The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  “I hate those bells,” Lisandre whispered.

  The bells were still tolling from deep within the city. The palace walls broke the summons, such that Katerine’s ears caught but ghostly echoes of the lengthy peal. Still, it seemed like every morning the toll of bells was lasting longer. Katerine dreaded their meaning.

  “Shush, my heart,” she cautioned Lisandre. “The walls could be listening.”

  Lisandre shook her head, making a shimmer of golden locks and blue ribbon. “I can’t bear it if it’s true, Kat.”

  Katerine darted a glance around, then pulled Lisandre into a stone-paved courtyard, where there were fewer places for prying eyes and ears to hide themselves. The morning sun was bathing the stones, but its light offered little warmth.

  Katerine took both of her sister’s hands in hers and asked softly, “If what is true?”

  “If Gideon is dead and King Gydryn betrayed—”

  Katerine hastily pushed two fingers to her sister’s lips and looked around again. “We cannot speak of these things here, my heart.” She wrapped her arm around Lisandre’s shoulders and walked them swiftly on.

  Katerine couldn’t say where the transition occurred exactly, but eventually the palace’s lengthy arcades and vast hallways lost their menace, the sun brought warmth to her back as she was crossing the courts, and the people passing in the corridors looked upon them with friendly eyes.

  Even so, Katerine wouldn’t speak again until they were well within the Queen’s Garden—the fastest route to the royal wing—and safely on the ‘friendly’ side of the palace.

  “Gideon must be alive,” she told her sister then, only praying it was true. To lose both her beloved cousin and the boy she loved within a span of years of each other...her heart would never recover.

  Lisandre turned large hazel eyes up to her. “Mother said there’s been no word from Gideon in many moons, when before we had letters from him regular as the tide.”

  Katerine drew in a deep breath, trying to find her equilibrium on air that didn’t reek of sedition. “There’s a war going on, my heart. We have to expect interruptions of normal channels of communication. Father says we can’t let such disruptions topple our trust in our champions. They’re doing their part, so we must uphold ours.”

  Lisandre caught her thumbnail between her teeth. “Tad says Gideon is in a Basi prison, probably plotting his escape, but the Basi have him chained with magic rope and he’ll have to chew off his own hand to free himself and the others.”

  Katerine spun her a look. “When did Tad say that?”

  “I heard him talking to Killian and the older boys after dinner last night.”

  Katerine pressed her lips together tightly. She was going to have a stern talk with her brother.

  “Do you think it’s true, Kat?”

  Katerine grumbled, “I think Tad has an overactive imagination.”

  She turned them down a shell-paved path towards a statue of Gorion the Archer, which in no way in her mind resembled the stars of the constellation bearing the same name. The statue had grown black with mold in recent years, cast as it was in the perpetual shade of tall elms; but since the queen’s return, someone had undertaken the gargantuan task of cleaning it. They were making slow progress.

  Seeing the dark mold clinging in patches to the white marble made Katerine uneasy. The uneven pattern too closely mirrored the state of the kingdom in her mind.

  Lisandre stared at the statue the whole time they were passing it, even turning her head to watch it disappear behind an ivy-covered wall.

  Then she shuddered. “I’m scared, Kat. What if there really is a war?”

  Katerine thought that a foregone conclusion.

  “Will we be safe here, like father says?”

  “Nowhere will be safe if Morwyk gains the throne,” Katerine muttered. Then she rallied her resolve, for her sister’s sake at least. “But the palace walls are strong and well defended.”

  “Not against an army.”

  “That depends on how many men Morwyk brings to bear. Father says we can hold against a siege for several moons. Long enough for His Majesty to return.”

  Lisandre spun her a look. “Do you really think he’s coming?”

  “I have to believe it so.”

  Her sister frowned. “In the city, they’re saying it’s hopeless. Morwyk is either going to raze Calgaryn and kill everyone in it, or else destroy the palace and everyone loyal to the throne. The Book of Bethamin—”

  “Is full of lies.” She turned her sister a firm look. “You shouldn’t be reading it, Lisandre.”

