by Anna Kendall
Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—
Then I was over, and something was very wrong.
19
AS EVER, THE DEAD still sat, or lay, gazing at nothing. But the ground was wrong. I was used to the way the country of the Dead stretched or shrank, so that what was close by in the land of the living might here be miles off. But always the ground was the same, covered with low, dense grass. Always the sky was an even, featureless gray. Always the river meandered placidly, flat and slow.
Not now. The grass stood in uneven patches: some places high weeds, some low grass, some bare ground. The river had rocks in it and the water, flowing faster, eddied around the rocks in tiny bursts of white foam. The sky seemed darker. And beneath my feet, the ground rumbled softly. What was happening in this place, where nothing ever happened?
Dazed, I began walking along the river. I saw no one I recognized. After a while the trees grew denser, making small groves and then patches of woods. The land grew wilder and I had to veer away from the water. I could not find the two dead savage warriors, and even if I had, they would have been sitting tranquilly, as unreachable as the rest of the Dead. In the land of the living, the queen waited for my answer. What was I going to do?
All at once, a man jumped out at me from behind a thicket of bushes. I hit out at him and he hit back, his blow landing on my jaw, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to knock me down. It was a Blue soldier. As I lay panting for breath, he grabbed me by the arm and hauled me over to another soldier, who recognized me.
“Boy! Did the witch-queen, that whore, send you back here again?”
It was the same soldier I’d spoken to on my last crossing. I stammered, “Y-yes. She told me . . . she told me to see how all goes in Witchland, until she herself can return.”
He spat, and his saliva made a little wet spot in the dirt. Had the Dead always been able to do that? But clearly this man still did not believe he was dead. The country of the Dead was filling up with people who, like Bat, did not believe they inhabited it. And the landscape began to turn stormy when the Blue soldiers did not behave like the Dead. The rumbling of the ground, the wind and lightning and darkening of the sky—all increased as the number of Blue soldiers increased from battle on the other side. I had caused this. I, Roger Kilbourne, with the lies I had told about “Witchland.”
“All here goes slow,” the Blue captain said to me. “We have found no way to go back to The Queendom. Queen Eleanor remains under a spell, not eating nor sleeping nor talking. But there are more of us now, sent by the magic fire-sticks.”
“Fire-sticks? ”
“Weapons that belched fire along with their magic, wielded by an army of male witches chanting foul spells.” He shuddered and spat again. “It was a battle outside the city walls, won by darkest magic.”
The guns. Today’s skirmish had been small; Lord Robert had said the major battle would take place tomorrow morning. And when those additional Blue soldiers died and arrived here, they too would be told this was Witchland. And so the number would grow of men who did not behave like the Dead because they did not know that they were.
“But we caught one of the witches,” the Blue said grimly. “Just a while ago. And we will burn her.”
“You caught a witch?”
“Yes. Tell that to the witch-queen when she snatches you back!” His face took on a strange expression, both horrified and sly. “Does she strip you naked for her ensorcelling? And herself, too?”
“No. Yes. No.” I scarcely knew what I was saying. They had caught a witch here, a woman, and were going to burn her? How? Who?
“Did the whore-queen—”
“Can I see the witch?” I said. “I could . . . I could report back to the . . . the whore-queen that she does not have the control over Witchland that she thinks she does!”
He considered, nodded. The ground rumbled under my feet. “Come then, boy.”
I followed him across the plain, away from the river, to another patch of woods. The leaves blew in a restless breeze, where there had never been a breeze before. On the far side of the little woods were three dozen Blues, some standing and some sitting, none of them behaving like the Dead. A captain held a writhing girl by the arms. It was Cat Starling.
“Let me go!” she shrieked. “Let me go!”
Beside her was a great pile of dry wood, with a tall stake in the center.
“Help!” Cat cried as I stood there, dumb. “Help me, whoever you are! I’ve done nothing wrong! I—want—my—mother!”
