The Born Queen tkotab-4

by Greg Keyes

"Where's Artwair?"

  "Outside."

  "Get my dressing gown."

  She heard a lot of clattering in the hall. When she emerged to meet Artwair, she saw that it was filled with her Craftsmen and Sefry.

  "What's all this?" she asked.

  "Just a precaution, Majesty," he said. "There is a chance the keep will fall. We'll want to get you out of it."

  She nodded. Let Artwair take over. Get Faster, ride away, and never look back. Find Cazio; he may still live…

  She felt everything in her buckling. She didn't want this. She thought of Austra, of the horror of her torture, of how someone could do that to her friend, and was sickened. Was Austra dead? Probably. And now death was coming for her.

  But where would she ride? Where would she be safe?

  "No," she said. "Wait."

  "There isn't much time, Majesty. They're already in the city."

  "I said wait."

  "Majesty," he replied stiffly.

  She fought down the claustrophobia seeking to swallow her. "Take me where I can see what's going on and explain it as we go."

  "Majesty-"

  But he saw her glance and cut himself off.

  So they made their way to the now-familiar tower.

  The sun was just a hemisphere in the east, and mist lay heavy on the earth. The air had the cool scent of autumn that brought feelings of nostalgia even when one was ten years old.

  The keep was indeed surrounded except for the area around the southern gates, where a wall of pikes kept the Hansans back. It looked like an island in a stormy sea.

  "That's where I'm supposed to make my great escape?" she asked.

  "It's your best chance," Artwair replied.

  "So the keep will fall."

  "If we can hold out for two days, reinforcements will arrive."

  "Two days. Can we do it?"

  "I don't think so."

  It seemed to Anne there was a bit of a reproof in his tone.

  I was trying to find my friends, she wanted to protest. But she knew what his answer to that would be, whether he had the nerve to say it out loud or not.

  "I can't see everything in advance, you know," she told him. "There is so much to keep my eye on."

  But her negligence was all around her now, and she knew that if Hansa won, she would never live to claim the sedos throne. She could never set things right, free Crotheny from terror, avenge Austra, extinguish the Hansan threat for all time.

  Her hubris had doomed her.

  No.

  "Step away from me," she said. "Get below, all of you but Nerenai."

  When they were all gone but the Sefry, Anne closed her eyes.

  "You can do it, Majesty," Nerenai said.

  "If I don't, we'll all die."

  "That's not how to think, Majesty. Fear and worry will only hinder you. You must be confident. You must be strong for strength's sake, not to achieve an end."

  "I'll try," Anne replied, swallowing. Her mouth was bone dry.

  She felt at the moment very much the girl. Why was this her burden? Why had the saints laid this on her when all she wanted was to ride her horse, drink wine, gossip with Austra, maybe fall in love? Why was she denied all of that?

  I miss you, Austra. I'm so sorry.

  Thinking that brought the anger she needed, and Anne slipped into otherwhere.

  Arilac.

  At first no answer came, but then a shadow lifted from the green and wavered like smoke before her, grudgingly forming into the pale image of a woman.

  "I need your help," Anne said.

  "I'm nearly consumed," the arilac replied in dissipated tones. "I may not be of much help."

  "What's consuming you?"

  "You are," the arilac replied. "This is how it is."

  "Who are you?" Anne demanded.

  "You've asked that before."

  "Yes, and you've never answered. Who are you?"

  "What was. What will be. I was never merely a living person. I was born here, created here."

  "Who created you?"

  The arilac smiled wanly. "You did."

  And with those two words, Anne suddenly understood, and everything fell into place, and she was ready.

  "Good-bye," she said.

  And the arilac was gone, and her limbs pulsed with power, and the power remembered itself in her.

  She stepped halfway so that otherwhere shimmered around her, but so did Newland and Andemuer, the keep and the host of Hansa.

  She looked over the teeming thousands bent on her destruction, the enemies who had ripped her out of the life she wanted and made her this, and felt a cold, determined hatred rise up in her that she never had known before.

