Her hands had clenched into fists in her lap, crumpling the fine silk of her gown. What did he intend to do with all that food? The answer came to her mind almost as quickly.
Feed his armies.
Acosta was a stepping stone, not an end in itself. Deslucido needed its farmlands productive, its fighting power intact. For his own use. Next would come conscriptions of fighting men and horses, seizures of wagons, arrows and swords and the precious metal to make more of them.
So, before starvation stripped their lands and harsh penalties weakened them past the point of effective action, these men had come to place their case before the Hastur King, only to find he would not even hear them.
Deslucido will bring war to Hastur lands. The only question is how long we will wait while he gathers power.
She rose, smoothing her gown around the rounded contour of her belly. “Hastur is not yet a party to these wars, but you have done better than you guessed by coming to me. I bear the son of Padrik Acosta, true heir to the throne.”
She paused, caught by the sudden flare of light in their eyes. Their hope and awe swept through her, amplified by her empathic laran.
A son . . . a true Acosta son! . . . We are saved, all is not lost. . . .
And darker, like an underground river, We will have our kingdom back. She will lead us to freedom!
Taniquel paused, her throat momentarily closing around the words. She stiffened, lifting her head to the demands of the moment. “Return to Acosta with this news and with my promise. My son and I will return . . .”
. . . will return . . . The words tolled through every fiber of her being.
For this I was born comynara. This is my destiny.
Esteban’s face drained of color as he knelt once more before her. She had rarely seen such naked devotion. In that moment, he would have died for her.
“Will you accept my oath?” he asked her.
She had never done so before. It was Padrik who ruled as liege to the vassal lords, as his father had before him. She’d been daughter, wife, and now mother, never thought to be more.
I am Acosta’s hope, and I bear her future. If my people are to have any chance of freedom, I must be a true Queen to them.
She had already given them her oath. All that remained was to accept theirs in return, to complete the balance, question and response, power and responsibility, birth and death.
The ritual phrases rose unbidden to her tongue. Her hands enclosed Esteban’s in the ancient gesture of loyalty received and given in return.
After they left, she remained in the chair while the sun moved slowly overhead. She had given away her life, without quite understanding why, only that it was the will of the gods and that she had no choice. She did not know if she ever had.
21
Taniquel rose reluctantly from sleep, as if she were drifting through molten honey. In the months since Julian Regis was born, her dreams had been increasingly vivid, but rarely so pleasurable. After fragments of the usual familiar bits of day thoughts, she’d found herself on a smooth gray plain under a featureless sky. The sense of utter, unchanging stillness might have smothered her if she had not as quickly been caught up in a forest of gauzy scarves, growing like exotic plants from the tile-smooth floor and waving in invisible breezes. Their colors reminded her of her gowns back at Acosta, red and bronze and shimmering peacock. As she moved among them, letting the finely-woven fabric slip between her fingers, she caught the mingled scents of cedar gum, incense, and rose petals. Music reached her, the far-off ripples of a harp, then deeper—a hunting horn. Soon the reds gave way to blues, often as pale as ice. She seemed at times to be wading through cool blue flames. They parted as she passed.
An open space appeared before her, circled round with flickering blue lights. In the center stood a man, naked except for the fire. Even though he faced away, she would have known him anywhere. Her heart leaped.
He turned with that smile which she remembered a thousand times. Blue flames lapped at him, and yet his bare flesh bore no burn or blister.
“Through water, you came to me,” he said, although his lips did not move. The words echoed in her mind. “Through fire, I will come to you.”
Taniquel reached out her arms to him, but he was gone. She was alone in her huge bed in Hastur Castle. Only the faintest dawn light glimmered outside the east-facing windows.
Slipping from her bed, she padded barefoot to the cradle only a few feet away. Her son slept on in perfect serenity. Now four months old, he was quickly losing the shapelessness of the newborn. His cheeks, smooth as damask rose, curved gently into lips which moved softly as if nursing. A cap of curls, dark like hers, covered his scalp.
