Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1)

by Holden, Ryan

  She felt pity for the man. He had caught a glimpse of himself and was revolted. How could you fear such a one? Her heart throbbed as if beating in her head. Say it. Ask. She plucked up her courage then faltered.

  She tilted her head. “Why did you buy me?”

  His mouth gaped open. “I wished to buy—I mean, I wanted someone—” he sat there opening and closing his mouth.

  Coward, ask the real question. “I know. I don't mean to ask why you bought but why you bought me.”

  “I don't understand. I kept my ears open, believe me this was months, aye even years, in bringing myself to do this. I hear a certain distasteful,” he paused, “trader has arrived and I make some discreet inquiries.”

  She stared at him. “I did not ask how, I have seen it happen many times. I asked, why me?”

  “Well, you are young, and strong, and beautiful.” He pursed his lips. “The man said you had no family so there was a chance you might by comparison... it might be easier for you to...”

  Had she become Theo? This toil and trouble over the meaning of a few words. How else could she explain herself? She knelt in front of him and, hardly able to believe herself, took his hand in hers. “Once you saw me, you knew. I remind you of someone.”

  He looked at her, joy striving to show yet thrust back by his agony. “I don't know... Cora! Please see to dinner.”

  Adara followed his gaze and saw the maid standing petrified at the bottom of the stair. She curtsied and swished away.

  Evandor took a deep breath. He looked as if he was on cliff's edge. Adara didn't know what to do. Would another prod bring the answer she sought? Or would it seal his lips forever?

  “Please. Who was she?”

  He started crying. He stayed quiet but his whole body shook. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” He sobbed some more.

  She got up and sat beside him, her hands still in his. “Tell me about her.”

  He took a few deep breaths and finished the last of his sobs. He looked at Adara full in the face for several moments, then glanced about the room to get his bearings.

  “I had just finished preparatory school and wished never to study again. I begged and pleaded to attend my father at his work, as was not unusual, little though I knew of our estate. I was impatient to leave my school days behind. My parents refused. They arranged for a tutor and, not many weeks later, I sat in that very room—you see it, beyond the stair?”

  Adara nodded.

  “I sat in that room and was working a lesson, disappointed at another summer day wasted, when the tutor was called away. I finished the line I was on—I believe I was copying a ballad, a lesson I had learned to hate, handwriting, vocabulary, literature and history all in one—and when I looked up I saw her.

  “She said hello and stood by my desk, watching my work. I felt very conscious of my faults—I was a poor student—but she just prattled on about the wonderful trip she just had. I understood little of what she said, only the word 'mountains!' kept on exploding through her lips in delight. As it seemed she wasn't paying attention to my work I relaxed and settled down to it with her pleasant murmurings in the background.

  “I was interrupted by Hermes, the tutor, who introduced me to Princess Sophia. I rose and bowed, all my self-consciousness swarming back. I had never met any of the Royals before: we were a newer family, having been in Arcadia only three generations on my mother's side. Hermes then turned to the girl sitting next to me to finish the introductions. 'Sybil,' the girl broke in. 'Nice to meet you, Evandor.'

  “It was only years later that I found out what Hermes and Queen Sophia— for she is Queen now, of course—knew then. That they never sat apart. It took her all of a minute to befriend me.” His voice grew quiet and his look distant.

  He roused himself. “A mere minute. It took me years to find out. To find out that I loved her. And by then it was too late.”

  Adara listened to the clock ticking. The dog yawned and scratched himself then settled down again, eyes rolling about the room. Evandor slowly squeezed his hands.

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry.” He let her go.

  “Thank you. For telling me. I would like to have met your friend Sybil.”

  Evandor laughed. Adara was surprised. It was a light laugh, nothing dark in it. “Yes, that day she was Sibyl. The next week her name was Damaris. The week after, Pyrrha. I begged her to tell me and she would... only for me to find out it was another play-name. Hermes thought it was great fun and wouldn't tell, and the Princess didn't care. I didn't find out until the day I met her father.

