The Destined Queen

by Deborah Hale

  Maura could not condemn them. “I laughed at first. I was afraid. If Langbard had not offered to go with me, then Rath, I might still be hiding in Windleford hoping destiny would get tired of waiting for me and choose someone else.”

  She gazed up into the child’s face, for the first time wishing she had found a wise old woman here to advise her. “That’s what I cannot understand, though. If those others were truly destined, how could they fail? It took me such a long time to learn to trust in my destiny—now you’re telling me it doesn’t matter?”

  Maura tried to blunt the sharp edge of frustration in her voice. It wasn’t the child’s fault, after all, or anyone else’s. And she did not truly expect an answer that made sense. As Langbard had once said, “Look around you, my dear, at all the marvels of the Giver’s creation. How can simple creatures like us hope to fathom its plan or purpose?”

  Maura wished she could understand a little at least.

  The Oracle held out her hand. “Will you come for a walk with me before you have to go?”

  The burden of too much knowledge had left her eyes, and she looked like any child her age, eager to run and play. No doubt she was tired of all this grave talk and hearing words come out of her mouth that she did not fully understand.

  “I would like that.” Maura took the oracle’s hand and rose from her chair with what she hoped was a convincing pose of enthusiasm.

  Together, they left the porch and wandered out into the meadow that sloped down toward the sea. But the Oracle did not go that way. Instead, she led Maura toward a wooded hill.

  She pointed toward the summit. “Up there is the most beautiful place of meditation in all the Islands. I go there often when I’m troubled. Everything seems clearer there, somehow. If there is anyplace in this world where you might find the answers to your questions, it will be there.”

  Answers—Maura could do with a few of those. The hill looked steep and quite thickly wooded, though a gap between the trees at the base of the hill might be the beginning of a footpath. “Very well. Let’s go.”

  The child released her hand and ran ahead, calling, “I’ll see you at the top!”

  “Wait for me!” Maura did not relish the prospect of a race up the steep, wooded hill. Hiking up the hem of her gown, she ran after the child, who had already disappeared into the trees.

  “Oh, these shoes!” Maura bit back a mild curse when the curved toes almost made her trip. The stout walking boots Sorsha had given her when she left Windleford would have been much better for climbing this hill.

  Darting through a gap in the trees, Maura saw that the path divided almost immediately. Which way was she to take?

  She peered down each branch as far as she could see but both curved after a few yards and the Oracle was already out of sight.

  “Hello!” Maura called. “Which way am I supposed to go?”

  No answer came, but she heard laughter off in the distance. The right-hand path seemed to lead in that direction so Maura followed it, grumbling to herself about inconsiderate hostesses.

  Before long, she was doing more than grumbling. The wooded path wound its way up the hill in a complicated maze, twisting, branching, turning back on itself, sometimes coming to a dead end. Would she ever find her way to the top?

  Maura considered turning back, or sitting down and staying put until the naughty little tease of a child came looking for her. She did stop for a short rest, but soon grew bored with waiting and started off again. If she’d been sure she could find her way back to the cottage, she might have given up. But by this time she had made too many turns and was hopelessly confused.

  So she kept going, encouraged that she seemed to be climbing higher. The nearer she got to the top, the less space there would be for the path to branch. As long as she kept going she must reach the top at last.

  And, at last, she did. Footsore, out of breath and very much out of temper.

  She found the Oracle sitting in something that looked like a little house without walls—stout beams holding aloft a roof. Only when she drew very close did Maura realize the beams were living trees, their branches concentrated at the top and turned inward to twine together, creating a roof shingled with broad leaves.

  The structure stood in the middle of a meadow carpeted with wildflowers of the most vivid and varied colors Maura had ever seen. Springwater bubbled up from a tiny stone fountain beside the little house of trees. A soft breeze wafted and swirled about the summit of the hill, stirring the fresh, sweet perfume of the flowers.

  By the time Maura reached the Oracle, most of her irritation had been soothed away by the peace and beauty around her. Understanding blossomed within her, as unexpected and breathtaking as this place.

  “You meant to leave me behind, didn’t you?” she asked the Oracle.

  The child nodded gravely. “I’m sorry. I know it is bewildering and tiresome. This was one of the first lessons Namma taught me when I was old enough to understand.”

  She pointed to the fountain. “You must be thirsty. Have a drink. It will make the long climb seem worthwhile.”

  Maura stared around the summit glade. “It already does. But you’re right, I am thirsty.” With cupped hands, she lifted the water to her lips and drank until she could hold no more.

  The Oracle had spoken true, for the water was so cool, fresh and sweet, it would have been worth the long, wearying climb all by itself.

  “Namma told me this path through the woods is like our destiny,” explained the Oracle while Maura drank. “We cannot tell which way it may take us, and we may make many wrong turns.”

  Maura nodded. The frustration she’d felt while trying to grope her way to the top of the hill echoed some of the feelings she’d experienced during her quest.

  “The path could not pick you up and bring you here against your will or with no effort on your part,” the Oracle continued, “and you had many choices to make. Some of those would have led you away from the top of the hill, others were dead ends. If you had become too discouraged to continue, you never would have reached the top.”

