Queen's Hunt

by Beth Bernobich

  Ilse thought she knew. Last summer, she and Raul Kosenmark had received word from their Károvín spies about strange maneuvers on land and in ships. Today’s events had to be connected. Would the regional governor see that? Would he send word to Raul?

  A year ago, she would have said yes with assurance. Now, she wasn’t quite as certain. Lord Nicol Joannis had once been a member of Raul’s shadow court. He had served as a conduit for information from Fortezzien and the southeast. Well before she left Tiralien, however, Joannis had withdrawn from their regular correspondence. A matter of precaution, Raul had said in passing, though whether the caution came from Raul or Joannis, she had never learned. Nevertheless, Raul had trusted Joannis enough to suggest that Ilse come here for her temporary exile.

  In case Markus Khandarr did not believe our fiction.

  In case of other eventualities she and Raul could not foresee.

  Their plan had been a good one, a sensible one. But those dispassionate discussions last autumn seemed far removed from today, and this crisis. She had not dared to approach Lord Joannis since her arrival. Why should she? She was nothing more than a commoner, a discarded lover who now earned her wages as a steward.

  Useless, useless second thoughts.

  Ilse wrote the last sum, blotted the page, and set the sheet aside. She was still sifting through the details she’d learned when she heard a scratching at her door. Ilse paused, almost certain she’d imagined the soft noise, when there came a tentative knock. One of the courtesans with gossip? A runner from Mistress Andeliess?

  But it was Galena Alighero who stood outside, a tall pale ghost. “A few minutes,” she said quickly. “That’s all I want.”

  Ilse hesitated.

  “Please,” Galena said. “It’s not about— Please.”

  Even in the corridor’s half-light, her distress was obvious. Reluctantly, Ilse stood aside and motioned for Galena to enter. Instead of taking a seat, however, Galena circled the small room. Her gaze flickered over the walls and bookshelves as though tracking an invisible enemy.

  “What’s wrong?” Ilse said.

  “Nothing.”

  A lie. Ilse let it go. “Sit down,” she said. “We’ll have some wine.”

  She filled two wine cups and offered one to Galena. Galena took it and abruptly sat down on the couch. Her hands were shaking so, the wine rippled in the cup. She wasn’t acting, Ilse thought. Was it battle fever? She tried to recall if Galena had ever seen action before.

  She took a seat on the same couch—but not too close—and waited for the girl to speak.

  The quarter hour rang outside, a thin soft peal. Galena shivered, as if the bells had stirred unpleasant memories. “You know about the Károvín,” she said softly.

  “I heard. There were three ships. Or was it four?”

  “Three. They sank. Foundered on the rocks.” She gulped down some wine. “You heard all that from Falco already. I should go.”

  Ilse laid a hand on her arm. “Stay. I’ve heard a few stories, but not yours.”

  Galena flinched, but sank back onto the couch. “It’s the storm,” she said. “Or that’s part of it.” Her voice went breathless, higher than usual. “It was magic. The captains think a mage on the ships called up the storm for cover. The Károvín sent at least twenty ships into the eastern current just last week. If the storm had hit us earlier, we might not have sighted them at all. They could have taken the city.”

  “With just three ships?”

  “No, with all twenty.”

  Ilse felt cold wash over her skin. Károvín soldiers, here in Osterling, after centuries of calm. Falco had not mentioned that detail. “How did you know they were the same ships?”

  Galena hesitated only a moment. “My father said the report came from the king’s patrols. No other ships were sighted in those waters. They’re certain it’s the same fleet. The captains think they meant to head around. Except they haven’t, not yet. Commander Adler doubled the watch just in case.”

  East from the Veraenen coast lay the open seas—there were no known islands, no continents. Nothing, Ilse thought, except an impenetrable magical barrier, and the lost kingdom of Morennioù. Again she had a shiver of premonition.

  Legend said that Lir had drawn a curtain around the island province. After the second wars, when Dzavek had invaded Veraene in his search for Lir’s jewels, Veraene had sent ships to contact the islands. None had returned. Fishermen brought wild tales of a burning wall in the open ocean to the east. Lir’s Veil was its name. The Károvín had their own name for it, most likely.

