The Queen of Mages (15 page)

A slight lessening of the stench was Amira’s
first hint that the river was near. Her world had shrunk to an
endless series of pitch-black sewer tunnels, permeated by the smell
of decaying vegetables, rancid grease, and worst of all human
waste. Her stolen servant’s dress was soaked with muck and
filth.

The endless dark was relieved only
occasionally by morning light slanting down from the public drains.
Twice she’d almost had nightsoil dumped on her head as she passed
under one. She kept her hand on the wall, following the flow
downstream toward the Brinemoor, and tried to ignore the skittering
and squeaking she heard from time to time.
Rats. Just think of
them as large mice.

Her strength had begun to flag. She was
terrified that she’d pass out and drown in the sewage. But the
scent of the river gave her a surge of energy.

A pale blue dot grew in the distance. The
sound of the river echoed up the tunnel toward her, the sweetest
sound she’d ever heard. The dot grew into a circle, and finally she
stood at the lip of the drain. The waste spilled down a few feet
into the river itself. Compared to the first drop, back at the
palace, this would be easy.

She plunged in. Her body stiffened with
shock at the water’s chill, and when she surfaced, she gasped and
swam to a stone quay at the water’s edge. With a final push,
muscles aching, she heaved herself onto the quay. She spent several
long minutes gulping down air, savoring the river’s relatively
clean smell.

She had to get home. Would Edon have guards
searching the city for her? Well, she’d find out sooner or later.
She looked down at the patch sewn on the breast, the silver eagle
with its flaming talons. She’d already attract attention, wet and
filthy as she was, but with the royal sigil it would be even worse.
She pulled and picked at the thread until it came loose, and threw
the patch into the river.

There was plenty of traffic on the docks,
longshoremen and porters and sailors swarming over the piers where
ships had put in. A few of them wrinkled their noses as they passed
her, staring at her rumpled hair and grimy dress, but she ignored
them; she wanted nothing more than to be home safe.

She went north past the docks and their
warehouses, past the hostels, brothels, malthouses, and gambling
dens that catered to sailors. Past the homes of the poor, mean
tenements occupied by a dozen families. She wanted to tell them all
what a monster Prince Edon was.

Further north, where the homes and shops
grew less shoddy, Amira came to a low brick wall, barely taller
than her. A strong man could climb it with ease. It stretched off
in a curve to either side, and Amira realized this must be the wall
of Ulisharran, the headquarters of the Niderium. She could see one
of its spires peeking over the wall. Perhaps that was the legendary
Temple of Aendavar. Or it could be something else entirely. She’d
never paid much attention to the Niderium itself, as much as she
loved praying at her local temple.

She followed the wall, and her heart leapt
when she came to the Way of Trade. Amira kept her head down and
went north with the flow, staying out of the way of coaches and men
ahorse, cargo wagons and city constables watching for trouble.

The sun was near its peak by the time she
reached the Grainway. She made it to Willbury Street, hoping that
none of the local shopkeepers would recognize her as she passed, if
they managed to look past her filthy dress to recognize the lady
they’d all seen before.

None of them did. She turned onto Willbury
Street, leaving the noise and traffic of the Grainway behind. Two
ladies and their
valai
were out for a stroll; she recognized
one of them as a neighbor of hers, but they pointedly ignored the
soiled servant girl. Amira moved steadily along past the maples
until she stood across the street from her manse. No one was
outside, but next door, before the Tarians’ manse, stood a large,
ornate coach, a driver, and two guards.

It took Amira a moment to realize that the
guards wore cloaks checked purple and blue, and the coach’s side
bore the eagle of House Relindos.
They came for us.

She wanted to scream, to run, and thought to
hide in the stables, when the door to Amira’s own manse opened and
Liam and Katin came out. Amira gasped and began to call to them,
but then bit her tongue. No, this time she would not be impulsive.
She waited to see what the
valai
did.

They walked next door, right up to the
guards! The taller of the two guards stopped them for just a
moment, exchanging a few words before letting the
valai
pass
inside.