  “Several weeks had gone by and we were sitting out in front, as we often did, waiting for someone to pick us up (the Princess never walked) or evening hour to chime the walk home (for myself). Suddenly Sybil, or Damaris, or whoever she was that week shrieked. A man rode up the street and moments later had her in his embrace. He walked our way, one arm around her and the other leading the horse. He kissed the Princess on the hand and then turned to me.

  “'Father, this is my friend Evandor,' she said. 'Well met,' he said and nodded at me. To this day when I think of a gentleman it is his nod that comes to mind. 'Any friend of my Astra is a friend of mine.'”

  Orion blinked. Someone's hand clasped his left bicep with iron grip and yanked on him. He staggered forward, feet disobedient. He banged his head on the low ceiling and saw stars.

  The man's other hand grabbed his head and pulled on it, yanking again. He staggered forward and stepped into thin air. His stomach flew up into his mouth and he fell. His foot hit the ground and his knee buckled. Only the man's tight grip on his shoulder stopped him from falling face first into the ground.

  He gingerly tried to extricate his rear leg but the man was pulling him forward again. He was dimly aware of other men, maybe a half dozen, as he was pulled along, his body making his legs move as contrary to the usual way.

  He looked back. So that was how his first ride in one of Avallonë's carriages had happened. He had no memory of entering and not used the steps on the way out. Where was he? The sudden memory of last night's escapade—or was that just minutes ago?—and assault flooded into his wakening mind. He shuddered. What vagabonds had taken him this time?

  Where was he going? He didn't like the man pulling him along. The thought hit him that he didn't even know where he was going before he had been mobbed. He just knew what he wanted. A cold sweat sprung on his back. He felt his pocket but couldn't locate the ring. Where was it?

  His legs sped up. He tried his hardest to keep up with the man. The effort paid off: soon he found his pace and wasn't jerked with every stride of whoever he was. He tried again, feeling his left pocket with his free right hand, and realized he still wore it.

  Relief flooded through him. Captured again? That was nothing. He lost count of how many people had held him against his will, in one way or another, in the past few weeks. He tried to pull it off into his pocket before anyone saw it.

  The initial relief faded. Every moment he feared his secret would be discovered. He timed his steps with all his concentration, hoping to prevent the jerk that might bump him and the hard metal object he carried against his captor.

  They did not go far. The man was not leading him through Avallonë's streets as he had first thought—why else leave the carriage? Think, Orion!—but up a beaten stone path flanked by trees. Their arms were just lit enough by the pallid half-moon to form an eerie ceiling.

  Orion looked away from them and back to their path. All the trees he had found so far in this city of quenched hopes only hurt him.

  Ahead two or three men stood by a small door. A small fire at their feet cast light upon them but wreaked havoc with his night eyes. He blinked, looking away from the flames. His night eyes had not returned by the time he was ushered past, noticing their metal armor and tall spears.

  A few low sounds and a nod sufficed for their entry. He could see now that the door was low and squat and heavily barred. These ruffians must have an understanding with some lord o
f Avallonë to be so brazen with their hideout.

  Perhaps it was deserted? He remembered the inn he had first stayed at. For all his lack of heraldry and absolute ignorance on the subject of architecture the inn shouted nobility with every line, now sagging, of its imposing front.

  Who cares? Think, Orion, think. Hide the Ring? Drop it?

  He dropped it in his pocket.

  Another door opened, this one only of iron, and he was shoved in alone. The door clanged shut. He grimaced at the pain searing through both knees and an elbow and turned around. The man was gone.

  Orion felt his way around the dark corners of his room. Cold stonework with the occasional barred iron met his fingers. His foot stumbled over something heavy and limp. Something ran squeaking away. He prodded it with his foot again: no more sounds. He touched it with his hands then threw it away in disgust: a dirt-ridden corn shuck. He stood in the middle of the room and reached out. From that spot he could touch three walls and the barred door.

