The Queen of Crows

by Myke Cole

  Xilyka said nothing, looked out over the wall. The uhlans were dismounting now, setting their horses to graze while they put up tents out of bowshot. A few sat on camp stools, sharpening their lances and their long, curving swords. More knelt in a circle, heads bowed while one of the Pilgrims read to them from the Holy Writ, hand raised in benediction.

  “I’ve seen Onas dance,” Heloise said. “Can you show us your throwing?”

  Xilyka exchanged a smile with Onas before turning back to her. “Sindi boys may show off, but I am a girl and a Hapti, and when I have lost, I will be a Mother.” She looked back out at the uhlans and pointed. “I promise you, you will see me throw soon enough, and you will not be disappointed.”

  Heloise looked out at the light horsemen, young men likely with families of their own back home. “They are not the Order,” Heloise said. “They are just doing their work, same as we did. I don’t want to kill them.”

  Sigir clapped Samson on the back. “You raised a good child.”

  Samson smiled. “If she were truly good, she’d come out of that machine and let me take her away.”

  “Do not worry,” Xilyka said, looking back up at Heloise, the corner of her mouth rising. “If it is only the Pilgrims who earn your ire, then you need not kill anyone else. I will see to it for you.”

  * * *

  The sight of the uhlans made the coming fight real somehow, a reminder of the forces that were about to be arrayed against her. The Order were warriors, to be sure, but at least they wore robes of ministry. The uhlans were soldiers. They had no function but to kill.

  Xilyka and Onas took turns at watch that night, one sleeping while the other perched on the chapter house altar, receded into the shadows and all but invisible, weapons in their hands. Their presence should have helped her to sleep easier, but the knowledge that Xilyka was hovering behind her made Heloise want to change her shift and bathe, and the thought of leaving the machine then set off a wave of panic that banished all chance at slumber.

  Heloise thought of trying to talk to the Hapti girl, but Sigir, Barnard, and her parents all drowsed on the altar steps, and she didn’t want to risk waking them. Besides, what would she say? What did she know of the Hapti people? Xilyka wouldn’t care about taking letters, or apple picking in the autumn, or how Basina was going to be marri—Basina. Heloise felt her stomach roll. It felt … like a betrayal to be thinking this way. Don’t be a fool, Basina did not love you, in the end. Not in the way you loved her. What makes you think this girl will?

  Heloise sat in the machine, straining to hear the Hapti girl breathing in the dark, and in the end she could not sleep at all. She gave up just as the sky began to lighten, the first copper rays of dawn beginning to simmer along the bottom edge of the narrow window. The machine’s engine had died in the night, and she forced a fresh piece of seethestone into the chute, wincing slightly as it rattled loudly down into the canister. Her parents rolled over, moaning, but did not wake. Onas was on his feet in an instant, batting sleep from his eyes, and Xilyka jumped down from her perch, padding silently to her side. “Ready to go?”

  Heloise nodded, let the rising roar of the engine drown her reply, and stepped outside. Wolfun was already up on the parapet, calling down to Poch and Danad, who were making their way toward the chapter house, but caught themselves up short at the sight of her.

  “The Emperor has told you we were coming, surely,” Poch said. He was careful to keep his tone neutral, but his sarcastic words were clear enough. Heloise marveled at him. She remembered him swinging her in his arms to put her up on the drover’s chair when she was small. How had it come to this?

  “Something like that,” she said, looking past him to Wolfun on the parapet. The Town Wall was looking out beyond the walls, shading his eyes with a hand. Florea had joined him, wearing a belt of knives like Xilyka. Heloise didn’t like the looks on their faces. “What’s wrong?”

  “We might ask you the same question,” Danad said. “Where are your parents? The Maior?”

  “Still rousing themselves,” Heloise said. “I’m sure the machine woke them. They’ll be along directly.”

  “I’ll get them,” Danad said, moving past her.

  She stopped him with a jerk of the machine’s metal hand. “Let them come as they are ready. If you have news, you can tell it to me.”