“Tie her,” one of the Blues ordered.
The soldier dragged Cat, still screaming piteously for her mother, toward the stake. Another handed him two long strips of red wool. They had been torn from her skirt.
The Blue with me said, “She has the sixth finger. Just like the witch-queen who controls you. You’ll enjoy this, boy.”
I found what brain I had left. “Wait! I must talk with her first!”
The soldier scowled. “Why?”
“To . . . to ...” All at once country lore, heard at so many faires with Hartah, came back to me. And I thought, too, of Bat, from the Frances Ormund. “To take the amulet from her! She will not burn so long as she has the amulet.”
“Aye, that’s true,” said a Blue seated on the ground. “My granny always said that. Their magic amulets protect witches from fire.”
“You’re a brave man,” the soldier beside me said. He stepped back respectfully, and I walked to Cat.
“Give her to me.”
The captain did, and I wrapped one arm around her waist. She flailed and struck at me, but she was no fighter and I found I could hold her, although not without difficulty. That made her flail and shriek more. Under cover of her noise I spoke into her ear with all the urgency and authority I could.
“Cat Starling, a message from your mother—think of the river at Stonegreen. Think hard and wish yourself there. Do it now!”
She seemed to have not heard me. The soldiers looked at each other—was that suspicion on that face there? I was supposed to be looking for an amulet. . . . I thrust one hand into her blouse, between her breasts.
At the touch of her skin, I got an immediate and enormous erection. My member leapt like a startled dog. The effect on Cat was different. She brought up her nails and raked them across my face, crying “Mama!” The next moment she was flying through the air, faster than a bird, toward that distant place where Stonegreen should be.
The soldiers all cried out and fell on their faces. To tell the truth, I shivered myself. Cat looked like a witch, flying away from us, even though I knew she was only a girl too simpleminded to know she was dead. Like Bat, who had flown up the cliff face because he wanted to. How much else could the Dead do? And when would these Blues discover it? One thing they could not do was kill each other again, but Cat hadn’t known that. Her body would not really have burned. But I had at least spared her more terror.
How had she died, back there among the living? Burned there, too, as a witch?
A Blue rose cautiously from the ground. “Did you get the amulet, boy?”
“No. She was too quick for me.”
“Witches are,” another said grimly. He looked at my bleeding arm, my bruised jaw. “Does the whore-queen hurt you, boy?”
“Sometimes. I—oh, she calls!” I put on the expression of a brave man suffering without noise, bit my tongue, and crossed back over, just as the uneasy sky flashed with sudden, shocking lightning.
The queen sat at the carved table, holding a goblet of wine, her green-jeweled skirts spreading inches from where I lay on the floor. Unlike all my other returns, this time she seemed hesitant to touch me. She said, “I watched, Roger, and all at once these long scratches appeared on your cheek.”
I put my hand to my Cat’s scratches. My fingers came away bloody. So that was how it worked. Never before had anyone watched me while I sustained injury in that other country.
The queen said, “Do you . . . do you want some wine?�
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“Yes, please, Your Grace.”
I sat up slowly. My jaw ached where the Blue had hit me and the touch of the goblet on my mouth hurt. But I drank all of the wine.
“Now tell me.” Her uncertainty had vanished, along with any concern for me. She was again the queen. “What did the savages say to your question, ‘ven’ or ‘ka’?”
I had listened carefully at dinner. “Ven” was yes, “ka” was no. I thought I knew what answer she wanted, and I gave it to her. “They said ‘ven,’ Your Grace. Lord Solek does . . . he does seek your throne.”
Instantly she stiffened. “How did you know that’s what the words meant?”
Mistake, mistake. Muddled by the wine, by the pain in my jaw, by seeing Cat Starling again—I hadn’t meant to reveal that I knew what Queen Caroline had wanted to ask the savage Dead, any more than I would reveal that I was making up the answer. But there was no help for it now.
