The Born Queen (40 page)

“I’m sure if you had been there, things would have gone differently,” Cauth said.

“I’m sure of that, too,” Cazio said.

“Austra is in the wagon, I take it.”

“Why would you think that?”

Cauth sighed. “Time is short,” he said. “I won’t waste it bantering with you. I’ve seen you fight, and I imagine you’ll probably kill a few of us if you choose to, but there’s no reason it should come to that.”

“Why should it come to that?”

“It shouldn’t. We’ve come to escort you to Eslen.”

“How nice. I was going there anyway. But why do I need an escort?”

“The city is under siege. You’ll need our help to get in.”

“But why are you interested in helping? I suppose is my real question.”

“We’re not,” Cauth said. “Austra is our concern. Whether you’re there or not is immaterial.”

“What do you want with Austra?”

“That’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

“Oh, I’m very much concerned.”

Cauth started to say something, but then he peered beyond Cazio, and his face wrinkled in what seemed to be chagrin.

“Not traveling alone, after all,” he said.

Cazio turned and saw, on the hill, a line of pikemen forming up.

“Z’Acatto,” he murmured.

“Come along,” Cauth said, drawing his sword. Cazio drew Acredo, noticing as he did so that six archers had arrows aimed at him.

“We’ll go up the hill and talk to your friends,” Cauth said. “We’ll explain that there’s no need for a fight, yes?”

“If you insist,” Cazio said.

“Don’t forget that Austra will be here, with my men.”

“I won’t.”

He marched up the hill with the Sefry. Z’Acatto watched them come, sitting a gray stallion in front of his men.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Cazio shouted once they were in earshot.

“No, you didn’t,” the old man said. “And I wasn’t planning to give it. I told the men I would get them to Eslen, that’s all.”

“Good, then.”

“Who are your friends?”

“Anne’s old guard,” he replied. “They’ve kindly offered to escort me to the castle.”

“Well, good,” z’Acatto said. “Then you’re well off my hands.”

Cazio nodded. “How was the wine? Did you drink it yet?”

“Not yet,” z’Acatto said. “It’s not the right time.”

“I’m not sure there’s going to be a better one.”

“You just want a taste of it.”

“I won’t deny that,” Cazio said. Then he spun and punched Cauth in the jaw, drew Acredo, and threw himself flat as arrows whirred overhead.

They want Austra alive
, he thought, praying he was right, knowing in his bones this was the best choice.

With a roar the pikemen started down the hill.

CHAPTER SIX

B
RACKEN
H
OPE

F
END DIDN’T HAVE
much of his army left, either. One of the Vaix stood behind him, favoring an injured leg. Of monsters, Aspar saw only a greffyn, a wairwulf, and two utins.

That was still likely to be more than he could kill, but he was ready to try. “I told you you were going to need my help,” the Sefry said.

“Yah, thanks,” he said, nocking an arrow to the string of the unfamiliar bow.

The wairwulf and the utins were fast, though, moving in front of Fend before he could aim.

“Aspar,” Fend called. “If you manage to kill me here or, more likely, if I kill you, what happens to Winna, to your child, to your precious forest? I’ll tell you. That knight of Gravio and his twenty men are going to catch her. Probably they’ll kill her. Whoever sent them—and I’ll bet my other eye that it was Hespero—doesn’t have any interest in bringing a new Briar King into the world, not until they’ve taken the sedos throne and hold sway over everything. You and I have the same interest, Aspar.”

“I doubt that.”

“Doubt it if you want; my offer to help still stands. I can find the Vhenkherdh; you know I don’t need you for that. And yes, I’d love to kill you now, but then I would have one less man—or monster, which is more what you are—to go up against this knight with. We need each other. We can settle our differences afterward, don’t you think?”

Aspar stared into Fend’s single eye, remembering the sight of Qerla’s dead body, remembering the last time they had been in the valley of the Briar King.

