“I should make one thing clear from the start,” the Queen said seriously, waving to the woman in blue to pour a second glass of wine. “I am the Sovereign of Urundien. The nádor and my male advisers do all they can to deny my authority and encourage me to spend my time on more feminine tasks than ruling the realm. They want me to marry, preferably one of them, and let my husband rule. But this I shall never do. So, you can read, Maresi Enresdaughter. Where did you learn this?”
“Have the songs and tales of the Red Abbey reached the palace of Irindibul?”
She looked at me thoughtfully. “Yes, I had a nurse who told me some such stories when I was a little girl.”
“They are not only stories,” I said. “I have been there. The Abbey is a real place, on an island in the far south. It is a home of knowledge and learning, sisterhood and work. My father and mother sent me there to save me from starvation ten years ago.”
“Has there been much hunger in Rovas?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Three years of true famine within my lifetime.”
“That explains the pittance that reaches the royal coffers from Rovasian taxes,” said the Queen. She noticed my expression. “Or does it?”
“Your Majesty, I should sooner say that the high taxes are the reason for these famines,” I answered, as courteously as I could.
“Really? I have had my suspicions that the nádor is not always entirely . . . forthright in his accounting. I should like to know more about this province, its people, and its ability to pay taxes. You and I shall have long conversations about this anon. But now we have more pressing matters to attend to. What is happening in the valley?”
I explained everything to the Queen as well as I could. I told her briefly about our Rovasian beliefs, and our view of the earth and the realm of the dead. I mentioned my own beliefs, and the Crone, and how I can hear and feel her, and sometimes see the door to her realm as well. I told her the story of how we came to discover that the forest was being ravaged, and about the Rovasian woodcutters joining our fight. I told her about the avalanche, and the departure of the soldiers and the arrival of the Rovasian people. I mentioned the school I had held for the children too, at which the Queen raised her eyebrows. She did not interrupt me once, but I had clearly given her much to think about. Yet she held her tongue and sipped her wine and let me continue. When I had finished she slammed her cup angrily down on the table.
“Kendmen can plead ignorance to all of this, which I am certain he would if I confronted him. But by my father’s beard, as nádor it is his duty to know his province, its customs and traditions! As soon as you resisted he must have realized that he was trying to lay waste to your sacred ground, yet he simply does not care. He is out to fill his own pockets. I have long suspected it but lacked sufficient proof. He let me set the dogs on you all in the belief that you were a handful of insubordinates out to disrupt the orders of the Crown.”
She rose and I leaped from my stool. Even I understand that one must not remain sitting when a queen is standing. She began pacing up and down the tent.
“Now he has forced me into an impossible situation. If I yield now, after personally ordering the dogs be set loose, I shall appear weak. I lose face, and my reputation is compromised, but what is worse, I lose the respect of those damned old men I have to keep on good terms with all the time. You cannot imagine the ways in which they try to manipulate me, trick me, steal the crown from me. They think it is easy now that the crown sits on a woman’s head. I have to be constantly vigilant against people whose job it is to advise and support me in my duties as the newly crowned Sovereign.”
She turned to me abruptly. “I wish your people no harm. Your people are my people, and the duty of a sovereign is to take care of their people, not slaughter them. But the nádor wants to set an example. He is clearly terrified of losing his hold on the province, which he would if he surrendered completely. And I cannot lose face, neither before my people nor before my advisers.” She collapsed back into her seat. “Of course, I have no trusted advisers to consult. No one is on my side.” She angrily tore down one of her braids and began to fiddle with it.
“Your Majesty,” I said, and fell to my knees beside her. “Will you not permit me to advise you? I am no shrewd Urundian adviser, I know that.” The Queen looked at me from under a furrowed brow. I swallowed. “It is in my interest that this conflict be resolved without you losing face or respect among your own, while also allowing my people to return home unharmed, and preserving our burial grove, now and forever.”
