by R. J. Price
“The west has never lost a skirmish with palace lands,” the drunken lord said far too loudly.
“They weren’t the ones fighting the skirmish, the north was,” Laeder said quickly. “Wasn’t it? They, the north, doesn’t talk about the skirmish and the palace doesn’t like bandying it about that it forcibly took land from another.”
“Sends the wrong impression, the one who sat the throne said.” The elderly lord glared at his drunken companion for a moment before continuing. “She took the girl on as handmaid because they couldn’t send her home. Her parents were dead, her village raped and razed to the ground. By the time the leaves fell a new queen sat the throne.”
“And, what?” Laeder asked. “Everyone forgot about her?”
“Fairly well. The ranks did, anyhow. Each who took the throne was simply told that the girl was inherited with the throne, to be looked after and raised proper-like. When she came of age, she fell for some warrior at court and tried to catch his eye, but he only had eyes for the one who sat the throne.”
Laeder shrugged. “It happens.”
“Not the one who sat the throne at the time. He would cozy on up to anyone who sat the throne, and through four queens he went. Had some fancy title as well, though I can’t be bothered to recall what.” The lord huffed out a breath. “By this time she had a reputation as a beauty at court and others were chasing her. Throne was empty for a time—no one could understand why—and the girl, it was discovered, was fending it off. Said no to the throne.”
“But if she wanted him, why not take the throne?” Laeder asked.
“Called it a death sentence, was all she said in public. Suddenly she had everyone’s attention. A queen fending off the throne? For days? No one flaunted strength in those days. No one sat around judging the abilities of the feminine rank then. No one knew how strong she was. Not until it was too late.”
“You mentioned a daughter,” Laeder said.
“Oh, yes, yes—gorgeous daughter. Is about, oh, the age of the new master there. Older than the steward, the ugly fat one,” the lord said, hesitating for a moment. “Nice daughter he has, pretty. But not pretty enough to be called beautiful all her life and put her nose in the air as those ones are wont to do.”
Which would make the girl the lord was speaking about Telm’s mother, and Telm her daughter. Laeder took a moment to glance over the dining hall, trying not to draw any more attention to himself. Everyone else was engaged in eating dinner, focusing on their plates in a desperate sort of fashion.
He turned back to the elderly lord. “Who was the daughter’s father, do you recall?”
“Some warrior. Rumour said he was the one she wanted, not from palace lands, that one. A third warrior stepped in some years later and claimed the mother.” The lord nodded slowly. “Cannot for the life of me recall his name. The two did bond, as queen and warriors are supposed to do. Then one day he took her out to see her village. She was heavily pregnant at the time, he the proud father…”
The lord trailed off.
“Then what?” Laeder asked.
“Then nothing. She returned, rumour and whisper abounding. No child in her arms, no man at her side and distant suddenly. Took three years for anyone to figure out what had happened, and then she disappeared for a time. Still not certain what did happen.”
Laeder bit back a frustrated snarl, asking instead, “And what had happened?”
“He took her there to bind her to the land forcibly. Was a cousin of hers, but how was she to know? He had come to retrieve what was theirs and take it back to the broken village to help rebuild. Used some old magic to try to hold her there.” The lord sounded distant for a moment. “My brother was one of his friends; hadn’t thought much about the rumbling and grumbling, the rumours and drunken nights. When he discovered that he had accidentally had a hand in betraying a queen, he took his own life. Couldn’t live with himself.”
“What happened to the village?” Laeder asked.
“Cursed with a queen’s rage,” the lord said.
“What does that mean?” Laeder grumbled more to himself than anyone else.
“What does that mean?” the elderly lord hooted back at him. “Boy, when a queen rages, there’s no predicting what she, or her magic, will do. Perhaps it was nothing more than making the villagers shit themselves with fear, or perhaps she turned her magic in on herself and that was what happened to the babe. Maybe it was unleashed outward and now there is naught more but a gaping maw where the village once stood.”
“No one went out to check?” Laeder asked.
“Of course not! You want to venture into land cursed with queen’s rage, go right ahead, I’m staying here with the drunk, where I’ve got fire to warm my bones.”
Leader hesitated a moment, considering. “Very well. What of the daughter?”
“The daughter?” the lord asked. “Oh yes, the daughter. Whatever did happen to her? She was a queen in her own right. Went, uh, went up north for a visit to retrace her bloodline. Never returned. What was her name? Hrm. Olea, that was it, Olea.”
“Olea who?” Laeder pushed. “What was her bloodline?”
“Marilton,” the drunk beside Laeder rumbled out, rousing suddenly from his stupor. “She was the high lord’s daughter on a palace woman. One of the Marilton boys, one of the old baron’s sons, laid eyes on her and mated her then and there.”
“How do you know that?” the elderly lord demanded.
“I was there,” the drunk grumbled. “I’m the northern ambassador. Buggers left me here over the winter as an open hand to those at court.”
“You’re drunk, man,” Laeder said.
