the girl’s ripe beauty, her round haunches and large pale breasts which overflowed his grasp, the sideways glance of her dark eyes through the curtain of tumbled hair, her breathy little voice…a birthday gift, my young lord…But that was days ago; she had no more secrets. And even then, at the time, while his body coupled with hers and he forgot himself in the ecstasy of his desire, it had been quite a different girl who writhed beneath him in his mind. A girl who was always polite, always kind, whose eyes swept past him without lingering, who seemed to think him no more than a gnat. Again he heard her laugh, and turned toward the sound as though to a magnet, peering into the candlelit room.

  Feor was the first to notice him. “Another who disdains the crowds,” he said, beckoning him in. “One whom, truthfully, I would not have expected to do so, but welcome nonetheless. Come in, Ansen, take a glass of wine.”

  Brynna was holding a goblet of fruit punch, but all the rest, including Kieran, had been offered red wine. Ansen came in and accepted his own from his mother’s hand. It was not, as she believed, his first that night; and those before had been the robust beverage of the lower halls, with one or two quaffs of strong ale, offered by grinning servants, downed in between for good measure. His color was high, but Chella took it for no more than youthful exuberance.

  “Happy Cerdiad,” Chella said.

  “Did you see the bonfire?” asked Kieran. “It’s even bigger than last year.”

  “They make it bigger every year,” said Ansen. “It’s almost as though they’re trying to burn the house down.”

  “Really, Ansen,” laughed Chella reproachfully. At this instant, though, a servant appeared at the door to request the lady’s presence for the Harvest Blessing, and, diverted, Chella put down her wine, smiled at the children and walked out on March’s gallantly offered arm.

  “That ugly old priestess of Avanna died last winter; there’ll be a new Tower Priestess to say the blessing. About time, the old one’s face could sour a harvest all by itself,” said Kieran irreverently, putting his own cup down. “Let’s go and see.”

  Feor had gone after March and Chella and was already disappearing out the door; Kieran and Brynna were about to follow, when there was a small, sharp cry from behind them. Kieran’s head snapped around; Brynna spun on the balls of her feet.

  Ansen saw his chance when he observed Keda go off by herself to look at a festive Cerdiad tapestry displayed on the far wall. He had drained his wine goblet and followed her. They were of similar height, with Ansen perhaps the taller by a hair’s breadth, and he boasted muscles honed to rock-hardness from years of martial practice. He slid a loose arm round her waist from behind, his hand straying upward to cup one small breast. Startled, Keda half-turned and tried to push him away, but his arm suddenly tightened into whipcord; there was little she could do other than stare in shocked dismay.

  Another Cerdiad custom in Roisinan held that if one maneuvered the object of one’s desire underneath a sprig of honeyberries, often coyly hung in doorways for this express purpose, one could legitimately claim a kiss. Ansen brought a stalk of crushed honeyberries from underneath his cloak, flourishing it above Keda’s head. Her eyes snapped to it, then back to his flushed face.

  “Happy Cerdiad, Lady Keda,” he said, and the wine could now be heard clearly in his voice. Keda tried to squirm out of the way but found herself firmly pinned to the wall by the whole length of Ansen’s body. It was all she could do to utter the cry Kieran had heard before Ansen’s mouth came down to cover hers.

  Kieran had turned in time to see this. “Ansen!” he thundered, bounding back into the room.

  Ansen lifted his head and languidly turned to face his foster brother, keeping a light hand on Keda’s shoulder. “I do but wish your sister a happy Cerdiad, foster brother, in a good, traditional Roisinan way,” he drawled, tossing the honeyberries into Kieran’s hands. Kieran caught them automatically and his fingers closed in a savage grip. “All I did,” Ansen said, with deceptive mildness, “was fulfill a small prophecy of a certain Cerdiad Eve apple peel.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” demanded Kieran.

  “The girls threw apple peels to discover their true love,” said Ansen. “Keda got an A; and does my name not begin with A?”

  Keda flushed darkly and stiffened; then she rose to her full height and delivered a stinging slap to Ansen’s cheek that made him recoil. When she spoke her voice was harsh, devoid of its usual musical lilt. “And if you know that, then not only is your behavior boorish and ill-bred, but you are also crass enough to skulk in bushes and eavesdrop on conversations not meant for your ears, like a prying little boy.”

  Ansen stared at her with narrowed eyes. “I am not a little boy!”

  She lifted her chin and, although almost looking up, managed to give the impression she was looking down on him from a great height. “Let go of me.”