  “Everyone is reading it.” Lisandre protested.

  That was the unwelcome truth. Between the Prophet’s Marquiin roaming the countryside, preying on the people’s hopelessness, and his Ascendants taking up residence in the city proper, preying on the people’s avarice and aspirations, the morale of the citizenry was being well undermined. Bethamin was doing Morwyk’s ill work for him.

  Katerine thought it fortunate the kingdom had so few Adepts. They would hardly be greeted warmly in Calgaryn anymore.

  “And now those horrible rumors are flying everywhere, proclaiming Prince Ean dead in Rethynnea...” Lisandre let out a little whimper. “Do you think it’s true, Kat?”

  “I know it’s not,” Katerine hissed, barely keeping her tone shy of scalding.

  Lisandre’s eyes widened. “How can you be so sure?”

  Kat inwardly cursed her loose tongue. If only she could’ve told Lisandre how she knew this rumor for a lie.

  What had they come to that she couldn’t trust even her own dear sister with the truth? But Lisandre was too sweet, too suggestible; and serpent-tongued ladies like Ianthe val Rothschen d’Jeune had filled Lisandre’s head with too much conflict.

  Like her father said: in the face of war, the lines between right and wrong became pale as chalk, and too easily erased by an errant hand.

  Katerine suddenly sensed someone watching her.

  She felt eyes like a breeze across the back of her neck, palpable as the winter sun. She drew Lisandre closer and hurried on.

  The red-violet limbs of a plum orchard hung over them, filtering the morning light into patches on a carpet of dark leaves. Shadows hung beneath the branches in hunched knots of darkness where the air remained chill and the leaves untouched by light. As she passed through them, they became as gossamer fingers clutching at her limbs, inviting her into a dance with darkness. She wanted desperately to go with them.

  “I don’t like this path.” Lisandre hugged her arms around herself. “We should’ve gone through the rose garden.”

  But Katerine felt safer with the shadows than in a garden overgrown with dead roses, which, as omens went, was rather on the ill side of portentous.

  They finally reached the wall and its towering royal gate that demarked the entrance to the garden, or the exit back into the royal wing, depending on the direction of one’s steps.

  Seeing the King’s Guardsmen who were on watch there elicited a sigh of relief—the knights Laden and Liam val Kess, twin sons of Dannym’s Minister of Culture, friends of her cousin Gideon, and as true to the crown as her own heart.

  Seeing the knights, Lisandre broke away and ran to greet them, already bubbling with news of her morning.

  Katerine paused beneath the archway and looked back, past the wrought-iron gates. She still felt someone’s gaze following her, but as always, when she sought any form hidden among the trees, her eyes only saw shadows.

  ***

  Errodan Renwyr n’Owain val Lorian, Queen of Dannym and the Shoring Isles, hugged her arms against the sea breeze and gazed from the palace walls out across the city of Calgaryn far below.

  The capital’s white-washed storefronts and city homes dazzled in the bright morning sun. Its tree-lined parks glowed with autumn’s jewel-colored splendor. Peaked blue rooftops appeared a choppy lake between Errodan’s hilltop palace and the mountain’s eastern arm, which ended in a treacherous point d
emarked by a lighthouse tower.

  She’d last seen her husband vanish around that point, sailing away on the dawn tide. She’d had no word from Gydryn for too many moons now, nor from her youngest, Ean; only vicious rumors that claimed both men had perished.

  What fortitude it took for her to believe they were still alive, that they were still walking their paths despite all rumor to the contrary!

  Maintaining that faith in the face of opposition was proving harder than giving birth to her daughter alone while her husband fought for his throne two kingdoms away; harder than ruling in Gydryn’s absence; harder even than overcoming her sons’ deaths—by far the greatest challenge she’d ever faced.

  Pressed between her folded arms, Errodan’s breasts felt heavy, tender. She suspected her daughter would wake soon, ready for her next feeding. Dannish ladies offloaded their children to wet nurses, mortified by the idea of a babe suckling at their breast, but Errodan was a princess of the Shoring Isles, and Shoringers nursed their own.