The Queen looked at me bitterly. “Have I any choice?” She sighed and shook her head. “Oh, what do I have to lose?”
She ordered more wine for us both, and invited me to sit back down on the stool. I was so nervous that my mouth was dry. I tried to remember everything I had read about the history of Urundien. There was a potential solution. Just one. I wrung my hands, searching for the right words.
The Queen took out a spindle from a basket by her chair and began spinning. The thread was of the finest, softest lamb’s wool, and the Queen’s hands were nimble and certain. My nerves were immediately somewhat soothed. I pulled the stool a little closer to her.
“I wonder, Your Majesty, if there is anything that stands above the Crown in Urundien. Something that even the Sovereign must bow to?”
She wrinkled her forehead, still holding the spindle. “I had a shrewd father, Maresi of Rovas. He was never destined to be King, for he was the youngest of three. He felt no duty to have sons, and I grew up on his estate in the hills outside Irindibul, far from the intrigues of the palace. My grandfather lived to a very old age and had the great misfortune of seeing both his eldest sons die, one from disease and the other from a most unnecessary hunting accident.” She tutted. “And suddenly my father became King in middle age. But he did not live long. And now mine is the head that bears the crown.”
While she was speaking her two ladies-in-waiting produced sweet cakes, boiled water on the stove for tea, and served it all beautifully on the table between me and the Sovereign of Urundien. The Queen’s hands were moving all the while, and the thread she spun became even and very thin. I noticed that she held the wool a little differently from the way I was taught, more angled. I wonder whether all women spin that way in Urundien, or whether it is a quirk of hers.
“As soon as my father’s two brothers were dead and he realized I would have to wear the crown one day, he started to train me for my eventual responsibilities. But he was taken from us too soon, so my training was cut short—something that my opponents take every possible opportunity to point out. But even as a child I learned that there is one thing that stands above the Sovereign of Urundien, and that is the law.”
I sighed with relief, so loudly that the Queen gave me a rather amused glance.
“I know a little of Urundien’s most ancient laws,” I said slowly, searching for the right words and names in my memory. “Unless I am mistaken, there was a king by the name of Bendiro who lived long ago. He married Venna, daughter to a governor of Rovas, to seal the alliance between our little province and your powerful realm.” I am afraid that I went on to lose myself in dreamy musings of what I had read and perhaps forgot whom I was speaking to. “Rovas was a very poor province in those times and received a great deal of help from Urundien, especially during the ten years when Bendiro’s daughter Evendilana reigned. I have wondered why Rovas even interested Urundien, for we have no great resources to offer her. Might it have been for wood?”
The Queen twisted the spindle against the outside of her thigh. “It may well have been for the sake of wood. Bendiro was an expansionist king, and before his death he tried to conquer Lavora, the coastal realm, to gain access to the great trade routes to the east. He might have planned to build a fleet, and in that case Rovasian wood would have come in useful. But it is more likely that Rovas quite simply functioned as a shield against the Akkade plains in the north. They have not always been as peaceful as they are now, the goo
d Akkade nomads.”
“It would be interesting to know more about that time in Rovasian history,” I said, and then remembered the true focus of our discussion. “This Venna of Rovas must have been a most remarkable woman, for when the pact between the province and Urundien was made, three laws were written. The first concerned taxes: Rovas shall pay one-tenth of its production in tax, to be collected annually. The second concerned the forest: it was established that most of the southern and eastern forests are royal territory, and preserved for the hunting and timber needs of the Crown, while the remaining woodland is free for the Rovasians to use. But the third law is like no other in the Urundian law book and was written through Venna’s initiative. It stipulates that the Rovasians are free to practice their beliefs and traditions without interference from Urundien.”
The Queen laid down her spindle. Her eyes were shining.
