The Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

  As they broke for refreshments, waiting for Ven'Cedwin and his clerks to return with the copies of the new treaty to be signed, she took Han aside.

  “Your witch-men are ready?”

  He nodded. “Even now, those I can spare from Tzhung-tzhungchai ride the wind to Ethrea. In the morning they will do their part against Mijak.”

  She wished she could embrace him. “Thank you, Han.”

  “There's no debt,” he said. “You're the only one who could unite the trading nations.”

  It was reassuring, and frightening, to hear him say it. Somehow the support of Tzhung-tzhungchai increased her burden, instead of easing it.

  Ven'Cedwin returned then, and the three great trading nations signed the new treaty. The council of war ended with an agreement to resume again at first light – when Han's witch-men would join them, and the hard work would truly begin.

  Once she and her council were alone, she at last let a little of her weariness show.

  “So, gentlemen,” she said. “Here we stand. Prolate Helfred, it's time for your venerables and chaplains to preach courage in the face of terror. Alasdair, my lord dukes, the garrisons must be told the truth now too, and recruiting among the duchies undertaken. Those soldiers you've selected for personal training by Zandakar must be brought to the castle within the next two days. I take it plans for converting our grounds to a barracks are in hand?”

  “They're completed,” said Alasdair. “Work can commence immediately.”

  “See it done. Zandakar—”

  “Rhian hushla .”

  “You're ready to begin this intensive training?”

  He nodded. “ Zho .”

  “Dexterity—”

  “Majesty?”

  She smiled at him, even though the pain in her face was now ferocious. “I have a special task for you. It's past time Zandakar was made fluent in Ethrean. Most of us understand him well enough but with what we'll soon be facing, well enough won't be good enough.”

  Dexterity nodded. “Yes, Majesty.”

  She looked at Zandakar. “He will train you to speak Ethrean as you have trained me in the hotas, zho ? And when you're not training your tongue, or my soldiers, you and I will dance?”

  “ Zho ,” said Zandakar. “We will dance.”

  She looked around the table. “Are there any questions?”

  No. Not even Adric had anything to say. Helfred and her dukes were subdued. Stunned, even, that after so much talking the time for action had arrived.

  “Come,” said Alasdair, his fingers warm around her wrist. “You need rest, and one of Ursa's potions.”

  Even if she'd wanted to argue, she was too tired. They left the ballroom together, returned to their apartments, and she let sleep claim her for too short a while.

  That night she and Alasdair went to Litany in Kingseat's great chapel. She wore her leathers again which Dinsy, cursing, had cleaned of the blood spilled upon them from her cut face. The people of Kingseat murmured to see her martial attire, and the two neatly stitched wounds in her face.

  Helfred's sermon that night was taken from Admonition 12: God in his greatness places great burdens upon us. Trust in his mercy and be brave in the face of all dangers . When he was finished, he addressed the congregation.

  “Good people of Kingseat, this night shall our sovereign queen complete our sermon, with solemn speech and a dire prediction.”

  Startled, Rhian looked up at him. “Prolate—”

  He stepped down from his pulpit, leaving her no choice.

  The faces of her people, so innocent and trusting, looked up at her from the great chapel's pews. The chapel was crowded, with many folk standing round the walls and by its closed doors.

  “People of Kingseat,” she said, her voice slurred a little from weariness and pain. “It has of late come to the crown's attention that a darkness rises against us in the east. A nation known as Mijak, hidden for many lifetimes, has stirred from its slumber and bends its dread gaze upon Ethrea. Already nations have fallen to its ravages. Thousands are slain. Thousands more are enslaved. But we must not despair. An armada is being gathered, that will sail out to meet the warriors of Mijak and, with God's grace, destroy them before they set one foot on Ethrean soil.”

  She paused, to give the congregation time to consider her words. The discipline of the chapel surrendered to murmurs, exclamations, cries of fear and anger. She raised her hands.

