by D. J. Butler
“So I have another enemy.” Sarah feigned indifference. “So what? It was the emperor, or someone in his service.”
“How’d those things take our shapes?” Cal asked. “The first time, they weren’t nothin’ but faceless clay.”
“They must have got hold of a piece of you—skin, or hair, or blood, or something similar—the first time you met them. That’s also how they were following us, I expect.” Thalanes considered. “As for who sent the Mockers…I wonder.”
“What do you mean, black magic?” Sarah felt relief that the monk was talking to her again.
Thalanes frowned. “The Mocker’s body is common clay. It’s animated by a devil that is summoned and bound into it. Christian wizards argue about what kind of magic is appropriate, but this is definitely infernal gramarye, the sort of thing no Christian wizard will touch.”
“Stinks of Oliver Cromwell to me,” Cal said, “the New Model Army.”
Sarah shivered at his mention of the Necromancer and almost turned to spit over her shoulder, to ward off the name’s bad luck.
“The New Model Army were wood, weren’t they?” she asked. “I always imagined them like big wooden puppets without strings, marching off to fight for the Commonwealth.”
“Yes,” the monk murmured, “you have it pretty much right. And yes, Cal, it does stink of Oliver Cromwell.”
They walked in ominous silence for a few minutes, and then Calvin offered his considered view, “I can’t see as this changes much of anything.”
“It doesn’t,” Thalanes agreed. “We’re still bound for New Orleans to find Will. This is only a reminder that we must take great care.”
“Is there any chance those Mockers we left back at Crowder’s might follow us?” Sarah was a hexer, but such creatures were outside her experience. “Any chance they’re not destroyed after all?”
“No chance,” the monk said. “I doubt the demons are destroyed, but the bodies are, and you cast the demons out quite nicely. I wish you’d told me about them sooner, but I congratulate both of you for handling them as you did. Mockers have dragged many a watchful man down to an early death. You did very well.”
“Thank you.” Cal accepted the compliment with good humor. “I do feel as I’m collectin’ some interestin’ stories to tell my grandkids one day…iffen I survive to have any.”
Thalanes lapsed again into silence. They walked into the night, until the monk declared himself satisfied they had not been followed, whereupon Cal located a spring in a sheltered hollow masked by a stand of pine, and made camp.
“I’ll take the first watch. After all, I had a nap this afternoon.” Thalanes grinned and rubbed the contusion on his head. “Sarah, will you join me for a few minutes?”
Calvin looked as if he might object, but Sarah shot pleading eyes at him and he shut his mouth, bundling himself into his bedroll and falling quickly into regular snores. Sarah followed the monk to the top of the hollow and they sat, shaded from the light of the half moon by a pair of bent old pine trees.
He sat very close, but she found it didn’t bother her as much as it used to.
“Let me look at your eye,” he said to her gently.
She balked, but loosed her eye patch and turned her face to him. He no longer trembled, but glowed a bright white, with a tinge of blue. She found, looking at him directly, that she could make out his features with her witchy eye’s sight, and they were not quite the same. He was recognizably Thalanes, but he looked younger, and nobler, and less worn.
“The eye is open,” Thalanes said. Sarah bit back the impulse to congratulate him on stating the obvious. “Is this the first time it’s ever opened?” She nodded, and he continued his inspection. “It doesn’t look infected,” the monk told her. “It looks like whatever was bothering it has gone away. The tissue is inflamed, but it should heal now.”
Sarah thought of the acorn and felt she had to say something. She owed it to the little monk.
“Your irises are not the same color,” he observed. “This eye’s iris looks white, or perhaps very pale blue. And the pupil is much larger.”
“Like I said, I see different out of this one.” She again explained seeing the ley line, and the Mocker, and the dog, and her companions.
“What do I look like?” he asked her.
“White. Kind of blue. Shiny. Handsome.”
He chuckled gently. “That’s a change. And can you see the ley line still?”
She pointed down into the valley below them. “It follows the road pretty close, though not exactly. It’s huge. It’s a big river of fire, white and blue and all sorts of colors.”
“What about other creatures? What can you see around us now?”
Sarah looked around. In the moonlight, her natural eye strained to see anything, but living, moving things jumped out at her in blazes of light through her witchy eye. “Owl,” she said. “Mockingbird. Woodpecker. Two deer, down along the ridge—one’s a fawn. Raccoon.” She saw several large bright smudges, further away but moving closer, hugging the ley line. “Two people, both mounted.”
“Do they seem out of the ordinary?” he asked her.
“That’s a stupid question,” she snapped, and immediately regretted it. “Sorry. I mean, everything seems out of the ordinary. I ain’t used…I’m not used to seeing people glow like this. But those folks glow just like Calvin does, just plain white.”
“Just like Calvin, but not like me?” he clarified.
“Exactly,” she said. “You’re sort of blue.”
“You’re seeing the life energies of things. Their auras, a practitioner of gramarye should say. Our auras. Fascinating.”
Sarah huddled deeper into her coat. She didn’t feel fascinating, she felt like a monster. Like a monster that had been very stupid, several times, and was now extremely lucky even to be alive.