Looking down at him, her heart grew steady and her breath softened. A smile touched her lips. She had struggled through the icy wilderness, the frozen river, and more for his sake, never thinking what he might give her in return.
From the moment of his birth, he had been an unfailing source of the most remarkable feelings, a bubbling of golden warmth from the depths of her heart, a certainty, a peace. She’d had no idea such happiness existed until she’d held him in her arms. Yet how fragile a baby’s life could be and how uncertain his future. She shivered at the thought of anything happening to him.
By the time Taniquel had finished dressing, quietly so as not to arouse the attention of her maids, Julian had woken. She nursed him, sitting in the big padded chair by the fireplace. Just as she was finishing and tucking the folds of her loosely gathered gown into place, the nurse bustled in, full of exclamations that she should have been summoned at once, that it was not seemly for Her Majesty to tend the baby all by herself, and similar nonsense which Taniquel had heard a dozen times too many.
“Never mind!” Taniquel said with an edge of sharpness to her voice. Reluctantly, she handed the baby to the nurse. “I’ll be in my uncle’s chambers. If you would be so good as to change his clouts, you may bring him to me there.”
She found Rafael finishing his breakfast and poring over the day’s agendas. He brightened as she entered and kissed him on the cheek, inviting her to eat with him.
Taniquel helped herself to generous portions of the breakfast laid out on the sideboard, sausages, pastries stuffed with spiced fruit, and boiled eggs. Having finished, she resisted the urge to pace and instead seated herself beside the small spring fire.
He regarded her, eyes bright under bushy brows. “I see that you are restless this morning, chiya, but what would you do?” His hand swept across the neat lines of secretary’s script. “There’s nothing more exciting here than an embassy come from Isoldir to discuss fishing rights and river tariffs.”
She pressed her lips together. In a glance, she’d recognized the Elhalyn crest on one of the documents. Darren-Mikhail again. He’d written once before, formally asking for her hand in marriage. Undoubtedly, as she’d told her uncle, he fully believed he was saving her from a future as a disgraced and homeless widow. Rafael’s response was that since she had matured with motherhood, a man did not need to take pity on her in order to desire her in marriage. To which she replied, with some tartness, that if the man were that entranced with fertility, he might woo a she-oudrakhi in her place. As Taniquel, Queen of Acosta, she had obligations beyond the entirely unnecessary attentions of a husband.
It became a game between them, that whenever she would remind him of her determination to regain Acosta for her son, he would reciprocate with a reference to Darren’s offer of marriage.
After a knock on the inner door, one of Rafael’s personal pages entered and bowed deeply. “Your Majesty, the Councillor requests your presence. There is a—” the child stumbled over the unfamiliar word as he struggled to repeat exactly what he had been told, “—a deputation arrived at the castle.”
“Indeed?” Rafael, clearly in a good humor from the morning’s light banter, raised one bushy eyebrow. “What sort of deputation?”
“Men. On horses. With banners.” The child grinned. “
I saw them riding up.”
Taniquel’s throat went suddenly dry. “What color were the banners?”
“White and black.”
Her eyes locked with her uncle’s. If you will not deal with Deslucido for my son’s sake, then you must for your own. She kept silent. If she pursued the matter too aggressively, he grew resistant and ill-tempered. With a degree of self-control she’d never had to practice as a pampered young queen, she refrained from bringing it up again.
Rafael’s expression remained tranquil as he said, “Ask Gerolamo if he would be so kind as to inform these messengers I will receive them. Have them standing ready.”
After the page departed, Taniquel burst out, “Uncle! You will not—”
“I agreed to receive them, but I did not say when. If you would be Queen rather than playing at it, you must learn that all things happen in their proper time, whether it be an assault on Ambervale Castle or the protocol for receiving uninvited guests.”
She caught the wry note in his voice. “And so, the audience will be at your pleasure and not necessarily theirs.”