  “Let her go!” Kieran said in the same instant, through clenched teeth. “Go find yourself another of your kitchen skivvies for your Cerdiad revels, Ansen!”

  “But this was only a kiss of gre
eting,” said Ansen, goaded by wine and this lofty disdain from the quarry he had watched covertly for weeks, the quarry he had hoped to conquer with the license of Cerdiad Eve. His thumb brushed Keda’s breast again. He felt her flinch and tensed his arm, folding her tighter into his side. “No more than a little boy could be expected to deliver. What of gifts to be delivered by a man?”

  He kissed her again, this time more deliberately, with one hand dropping down to the small of her back.

  Kieran’s fists clenched; he tried to dredge something from the years he had spent in this house, to remind him that he spoke to his foster brother and best friend. There was nothing in him, though, nothing but cold rage. He reached out to pry Ansen away from Keda’s struggling form. Ansen, whose action had been calculated provocation, instantly propelled Keda away with a sudden push, and even as she took her first stumbling step, a knife glittered in his hand.

  Until this moment things seemed to have been occurring in slow motion, but now everything began to happen at once. Feor, who had left the room without hearing Keda’s cry, had discovered nobody followed him and, with a pang of sudden misgiving, had returned to see why. Pausing in the doorway, aghast, in a fraction of a second he took in Keda standing with her hands at her throat, watching Ansen raise the knife and Kieran lift his bare hand to block it. But Brynna’s scream, and the sudden rush of power that made the air in the room tremble with electricity and his hackles suddenly rise, snapped Feor’s attention instantly to where she stood, incandescent in a nimbus of pale gold light.

  He flung out a hand, knowing he was already too late. “Brynna!” he called. And then, because the power was not Brynna’s, because Brynna was nothing more than a mask, “Anghara! No!”

  But the bolt was loosed; the nimbus faded, and Anghara slumped bonelessly to the ground. There was a sound of shattering glass, then a scream of agony. Candles fluttered madly as though a wind had suddenly passed through the still, airless room; one or two shuddered and went out. Feor regained some presence of mind and whirled, closing and bolting the doors behind him. He strode into the room, pausing to bend over Anghara, touching her forehead, shaking his head in angry sorrow. Then he looked up to where Ansen sat slumped against the blood-spattered wall, his head tilted back and covered with his hands. Blood oozed from between his fingers.

  Feor crouched beside him. “Let go, you fool, let me look,” he said sharply.

  “My eye…my eye…”

  Beneath his hands Ansen’s face was a ruin of slashed flesh, shards of broken glass and puddles of wine all around him seemed to show how he had received his injury—except that no physical hand had thrown the pitcher. One of the sharper pieces had ripped across his eye, biting deep, and Feor sucked in his breath. This night would have dire consequences; and it wasn’t over yet.

  He looked up at Kieran, who stood pale and rooted with shock, as someone tried the door, banging on it when it wouldn’t give. “Kieran! Snap out of it! Tell them at the door to admit only Lord Lyme and Lady Chella. And bid them ask for the healer. Nobody else. Understand?”

  “Yes…Will he be all right? What happened? In the name of all that’s holy, I didn’t mean…”

  “You did nothing,” said Feor. “The door!”

  Chella was in first, and could not suppress a gasp of horror when she saw her son, who had mercifully passed out from the pain and no longer writhed against the wall clutching at what was left of his face.

  “Feor! What in the Gods’ name happened in here? I heard a scream…I heard you call out…” She hesitated suddenly, aware of Keda and of Kieran himself.

  “Who else heard?”

  “Most of the gathering…all the doors were open…”

  Feor sat back, closing his eyes. “It’s over, then. This won’t be kept quiet easily. They heard me call out the name of one the land thinks dead. They will soon see the evidence of an inexplicable accident. They will talk. Sif must hear.”

  Chella glanced at where Keda had gone over to tend to Anghara. “She…”

  “Yes. Ansen threatened Kieran, and she…There is too much power there, too untrained. I am no longer enough, my lady. You must send her to those better qualified than I to teach her what she must learn. Otherwise she will sooner or later destroy herself, perhaps through sheer mischance—without training she is a danger to others. You can see what happened here today. She could have killed him.”

  There was a commotion at the door as the healer arrived, and was admitted. He paused by Anghara, who was already starting to come round, then came to where Feor knelt at Ansen’s side. “The girl will be all right. But this…”

  Feor and Chella withdrew, giving him space to work, and looked toward the other patient. Both Kieran and Keda were now kneeling at Anghara’s side, and she was stirring into consciousness, pressing her palms against her temples with a moan of agony.

  “We must get her out of here,” said Chella firmly.