He had never hated the Sefry more, but the geos wouldn’t let him fire.

“Let’s stop bloody talking, then,” he snarled, lowering the bow. “Let’s go.”

Stephen and Zemlé floated in the grip of the Vhelny, which, now that Stephen had gentled it, was soft, firm, almost velvety. He had determined that the demon’s limbs were more like tentacles than arms. It was still obfuscated from the examination of Stephen’s senses; no power he had or command he could give would lift that apparently ancient magic and reveal the creature’s true appearance. It was a subtle thing that would take time and perhaps more power to overcome.

He was happy that the cloud that concealed the Vhelny had no effect on his own vision, however, as they drifted through the delicate layers of clouds and the vista below revealed itself.

Directly beneath his feet Eslen castle pointed towers up at him like whimsical lances. About that were the tiers of the city and the long, green island of Ynis, held all around by the two mighty rivers and a thousand neat canals stretching off toward the horizon.

And along the banks of those rivers, beside those canals, were fires, tents, and tens of thousands of men.

West across a great bay, beyond an awesome many-toothed wall, the Lier Sea was thickly jeweled with ships for as far as he could see.

“Eslen,” Zemlé breathed.

“Have you been here before?” he asked.

“Never.”

“Nor have I.”

That wasn’t exactly true. He had never been to
this
Eslen, but he remembered an earlier, much smaller one, little more than a hill fort, really, a tiny place trying not to be crushed by giants, its little leaders capering to his will.

Now it was quite splendid, though. He could hardly wait to see the royal scriftorium. Who knew what precious texts it might hold, unappreciated for millennia?

But first things first.

He had the Vhelny set them down on a pretty little hill on the island, where they had a good view of the surrounds, then set the demon to guard them from anyone approaching. They picnicked on salty ham, pears, and a sweet red wine. Zemlé was nervous at first, but when no one bothered them, she eventually relaxed and even drowsed.

He noticed the Vhelny drifting near.

“I smell the throne,” it said.

“Yes,” Stephen said. “So do I. It’s not here, but it will be soon, down there in the shadow city. That must be where Virgenya put her shortcut.”

“You’re speaking nonsense, wormling.”

He shook his head. “No. She left the power, but she left a key to it in the blood of her line and a place for that key to unlock. She made a faneway, a brief one containing only two fanes—but separated by a hundred leagues. But once one of her heirs visited the one, it was inevitable that they should visit the other and inherit much of her power. That’s what happened to Anne. But Anne isn’t Virgenya. She won’t use the power and then give it up.”

“That’s why you seek the throne? To save the world?” the Vhelny sounded dubious.

“To make it what it should be.”

“Then why not go now to the city of shadows and wait?”

Stephen plucked a straw of grass and placed it between his teeth. “Because I can’t make out even the faintest shadow of Anne anymore. Even after I walked the faneway, I couldn’t see anything about her, but I knew where she was. Now it’s as if she’s gone completely. She might be a thousand leagues from here or right there, waiting for me. I can still see Hespero, and I should probably challenge him first, garner his strength before attempting Anne.”

“Coward.”

“Ah, you want me to rush into this and lose. You’d like to be free again. You won’t be, I promise.”

“Man-worm, you know so little.” Stephen felt the prick of a thousand ghostly needles against his flesh. He rolled his eyes and dismissed the attack with a wave of his hand.

“Hush. I’m going to try to find her again. Maybe being closer will help.”

The Vhelny said nothing, but he felt it coil in upon itself, sulking.

He sent his senses drifting, expanding away from him like ripples in a pond. There was the throbbing sickness that was the emerging throne; there was the contained puissance of the man whom he once had known as Praifec Hespero but who lately had risen in the world. He would be difficult. Should he make an alliance with him against Anne? That might be the safest course; he could strike the Fratrex Prismo once they had won.

But then, Hespero would nurse the same plan.

