"I come before you," she said at last, "before the western kings and before my own mother and brother, not due to my own ambitions, but to the urgings of a saint. Saint Eusebius, the Cranky Saint of Yurt, never liked me very much, but he did love me. And he wanted me here, to do what I am about to do."
She paused then, looking around again while the armies waited in silence. Some of the men watching her wore a livery unlike anything else in camp—the livery of this kingdom, I realized. These must be the prisoners, but they were not bound in any fetters, even though they were well-scattered, and each one was closely attended by a knight of the victorious armies. Banners snapped in the cold air above us.
"I'm sorry, Walther," Hadwidis said at last. "I know you thought all your dreams were coming true. But instead your troubles are only beginning."
The queen seemed finally to realize what was happening. She started to rise from the chair in which she still sat, but Joachim gave her a rather cold nod and she slowly settled back again.
Hadwidis leaned toward her brother now, ignoring everyone else. "I know this is very painful, but I have to tell you. You are not the heir to our kingdom."
I had expected some sort of shouted protest, but the boy and his proud mother only went white and waited for the rest.
"You see, Walther, you are not the king's son—not the son of the man you always thought was your father. You are the son of the wizard Elerius."
* * * *
At this the queen could contain herself no longer. "Outrageous girl! What is the origin of these lies? I cannot believe the nunnery taught you—"
The bishop cut her off. "Princess Hadwidis had feared you would dispute her word. Therefore I am prepared to witness the oaths of both of you." Tall, formal in his scarlet vestments, carrying with him the full authority of the Church, he stared her back into her chair with burning eyes.
"Both of you will swear on the Bible," he continued, "telling the truth as best you know it. I also have with me a vial of the water from the shrine of Saint Eusebius, a relic I have carried with me since my days in Yurt. Swear to the truth, and God and His saints will judge where real Truth lies."
There was a brief pause in which no one moved, then Hadwidis stepped up to the bishop, her back straight and her hands shaking. The queen rose slowly then, bright spots of color on either cheek, and stood beside her.
For the moment, everyone had forgotten Prince Walther: that is, everyone except Antonia. From the corner of my eye I saw her dart forward and take his arm. "It's all right," I heard her whisper. "The bishop and my wizard will make sure everything is all right."
I admired my daughter's concern for others, but her assurances would not help. From Walther's point of view, everything was about to be all wrong. I turned back toward Joachim.
He held his heavy Bible in both hands, the vial of holy water tucked into one palm. The queen shot her daughter a venemous look as Hadwidis put one hand on the Bible. But the latter had eyes only for the bishop.
"I swear," she said in a low voice, "I swear that what I speak is true. I am my father's only true-born child, though I would have been much more content in the nunnery than as queen of this kingdom. My mother lay with our Royal Wizard, and from their coupling came my brother Walther."
I sniffed surreptitously for the scent of roses. If the Cranky Saint was going to put in another appearance, I wanted to be ready.
But nothing happened, other than a sigh running through the crowd, and the queen standing even straighter and growing even redder.
"Will you confirm this, Mother?" Hadwidis asked at last.
But she was stubborn. Not more than a day or so ago, I thought, Elerius would have been telling her she would soon be empress of the West. Their son might have become nominal king in a few years, but she and her lover would both have known where the true power would lie. And abruptly an Ifrit had ended all her plans.
"I will not confirm this," she said, a little too loudly, "because it is false!"
"Will you so swear?" asked the bishop, holding out the Bible politely.
The queen didn't quite dare scowl at him, but I could tell she would have liked to. Elerius would have taught her lack of respect for the Church—if justifying her adultery in her own mind had not already made her persuade herself that religion contained little useful. On the other hand, there were a great many people watching her intently, and it was hard not to respect Joachim. She lifted her chin, in a gesture very like one I had often seen in her daughter, and slapped a hand on the Bible. "I swear before God—" she began.
Now was the time for the saint to appear. I squeezed my eyes shut.
But there was no flash of light, no scent of roses. Instead, I realized, opening my eyes again, there was sudden silence from the queen.
She stood before the armies of the West unable to go on, opening and closing her mouth in a not very good imitation of a fish. The Cranky Saint had no need to waste his time exploding into sight before us. His influence, or the queen's guilty conscience—or both—had kept her from swearing falsely.
V
"If you would like to withdraw a false oath, my daugher," the bishop said kindly, "and swear instead to the truth, I am certain the saint will return the power of speech to you."
The queen was not yet ready to yield. A few more attempts at speech, with her hand both on and off the Bible, yielded nothing more. Hadwidis suddenly stepped up beside her mother, embraced her, and led her back to her chair.
King Paul, realizing that the next was up to him, took Hadwidis's hand and led her away from her mother, back to the center of the circle of shocked and attentive kings and knights. "You are here before many of the highest lords of the West, my lady," he said, "those who must accept you if you take your place on this kingdom's throne." My exhausted brain had finally worked out what this series of oaths was supposed to demonstrate: Paul couldn't leave Elerius's armies in the castle, even if without the kingdom's regent, and the only way to get them out was to persuade them to follow a ruler opposed to Elerius. "Our acceptance of you as our co-ruler, however, will be valid only if your position is established both by heredity and by the support of the powerful nobles who would serve you here. One question first: how old are you?"