  She liked it, and the power in her had felt that hatred before many times, and it knew what to do.

  Artwair was still pale bells later when he came to see her.

  "You're not going to vomit again, are you?" she asked.

  "No, Majesty," he replied. "I've nothing left in my stomach."

  "I'm surprised at you," she replied. "With all you've seen."

  He closed his eyes and nodded. She saw the apple in his throat bob a few times.

  "There were a few survivors," he said. "What will Your Majesty have done with them?"

  She thought about it for a moment. "How many?"

  "About a thousand."

  "So many," she said.

  "There were fifty thousand this morning, Majesty."

  "Well, kill them, I suppose. I want Hansa to understand that if they attack us, they can expect no quarter."

  "May I remind you that your mother is their hostage?"

  "Yes, and Marcomir has given the order for her execution. What more can I do but show him the price he pays for affronting us? How else can I save her?"

  "May I make a suggestion, Majesty?"

  "Of course."

  "Show mercy. Let them return to Hansa and tell what they saw here. What army will attack us when they know what could happen to them?"

  There was something in his tone that it took her a moment to understand.

  "You feel sorry for them," she accused.

  "Saints, yes," Artwair said.

  "They would have killed all of us," she pointed out.

  "Auy." His face was as if cast in iron.

  "I don't want to be cruel," she finally said. It seemed the thing to say. "Do you really think letting them go is the right thing? Or is this just sentiment talking?"

  "Majesty, for me this morning was all confusion. But the Hansan survivors speak of the sun blotting out, of blood and serpents raining from the sky. They saw their comrades' steaming entrails writhe out of their bellies like boiling eels. I think that story from a thousand lips will be more valuable than their deaths."

  "Very well," she sighed. "See to it, then. And now that we're done here, I should like Copenwis back."

  "That shouldn't be a problem now," Artwair said. "Will Your Majesty be accompanying us?"

  "No," she said. "I think you might do this with the army, Artwair. I should like to return to Eslen for a time. But rest assured that when we march on Hansa, I will be with you."

  "March on Hansa, Majesty?"

  "I don't see any reason to let them try this again, ever. Do you?"

  "I-no, Majesty,"

  "Right. Tell my bodyguard I'll ride to Eslen in two bells. And send word to Cape Chavel that I want him to join me there when he's done with the army coming down the Dew."

  "There's still the army of the Church in the south," Artwair said.

  "They have already withdrawn," Anne said. "I'm not sure why. But send a few of the Hansan captives to them. Tell them that if they cross our border again, I'll come do the same to them."

  Artwair nodded, bowed, and left.

  Riding to Eslen, she met cheering crowds, but in the first few leagues it seemed to her there was an uneasiness in their plaudits, as if they feared she would kill them if they did not cheer. The nearer she got to Eslen, however, and the farther she got fro
m the charnel fields around Poelscild, the less ambiguous the applause seemed. By the time she entered the city, she felt their joy and enthusiasm as absolutely genuine. Some were shouting "Saint Queen Anne," and others were calling her "Virgenya II."

  She bathed and rested and the next morning took her breakfast with John in her solar, where he rattled off various household matters and gave her a sheaf of documents for her seal. He then sat back, looking a bit uncomfortable.

  "What is it, John?" she asked.

  "You've received a number of letters, Majesty, some important, most not. But there is one that I believe needs your immediate attention."

  "Really? Who is it from?"

  "Our former praifec, Marche Hespero."

  She stopped with a scone halfway to her mouth. "You're kidding," she said.

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Let me see it, then."

  He handed her the folded paper with the seal of Crotheny's praifectur.

  "Took it with him, I see," she said. Then she opened the letter. It was written in a beautiful flowing hand.

  To Your Majesty Anne I, Queen of Crotheny, I hope this letter finds you well and in good keeping with the saints.