  It was one of many divisive currents Errodan had lately perceived dragging her adrift of Dannym’s nobility.

  Ironic how in good times, the idiosyncrasies of one’s leaders might be looked upon with a fondly tolerant gaze, but in ill times, those same attributes became differences irreconcilable to society’s expectations.

  It all came down to perception...and faith, she supposed. Honestly, the two were inseparable when it came to governance. A strong rule was less about might than about maintaining the people’s faith and trust. As Gydryn had long maintained, an idea could travel farther and cut deeper than any sword. She wished Morin d’Hain better understood this.

  But perception or no, Errodan wasn’t about to let societal expectations dictate how she raised her children.

  And that, too, sets you apart.

  Errodan pressed palms to her eyes and exhaled a slow breath. She’d always taught her sons that honor was their strongest shield. She prayed that clinging to her own wouldn’t result in the kingdom’s downfall.

  The sound of bells drifted up from the city, carried by the spiraling wind. Said wind tossed wisps of cinnamon hair into Errodan’s eyes while threatening to tear the rest free of the elaborate plait that crowned her head. The wind likewise whistled around the actual crown she wore, whose weight posed a constant ache in her skull.

  Morin and Duke Gareth val Mallonwey had both agreed that she needed to wear the crown at all times. Perception, again. The people had to see her as their ruler, not their king’s estranged wife. But it had been over a year and a half since her husband had sailed south, and all the jewels in the world wouldn’t help her if she couldn’t keep the people’s trust.

  Oh, she had their sympathies...most of them. The mothers, anyway. But sympathy and trust were not the same order of sentiment, especially not with Stefan val Tryst’s long anticipated army finally on the march towards the capital.

  “Shadow take those damnable bells.” Morin d’Hain came up beside her, wearing a pained expression.

  Errodan gave him a look of commiseration by way of greeting.

  The spymaster seemed to have aged ten years since Gydryn sailed south, looking closer to forty than the bare thirty revolutions of the sun that he claimed. She only imagined the sight she must’ve presented to him in return. She was hardly sleeping more than Morin these days.

  He shoved a hand through his longish blond hair, then scrubbed his knuckles across the cleft in his chin, grimacing slightly—at the continuing peal of bells from the city or aught else, she couldn’t say.

  The spymaster had taken to wearing a fitted cuirass over his court attire, ever since the third attempt on his life had barely missed his heart. How that wound had so miraculously healed was a topic they never discussed aloud.

  Morin spread his hands on the parapet. “They’re thumbing their noses at us,” he griped, referencing the bells.

  Errodan sighed. “Wouldn’t you, if you were in their position?”

  “Give them their small victories,” said an arriving Gareth val Mallonwey, who came striding up as if fresh from a good night’s sleep, or at least a good night’s lovemaking—Errodan would’ve settled for either, personally—though she doubted the duke had seen his bed or his wife for more than a few hours.

  The Duke of Towermount was a towering man, completely bald and generally imposing, with a warrior’s build and the tenacity of a cornered badger. In the absence of her husband, Errodan felt most at ease when Gareth stood nearby.

  The duke grunted. “Small victories are all they’ll have when the cards are counted.”

  Morin nodded a terse welcome to the duke. “I despise gloaters.”

  Gareth cast his brown-eyed gaze out across the city, ostensibly in the direction of the tolling bells. They couldn’t see the temple that had recently been dedicated to the Prophet Bethamin, but they could certainly hear its summons. “Do you really think this many people converted overnight?”

  Morin matched Gareth’s steely stare aimed towards the bells. “Doubtful.”

  “But the truth hardly matters,” Errodan noted with a sigh.

  Perception, again. If the people thought so many others were converting to Bethamin’s doctrine, they would be more willing to convert themselves. What all of those conversions would amount to, Errodan couldn’t say.

