Queen Of Demons

by David Drake

  “But for the problems that do need a sword,”said Carus, smiling again, “they'll find there's a strong hand on the throne to swing one. By the Shepherd and the honor of Haft, they will!”

  Garric was alone in a high-ceilinged room of the queen's.mansion. The stone under his palms was polished alabaster, as cool and smooth as the visage of the queen as she fled Valles two days before. A night breeze blew through the open casement. On the streets below, linkmen guided a happy group who were caroling about sunshine and freedom.

  “Bring him in please, Liane,” Garric said, turning from the window. He still hadn't written the letter.

  He sat at the desk but smiled over his shoulder in greeting to Liane and the man with her. Ansulf was blond and sallow. His tunics, the inner one hanging a hand's breadth beneath the outer, were of Ornifal style and bore Ornifal embroidery, but the man himself was from Cordin or just possibly Tisamur.

  “Master Ansulf,” Garric said as he dipped and wiped his pen nib, “forgive my delay. I'll have this for you in a moment.”

  Ansulf had spent most of his adult life in the service of Serian merchants. The Serians, separate by both culture and religion from the rest of the Isles' population, were always viewed askance and often the subject of persecution. Their industry, craftsmanship, and business acumen made them more, not less, hated.

  Serians were nonviolent as a matter of religion and used pygmy cannibals from their isle's highlands to guard their ships and buildings in the outer world. In much the same way they hired men like Ansulf to act as business agents where native Serians would be robbed or killed. Liane's family had used Serian bankers, and it was through that contact that she had found the messenger Garric required.

  Garric wrote in the swift, neat hand his father had taught him:

  If you are well, it is good. I also am well.

  In this place I have some friends and many who call themselves my friends. If the Gods permit, I will tomorrow be a prince and will act in all ways as though I held the office of King of the Isles. I have an abundance of people who say they can teach me to run a kingdom; but I have a palace to staff and run as well, and there is no one here whom I trust to do that for me.

  I need you. The bearer of this letter will provide whatever funds and facilities you request for the journey. I cannot overstate the dangers you will face, but there is no one else whom I can ask. I hope you will come at once.

  Garric or-Reise Given at Valles on Ornifal, the Queen's house.

  Garric folded the letter into three crosswise. He wrote the address on the flat side, then turned the document and reached for one of the candles to seal the folded edge with wax. He paused, then opened the letter again and blotted or-Reise from his signature. Above his given name he wrote in tiny script, Your loving son. Only then did he seal the letter and give it to Ansulf.

  The shipper looked at the document with professional appraisal, then tucked it into a pouch whose leather was stiffened by iron wire. “I've discussed the anchorage with merchants who know the district, Your Lordship,” he said.

  “At Barca's Hamlet?” Garric said in surprise. “There isn't an anchorage. I mean, not for anything bigger than a fishing boat.”

  Ansulf shrugged. “I think we can manage,” he said. “Landing on the east coast will save at least a week over going overland from Carcosa. It's in the hands of the Lady, of course, but—”

  He smiled with the sort of quiet confidence Garric had seen on the face of every man he'd be willing to dignify with the name professional.

  “—you've been recommended highly to me. I dare say the same people have told you I can be trusted.”

  Garric laughed. He stood up and clasped arms with Ansulf, gripping one another hand to elbow. “May the Shepherd watch over you,” he said. “And—when you're in Barca's Hamlet, would you crumble a bit of cheese on my behalf to Duzi? My father can show you the hill where he stands.”

  The shipper grinned. “I've never been too proud to ask the Gods for help,” he said as he opened the door to leave. “And it's never done me harm that I can see.”

  The latch clicked behind him. Liane leaned against the door and said, “We've had messages from all the others except Waldron. Basically, the reorganization of the bureaucracy is going even better than we'd hoped. Sourous has arranged for you to meet Papnotis tomorrow in the king's palace. If matters go well, you'll see the king immediately.”

  Garric nodded absently. He was dizzy from trying to remember everything he'd done and said today.

  “I don't know what Waldron's silence means,” Liane said, watching Garric closely.