  “I know you're frightened. I don't scorn to tell you, when first I learned of this I was frightened too. But Ethrea does not stand alone. The trading nations stand with us. They are pledged to our defence, sworn to fight by our side. Emperor Han himself, of mysterious Tzhung-tzhungchai, has pledged the might of his great empire to aid us. I tell you again, we are not alone . With friends such as these, and God's merciful grace, Ethrea will prevail in this dark hour.”

  “God bless Queen Rhian!” a voice cried from the congregation. “God bless the trading nations and even Tzhung-tzhungchai!”

  The cry was taken up around the great chapel. Shod feet drummed the stone floor. Moved almost to tears, Rhian let her people shout, let them loose their emotions in what Helfred must surely deem a disrespectful display. Glancing at him, though, she was surprised to see him smiling. Alasdair was smiling too, though there was pain in his eyes.

  She raised her hands, again calling for calm. When most of the voices had subsided, she took a deep breath and released it, slowly.

  “You see I have come to this chapel dressed not like a queen, but a huntsman,” she said. “In truth, I'm become both. I am your huntsman queen of Ethrea, determined to defend you to the length of my life. And now it falls upon me to ask of you a dreadful promise. I am your queen, it's true, but I am also one woman. I must ask every woman here to become a huntsman queen. Queen of your home, queen of your family. Ready to stand and fight for what is yours. And every man here, you must be a King Alasdair. Sworn to stand by your queen, sworn to fight and die for her, and for Ethrea, and for every soul you know and even those you never met. In this chapel tonight there are friends, and there are enemies. People who live in your hearts and people who don't. I say to you now: every Ethrean is your friend. Every Ethrean is your family . Let the past be the past. We must preserve the future.”

  They leapt to their feet, her people, her subjects, the sound of their voices like a cresting wave. She stood dazed in the pulpit, her face hurting, her heart full of fear and love.

  “Well done,” said Helfred as she joined him. “God inspired you.”

  “My people inspired me,” she said, then relented. “And yes. God, too.”

  “The word has gone out,” he said, lowering his voice. “Starting tonight every chapel in Ethrea calls your people to war.”

  An icy shudder ran through her. “Oh, God. I so hoped this day wouldn't come.”

  He touched her arm, lightly. “So did I, Rhian.”

  She returned to Alasdair, who took her hand and squeezed it very hard. “Well said.”

  She sighed, even as the congregation continued to shout and cry praise. “I hope so. My simple words must lift a kingdom, and give them courage for the days ahead.”

  It took so long to leave the chapel she was nearly babbling with exhaustion by the time they reached their carriage. She dozed all the way back to the castle, her head on Alasdair's shoulder. Somehow she walked up the stairs, along the corridors and through the doors of their privy apartments. Then she surrendered, and let him carry her to bed.

  On the newsun she led her warhost from Jatharuj, Hekat dressed in her most threadbare linen training tunic. She laced sandals on her feet, she stitched more amulets and godbells into her godbraids. Godbells for singing, amulets for the god. Her hair was so heavy she could barely lift her head. Its weight hurt her, she did not care.

  I lead the god into the world.

  Vortka and Dmitrak walked with her to the harbour. Vortka wore a plain godspeaker robe, like herself he did not need clothes to shout his importance.
Jatharuj knew Hekat, Jatharuj knew the high godspeaker. It knew Dmitrak warlord but still he had to shout. He wore linen and leather, he wore gold and bronze ornaments. He wore gold in his godbraids, he wore precious stones.

  Tcha, Dmitrak. I want Zandakar. I will find him in the world.

  Not every warrior in Icthia would sail with her, she had more warriors than warships to carry them. The warriors not chosen would stay behind in Icthia, they would fight for the god in Icthia if the god's enemies appeared. The warriors not chosen had wept out their pain, they had begged for her mercy, she had no mercy to give them. Only her best warriors could sail for the god.

  Those left-behind warriors lined the streets of Jatharuj. As she and Vortka and Dmitrak walked down to the harbour they stamped their feet, shouting, they chanted in the sun.

  “The god sees our Empress, the god sees Hekat of Mijak, the god sees Dmitrak warlord and its high godspeaker Vortka!”