  Danad bridled. He looked back to Poch, who folded his arms. “It’s not just news, your eminence. We can’t have you unguarded.”

  “Perhaps the sun is in your eyes,” Xilyka said, “and you have missed us standing here.”

  Poch ignored her. “You need proper guards, your eminence. Not a couple of heretic children.”

  Onas drew one of his knives, twirled it point first on a single finger. “Go ahead and try to harm her, and I will show you how safe she is.”

  Poch opened his mouth to reply, but Heloise cut him off. “Enough of this. If you have news, tell me, else, get back on the rampart where you can be of some use.”

  Danad shook his head, turned back to the wall. “Come and see for yourself.”

  Poch stood another moment, his jaw working, eyes locked on Onas.

  “You have something else you’d like to say, old man?” Onas asked him, tossing the knife in the air and catching it by the handle. “I am listening.”

  “Onas!” Heloise said, but Poch had already turned, cords of muscle standing out on his neck, hands clenching and unclenching, following Danad back to the wall.

  “That was poorly done,” Heloise said.

  Onas sheathed his knife. Heloise could tell from the tightness in his face how much the encounter had rattled him. “It is not our custom to stand idle when fools insult us.”

  “Onas, how are we going to fight them if we are watching our backs against one another? We are a handful and there is an army coming.”

  Onas forced a smile, but his eyes flashed with anger.

  “I think,” Xilyka said, “that an army is already here.” She began jogging toward the ramp up to the parapet without waiting for the rest of them.

  She was right.

  They had come in the night, while Heloise had fretted over Xilyka’s nearness, while her parents had snored, while the thick stone of the chapter house walls had screened her from the noise. They covered the grass and the newly shorn treeline, now dotted with piles of logs they had felled to build siege engines.

  There were so many people that Heloise could barely see the ground, more than the market fair, more than the festival of the Fehta, which celebrated the Emperor’s final victory, when he pushed the devils back into hell and drew the veil shut. It was more people than Heloise had ever seen in one place before.

  The uhlans were still there, dismounted now, their horses hobbled and grazing in a clearing well back of the siege line. There were at least twice as many of them, and they’d removed the pennants from their lances, carrying them over their shoulders as spears. Here and there, behind them, were knots of Imperial knights. Their armor was the ash black of freshly forged iron, edged in shining gold. Their horses were huge, even bigger than the ones the Order rode, as encased in metal as their riders, so that together they looked like war-machines themselves, lacking only the smoking tinker-engine on their backs. Instead, they had a pair of wooden frames like the ones affixed to the uhlans’ saddles, rising from their backplates and curling over their shoulders. Long black feathers ran the length of them, so that the knights looked like Palantines themselves, broad wings spreading from their backs.

  “Blasphemy,” Barnard muttered, joining her. “They’ve the look of Palantines, but not the deeds.”

  “And I have the deeds, but not the look,” she finished for him.

  “There is a devil’s head on your shoulder,” he said. “That is all the proof you need.”

  Heloise looked out over the horde of fighters beneath them, their banners fluttering the sigil of the golden throne on a field of black, the commander’s tent, with the Order’s chapter tent beside it. She c
ounted at least five Sojourners and more than twice the Pilgrims than had come to Lutet. Endless ranks of foot soldiers milled about in simple black tabards, halberds or axes over their shoulders. Most numerous were the villager levies, farmers and wheelwrights and smiths come in their working clothes, homespun shirts and trousers, the tools of their trade their only weapons, hammers and rakes and pitchforks.

  “It’s a tide,” one of the sentries said, “a tide to wash us away.”

  “A tide that will break against these walls,” Heloise said, “and the people that hold them.” But now that she had heard the words, she couldn’t unhear them. The people below here were as numerous as drops of water in a river, a tide that could sweep over them in an instant. How could they hope to hold against so many? What had she been thinking?

  The Sindi Mothers arrived with a small group of Traveling men, Giorgi among them. “By the Wheel,” he said, “that’s a lot of people.”

