The Phantom Queen Awakes

by Mark S. Deniz

  Nevyn offered her another spoonful, which she took. When she held out her hands, he gave her the bowl. She continued eating, but slowly, carefully, pausing between each bite.

  “Why won’t you tell me your name?” Nevyn said during one of these pauses.

  “I have no name.”

  “Come now, surely they must have called you something!”

  “Before, I was Evy.”

  “Before what?”

  She took another spoonful of the porridge and looked away. Nevyn waited, but she held to her silence until she’d finished the porridge. She handed him the bowl and spoon.

  “Thank you.” She folded her hands in her lap.

  “Do you want more water?” Nevyn said.

  “Please.”

  The page, all goggle eyes and curiosity, brought a tankard of water. She held it in both hands to drink in cautious sips.

  “Now, you won’t be able to eat much at one time for a few days,” Nevyn said. “But I’ll make sure you get plenty of food. We don’t want you dying, after all.”

  “Oh, I’m already dead.” She looked at him, then began to laugh, a high-pitched hysterical giggle.

  When Nevyn grabbed her by the shoulders, she fell silent, but her eyes once again grew wide with terror. An animal in a trap, Nevyn thought. His own eyes began to ache until at last she blinked and released them both.

  “Why did you say that?” Nevyn made his voice as soft and gentle as he could.

  She turned her head away, then lifted the tankard again and resumed drinking. Nevyn stood up with a shrug.

  “I’d be hysterical, too,” Lovyan said, “if I’d been adrift at sea for days.”

  “So would I, most like,” Nevyn said. “But I think me somewhat stranger’s at work here, my lady. I’ve got an idea of what it might be, but I hope to every god that I’m wrong.”

  The dun’s servants normally slept out in the stables or in front of one of the hearths in the great hall. Considering how frail Evy was, Lovyan decided that she should sleep in a little storeroom off the women’s hall on the second floor of the main broch, a tiny wedge-shaped space, but it would do. A page carried up a straw mattress; one of Lovyan’s serving women gave the girl an old dress of hers. Nevyn found a big earthernware pitcher and filled it full of fresh water to place beside the mattress on the floor.

  “I want you to drink as much water as you can,” he told Evy. “There’s a chamber pot over in the curve of the wall for you to use when you need to.”

  The lass nodded to show she’d understood. She was sitting on the mattress, with the faded blue dress billowing around her, her legs crossed, her arms tight over her chest, as crumpled and crouched as if she expected him to suddenly turn and strike her. Nevyn glanced around the chamber, which smelled of dust and mildew, and saw a narrow window covered by an ox hide pegged to the wall. He took down the hide to let in fresh air and a sliver of sunlight.

  “Thank you.” Evy’s voice took him by surprise. “For everything you’ve done for me.”

  “Most welcome.” Nevyn left the window and knelt at the foot of the mattress. “Will you tell me how you came to be in the water?”

  She considered for so long that he assumed she’d say nothing, but at last she caught her breath with a gasp and spoke. “They threw me in for a sacrifice.”

  “Because of the storm?”

  “Yes. The waves grew so big, and the sky ― oh, it looked like night, so dark and close the clouds were. The captain said the ship was doomed, but some of the sailors, they said they could turn the Veiled Lady aside if they gave her a sacrifice.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “A bone for the bitch, one of them said.”

  “And they chose you for the sacrifice because you were a slave.”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw where they branded you, on your back where it wouldn’t spoil your face. They used you as a whore, didn’t they?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t tell the archon,” she whispered. “She’ll throw me out.”

  “You mean Lady Lovyan. Don’t worry. She understands what men do to the women they own, and she’d never blame you. They were going to sell you to a brothel in Abernaudd?”

  “No, in Cerrmor. But the storm drove us off-course. I was so ill by then, with the ship tossing around and the waves ― oh, they came right over the deck, and so cold! I thought it would be better to die than to go ― to go where they were taking me.”

  “You’d never been in a brothel before?”

  “I was, yes, in Myleton. But this one in Cerrmor ― I was born there.” She raised her head and looked straight at him. Her eyes flickered briefly with defiance and life. “A man killed my mother there. I didn’t want to go back. So I thought, better I go to the goddess now.”