  The trade winds she had saved from those demons blew in the harbour, they blew the scorpion sails of her warships, they blew her praise that they were free. The warships were ready, they were full of warriors and horses and godspeakers and sacred beasts for sacrifice, they waited for her so they could sail into the world.

  Her warship with its blood-red hull stood ready, eager for her presence. She boarded it lightly, Vortka and Dmitrak boarded it after her. A path had been cleared from the dock to the open water. The warriors trained to sail her warship worked its oars and eased it from the harbour.

  She stood at its bow and watched the open water come closer; she stood and laughed to hear her godbells singing in the trade winds. She felt young, she felt strong, she was Hekat in the god's eye. Godchosen and precious, she would give the god the world.

  Vortka stood beside her, his godbells singing in the wind. Did he look happy? She thought he did not. She defended him to Dmitrak but in her heart she wondered.

  Why is he not happy? The god is in the world.

  Ship by beautiful ship, the warhost followed her from the harbour. Her warhost was beautiful. It was beautiful under the sun.

  “This is our glory, Vortka,” she whispered as the wind blew and the oars ceased their splashing and their scorpion sail bellied with the god's breath, as they sailed majestic upon the open water. “We were born for this.”

  Vortka said nothing, he was silent for the god.

  That did not matter, her heart was singing.

  See me, god. See Hekat in the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Preparations to counter Mijak's onslaught picked up pace. Church and ducal messengers brought Rhian daily reports from around the kingdom. The news of Mijak had been calmly received, on the whole. To her surprise, one person in the great chapel's congregation the night of her rallying speech wrote down what she'd said, and soon copies began to appear – first in Kingseat township, then around the duchy, and then all over Ethrea.

  Her words became a battle cry and were repeated in taverns, in school houses, in chapels, in village shops on the streets of Ethrea's townships and in its verdant fields: Be every woman a huntsman queen, and every man a King Alasdair. The past is the past. We must preserve the future. Ethrea is not alone .

  Save for her privy garden, which Alasdair refused to sacrifice, the grounds of Kingseat Castle were transformed with tents and pavilions into sprawling barracks, and the flower beds torn up to make more tiltyards for training. Those soldiers selected from the duchies' garrisons, and the men Zandakar had trained on the road from Linfoi, arrived on foot and by barge in Kingseat and were sent straight to the castle.

  Every day Zandakar trained Rhian first. After her, he trained Alasdair and her dukes, showing them no mercy, showing them Mijak. If the armada failed and warfare came to Ethrea, her dukes would be spread across the kingdom. It was important that they know what to expect.

  After that, Zandakar and Rhian trained her soldiers not to dance the hotas , but to find ways of killing a warrior for whom the hotas were as natural as breathing. They trained the foreign soldiers too, and all the officers from Kingseat's garrisons.

  So much mock warfare. The grounds of her castle might never recover.

  When he wasn't training soldiers, or dancing hotas with Rhian, Zandakar schooled his Ethrean with Dexterity. His fluency improved rapidly, as though at last he was really trying, not just getting by.

  The last trading vessels in Kingseat harbour departed for their home ports, not to return until Mijak was defeated. In their place came the warships of Tzhung-tzhungchai, of Harbisland, of Arbenia and the lesser trading nations. They came in piecemeal, in dribs and drabs, and quickly filled the harbour so that latecomers were forced to wait in the open water. Han's witch-men were tireless in bringing the warships to Ethrea, and to spare the sensibilities of Ethrea's people, and some of their allies, they worked at night, so that with every new dawn in the days following the signing of the war treaty, the trading nations' armada had seemed to swell by magic.

  Kingseat township filled with foreign sailors whose business was war, not trading. Mindful of their temperaments, and the heightened nervousness of the townsfolk, and the likelihood of disaster, Idson and his garrison soldiers increased their presence on the streets. Furloughs were strictly rationed. Taverns were forbidden to serve ale and wine for more than one hour each day. Soldiers from each trading nation joined Idson's garrison, commissioned to keep the streets of Kingseat trouble-free in this time of impending violence.