“Your Grace . . . at dinner with Lord Solek . . . you named the word for ‘throne’ to teach him, and he told you their word for ‘want’ when he desired more ale. . . . I’m sorry, I was standing so close. ...”
“You have a good ear,” she said disapprovingly. “I will remember that, Roger.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And their answer to my question was ‘ven.’ You are certain.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” My lies were multiplying like ants in spring. Once, I would have been afraid to lie to the queen. But I didn’t think this lie, warning her of danger from Lord Solek, would do me harm. She must anticipate that already. To say “ka” would have been even worse. And she would not have believed me.
“And my second question? How is the fire-powder made?”
“Your Grace, how could they tell me that? I pointed to their guns—”
“They have them still, over there?” It was the first time she had ever asked me anything about the country of the Dead except information about the land of the living. But her curiosity didn’t last. It was a byway, and the queen’s ambition kept her on the main road, always.
“They have their guns, yes,” I said. “And they pointed to them and mimed for me that they do not make them, nor the fire-powder. There are special craftsmen who do that, just as we have special craftsmen to do blacksmithing or to build ships.”
“That makes sense,” she said thoughtfully, and I breathed again. My jaw throbbed; I could feel it swell. Cat’s scratches burned on my cheek.
All at once the queen stood in a swirl of green silk. “You’ve done well, Roger. Thank you. Here is a token of my appreciation.” She tugged a ring off her finger, a gold ring set with small emeralds, and gave it to me.
“Your Grace—”
“For you. Now go to bed. It’s past midnight; you were gone longer than usual. The battle may begin as early as dawn, and I want you to watch it with me.”
“Me?”
“Who knows what you will learn? You are quicker than even I knew. Perhaps you aspire to take Eammons’s place as translator.”
“No, no . . . of course not ...”
“A joke, Roger.” But she was not smiling. Her dark eyes, with their flashes of submerged silver, measured me even as I stumbled from the room, one hand clutching the ring she had given me, my jaw bloating painfully with the blow I had taken in the country of the Dead. I was vulnerable there. I was vulnerable here.
I shut the door to the privy chamber quietly behind me, and went to another sleepless night beside the ashes.
20
THE QUEEN SPOKE TRULY. The battle began just before dawn.
I stood wrapped in my cloak on the palace tower. This was the only place on the island city taller than two stories, and it was nothing more than the flat roof of the bell tower. The space was no larger than a small bedchamber, circled by a low stone parapet. A wooden trapdoor, now raised, covered the spiral stairs that led through the bell cavern and on down to the palace below. I stood jammed into the small area with Queen Caroline, a few advisors, and the queen’s personal guard of Greens.
No one spoke. A light breeze blew. The unrisen sun streaked the east with red, as if blood already flowed.
From here I could see the whole of the palace spread below, as I had never seen it before. Finally I saw that the shadowy maze of courtyards and buildings, so bewildering to walk through unguided, made symmetrical patterns. The whole was far larger than I had imagined, a vast and beautiful stone rose with too many petals to count. Every courtyard was now empty, the fountains stilled, the new green buds washed gray in the pale light. Soldiers of the Green stood atop the wall that enclosed the palace, with more soldiers on the ramparts circling the very edge of the island itself. Between lay the narrow ring of the tent city, as deserted as the courtyards. The great city gates were closed, soldiers posted at their bridges. Was Mother Chilton somewhere in one of those tents? Was Maggie in the kitchen, kneading bread for a victory feast if Lord Solek’s army defeated the old queen’s Blues?
And if the savage warriors did not win—
I could not think about that. My mind refused it. We who were closest to the queen would surely die, but I could not bear to think how. My mind could not keep its grasp on the possibilities, just as it was unable to grasp what lay beyond the stars now fading from the sky.
The last stars disappeared and the sun rose.
The Blue army stood massed on the northern plain, foot soldiers in the center and archers to either side. The officers, on horseback, were scattered behind their cadres. A drum sounded a code I did not understand but which turned my blood to water: Boom boom BOOM BOOM boom.