He was almost ready to give up when something caught his attention, a sort of glimmer in the corner of his eye. It was a few leagues from the city, and like Eslen-of-Shadows, it reeked of Cer.

At first he didn’t understand, but after a moment he smiled in delight and clapped his hands together.

“I should have guessed,” he said. “This is really wonderful. And no one else knows.”

“What do you babble about?” the Vhelny asked.

“We’ll just go and see,” Stephen said, rubbing his hands together. “At worst it will help pass the time. But I don’t think it will be worst. The first thing is to find a safe place for Zemlé.”

The last time Aspar had seen the Sa Ceth ag Sa’Nem, the “Shoulders of Heaven,” he had been in the bloom of early and unexpected love. They—and everything else he saw—had appeared beautiful beyond imagining.

He supposed they still were, those mammoth peaks whose summits were so high that they faded into the sky like the moon at midday. But he wasn’t giddy with love this time, far from it. No, he was thinking mostly about killing.

The geos wouldn’t let him, not yet, not until he actually had gotten Winna to the Vhenkherdh or, presumably, when she got there with Leshya. Until then, he couldn’t slit Fend crotch to breastbone because then Fend’s monsters would kill him, and the geos didn’t want that.

That was how things were. When they reached the valley, they would change.

He no longer held much hope that anything useful could be done there. He didn’t doubt that Fend would cut open Winna and offer whatever was growing in her in some grizzly and pointless sacrifice dreamt up by the diseased mind of the Sarnwood witch. But heal the forest, bring it back? It didn’t seem possible. It also didn’t seem very likely that he and Winna were going to get out of the valley alive once they got there. It might be that the best he could do was give her an easy death, then slaughter Fend and as many of the others as he could before they took him down. The thought of dying didn’t bother him much; without the forest and without Winna, there wasn’t anything keeping him in the lands of fate.

He was still in that bleak mood a few bells later, when the unexpected walked up and slapped it right out of him.

They were switchbacking up to the top of a long ridge of hills when a stream crossed their path. And there, just where the water ran off the hill, grew a little green fern. Not a black spider tree or dragon-tongue thing but a simple honest bracken.

Farther along the trail they found more, and by day’s end they were in almost natural woodland again. For the first time since entering the King’s Forest his chest relaxed a bit, and the stench of putrefaction was almost gone.

So the heart of it is still alive
, he thought. Leshya was right about that, at least. Maybe she was right about more.

Leshya had taken Winna, which suggested the Sefry also thought that the child she carried might be the solution to the problem. But had she thought that all along, or had she heard his conversation with Fend?

And Leshya and Winna weren’t alone. There was a third set of tracks: Ehawk’s. Leshya was taking them to the valley the same way Aspar had the last time, a long way around that required climbing down a deep gorge of briar trees.

They’d left their trail a day before; Fend was going by a more direct route that would allow horses in. That was how the knight was going, too. With any luck at all, they would actually beat Leshya, Winna, and Ehawk. When Winna entered the valley, the geos ought to lift, and then Aspar could do as he pleased.

By nightfall, with the sound of whippoorwills around him, he no longer was so certain what that would be.

Because he had hope again, as frail and as obstinate as a bracken.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T
HE
P
ROOF OF THE
V
INTAGE

C
AZIO FOUGHT
in a bloody blur, all sense of time lost. His arm was so tired that he’d had no choice but to switch to his left, and when that failed him, he went back to the right, but the rest hadn’t helped it much. His lungs flamed in his chest, and his legs wobbled beneath him. As he clumsily drew Acredo from his latest opponent, he saw another coming. He spun to face the foe and kept spinning, toppling to the bloody earth. The Sefry slashed at him with a curved sword, but Cazio kept rolling, then reversed direction and thrust Acredo out hopefully. The Sefry, probably nearly as tired as he was, obligingly ran onto the point. He slid down the blade and onto Cazio, gasping strange curses before setting off west.