  He shrugged. “That Waldron is as proud as any three other men,” he said. “Which We already knew. If there were a real problem with levying troops in our name, Royhas would have told me. He's got spies close to Waldron, I'm sure.”

  “Then—” Liane began.

  “I wonder if he'll come?” Garric said. He hadn't noticed Liane starting to speak. “I'm not really his son, after all.”

  “The man who raised you,” Liane said quietly, “isn't going to refuse his duty. And as for not being Reise's son—why do you say that?”

  Garric frowned, feeling awkward. He was sure that he'd told Liane that...“I'm Countess Tera's child,” he said carefully. “Reise was just her secretary. He pretended I was his son to save me as he fled Carcosa during the riots when the count and countess were killed.”

  Liane nodded. It suddenly struck Garric that Liane, raised as a noble while he was tending sheep in Barca's Hamlet, was enormously more sophisticated man he was.

  “I know Countess Tera was your mother,” she said. “That doesn't tell me who your father was, Garric.”

  She stepped close, hugged him, and backed quickly away. “Anyway, Reise will come as quickly as he can. Now—”

  The door opened, fast and without warning. Garric, driven by reflexes honed in another man's lifetime, had his sword clear of the scabbard before Royhas halted with a startled expression. Waldron, half a step behind him, eyed the tableau with a hint of the first amusement Garric had seen on the old warrior's face.

  “Sorry,” Garric said as he slipped the long blade back into its scabbard.

  Royhas was in court robes, plain beige silk with the broad red stripe of the chancellery sewn down the right side. The stripe was a recent addition to a garment which, though not shabby, was well brokeri-in. “Lord Waldron's brought news,” he said, nodding to let the other man speak for himself.

  “The commanders of the four regular regiments—not the Blood Eagles—had agreed to join us,” Waldron said.

  His face worked in disgust. “Though the cowards weren't going to do anything until Valence capitulated on his own, I was waiting for the first installment of the bribe to arrive from Tadai's bankers.”

  Garric nodded in understanding. The Ornifal standing army—calling it “the royal army” gave Valence too much credit—was ill paid, ill led, and badly under-strength. The four regiments based near Valles totaled only about fifteen hundred troops when they should have had a thousand apiece.

  They could make the next days difficult if they opposed the conspiracy, though. If the local regiments backed the king, he might resist at least until levies from the northern landholders reached Valles to give Waldron the muscle to overawe them. Without their open support, Valence would have to come to terms with Garric.

  Garric didn't expect fighting. Besides, he wasn't—nor was Carus—concerned about the outcome if it did come to sword strokes; but he believed Tenoctris when she warned that there was very little time.

  “The cart with the money chest was in sight,” Waldron said bitterly. “Then a messenger came from the Naval Arsenal saying that the fleet on Eshkol had just proclaimed Admiral Nitker King of the Isles and that he'd be arriving shortly to take charge. The regiments marched to the Arsenal. To await developments, that brainless twit Pior who commands Harken's Regiment told me.”

  “There's ten thousand men in the fleet base on Eshkol
,” Royhas said with a frown.

  “Eight,” Liane said, reaching for one of the score of notebooks in her valise but sure of the figure without it. “They're understrength as well, though not as badly as the army.”

  “We'll crush them like bugs when the levies from the north get here,” Waldron said impatiently. “The nobles are coming with real soldiers, not rowers with swords in their hands.”

  Garric had both history and Carus' vivid memories to warn him that Waldron was making the sort of assumptions that could lead to disaster. A body of disciplined men experienced in working together might be more than a match for a ragbag of noble retainers, even though the latter had better armor and perhaps more experience in fighting on land.

  Aloud he said, “Well, in the short term it doesn't matter to us. We'll—” The hallway behind the two nobles was packed with their armed guards and the petitioners who hadn't gone home despite Liane's attempt to dismiss them. Smoke from the extra lamps brought in by the newcomers merged with that of the wall sconces. The haze hovered a foot beneath the coffered ceiling.