  “I see. Did they do some sort of ceremony?”

  She nodded, looking away wide-eyed, as if she saw it all again, the careening deck of the ship, the sail flapping helplessly in the wind, the waves breaking and foaming as they ran across the fragile planks, the terrified men chanting what spells and charms they knew. Nevyn could imagine the scene all too well.

  “One of the passengers said he knew how to do it. They were going to drag me up to the bow, but I walked. Do you see? I wanted to die, just then. I walked with them, and I lay down where they told me to lie.”

  “I understand.”

  “They were going to bind my hands, but then this big wave came and just swept me away. I thought I was going to sink and die, but the waves kept tossing me up into the air.” She paused, trembling, and raised her hands to clasp her face. “That’s when I saw her.”

  “The Veiled Lady?”

  She nodded again. “She came walking on the water, so big her head touched the sky, and she was turning and turning like she was dancing. All her veils spun around her, and they were black.”

  A cloud? Nevyn wondered. A waterspout, perhaps, off at a distance? Or had the terror of the men onboard and the lass in the water evoked the image of the Bardekian death goddess?

  “And that’s when I saw the wood floating toward me,” Evy went on. “It was old and gray, part of a broken ship. I didn’t realize that till later, you see, when I had time to look at it. But she brought me the wood, so I climbed onto it. She went away then. And so the storm passed, and I drifted, and days and days went by, I think.” Her voice trailed away. “Maybe only three days.”

  “It couldn’t have been many more than that, or you’d have died of thirst.” He smiled and turned his voice soothing. “But you didn’t, and now you’re safe.”

  Behind him something rustled, something moved. Nevyn looked over his shoulder and saw birds settling on the windowsill, three big ravens, their black plumage glittering with blue in the summer sun. He felt his blood run cold.

  Evy cried out. “Safe? No, never that, never again!”

  Nevyn got to his feet and turned to face the Three.

  “You can’t have the child,” he said. “It wasn’t dedicated to you.”

  The answer came to his mind without sound. We know.

  Nevyn turned so cold that he shivered and swore under his breath. With a cascade of croaks and caws that sounded like laughter, the three ravens leapt from the sill and flew, still shrieking. As they climbed into the sky they seemed to merge into one huge raven, then vanished. Behind him Evy began to weep in great gulping sobs.

  “She sent her birds,” she stammered. “I belong to her, and she’ll never let me go.”

  “We’ll just see about that! There must be a way to break the curse. Maybe she’ll accept a horse instead.”

  She choked back her sobs. Next to her on the floor lay her old rag of a dress, still crusted with salt in odd patches. She picked it up and began wiping her face on a sleeve.

  “I’ll have to think about this,” Nevyn went on. “I’ve learned some strange lore over the years.”

  Evy smiled, though her eyes stayed so blank and lifeless that he knew she doubted him. Since he doubted himself, Nevyn
said no more, merely left the chamber to let her sleep.

  That night he consulted with other dweomermasters he knew, scrying them out for mind-speaking through the fire in his chamber, but no one knew how to break such a ritual spell. When Nevyn contacted Nesta, a dweomerwoman who lived in Cerrmor, she told him that as far as the guilds knew, no ship had gone down in the recent storm.

  “If one had,” Nesta said, “the guild would have heard of it, especially one bound for Cerrmor. News like that travels fast.”

  “So the goddess accepted the sacrifice. Or so the crew of that ship’s going to believe.”

  “There had to be a man of some power onboard that ship,” Nesta went on. “Ordinary sailors can curse and pray and beg all night in a storm, but their ship goes down despite it all.”

  “That’s true spoken. The lass mentioned a passenger.”

  “Huh! I wonder what sort of man he was. Not one of us, I’ll wager.”

  “Just so. He seems to have worked some sort of rite with power behind it, for a certainty. I was wondering if the priestesses in a Moon temple could undo it.”

  “I doubt if they’d want to. Once their goddess has spoken, they wouldn’t dare interfere.” Nesta hesitated, and he could feel her thoughts scurrying this way and that. “The goddess isn’t known for letting anyone out of a bargain.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re right. And the lass went willingly enough at the time. Hence the ravens, I suppose.”

