by Karen Miller
Sword sheathed by her side, she returned his salute. “Zandakar—” She bit her lip. “I won't see you again until this is over. Thank you.”
He bowed his head. “Rhian is welcome.”
As she walked from the tiltyard those watching her began to applaud. Hands clapped, feet stamped, a few voices called out.
“God bless Her Majesty! God bless our warrior queen!”
She felt tired, yet triumphant. Afraid, yet strangely at peace. She acknowledged her enthusiastic people with a smile, then beckoned to Ursa.
“See to Zandakar. I hurt him.”
Ursa frowned. “I should see to you—”
“He barely touched me, Ursa. See to Zandakar,” she said again. “How else can I reward him?”
As Ursa withdrew, unhappy, Alasdair joined her. Leaving the chattering, excited crowd behind they walked towards the nearest castle entrance. Off to the right, castle servants put the finishing touches to the raised timber gallery of seats for the guests invited to witness the next day's judicial combat. Hammers banged. Workers shouted. Groundsmen prowled the lawn with heavy rollers, flattening the turf so a combatant might not trip on a tussock and so present his or her throat to a sword by mistake.
“Kyrin, Damwin and their retinues have arrived in Kingseat,” Alasdair told her quietly. “Word came while you were training.”
A mingling of sweat and blood trickled down her face. Zandakar's longsword had nicked her left cheekbone; she could feel the puffy swelling round the cut. “Do they lodge separately or together?”
“Separately. Damwin's in his township residence. Kyrin's with his cousin, Hadin.”
She nodded. “Very well. Can you see a herald is sent to them, with strict instructions for the morrow?”
“Of course.” His fingers brushed her leather-sleeved arm. “You wish to be alone now?”
Desperately. The thought of what she'd soon face was overwhelming. She made herself smile at him. “I'm sorry. I do.”
“Bathe. Rest. We'll share a quiet supper,” he said. “Then an early night.”
She closed her fingers round his wrist and held on tight, just for a moment. “That sounds perfect.”
And it was, in its peaceful way. They dined privily, no servants attending, no other company but their own. Spoke not a word about Mijak, or Zandakar, or the dukes, and how she must defeat them. Instead they spoke of the future, of a royal progress around Ethrea, of sailing to other lands and seeing things wild and new. And then, dinner consumed, they retired to bed and consumed each other. Haunted but not speaking the truth: tonight might be our last .
But afterwards, though Alasdair slept, Rhian stared at the ceiling. Sleep eluded her. Fears crowded in. So she slipped unnoticed from their bed, pulled on a linen shirt and woollen hose, slid her shortsword from its sheath and padded barefoot to the castle's Long Gallery where she could settle her nerves with one last dance. The castle guards bowed when they saw her. Alasdair insisted they patrol the castle corridors, fearing the dukes might attempt to emulate Marlan and send a murdering dagger against her. She wasn't worried, but surrendered to his fears. It was easier than arguing.
Feet and hands thudding on the gallery's parquetry floor, her breathing steady and rhythmical, she danced the hotas in candlelight and silence, through shadows and soft flame. With their forms and discipline now second nature, she found her thoughts drifting towards her dead father.
Papa, can you see me? Could you see me in the tiltyard? It appears I've become a warrior queen…
The thought was enough to make her smile, even though fear gibbered and nibbled around her edges. Warrior queen . Ranald and Simon would laugh themselves blue-faced at the notion.
If I weren't so frightened I might laugh at it myself. By this time tomorrow I could be dead…
She'd already signed her writ of succession, naming Alasdair Ethrea's king without encumbrance. The privy council and Helfred had witnessed her declaration, and her prolate now held it safe in Church keeping.
By this time tomorrow…
Shaking herself free of such unhelpful morbid fancies, she blotted sweat from her face and prepared for another tumbling pass down the gallery. It would have to be the last one. She was exhausted, and the next day would start hideously early with a full Litany in the castle's chapel. She had no hope of evading it. Try, and she'd turn Helfred into a warrior prolate.
Rollin save me. There's a dreadful thought.