The savages had crossed the river from Fairfield sometime during the night. They now stood on the Thymar’s northern bank, directly below the city. Yesterday I had thought them so many, filling the throne hall with their chanting numbers and pounding their cudgels on the floor, but today they looked a pitifully small number compared to the Blues. They weren’t massed in orderly rows, either, but stood in uneven clumps, and as I squinted in the rising light, it seemed that many were laughing. Was that possible? Did men laugh at the start of battle? I had no way to know, but it seemed strange.
There was one group of Greens among the savages, Lord Robert’s troops. He had left the rest of the Greens inside the palace, where they would make a last stand to defend the queen if necessary. Lord Robert sat astride a huge black horse, a magnificent animal with green jewels on its bridle and the queen’s emblem on its armor. His Greens stood behind him, silent and grim, their shields raised.
Lord Solek was there too, at the forefront of his own savages. Neither he nor they wore any more body armor than before, although they carried shields. The butt end of each man’s gun rested lightly on the ground. To the left of the small army, I was surprised to see, stood the musicians from yesterday, including the boy with twigs braided into his hair and two other young singers. As the sun streaked the sky with red that matched the paint on his face, he began to sing, and the musicians to play.
The weird instruments wailed away. The boys’ powerful voices floated up on the dawn air. The savages chanted, marching forward in ragged lines, their guns held loosely in their hands. Across the plain, the drum changed rhythm—BOOM BOOM BOOM—and the Blues also marched forward.
The queen put both hands on the stone of the parapet, leaned forward, and said something under her breath. A prayer? A curse? A threat?
The two armies marched toward each other.
When they were barely within bow range, the Blue archers fitted their arrows and let fly. A few struck savage soldiers, who went down. Lord Robert rose in his stirrups and waved his sword. I could not see Lord Solek marching at the forefront of his men, but all at once a huge noise came, such a noise as had never rung on that plain. Crack crack crack . . . the savages were making explosions with their guns.
Fire leapt from the end of each metal stick. Many rang on the Blues’ shields, hard enough to knock them down. As they scrambled back to their feet, a second wave
of savages flowed to the front of the line and fired. I heard men screaming. Most did not get up. Smoke rose from the guns, forming a pall over the battlefield.
Now the savages broke ranks. A third wave parted, flowed to each side, and fired on the archers. The first wave of men had been doing something to their guns. Now they ran to the fore and fired again while the second group stood behind them and also did something to their weapons. Many of the archers went down. Many of the savages dropped to one knee as they fired. And all the while, the shouting and yelling came from them, not all at once but from whoever was not firing guns, and the horrible music played beneath the island walls, and the savage boys sang as if to fill the world with harsh syllables.
The Blues broke. Whether it was by order or from fear, those left standing turned and ran. Their drums ceased. The savages pursued them—the big men were so fast!—and caught many. Knives flashed in the sun. Screams echoed across the plain, and the ground ran red.
I turned away. I, who could see, talk with, touch the Dead, was sickened by all this dying. I knew pain and fear, and I could easily imagine myself one of those on the battlefield.
The queen leaned farther over the parapet and watched it all, a tiny smile at the corners of her red lips.
The battle was quick. No, the battle went on forever. Time itself was maimed and twisted, and still I could neither look closely nor stay turned away. When the fighting was finally over, with some Blues escaped but more lying dead upon the ground, the savages marched back to the palace. They carried their own dead—so many fewer than the Blues!—at their rear. Lord Solek marched in front, chanting. Way off to the side, Lord Robert marched with his Greens in pursuit of the fleeing Blues. On the battlefield, the bodies lay like abandoned dolls.
Finally—finally!—the boys stopped singing, the absence of their hoarse voices stilling the musicians as well. But nothing could silence the chanting soldiers.
“Come,” the queen said, standing very tall. “My lords, come. To the throne room, to greet our victors.”
