Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1)

by Holden, Ryan

  He stirred himself and in a moment was off again on Kerry. An hour later he saw the Western Spire ahead. Another hour of wandering through meadows brought him to a herder's camp. They had a dozen kardja in close view with more clustered further away. Orion wavered between jealousy at their good fortune and pride for Kerry's self-evident superior breeding. And training. These were truly just overgrown sheep. But kardja nonetheless, and enough to keep a family fed and clothed.

  As the saying went: twenty kardja, liberty; ten kardja, a livelihood; one kardja, a laughingstock. More than twenty was rare, most often with families with many children. On the other end, the only people with one kardja were lowlanders buying on a whim. The kardja keepers, or Khardjin as they used to call themselves, could not stomach such thievery of what should always be Anatolian. They despised the seller even more than the buyer.

  All this flashed like summer lightning through Orion's mind as the herders—an old woman, her daughter too—looked him over. He showed them the shekels Devlin had given him and was led back into the tent. At the old woman's barking the young woman, wearing three strings of beads, flipped up a slashed pelt to grab some sacks beneath. Daughter-in-law. Orion felt embarrassed: it was not polite to see someone arranging her bed for whatever reason. Especially as her husband was not present.

  He nodded, handed over his money, and walked back to Kerry. He asked for some string and proceeded to bundle the goods on her as they arrived. Once he reached for a sack and touched the woman's hand. They both pulled back their hands as if stung. Orion was glad the old crone did not see this impropriety.

  Orion nodded his thanks and left. He wondered if his father's mother was ever like this old woman: old and cranky, a life of bitter disappointment one would think. Never happy. He'd seen enough of her sort on market days, but that was with benefit of diverting events. The other, maybe a year older than himself, bulging at the girdle, her eyes listless, only saving the spark of fear at their touch.

  If it hadn't been for his mother, would this be his life? Is this who he would be in a few years, when Devlin's strength faded and he took himself a wife? He wondered if Enda would have that worn saddle look with her first child. Maybe it was the daughter-in-law's second. More children died than lived, it seemed.

  He pushed these thoughts aside. Not today. Today he joined rich, well-fed young nobles. They would leave the life of the kardja-keeper behind.

  For a split second Orion felt he understood them. Perhaps all they saw of life was old and decrepit and wearing out faster than water seeps through the hands. Why were they so reckless? If all died, why not? Then he was back to hating them. Their wealth, their easy lives, their camaraderie. Life wasn't fair.

  Orion met up with the group as planned, with some trepidation. It felt strange to be at someone's beck and call and that someone not his parents. Was that what working with a weaver would be like? It was stranger still to see his father in such a position. His father bore it with good grace, better than Orion's. Perhaps he was able to stave off the thrill of the chase. Orion couldn't. For all his naivety, a couple trips with his father had shown him enough to despise the lowlanders' poor skill.

  He learned to keep Kerry out of the way of their horses. The high-bred, sensitive animals found her presence disquieting. Kardja were social animals. Often poorer herders had mixed kardja and sheep herds: the former to provide some sense and defense against wolf bands, the latter to augment the fleece harvest. Though Kerry had never interacted with horses before, rarely seeing one, Orion didn't notice any dislike in her movements.

  The horses' masters were less understanding and slower to appreciate her qualities. It was on the third day when Orion felt his anger reach a new height. The group had already ignored Devlin's advice thrice that day as to how to spring and approach their quarry. The young lord, named Riley, insisted on flushing it—a large bighorn sheep whose fresh tracks they had seen that morning—with their superior numbers deciding the advantage. Orion gathered this was how they hunted foxes from what they said. He wondered if they had any strategy other than be stronger and take whatever was wanted.

  Devlin tried explaining the situation (their horses were not racing on level ground, the riders didn't know the terrain, and the sheep spooked easily and could keep the dogs off, if they had dogs worth speaking of) but could not find the perfect mix of the polite and emphatic. Riley found him impolite and inexpert and so heard nothing.