“Naturally. There is nothing so deflating to a man’s self-importance as to arrive in the morning with pennants flying and colors bright, and not be able to speak his speech until just before dinnertime, knowing that by then no one will be able to concentrate on his words. A grumbling stomach can be an excellent ally.”
“Then I will attend to my own affairs,” she said, rising, “rather than drive both of us to distraction. These emissaries may spend the day in idleness and worry, but I have better things to do.”
“Ah,” he sighed, “that is exactly what your mother would have said. You look much as she did at your age, have I told you that?”
Even as she smiled and kissed him on the cheek before departing, Taniquel thought, One way or another, no matter how this business with Deslucido falls out, I must leave Thendara eventually. I can never go back to being a child in my uncle’s castle.
In the great hall, Taniquel waited in her usual place to the side of her uncle’s throne. Her chair, although small, had armrests and now she was grateful to have something solid to wrap her hands around. Beyond the dais, the hall was already abustle with preparations for the evening meal, servants arranging trestle tables, replacing laran-charged glows, laying down fresh rushes, carrying pitchers of watered wine and ale, baskets of bread, bowls of fresh cherries and redfruit. A maid stooped to pick up the nubbin of gnawed bone left by the pair of spaniels which were Rafael’s companions, and sent them yipping and frolicking, as if it were a game.
At the coridom’s announcement, the men from Ambervale approached. They had come unarmed, with scabbards empty. Taniquel recognized the officer from the occupation of Acosta, although she did not know his name. He and the others bowed to Rafael with proper deference given a host king.
The officer, although not a trained Voice capable of the exact replication of the words he was entrusted with, including the vocal tone and inflection of the original speaker, nevertheless recited his messages well. After the usual courtly greetings, he phrased an elaborately polite demand for Taniquel’s surrender. He reiterated the peaceful transition of power at Acosta, the many courtesies extended to the young Queen, the offer of honorable marriage, the lamentations and grief when she had been thought lost in an unseasonable storm, the bridegroom so anxiously and ardently expecting her return. He did an excellent job implying that she had freely consented to marry, that she and Belisar were in fact already husband and wife by the old mountain traditions, lacking only the formality of the di catenas ceremony to make their union incontestable, and that to prevent her return constituted nothing less than interfering with the most solemn and private family matters.
Taniquel could not see her uncle’s expression as he listened. He knows I did not consent, she thought. He knows this is a lie. Yet it was the sort of lie so easily given. Deslucido’s agents would of course portray him in the most flattering tones, a just and generous king, a devoted father-in-law, and she a mere woman, fickle and capricious, giving her promise one moment and running away the next, a woman who did not even know the father of her son, if Darren’s report of the rumors were true. In the end, it would come to Belisar’s word against hers that they had not shared a bed as well as a meal and a hearth.
The discussion then shifted to territorial issues, with nothing resolved. So smooth was the transition, that an implied message lay in its very ease. The two missions were inextricably linked. Deslucido had laid claim to the Hastur lands bordering Acosta, a thinly inhabited hilly area called Drycreek. Taniquel thought that the time to answer this threat was before Deslucido had time to solidify his hold on Acosta, but she said nothing. The time for preemptive action had passed, despite her urging. All the smiths in Zandru’s forge couldn’t put that banshee chick back into its egg. And now Deslucido knew she lived, knew where she was, and intended to use her as a bargaining point.
The messenger did not, of course, explicitly say that Deslucido would withdraw his claims to the Drycreek borderlands if his son’s marriage were successfully consummated, but his meaning was clear.
The audience went on long enough for Taniquel to wonder at the stamina and persistence of all parties involved. Nothing was concluded except an agreement to continue the discussions.
Taniquel had no doubts that Deslucido would launch an armed assault without hesitation. If it were necessary for the welfare of the Hastur kingdom, she might well be offered as the price of peace. She must not expect otherwise.