  “What?” Waldron said, more in anger than surprise. “Nitker isn't as great a fool as most of the naval sort and he's obviously ambitious. If—”

  “In the short term, I said,” Garric resumed. Fatigue had ground away the layers of civilized politeness that might have softened his response. Waldron being Waldron, politeness would have gotten in the way of the necessary message. “Our concern was that the regiments in Valles not support Valence against us. Who they do support is immaterial for the moment, so long as it's not him. We'll come to terms with the king tomorrow, as planned, and deal with Nitker—”

  He grinned, then broke into a booming laugh that was as much that of his ancestor as it was Garric's own. “ 'Deal with him at leisure,' I was going to say,” Garric continued, “but I don't expect any of us will have leisure for longer than I care to guess. What I will have—”

  Garric grinned again, a rakish but not unfriendly expression that raised Royhas' eyebrow and cooled Waldron's anger into wariness. They were wondering if stress had driven Garric mad.

  “—is sleep, which I need if I'm going to be of any use when I see Valence. I hope you'll forgive me, but for the moment there's nothing I can do that will more greatly benefit our cause.”

  He bowed. Liane stepped between Garric and the nobles; and they, nodding, closed the door behind them.

  Sharina waited until she was sure that one of the two men was Hanno. She half-hopped, half-swung down from the hiding place she'd found for herself, the stub of an araucaria whose trunk had sheared a dozen feet in the air. “It's all right,” she called. “There are no enemies here.”

  Hanno stepped out from behind the buttress roots of a silk cotton tree where he'd sheltered when he heard the flies. “Unarc,” he said, “this is the girl I told you about. Guess I wasn't lying when I told you she was a perky one. Missie, here's Unarc, and I guess he's not quite as dead as I figured him.”

  The man with Hanno was short and built like a stump. He was completely bald. His beard and mustache were so full that his head would look more normal if it were mounted upside down on his neck.

  Unarc held a knife the length of his forearm; its heavy blade curved inward like that of a pruning hook. His right arm was bound to his chest by leather wrappings which were both sling and bandage.

  “He'd got his boat raised when the Monkeys who'd burned his hut caught up with him,” Hanno explained. “There was more fuss—”

  His spear dipped toward Unarc's injury.

  “—and when it was over, the boat was farther out than a fellow with one arm could swim to it.”

  “Pleased to meet you, miss,” Unarc said. It was perhaps the most obvious lie Sharina had ever heard from the mouth of an adult. The bald hunter dug his big toe into the soil and stared at it all the time he was speaking. “Guess I'll look...”

  He didn't so much drift away as jump toward the baobab tree. The presence of a woman embarrassed him beyond words.

  Hanno's spearbutt touched the body of a soldier with a sword in his hand. The skin of the corpse looked sallow, the pool of blood beneath the deep slash in his thigh was still tacky.

  “I see you kept yourself busy while I was gone,” the hunter said. Apologetically he added, “If I'd thought there'd be trouble, I'd not have left you.”

  “By the Shepherd's holy staff!” Unarc said from the echoing interior of the baobab. “There's four more of them here!”

  Hanno raised an eyebrow, though he didn't speak.

  “It wasn't me, exactly,” Sharina said. “My friend Nonnus... Nonnus helped me.”

  She was tired and uncomfortable at talking about the slaughter. She slid the Pewle knife into its sheath and stood, wishing that she'd had time to bury the bodies. She couldn't have hidden what had happened, of course.

  Unarc came out of the tree's shelter, his mouth open to shout some further revelation. He saw that the others were talking and remained silent.

  “You mean he taught you to use a knife that way?” Hanno said.

  A creature in the treetops began to call: who-oop, who-oop, over and over. The hunter glanced upward with a hard glint in his eyes. Just as suddenly his spear arm relaxed from the insane cast it was about to attempt. He gave Sharina a faint smile. He was uncomfortable too.

  “No,” Sharina muttered, looking away. She'd washed her tunic in the stream. Cold water had sluiced out most of the blood, but the hunters' practiced eyes weren't going to be deceived. “He came back and did... what he did for me. Alone. But he's gone again now.”

  Hanno nodded as though he understood. Unarc quietly rejoined them. “Nonnus,” Hanno said reflectively. “He'd be the friend you said could have me for supper, would he?”

