by R. J. Price
“Oh, that.” Laeder nodded and turned the page of the book he had been reading.
Jer waited patiently for Laeder to return to their conversation. The scribe proceeded to turn the page of the book and continue to read, apparently having forgotten he was there.
“Why is she drawn to living water?” Jer asked again.
“Hm?” Laeder looked up, appearing genuinely surprised that Jer was sitting across from him. “What? Right, honour queens are drawn to living water. It’s instinctual, like how warriors are drawn to queens.”
“Pretty certain I could have assumed the ‘drawn instinctively’ part,” Jer growled.
“They filter the water,” Laeder said. “Or, more of, their magic does. Wherever an honour queen lives, anywhere that’s near living water. Meaning a lake or river, creek. Not marsh. Uh, where was I? Right, when an honour queen lives near living water, you can see the land around them becomes more fertile. Slowly, but it does.”
Jer thought back to his father’s home, to how it was when he was growing up. How it had become. Cleaner, brighter even.
“Because of water?” Jer asked.
“Clean water can do marvellous things for plants, animals.” Laeder shrugged. “From there I assume that all queens work as filters. The more queens there are, the brighter and better everything becomes. I think the difference really is, honour queens do the water, traditional queens do something else that I haven’t figured out yet. Maybe air?”
“Air, as in what we breathe?” Jer asked.
“Yes, exactly. If you’ve ever been around a dead body, you can smell it. That stench means sickness, therefore bad air makes you sick. Queens tend not to become ill with colds,” Laeder paused, “or stomach problems. They’re an awfully healthy bunch.”
Jer shrugged. “I don’t get many illnesses. My nose does not run, I don’t cough.”
“But you spent most of your days around Em in some capacity,” Laeder said, scratching at his chin. “No, you need to be linked to a queen to share in that filter, at least, the traditional kind. Hopefully Anue is a queen. Wouldn’t want you taking sick and dying on me.”
“I will be fine,” he said.
“If you need a nurse, though, I’d be happy to come down for a visit,” Laeder said with a smile.
“No, I need you here,” Jer said. “Reading the archives, any notices that you can find, any information you know of or can find on someone. And whatever you do, do not tell Telm what you are doing.”
“Can queens read your thoughts?” Laeder asked.
“No, but she will be able to tell if you’re lying to her. Speak the truth while hiding it is the best way to deal with that little quirk. You’ll pick it up quite quickly.”
Laeder made a face. “I don’t like lying. Who am I looking up, and why am I keeping it from Telm?”
Jer sucked in a breath through his teeth. “It’s occurred to me that we know very little about her. She’s simply always been there. Or here, I suppose, would be a better way to put it. I haven’t even got a clue how old she is. Older than my father, surely.”
“Telm?” Laeder choked out. “No, she’s no older than your father.”
“She was well established when my father came to the palace. He came from the north. Everything simply was: you don’t mess with Telm. And when I tell you that? It’s a warning, as well as what he was told when he first arrived.”
“Lovely. Investigate the woman who is basically the one who sits the throne, while you go off to your father’s for the winter safe and sound?” Laeder asked.
“I also need you to send me missives on anything you find,” he said. “I will be pressing my father for information as well. To see what I can find out, if he knows something that he’s thus far neglected to mention.”
“Is there anything in particular that you want me to focus my research on?” Laeder asked. “A specific event in time? Or would you like to know how many times she ate her own boogers right up to who took her virginity?”
Jer pointed a finger at Laeder. “I’m not sure she’s gone through that.”
“But…” Laeder struggled a moment with the idea, “she’s… old. All old people have gone through that.”
“Telm’s never shown interest in anyone,” he said. “Not man, not woman. Not a child. She cares for her girls, but I wouldn’t even say that’s love.”
The information churned over in his mind. What he had seen that morning was a damaged woman looking for help. Telm was too proud to ask. She was too stubborn to answer his questions, had he asked.
“Nothing specific, then?” Laeder asked.
“She’s talked often of an amulet that her mother gave her. It keeps her off the throne, allows her to sidestep the choice,” Jer said. “For the longest time I thought she was being sly, but I believe today I saw it. It’s about as round as your inkwell there. A polished red stone with dark through it. I don’t even know what it would be called. The lines almost seem to make shapes. I thought it a ruby.”
“What did she say about it?” Laeder asked, searching for a scrap of paper.
“Not a ruby, I’ve never seen anything like it. The chain was strange as well. It looked as if it had been scorched in a fire. Telm isn’t the sort to wear a chain that’s been burned, she would have cleaned it,” Jer muttered the last more to himself than to Laeder.
“Metal melts in fire, especially silver,” Laeder said. “Red rock, black chain.”
“Stone, it’s a stone. A rock is common stuff, queen’s stone is not a rock. What that amulet is made out of is most definitely not a rock. I don’t like it.”
“Makes warriors bristle,” Laeder muttered, jotting down notes. “That could help narrow the search. Any idea where Telm is from? Just a general area? She appears to be the quintessential palace lands woman. No telling bloodline.”