Grunting, Cazio tried to push the dead weight off, but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He summoned the image of Austra, helpless in the carriage, and finally managed to roll the man off and stagger back to his feet, leaning on Acredo just in time to meet five more of the Sefry, who were spreading to surround him.

He heard someone behind him.

“It’s me,” z’Acatto’s voice said.

Cazio couldn’t help a tired grin as the old man’s back came against his.

“We’ll hold each other up,” the mestro said.

From that simple touch, Cazio felt a rush of strength he had no notion still lived in him. Acredo came up, fluid, almost with a life of its own. Steel rang behind him, and Cazio shouted hoarsely, parrying an attack and drilling his rapier through a yellow-eyed warrior.

“Glad I came?” z’Acatto grunted.

“I had the upper hand anyway,” Cazio said. “But I don’t mind the company.”

“That’s not the impression I had.”

Cazio thrust, parried a counter to his arm, and sent his enemy dancing back from his point.

“I sometimes speak too quickly,” Cazio admitted.

The two Sefry he faced came at him together. He bound the blade of the first to strike and ran through the other, then let go of the blade and punched the first man in the face. He reeled back, during which time Cazio withdrew Acredo and set it back to guard.

He heard z’Acatto grunt, and something stung Cazio’s back. He dispatched the staggering Sefry, then turned in time to parry a blow aimed at z’Acatto. The old man thrust into the foe’s belly, and suddenly they were alone. Around them the battle was nearly over, with z’Acatto’s men surrounding a small knot of the remaining Sefry.

Z’Acatto sat down hard, holding his side. Cazio saw blood spurting through his fingers, very dark, nearly black.

“I think,” z’Acatto grunted, “it’s time we drank that wine.”

“Let’s bind you up first,” Cazio said.

“No need for that.”

Cazio got a knife, cut a broad strip from a Sefry shirt, and started wrapping it tightly around z’Acatto’s torso. The wound was a puncture, very deep.

“Just get the damned wine,” the mestro said.

“Where is it?” Cazio asked, feeling the apple in his throat.

“In my saddle pack,” z’Acatto wheezed.

It took Cazio a while to find the horse, which wisely had moved away from the fighting.

He dug one of the bottles of Zo Buso Brato out and then raced back to where his swordmaster still sat waiting. His head was down, and for a moment Cazio thought he was too late, but then the old man lifted his arm, proffering a corkscrew.

“It might be vinegar,” Cazio cautioned, flopping down next to his mentor.

“Might be,” z’Acatto agreed. “I was saving it for when we got back to Vitellio, back to your house.”

“We can still wait.”

“We’ll have the other bottle there.”

“Fair enough,” Cazio agreed.

The cork came out in one piece, which was astonishing, considering its age. Cazio handed it to z’Acatto. The older man took it weakly and smelled it.

“Needs to breathe,” he said. “Ah, well.” He tilted it back and took a sip, eyes closed, and smiled.

“That’s not too bad,” he murmured. “Try it.”

Cazio took the bottle and then hesitantly took a drink.

In an instant the battlefield was gone, and he felt the warm sun of Vitellio, smelled hay and rosemary, wild fennel, black cherry—but underneath that something enigmatic, as indescribable as an ideal sunset. Tears sprang in his eyes, unbidden.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “Perfect. Now I understand why you’ve been trying to find it for so long.”

Z’Acatto’s only answer was the faint smile that remained on his face.

“I’ll tell them I did it,” Mery said. “I’ll tell them you weren’t even here.”

Leoff shook his head and squeezed her shoulder. “No, Mery,” he said. “Don’t do that. It wouldn’t work, anyway.”

“I don’t want them to hurt you again,” she explained.

“They’re not going to hurt him,” Areana promised in a hushed and strained voice.

Yes they are
, he thought.
And they’ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance
.

“Listen,” he began, but then the door opened.

It wasn’t a sacritor standing there or even Sir Ilzereik.