Tumble…leap…cartwheel…stab here…slash there…hamstrings – elbows – belly – throat – another leap…and another…with Zandakar's impatient voice ringing in her ears.
Rhian wei defend. Rhian defend, Rhian die. Attack, attack, like striking snake, attack. Speed, Rhian. Wei time duke touch you. Faster. Faster. Cut him. Duke die.
It was the heart of the hotas : no defence. Attacking only, with blinding speed and ruthless disregard for self. As a creed it called to something within her, released some inner wildness, unshackled a part of her that until she met Zandakar she'd only ever glimpsed.
A part of her that Alasdair didn't understand.
Reaching the end of the gallery she plundered the last of her physical reserves and danced all the way back again, punishing herself, pushing herself to her scarlet limit and beyond. There was pain, she ignored it. Lungs and muscles burned, she let them. Blinded by sweat, deafened by the waterfall thunder of blood through her veins, she reached for the dregs of her strength and poured them into the hotas .
Her last lethal cartwheel ended with her dropping to the floor, first to knees, then to hands, her shortsword clattering disregarded beside her. Head hanging, sweat pooling on the polished parquetry, she gasped and sobbed and prayed she was good enough to prevail. Good enough not to die.
When she looked up, Emperor Han stood before her.
CHAPTER SIX
He nodded, almost a bow. “Your Majesty.” “ Han …” She sat back on her heels, panting, too perplexed to feel angry. “If I tell you to stop doing this I don't suppose you'll oblige?”
As before, the emperor's long black hair was pulled back from his marvellous face. Instead of black silk he wore multi-coloured brocade, gold and crimson and emerald and blue. Silver thread sparkled in the waning candlelight. His dark eyes were hooded, something unreadable in their depths.
“What is that fighting style called, that you do?”
Games, games. Always games with the Tzhung . Letting her hands rest comfortably on her thighs, she shrugged. “Hotas.”
“Mijaki?”
“That's right.”
“And you think to defeat your dukes with the warfare of Mijak?”
Another shrug. “I think it's the only kind of warfare I know. My father never taught me how to wield a longsword.”
Han smiled. She noticed for the first time his white teeth were slightly crooked. “The quaint customs of Ethrea,” he said, faintly insulting. “No army to speak of, yet your noblemen play with their longswords and dream of the dead days killed by your holy man Rollin.”
“Would you rather we had killed each other instead?” she countered, then frowned. “Yes. Of course you would. Then Tzhung-tzhungchai could've overrun this island as it's overrun so many other helpless lands. I wonder if that's not what you're hoping for now. I wonder if you expect me to die tomorrow, so you can consume Ethrea like a pickled egg.”
If Han was surprised by her acumen, or affronted by her accusation, if he felt anything at all, it was impossible to say. His amber face was untouched by emotion, his eyes flat and black. He regarded her steadily, no tension to be seen in his lean, elegant body. “Do you think you will die, Majesty?”
Her shortsword was within easy grasp, but if she reached for it she'd give him something she never wanted him to have. “No.”
This time he laughed. The sound was shockingly pleasant. “Brave Queen of Ethrea, your God chose well when he chose you.”
Calling upon every discipline Zandakar had instilled in her, she rose in a smooth single moti
on to her feet. The shortsword stayed on the ground but she still had a dagger strapped to her hip.
I'm tired of his games. I'm bored by men thinking I'm the pawn on their chess board.
“What do you want, Han? Why do you keep coming here?”
His eyebrows lifted, as though she'd asked a silly question. As though the answers should be obvious. “Curiosity, Rhian. I wanted to know how you fared, the night before your fateful encounters.”
“I'm touched,” she said, letting a little of insult show in her own voice. “And I can't help but notice you failed to answer my previous question.”
“Do I think you'll die?” His eyes widened. “Of course. All mortals die, Rhian. Some sooner than others, some smiling, some with a scream. But they all die.”
She looked at him in silence. They , he'd said. Not we . And what did that mean? He's trying to unsettle me. He thinks I can be twisted round his fingers like a strand of silk .
“Do you think I'll die tomorrow?”
Han clasped his hands placidly before him. “Sun-dao has asked the wind that very question.”