They may ask, but I will not agree. I cannot.
Not just for Julian’s sake or for Acosta’s, but for her own. She was no longer the dutiful child who left her uncle’s house for an arranged marriage. She had become something more, the Queen who accepted the fealty oaths from men twice her age, the woman who stood alone against Belisar and the Deslucido laranzu, who fought her way through ice and storm and laran spells. Before Ambervale marched on Acosta, she had no idea she was capable of any of this.
What am I now? And what will I become?
Shuddering, she wished for a small portion of the unearthly calm she had seen in Lady Caitlin’s eyes. At least, decorum required her to sit still, to show nothing of her inner turmoil. Gradually, heartbeat by beat, her anxiety quieted, to be replaced with a new resolve.
As the days piled one on the other, Taniquel grew heartily wearied of the long hours of sitting, listening to very little of substance and a great deal implied in language so indirect and flowery as to be infuriating. More than once, she was tempted to excuse herself to play with Julian, or walk in the gardens, or practice her archery or ride out beyond the city walls, attended by a horseboy or two. If this is what it meant to rule a kingdom, to sit for hours and fence with words, then she must learn it.
The morning after the first audience, Rafael had invited Taniquel to talk strategy over breakfast in his sun-filled sitting room and this soon became their habit. Today, more informal than before, she cradled Julian in her arms. He’d fallen asleep nursing and the thin shawl she used for modesty still draped her breast.
“If there is any hope of avoiding outright warfare and a return to the Ages of Chaos,” Rafael said, “we must find it.”
The baby must have felt the sudden leap in tension in her body, for he whimpered and stirred. She patted him, rearranging the folds of her bodice and folding the shawl.
“No matter what you give him, Deslucido will not be satisfied,” she said. “He is only testing you for weakness.”
Gray-frosted brows lifted minutely. “Never fear, I am not in the least considering giving him what he wants. I think this problem is part of a larger, one small feint on the chessboard. It isn’t clear what his game is, but this,” he jabbed the armrest of his chair with one blunt finger, “is only an opening gambit, a carefully calculated move.” Seeing her puzzled expression, he went on. “Charming as you are, my dear niece, you are not worth a war. Why should Deslucido go to such trouble to secure but
one of a half-dozen kingdoms? Why not marry his son to an eligible daughter of Linn or Verdanta or Hawksflight?”
“Acosta is richer than any of those,” she pointed out.
He shook his head. “In the taste of its fine wines, perhaps, but not overall. And he does not need you to hold what he already has.”
“With me at Belisar’s side, he needs only a minimal occupation force . . . and it is true, what Hawksflight lacks in vineyards, it offers in copper ore and chervine wool.” She tapped her fingertips together, thinking, remembering the Acosta lords, how they had looked at her as their savior. How she had pledged herself to them. She forced her thoughts back to the problem at hand. “But Hawksflight and Verdanta and High Kinnally are all rugged hills and forest, terrain which is difficult to hold.”
“Or to cross.”
“I don’t understand, uncle.”
He smiled encouragement. “You have a keen mind, even if you have not been trained to use it. These tiny mountain kingdoms have no strategic importance except as gateways to one another. And they lead to—? Where, Tani?”
She envisioned a map, the funnel-shaped location of Deslucido’s conquests, and shivered in the sudden sensation of cold.
To Hastur.
“At first, I thought it might be necessary for me to go,” she said, lowering her eyes. “But now—” She met his gaze, unflinching. “It is not only for my own sake, for my son’s and the whole of Acosta that I refuse. Deslucido must be stopped and driven back to his own territory. Do you remember the deputation of Acosta lords who arrived just after the Hastur Council meeting last summer? They had come to beg your protection against Deslucido’s rule. He promised peace and fairness, but delivered only tyranny. Javier of Terrelind, who was as loyal a subject as any one could wish, was executed out of hand, along with his two sons. They were desperate, these men.”
The Fall of Neskaya Page 23