“I have heard about this! It was not Father who taught me, it was . . .” She slapped her hands together. “It was Kendmen! He was lecturing me while we were out hunting. He spoke of the forest and hunting rights, and he mentioned that part about ‘beliefs and traditions.’ Disdainfully, of course. Oh!” She rose. “I came here because I suspected that he was withholding income from the Crown. Never has Rovas brought in so little taxes as now. But this!” She smiled, without warmth or benevolence. “He has dug his own grave. He has acted unlawfully, and knowingly so.” I too was on my feet, and the Queen laid a hand on my shoulder. “Maresi Enresdaughter of Rovas, you have shown me how this conflict can be resolved without bloodshed and without losing face. I . . .”
She stopped. There was a commotion outside the tent. In hindsight the noise had been going on for a while, but we were too engrossed in our conversation to notice. It was the clatter of weapons, horses snorting, men calling, but all somewhat muffled. Now it was hooves beating against the hard-frozen ground.
The lady in blue stuck her head out of the tent and then quickly withdrew it, her face ashen.
“They are riding out!” she whispered. “All the soldiers!”
Maresi, whispered the Crone among the hoofbeats. Hurry, my daughter.
The Queen swore more filthily than I would have ever thought possible from a lady. She ran to the tent opening but turned back at once.
“They have already gone! Only a handful remain, presumably to guard me.” She quickly straightened her mantle. “The maniac. The traitor! He is riding to the valley without consulting his Queen, without my permission! He will probably say that he believed he had free rein to handle the situation as he saw fit. Talrana, my gloves. Eara, fetch my horse. At once!” She rushed out, gloves in hand, with Eara close behind. I followed.
Uvas was waiting outside the tent with my sword. “I didn’t dare interrupt you,” he said. He was pale and tense. “They drove me out of the tent as soon as you left. I don’t know what they intend to do.”
“Attack,” I said shortly, and attached the sword to my back. “I am going with the Queen. If you can get hold of a horse, ride after us. Otherwise you will have to ski.”
Soon the Queen sat astride her horse. She reached down and helped me up behind her, and without speaking we rode unescorted out of the camp. Toward my valley, my people, my dead.
ϖ
Apologies, I fell asleep at my table. I am glad that they have given me a table and chair. I also got firewood for the little fireplace in the northern corner of my room. It must be midnight by now. I can hear the wind whine around the thick stone walls outside. Not the slightest draft can reach me inside, though. I awoke with my head resting on my right arm, so if my handwriting is illegible it is because my hand has been as deeply asleep as I was. I just have to put more wood on the fire, so I can see enough to write. My little candle has nearly burned out. I regret letting it burn down while I slept.
I will continue from where I got to before falling asleep. What follows is of great significance. For it demonstrates the many faces of the Crone, Sister O. She is so much greater than I ever understood.
We galloped through the forest. The Queen was leaning forward and steering the horse while I clung on, my arms wrapped around her waist and my thighs tight against the horse. I had never traveled so fast. I could see nothing but the Queen’s black-robed back, so I could not anticipate the horse’s lurches or jumps over snow blocks and other obstacles. The Queen’s horse must be one of the fastest in Urundien, but the snow and ice were still a hindrance. The soldiers had a significant head start, and they too were going at full speed. The nádor must have ordered them to, for he knew that the Queen would try to stop him.
I gritted my teeth and prayed to the Crone.
When we reached the ravine down in the valley I heard the screams. My people were screaming, and a formless terror took possession of me. The pass was still filled with snow, and the tracks from the soldiers’ horses led along the western hillside down into the valley. The snow must be less deep there. They had not even tried to force our barricade. Perhaps they had taken my people by surprise. Dread paralyzed my limbs, and I lost the ability to hold firm in the saddle. I slipped off the horse before we got there. The Queen continued, and perhaps did not even notice me fall. Once I had scrambled to my knees in the deep snow I saw her reach the barricade, where a soldier leaped forward and grabbed her horse’s bridle. The Queen shouted furiously, but her shouts could hardly be heard amid the din from the valley beyond the barricade.
