The Godspeaker Trilogy (129 page)

There was such pain in her face, her eyes, her voice. The knife blade trembled. “Rhian,” he said, “ you queen .”

“I know that,” she said, her gaze still fixed on her knife. “And I remember what you told me in Old Scooton. The dukes are bad men. For Ethrea's sake I must see them thrown down or I'll be a bad queen.”

Rhian was strong, she was a bold strong woman, but at the core of her strength beat a heart that felt so many things. He loved her for it. Would he love her if she was like the empress his mother, joyful at the thought of shedding blood?

I think I would not.

“Rhian has soldiers,” he said gently.

She nodded. “Yes. But the people of those duchies have done no wrong. The dukes' soldiers are blameless too, they but follow their lords. It's the dukes who sin here, against me and my crown.”

“You smite, zho ?”

She glanced at him, her beautiful face grim with purpose. “ Zho .”

He wanted to laugh, he was so pleased. “Good, Rhian.”

“Good? Tcha !” She thrust her blade back into its sheath. “It's not, but I don't have a choice. We have a law in Ethrea. It's not been used in centuries, but it still holds. I can challenge the dukes to judicial combat and prove my right to rule on their bodies. If I defeat them, by law the matter is settled and can never be challenged again.”

He felt his heart thud. “Dukes try to kill Rhian.”

“Yes. Well.” She tried to smile. “It seems you've discovered the flaw in my plan.”

“Alasdair king knows you will do this?”

She stared at the castle walls as though she could see through them to the man she had married. “Not yet.”

And when she told him he would not be pleased. Ethrean men did not see women as warriors.

“Rhian is sure dukes will fight?”

She smiled, unamused. “Pride will prevent them from declining to meet me. If they refuse, even using the excuse that no man of honour would draw steel on a woman, too many would taunt them and say they refused out of fear. Besides…” She shrugged. “These are arrogant men. It won't occur to them they could lose.”

“Rhian could lose.”

She shifted her gaze, her eyes bleakly upon him. “Yes. But I won't. Not with you to teach me. I need your help to prepare, Zandakar. I have no idea how to dance the hotas against men who have trained with longswords.”

He felt the world go still and quiet. “Rhian would let Zandakar out of prison? Trust him with a blade? A sword?”

“If I do, will you swear on Lilit's soul that you can be trusted?”

He held out his hand. “Rhian – your blade.”

After a moment's hesitation she gave it to him. Pushing back the stained and stinking rag of his sleeve, before she could stop him he drew the sharp knife through the meat of his forearm. Pain burned. Bright red blood welled and dripped to the ground.

“ Zandakar !” she shouted, and snatched the knife from his fingers. “Are you mad ?”

It was the cleanest pain he had felt for so long. He watched his blood splatter and pool on the grass. “Blood for Ethrea. Blood for Rhian.” He pressed a clenched fist hard against his heart, pumping his blood to the grass at her feet. “You trust Zandakar.”

“I trust you're a fool ,” she retorted, pulling a kerchief from inside her leather jerkin. “I trust you're a man, and like a man you—”

A shout, and the sound of running feet. He turned and she turned with him, her hand pressing linen against the wound in his arm. His prison guards charged towards them, Evley and the youth named Blay. Their swords glittered in the sunlight and his death was in their faces.

Rhian stepped forward, her hands upheld. “Halt! Halt , I tell you! There's no danger here. Put up your swords and explain yourselves. Evley?”

The guard Evley grabbed at the younger man and they stumbled to a standstill. Their swords remained unsheathed, but pointed to the grass. “Majesty, we heard you shout.”

“And you took that as a command to interrupt my privy business?”

The guard Evley paled. “No, Your Majesty, I—”

“You took it upon yourself to hover in the shadows, as though I were a green girl in need of protection,” Rhian snapped. “You are presumptuous, Evley. Return to the garrison and inform Commander Idson of my displeasure. Blay!”

The young guard flinched. “Majesty,” he whispered.

“Run to Ursa. Tell her I'm bringing her a patient. Well, why are you still standing there? I told you to run !”

The guards withdrew. Zandakar watched Rhian drop to the grass and wipe her knife free of his blood. When it was clean she rose to stare him coldly in the face. “Fool. How could you think I have a care for such pointless grand gestures?”

Her accusation was more painful than the blade-cut. “I swear blood to you, Rhian. My life for your life.”