"Eighteen," she said, sounding defiant because she was almost incapable of speaking at all. "I came of age this year."
"Then if you are your father's sole heir, and you are ready to inherit, then the regency is over," said Paul, with a sidelong glance at the queen. "We will need to assemble your kingdom's greatest lords for your coronation."
Walther had been standing with my daughter's arm protectively around his shoulder, as silent as his mother. But now he said, his voice thin and high, "All our dukes and counts are there in the castle."
"Then we shall assemble them here," said Paul. "Perhaps we should send a delegation."
"Walther and I shall go," announced Hadwidis. "They'll remember me from when I was a girl, and they certainly all know Walther. They will listen to us. Mother?"
But the queen was not moving. I recovered enough from my stupor to realize that there was no need for them to walk all the way back across the broken fields and offered them a ride on Naurag. In a short time, the prince and princess had been admitted in through the front gates of their castle, while I waited outside with the flying beast, alert for anyone shooting at us from an arrow-slit.
But the great nobles and knights of this kingdom were no longer in a warlike mood. They must, I thought, have been promised glorious victory, in a great battle they would have dreamed of in the same way that Paul or King Lucas had dreamed of glory. Instead, Paul's armies and the Ifrit had reduced what should have been their greatest moment into a humiliating and terrifying retreat, barely in time to save their skins. They emerged from the castle gates within less than half an hour, waving a white flag to show they were not about to reopen hostilities, and rode slowly toward the great encampment of those they had made their enemies.
A centr
al tragedy of this war had always been that they all knew each other. Most of the kings present had attended the funeral of Hadwidis's father. Many had relatives among the nobility of this kingdom; Paul himself had cousins among the region's castellans. The men from the castle waved their white flag defiantly, sitting their horses at the edge of camp, not wanting to appear to capitulate too easily, but there was no concealing that it was a relief to everybody.
By the time we arrived at the camp, Paul had arranged everything for Hadwidis's coronation—with, I noticed, Gwennie's help. She and the king were not looking at each other, but between them they had organized all the great lords by position, put a red cloak over a camp chair to stand in for a throne, and set up a table with a crown on it—doubtless one of the kings', for it looked far too large for Hadwidis. Her mother was still sitting silently, almost forgotten now. I didn't know what the normal coronation ceremony was for this kingdom, but we clearly were going to have the ceremony of Yurt.
Paul had not brought his own crown with him to war, but he had cleaned and put on his silver breastplate, which gave him a somewhat formal air. He was not, however, wearing his sword. "There is no more fighting here," he told those from the castle, speaking quietly, almost as if their battle of the night before had never happened. "We do not expect a surrender, because we do not seek to conquer—only to restore the friendship lost through the renegade wizardry of one who temporarily led many others astray. Come and join us as we prepare to recognize the daughter of your late king as your new queen—a recognition we cannot give without you."
Blaming it all on renegade wizardry, I noticed. It might be a way to allow those who had fought for Elerius to make peace with the armies at their gates without too much humiliation, but I didn't like the possibility that we might soon be back to kings distrusting organized magic.
Hadwidis spoke earnestly with the bishop for several minutes while final preparations were made, then everyone became quiet except for the trumpeters, who blew a festive fanfare. She walked slowly out in front of everyone and stood supporting herself on the arm of the improvised throne.
"Your royal highnesses, lords and ladies," said Paul into the silence at the end of the trumpet fanfare. "We are assembled today for the coronation of a new queen. Hadwidis is the daughter of your late king, born to rule. For several years this kingdom has been governed by a regency, but now that she has come of age the time for that regency is over! She has not recently lived among you, but now that she has returned I trust that you will all learn both to respect her and to love her."
The ceremony abruptly put me in mind of my own funeral. It would be just like Elerius to come back, invisible, to observe what was being done to his kingdom. And after I had taken Hadwidis all the way to the East with me to keep her out of his way, I didn't want her blasted with lightning in the middle of her own coronation.
Surreptitiously I started probing with magic. Nothing there. I found Theodora's mind and cocked an eyebrow at her across the crowd. She shook her head—she hadn't been able to find him either.
Which either meant that Elerius was off somewhere else, plotting his revenge safely distant from an Ifrit he might think was still with us, or else that he had become good enough to conceal himself not only from another school wizard but also from a witch who was actively looking for him.
"Princess Hadwidis's mother," said King Paul in a pointed fashion, "will now swear to her legitimacy and fitness to inherit this kingdom's rule."
The queen had been staring off into space as though completely unaware of the proceedings around her, but Paul had given her no choice. She rose and came forward, opened and closed her mouth experimentally a few times, and suddenly found that she could speak again.
"I swear to you that Hadwidis is the true-born daughter of our late king, my husband," she said, with a glare for Prince Walther, as though being Elerius's son was somehow all the boy's fault. "As his only child, she will take up a rule that is hers by heredity and right."