It was Neil MeqVren, Queen Muriele’s bodyguard.

It was like waking up in a strange room and not knowing how you got there. Leoff just stared, rubbing the bent fingers of his right hand on his opposite arm.

“You’re all right?” Neil asked.

Leoff plucked his voice from somewhere. “Sir Neil,” he said cautiously. “There are Hansan knights and warriors about. All over.”

“I know.” The young knight walked over to Areana and cut her bonds, then Leoff’s, and helped him up.

He only glanced at the dead men on the floor, then at Areana’s swollen face.

“Did anyone still living do that, lady?” he softly asked her.

“No,” Areana said.

“And your head, Cavaor?” he asked Leoff.

Leoff gestured at the dead. “It was one of them,” he said.

The knight nodded and seemed satisfied.

“What are you doing here?” Areana asked.

The answer came from an apparition near the door. Her hair was as white as milk, and she was so pale and handsome that at first Leoff thought she might be Saint Wyndoseibh herself, come drifting down from the moon on cobwebs to see them.

“We’ve come to meet Mery,” the White Lady said.

Neil watched the stars appear and listened as the hum and whirr of night sounds rose around him. He sat beneath an arbor, half an arrow shot from the composwer’s cottage.

Muriele was there, too, still wrapped in the linens from Berimund’s hideaway. She’d made most of the trip unceremoniously tied to the back of a horse, but once in Newland, they’d found a small wain for her to lie in state on.

She needed to be buried soon. They hadn’t had any salt to pack her in, and the scent of rot was starting to remark itself.

He noticed a slim shadow approaching.

“May I?” Alis’ voice inquired from the darkness.

He gestured toward a second bench.

“I’ve not much idea what they’re talking about in there,” she said. “But I got us this.” She held up a bottle of something. “Shall we have the wake?”

He searched for something to say, but there was too much in him to let anything come out right. He saw her tilt the bottle up, then down. She dabbed her lips and reached it toward him. He took it and pressed the glass lip against his own, held his breath, and took a mouthful. He almost didn’t manage to swallow it; his mouth told him it was poison and wanted it out.

When he swallowed it, however, his body began to thank him almost immediately.

He took another swallow—it was easier this time—and passed it back to her.

“Do you think it’s true?” he asked. “About Anne?”

“Which? That she slew forty thousand men with shinecraft or that she’s dead?”

“That she’s dead.”

“From what I can tell,” she said, “the news came from Eslen, not from Hansa. I don’t see what anyone there would have to gain from letting such a rumor circulate.”

“Well, that’s a full ship, then,” he said, taking the again proffered bottle and drinking more of the horrible stuff.

“Don’t start that,” Alis chided.

“I was guard to both of them.”

“And you did an amazing job. Without you they would have both been dead months ago.”

“Months ago, now. What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know. Does it make a difference if you live one year or eighty? Most people seem to think so.” She took the bottle and tugged at it hard. “Anyway, if anyone is to blame for Muriele’s death, it’s me. You weren’t her only bodyguard, you know.”

He nodded, starting to feel the tide come up.

“So the question,” Alis said, “is what do you and I do now? I don’t think we’ll be much help to the princess and the composer and Mery in whatever it is they’re doing.”

“I reckon we find Robert,” Neil said.

“And that is
excellent
thinking,” Alis agreed. “How do we do that?”

“Brinna might be able to tell us where he is.”

“Ah, Brinna.” Alis’ voice became more sultry. “Now there’s an interesting subject. You have acquaintances in very interesting places. How is it you two grew so fond of each other so quickly?”

“Fond?”

“Oh, stop it. You don’t seem the woman conqueror on the face of it, but first Fastia, now the princess of Hansa who is also, ne’er you mind, one of the Faiths. That is quite a record.”

“I met her—we had met before,” Neil tried to explain.

“You said you had never been to Kaithbaurg before.”