  “That might prove difficult,” Feor said, arching an expressive eyebrow at the muted hubbub seeping through the closed door. “Your entire household is out there, waiting to see what transpires in this room. Nothing can be done without it being in full sight of every man, woman and child in Cascin. Have her carried out of here, and then carry out Ansen straight after, and you will have everyone concocting their own version of events and broadcasting it in the han’s beer rooms tomorrow.”

  “What, then?”

  “Wait until she can walk out. It’s one thing less to explain. As for Ansen…”

  The Cascin healer approached them, clearing his throat deferentially. Chella whirled to face him, silent, her whole soul in her eyes.

  “There is little I can do, my lady,” the healer said in a soft, hopeless voice. “The damage is very great. I have dressed the eye, but it is possible he will lose its sight. We must wait and see.”

  Chella groaned and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Ansen, my son!” she moaned softly into her palms, her fingernails pressing into her white forehead. He would be maimed, never whole again, he would never enjoy the life which should have been his. He would still inherit—he was the oldest, and Lyme himself was crippled to a degree—but it would be a bitter inheritance. Ansen would probably end up hating the two younger brothers who could tread roads this night had closed for him forever, brothers who could still gauge distances with two sound eyes and shoot a straight arrow. And Chella knew well Ansen’s youthful pride, his…arrogance. This wound had not finished inflicting its harm. Ansen’s pride would bleed and scar where the shard had taken his eye.

  Feor touched her elbow gently. “She is up,” he said quietly, avoiding the use of any name at all now that Brynna was sloughed off and Anghara not yet owned. “Go with those three, take them upstairs. Leave me to deal with the rest.”

  Chella roused, cast a last glance at Ansen’s motionless form, and nodded. “Feor,” she said, and her voice was cool and solid with decision, “the celebration must go on; I will be down again directly. The Harvest Blessing has not yet been pronounced. But as soon as it can be contrived, come to my lord’s chambers. We need to make some decisions, fast. Lord Lyme and I would value your opinion. And…if you see Rima’s man, March, bid him come with you.”

  Feor bowed his head in a gesture of assent. “My lady, I will be there.”

  In the end they thought that it would be less conspicuous if Anghara and the two young Shaymiri left the chamber by themselves. As they supposed, the crowd waiting outside dismissed the two Cascin foster children and the visiting singer as unimportant and waited to learn the substance of the mystery the room concealed. Those who had heard Feor’s appeal to Anghara had yet to connect the name with the girl they had known as Brynna for almost two years.

  Bringing Ansen out was far more difficult, but they an nounced the interrupted Harvest Blessing was imminent, and this persuaded many to move out onto the lawn. Ansen, his face roughly cleaned and bandaged as a prelude to more substantial care, was whisked away into his quarters. When Ansen came
out of his swoon and began to moan in pain, the healer administered a powerful sleeping cordial; they left him there, with one of Chella’s women in attendance. Lyme and Chella attended the Harvest Blessing, but it was a muted affair, with even the children losing their appetite to scramble for the customary handful of gold coins Lyme flung into the crowd. The bonfire was allowed to burn down early, with nobody feeding it more wood as though by some prearranged agreement, and the Cerdiad festival, usually so boisterous and joyous, faded quietly into the night.

  Upstairs in Lyme’s chambers the conclave to decide Anghara’s future had come together. Chella was white, with dark circles under eyes puffy with unshed tears. Lyme’s lips were drawn together in a thin line. March was still and tense, only a restless hand playing with the hilt of his dagger as though he itched to use it, but his face was curiously blank. Feor alone seemed calm, but this veneer of outward serenity was something they were all used to—it hid many deep secrets. No one in the room was willing to hazard a guess as to his true feelings.

  “She was sent to us,” said Lyme. “For us to guard. And yet…I cannot see her and Ansen continuing to share the same roof, not after this night. One of them must go. And if we are not to fail in our trust, it cannot be Ansen; we must send from sanctuary, instead, the very person we have sworn to protect. I know my son. He would never hold his peace. Do you think he heard the name?”

  “I cannot tell, my lord,” said Feor.

  Lyme turned toward him. “Ansen attacked Kieran? You saw this?”

  “Yes. I have spoken to Kieran since, and I also know why. It would seem Ansen was trying to trifle with Keda, and she was not willing.”

  “Holy Avanna!” muttered March. “Of course she was not willing! She is a young woman, and Ansen turned fourteen in her presence not two weeks ago! To her, he is a child—he offered her nothing less than a mortal insult. Is that how it began? Did Kieran try to defend his sister?”