  “I don’t like the look of that,” Leahlabel said, pointing to a small black tent, pitched on a cleared rise some distance out from the wall. It was beside what Heloise guessed was the commander’s tent, judging from its cloth of gold and fluttering banner. The black tent seemed squat and ugly by comparison, made from coarse broadcloth and staked tightly down with thick iron. Dismounted knights stood in a ring around it, standing so close that their armored shoulders nearly touched, their long bearded axes at the ready.

  “No,” Heloise said, “I don’t either. What do you suppose is in there?”

  “Nothing good,” Leahlabel answered, “and nothing trifling either, else they’d not put it under such heavy guard.”

  She was cut off by a horn, sounding low and loud enough that Heloise could feel it trembling in her ears, hear it echoing in the corners of the town behind her. Silence rolled across the landscape, starting with her people on the rampart, struck dumb by the sudden noise, and gradually reaching across the army below the wall, their ranks slowly parting for a mounted procession beneath a golden banner.

  There were seven riders, all on huge black horses, save the man in front, whose mount was white. Two Sojourners flanked him, with a Pilgrim and three knights coming behind. The man on the white horse wore golden armor, the breast and visor worked to represent a radiant sun with a man’s face, the countenance stern, mouth drawn in a hard line.

  As the man in the golden armor came closer, Heloise was able to see over his shoulder. The single gray-cloaked Pilgrim behind him was Brother Tone.

  “In the name of the Emperor!” the man in the golden armor boomed. “Where is the heretic?” His voice was high and sweet, like a singer’s, and easily as loud as the horn that had sounded before. It did not trill as when a person shouted, was as even and clear as if the man stood beside her.

  “Wizardry,” her father whispered, and Heloise felt her blood run cold.

  “It can’t be,” she said. “It is some tinker-work.”

  Giorgi laughed. “It is no tinker-work. Did you think the Order were honest men? You yourself called them brigands.”

  “Brigands, yes,” Heloise said, “but at least I thought they cleaved to the Writ.”

  “They have never cleaved to the Writ,” Leahlabel said, “any further than they must to excuse their excesses.”

  “But the people…” Heloise began.

  “The people believe it is no wizardry, but a power given them by the Emperor Himself.”

  “But how can you know it isn’t?”

  Leahlabel looked at her like she was simple. “Because the Talent is like a … it is like standing in water. You can feel when the current changes, and it changes whenever someone else uses it.” She looked up to Giorgi, and he nodded at Heloise in agreement.

  Heloise followed Giorgi’s eyes back over the rampart. “That tent,” she said, jerking her chin at the squat black thing, the ring of iron-clad guards around it. “Is that wizardry too?”

  Giorgi said nothing, only looked back to Leahlabel, eyes worried.

  Barnard shook his head and trotted into the rampart tower.

  “I am the Emperor’s Song!” the man in the golden armor called. “In His name, I would address the heretic who leads you!”

  Barnard came racing back out onto the rampart. He carried a broad looking glass, taken from the house of one of the rich folk who’d fled the town, and brought up to the tower so the sentries could cut their whiskers. He held it high, angled down toward the Song. “Go ahead and talk,” he shouted. “You are looking at him.”

  The Song’s horse sidestepped, and the force with which he jerked the reins to still it showed that the words had angered him. “The girl!” he shouted. “I will speak with the girl!”

  “The girl is a Palantine,” Barnard shouted, “and as such, she has adherents to speak for her.”

  “That is a lie.” The Song raised his arms and circled his horse as he spoke, and Heloise realized that he was addressing his own troops every bit as much as Barnard. “No one has ever slain a devil and lived.”

  Barnard was already unfastening the lid of the reliquary on the machine’s shoulder before the Song had finished speaking. He reached in and seized the head, lifting it out by the horns. Heloise shuddered at the sight of it, still perfectly preserved, as fresh as if it had been carved from stone. I will never get used to that.

  “What do you call this, then?” Barnard held the head high, turning it so that the whole of the army could get a good view.

  The Song rested his golden gauntlets on his hips and let out a laugh, loud enough to echo off the walls. Heloise could see the soldiers below grinning, clapping one another on the shoulders, pointing up at Barnard.