“And I hadn’t. We met on a ship, in Vitellio. This isn’t the first time she’s run away from Hansa.”

“I don’t blame her,” Alis said. “Why did she go back?”

“She said she had a vision of Anne bringing ruin to the whole world.”

“Well, she was wrong about that, at least.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, if Anne is dead…” She sighed and handed him the bottle. “She was supposed to
save
us, or so I thought before I quit caring. The Faiths told us that.”

“Your order?”

“Yes. The Order of Saint Dare. There’s no point in keeping it secret now.”

“Brinna said that she and the other Faiths had been wrong. That’s all I know.”

He took two drinks.

“Did you know Anne well?” Alis asked.

He took another pull. “I knew her. I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly.”

“I barely knew her. I hardly knew Muriele until last year.”

“I don’t suppose mistresses and wives socialize that much.”

“No. But—” She closed her eyes. “Strong stuff.”

“Yes.”

“She helped me, Sir Neil. She took me in despite what I had been. I try not to love, because there’s nothing but heartbreak in it. But I loved her. I did.”

Her voice only barely quavered, but her face was wet in the moonlight.

“I know,” he said.

She sat that way a moment, staring at the bottle. Then she raised it. “To Robert,” she said. “He killed my king and lover, he killed my queen and friend. So to him, and his legs severed at the hip, and his arms cut from his shoulders, and all buried in different places—” She choked off into a sob.

He took the bottle. “To Robert,” he said, and drank.

The White Lady—Brinna, her name was—looked up from Leoff’s music. “Will this do it?” she asked.

Leoff regarded the strange woman for a moment. He was tired, his head hurt, and what he mostly wanted was to go to bed.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

“Yes, he does,” Mery said.

He shot the girl a warning glance, but she just smiled at him.

“You don’t trust me?” Brinna asked.

“Milady, I don’t know you. I’ve been deceived before—often. It’s been a very long day, and I’m finding it hard to understand why you’re here. We had another visitor, you know, pretending to be a relative of Mery’s, and you remind me a lot of her.”

“That was one of my sisters,” Brinna said. “She might have dissembled about who she was, but everything else she told you is true. Like me, she was a seer. Like me, she knew that if anyone can mend the law of death, it’s you two. I’ve come to help.”

“How can you help?”

“I don’t know, but I felt called here.”

“That’s not too useful,” Leoff said.

Brinna leaned forward a bit. “I broke the law of death,” she said quietly. “I am responsible. Do you understand?”

Leoff exhaled and pushed his hand through his hair, wincing as he touched the sore spot. “No,” he said. “I don’t really understand any of it.”

“It will work,” Mery insisted.

Leoff nodded. “I compose more with my heart than with my head, and my heart says it would work if it could be performed, which it can’t. That’s the problem, you see.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“You read music, yes?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can play the harp and lute. I can sing.”

“Then you notice that there are three voices, yes? The low, the middle, and the high.”

“Not unusual,” she said.

“No. Quite the norm. Except that if you look closely, you’ll see that there are two distinct lines in each voice.”

“I noticed that, too. But I’ve seen that before, too, in the
Armaio
of Roger Hlaivensen, for instance.”

“Very good,” Leoff said. “But here’s the difference. The second lines—the one with the strokes turned down—those have to be sung by…ah, well—by the dead.”

When she didn’t even blink at that, he went on. “The upturned lines are to be sung by the living, and for the piece to be done properly, all the singers must be able to
hear
one another. I can’t imagine any way for that to happen.”

But Mery and Brinna were looking at each other, both with the same odd smile on their faces.

“That’s no problem, is it, Mery?” Brinna said.

“No,” the girl replied.

“How soon can we perform it?” Brinna asked.

“Wait,” Leoff said. “What are you two talking about?”

“The dead can hear us through Mery,” Brinna explained. “You can hear the dead through me. You see? I am the last piece of your puzzle. Now I know why I’m here.”