  He sighed. He reached into his pocket and drew out the Ring. Last chance. Throw it out of the cell and trust to... to whom? He put it on his finger and felt its weight. In the dark, what was it but a metal circlet? He took it off and put it back in his pocket.

  He paced back and forth in the narrow confine. This grew tiring. He tried sitting down but the cold seeped through. He found the corn shuck and sat on it, trying to fold himself into the smallest size possible to trap all the heat he could. What he wouldn't give for a kardja fleece at this moment.

  Rocking back and forth he did not sleep as he waited for dawn's light.

  Adara stared at Evandor, mouth open. “What did you say?”

  “I finally found out,” Evandor smiled, pleased at her interest. “She noticed and laughed. Then she said the oddest thing which, once I came to know her, was not odd at all. She could be saying a thousand words about nothing at all but her voice would change and one sentence would come out of those thousand words that meant something. Anyways, she turned to me and said, let's see if I can remember, 'Now that you have met my father you are able to know me.' With some this could be mere propriety but not her.”

  Adara sympathized with having to listen to thousands of meaningless words. “Her name, you say, was Astra?”

  “Yes. But as I was saying...”

  “Astra? I remind you of Astra?”

  “Yes, she is the one.”

  “Whatever happened to... her?”

  “All in good time! The day is yet young and there are many stories... hmm, I guess we could skip to the end. Soon our days with Hermes drew to a close. Princess Sophia would be at Court, I was to return to my family's estate, and Astra—well, I think she wished to join her father on his travels. He was ambassador to Kyriopolis ever since her mother, his wife, died. Greer was his name.

  “But I never found out, for events changed their course. Astra's father returned, bringing with him the Prince. He was come to learn our customs and ways that he might rule the wiser in Kyriopolis. Or so the story went. Every mother with a daughter holding but a drop of the blood of Artemis (our first Queen, you know) thought he was there for a bride. The snubs and the maneuvering and the outright lies disgusted me.”

  Adara tried to sit still but every nerve tingled. She wanted to urge him to just tell her what became of Astra, whether his story would match Orion's, whether Astra was really.... She could not bring herself to say it. So she waited, memorizing every detail, guessing and second-guessing until she was almost exhausted.

  “In the end, though, I cannot blame his choice, though I regret it and wish it unmade every day of my life. On one matter and one matter alone was his mind like to mine: there was no one beside Astra. The Princess could not be his: she had her own throne, of course, by the most irrevocable established custom of our sister cities, else his unflagging ambition would have sought her. Perhaps that would have been less evil than what befell.

  “The time for the Harvest celebration drew near, our greatest feast. It was rumored the old king would himself come from Kyriopolis, his first visit since he, as Prince, had taken swift passage through Arcadia and beyond before his coronation. It boded to be the greatest feast in living memory. Even the fields and orchards, it seemed, responded to the expectation in the air.

  “The very night his royal father came to Avallonë, the prince made his intentions public. Astra refused him. Heated words were exchanged, even threat of war, until clearer heads removed some dozens to a private room. We sat all night and waited. As daylight broke the room opened. Astra's face was red with weeping. The Queen stepped forward and would have dismissed us, but at the King's persistence she spoke and so made it final.

  “During that long night, Astra persisted alone in her refusal. Finally, first her father, then some other nobles, stopped trying to advise her otherwise and, some for selfish ends, defended her authority to choose, if not her choice itself. The tide turned and it no longer became a matter of Prince and Lady but of Kyriopolis vi-a-vi Avallonë. The King was enraged. Towards dawn the Queen somehow bargained the King into agreeing to something less than Astra's head or razing Avallonë to the ground.

  “I spoke with Astra only once more, later that day. She said she hoped that I could understand for she feared no other would. I fear,” here Evandor choked back sobs, “I was not able to, for she went away with despair on her face.