“No, though if you’re going to find trouble it’ll be in the northwest,” he said. “Probably this side of the northern border. This side of the western border as well, now that I think about it. If she had done something in another land, the barons would recall, no doubt.”
“Meaning your father would know?” Laeder asked.
“Exactly,” Jer said.
Laeder finished scrawling something out and then set the paper aside. “Now, what’s going on, specifically about this?”
Jer glanced around to be certain that no one was listening in on their conversation. He leaned forward, motioning for Laeder to do the same. “Aren’s headed to the northwest. This concerns Telm. She says we all did stupid things in our youth, but that there was only one Em.”
“Meaning she compares what she did, to what’s gone on between you and Em?” Laeder said, his voice becoming higher as he spoke. “But she manipulated you and stole eighteen years of your life. And, and…”
“Telm is practically harmless. She wouldn’t do anything that might cause trouble.” Jer paused to nod. “Yes, absolutely, I could see her being violent in order to protect someone. But she didn’t learn how to fight until my father came to court. Whatever is going on? Happened before that. If it happened after we arrived, I’d know about it.”
Laeder considered. The scribe was silent for a very long time before he made a face and focused on Jer.
“You’re telling me that a nice, older woman came to you and told you that Aren was in the northwest, insinuating that it had something to do with her past, that no one knows about, or at the very least aren’t talking about? That this happened just days after Aren left? The Aren who is infected, was taken by the throne, and then forced to run by the throne. To the northwest. And you aren’t worried?”
“Why would I be worried? Telm doesn’t have a great deal of magic. She doesn’t go off on holidays without warning. There are no rumours of a crazy woman who slaughters people randomly. What could she possibly have done?”
“More concerning, what did she do, that the throne decided that was the first thing Aren should deal with?” Laeder asked. “That specific proble
m?”
“It’s probably not that big of a deal. I’d just really like to know the history of the woman I’ll be working with from now on.” Jer shrugged, trying to dismiss his own fear.
Laeder shook his head. “Short of, the throne is doing this as a favour to Telm because she’s served long, I can’t see a solution to this that doesn’t end in you crying and Telm with more blood on her hands.”
“Why? She wouldn’t harm you for looking into her past, just stop you from continuing to do so.”
“The blood is yours, because she’ll tear your fun bits off,” Laeder said.
“Why my fun bits?” Jer asked.
“Because killing you straight out for invading her privacy wouldn’t be enough,” Laeder said. “She’d want to make certain you’d survive into old age and that you suffered greatly for your treatment of her. Say what you will about Telm, but you push her and she will mess you up. And I’m not talking ‘letter opener to the leg,’ mess you up.”
“How did you hear about that?” Jer asked.
“About what?” Laeder asked.
“Telm stabbing a lord with a letter opener,” Jer said.
“She actually did that? Oh, well, I don’t think she’s the type to use the same weapon twice.” Laeder glanced down at the small blade he used to sharpen his quills, then back up to Jer. “You’re sure she won’t stab me for this?”
“Just tell her that I told you to do it. Everything will come down on me. I promise.”
Chapter Eight
She had just been about to go to the well to start dragging up water when there was a knock on her door. Knowing what such a knock meant caused fear to trickle into her belly and spread from there to her limbs.
Danya opened the door to her home and was all but pushed aside by her cousin, Rewel. The man went straight for the sick room, off the main room, carrying a limp form in his arms.
She swore under her breath and followed Rewel into the sick room as she protested loudly enough for him to hear.
“I told you, never again.”
“And I told you, if the village dies, we die. I don’t go looking for them, Danya, you know that. They find us. None of them would ever be noticed as missing, none of them had families.”
No, none of them had families. Not that she told Rewel that much. There had been several over the years that Danya had told lies for, saving them from Rewel by having them sent on their way once more for fear of someone coming out to find them.
“This one’s palace blood,” Rewel continued. “Her bridle has the raised raven’s head. They don’t allow anyone but palace blood to have that bridle.”
“You also said they always come looking for palace blood.”
“Something tells me they aren’t going to come looking for blood that’s barely strong enough to be noticed,” Rewel snarled back at Danya. “Fix her, or she’ll die.”
“It’d be a mercy on her.”
“We follow her, if you don’t.”
“It’d be a mercy on me,” Danya said sternly.
“You’re a healer damn it, heal her!”
Danya simply stared at Rewel. While it was true she could heal some things, most of the time that work really only involved her reminding the body that it had once been whole. It was not proper healing magic, because it used the victim’s magic to set things right.
Whatever magic Danya had been born to had been used, and was still being used, to keep her alive. Something had gone terribly wrong during her birth, and she had almost died. Only being a healer, Rewel had said, had saved her.
“Now, Danya!”
Gritting her teeth, Danya moved to the woman’s side. She took the limp hand in her own, determined to at least look as if she were doing something of value. Anything to make Rewel stop shouting at her.