  Once Maura finished drinking, the Oracle beckoned her to take a seat beneath the living canopy. “Did you notice that some of the path doubled back upon itself?”

  Maura nodded.

  “This path may confuse the person who climbs it for the first time.” The Oracle patted Maura’s hand. “But for those who keep trying, there are not as many wrong choices as may first appear.”

  But there were wrong choices and Maura could not abdicate her responsibility for them. The specter of failure returned to haunt her. Others before her had failed and she sensed that the closer she and Rath came to their goal, the greater their opportunities for disaster would be.

  A dark whisper of temptation slithered through her thoughts as well. If she and Rath abandoned their destiny, another Waiting King and Destined Queen would come after them some day.

  But in the meantime, how much darker could Umbria’s darkest hour get?

  8

  “S o, what did the Oracle tell you?” asked Maura the following evening while she and Rath prepared for dinner at Idrygon’s villa.

  Rath wondered if the evening meal was always such a formal occasion in Idrygon’s household, or whether it was in honor of visiting royalty—uncrowned though they might be.

  “Well?” Maura prompted him. “Did she make you walk up that hill maze to teach you about destiny? Did she promise to tell the Council of Sages you are the latest Waiting King?”

  When he did not answer right away, her gaze became more searching. “Did the Oracle look into your future?”

  Oh, she had looked, all right. And what she’d seen had shaken Rath to the core. He tried to convince himself that, though she might hold the memories of countless generations, the present oracle was still only a child. One whose training had been cut short, at that. Perhaps she had taken the wrong meaning from whatever she’d glimpsed in his future.

  For all his doubts and denials, he co
uld not escape a chilling fear that the child knew what the future held for him. He wished she had kept that troublesome knowledge to herself, though, for he feared it could mean only one thing—that he would lose Maura.

  Could the Giver be so cruel, to rob him of the happiness he’d so lately found? Rath tried to believe otherwise, but his faith was still new and untested. He had far more experience with the impersonal cruelty of whatever forces shaped the lives of folk like him.

  Maura’s voice broke in upon his brooding, like a ray of sunlight penetrating some dark dungeon cell. “She did foretell your future, didn’t she? Come, what did she predict? Something dire, I reckon, by that grim look on your face.”

  “I do not look grim!” he snapped, then repented his quick temper. “All right, perhaps I do. But it is not on account of that young seer.”

  Not for all the world would he burden Maura with the foreboding that weighed upon him. He could worry enough for both of them. “It’s all the talk of an invasion and this business of playing off one Council faction against another. Here I reckoned the Vestan Islands would be so peaceful, with folks all getting along and having not a care in the world!”

  “I cannot say I like that much, myself.” Maura laid down the ivory comb with which she had battled her unruly hair into temporary submission. “But is it so hard to understand? Trochard and his followers just want to look after their own interests…like a certain outlaw I once knew.”

  Rath grumbled something about how he’d been forthright in his selfishness, at least. Then he craned his neck. “Can you help me fasten this miserable collar button without throttling me. Thank the Giver that Idrygon plans to have his soldiers kitted out in gear that will let them move…and breathe.”

  “Whose soldiers?” Maura asked with a teasing lilt in her voice as she fastened the troublesome button. “You will be leading them—will that not make them your soldiers?”

  Rath shook his head and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Idrygon has been planning all this for a great while. Gathering supplies, amassing weapons, training men. This army will be his to command, which is just the way I would have it. What do I know about leading any force bigger than the band of outlaws you first saw me with in Betchwood. Look what happened to them, poor devils.”

  “That was not your fault!” Maura reminded him.

  Rath tried to pretend he believed her.

  She quickly changed the subject. “I thought it strange at first that Idrygon should care so much what happens on the mainland.”

  So had Rath. He did not reckon Idrygon had planned and schemed so long to liberate the mainland out of the goodness of his heart. After watching their host the past few days, he’d concluded that the man was a born commander, a role with limited scope on these islands. Much as they delighted Rath and Maura with their beauty, peace and plenty, to a man of Idrygon’s forceful personality, they must seem like a luxurious prison.

  “You said at first.” Rath wetted a comb and tried to tidy his hair. “What changed your mind?”

  “Something Delyon told me.” Maura dipped her fingers into a tiny crock of delicate pottery and drew out a drop or two of scented oil to anoint her neck and wrists. “He said their parents put him and his brother on the last Umbrian ship to escape the mainland. The boys were raised here by their grandparents, who were both members of the Council. Only many years later did they find out their parents had been killed by the Han.”

  Rath winced at Maura’s account, though he’d heard plenty worse stories of things that had happened to Umbrian children after the Hanish conquest. He’d lived worse, himself, come to that. Though Idrygon and Delyon had been orphaned, at least they’d gotten beyond the reach of the Han and into the care of folks with the means to look after them properly.

  Would he have switched places with them, though, if he could have changed the past? He’d tasted his share of guilt after Ganny died and found a bitter brew. How much worse might it have gnawed his belly if he’d ended up somewhere safe and prosperous? Might it have driven him to do whatever it took to oust the Han from Umbria?