  The horsemen fanned out and left father and son behind. Orion's ears still burned at how his father had been treated.

  “Hold your temper, son. These boys need gentle handling.”

  “Gentle? That is not the quality I would have mentioned. They'll blame you when they regroup with nothing, just like yesterday.”

  “If I can't handle a few ill-favored words thrown my way, son, I should be as ill-equipped as those nobles. You'll run into their sort often enough, though rare for here. The mountain is too hard to let false notions survive long.”

  Devlin tilted his head as a horn sounded away north of them. After the echoing responses died down into the crash of distant brush he continued. “I'm not here to be liked. I'm not even here for the hunt. I'm here because I know winter's coming and this is what I can do to prepare for it. Anything else—well, Orion, you ever seen one of those fat lowlander cows?”

  He shook his head.

  “They do nothing but chew, chew, chew. Like kardja they chew afterward too. Now down in the lowlands the ground gets really wet on account of there being no place for the water to go, and the bugs like that. So these bugs go after the cows and bother them all day long. What do you think the cows do?”

  “Scratch themselves against a tree?”

  Devlin laughed, hard. “You've seen too many bears. No, these cows just keep eating and eating.”

  “They don't do anything?”

  “Their tail swings about and slaps at them. Won't let the bugs have it easy. But that's it. Only the smallest part of their energy goes to dealing with the little bugs.”

  Orion laughed. “So it's not worth getting angry at the little bugs who hired us.”

  Devlin smiled. “No. We're the bugs. But they don't care what we think, they just slap at us. We just dance to their tune and take their money.”

  Orion didn't know what he thought of being a dancing bug.

  “All depends on how you look at it. Sometimes you need to become a pig.”

  “A what?”

  “A pig, like a boar. They dive right into the mud. No bugs can get to their sweet blood through that.”

  “Ewww.”

  “Trust me, it works. The moment I married your mother all the gossips gave me up for lost and never bothered me again. So horrified they were speechless.” He tousled Orion's hair. “Not that I'm comparing your mother to mud.”

  The horns faded somewhat as the eager hunters left them. Devlin and Orion meandered along behind, reacquainting themselves with that part of the mountain. Here and there they pointed out flotsam and other havoc wreaked by the spring flooding. Kerry walked along behind them, now grazing, now walking on ahead.

  An hour or so passed. No other horsemen had regrouped with the one whose trail they followed but ahead the low din of a commotion reached their ears. Several horns sounded together, then silence. Father and son rounded the spur of a mountain and came upon the hunters.

  They stood there, some still horsed, two standing on the edge of a bench. It was a small outcropping of rock, unfettered by trees, giving a passable view at the surrounding dips and hills that made up the landscape. Orion noted to himself the lack of any bighorn and steeled himself for rough treatment.

  “Ah, there you are! Have you seen Patrick?” Riley called out, spurring his horse to meet them.

  “No, we have not,” Devlin answered.

  Patrick and Riley. Orion felt how the names sounded under his breath. He glanced at the others—the lanky one with the brightest colors, the stout one, the two who looked like twins. Apparentl
y the boring one who didn't say much was Patrick. Too bad, he was too placid to be much annoyance. Now only if the lanky one had gotten lost.

  “Sound the horns!” Riley said. The three in company blew. Their echoes bounced about, like two young dogs let into a new room, and faded. Silence. “Why can't we hear him? He can't be that far.”

  “Does he know how to whistle?” Delvin asked.

  “Of course he knows—” Riley snapped back. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It's easier to hear than shouting.”

  “I expect so. But why would he shout when he has a perfectly good horn?”

  The stout one coughed into his collar and the other three stopped their pacing. “Out with it,” Riley said.

  “Um, Patrick may or may not have a horn.”

  “What is that supposed to mean, imbecile?” Orion found this entertaining. So they annoyed each other too, not just those of Darach.