  “I'm sorry,” Sharina said. “I shouldn't have said that. I was upset and I thought you were another enemy.”

  The big hunter smiled in a sort of humor. He toed the soldier's hand to see if he could loosen the sword, but the hilt was in a death grip. “Oh,” he said, “I don't know that you misspoke, though it'd be a fight folks'd pay money to see. What do you figure, Unarc?”

  “Horsefeathers, Hanno,” the bald man said uncomfortably. “You could take him. Unless he got inside, and then, well, it'd be a fight.”

  “Anyhow, missie,” Hanno said, businesslike again, “your Nonnus is a right good man. I'm proud to know a friend of his.”

  He gestured with his spear. “Now,” he said, “Unarc and me figure that since we can't get off the island for a bit, we ought to learn something about what's going on. Are you up to joining us?”

  “It don't seem she'll be slowing us down as much as I'd figured,” Unarc admitted, speaking to the ground. “Sorry to doubt you, Hanno.”

  “Yes,” Sharina said. “I think we need to learn what's going on. And maybe to stop it.”

  When they'd landed the previous afternoon, Cashel had been so glad to have firm land under his feet and an ordinary sky overhead that he hadn't given much thought to where they were. This is, he hadn't wondered whether they were back in the world he and Zahag had been booted out of in the courtyard of King Folquin's palace.

  The sea rolled in much the same way as the surf did on the coast of Haft. The constellations were right, more or less; the common one's were much higher in the sky and there were stars on the southern horizon that even Cozro had never seen before, though he said he'd sailed as far south as Shengy when he was younger. All that meant was that they were a distance beyond where the captain had been, not that they were in another world.

  But Cashel's skin still prickled in a fashion that he'd come to associate with things being...wrong. With wizardry. There, he'd gone and thought it.

  “Wow!” called Zahag, who'd ambled up the beach out of sight. “Come see these eggs!”

  Cashel looked up from his work. They hadn't found sign of anything more dangerous than stunted pigs on this island, but it wasn't as though they'd had time to really explore. Zahag wasn't in da
nger and Cozro—even without the cutlass, which Cashel was using as their only woodworking tool—was probably safe as well, more's the pity; but Cashel didn't like leaving Aria alone.

  “Would you like to take a walk, Princess?” Cashel asked.

  Aria sat in the shade, gripping her knees and staring at the sand between her feet. She looked up without enthusiasm. Saltwater had gummed her hair and made her eyes bloodshot. Abrasion wherever cloth rubbed skin had raised rashes and even welts.

  “What does it matter?” she asked. She got up, though.

  “Here, you carry the cutlass,” Cashel said, handing her the weapon. “I'll take the staff, hey?” Cashel was planing a length of palm trunk into an oar. The result was pretty good. Better than he'd counted on being able to manage, anyway. He hadn't decided whether he was going to build a larger boat or if they'd just leave the island on the dinghy when he'd made oars and had stepped a mast.

  “You'd drag me if I didn't, wouldn't you?” the girl said bitterly. At some time in the recent chaos she seemed to have lost the belief that she was being tested like Patient Muzira. That was a shame, but Aria was a lot sturdier now than the fluffball Cashel and Zahag had rescued from the wizard's tower. She'd done things and she could do more, though she thought it was terribly unjust that she had to.

  They set out along the sandy beach in the direction Zahag had called from. There must be a vein of sweet water somewhere under the island, because the vegetation was lush instead of the bitter, small-leafed tamarisks Cashel had seen on similar islets in the Inner Sea. For now the castaways had quenched their thirst with fruit, but maybe he could dig a well for drinking water when they sailed away from the island.

  Cashel wasn't sure they could carry enough food and water for four in the dinghy; but neither was he sure that he could build a serviceable boat all by himself, and it looked very much like that's how it would have to be made. Aria was worthless; Zahag wouldn't pay attention to anything for as long as two minutes straight; and Cozro... well, Cozro had found a fruit the size of a peach with a hard rind. Opened, it fermented in a couple of hours, and that was all he'd shown interest in from that moment on.