Highest Lord

by R. J. Price

  Av waited patiently for Danya to explain as she had before. When she didn’t continue on, he said, “Last time you did that, you gave an explanation I understood.”

  “Ask Aren about her childhood, then ask her if she found her time in the village difficult. Perhaps that would lead you to see. It is much like an illusion, a ghost at the corner of your eye. You know it’s there, but you cannot actually understand until you see.”

  “You aren’t insulted that she hasn’t come to visit?”

  “No, I know it is not on purpose,” Danya said. The woman hesitated, quiet a moment as she seemed to be caught in a thought. “I believe I have need of time away from her. Time to sort my own thoughts before I see her. Sometimes those who are involved, yet play different roles, can see events differently and this can cause a rift between them. I am afraid Aren is capable of carrying such a grudge and am not certain I am strong enough yet to face her anger.”

  “Why would she be angry with you?”

  “You saved her by killing Rewel, but I had begged her off doing just that when she was first captured.”

  “You know Aren pretty well for only having met her in early winter,” he muttered.

  “Did you think that she and I spent the winter staring at the walls?” Danya asked with a small smile. “I surmised that she had been sent there on two tasks, one which only you could perform and survive, I thought. The other was that the throne had demanded right to rest for Aren.”

  “Right to…”

  That reminded Av of the pressing need to deal with servants, make arrangements and find Telm to make certain she was in a bed or taking a bath, or some other restful thing.

  “Rest. I have the books, if you wish to read them. But likely you can make the leap yourself.”

  “She pushed herself too far and rather than inform the ones who could protect her, the throne sent her on some fool’s mission? What could you do for her that I could not?”

  Danya simply smiled at him.

  “Normally on palace lands, when a man asks that and is given the response of a smile with no explanation, that means sex.”

  “Oh dear.” Danya went a little red, obviously surprised and embarrassed by the idea. “She had mentioned something about that being spoken of openly and of you encouraging her to voice her opinions, but no. I simply meant that your question was really the answer.”

  “You offered her something that I’m incapable of giving her. What, time—” Av recalled his conversation with Mie, his little brother, on the shore of the lake. “Time away to sort out her feelings, where others wouldn’t pressure her or judge her on her sudden changes of heart?”

  “Very close, yes. You are clever for the type of warrior she made you out to be.”

  “What type of warrior is that?”

  “The one who kills before he asks questions.”

  “Av!” a healer shouted from nearly the other side of the hall, before she began marching towards the pair of them. “What do you think you are doing, pressing her for answers to things you aren’t supposed to be asking? What has he been asking you about, Danya? You can say no. Tell them all no and call a healer. We’ll melt their eyeballs out for bothering you.”

  He shifted, uncomfortable as the healer stopped by the desk. The healer was uppity for a reason beyond a few questions, which only reminded him that there was a village nearby with a healer who had to be dealt with. He’d have to recall to summon Nae to court to meet Aren on some excuse.

  Training perhaps—training was a good excuse. Healers came and went from the healer hall all the time for training. Some stayed on at the healer hall and were replaced by others headed out to their villages.

  “Well?” the healer demanded of Av.

  It caused him to jump in place because he hadn’t realized he had been caught in thought.

  “I came to see the guard who were hurt because of me,” he managed to squeak out.

  “Oh, let me see if they’re willing to meet with you,” she responded, turning on her heel to march away.

  She left bloody footprints as she walked.

  Av clenched his hands and closed his eyes, willing the image to vanish. When he opened his eyes there were fingers sprouting from the footsteps, some ripped, some without nails. All looked like they belonged to a person who clawed their way out of the ground.

  Was he being haunted, not because of the curse or what he had done, but because he had left Rewel in a shallow grave? Was it some sort of spirit magic?

  “Av,” Danya said quietly.

  He drew in a breath and turned to her. She stared back at him, then blinked and seemed to stare through him.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “I felt Rewel,” she said quietly, sounding confused.

  “Lord Av,” the healer called from a door down the way.

  Av glanced down at the bloody footsteps and skittered around them, walking towards the healer. She frowned at him and looked at the floor as if inspecting it for dirt, then looked back up at him. There was no judgement there, only concern. After his last visit, all the healers were likely told about his problem, and to watch out for odd behaviour.

  “Come in,” the healer said, drawing him into the room. “This is a quarantine room, meant to house six in case of consumption but these three, being palace guard, don’t get a private room for each of them. Otherwise one might sneak off and try to train when he should be abed. Two broken bones and one dislocated shoulder.”

  “How long will you be out of work?” he asked the guards.

  They stared at him for a moment and then looked, as one, to the healer. It didn’t seem like they were afraid of Av, it almost felt as if they were afraid of saying the wrong thing in front of the healer.

  He turned to the woman, who blinked back at him.

  “The broken bones are off for at least a month. We’ve re-stitched everything but it could be longer before they are ready for active duty again.”

  The healers at the palace were more skilled than that. They weren't quite as skilled with bone as Nae, but rehabilitation was the duty of the guard and counted as being back to work. None of the men had casts on their arms, and both legs, under the blankets, looked to be the same size and shape meaning no splint or casts on those either.