  “Did you take prisoners?” she asked.

  “Yes. Thirty-four. Soldiers and sailors.”

  Ilse did not miss that last phrase, or the pause before Galena had answered. Falco, too, had been strangely reticent when asked about prisoners.

  “Thirty-four soldiers and sailors,” she repeated. “And who else?”

  Galena’s fingers tightened around her wine cup. “Who told you?”

  “No one. I guessed. Can you tell me anything, or did you swear to secrecy?”

  She hardly needed to hear the answer. Galena’s panicked expression was enough. “We didn’t swear an oath,” Galena said. “But Lord Joannis was there. He told us to be discreet.”

  So the matter was important enough for the regional governor.

  She offered more wine to Galena, who refused. “I promise not to spread any rumors,” Ilse said. “Or would you rather talk about the fighting?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” Then she added, “They fought hard in spite of everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Galena’s gaze flicked toward Ilse and away. “Just what I said. They’d fought at least one battle already that day. And they were exhausted from the storm. Still, they didn’t want to yield. When we tried to take them prisoner, a dozen or more fell on their swords. The ones we did take—Ranier and Tallo knocked them over the head. Then there was that woman…”

  She drew a long breath and fixed those unnaturally bright eyes on Ilse. “I’ll tell you. But you must promise not to tell anyone else. My father thinks that woman is not Károvín. He says she answered in Károvín, but slowly. As if she had learned it from a book.”

  The notes of a flute drifted up from the common room, and one of the courtesans, Luisa, began to sing. Ilse could not distinguish the words, but she knew the melody. It was a popular ballad, recounting the history of two lovers separated by chance. Several verses described their anguish, but toward the end, the song spoke in minor keys, how their grand passion died, extinguished by nothing more than neglect. Ilse released a sigh, and drank deeply of her wine. I wonder why Luisa chose that one.

  Galena, too, was listening intently, her empty cup finally at rest. “Commander Zinsar died,” she said softly. “Lanzo lost an eye, and Piero took a sword thrust beneath his mail. The surgeon said he lost too much blood, and the herbs haven’t taken hold.”

  Ilse knew the surgeon. Aleksander Breit was more skilled and conscientious than most. If his patients had any chance, he would give it to them. Still, his best herbs and spells might not be enough. “How is Marelda?”

  “Angry. Frightened. She went back to the hospital as soon as our captains dismissed us.” Galena’s eyes narrowed. “I hated the fighting. I wish—” She broke off with a frown.

  Ilse waited through a long silence. Luisa had reached the last section of the ballad. Someone joined in with a guitar, drowning out the flute. Another moment and the new musician gained control of his playing, the two instruments blending into a seamless harmony. Above them, Luisa’s sweet contralto swelled to pure and unfaltering tones.

  “I heard Lord Joannis wants to celebrate your victory,” Ilse said.

  Galena shifted uneasily, but said nothing.

  I’ve struck close, Ilse thought. “Would you like more wine? Or coffee?” she asked.

  Galena shook her head. “Water. Just … water.”

  Ilse fetched a carafe of water and fi
lled Galena’s cup. She watched as the girl drained it, then wordlessly refilled it when Galena held out the cup for more. Around them, the pleasure house was quiet for the moment, but Luisa’s song, of love and lovers lost, still ran through Ilse’s mind.

  “Ilse, why did you come to Osterling?” Galena said softly.

  The change in conversation took Ilse by surprise. She sent a covert glance toward Galena, but saw nothing in the girl’s expression except ordinary curiosity. What would Galena say if Ilse told her the truth? That she had come to teach herself magic, to find Lir’s jewels so that these endless wars between Károví and Veraene would end. So that one day, she and Raul Kosenmark might marry.

  But the reasons started long before she met Raul Kosenmark. She had come to Osterling by a series of hard choices, each seemingly inevitable, that had led her from Melnek to Tiralien, from Raul Kosenmark to Osterling Keep. Galena would not understand, and so Ilse gave the simplest answer. “I came because I needed employment, and Adela offered me a position as her steward.”