  “I’d say so, truly. I doubt me if there’s aught anyone can do, though it aches my heart to admit it.”

  It ached Nevyn’s as well. He found himself remembering a Moon-sworn priestess he’d known back in the years of the civil wars that had once torn the kingdom apart. Nothing that he’d said or done back then had changed her mind and her grim wyrd one jot. Yet, he reminded himself, perhaps things would be different with this lass. He had four or five months, he reckoned, until the baby was born, to figure out a remedy.

  Late into the night he consulted his books of dweomerlore but found nothing to help. He did string some beads and little packets of herbs onto leather thongs. If she believed that they’d turn aside evil, the belief would give her strength to resist the curse upon her, even though they had no dweomer power of their own. What counted now was bringing her mind back to the land of the living. In the morning, when he gave Evy the charms, she accepted them as politely as she’d accepted everything else, but from her flat little voice he could tell that she didn’t believe in them.

  “Once we go back to Aberwyn in the autumn,” Nevyn told her, “I’ll consult with the priests and priestesses there about lifting the curse.”

  Evy sighed and looked down at her handful of charms. “When I die,” she said, “will someone take care of my baby?”

  “Of course, but I’m not going to let you die.”

  She merely smiled. Before he left her chamber, he insisted she wear the charms. She slipped them over her head and let them dangle with all the enthusiasm of a dutiful child swallowing a bitter medicinal.

  Over the next few days, Evy grew stronger, thanks to decent food and rest. At that time, a lord who supported a great many servants gained prestige. Gwerbret Tingyr had many faults, but miserliness was not one of them. Lovyan had so many servants at Dun Cannobaen, her summer residence, that none of them worked very hard. All of them took an interest in the lass so miraculously saved from the sea, particularly when her pregnancy became common knowledge. Their small kindnesses acted as further remedies, giving Evy reasons to want to live, or so Nevyn could hope.

  The little town of Cannobaen had heard her tale as well.

  One foggy day Nevyn came out into the ward to see Rhodry lounging against the wall by main gate and talking with Olwen, the soapmaker’s daughter. Rhodry was smiling at her in a way that boded ill for the lass’s virtue while she giggled and glanced at him sidelong. With a sigh Nevyn strolled over to speak with them. Rhodry straightened up and arranged a solemn expression. Olwen looked modestly at the ground.

  “Come for news of little Evy?” Nevyn said.

  “I have, my lord,” Olwen said. “My mam was wondering how she fared, and so is half the town.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, she’s doing very well, remarkably well, in fact, considering what she suffered. I have hopes that her baby will be healthy enough to live despite it all.”

  “That’s splendid, my lord.”

  “So it is. Now run along, and tell your mother that I’ll give her any news the next time I ride down to town. No need for you to walk all the way up here.”

  “My thanks, my lord, I’m sure.” Yet Olwen looked bitterly disappointed.

  Nevyn waited until she’d left, waited in fact until she’d got out of earshot, then turned on Rhodry.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Rhodry said with a squeak in his voice.

  “Do you?” Nevyn said. “Then I suggest you remember that a common-born lass like that has little to look forward to in life but a good marriage, and if you trifle with her, it’s not likely she’d ever get one.”

  “I do know that. I ― uh ― I’ll take it to heart.”

  Rhodry made him a bob of a bow, then turned and hurried away, breaking into a trot, then disappearing around the side of the broch at an all-out run. Nevyn made a mental note to speak with Olwen’s mother next time he went to Cannobaen about more than the state of Evy’s health.

  ****

  With the first chill of autumn, Lovyan packed up her retinue and returned to the gwerbretal dun in Aberwyn. Although Evy and most of the other servants stayed behind, Nevyn travelled with her ladyship. He wanted to ferret out information about the ritual that had bound Evy to the dark aspect of the goddess. She of the sword-pierced heart, she who sees the world with the eyes of night ― at times she seemed to look out of Evy’s eyes as well.

