The Born Queen tkotab-4

by Greg Keyes

  "But the question you must ask yourself," Nerenai said, "is what advice the Faiths might have given you that the arilac did not want you to hear."

  "I spoke to their ghosts," Anne said. "They didn't tell me anything about why they died."

  "They may not have known. It might have been something your arilac feared they would learn later."

  "Then she isn't to be trusted?"

  "I would question everything she-or, rather, it-tells you. It wants you to find and control the sedos throne, and in the most direct manner possible. There may be other, more difficult ways that it withholds the knowledge of. If it asks you to do something you think is wrong, press it for an alternative."

  "So if she asks me to cut off my hand-"

  "I would question that," Nerenai said. "Follow the arilac, but not blindly. Stay skeptical."

  Mother Uun shook her head. "I anticipated the arilac, suspected it had already found you the first time we met, but I did not know enough to help you with it. That's why I sent for Nerenai. Her clan holds those secrets. She can help guide you." She smiled. "A guide to help with the guide."

  "I am at your service, Majesty," Nerenai said.

  Anne studied the two women for a moment. Part of her desperately wanted to believe that Nerenai was sincere, but another part of her feared the woman was a spy. That was the trouble with being queen: She couldn't really trust anyone. Suddenly, where she had once had friends, she was surrounded by strangers.

  But I did that on purpose, didn't I? she thought. Her reasons for it were still good.

  "Before I say anything, I'd like to ask you something else," she said.

  "I'm at your pleasure, Majesty."

  "You know I freed the Kept. Was that a bad thing?"

  "Yes."

  "How bad?"

  "Very bad," Mother Uun said. "Although I can't be more specific than that."

  "He promised to mend the law of death and then die himself."

  "And he will do both of those things. It's what he does between then and now that is likely to be the problem."

  "It's been months."

  The ancient Sefry croaked out a laugh, and Nerenai smiled that little smile that had been waiting behind her lips.

  "He's been waiting for two thousand years, Your Majesty. A few months are a breath to him."

  Anne sighed. "I know you warned me. But I didn't see that I had a choice."

  "You didn't," Mother Uun said. "I knew you would do it."

  "You knew I would do it?"

  "Well, I was pretty certain."

  "Why didn't you warn me about that?"

  Mother Uun placed her cup on the small table before her.

  "I said it was very bad to have freed him. But things would be worse had you died. You must claim the sedos throne, Anne, not another. Only then can we be redeemed."

  "Redeemed?"

  "It's an old thing, a Sefry thing. I should not speak of it."

  "Is that why you're serving me?"

  "While the Kept was prisoner, we were bound to watch him. Now we are free to serve you, and so we do. The moment he was free, our warriors came to find you."

  "And saved my life. And helped me win back the castle. And now you want to give me a maid. But I don't understand why, Mother Uun."

  "Because you can put things right," the old woman replied. "And I won't tell you more than that or it will go to your head and ruin you. Now, do you want Nerenai or not? You are free to refuse; it changes nothing else."

  Anne felt a sudden claustrophobic panic, the same sort that she had felt at the gates of the city.

  I don't want any of this! I don't want to sit on any sedos throne or save the world. I just want Cazio and Austra back, to be back out on the road…

  "Majesty?" Mother Uun asked, concern in her voice.

  Anne realized she had tears running down her face. She shook back her hair and pulled back her shoulders.

  "Nerenai of the House Sern, I would be pleased if you would join my ladies. But you must understand that there is war, and I will be in it, and you will be in danger."

  "We are all in danger," Nerenai replied. "I am most honored to accept your invitation.

  Anne felt something like a little curl of flame flicker up her spine.

  This is a mistake, the woman said.

  Maybe. But it's my mistake. I make my own decisions.

  The only answer to that was a derisive chuckle. Then the heat was gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A STORM IN HANSA

  NEIL UNBUCKLED his breastplate and, wincing, eased it down to the floor. He gazed at his murky reflection on its untarnished surface and sighed.

