Shadow of a Dark Queen

by Raymond E. Feist

  Leaving the sheets to simmer in the tub, Erik hurried back to the smith’s room, grabbing some rags and a mineral oil cleaner he used on especially filthy tack and tools. He removed the balance of Tyndal’s possessions, a single large chest and a sack of personal items. A rickety wooden wardrobe he left inside, in case Nathan chose to hang his cloaks and 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 54

  54

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  shirts there; he could always haul it away later if the new smith didn’t care for it.

  When he had the last of Tyndal’s possessions outside, Erik regarded the meager pile. “Not a lot to show for a lifetime,” he muttered. He picked up the chest and hauled it over to one corner of the small yard behind the barn, and picked up the sack and placed it on top. He’d go through them later to see what Tyndal had left that might be of use. There were always poor farmers on the outskirts of the vineyards who grew other than grapes, and they always could use serviceable clothing.

  Then Erik took the rags and cleaner and began scrubbing years of accumulated grime off the walls.

  * * *

  Erik entered the Kitchen to find Milo sitting at the big table, staring across at Nathan, who was finishing a large bowl of stew. Milo was nodding at something the smith had just said, while Freida and Rosalyn both made busy preparing vegetables for the evening meal. Erik glanced at his mother, who stood expres-sionless at the sink, listening to the men speak.

  Rosalyn inclined her head toward Erik’s mother, indicating concern. Erik nodded briefly, then moved beside his mother, indicating he wished to wash up.

  She nodded curtly and moved toward the oven, where the bread purchased that morning from the baker was being kept warm.

  Nathan continued what he had been saying when Erik entered. “While I have the knack with iron, I’m indifferent with horses, truth to tell, above the legs. I can adjust a shoe to balance a lameness, or to compensate for some other problem, but when it comes to the rest, I’m as simple as anyone.”

  52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 55

  SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

  55

  “Then you’ve chosen wisely to keep Erik on,”

  said Milo, showing an almost fatherly pride. “He’s a wonder with horses.”

  Rosalyn asked, “Master Smith, from what you’ve said, you could have had any number of large baronial forges, or even a ducal charge. Why did you pick our small town?”

  Nathan pushed away the bowl of stew he had finished, and smiled. “I’m a lover of wine, truth to tell, and this is a great change from my former home.”

  Freida turned and blurted, “We’re scant weeks past burying one smith for the love of too much wine, and now we’ve another! The gods must hate Ravensburg indeed!”

  Nathan looked at Freida and spoke. His tone was measured, but it was clear he was not far from anger.

  “Good woman, I love the wine, but I’m no mean drunkard. I was a father and husband who took care of his own for many years. If I drink more than a glass in a day, it’s a festival. I’ll thank you to pass no judgment on matters you know nothing about.

  Smiths are no more cut from the same bolt of cloth as all men of any other trade are alike in all ways.”

  Freida turned away, her color rising slightly, but she said nothing save, “The fire is too warm. This bread will be dry before supper.” She made a show of turning the coals, though everyone knew it was unnecessary.

  Erik watched his mother for a moment, then turned toward Nathan. “The room is clean, sir.”

  Freida snapped, “Will you all be sharing that one tiny room?”

  Nathan rose, picking up his cloak and leaning over to retrieve his bag. As he hoisted his possessions, he said, “All?”

  52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 56

  56

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  “These children and your wife you spoke so tenderly of?”

  Nathan’s tone was calm when he replied, “All dead. Killed by raiders in the sacking of the Far Coast. I was senior journeyman to Baron Tolburt’s Master Smith at Tulan.” The room was still as he continued. “I was asleep, but the sound of fighting woke me. I told my Martha to see to the children as I ran to the forge. I took no more than two steps out the door of the servants’ quarters when I was struck twice by arrows”—he touched his shoulder, then his left thigh—“here and here. I fainted. Another man fell on top of me, I think. Anyway, my wife and children were already dead when I awoke the next day.”

  He glanced around the room. “We had four children, three boys and a girl.” He sighed. “Little Sarah was special.” He fell silent for a long moment, and his face took on a reflective expression. Then he said,

  “Damn me. It’s nearly twenty-five years now.”

  Without another word he rose, and nodded his head once to Milo, then moved to the door.

  Freida looked as if she had been struck. She turned toward Nathan, her eyes brimming with moisture, and looked as if she were about to speak, but as the smith left the kitchen she was unable to find the words.

  Erik looked after the departing smith, and then back toward his mother. For the first time in his life he felt embarrassed for her and he found the feeling unpleasant. He glanced around the kitchen and noticed Rosalyn looking at Freida with an expression of irritation and regret. Milo made a show of ignoring everyone as he rose from the table to move to the tap room.

  52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 57

  SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

  57

  Erik said at last, “I’d better see if he’s settled in.

  Then I’ll be seeing to the horses.”

  Erik left and Rosalyn moved around the kitchen in silence, trying to spare Freida any more embarrassment. After a moment she realized the older woman was silently weeping. Caught in an impasse as to what to do, she hesitated, then at last said,

  “Freida?”