  Adela Andeliess had been delighted to hire a steward with experience at pleasing a duke’s heir. So she told Ilse, proving it by raising Ilse’s salary twice in the past four months.

  “I remember the day you came here,” Galena went on. “Marelda saw you at your window. You waved back to her.”

  Ilse nodded. That had happened her first hour in Osterling, while she stood poised between her old life and the new. “You were walking through the courtyard with Marelda and Piero and Aris,” she said. “I met all of you a week later, when the garrison commander allowed me to drill with the others.”

  “We thought you were a rich woman, playing at soldier. At least, that’s what Aris said at first. He said later he’d been wrong.”

  Exactly the words Aris had used, when he later came to Ilse seeking her advice about the northeast borders, where Ilse spent her childhood. Ilse had told Aris what she knew about the garrisons and patrols. A week later, Aris had secretly applied for a transfer and vanished from Osterling Keep.

  “I’m sorry he’s gone,” she said.

  “So am I. I thought— I thought at first he left because of you.”

  Ilse shook her head. She knew why Aris had left, both the reasons he gave, and the one he kept secret. But she doubted Galena wanted to know about her brother’s relationship with Ranier Mazzo. In Galena’s uncomplicated mind, love and desire were the same. It would be too difficult to explain that Aris had desired Ranier, but could not love him, even though Ranier desired him in return. Not because a man should not love a man, but because Ranier himself made trust, and therefore love, difficult.

  “My turn,” she said. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  “To talk.”

  “We did talk. About everything except what bothers you. Was it something you saw today in the battle?”

  Galena’s breath caught in a laugh. “You could say that.”

  One beat, two, and three. There were no bells to count the passing moments, but Ilse heard them in the pulsing at her temples, in Galena’s shivering as she fought to bring herself under control. Oh, there were secrets unfolding here. She wished she didn’t need to listen to them. They would do Galena no good. Nor her. It was for Veraene and the peace that she kept still and waited for the other young woman to speak.

  “It was after the fighting started,” Galena said at last. “One of the Károvín— We fought hard. He drove me back, away from the others. Then he knocked me down. I hit my head against a rock.”

  “But he didn’t kill you.”

  “No, and I don’t know why. Or maybe he thought he had. Killed me, I mean.”

  “What happened to him, Galena?”

  “He got away.” That in a whisper.

  So. A Károvín soldier had escaped into Veraene. He’d head directly for his homeland, no doubt, but the patrols would intercept him long before he reached any border. Strange that Falco hadn’t mentioned this particular detail. Had Joannis required them to keep the news a secret? Then her breath deserted her when she realized where Galena’s confession headed. “Galena, did you tell your father? Or the commander?”

  A heartbeat of silence followed. “No.”

  Ilse closed her eyes, silently cursing Galena’s folly. “Why tell me?”

  “Because you know Commander Adler and Captain Spenglar. You could—”

  “Lie to them?”

  “No! But you could tell them you heard a rumor.”

  Ilse thought briefly of striking Galena with a very hard object. That would do no one any good. No, she had to tell one of the garrison commanders—or better, Nicol Joannis, so they could send out patrols and track the man down.

  Galena had begun to weep silently, tears pouring over her face. Ilse put her arms around the girl and held her close, stroking her hair. When Galena relaxed against her with a sigh, Ilse stiffened. No, she told herself, the girl was too distressed to mistake kindness for desire. She continued to stroke Galena’s hair, which was a springy mass of brown threaded with silver, barely contained by the many cords she wore.

  “Why are you so kind to me?” Galena murmured.

  I am not kind, Ilse thought. But it’s best you believe that I am.

  * * *

  VALARA BAUSSAY WOKE in a suffocating darkness that reminded her of Autrevelye, of the void between worlds and lives. Panicked, she tried to fight her way clear, only to roll over heaving and retching. Through the roaring in her head, she heard shouts and the clang of metal against metal. It was a battle. Károvín soldiers swarming up the stairwells and through the halls, cutting down her guards as she tried to escape from Morennioù castle.