“You’d be too, if you could feel a queen proper enough,” the lord said, almost laughing as he did so. “Going to feel hungover in the morning no matter what I do, so might as well enjoy myself some wine.”
“Are you certain your Olea is the one of his story?” Laeder asked.
Perhaps the elderly lord had heard the drunken lord nattering at someone.
“Yes, yes.” The drunk nodded slowly. “Olea came to us from palace lands. She had good northern blood in her veins and her mother bred true. Doesn’t talk about her mother or her time growing up on palace grounds due to some event that happened before the old baron passed away.”
Laeder felt a trickle of fear passing over him.
“Everyone calls me a doddering old fool,” the elderly lord muttered.
“Unless you know another world-altering event that involved a queen and her daughter with just that background,” the drunk slurred out. “You’re not doddering, but you are an old fool.”
“Except there wasn’t a world-altering event,” Laeder said to the two of them. “According to the records and what I know about history, none of this ever happened.”
Chapter Sixteen
A letter arrived the next morning for Jer from the palace. Av accepted it and hesitated in handing it over to Jer. He snapped the letter from his brother before Av had the chance to do something stupid and brotherly. Retreating to the relatively quiet, though cold, porch, Jer sat on the stoop and opened the letter.
Not just a missive, a few words on the page, it was a full letter from Laeder. There were no niceties in the letter or social necessities, it launched right into a very strange tale. Having read the story, and read about what happened at the palace the night before, Jer sighed and stood.
Walking back into the house, he looked at Av. “Why don’t you head to the village today?”
With a cup of tea almost to his lips, Av stopped, eyes widening just slightly. “Who’s telling me to go?”
“I am,” Jer said. Not as steward, not as a fellow warrior, not even as his brother, Jer was saying it as every title he held. Hoping that Av would obey without challenge.
“Should I take the children?” Av asked, lowering the mug. “Father mentioned some sort of gathering, said he might take them, but figured we’d need two chaperones to watch them since there are two children.”
“Father stays here,” Jer said. “Take both children, though. I’ve some coin to spare. They can have one each to spend at the gathering.”
“He was going to maybe…” Av trailed off and met Jer’s eyes.
Ervam was going to speak with the healer about coming to visit Anue. Av did not want to have that conversation with a healer. At least not about a girl who was not his daughter.
“You’re going to have daughters by Aren, so get used to it,” Jer growled.
He marched into his bedroom and closed the door, letter still in his hands. There he remained until he heard the front door open and close. He stood and opened his bedroom door just as Ervam raised his hand to knock.
The two made eye contact and his father motioned with his head to the kitchen. They made their way to the dining table and took a seat before a cup of tea.
“This may require something stronger,” Jer said.
“It may, but if we partake in something stronger every time Aren’s actions create a reaction in the world, we will very swiftly be referred to as drunkards, and then how will anything ever get done?” Ervam asked, raising his tea pointedly.
Jer pushed the letter across the table to his father. Frowning, Ervam picked it up and read. His features darkened as the page turned. At the end, the letter was set down carefully and Ervam swallowed, giving his head a shake.
“No, we cannot give in to the urge to drink at every little bump,” Ervam growled.
“This is what you’re calling a little bump?” Jer asked. “The women almost killed the men. If one of us had been there, if there had been a rank left at the palace besides Telm and the healers, there would have been bloodshed yesterday.”
Ervam sighed. “Av showed no sign of irritability. Don’t you think that if this were what Laeder believes it to be, the throne would have told Av? Sent him in the right direction?”
“Then what do you think happened?” Jer asked.
“I think Aren’s fallen into whatever trap the throne sent her to fall into,” Ervam grumbled, turning to the last page of the letter. “Your man’s a smart one. The lights of the palace have dimmed this morning but only enough that one who needs such small details as the shape of letters would notice.”
“And?” Jer asked.
“And there is a village to the northwest that is cursed by a queen and is in possession of an old binding magic,” Ervam said quietly. “The throne was created over hundreds, if not thousands, of generations. What it started as and what it has become are two entirely different creatures.”
“Landscape magic?” Jer asked.
“One lifetime of magic does little to one’s surroundings unless one is a queen, and even that is very little,” Ervam said. “Over generations excess magic alters the land. It changed the palace from a liveable place to one where the darkest and maddest spirits gathered, so we are told. The throne began as a throne, a fancy seat and nothing more.”
“Yes, but this happened maybe three generations ago,” Jer said.
“True, three generations is not long enough to create the type of link that the throne has between the world and a queen.” Ervam hesitated to sip his tea. “Doesn’t have the same bite. Wonder if there’s a drink we can find that at least bites the same, without the inebriation.”
“What was your point?” Jer asked.
“My point?”
Jer sighed. “You said three generations wouldn’t be enough. Your tone implied there was a ‘but’ in there.”
“Oh, yes, we live in the era of short-lived queens. In the time of their existence the palace went from light and marvellous to dark once more. Sickness and madness all but lives in the walls.”