  “The dislocated shoulder will begin work on gaining feeling back in the arm and at most it should be three weeks for him.”

  Three days was the usual for a dislocated shoulder, and that only to make certain there was no permanent damage.

  The healer was lying about how long the guards would be off and had likely threatened the men to keep them from saying anything about shorter healing times. His money would go to pay the wages of the guards, with the healer seeing absolutely none of it.

  This was not a ploy to line her own pockets.

  Av could afford to pay that much for that long. The guard weren't exactly given danger pay. One of the reasons the pay was so low was to keep away those looking to make quick coin. Being a member of palace guard was an open door to bigger and better things, maybe even catching the eye of a healer or lady.

  He glanced at the guard, who peered at him as if pleading and then all found something else to stare at. Meaning they didn’t want to be sitting about for a month.

  The woman was trying to punish Av because she thought Aren was being too lenient. Given the fact that he had caused this damage and it was his fault the men were there, all he could do in response was nod slowly.

  “Very well,” he said, turning to the men. “Lady Aren has deemed, because I was the reason you were injured, that I am to pay your wages until you are healed.”

  The sharp intake of breath from the healer told Av that she hadn’t known. Aren had not informed anyone outside of the sitting room as to the punishments for those involved. She should have informed the healer hall of Av’s punishment in order to make certain he went through with it.

  Yet she relied on him to be honourable enough to obey.

  “Th
e throne pays for our wages while we’re ill,” one of the guards protested.

  “It’s just like Polit all over again. She’s not paying.”

  “She is paying,” Av said quickly and loudly, causing all the guards, and the healer, to look at him as if he had grown a second head. “Aren said that the throne will pay your wages for the time you are off and I am to do the same.

  “Who is Polit and what do you mean ‘again’?”

  “Well, there’s been some concern, see,” the guard closest to Av said. “Lady Aren’s stood for the rights of servants and there’s no doubting she respects the healers. She hasn’t done anything for the guards though, not even done a meeting with the captain like the new ones do, to see what we’re all about. The boys, we’re… Lord Av, we’re concerned the guard will be treated with the same respect we were shown under Lady Em.”

  “You never complained to me about Em’s treatment of you,” he said with a frown.

  “And have you do what, exactly? Kill the longest sitting queen in centuries, over us?”

  Av looked around for a visitor’s chair, dragging it in front of the beds and sitting on it. “Lady Em is dead now, so tell me exactly what she did.”

  Chapter Eight

  Aren sat awkwardly before her hearth, a table pulled out to sit between three chairs. Lady Iln, Gamen’s mate and a queen of indeterminable strength sat across from her. Lady Olea, Er’s mate and a queen of a great deal of magic, sat between the two of them and facing the fire.

  If she hadn’t been told beforehand, Aren never would have recognized the blood that Olea and Telm shared. They had the same eye colour, certainly, the blue that was rare in any land, but that was as far as the similarities went. The shape of the face was different, Olea’s hair was not as thick as Telm's, but also seemed to have a natural curl to it. Aren wasn’t certain what colour hair Telm once had, but Olea’s was a dark brown with a few strands of grey beginning to show.

  Iln was exactly how Aren pictured coastal people. She had hazel eyes and a slender form. Even her face was slender, though her cheekbones were high. Iln was older than Aren, but younger than Olea.

  Time may have separated them, but Telm and Olea almost looked to be of an age. Almost, but then when all had been told, it appeared that whatever Telm had done to the village had slowed her aging as well as that of Rewel and Danya.

  “I’m sorry, you’re the daughter of the Northern high lord?” she asked Olea, recalling the conversations she had had with Url and Er the year before, which seemed to imply as much.

  “I am, him on a queen from palace lands,” Olea said with a small smile. “My father had dreams of reuniting the North with palace lands. My mother had other ideas. He wanted her to take the throne and to forge the first alliance between you and us. She refused and he turned his attention to other prospects.”

  The man who chased those who sat the throne. Also said to be a warrior, if what Aren recalled was correct.

  “And your mother?” she asked.

  “Dead,” Olea responded with the same tone Aren expected she might use if her own mother was dead. Delighted at the idea that she would never have to see the woman ever again.

  “Oh dear,” she muttered to herself.

  “What was that?” Olea asked.

  “Have you met Telm?” Aren countered.

  “No, not yet,” Olea said, looking to Iln, who nodded along with her words. “We’ve been wanting to meet this Telm our mates are constantly talking about. You must trust your head of house a great deal.”

  “I do, I trust her a great deal,” Aren said, seeing an opening to talk about Telm to Olea specifically. “She had some trouble when she was younger, but has since mended her ways and by everyone’s remarks is an entirely different woman.”

  “Woman?” Iln squeaked out. “I thought Telm was a man. Olea, you said it was a man’s name.”

  “It is a man’s name,” Olea protested. “How was I to know Telm was a woman with the way Van was talking about court? It only made sense—if Telm was a man, as the name suggests—why Van would be speaking the way he was.”