  “Ahem, um, he doesn't carry a horn. I mean, didn't today.” The stout one cringed, half shutting his eyes.

  “Not today?” Riley shouted.

  “Not ever,” the stout one muttered.

  “Well.” His voice, quieter, was as cold as a creek in a cave of rock. “I guess we have to wait for him to show up.”

  They didn't have to wait long. A “Halloa!” wafted through the air and the group jumped into their saddles. Those that were already saddled spurred their horses after the sound. Orion jumped, too. He turned to see his father remaining motionless. After some undecided pacing he settled back down where he'd been resting against a tree.

  The hunters thundered away. Devlin stood up, looked about with shaded brow, then started walking away. Orion clicked his tongue for Kerry and followed suit.

  “Where are we going, father?”

  “There's a interesting place up ahead. I want to take a look. Again, after all these years.”

  “Won't they miss us?”

  “No, they'll be occupied for some time.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Easy. When does a hunter halloo for others to come to him? He either has killed his quarry and wants an audience or, what I think, he has lost his horse and has had enough of walking for one day.”

  Orion smiled. He could just see the man, footsore already after a half-hour's walk. Lost, frightened, fearing the approaching nightfall. There would be no good camp—the slopes were steeper and the falls longer than where they'd been before.

  It turned out just as Devlin had said: the man was unhorsed. Or worse, they didn't know for sure, because they couldn't see the man. Just the horse, about a hundred paces ahead of them and as much or more down. Orion didn't know how he got there but could see why Patrick had left him behind. It was a tough climb even for a man: for a horse? That is, after you got him turned around.

  “This is it. The same as ever.” Orion looked at his father's face. It was strange—both grave yet... mocking. He eagerly jumped up on a rock that perched on the sheer downhill side. Crouching he brushed at the debris on the rock and crowed. “See this, Orion? Claw marks. First sign of a hunter in this forest.” He laughed without merriment.

  Orion looked at the scratches. They weren't very exciting. He turned around and looked up the mountain. Maybe just a rock that bounced its way down from higher up? He turned back to see his father weaving his way down the rock face towards the horse. He heard noises and was surprised to see the horsemen down in the valley below. They looked like rabbits from here.

  He looked back at his father, proud that his own two feet had beaten the horsed men to their goal. With a hand to steady himself against Kerry's halter he followed his father. It was slow going. Within minutes he let her go ahead of him to pick the trail, always staying uphill of her at her shoulder.

  Halfway to the horse he watched his father speak to it. The beast was spooked: it didn't belong here. It should be down in the broad plains it was born in. Kerry took a couple more steps. At a pause Orion looked up to see Devlin with his hand on the horse's halter. He could hear the men yelling something from down below but didn't catch any words. He looked at his feet and took another step down.

  The horse neighed, louder than before. There was a crash: Orion looked but couldn't see man nor beast. A split second later he saw the horse again, rearing up from where it had been behind rock. Orion saw, seared as with flame, his father's hand, bloody and stuffed into the halter. His body made no effort as the horse's neck rose up but swung like a pendulum into its shoulder. The horse lost his balance and tripped the other way when, rising up again with its powerful hindquarters, it screamed.

  Orion knew that humans screamed and was used to it. But the horse was the first animal he had heard scream. Not a wail, not a whimper, not a high-pitched squeak. A scream.

  Orion had never heard a horse scream before. He never wanted to hear one scream again. Only the sound like the “harrumph” of old men. In one second what he thought he knew about horses exploded, like a dry leaf when it's stepped on. That one scream had so much passion and intelligence behind it. And terror and horror.

  Its left forepaw trod the empty air. Its right jerked spasmodically, caught between Devlin's legs. With a last wild look from its eyes the horse fell of the edge of the mountain.

  Astra's face turned red. She breathed short bursts as if trying to speak. She clutched at Enda. “Devlin dies. Tell Orion.”

  “Oh no! Ramona!”