  A tap came at the door of his tiny room.

  "You're welcome in," he said.

  The door pushed open, and Alis stood there, looking pretty in a yellow gown.

  "Congratulations," she said.

  He nodded. "Thank you."

  "You don't seem very happy," she noticed. "Let me guess: You're disappointed he ran like a dog."

  "He withdrew," Neil replied.

  "You were chasing him," Alis chortled.

  Neil shrugged, which hurt. "I'm sad for him."

  "But didn't you mean that to happen? Wasn't it all bluff on your part?"

  "I wasn't bluffing," Neil said. "He wouldn't have believed me if I was bluffing. There's nothing more frightening to a man who wants to live than an opponent who doesn't."

  "Ah. So you don't want to live?"

  "My sword arm is bad, and my other is worse. The skill in my head has no way to my hands, and I won't win a fight again by being the better swordsman. Not caring is the only weapon I have left. I won't kill myself, mind you. But my next foe may not flinch, and that will be that."

  "You aren't fully healed yet."

  He smiled grimly. "No. But I don't think it will be much better when I am."

  "Well, cheer up. Today you've won, and in the best way. Humiliating Sir Alareik is better than killing him. The story is already growing; they say it was your face that broke his will, that your eyes were burning like the sun, that one was as large as a dinner plate and none could gaze straight at you, as if you were Saint Loy made flesh. They say no mere mortal could have stood against you."

  "If they couldn't look at me, how did they see that my eye was as big as a dinner plate?"

  "Now you're looking for hair on an egg," she said. "Rather than that, you ought to go father a few children; I think you'll find plenty of offers tonight. And since you didn't get any exercise in the fight…"

  Neil sighed and began working at doffing the rest of the armor.

  "I didn't mean me, of course," Alis said.

  "Is there anything else, Lady Berrye?"

  She folded her arms and leaned on the door frame. "Sir Neil, you haven't yet seen your twenty-second winter. It's too early to act the broken old man."

  "Thank you for your concern, Lady Berrye," Neil said. "I promise you, I'm fine."

  "I'm going," she said. "I tried. And I did come to tell you something: We'll delay here another day and leave at cock's crow tomorrow."

  "Thank you. I'll be ready."

  The road got a little better as they moved deeper into Hansa, creeping over low hills, along broad fields of wheat guarded by scattered farmers' steadings. Men in the fields watched them go by without much expression, but they passed a pair of little flaxen-haired girls who giggled and waved and then ran off to hide behind an abandoned granary. Muriele could still see them peeking from there until they were out of sight.

  "This could almost be the Midenlands," Muriele mused to Alis.

  "Farmers are pretty much farmers," Alis said, "whether they speak Hansan or Almannish."

  "I wonder if they even care if there is a war or who wins it."

  Alis stared at her. "Are you joking?"

  "No. You just said farmers are farmers. Their lives will be much the same whoever taxes them."

  "Oh, yes, true, but in the meantime-during the war-their fields will be
plundered and their daughters raped, and it could be either side doing it. Their sons will be pressed into service if they are needed, and they will die bridging moats with their bodies, since they have no skill at arms. They may not care who wages or wins a war, but they will certainly not want one coming through here."

  "An army of Crotheny would not behave so," Muriele said.

  "It would, I promise you. It has."

  Muriele was shocked by the conviction in her voice.

  "Tell me," she said.

  Alis turned away. "Never mind," she said. "This is a boorish subject. I shouldn't have brought it up."

  "You didn't. I did. And as I am the queen and you are my servant, indulge me."

  Alis fumbled at her reins and studied her horse's mane.

  "It's an old memory," she said. "I was only five. We were poor, you understand. My father couldn't even afford to keep our mansion in repair; some rooms you couldn't even go in, the floors were so rotted. The river had shifted course before I was born, and half of our fields had gone to marsh. We only had five families living on the land. I can't remember any of their names except Sally, because she was my nursemaid. I think she must have been about twelve. I remember she had red hair and her hands were rough. She sang funny songs to me, but I can't really remember them.