  “Telm is a woman,” Aren said sternly. “And I really think it’s a name for both genders.”

  “Which means she just accepted Van at court,” Iln said, seemingly to her teacup. The woman frowned. It seemed a thousand things passed over her face before she looked up at Aren with wide eyes. “Or you didn’t know.”

  Both the other queens cursed as one.

  “Why is that something to curse about?” she asked.

  “Well, now we’ve mentioned it,” Olea grumbled.

  “Van’s a queen,” Iln said quickly, then raised her cup to sip the tea.

  “And? Wait…” Aren considered. She adjusted in her seat as she considered her brief glimpse of the woman Van had called his mate. “That makes so much more sense than the other way around.”

  “Once you see them together it’s obvious,” Olea said. “We thought he had brought her because you knew.”

  “What do you mean, obvious?” Aren asked.

  “When a warrior and queen are in the same room, even if they are both hiding their rank, you can…” Olea trailed off, her blue eyes darting over Aren’s face, then down to her feet under the table, and back up again.

  “They had said she was wild,” Iln muttered.

  “I have no training,” Aren said, turning her attention to Iln. “If that is what you mean by wild, then yes, I am wild.”

  “Everyone receives some training,” Olea said.

  “She can’t even say why it makes sense seeing Ella and Van side by side and knowing that Van is the queen. She didn’t know there was a difference before. She’d probably have to sniff the back of their necks to tell.”

  “Back of the neck?” Aren asked, reaching for the base of her neck at the mention of sniffing.

  “Oh dear, you do know what it means to be rank, and of your rank, don’t you?”

  “A queen is a well of magic for anyone stupid enough to try to tap it,” Aren said. “But if you mean, do I not understand the nuances that happen between the ranks, then no. Danya had some books on rank but I read those and none of them mentioned anything about sniffing the back of a queen’s neck.”

  “Any rank—you can sniff any rank and tell what they are, if you know what that shudder is,” Iln said. “We teach our children to do that. It’s how to tell without a doubt when we go to the villages to find queens. Some will claim to be well hidden queens, but in reality are not.”

  “Did you say Danya?” Olea asked Aren.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Danya was my grandmother’s name,” Olea murmured.

  “It is also your sister’s name,” she said.

  The older queen went pale, then a sort of grey colour. She swallowed and looked at Aren. In response, Aren’s mind did a giddy little tumble and the world seemed to shift ever so slightly. The moment she saw Olea pale she knew that it was a stupid thing to say, but couldn’t for the life of her explain why she had said it.

  “This winter I fled the palace, as your mate no doubt told you. I was sent to the northwest, to a small village that your mother was born in. To this place a curse was settled, on one named Rewel.”

  “That son of a—”

  “He’s dead now. Av killed him. Didn’t look much older than Av, really. Danya looks a few years older than myself.”

  She had to visit Danya, but later. After the conversation, and after she had seen this through. She also had to pull Telm out of hiding. Unless the woman was on her deathbed there was no need for her to be in the healer hall while the barons were about.

  They hadn’t claimed right to rest for Telm yet. Even if they had, she would have been out doing her duties, since she was too stubborn to stay in bed. Fear was all that drove Telm to rest and Aren knew she couldn’t let that stand. A queen had to stand and face her fears, not hide from them as a child might a nightmare.

  “How do you know she is my sister?” Olea asked.
/>
  “Hm?” Aren asked.

  “How do you know she is my sister?”

  Had she said that?

  Aren’s mind darted back, tripping over the conversation they had just had as she tried to realign everything. She had been certain that she had only said that Danya existed. Surely she hadn’t said they were sisters when no one knew that for certain?

  “She doesn’t even recall saying it,” Iln said quickly.

  “You didn’t know she was my sister until you told me?” Olea asked.

  “Which means… the throne knew and wanted you to know,” Aren struggled to get out. “If what I understand about how it is working recently, is true. Though, I suppose it would only make sense. Everyone else in the village was dead, the curse laid in order to protect the babe and mother from death, latching something onto Rewel which kept him alive despite all else.”

  “My mother carried a strong queen.”

  “She was mistaken. Danya is a weak healer, but she is very pleasant and mild mannered.”

  “If you knew how to control your magic, you could keep the throne from putting you into awkward positions like this,” Iln said, motioning around the table. “Which is very awkward indeed. If Olea hadn’t grown up around the throne she might even think you simply needed to learn to keep your mouth shut, might you, Olea?”

  The other queen gritted her teeth and snatched her teacup from the table. “No, it’s not her fault I want to bash her head in for saying something she didn’t know to be true until she said it.”

  “I thought saying things that were true, even though we didn’t know it, was a mark of our rank?” Aren said.

  “Yes and no,” Iln responded. “Say a young man cheated on you and it slipped out of your mouth that he had even though you didn’t know? That’s your rank. Telling Olea that a woman you met this winter is her sister even though you had never met Olea, her mother, or her sister before and share no blood with them is quite another matter.”

  “We could share blood soon,” she said.