What did her own aura look like? As discreetly as she could, she gazed down through her witchy eye at her bare hands. She shouldn’t have been, but in the moment, she was shocked to see that her own aura was blue-tinged, more like Thalanes’s than Calvin’s.
Like the acorn that had fallen from her eye.
She pulled the acorn from its hiding place and held it out to Thalanes with a trembling hand.
He looked puzzled. “What’s that?”
“This is what was troubling my eye,” she said quietly. “This was inside my eye, under my eyelid.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.
She tried again. “It’s always been inside my eye, without my knowing it, and today it popped out.”
He was quiet for several long moments. “Thank you,” he said. His voice sounded almost reverent. “I suggest you put that away, and keep it a secret.”
“What is it?” she asked him.
The monk shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, beyond what I’ve already told you. Your father blessed three acorns with his dying breath, your mother ate them, she conceived and bore three children who were all born wounded. Now it turns out your wound held an acorn all along.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what it means, but keep the acorn, and keep it secret. It may turn out to be a thing of power.”
“Like the Cahokian regalia?”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “And I see I owe you more explanation. Here again, I regret that I don’t know much. The origins and uses of the regalia are unknown to me, and would have been given to you in the right time and place by your father.” He looked down into the hollow where Calvin lay. “I can tell you that the regalia consist of three things, and each bears a different sort of power.”
“The crown, the orb, and the sword,” Sarah said. “Those are famous.”
“Correct. The iron crown of Cahokia, called the Sevenfold Crown for its seven iron points, is its ultimate symbol of political power. The nobles of Cahokia swear all their important oaths upon it and its presence provides the legitimate seal of any occasion of royal action. Without it, the king or queen of Cahokia is no ruler. Its absence is one
reason the nobles of Cahokia have been unable to unite behind any one candidate for the throne for the last fifteen years.”
“If there’s no Sevenfold Crown, there’s no monarchy and no kingdom,” she said meditatively. “The decision to choose a king without the crown would be a decision to remake the kingdom entirely from scratch, to throw away all tradition and heritage.”
“Yes,” the monk said, surprise in his face. “That’s a very perceptive comment.”
“I tried to make sure Iron Andy wasn’t wasting his time.” She felt shy.
“The iron orb,” Thalanes continued, “is named the Orb of Etyles, and it’s a thing of magical power. I don’t know any more than that, except to say that in my years with your father, he never allowed himself to be without the Orb of Etyles, and he cast all his mightiest spells with it in his hand.”
“Etyles was a prophet,” she said. “You were quoting him to us the other day, about Adam’s first wife.”
Thalanes nodded. “The sword is the only item of the regalia not made of iron. The metal of which it’s forged is unknown, at least to me, but it has the appearance of gold. It is a weapon for heroes, and I understand from your father that it bestows great martial prowess. Your father carried it into the Spanish War, and against highwaymen and beastkind in the borders of the Ohio, and was a renowned warrior.”
“The Lion of Missouri.” She’d heard the songs.
“I’m afraid I don’t know the sword’s name,” Thalanes continued, “but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have one. I was your father’s confessor, but I wasn’t privy to all his secrets, especially to his royal secrets.”
“What do you mean, royal secrets?”
“I mean that the Kings of Cahokia passed down things to their heirs besides the regalia. Information, secrets, ancient alliances, and obligations. I am ignorant of all of it.”
Sarah let the information sink in. She was glad she’d come from Calhoun Mountain with Thalanes, and she was beginning to trust him, but she didn’t understand the man at all.
“Why are you helping me, Father?” she asked.
“Once you raise your banner,” he said slowly, “you’ll find that many people will flock to it. Even, I think, without the Sevenfold Crown. You’re the rightful Queen of Cahokia, my queen, as you are rightfully the head of the Penn family, and those things make you very special.”
“That ain’t it, though, is it? I mean, that isn’t it.”
“In part, it is.” He was quiet for a long time. “I’ve served your father and your mother for many years. They were my earthly lord and lady as they were my friends, and I serve you now because I remain in their service. All I can do for you, I will.”
“Can you tell me how to be queen?” she asked. “I don’t know anything about being a leader.”
“Don’t you?”
She considered. “I suppose a leader should be a really good person,” she said after a few moments. “I mean, like Jesus. Noble and self-sacrificing.”
Thalanes laughed. “That’s an answer for Sunday School.” She thought he was mocking her. “But really, Sarah, I’m the wrong person to ask. I’ve never been a leader—I’m a solitary person and I belong to an order of solitary people. All I know of leadership is that the leader is the person who has to make all the hard choices. That will be one of your roles as queen, the maker of difficult decisions. I don’t envy you; no sane person would.”
She was disappointed. “Can’t you tell me anything more helpful than that?”
“I can tell you men will follow a leader who is good to them,” he said, frowning slightly, “whether that leader is personally righteous or not.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said. “That gives me a lot to work on.”
“Is that sarcasm?” he asked after a moment.
“It was meant to be humility.”