If Katin is not afraid of a royal
coach…
What was going on in there?
Who
was in there? She
had to know.

She trembled as she put one foot before the
other.
Am I putting myself into their clutches again?
she
wondered. The guards would stop her, wouldn’t they? And they did,
when they noticed her aiming for the Tarians’ front door.

“Halt,” one of them said, holding a hand up
and scowling at her filthy dress. “What business have you
here?”

“I—I was sent on an errand for Countess
Besiana Tarian,” she said, trying to sound small and harmless.

The guard peered at her. “What’s your
name?”

“Miss—Marks,” she said. Marks was her maiden
name.

The guard who’d questioned her glanced at
the other, who shrugged. The first guard went inside, and returned
a minute later—with Katin. Amira’s
vala
nearly shoved the
man aside to get a look. Her face went white. She grabbed Amira’s
arm and dragged her inside at once.

Two more royal guards lurked in the entry,
but Katin ignored them. “Where on earth have you been!” she cried,
throwing her arms around Amira, who returned the embrace. They both
burst into tears, but Katin quickly wiped her face with a sleeve
and stepped back to look at her lady. “No one knew where you were.
The queen said—oh dear—”

Amira gasped. “The
queen
is here?
Why?” Aside from perhaps Prince Luka, she could not think of a less
threatening member of the royal family.
Better her than Edon
come to visit.

“To apologize, I gather. On behalf of her
son. Liam just came to get me.” She looked down at Amira’s filthy,
unfamiliar dress. “I think you have a tale for us as well,” she
muttered.

“Wait.” Amira grabbed Katin’s wrist and
pulled her toward the stairs, away from where the queen’s guards
might overhear. “What did Edon ask you about?”

Katin glanced around, double-checking that
no one was close enough to hear. “About your power,” she whispered.
“Not in so many words. He asked if you were strange in any way. I
said nothing. He asked Dardan and Liam the same thing, but of
course they had no clue what he was talking about. What
happened
to you?”

“Time for that later. Let’s go meet the
queen.”

“Like that? You look like you fell into a
sewer!”

“I did,” Amira smirked. “The story will ring
truer if I’ve got the smell to prove it. Come on.” Against Katin’s
protests, she strode into the sitting room.

Besiana and Dardan sat together on one of
the long couches. Liam was propped against the wall behind his
master as usual. Besiana’s
vala
sat in a chair nearby, and a
lady with golden curls sat with her back to the door, with an
unfamiliar dark-haired woman at her side. Four more royal guards
lurked around the edges of the room.

Dardan glanced up when he saw them enter,
looked back down for a moment, then shot to his feet, eyes wide
open. “Lady Amira!” he shouted. His mother gasped, holding a hand
to her breast, and the golden-haired woman turned around in her
chair to look. “Where?” she said, casting about for a lady and
seeing only two servants. It was Queen Alise.

Amira fell to her knee. “Your majesty,” she
squeaked down at the carpet.

“Please, rise, my lady,” the queen said. Her
voice was musical, full of life and vigor. Amira had never felt
half so common as she did now. This was a woman who clearly knew
what power she commanded. Amira stood up and met the queen’s
eyes.

They were the same brown pools she’d seen at
the receiving line, but now she was much closer, and the wrinkles
at their corners were more apparent. The queen was not beautiful,
but motherly, and at once Amira wanted to curl up in her lap like a
child. Then she made the mistake of picturing this, and a laugh
erupted from her lips. She covered her mouth and winced. “My
apologies, your majesty, everyone. I have had the most dreadful
day.”

The queen stood up. “My lady Amira. You have
endured much, and on behalf of the royal house of Relindos, I
apologize for what transpired yesterday. We have part of the story,
and I believe your friends here are much intrigued about what
happened to you, as am I. Please, sit.” She gestured at an empty
chair. The dark-haired woman beside her was obviously her
vala
, with a spine and a face so full of iron that Amira was
terrified of her at once. But the woman did not stare; her eyes
moved about constantly, as if searching.