  The older woman turned toward the younger, her cheeks damp from her tears. Her face was a mask of conflict, as if she wished to vent some deeply buried pain but couldn’t let it surface past a sharp retort.

  Rosalyn said, “Can I do anything?”

  Freida remained motionless for long seconds, then said, “The berries need washing.” Her tone was hoarse, and she spoke softly. Rosalyn moved toward the sink and began working the hand pump her father and Erik had installed only the year before so she and Freida wouldn’t have to carry water from the well behind the inn anymore. As cold water filled the wooden sink, Freida said, “And stay the sweet child you are, Rosalyn.

  There’s too much pain in the world already.”

  The older woman hurried from the kitchen on some imagined errand, and Rosalyn knew she just wished to be alone for a while. The exchange with the new smith had released something Freida had buried and Rosalyn didn’t understand, but in her sixteen years the girl had never seen Erik’s mother cry.

  As she cleaned the fruit for the evening’s pies, she wondered if this was a good thing or not.

  The evening was quiet, with only a few locals calling in at the Pintail for a quick drink, and only one seeking a meal. Erik finished cleaning the kettle as a 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 58

  58

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  favor to Rosalyn, and hauled it back to the hook over the fire, now low-glowing embers.

  He waved good night to Rosalyn, who was carrying four flagons of ale to a table occupied by four of the town’s more eligible young journeymen, all of whom were flirting with the innkeeper’s daughter, more to keep some sort of status with one another than out of any real interest in the young girl.

  Passing through the kitchen, Erik found his mother standing by the door, looking at the night sky, ablaze with stars. All three moons were down this night, a rare occurrence, and the display was always worth a moment to observe.

  “Mother,” said Erik quietly as he started to move away.

  “Stay awhil
e,” she said softly, a request and not an order. “It was a night like this I met your father.”

  Erik had heard the story before but knew his mother was struggling with something that had occurred while she spoke to the smith. He still didn’t fully understand what had happened in his mother, but he knew she needed to speak. He sat down on the steps beside where his mother stood.

  “Otto had come to Ravensburg for the first time as Baron, after his father’s death two years before.

  He had attended the Vintners’ and Growers’ reception for him, and after drinking with the town leaders, he had gone for a walk to clear his head. He was brash and quick to dispense with protocol, and had ordered his servants and guards to leave him alone.”

  She stared into the night, calling up memories. “I had come down to the fountain with the other girls, to flirt with the boys.” Erik recalled his own last visit to the fountain with Roo and realized the practice 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 59

  SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

  59

  was long established. “The Baron came into the lantern light and suddenly we were a bunch of awkward children.” Then Erik saw a spark in his mother’s eyes, and heard an echo of the spirit that had captivated men’s hearts before he was born. “I was as awed as the rest, but I was too proud to show it,” she said with a rueful smile, and years dropped away from her. Erik could imagine the impact such a sight after an evening spent drinking must have had on the Baron as he spied the beautiful Freida at the fountain.

  “He had court manners, and rank, and riches, and yet there was something honest in him, Erik: a little boy who was as afraid of being sent away as any other boy. He was twenty-five, and young for that age. But he swept me off my feet, with sweet words and a wicked humor in them. Less than an hour later he had bedded me under a tree in an apple orchard.”

  She sighed, and again Erik was put in mind of a young girl, not this woman of iron he had known all his life.

  “I had a terrible reputation, but I had never known another man. He had known other women, for he was sure, but he was also tender and gentle and loving.”

  She glanced at her son. “In the dark, under the stars, he spoke of love, but the next day I thought I’d never see him again and counted myself just another foolish girl taken in by a nobleman’s charms.

  “But against any hope of mine, he came to me a month later, in the late afternoon, alone, astride a horse flecked with foam from a hard ride from his castle. Hidden by a large cloak, he had slipped into the inn as we were readying for the night’s trade, and there he sought me out and revealed himself. To my 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 60

  60

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  astonishment, he professed love and asked for my hand.” She gave a bittersweet laugh. “I called him mad and ran from the inn.

  “Later that night, I returned to find him waiting at this very spot, like a common farmhand. He again told of his love for me, and again I told him he was bereft of sense.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “He laughed and said he knew it seemed that way, but after taking my hand and gazing into my eyes, he kissed me once and convinced me. This time I knew why I had gone with him the first time—not because of his rank and station, but because I loved him as well.

  “He cautioned me that none must know of our love for each other until he had journeyed to Rillanon to petition King Lyam for my hand, for tradition bound him to his liege lord’s pleasure. But to seal our love, and to provide me with a claim, we spoke our vows in a small chapel used during the harvest, with an itinerant monk who had been in town less than a day, conducting the ceremony. The monk made a pledge not to speak of the vows until Otto gave him leave, and left us alone, for the next morning Otto planned to leave to see the King.”

  Freida was silent a moment; then her tone took on a familiar bitterness. “Otto never returned. He sent a messenger, your friend Owen Greylock, with news that the King had denied his petition and had instructed him to wed the daughter of the Duke of Ran. ‘For the good of the Kingdom,’ Greylock said.