At King Paul's coronation, his mother had continued at this point, asking for the assent of the assembled nobles of the kingdom, but the queen showed no sign of wanting to participate further. Having sworn truly, she retreated, leaving Paul, a foreign king, to preside over her daughter's coronation.
He gave Hadwidis a reassuring smile, but she did not seem to notice, standing stiffly without meeting anyone's eyes. "Do you all agree that she should be your queen," he asked his audience, "to lead you in war, to lead you in peace, to lead you in wisdom and judgment?"
There must have been counts and dukes and powerful castellans among the men from the castle, but they all looked more like battle-weary warriors than rulers of authority, and they also all seemed somewhat in a daze at the pace that events in their kingdom were moving. But when the kings of the neighboring kingdoms began to murmur, "We agree," "We agree," they all enthusiastically joined in, if somewhat belatedly. Some were eyeing Prince Walther and whispering, still not clear why the boy they had always thought of as the heir was suddenly excluded. I wondered exactly what Hadwidis had told them to bring them here.
"Come forward, then, Hadwidis," Paul said in a loud voice, "and receive your crown!"
She came forward slowly, almost hesitantly, but her back was still straight and her chin firm as she went down on one knee before him. "These are the duties of kingship—or, in your case, queenship," Paul continued, concentrating as though trying to recall the exact duties he had pledged himself to a dozen years earlier, "to rule with justice and dispose with mercy, to guide the powerful and aid the weak, to eschew evil counsel while hearkening to wisdom, to lead your country to honor and your people to God. Do you promise, Hadwidis, to do all these things?"
I had the feeling that the formal list of royal duties to which Paul had sworn had been much longer, and that he was either forgetful or condensing, but on the other hand he seemed to have covered all the key issues.
"I promise to fulfill all these duties faithfully," said Hadwidis, almost too quietly to hear.
Paul lifted the crown, then, and set it carefully on her head. It slipped rather rakishly down over one eye, but she quickly pushed it back up and settled it firmly on the tops of her ears. "Rise, then," he cried, "Queen Hadwidis!"
She got slowly to her feet, Paul's hand under one arm. Slowly she seated herself in her throne, and slowly lifted the sceptre of authority which Paul handed her. I had a feeling there was supposed to be a sword involved as well, but I didn't think the morning after a battle, when knights from both sides of the fighting were standing shoulder to shoulder, would have been the best time for anyone to start brandishing a naked blade.
With only slight prompting from Paul, Hadwidis said, "With the aid of God and the counsel of all my people, I swear that I shall guard you, lead you, and rule you justly. Come forward, then, my faithful followers, to renew your allegiance to the crown." They came forward, still rather stunned, to kneel at her feet and, holding up clasped hands, recite the long oath of allegiance. As each finished, she put her hands around his, drew him up, and kissed him formally on both cheeks.
I spotted Gwennie across the crowd. She was watching the king of Yurt suspiciously, and I could have sworn she was tapping her foot as he continued to hover at the new queen's elbow.
The swearing of oaths took a long time, and the sun mounted high in the sky above us before all the nobles over whom Hadwidis would rule had sworn their fidelity to her. Prince Walther came forward last of all to pledge himself to his sister.
She hugged him hard and patted his hair. Antonia was standing only a few paces back. As Walther stepped away from the throne, his eyes rimmed red, my daughter whispered, "Don't worry. Even if you're not a king you can be a wizard. Being a wizard is much better. I'm going to be one myself."
"Let us join in the singing of a hymn," said Joachim, "and pray to God for the new queen's safety and good governance." The trumpeters found a note, there was only minimal confusion over which hymn we would sing, and enough
people there knew most of the first two verses that the singing added further dignity and beauty to the service.
When the singing and prayers were over, Hadwidis broke into a smile for the first time today, as though realizing that her coronation had gone smoothly and that she really was queen now. "My people! My friends from throughout the West!" she cried, arms upraised. "I thank you all for your support! I believe that at the end of a ceremony like this it is normal to celebrate with a great feast, but we mostly seem to have camp food available here, and I'm not sure what condition the castle kitchens are in." There was an appreciative chuckle.
"However," more soberly, "I would like at this point to make two announcements, important enough that you all need to hear them. The first is very painful for me to tell you. As many of you may know, I was for years a nun. In making my oaths today to serve you as your queen, I have broken my oaths that I took in the cloister." There was a disconcerted murmur through the crowd; the departure of a princess for the nunnery had happened long enough ago that most people here had forgotten about it, even if they had been wondering all day about the sudden appearance of a new heiress.
"Therefore," said Hadwidis, "I shall take an additional oath now. I shall rule my kingdom because that is the will of the saints, but I shall take no husband. I shall live and die as virginal as I would have as a nun."
The murmur was louder now. Several of the great lords, who had been eyeing the pretty young queen with interest, looked deeply disappointed. But I could see Gwennie's face, and she was beaming.
"My other announcement," said Hadwidis, pushing on without giving the whispering a chance to die down, "concerns someone who has assisted me enormously in the past weeks, from the time I left the nunnery until I arrived at this camp."
Is This Apocalypse Necessary Page 34