  Time is pressing, so I must be blunt. I know I have been implicated in certain matters and that a general order for my arrest has been issued. I will not here argue the charges against me-I will save that for a later time. What I will tell you is that I have information you need. It concerns the power you no doubt feel growing in you, and most particularly it has to do with the emergence of a certain throne you may have heard of.

  I also believe that it is important that there be peace between the Church and Crotheny, and healing. By the time you read this, you will find Church forces have all withdrawn beyond the Teremene. I await the pleasure of meeting with you personally. I am prepared to come to Eslen with as few companions as you name, or alone if that is your command.

  Marche Hespero Anne fingered the page, wondering if it might be impregnated with poison. But no, John had handled it before her.

  "When did this arrive?" she asked.

  "Yesterday, else I would have had it sent to you."

  She studied the words again, trying to figure out what was going on.

  She had trusted Hespero growing up, had gone to him for lustration and advice. He had seemed wise, not particularly kind but not unkind, either. Even when her father had gone against him in naming Anne and her sisters heirs to the throne, he had remained polite and nice to her.

  But then she had learned things. She had seen a letter from him that made him responsible for the unholy slaughter in Dunmrogh. He had colluded with Robert against her mother and tortured Cavaor Ackenzal, the court composwer, nearly to death. He'd left Eslen before Anne's forces had recaptured it and hadn't been seen or heard from since.

  And now he wanted to talk. It didn't make sense. The Church had turned its bloody resacaratum into a holy war against her, and now suddenly Hespero wanted to be friends and help her claim the power the Church so vehemently named shinecraft?

  She closed her eyes and tried to find Hespero out in the sedos realm, to see where he was and what he was about, to find some inkling of the consequences of meeting him.

  But as with the Hellrune, all she found was a quiet, dark place.

  And then she knew.

  "It's him," she told Nerenai later that day. The Sefry was weaving a shawl, and Anne was pacing in her quarters.

  "The man who attacked me in the wood of the Faiths, the one who threatens me. It was Hespero all along."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "He has power like me, like the Hellrune. Only someone with art like that can go within the sedos unsummoned. Who else could it be? I thought once it might be the Briar King, but from everything I've heard about him, I no longer believe so."

  "What will you do? Will you see him?"

  "He tried to attack me," Anne said. "I'm certain he was at least partly responsible for the murders of my sisters and father and the other attempts on me. Yes, I will see him, and I will find out what he knows, and then he will pay."

  CHAPTER NINE

  TWO REASONS

  NEIL STARED at Brinna for a long few breaths before responding. He felt as if he were somehow outside of the world, looking in from a great distance away.

  "Why would you say that?" he finally managed.

  "The world is poisoned, Sir Neil," she said. "Poisoned by two thousand years of unchecked use of the sedoi. That's what ultimately made breaking the law of death possible. Were the world in better health…" She looked away. "But it wasn't. The monsters-the greffyns and such-those are all symptoms of that coming death, of a very ancient being trying to reclaim the world, but without the power to heal it. Then there is-was-the Briar King, who did have the power to restore it but who is now dead. That leaves your queen and two others to fight over the sedos power, to take it when it reaches its peak. But that power, you see, can't be used to mend anything. It can only corrupt. And in this moment coming very soon, the sedos power will be so strong that all other puissance in the world will fail before it. Life and death will cease to have meaning, as will chaos and order. It will all become the dream-the Black Mary-of the one who takes the power."

  "Anne won't misuse it."

  "She does so already. She drains the life from our warriors. She boils them in their skins. Soon she will do far worse. And of the three who seek the sedos throne, she is favored to win. And so my people fight and die, and I use my visions as best I can to help them. But I am too far away now, and she has become too strong. To be of any use I need to leave here, but that isn't allowed. It's never been allowed, and after my earlier escape, my father is doubly committed to the ancient way. He doesn't really understand what's going on. He twists what I tell him and tells his men that Anne is evil, that our war is just and holy."