Sister O, why do I become so frozen with fear that I can hardly act when it matters most? Why am I so weak? I did not want to go down there; I did not want to face what was happening on the other side of the barricade. I wanted to turn around, sneak into the forest, crawl under a dense spruce and never move again. But I forced myself to edge forward. I crept right up to the barricade. The Queen had dismounted and left her horse and the soldier to their fate. He did not dare raise his hand to the Queen, though he had undoubtedly been given orders to prevent her from getting through. She began climbing the hillside to get around and down on the other side. I climbed up the barricade itself, which no one was bothering to guard anymore. I had been involved in its construction. I knew how to get up. Once on top, I crouched on the highest log and rested for the briefest of moments, with eyes closed and a pounding heart. Then I opened my eyes.
The soldiers were galloping through the crowds of people—my people—and swinging their swords indiscriminately. Their horses reared and kicked. I saw the nádor, riding around in his black mantle, joining in the violence with a cold composure. I saw people huddled on the ground, and people with clubs and axes offering resistance.
I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
I saw no children.
They had gotten to safety. Or they were hidden inside the cabins.
I saw very few elderly people. Perhaps they were with the children.
Women and men were fighting side by side against the soldiers.
Some of the soldiers were striking with the broad sides of their swords. They were trying to drive the Rovasians out of the valley. Clusters of people were already fleeing up the hill to avoid the sword blows and horse kicks. But other soldiers were not as scrupulous. They were using their sword’s edges. I saw people fall to the ground and not move again. Red-colored snow. The soldiers were pressing the Rovasian folk hard. Step by step they were driving them to the very edge of their own valley. If we left now, we would lose it forever. The nádor would not leave the valley until the last silverwood had fallen. A female figure lay face down in the snow. I could not see who it was, but what did it matter? She was my sister, my friend, my neighbor, my niece, the daughter I would never have.
I sat up. Then I saw it. The door. The door of the Crone stood beside me, shining in the bright winter sun. It exerted the same force on me as it always does. The same lure mixed with terror. It reeked of blood and death. The voice of the Crone muttered through the cracks.
“I do not want to,” I whispered. “No more death.”
I wiped my te
ars away with my glove and stood up. The wind took hold of my red mantle and spread it out behind me, like a burning flag. Everybody turned to look. Soldiers and Rovasians. They came to a standstill. Some of the Rovasians fell to their knees. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes. I did not want to open the door, not even in that moment, Sister. There is no shortage of death, pain and sorrow in the world. There is no need for any more.
But it was not my choice to make. I turned to face the door. I reached out my hand. Then I looked at it more closely.
It was not the same door.
This door was made not of silver, but of snow-white silverwood.
Otherwise it looked the same, with the same handle in the shape of a snake with onyx eyes; but this door was carved entirely from rock-hard, ever-white silverwood, grown from Rovasian soil. I have been so blind, Sister O. So foolish. I thought that the Crone’s power could only flow in one direction. As if she were so straightforward, so weak! As if death were so simple.
I pulled off my glove and ran my fingers over the handle. The valley held its breath. Then I turned the handle and threw the door wide open.
They came surging out like a raging gale. All the ones we were fighting for. Beautiful and strong and enraged, they flooded out through the door of the dead, appearing as they did in life so that we could recognize them. At the forefront was Mother. My heart swelled. I drew the sword from its scabbard and threw it to her, and she caught it midair. She raised it high and led the dead down into the valley.
The departed souls of Rovas had returned for revenge. The soldiers and Urundians screamed and fled in wild panic. They were struck by abject horror that clawed and ripped at their minds, filling them with darkness and fear. They collapsed in the snow with swords and hands flailing. I saw soldiers claw themselves in the face, or vomit in fear. To them our dead appeared as terrible phantoms with burning eyes and curved claws, with one sole desire: to tear them apart and drag their souls into death. That is how the Queen described it to me later.
Red Mantle Page 28