  Ideologies embraced out of fear rarely lasted once the crisis was over—especially self-abnegating doctrines that required people to dispose of the luxurious lives to which they’d become accustomed. But in the short term, Bethamin’s growing cadre of followers could pose a considerable problem.

  The bells were still tolling. Supposedly the Ascendants rang them once for every convert.

  “Surely this many people can’t all believe the Prophet’s drivel,” Gareth grumbled.

  Errodan adjusted the crown on her head, trying to find a position that didn’t ache. “The Book of Bethamin appears to offer them solace when all seems hopeless. Bethamin’s doctrine appeals to the people because it validates their suffering.”

  Gareth snorted. “Convoluted logic—we’re all born to die? What kind of person believes that nonsense?”

  “A lot of them, apparently,” Morin grumbled.

  Errodan exhaled a sigh. “I warned Gydryn not to ban that book.” She abandoned her search for a more comfortable position for her crown and resettled it into the indentations it had already made in her skull. “Turning The Book of Bethamin into forbidden literature only increased its allure, especially to those who feel entitled to more than their current lot in life, who believe they’re deserving of Fortune’s graces.”

  Morin scowled. “When you put it that way, I’m surprised the whole of Calgaryn hasn’t converted.”

  “Testy today, aren’t we?” Gareth looked Morin over mildly. “What, did no one try to kill you last night?”

  “Don’t jest.” Morin gave him an injured look. “If Morwyk’s people aren’t trying to kill me on a daily basis, I begin to fear I’m not doing my job properly.”

  “If you’re so eager to court your own death, why the cuirass?”

  Morin tossed blowing hair from his eyes. “Expecting attacks doesn’t mean I aim to assist the assassins in the execution of their duties.”

  “Execution of their duties,” Gareth smirked. “That’s funny.”

  Errodan reflected that the three of them had come a long way from the early days of her return to the mainland, when she’d been excluded from the king’s confidences—at least in public—in order to protect their son, while Gareth had been constantly at Morin’s throat, and Morin hadn’t known what to make of Errodan at all.

  On the wind, Errodan thought she heard a toddler’s cry.

  The same wind carried their own words over the wall and out across the sea. The only way anyone could overhear them would be if the eavesdropper was somehow clinging to the sheer, unscalable cliffs, risking a five-hundred-foot drop to instant death. If one of Morwyk’s spies was that enthusiastic to listen in on their conf
erences, more power to him.

  Feeling a tugging at her heart as much as the calling of her body, which suggested rather strongly that her daughter was surely ready to feed, Errodan walked to a plain wooden chair sitting in the corner where two ramparts met. The men followed.

  This was one of three places in the vast labyrinth of ramparts that the spymaster had deemed safe from archers as well as Morwyk’s spies.

  She sat and arranged her skirts. The only court that mattered was now in session.

  “What news then, gentlemen?”

  “Two more lords left for their estates this week,” Morin reported.

  “Which two?”

  “Peidmont and val Rysen.”

  Errodan winced. “I thought they were loyal to the crown.”

  “They may very well be loyal.” Morin fingered the back of his head, wincing slightly. He was still healing from the laceration made by an arrow that had just missed its mark two days ago. “Mayhap leaving the city was the lesser of two evils.”

  “Please explain this logic to me, Morin.”

  “If the lords are being threatened with bodily harm or other forms of extortion,” Morin posed, “it could be that leaving town is the only way to keep from having to carry out an act of treason.”

  “In which case, whoever is behind the act wins either way,” Errodan surmised. “Our enemies have eliminated a possible threat to their own aims while also whittling down our support at court.”

  “That’s the theory,” Gareth muttered.

  Errodan switched a frown between the two men. “But you’ve no idea who is threatening the lords?”

  Gareth said, “We’re unsure if it’s a campaign of intimidation and extortion for petty aims, or something darker.”

  “Extortion can build into sedition with a single missive left in the middle of the night,” Morin said. “Fear speared deeply enough fractures even the stalwart.”

  Errodan suspected that everyone living in Calgaryn was on intimate terms with fear.