  "Isn't that what you just told me?"

  "No. I chose to take the fight to Anne because I know where she is. The others I cannot find. But they must seek her out, too, and they will, because they cannot see each other. Anne is queen of Crotheny-she is in Crotheny. Prescience can't find her, but spies can. She's visible every day."

  "But if Anne knew," Neil said. "If she knew, she would not do-not seize this throne you speak of."

  "She won't have a choice when the time comes. She will have to take the power or die. I do not think she will choose to die. Nonetheless, I have tried to contact her. I've sent coven-trained, first to tell her these things, later to assassinate her. None ever made it near her. She has a great many protectors who have no wish to see her refuse this power."

  "The Sefry."

  "Them, yes. But there are others, with different goals."

  "But you must have sent your brother to Saint Cer. He and his men tried to murder Anne then."

  She shook her head. "I had nothing to do with that. The Dunmrogh boy betrayed her there to your uncle, who was in fact working with my father."

  "Is Robert here?"

  "Yes."

  He digested that for a moment. "Is my queen safe?"

  "You mean Muriele now. Yes and no. Safe for the moment. But safe here, in Hansa? Not remotely."

  She held Neil's gaze so long that his scalp began to prickle, but she finally looked away again.

  "We've spoken enough for now," she said. "A longer talk will raise suspicions, and to be frank, I haven't decided what to do with you." She picked up her mask. "I'm sorry I can't offer you better accommodations, but that, too, would attract attention."

  "I have to try to help my queen," he said. "You know that."

  "I do," she said softly. "I'll do what I can to help Muriele."

  "And Anne?"

  But Brinna didn't reply. She just replaced the mask on her face.

  "Why do you wear that?" he asked.

  "I spoke of a higher calling," she murmured. "Perhaps I will tell you about that one day."

  She turned and left through the same concealed panel, and a few moments l
ater guards appeared and returned him to his cell.

  Muriele sipped wine and leaned on the timeworn balustrade of a stone balcony. Below her, a stream coursed noisily through a narrow white-walled gorge very pleasantly grown in hemlock, spruce, and everic. The balcony supporting her was carved from the living rock of the ravine.

  "Who made this place?" she asked Berimund as he joined her.

  "I don't know," he replied. "I'm told that the style of the carving resembles that of the Unselthiuzangardis, the, ah, 'Wicked Kingdoms.'"

  "That was during what we called the Warlock Wars."

  "That's right," he said. "Anyway, I believe it was probably the refuge of a sorcerer or perhaps the secret dwelling of his mistress. My wulfbrothars and I found it when we were in farunya."

  "Farunya? That's this province?"

  He looked at her blankly a minute, then laughed. "No," he said. "Farunya-that's when boys who are almost old enough to be men band together and wander, hunt outlaws, pick fights with hill tribes. My wulfbrothars and I went out for years, went all the way into Zhuzhturi. When we returned-those of us who returned-we were made men and warriors. Any boy who hopes to fight in a hansa must go in farunya first."

  "You lost friends?"

  "There were forty of us to start with. Thirty-two came back. Not bad considering some of the fights we got into." He grinned. "Those were good times. And that's how I know my brothers won't betray me. We were forged into men together. It's a strong bond."

  The thing about betrayal, Muriele thought, is that only someone you trust can really betray you.

  She didn't say it, though. If Berimund was wrong, he was wrong. Her saying something wouldn't serve any purpose.

  "So, this place," the prince went on. "We spotted it from down there. Took us five days to find the entrance above. We came back later and furnished it. We swore to keep its location secret."

  "That's why you blindfolded me."

  "Jah. Even then, I had to put it to a vote with my men."

  "I'm flattered they allowed it." She let her gaze drift back down to the river. "So what now?"

  "We wait for my father to calm down," he said.

  "And if he doesn't?"

  "In that case, we'll have to wait until he dies, I think."

  "Well," Muriele said, "at least there's wine."