  “I call that a clever forgery,” the Song said, “a thing of tar and straw and skilled painting. I call it tinker or Kipti made. What I do not call it is a devil’s head, cut from its shoulder by a little girl and somehow kept immaculate in a metal box for days on end. We are not such fools as you villagers. Save your tricks for those that might fall for them. We are the Emperor’s own.”

  Heloise’s mouth went dry. “But it’s true!” she had said before she could stop herself, the words lost in the gales of laughter that swept up from the army, nearly drowning out Barnard’s angry protests. Everyone in Lutet had seen her kill the thing, watched Barnard cut the head from its body. But no one else had.

  She shot a glance to Onas. He was joining Barnard in shouting back at the soldiers below, but of the Mothers standing behind him, only Leahlabel had actually seen the head. The rest were looking at Heloise, making no effort to hide the doubt in their eyes.

  “It’s real!” Barnard was shouting. “I watched her fell the creature with my own eyes!”

  “If it is real,” the Song replied, “throw it down here so we can have a closer look. We promise to bend the knee and return it if you are not lying.”

  Barnard looked to her and shook his head. Heloise almost ordered him to do it, but she knew what would happen. The Song, or Tone, or one of the Sojourners would make a great show of examining it, declare it a fake, and all would be lost. To the villagers, the head was an icon. Perverse as it was, she couldn’t afford to give it up.

  No, she would not give it to the army below. But she could use it to do some good up here. She motioned to Leahlabel. “Have a look, Mothers. See for yourselves if it is a forgery.”

  Barnard looked even angrier at the thought of Traveling People touching the sacred relic, but Heloise matched his gaze. “Give it to them,” she growled.

  The giant tinker looked as if he would argue, but gritted his teeth and handed the head to Leahlabel, who turned it on its side, probing her thumbs against the meat of the severed neck. She looked back to Heloise, grunted, turned back to the Mothers, showing it to them. “If it is a forgery, it is the most clever forgery I have ever seen. This is real bone, and real flesh. There is no cloth or straw here. I can feel the wizardry in it. Can you, Giorgi?”

  The Sindi man nodded. “I can, Mother.”

  She returned the head
to Barnard as fresh gales of laughter swept up to them from troops below, dissolving into a chant of “Throw it down! Throw it down!”

  Heloise turned to face her enemy, and even Barnard was quiet now, knowing it would do no good to try to be heard over them. The Song raised his arms, turning in the saddle, basking in the humor. Heloise could see Tone smiling, arms crossed, his flail tucked in the crook of his elbow.

  The Song waited until the laughter died down, a good long while, until a silence had settled over besieger and defender both. He faced that wall, leaned forward in his saddle, and spoke in a low voice that still rang clearly to every ear. “You lot are prone to fantasies, like little children. I am a father, may it please the Emperor, and I have learned over the years how one deals with children.

  “So, here is your lesson. We are an army, the finest fielded in my memory, ready to scale these walls and put you all to the torch. You are a rabble, a straw brigade, duped into following a fever-mad girl who aims to set herself up as a queen. If you follow her, it will be your death.

  “But the Emperor is merciful! Even now His eye is turned on you, even now He sees loyal subjects turned astray by this poor girl’s blight. Even now, when you have scorned Him, He stretches out His hand to redeem you.

  “We only want the girl. Send her down. She is nothing, a queen of rats and crows. The mistress of stones and dirt. Send her out to us, and we will leave you in peace.”

  Leahlabel stepped to the edge of the rampart, cupping a hand over her mouth. “And what of us? What of the Traveling People? All heretics are alike to you, eh? How can we know the Order will keep their word if we throw down our arms and come out?”

  Barnard spun on her, snarling. “How can you even ask…”

  But the Song was already answering, not to Leahlabel, but to Heloise. “The Emperor’s Song does not address animals. You do not hear us speaking with our mules, or our dogs, or any Kipti who happen to stray across our roads. Speak, instead, with the Order, for they are charged with bringing the heretic into the fold.”