  “I’ll admit,” he said, “I was wrong in thinking the island folk came to no harm on account of the Han. I reckon it’s harder sometimes to know somebody else is being ill used and not being able to aid them than it is to take the lumps yourself.”

  “You’re a wise man, Rath Talward.” Maura took his arm. “Now we had better get to dinner before Idrygon sends a search party after us. Delyon told me important guests will be dining with us tonight.”

  “Delyon tells you all sorts of interesting things, doesn’t he?”

  Maura seemed not to hear anything beneath Rath’s bantering tone. “I have to get my news from someone and Idrygon’s wife always looks so busy I’m afraid to stop her long enough to ask.”

  She lowered her voice as they stepped out in the wide, elegant gallery that ran between two sets of bedchambers. Rath could see people gathered talking in the courtyard. He recognized several Council members.

  As they walked toward the company, Maura leaned closer to him and whispered, “There is one drawback to relying on Delyon for information.”

  He cast her a sidelong smile, struck afresh by her delicate beauty. “And what might that be?”

  Maura’s lips twitched. “He doesn’t seem to know what is going on half the time, himself.”

  A hoot of laughter stuck in Rath’s throat when he saw the formidable Madame Verise bowing to them. Did that bode well?

  Apparently so, for Idrygon appeared beside the old lady, looking more cheerful than Rath had ever seen him. He held a goblet in each hand, which he offered to Rath and Maura. “We have cause to celebrate, Highnesses! Madame Verise informs me that the Oracle has declared you are indeed the Waiting King and Destined Queen of Umbria!”

  So this dinner was a celebration. Rath glanced around at the other guests. Unless he was hopelessly confused, they belonged to the group Idrygon hoped would support them against those who opposed going to war. If Idrygon’s painstaking preparations were not to be in vain and if Rath was to get the help he needed to fulfill his destiny, these folks would need to be convinced that he was the king they had been waiting for.

  The weight of responsibility pressed down on Rath’s shoulders, like the heavy pack he’d carried into the Waste.

  “The Giver does work in strange ways.” Madame Verise looked him up and down, shaking her head. “To think, King Elzaban’s spirit in the body of an outlaw.”

  Again the high, stiff collar of his Vestan tunic tightened around Rath’s throat. He struggled to frame a reply that would not curdle on his tongue.

  Then Maura spoke in a tone of quiet dignity befitting a queen. “Considering the present law of that land, madame, do you not think better of His Highness for having been outside it than in?”

  Rath bit back a grin, remembering how he’d flung those words at her soon after they’d met. That she’d recalled them after all this time and summoned them at a crucial moment to come to his defense sent a fresh surge of love for her through his heart.

  “Now, Highness…” Idrygon’s dark eyes flashed. Clearly he did not want anything to threaten this vital alliance.

  “No, Lord Idrygon.” Madame Verise made a dismissive gesture with her delicate, withered hand. “Her Highness is right. Outlaws, smugglers and that ilk are the only ones who have kept a spirit of resistance alive in our poor captive land. Perhaps it is fitting that the spirit of King Elzaban should return to us in such a one.”

  She bowed to Rath with an air of sincere deference. “I beseech your pardon if I gave offense with my thoughtless remark, my lord. I fear we on the Islands have grown self-righteous in our good fortune. We forget how hard it may be to serve the Giver in harsher circumstances.”

  “I cannot claim I have always served—”

  Before Rath could finish, Idrygon shot him a warning look and interrupted. “I am certain His Highness understands, madame. Now, I see our meal is ready. Shall we be seated?�
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  He steered Rath toward the head of the long table, while his wife drew Maura to her place of honor at the other end. On their way, he muttered, “Take care what you say to Verise. Without her support, we are lost. Let me do the talking. I have learned how to handle her.”

  Rath nodded. He had never felt so out of place in his life—like a bird thrust underwater and expected to swim, or a fish tossed into the sky, to fly or perish trying. He wished they’d let Maura sit near him. He felt a little more confident with her by his side, knowing she had seen him at his worst, yet still recognized a spark of nobility within him.

  A feast was served, fit for a king. But the king barely managed to eat a bite for fear he would commit some glaring lapse in table manners. He tried to follow what Madame Verise and Idrygon were talking about but they might have been speaking that ancient language from Delyon’s scrolls for all he understood.

  Finally he gave up and stared down the table to where Maura sat laughing and talking with the person seated to her right…Delyon. So the fellow could make conversation when he didn’t have his gaze fixed on some ancient scroll. Now he had his gaze fixed on Maura, which made Rath’s pulse pound in his ears.

  It was pounding so loud he did not notice Madame Verise rise from her seat until Idrygon gave his foot a nudge under the table.

  She looked up and down the table, her gaze settling at last on their host. “I believe I speak for all your guests this evening, Lord Idrygon, when I say how overjoyed we are to welcome the king and queen for whom we have waited so long. I promise you our full support in the Council for a campaign to liberate the mainland.”

  Idrygon rose and picked up his wine goblet. But before he could propose a toast to their alliance, Madame Verise continued, “We have only two conditions to make.”