  Gradually the thundering in her skull subsided. There was no battle, only the memory of one. She spat out the bile and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Filthy. Stained with muck from the bottom of the ship, with dirt and salt and sand. Her wrists were bruised from the manacles they’d used, even after they had subdued her with magic.

  Her treacherous stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left inside her aching body. Valara collapsed onto the stone floor. It was cool and damp against her fevered skin. Fragments of her surroundings intruded. She smelled damp straw, overlaid by crushed herbs and the sickening reek of stale vomit. Her guts pinched harder. She bit her cheeks to stop another bout of retching.

  She was a prisoner, taken by the Károvín invaders. That much remained clear. They must have landed safely, then. She dimly recalled being roused from a magical stupor and hauled onto a ship’s deck. Winds were howling with unnatural ferocity and the scent of magic had overpowered her. There’d been a coastline in the distance—Károví, she’d thought. But that general, that duke, Miro Karasek, had roared out orders to the ship’s captain, demanding they steer north, north, damn it, even while the shore rushed toward them. Then came a terrible rending noise. The shock of water closing over her head. After that her memory blurred.

  It took her several tries before she could stand up. She shuffled over to the cell door. The corridor was empty. Torchlight stippled the stone walls. It reminded her of another prison, from another life.

  She wanted to break open the doors, flee the prison, but she remembered enough from those previous lives to make her cautious. She ran her fingers over the iron bars, then the lock and keyhole, probing for traps and alarms. Slow, slow, slow. She approached the magic and the bars as she would a wild deer in the mountains. As she had first approached magic five years ago.

  Needles pricked at her skin, as though the dead iron could read her intentions. So. They had placed a magical guard on her cell. That argued for Károví and Leos Dzavek. The last time he had taken her prisoner, many lives ago, she had escaped by slashing her wrists and throat with magical fire, drawn to a sharp burning edge. It had been a painful victory. Leos would have remembered that incident and prepared against it.

  Not that death is my choice. Not with Lir’s emerald in my hands.

  She touched the ring on her second finger. Magic h
ummed at her fingertips, the only trace of the emerald’s true identity. How long before Leos Dzavek discovered the jewel his duke had stolen was false? How long before he thought to strip her of all possessions and force the truth from her throat? Then he would possess two of the three jewels. Morennioù would be helpless against a second invasion. (And he would invade a second time. She knew the man who was, who had been her brother. He did not suffer disappointment.)

  She had to escape, before he found out her secrets.

  There is only one way. Only one choice.

  It was a gamble, attempting to make a leap across the magical void in the flesh. She had managed the trick dozens of times in previous lives; she had done it last summer when she recovered the emerald from Autrevelye, and again that last fateful time when Dzavek confronted her. But she had never tried to when so drained of strength. She would have to concentrate hard if she wanted to land in Morennioù and not lose herself in other worlds.

  Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane Lir. Ei rûf ane Toc. Komen mir de strôm.

  Magic rippled over her skin, clearing her head and easing the cramps in her gut. She murmured the phrase again, her sight narrowing down to a point on the stone floor, to a single speck of water gleaming in the torchlight.

  Komen mir de strôm. Komen mir de vleisch unde sêle. Komen mir de Anderswar.

  The world tilted away. A narrow edge, a bright sharp line, arced through the darkness. She glimpsed a hundred worlds refracted in all directions. Just as she caught sight of Morennioù, of Enzeloc Island and her home, a force, like a massive hand, struck her backward.

  The shock of return drove the breath from her body.

  She lay there, gasping. (There? She had no idea where.) Eventually she coughed, spat out a mouthful of blood. Her ribs ached sharply. Her throat felt bruised and sore. Voices yammered inside her skull. Outside, too—voices shouting curses in Károvín and another language. Veraenen.

  Valara hauled herself to sitting. Just as she feared, she was still a prisoner in that same dank dark cell. Off to one side stood a bucket and a tray with a loaf of bread. Valara dragged herself closer. The bucket was half full of water. She drank a handful, then another. When her body stopped its shivering, she crawled back to the iron bars of her cell.