  “Too this day no one knows why Astra chose as she did, unless some whispered words to her father gave him the secret. He was twice despised after that, both as former ambassador and spineless father, and soon went to the grave in sorrow, his vast estate reverting to the Queen. The tutor, too, was shamed, for Astra had been his pride and joy. He had no new students and soon lost those he had.

  “As for Astra, she was allowed life after her treason (for as such was it seen) only in exile and only after swearing oaths most horrible, that she would not marry any save the Prince. I heard she left within hours of her words to me.”

  “Where did she go?” she asked.

  “I don't know,” he wept. Adara cried too. “I wanted to find her, to let her know she still had a friend, that though I did not understand her I could not blame her. I spent the rest of autumn on horseback, searching for her, until a gopher hole broke my horse's leg and my own shoulder. I believe, I must or I will go mad, that she came at last to the Tower of Selene and has found rest there.”

  A part of Adara wanted to ask where this was but the rest of her could not allow speech. It was enough. This Astra had left Avallonë and never been seen again, at least by those of Avallonë. She was of such a look that Adara herself brought back memories amidst a city full of dark-eyed dark-haired women. A sudden worry hit her. “When did this happen?”

  “Nineteen years ago come harvest.”

  Nineteen. Orion was older than her but not by much. There was one more question that would lay this to rest. She hesitated and was silent. It was not her secret to share. Perhaps, though, she could find out without telling.

  “What did this Astra look like?”

  “What? Like you, I said. And why do you say 'this Astra'?”

  “No, I mean, did she have a favorite color, or fashion for her hair, a necklace she wore often?”

  “No. I mean, she was Astra. Why do you ask?”

  Adara's mind spun. She looked around the room and a painting caught her eye. “If I am to judge my likeness to her, perhaps someday I shall see a painting. Is there a sign or a badge, a token that would, should you not be there also, tell me that the painting was of her?”

  “Oh, yes, good point. Now if you had asked that of Queen Sophia I could name a good dozen items. But Astra didn't....” He grew quiet. “There is one way to remark her at the palace. It was painted by a master unequaled since his passing. For his sake they did not blackout her face and burn the canvas, as happened to all her other portraits. It is also the last memento of the lost ancient treasure of Artemis—”

  Adara's nerves were pulled to the breaking poin
t.

  “—a great clear stone set on a silver band.”

  Twenty-two

  “Up, up,” a harsh voice grated on his ear. He looked, no sleep to rub out of his eyes, just a body foggy from fatigue and slow to react. His legs protested when he told them to get him up. Slowly they obeyed.

  “Up now!” The voice was not patient. Metal drove into metal and squealed its submission as the door bar was driven back. The door sprung inwards, making Orion's left shin ring. He sucked his teeth.

  It may have been the man from the night before but perhaps it wasn't. He didn't know. In Darach he knew none save his mother, and for a short time his sister, that were so dark. Seeing hundreds in the city confused him. Did he have his own appearance? Or was he just another one of nature's runts run amok?

  He didn't resist as the man had led him passage through passage with enough turns to make him dizzy. How foreign to become lost in something so small as a city, he who had roamed mountains!

  He did notice the passages changing. It helped that some feeling came back into his leg, so that he enjoyed the soft gray carpet underfoot: soft compared to the stonework but tough to bear the passage of many booted feet.

  The man stopped at a small door. Guards rose to their feet as they approached. One, unarmed save for a richly gilded knife and better dressed than his fellows, exited the door and with a curt “Stay there” returned inwards.

  Orion stood there. This was not like to Riley or Simon. This was wealth and power. Did some noble take a special interest in foreigners? Why was he here? His foggy mind gave up again. What happened would happen.

  He eyed the soldiers. After the first minute they no longer noticed him and had sat back down. Often one would rise and pace the corridor but never left Orion's sight. He looked at their weapons. Each was girt with a short sword. Some carried rolls or stacks of paper bound with scarlet thread; those that didn't bore a spear, not quite shoulder height.