She shoved her knife back into its sheath. “Yes. But couldn't you have sworn blood to me without bleeding?” She reached for his arm a second time. “Show me.”

Without blood, without pain, his oath would mean nothing. To swear in blood was to swear in the heart.

She is not Mijaki, she cannot know this.

“It'll need stitches,” said Rhian, and roughly bound his forearm with her linen kerchief. “Come. Ursa's waiting.”

She led him into the castle, along many corridors, past shocked staring servants who bowed their heads as he and Rhian approached, then whispered and pointed in their wake. He knew he was filthy, he knew his flesh stank. He knew to these people of Ethrea he was a strange and frightening creature. It did not matter. He was Rhian's creature while she had need of him. He was the god's creature too, though it seemed the god had no need of him at all.

They made their way to the far side of the castle, to a chamber at the end of one short corridor. The corridor's windows showed more gardens and a courtyard and a wagon unloading wooden crates and parcels wrapped in canvas. Rhian pushed the chamber's door open and swept inside. The room was small, lined with wide benches and empty shelves. Shiny metal hooks hung from beams in the ceiling. The centre space was taken up by a large wooden table. Ursa stood behind it, unpacking a crate full of stoppered clay pots. She looked up and nodded, she was not a woman intimidated by power.

“Majesty. I got your message.” Hands on her hips, she shifted her grey gaze. “Zandakar.”

She did not like him, it did not matter. “Ursa.”

The physick frowned at the bloodstained linen round his arm. “I never liked knives. This is what happens when idiots play with knives.”

“He did it on purpose,” said Rhian, and closed the chamber door. “I need him healed enough for swordplay, Ursa.”

Ursa's eyebrows lifted, disapproving. “You've released him?”

“Am I required to explain myself to you?” said Rhian sharply. “Stitch his wound, Ursa. Give him whatever drugs he needs so we can train in the hour before sunset.”

“Hotas,” said Ursa. Her lips thinned, her brows lowered. “Majesty—”

“The answer to my question, Ursa, is no ,” said Rhian. “I am not required to explain myself to you. Do as I've asked.” She turned. “Zandakar, you'll remain here until someone comes for you. When they come, obey their instructions. I'll see you again before dusk.”

He pressed a fist to his heart. “Rhian.”

“Well, well, well,” said Ursa as the door closed behind Rhian. Her eyes were unfriendly, there was no warmth in her. “I thought we'd seen the last of you.”

He shrugged. “Rhian did this, I wei ask.”

“Then Rhian's a fool, and you can tell her I said so.”

“Ursa…” He stood adrift in the chamber as the physick rummaged in her familiar battered leather bag. The sight of it, a reminder of their days on the road, the times she had smiled at him and he had helped with her physicking, the other times she had healed him, those memories made him breathe deeply and sigh. “You live in castle?”

She glanced up. “No. I'm appointed Rhian's royal physick, and so I must keep a chamber here and be ready should she need me. I also take care of the castle staff. But I'm keeping my old practice. Bamfield's got it well in hand, and—” She slapped a hand to the table. “And why I'm telling you this I'm sure I don't know. Give me your arm and let's get this business done with.”

“Ursa,” he said as she physicked him with skill but little tenderness. “Dexterity…”

Fiercely she glared at him. “No. You've done that silly man enough harm already. If I have my way you'll not lay eyes on him again. I thought Rhian had taken care of that, locking you in prison where you belong. Now it seems she's let you out and I'm sure she thinks she knows what she's about. She's queen, she'll do as she does with no nevermind from me. But Jones is all I have of family and you won't get a chance to hurt him again. Not while God's left breath in my body. So you be quiet now and let me stitch this cut, for there's not a thing you can say to me that I have a care to hear.”

He was a man grown, he had no fear of ageing women. Yet in her eyes he saw the fury of Nagarak and it chilled the hot blood seeping from his wound.

“ Yatzhay , Ursa,” he said softly. “Zandakar yatzhay .”

She did not answer, not even to scold him with her eyes. He did as she said, he let her stitch him in silence. Never in his life had someone sewed his flesh like leather. The pain burned, he welcomed it.

Aieee, Dexterity. Are you tasked because of me?

He wanted to ask Ursa, he wanted to know what he had done. But he knew she would not answer. He sat in silence, and wept in his heart.