  Then he said the King had ordered the Great Temple of Dala in Rillanon to declare the wedding annulled, and had the order placed under Royal Seal, so as not to embarrass Mathilda or any sons she might bear. I 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 61

  SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

  61

  was advised to find a good man and forget Otto.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she said, “What a shock good Master Greylock got then when I told him I was with child.”

  She sighed and reached over and gripped her son’s arm. “As my time neared, rumors circulated about who was your father, this merchant or that grower. But when you were born, and quickly became the image of your father in his youth, no one denied you were Otto’s boy. Not even your father will deny it publicly.”

  Erik had heard the story a dozen times before, but never told quite this way. Never before had he thought of his mother as a young girl in love or of the bitter rejection she must have felt when news of Otto’s marriage to Mathilda had come. Still, there was no profit in living for yesterday. “But he never acknowledged me, either,” said Erik.

  “True,” agreed his mother. “Yet he left you this much: you have a name, von Darkmoor. You may use it with pride, and should any man challenge your right you may look him in the eye and say, ‘Not even Otto, Baron von Darkmoor, denies me my night to this name.’ ”

  Erik reached up and awkwardly took his mother’s hand. She glanced at him and smiled her stiff, unforgiving smile, but there was a hint of warmth in it as she squeezed his huge hand, then released it. “This Nathan: I think he may be a good man. Learn what you can from him, for you’ll never have your birthright.”

  Erik said, “That was your dream, Mother. I know little of politics, but what I have heard in the taproom leads me to believe that should you have had the 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 62

  62

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  High Priest of Dala himself as witness in the chapel that night, it would count for little. The King, for reasons known best to him, wished my father married to the daughter of the Duke of Ran, and thus it was, and thus it would always have been.”

  Erik stood. “I will need to spend some extra time with Nathan, letting him know what I can do, and finding out what he wishes me to do. I think you’re right: he’s a good man. He could have sent me packing, but he’s trying to do right by me, I think.”

  Impulsively, Freida threw her arms around her son’s neck, hugging him closely. “I love you, my son,” she whispered.

  Erik stood motionless, uncertain how to respond.

  She spared him the need by letting go and turning quickly into the kitchen; shutting the door behind her.

  Erik stood a moment, then slowly turned and moved toward the barn.

  As the months passed, things fell into a routine at the Inn of the Pintail. Nathan blended in quickly, and after a while it was hard to recall what the inn had been like with Tyndal as smith. Erik found his new master a fount of information, as much of what Tyndal had taught him had been basic, solid smithing but Nathan knew much that made the work above-average, even exceptional. His knowledge of the different requirements for weapons and armor opened a new area for Erik, for Nathan had been the Baron Tolburt’s own armorer in Tulan at one time.

  One day the sound of hooves upon cobbles caused Erik to look up from where he held a hot plow blade Nathan was hammering for a local 52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 63

  SHADOW OF A DARK QUEEN

  63

  farmer. The slender figure of Owen Greylock, the Baron’s Swordmaster, appeared as he rode his mount around the barn from the rear court of the inn.

  Nathan took away the blade and plunged it into water, then set it aside as Erik came to stand next to the horse, holding her bridle as Greylock dismounted.

  “Swordmaster!” said Erik. “She’s not lame again,
is she?”

  “No,” said Owen, indicating that Erik should see for himself.

  Erik ran his hand along the horse’s left foreleg as Nathan approached, then motioned the youngster to stand aside. Nathan examined the horse’s leg. “This is the horse you told me of?”

  Erik nodded.

  “You say it was this suspensor tendon, was it?”

  Greylock looked on with approval as Erik said,

  “Yes, Master Smith. She had pulled it slightly.”

  “Slightly!” said Greylock. He had an angular face, made even more stern by a severe hairstyle—high bangs, with most of the rest cut straight around the nape of his neck—which split into a smile, serving to make him even more unattractive, for his teeth were uneven and yellowing. “Totally blown, I should say, Master Smith. Puffed up to the size of my thigh, and the mare could barely stand to put weight on it.

  I thought I’d have to send for the knackers, for certain. But Erik had a way, and I’d seen his work before, so I gave him the chance and he didn’t disappoint.” Shaking his head in mock astonishment, he said, “ ‘Slightly.’ The lad’s too modest for his own good.”

  “What did you do?” Nathan asked Erik.

  52887_Shadow of a Dark.qxd 9/3/02 3:48 PM Page 64

  64

  RAYMOND E. FIEST

  “I wrapped her leg in hot compresses at first.

  There’s a drawing salve the healing priest at the Temple of Killian makes that makes your skin feel hot. I used that on her leg. I hand-walked her and wouldn’t let her pull again, even if she got rammy.

  She’s spirited and wanted to bolt more than once, but I put a stud chain over her nose and let her know I’d have none of it.” Erik reached over and patted the mare on the nose. “We became pretty fair friends.”