Magic flowed into her hand, captured by some invisible force, but there for anyone who knew how to tap into.
Danya removed her hand and stared at the unconscious woman. Young, barely old enough to be a woman, thin in a sickly way, with dirtied hair and wearing only a shirt and thin pants. From the outside the woman appeared to have no magic. She was a queen, that much Danya was certain of, but almost no magic escaped whatever force was around her, catching every spare drop.
Rewel had touched the woman, but likely hadn’t touched her skin. He thought that if he touched the skin of a queen, she might gain access to his body somehow.
“Where did you find her?” Danya asked Rewel, looking up at the man.
Her cousin frowned, his features shifting for a moment, then settling back to the middle-aged man he was. “In the woods.”
“Like this?” Danya asked.
“Yes.”
“Where’s her cloak?”
“There wasn’t one, only the one horse.”
“You found a woman, in the woods? Like this?” Danya asked. “And you don’t find that odd?”
“You think she’s a trap?”
A well-laid one.
Rewel often ranted and raved about how anyone who knew about the village would set a trap and destroy the pair of them slowly.
Danya didn’t believe the world outside the village still remembered that they existed. She believed that the palace had forgotten about them long ago, along with the other lands that had once fought over the village’s territory.
“You’re an idiot. She’s not weak, nor is she dying. Though she should be, given her dress and where you found her, and the cold and snow from last night alone should have done the deed.”
She took the woman’s hand in her own once more, finding it much warmed. It was no longer the deathly chill, but that of a living, breathing, healthy person. Danya dared stretch her senses through the woman’s body, searching for anything out of place. Blood flowed as it should have, heart beat strong despite the weakness the cold might have caused.
There were many scars along the bloodlines inside the woman. Danya wasn’t certain, her training had not exactly been traditional, but she thought she recalled that meaning there had been many bruises.
The woman had known a man, and at that, jealousy flared in Danya, but she put a stop to it almost immediately. It was not the woman’s fault that Danya had only ever lived around cousins and the Others.
Only because she knew Rewel would ask, did Danya check the woman’s fertility.
Not barren, but especially devoid of life.
Danya snatched her hand away, not needing to read a book to know what that meant.
“What is it?”
“She was pregnant recently, but lost the child.”
“Will that be a complication?” Rewel asked.
“No.” Danya shook her head and wondered at the father. “It was a fresh pregnancy. It may change the timing of her flow, but that is all.”
“Then don’t look so sorrowful. She’s a young woman, she may yet live to bear another. Maybe this one of stronger blood that it would actually keep.”
“I don’t… think… that she lost it because it was bad blood, I think she lost it for the same reason there is magic laced throughout her body,” Danya said quickly, standing as she watched Rewel, wondering why the man was suddenly so unaware of the queen he had brought into her home. “You said there was a horse, I’m guessing it’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“How?” Danya asked.
“I’ve no idea, no mark on it.”
“No foam around the mouth?”
“No,” Rewel said, then frowned at Danya. “What, you think she teleported here?”
“Or something of that sort, something which would stop the heart of a horse and yet leave not a mark on her,” Danya said quietly.
“Teleportation is only possible through the direct linking into the throne and the river of magic produced by the throne, an act whose skill has long been lost, a link that has been weak to say the best, and a river that has not been seen in over a thousand years. It’s not possible.”
“Then she flew.”
“Flyin
g requires—”
“I don’t give a damn, Rewel!” Danya shouted at him. “This woman did not come to this village by natural means and you would do well to remember that!”
“All that matters is whether or not she has people and whether or not they are coming to find her.”
How could she make him see what she was trying to say?
The woman wasn’t weak, she was stronger than any of the others who had come before her. Through that touch of magic she could feel the influence of the magic of several others. Queens who had linked to this one. That rank only linked through trust and respect, one had to trust that another was not going to abuse the link between them. Yet there was too much magic around the young woman to say that she was linked properly to the others. Magic was obviously coming to her, but it wasn’t getting back out again.
She was an untapped well.
It could have meant two things: that the woman had been broken and actually was a well for some bastard lord who would no doubt come looking for his property.
Or, she had been pushed halfway to breaking and had fled palace grounds to get away from her abusers.
Of the two, the latter option was the worst. If the woman had fled the palace of her own volition it meant that she had not broken, that she had held onto her independence, but barely so. The cost to her mind and spirit, to survive such abuse, could not be measured in words, only in a feeling.
It made the woman dangerous in ways that only Danya’s instincts could warn her about.
It made her a powerful weapon.
Yet at the same time Danya’s instincts nagged at her. She wanted to scream at Rewel—to lie, even—and tell him that obviously someone was coming. Going with the first option would be a good way to be rid of Rewel, to get rid of the woman once she awoke.
But the woman likely wouldn’t survive another trip into the wilderness, and Danya hadn’t had company besides Rewel in almost a year. That was only for a few days before Rewel forbid her from speaking to the woman.