“And did the wind answer him?”
“The wind always answers Sun-dao.”
She felt her heart thud. Don't ask, don't ask …but she couldn't help herself. “What did it say?”
Instead of answering, Han unclasped his hands and reached out to the nearest tall candle in its wrought-iron holder. The mellow flame flared blue. Leapt from its wick to the tip of his finger where it danced like a firefly. Like magic. Like sorcery. Rhian stared, her heart pounding.
I thought such things were nursery tales and superstition. And then I met this emperor and his witch-men and now I'm not so sure.
She smiled. “Very clever. Might I invite you to the next birthday gathering of my flower children? I can't imagine a better entertainment.”
Han's smile this time was less attractive. Was it her imagination or did she feel a whisper of cold air stroking her skin?
“If I tell you the wind says you will die, Rhian, perhaps you will stay in your bed and not fight,” he said softly. “That would not bode well for the world. If I tell you the wind says you will live, perhaps you will laugh at these dukes instead of minding your sword strokes. Perhaps then they will stab you and not the desired reverse.”
She felt a flutter of heat in the pit of her stomach. This is my castle. Mine. And you weren't invited . “Have you come to taunt me with riddles and half-truths?”
For the first time since they'd met, she sensed disquiet in him. A baffled irritation that not even his formidable self-control could stifle.
“You are the riddle here, Rhian. I am the emperor of an ancient people, master of more lives than you can know. Men breathe for my pleasure…” He pinched his fingers together and the dancing blue flame was extinguished. “Men die on my whim. What are you by comparison? A little girl in wool and linen, amusing herself with the tricks of a barbarian race, a race that drinks blood, bathes in blood, will turn the seas to blood if the wind cannot blow them back behind their deserts.”
She refused to be intimidated by this man. “I must be something more than a little girl, Han, if the wind blows in my direction and not yours.”
His face turned ugly then, just for an instant. Beneath the smooth urbanity roiled such resentment. “Sun-dao says this is so.” He smiled, his eyes savage. “Sun-dao says many things.”
She lifted her chin. “I'm not Tzhung, Emperor Han. I have no care for what some tricksy man claims to hear in a passing breeze.”
“So you say, little queen,” said Emperor Han. “I wonder if you will say the same once the wind has finished blowing through your stone castle and into every Ethrean life.”
A sudden gust of air swirled the length of the gallery. It snuffed out the candles, plunging her into darkness. But she didn't need light to know that Emperor Han was gone.
Trembling, and resenting that, she picked up her shortsword. She was far too weary to sharpen and polish it now, and that wasn't a task she wished to pass to the armoury. Before she led her court to hear Litany in the morning she would tend her sword. It would do her good. The task was like a meditation, calming and helping her to focus.
And God knows I need focus. I need faith that God hasn't made a mistake.
Carrying her shortsword she left the Long Gallery. The guards waiting outside leapt to attention as she emerged. She bade them good night and returned to her apartments, uncomfortably aware that they trailed her discreetly. Oh, how she resented that. Resented being hemmed about, considered unsafe in her own home.
Alasdair was awake and waiting for her, a lamp lit, his eyes so troubled. “Are you mad?”
Carefully she laid her sword on their chamber's padded settle and began the limbering stretches she would have done had Han not imposed himself upon her. Her cooled muscles creaked and groaned in protest. “I couldn't sleep.”
“Then you should've asked for a soothing tea,” he retorted. “ Look at you, Rhian. You're so used up you can barely stand. You were awake before cock crow and it's past midnight now. In scant hours you face Kyrin and Damwin. You should've spent the afternoon resting but no, you had to train another session with Zandakar. And now you're training again ?”
“Not for very long,” she protested. “I told you, I couldn't sleep. Dancing the hotas settles my mind.”
“You could've woken me. We could've—”
“Both suffered my restlessness? That's not the act of a loving wife.”
He sighed. Smiled. Reached out his hand. “Come to bed. You need to sleep.” In his eyes, the dreadful words still unspoken. This could be our last night. Come to bed. Come to me .