  Across the kingdom, Helfred's clergy helped keep the peace, helped the people to stay strong and believe in their queen, and helped the duchies maintain their defences where their borders met the sea. Devouts and chaplains and even venerables laboured with novices and regular folk and soldiers to make sure their barrier wall remained fortified, especially where once there had been ports and there was a vulnerability to Mijaki attack.

  The duchy garrisons struggled to cope with the number of men and women eager to learn swordplay, so they could protect their homes from the heathen invaders. The kingdom's chapels filled to overflowing, as Rhian's people prayed for a swift deliverance…or a miracle.

  And despite all of that, life in Ethrea continued. Babes were born. Their grandparents died, and were buried. The hens laid their eggs and dogs chased straying cats.

  With the trading nations at long last reconciled to this war, their rulers and representatives clogged the ambassadors' district, its residences and its streets. They met Rhian and her council daily in the castle's war room to thrash out the particulars of the armada, and how to proceed should their desperate sea defence fail.

  Dexterity was her godsend. When he wasn't gently bullying Zandakar to “ speak Ethrean proper, drat you! ”, or working with Ursa to marshall her army of physicks, he was her council's friendliest face. Toymaking forgotten, he laboured without respite to see every fractious official soothed and every querulous demand met – or tactfully declined. Cheerful with Ven'Cedwin, who led a horde of clerical scribes, he kept meticulous track of who agreed to what, with whom, and why, diffusing dozens of brewing altercations every day.

  Even the Count of Arbenia was pleasant to Dexterity. And if that wasn't a miracle, then miracles didn't exist.

  Fifteen days after the first Tzhung warships appeared in Kingseat, the last Barbruish carrack was witched safely to the harbour…and the trading alliance armada was finally assembled. Six hundred and thirty-seven warships in all, bristling with catapults and barrels of pitch, vicious with battering rams and fire-dragons and knife-wheels and grapplers.

  Only the ships of Tzhung-tzhungchai were naked.

  Rhian asked Han why that should be, after he surprised her – again – in her privy garden. It was early, and she'd retreated there after her hotas , to gather her thoughts before the first war council of the day.

  “Tzhung's witch-men are my weapons,” Han said. “We have the wind. We need nothing of metal and fire.”

  Looking at him, severe in black silk, she felt a pang of guilt pierce
her. Han and his witch-men were working so hard. Han looked almost as exhausted as Zandakar, who pushed himself brutally from sunrise to sunset and beyond, into torchlight, training the soldiers who poured daily into Kingseat.

  And even if he were to work twice as hard, it wouldn't be enough. We need months and months to make this army, not a few weeks. We're facing an enemy who's been training for years. Dear God, have we lost before the first blow is struck?

  “Stop that, Rhian,” Han said sternly. “No leader can afford to surrender to despair.”

  She glowered at him. “I know. I'm not. But neither can a leader afford to hide from the truth.”

  “The truth,” said Han, “is that no man is ever truly prepared for war. A man can spend his whole life training for battle…and faint with fear before the first blood is spilled. What point then his years and years of training? Another man, who has never trained a day in his life, can pick up a pitchfork and be more valiant than that soldier. Not even the wind knows who will break, and who will bend.”

  “All those warships,” Rhian murmured, staring down at the exotic flock of vessels riding the harbour. “And three witch-men to sail on each one. Can you spare so many, Han? You must know they won't all return from their encounter with Mijak, even if we're victorious.”

  Han shrugged. “Perhaps fewer will die than you fear. They are witch-men.”

  What did he mean? That if the battle looked hopeless they'd simply…walk into the air? Abandon the ships they'd been given to protect?

  Oh, God. Let the slainta or the count suspect treachery from the Tzhung…

  “I did not hear you say that, Han. Never say it again.”

  “If the battle is lost, you think my witch-men should not save themselves?” he demanded. “You think our cause is best served by fewer witch-men in the world?”

  “Of course I don't!”

  “Then do not tell me my witch-men must die for nothing!”

  Buffeted by the sharp cold wind of his anger's calling, Rhian stood her ground before him, fists clenched, eyes narrowed. It took all her strength not to let herself be blown backwards.