  Astra convulsed again. Blood ran out of her mouth. She spat it out. “Take. Ring. Queen. A sparrow.” She fell back.

  Orion sat under drumming rain. He hated and feared the mountain. He hated the loud men who called up to him to come down. He hated himself for having Kerry when his father did not have Myra.

  He cried into Kerry's coat then sat pressed against her, willing her frame to fill the aching emptiness he had within him. It was no use. Yelling a wordless noise he pushed himself off the mountain onto Kerry. She stumbled sideways then wheeled downhill and ran. He bounced on her back, willing it to be over, hoping it was over. Hoping that there was a place he would be with his father again.

  Kerry's hooves left the ground and Orion floated weightless for a moment as beautiful as a rainbow.

  But it was not to be. With a staccato thudding Kerry found her feet and navigated her way down the mountainside, slowly depressing the headlong rush.

  Mere seconds later, shaking and breathing shallow, jerky breaths she stood with the boy on her back in front of the horsemen.

  Ten

  Paris had enough of wandering around, hearing local gossip until he was blue in the face, running through his plan again and again and again. In short, anything but the thing that needed to be done. His hand still went to the strange weight over his left ribs. The heavy steel annoyed him, whacking him every so often when he abruptly changed direction.

  In villages nearer Darach he hinted at the raven-tressed woman. Villages further west or even north didn't understand the question, the barmaids taking it as an insult. He didn't know her taken name and so eventually circled back southeast.

  He heard more of the same stories the high-pitched woman had told him. Once, though, he was told of her husband's background, the word “husband” always marked with a different voice or replaced with a different word. He was illegitimate, born to an unmarried country woman. No one knew who the father was. The joke outside Darach was that it was a problem of too many candidates, not extreme secrecy. Then the stories faded into a heated debate over who of the young couple was more to be despised.

  “I tell you all,” one woman said at the town inn, “he's lucky to have her. Why, she's beautiful, none of the tales deny, and what did he expect, being baseborn with no father? That any woman would look twice at him is a great gift.” She nodded at her audience with the air of one who had a share in bringing about the said gift.

  “Aye, that anywoman should look twice is a wonder. But who here would consider a witch fit company for even a bastard? He's a harmless fool with
no pity from me but she—why, excepting a monster from the utter East”—at this the speaker drew his palm down in front of him from head to chest as the others collectively drew breath—“she's evil.”

  Paris laughed softly into his mug. That the outcast princess could find no better identity among these destitute peasants delighted him. Beautiful, a hundred times yes; intelligent, at least more than these bumpkins. A new twist to his plan formed in his mind. Why kill her? Who would care one way or another if he made her his slave? All girls he had known were the same: a pretty face, a young body, but nothing else. She would be interesting. She was interesting. He sipped at his beer.

  But first: her ring. That was the linchpin in his great game, the fulcrum that would swing him back to where he belonged. She was but a toy, to be kept at his pleasure or cast away at his pleasure.

  The next morning, his cart stocked with new items for sale, he made his way into Darach. The oaks were brilliant in their fiery oranges and yellows but his eyes had no use for gold such as that. He went through the town direct to the smithy. There was no sound to greet him nor smoke issuing from the chimney. He couldn't make sense of it. He encamped and set out for the woman's cabin.

  There he found the blacksmith and the redhead. They were standing next to the cabin. She had her arm around his waist and was sobbing into his chest. He was murmuring something. Paris sat in his old hiding place for what seemed like hours until they left. Where they had been standing he saw a pile of rocks, crowned with a pink ribbon. He just looked and wondered, waiting for the noise of the four departing feet to trail off in the distance behind him.

  He approached the cairn. The pile didn't look like three graves, only one. Did these people bury families together, one body on top of another? He sickened at the thought of digging it up. To disrupt the sacred last resting place. They're criminals, he told himself, and if it should be done it will be done. His stomach didn't believe him: turning to the side he retched bile onto the ground next to the grave.