She stripped off her shirt and hose and joined him beneath the covers. Lost a little more sleep soon after…but considered the sacrifice well made.
Late the next morning, after preparing her shortsword in the armoury and enduring Helfred's well-meant sermonising, she stood naked in her chamber and watched as Dinsy fussed over the clothing made specially for this occasion.
Dinsy was the only personal servant she'd recalled after taking back her castle from Marlan. The other ladies-in-waiting, sent home during the recent upheavals, remained with their families. She'd have to bring back some of them at least, for politics' sake, but for now she had neither desire nor need for female fripperies about her. No intelligent woman required fourteen other women to help her through the day. Dinsy was enough…and at times like this more than enough.
“Deary me, Majesty,” Dinsy fretted. “I don't know what your dear mother would say and that's a fact. I can't think that outlandish costume's proper. You should be in a dress. You're a queen , Majesty, not a huntsman .”
She shook her head. “Wrong, Dinsy. Today I'm both.”
The doublet and leggings were of thin, supple black leather, cut and stitched to fit her form and move with her like an extra skin. No braiding, no jewelling, no ornamentation of any kind. Only her House badge on the doublet's left breast, above her heart: the triple pointed gold crown, threaded round with a spray of snowdrops, pierced by a single blood-red rose.
On seeing that Alasdair had frowned. “ What, you think you should present the dukes with a target? ”
But this was no fencing match, where a foil might pierce with exquisite precision. The dukes with their longswords would strive to cut off her head.
Of course, my crown makes that a target too.
Although today that was a simple, slender gold circlet laced with sapphires, rubies and amethysts: her royal colours. One of her mother's dragon-eye ruby earrings had been unset from its hook and strung on a gold chain. She'd wear it round her neck, beneath a white silk shirt and the black leather doublet. On her right forefinger her father's personal ring, heavy gold set with a cabochon emerald. In her left ear, Ranald's favourite pearl-and-pewter stud. On the little finger of her left hand, Simon's majority ring: obsidian carved with a stooping falcon.
My family, dancing into battle with me.
Though mollified, Dinsy was tut-tutting under her breath. “Well, Your Majesty, I suppose if you must fight these dreadful dukes you can't do it properly in a dress.”
“No, I really can't.”
“No,” said Dinsy, mournful. Then her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Majesty,” she whispered. “This is dreadful. I'm so afraid for you.”
Not as afraid as I am for myself . She clasped Dinsy's hand and squeezed it, briefly. “There's no need to be. I'm well trained. My cause is just. Right will prevail, you can depend upon that.”
Dinsy gulped. “Yes, Majesty.”
“ Yes . Now help me dress, for pity's sake, before I catch cold.”
Dexterity knew, of course he knew, the importance of this day. How could he not, with all his neighbours a-twitter? With the air of Kingseat itself flying thick with rumour? Rhian intends to slay Damwin and Kyrin both…no, no, she's going to offer them exile…no, no, life in prison…no, no, the crown.
As if she'd offer one of them her crown, after all we went through together to win it.
Other, darker whispers spread less harmless gossip. He'd heard them in the harbour tavern where once he'd drunk a slow pint of cider in a dark corner, a shapeless hat pulled low to shade his eyes and hide his face. She's in league with the Tzhung emperor, wasn't he seen at the palace? She's thrown in with foreign sorcerers, you saw that man with blue hair. You heard what happened to Marlan. Wasn't there a toymaker? What was his name? Something peculiar happened to him, didn't it?
“Jones!” a familiar voice called. “Jones, are you out here?”
Surprised, Dexterity thrust aside his disturbing thoughts, put down the puppet's arm he was whittling and sat back on his bench beneath the hasaba tree. With summer drawing to an end its scented blossoms were spent, their petals drifted to the ground.
“Here, Ursa,” he replied. “At the bottom of the garden.”
She stumped through the unkempt grass towards him, remarkably well-dressed for her. But of course she would be, today of all days. She was Rhian's royal physick now. She'd be on show with the rest of the court. She'd be needed, surely, given what was about to happen. He felt his mouth dry and his palms slick with sweat, thinking of it.