A
lasdair waited for Rhian in the privy state chamber, where she preferred to conduct matters of the realm in peace and quiet. In the past, tradition had surrounded Ethrea's monarch with the trappings of pomp and ceremony, with attendants and secretaries and under-secretaries and gentlemen of the chamber and any number of hopeful courtiers eager for notice and advancement. King Eberg had lived his royal life in such a bright and busy light. On coming to the capital as his duchy's representative on the council, Alasdair had found such crowding odd and not much to his liking. His father, though Linfoi's duke at that time, had never been one for toadies and flatterers or any kind of retinue. He'd trusted his own judgement, never requiring echoes to convince himself he was right…or as a reminder that he was indeed a duke.

Rhian was like him in that.

And I admire it. Although it might be nice if even once she consulted with me, her husband and king, before making a decision that will affect us both.

Anger burned dull beneath his ribs, lacking only the sight of her to fan it into full flame.

Zandakar.

In the antechamber beyond this small and cosy room waited Ven'Cedwin, ready to transcribe her final letter of appeal and command to the dukes of Hartshorn and Meercheq. He found it hard to comprehend that Kyrin and Damwin could continue so stubborn. Please God Helfred would bring them to a sense of their futility before their defiance led to bloodshed.

But I doubt it.

He'd left the chamber's door open. Through it he heard a sound in the antechamber, the whispered creaking of a hinge, the turning of a handle. Heard Ven'Cedwin get to his feet.

“Your Majesty.”

“Ven'Cedwin?” Rhian sounded distracted, and surprised. “I didn't think you were sent for yet. I'm not ready for the writing of the dukes' letters.”

Alasdair moved from the curtained window to the doorway and looked into the antechamber. “Since this is a matter of urgency, Rhian, I thought it best he be waiting close by. Especially since you are so busy, with other weighty matters on your mind…”

He saw in her face that she realised what he meant. Her eyes, which could burn so warm, lost their light. Lips tightened, jaw set, she nodded. “Indeed.” She turned. “Ven'Cedwin, His Majesty and I have some small matters to discuss before I'll be ready to dictate the dukes' letters. Have you yet broken your midday fast?”

“I have not, Majesty.”

She smiled. “Then by all means excuse yourself to the buttery, and be certain of a hearty meal. One hour should see me ready to begin.” She nodded at his leather box of inks, pens and papers on the floor beside his chair. “Leave your tools here, I'll keep them safe.”

Ven'Cedwin bowed. “Majesty.” Turning, he bowed again. “King Alasdair.”

As the antechamber door closed behind the venerable, Rhian pressed a hand to her eyes. “Don't shout at me, Alasdair. I had no choice.”

“No choice but to let Zandakar out of his cell? How is that, Rhian? What possible use can he be to you now?”

She stared at him, her dulled eyes hurt. “Are you setting spies to watch for me, Alasdair?”

“Don't be stupid,” he snapped. “Did you think no-one would comment as you paraded him through the palace covered in blood?”

“He wasn't covered in blood , he cut his arm. I took him to Ursa.”

“Cut his arm how? Did he attack you? Were you forced to defend yourself?”

With a sigh Rhian dropped into the nearest chair. “No, of course he didn't attack me. If you must know he cut himself, Alasdair. Swearing a blood oath that he'd serve me unto death.”

“Rhian…” Fighting the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake until all her bones rattled, he stepped out of the doorway. “A queen can't afford sentiment . The man is an enemy. Rollin save us, he's the son of the woman bent on our destruction!”

“Zandakar's not responsible for his mother and brother,” she replied. “Any more than Helfred was responsible for his uncle. We are born as we're born, Alasdair. What counts is what we do, not how our relatives conduct themselves. Should Ludo run amok in Linfoi tomorrow, am I supposed to hold you accountable?”

The idea of Ludo running amok almost made him smile; the weight of a ducal chain had anchored his cousin almost to immobility. But I have no doubt the shock of it will wear off. I should see him married soon, to complete his unlikely transformation . “No. Of course not.”

“Well, then,” said Rhian, as though the matter were settled.

“Rhian, Ludo is not Zandakar and you know it,” he replied, forcing a mildness he did not feel. “For one thing, Ludo's never killed a man in his life while Zandakar—”

“Has killed thousands, I know ,” said Rhian, allowing temper free rein. “There's no need to remind me. Alasdair, it's because he's killed that I need him now.”