Bertram, the house major, squealed in
protest when Amira made to sit on a silk-upholstered chair with her
soiled dress. He bade her wait while he fetched a towel and lay it
on the seat. Amira wondered if the queen would be annoyed at the
delay, but that smile stayed ever on her lips.

Amira looked around. She wanted to tell her
story, especially to tell Katin where she had been, but she felt
overwhelmed by the crowd. “Ma’am, the—the guards?” she whispered to
the queen.

Alise smiled and nodded in understanding. “I
believe I shall be safe if left alone with our friends here,” she
said over her shoulder. The man nearest the door nodded and led the
other guards out into the foyer.

Once they were gone, Amira began her tale,
but she could not relate what had really happened with the prince.
Instead she said, haltingly, “He said… he accused me of hiring a
witch to cast a spell on him… to make him fall in love with me.” It
sounded absurd, and she blushed from the telling of it, but he
had
called her a witch. Sort of. Maybe he believed in that
sort of thing, hedge witches and magic potions and such.
The
idea doesn’t sound as absurd as it used to.
Queen Alise’s
eyebrows went up, but she said nothing.

Amira let out a sob, only half-feigned, when
she said that he had subsequently attacked her and tried to tear
off her clothes. She had to elide everything about her ember, of
course, and only Katin looked at her askance when she said that
she’d thrown a burning candle at Edon’s face, splashing hot wax
onto him. The prince’s shout had brought Sir Thoriss running, but
he’d burst into the room just as she was running from it, and Amira
said she’d unintentionally knocked him down. From then on, the
story stayed true. Her flight through the servants’ ways, the
laundry and the linen closet, skulking about after dark. Besiana
squeaked in horror when Amira described her descent into the
sewers. Dardan ground his teeth the whole time and dug his
fingernails into the couch’s armrest. The queen nodded and
encouraged Amira to go on when she faltered.

Finally her story came to its end, and
everyone was silent for a moment. “You are a remarkable young
lady,” the queen said at last. “I am sad to inform you that Sir
Thoriss was found dead, however.”

Fear washed over Amira for a moment, but the
queen’s eyes did not seem accusing. “How?” Amira asked after long
moments of silence, pretending not to know. “How did he die, I
mean?”

“I do not know,” the queen admitted. “He had
bled from his ears, but there was no other visible injury, so his
majesty the king told me. I did not see him myself.” Her eyes
sparkled at that, but Amira did not know what to make of it.

Amira put her hand over her mouth for a
moment. “I don’t—I couldn’t have done that, could I? I just
collided with him, I thought he fell, but…” She sobbed once, and
bit her hand to make herself stop. She could feign any emotion if
she had to, but the grief and regret were real.

The queen clucked. “Now, now, dear, no one
can rightly blame you for what happened in there. Perhaps Sir
Thoriss hit his head on the wall as he fell, in just the wrong
way.”

“I’ve seen men fall from a galloping horse,”
Dardan interjected, startling Amira, “and rise unharmed, while
others trip over their feet, hit their head on soft earth, and die
from it.” He stared at her, looking a mix of miserable and
relieved.

“Just so,” the queen agreed. “We may never
know what truly happened. But that is behind us, and cannot be
changed. The important thing is that Prince Edon has departed the
city for some time.” Her eyes narrowed. “And so must you.”

Amira blinked. “Ma’am? I don’t
understand.”

Alise turned her head slightly and locked
eyes with Besiana. The countess sat up straighter and cleared her
throat, looking over at Amira. “Rumors fly around the city with
blinding speed. I don’t know
where
they come from. But alas,
though all here know that you are completely blameless in this
whole affair, it would be best if you spent some time out of the
web, so to speak. Soon enough some other scandal shall arise, and
this one shall be forgotten.” She hesitated for a moment and
cleared her throat again. “Unless you have a country estate I’m
unaware of, we would be honored to host you at our manor in
Hedenham County, the seat of House Tarian.”

“What?” Dardan asked, startled. Amira tried
not to glare at Besiana. The countess had played this very well;
Amira would be in unavoidable proximity to her son for an extended
period. She gained a small measure of respect for the countess.