“Could be the plaster,” Jer growled. “Plaster was not made to last that long. The only reason the palace is still standing is because the magic of the queens has a sort of healing quality to all around them. That and the long-standing contract we have with builders who come in and clean up the messes made within a day.”
“True. I wonder if Aren could be swayed to commission it being rebuilt,” Ervam muttered.
“Back to the trouble at hand,” Jer said sternly.
“With a proper connection, a thinking landmark magic, as you called it, the throne has burned through a queen every few years, on average, for the past however many centuries,” Ervam said. “Your mother seemed to imply that the throne would withhold from the queens. Rather than plunge into a dark time, it would keep itself starved in order to keep peace long enough to create more queens.”
Jer nodded slowly. “All right, I can understand that, I think.”
“Think of Em, for example,” his father murmured. “A few of us lived in misery in order to give one queen enough time to mature.”
“If she had been on the throne from mother…” Jer started.
“She would be Anue,” Ervam snarled, causing Jer to jerk his hands away from the table. “If the throne wanted Anue, Anue is right there and stronger than Aren. It doesn’t want Anue, it wants Aren. In all her instability, her magic, her moods, her past, it wants Aren.”
“To send her off immediately,” Jer said.
“To send Aren off to the northwest where a village that has an old binding magic and was cursed by a queen,” Ervam said to Jer. “By a queen who, according to an elderly lord is the only queen to have said no to the throne in documented history.”
“Without hearing from Olea…” Jer started, trailing off when he saw the look his father gave him. “Did you actually meet Olea?”
“She shares the bloodlines that the daughter in the story is said to share,” Ervam said. “She is a gorgeous woman, and her daughters inherited that beauty. She often said that her mother was a beauty, but likes to keep her history hidden.”
“Telm’s never had a child,” Jer said.
“According to Telm, she has no blood either,” Ervam countered. “Obviously that’s not possible.”
The two sat in silence for an extended period of time. Jer watched the table before him as he sorted through all the information he could recall.
“Let’s stop beating around the bush and just say it,” Jer said finally.
“Telm cursed a village that somehow created a link to the world like the throne did,” Ervam said. “This village now has Aren and has linked her to it. We don’t know where the village is, or what sort of danger we might face if we headed that way.”
“Not that we can before spring, anyway,” Jer said. “The village is on that finger of land between the northern wastes and the western marshes. That’s the only place it could be. The ice and snow is going to be too deep for us to forge through, let alone lead an attack.”
“The question, then, is: what do we do?” Ervam asked.
“About Telm?” Jer asked.
“Telm, we leave her alone. If we need to bring her in to ask her what’s going on, we will. I’d rather not try a woman who could do that when her magic is as limited as it is. Unless it has something to do with the amulet, in which case I’m even more afraid. What if she dies and gifts the amulet to a queen of actual magic?”
“True. Shelve Telm,” Jer said, making a motion as if he were sliding a book onto a shelf. “What about the village?”
“Obviously in the spring we go in and clear this whole mess up,” Ervam said.
“Burn it to the ground?” Jer asked.
“By now those involved are very old or dead, and their children have inherited the curse. We need to do a survey, see what’s gone on and make a decision from there depending on what has now happened.”
“Aren’s linked to the throne and a male has done something that upset her, obviously,” Jer responded. “Which means obviously there is something going on in the village that needs to be stopped.”
“The thought I have is that they’ve created a secondary throne.” Ervam stopped to consider his words. “Basically, this throne they’ve been linking short-lived queens to for the past three generations, likely dying just the same as the
one who sits the throne dies. Going through who knows how many queens.”
“Creating a generational magic within only a few generations?” Jer asked. “That’s ridiculous!”
Ervam sighed. “No, it’s not. The moment of death is what did in the palace. Sixteen deaths are like sixteen generations.”
Jer uttered a curse. “Can we stop it? Destroy it?”
“The only person with access to the information on how to destroy the throne is currently in that village,” Ervam said.
“And now linked to the magic.”
Ervam nodded. “And now linked to the magic. It’s possible the throne knows what it’s doing. It is older than all of us and is showing a remarkable intelligence for magic. I just wish we had someone who could talk to the throne and tell us what was going on.”
“We do, he just doesn’t know the throne talks to him,” Jer said, motioning with his head towards the front door.
Both looked to the door, then back to one another. Ervam considered his tea for a long moment, then looked up at Jer.
“Which brings us to the real question,” Ervam said.
“What do we do with Av?”
Chapter Seventeen
Entering the village, Av steered the children toward the elders. He introduced himself, the children, and explained his connection to the children. He was very careful to explain in plain terms. Anue and Mie sighed at him and shuffled their feet.
The elders pointed out the healer’s house and told Av that they would look after Mie. Without Av having to explain his need.
Gathering his courage, Av led Anue to the healer’s house and knocked on the door. The woman snapped open her door and sneered at him, apparently expecting someone else. She relaxed when she recognized Av.
“Did you used to sit on me and mash my face into mud?” Av asked the healer.
“Yes. Nae, in case you forgot,” she said with a slow smile.