He patted her shoulder. “It’s good that you’re improving your gramarye and learning to use the leys. You must be very careful with that, of course—if you open up your soul too far to a ley line, it can suck you dry or burn you to a cinder. You should also accustom yourself to the new vision your eye is giving you, learn to understand and use it.”
“Any particular advice to give me on that?”
“None.” He shook his head. “I don’t have that gift myself, though I’ve heard of it. Some call it ‘Second Sight.’ Do you know how to speak in Court Speech? If not, you should learn.”
“I think I’ll manage with Court Speech,” she said. “I’ve read my Bible, and a fair amount of Shakespeare. I wouldn’t want to have to talk like that all the time, though.”
“No,” he agreed, “well, you won’t have to. The beauty of Court Speech is that every Power determines how it’s used in its own court. Usually, nobles and Electors speak to each other without it, and save the Court Speech for when they address inferiors and ambassadors. It serves them as a sort of insulation against familiarity.”
He paused.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m talking a lot.” Thalanes buried his face in his hands a moment. “Sarah, you shouldn’t lean on me more than you absolutely have to—not on anyone, really, but especially not on me—I am a broken reed, at best.”
Sarah laughed out loud. “If you’re a broken reed, Father, I’m stubble.”
“I’ve already failed you. I told your mother about you, and when she was tortured, she told the emperor.” Thalanes’s face was flat, but his voice quivered.
Sarah felt sick. She had known, more or less, that something of that nature must have happened, but it hurt her to hear the events recounted so baldly. She should have been there; she felt she had failed her mother, which she knew was a completely unreasonable response, and then she saw what the monk must be feeling. “You told her at her request.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I should have been wiser. Also, I should have been wiser than to leave your father alone with the man who betrayed him.”
“Did you know he was going to be betrayed?”
“No.” Thalanes shook his head. “But I knew the storms of envy and hatred that surrounded him. I should have been stronger than my friendships, and wiser than my precepts.”
The quiet sorrow in his voice corresponded with a changed tone to the color she saw in him through her witchy eye, nothing she could describe, but a nuance that pierced Sarah’s heart. She could see his emotional turmoil. She felt like weeping; with an effort, she restrained herself. She needed this man’s help, and he was one of her greatest protectors. “Didn’t you also take the acorns that my father blessed with his dying breath to my mother?”
He nodded, slightly.
“And you hid me with Elector Calhoun?”
He nodded again.
“And you raced from Philadelphia ahead of the emperor’s chaplain, to rescue me from a mortal threat.”
“So I haven’t led a completely useless life,” he said wryly.
“I owe you my very existence,” she said to him. “Three times, at least. As your queen, I order you to remember that.”
Fearing that if she stayed any longer she would do something to undercut the authority she’d just assumed, Sarah stood and descended into the hollow. She crawled into the bedroll Cal had arranged and stretched herself out gratefully for sleep.
Her body ached. Bread must feel like this, kneaded and baked. It eased her pain a little bit to hear Cal’s regular breathing in the darkness. It reminded her of Calhoun Mountain and the Elector and home, and she smiled.
Before replacing the patch over her eye, she looked up at the little monk, still sitting his vigil on the hill above them. She could tell by the subtle shift in the tone of his aura that he was less grieved, calmer.
He felt better.
That made her happy, and she let herself fall asleep.
* * *
In the morning they washed in the spring and beat the dust out of their clothing. It wasn’t perfect—they all looked jaundiced—but it would
do.
Sarah still ached, but as the morning progressed she began to unkink. Her skin was still too warm to the touch and felt like old paper, and she was exhausted, but that was an improvement.
That afternoon, Thalanes and Cal left her in a grove of trees and went down together to a creek flowing across the main path of the Trace to fill their waterskins. Sarah sat, grateful to rest her legs and feet, and closed her eye to try to catch a few minutes’ nap.
Click.
“Come along quick and quiet, miss, and don’t nobody have to git her brains blowed out today.”
Sarah opened her eyes.
The man standing before her was of middling height and heavy, with a slack face not too different from the Crowder’s Bassett, and he wore the dirtiest orange cape Sarah had ever seen, over a ragged brown shirt and reddish corte-du-roi trousers. In any other season, the outfit would have been a beacon that made him impossible to miss. In the autumn, it just might make him invisible.
He pointed a pistol at Sarah, with the hammer cocked.
“Poacher?” she asked.
“Git up and let’s go,” he ordered her.
She stood.
“Smuggler?” she guessed again.
“Yer friends’re too far away to hear you even iffen you shout,” the heavy man snarled. “So don’t try it.” He waggled his pistol. “Besides, Mr. Bullet here’d git to you afore them fellers could git back.”
“What do you want?” Sarah needed to buy a minute or two, to think of what to do or maybe to give Cal and Thalanes time to return.
She felt so tired.
“Shut yer mouth and git on that mule.” Orange Cape gestured with his pistol. Sarah saw a lean gray horse tethered in the trees and behind it a pack mule, saddled with a ragged blanket.
“You gonna kill me?” She took slow steps toward the pack animal.
“If yer dead, I won’t git any money outta you from the Memphites.” He grinned, showing yellow teeth with big gaps.