  By that time Aberywn had grown large enough to shelter several holy temples. Nevyn visited them all. The priests of Bel told Nevyn that they knew nothing of such women’s matters. The priest of Wmm did know of the ritual, but he assured Nevyn that its details lay hidden, even from the scholar-priests on the Holy Isle of Wmmglaedd. Nevyn could practically smell the fear oozing from the various holy men when they spoke of the Dark Goddess. The priestesses of the Moon, who most likely knew a great deal, sent him brusquely away for daring to question their goddess’s doings.

  “No help, no lore, naught,” Nevyn said to Lovyan. “A useless lot, these priests.”

  “So it seems.” Lovyan paused for an exasperated sigh. “I’m shocked at those sailors, I truly am. Most Bardekians are such civilized people.”

  “Just so. Still, terror will make men do barbaric things. No doubt they felt it was her life or theirs.”

  “Well, that does seem likely, but still, I can’t help despising them for it.”

  “Me, either.”

  “If you want a horse for a sacrifice, I’m sure I can get Tingyr to give you one.”

  “My thanks, but it wouldn’t do any good, even if I could find a blasted priest willing to get off his behind to work the ritual. The men on shipboard offered the Dark Goddess a human life, and despite the nasty way the Moon priestesses spoke to me, I did glean that a human life is what She’ll demand.”

  Nevyn returned to Dun Cannobaen in a foul temper. Seeing Evy, oddly enough, only fed his bad mood, simply because she looked well and strong, a good stone heavier, with rosy cheeks and glossy hair. She should be looking forward to a long life, he thought. Those cursed cowardly priests! But she still looked on the world from some great distance away. Although she smiled from time to time, no answering spark flashed in her eyes. Whenever anyone spoke to her, she was as courteous and as reserved as some great lady making her way through a foreign court.

  As the winter settled down over the dun, keeping the Cannobaen light burning became the center of everyone’s life, from the chamberlain who held his authority from Lovyan herself down to the lowliest forester who brought in a mule-load of firewood. Evy worked in the
kitchen, scrubbing pots and chopping turnips, doing whatever the cook asked with her unvarying politeness and complete lack of interest in the life around her. She rarely spoke, or so the cook told Nevyn, even though she was learning how to speak Deverrian remarkably fast and well.

  “She told me once that she was born in Cerrmor,” Nevyn said. “So she probably had a child’s knowledge of the language before she was taken away. I don’t know how she ended up a slave in Bardek, though some very poor people have been known to sell their daughters to slavers.”

  “Huh!” Cook hefted a cleaver and glared over the blade. “Just let that lot come around here!” She laid it down again. “Poor little mite! She never laughs, never weeps. Ye gods, at times I’d swear she was asleep, but she keeps right on working.” She shook her head. “Mayhap it’s the baby, but I’ve never seen a lass taken quite this way.”

  “She seems to want the baby, though,” Nevyn said.

  “True spoken. That’s the one thing that brings life to her eyes, like, mentioning the baby. It kicked her a good one the other day.”

  “Did it now? Her time must be drawing near, then.” And my time to save her, he thought, is nearly gone.

  On a day when pale sun broke through the clouds and made the rain-washed stones of the dun shimmer, Evy and the cook’s young daughter went outside to the ward to fill storage jars with well water. Nevyn climbed the catwalks up to the top of the dun wall where he could get a bit of fresh air and keep the two lasses in view. Anyone who saw him would have thought he was lost in thought, just from his slow walk, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent as he paced back and forth on the wide stones, but he was studying Evy. When he opened his second sight, he could see her aura, a pale greenish gray like the tarnish on silver. It wrapped tightly around her body ― except over her womb. The aura of the child within glowed a pale gold like a lantern inside a basket, strengthening its mother’s own aura at that point.

  After all the months of decent food, rest, and even companionship, her aura still flickered at the point of death. Yet she’d never displayed the slightest symptom of a disease. Nevyn remembered an odd bit of lore he’d picked up in Bardek. None of their learned masters of physick would have spoken about the aura, since none of them had studied dweomer. However, one master had talked to him about “the vital force”. It could be drained from below by the body, Master Hanno had said, or from above, by a disturbance of the soul.