  "One day a lot of strange men showed up. Some stayed in the house, and some camped in the fields. I remember my father arguing with them, but I just thought it was all very exciting. Then one day when we were at Sally's house, she told me we were going to play a hiding game in the barn. She was acting funny, and it scared me a little. She got me up in the loft and told me not to make any noise. Then some men came in and made her take her clothes off."

  "No."

  "Oh, yes. I didn't know what was happening, what they were doing, but I could tell it hurt her, and I didn't say anything. After they left, she cried for the rest of the day. I told my father about it. He kissed me and asked if they had touched me, and when I said no, he cried. Then he said there was nothing to be done about it. He said that we were at war."

  "The Causy rebellion."

  "Yes."

  "But Causy's men were brutes."

  "The men at our house weren't Causy's men; they were knights and men-at-arms sent from Eslen. I found that out later, of course, and about all the other things those men did when they were living on our land. Not long after that I was taken off to the coven."

  "William hadn't been king long when that happened," Muriele said.

  "Doesn't matter who the king is. Armies have to eat. The men in them are off to fight and probably die, and it makes them-different."

  "You can't be excusing them."

  "No. I hope the men who did that to Sally died in agony. I'm making no excuse; I'm just stating it as a fact."

  "All men aren't like that."

  "Of course not. But one in a hundred is plenty, and there's more than that," Alis replied.

  That afternoon, they saw ahead of them towering cloud castles flickering with incandescence. There was no sound, and Muriele felt breathless at the beauty of it. From time to time crooked blue-white lines leaped between the clouds or to the earth, but most of the fire seemed to be in the hearts of the thunderheads. Alis seemed as rapt as she.

  So much beauty in the world when one had time to notice it. Why was that almost always on a journey of some sort?

  Unperturbed by the fire in the north, the sun went his way toward the wood in the west, but before he reached it, a different sort of spectacle appeared before them. It looked at first like a cloud of dust, but soon enough Muriele could make out the banners and the red glint of evening sun on armor.

  She remembered the little girls from that morning and felt spiders on her back.

  "How many would you guess, Sir Neil?" she asked the knight as the army drew nearer. They had a good vantage from the top of a hill overlooking a long, shallow valley. Aradal had unfurled his banner, and she could make out an advance party on horse riding to meet them.

  Neil pointed to marching men, who walked four abreast in a column that seemed to stretch for a league.

  "You see the banners?" he asked.

  She did. They were hard to miss, as each of them was several kingsyards square. The nearest depicted a large horned fish. The other two were too far away to quite make out their figuring.

  "For each of those banners there are a thousand men, or near. That's an entire harji."

  "Harji?"

  "The Hansan army isn't organized like ours," Neil explained. "In Crotheny, lords raise their knights, and knights bring retainers, footmen, levy peasants if need be. Men are organized by their natural leaders."

  "But not so in Hansa?"

  "The horse is arranged that way, but not the marching army. That's divided into units: A hundred men are a wairdu. Ten wairdu make a hansa. Three or four hansa make up a harji, much like a Church legif."

  "Sounds organized," Alis remarked.

  "It is," Neil replied.

  "But if a hansa is a thousand men, why is the country named so?"

  "I never wondered about that," Neil answered. "Perhaps Lord Aradal can tell you."

  Muriele hailed him, and the Hansan lord trotted his horse over.

  "Your Majesty?"

  "We were wondering why your country is named after a thousand men."

  He looked briefly puzzled, then smiled. "I see. It's got to do with our history. The hansa is more than a thousand men; it is a sacred thing, a brotherhood, a saint-blessed guild. There was a time before the wairdu or the harji, but we always had the hansa. It's the foundation of our kingdom, and it's said that when we first conquered this land, we did it with a single hansa."

  "It will take more than that to conquer Crotheny," Muriele informed him.

  "Aye. But we have more than that, as you see."

  The outriders were nearly on them now. The leader was a knight in the livery of the Reiksbaurg, a writhing waurm and a sword. His helm was plumed with horsehair. He had about twenty men with him.

  When he drew up, he lifted off his helmet, revealing a young man with high cheekbones, pale golden hair, and eyes as green as moss.

  Aradal was already off his horse and going down on his knee.

  "Your Highness," he said.

  "Rise, please, Aradal, and introduce me," the newcomer said.

  Aradal straightened. "Queen Mother Muriele Dare of Crotheny, I am pleased to present to you His Royal Majesty Prince Berimund Fram Reiksbaurg."

  "My suitor," Muriele said.

  "A most unsuccessful suitor," the young man replied. "It is most unflattering to be rebuffed not once but several times, and now that I look upon you in person, I am doubly, no, triply dismayed. Your beauty may be legendary, but even legend does you no justice."

  Muriele tried to look flattered and abashed, but the boy was half her age and the speech sounded practiced rather than sincere.

  "With that golden tongue you should have pressed your suit in person rather than through envoys," she replied. "Although to be honest, even Saint Adhen could not have persuaded me out of my mourning."

  Berimund smiled briefly. "I hope to marry a woman as steadfast as you, lady. I should like to be mourned."

  The prince reddened a little, and a shy look crept across his face. He suddenly looked very young.

  "Let's hope no one mourns you for a long time," Muriele said.

  He nodded.

  "Blood and duty command me to tell you something else, Berimund. This host you lead-I hope it is not bound for my country."

  "It is bound for our border," Berimund said, "but I am not leading it. I have been sent here, lady, to escort you to Kaithbaurg."

  "That's sweet, but I already have an able escort," Muriele told him.

  "The king, my father, was quite adamant about it. Aradal is needed elsewhere."

  "Your Majesty-" Aradal began, but the prince interrupted him, his voice suddenly harsher.

  "Aradal, if I wish you to speak, I will ask yo
u to. My man Ilvhar will give you instructions. I will escort the queen from here."

  He turned back to her. "Your men will be guided back to the border unharmed, I promise you."

  "My men? They will stay with me."

  He shook his head. "You may keep your maid and a single bodyguard, but the rest of your escort must return home."

  "This is outrageous," Muriele said. "I was assured that the old covenant would be maintained."

  "Aradal had no right to make such assurances," the prince said. "Your country has been declared a heretic nation by the holy Church. The old covenants no longer apply."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  For an instant the uncomfortable boy showed again in his eyes, but then his lips pressed into a thin line.

  "I won't argue about this, lady." He nodded at Neil. "And I don't expect an argument from your man, either."

  "You're taking me prisoner and you don't expect an argument?"

  "You wanted to talk to my father, didn't you?"

  "Yes. To try to talk him out of this war."

  "Well, the war is begun, and your daughter began it."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "She slaughtered five hundred holy warriors of the Church, sent by the Fratrex Prismo to keep the peace. The Church is our staunch ally. If it is attacked, so are we. Furthermore, we have news that she is preparing to assault our peacemakers in Copenwis. So we find ourselves in a state of war. You, Your Majesty, represent an invading force, and I would be fully justified in removing all of your men-in-arms from the fray. Instead, I'm doing the honorable thing and allowing them to return to Crotheny."

  "And if I wish to return with them?"

  Berimund opened his mouth, closed it, and seemed to think for a moment.

  "My father told me to intercept your embassy and bring you to him on his terms. If there is no longer an embassy-if you no longer wish to meet with him-then I will take you to the border. He did not expressly tell me to take you prisoner."

  "But you imagine that was his intent? That if I do go, I will be hostage?"

  Berimund sighed and looked away. "One might imagine that, yes."