by Jeff Wheeler
“But what if not betraying me requires you to betray your lord father?” he had asked her wistfully, his eyes settling on her with compassion. “I would not ask you to do that, child. Your first allegiance must be to your Family.”
Then he had told her what he could of the complicated situation. As she knew, her parents had been married by irrevocare sigil. Only Maia’s mother had grounds to dissolve the marriage, but if she were to relinquish her claims as the king’s wife and queen, Maia would be disinherited formally and forever. Her banishment would become permanent, as fixed as an irrevocare sigil itself. The queen would not do that.
So the king was trying to dissolve the union politically and divorce her according to the laws of the Dochte Mandar. That would mean bringing Comoros under the power of the Chief Scribe of Naess, and the maston Families of the realm were against such an extreme measure, for it would give the Dochte Mandar unprecedented authority in the realm.
So a trial had been ordered to take place in Comoros to legally disavow the marriage. Only there was one problem. The queen refused to attend. She had claimed the right of sanctuary at Muirwood Abbey, and as a maston herself, she could not be forced to leave the grounds, no matter how much her husband blustered or threatened her.
Maia rubbed her shoulders, trying to suppress the shivering. Her soul was full of blackness and evil thoughts. She was proud of her mother, proud of her strength and her convictions. But Maia herself had no ability to claim the rights of sanctuary. She was a political pawn. Her mother had asked repeatedly for Maia to be sent to Muirwood to visit her, but each request was refused.
The king had threatened to march an army to Muirwood to take her by force, thereby breaking another maston oath, but the noble Families of the realm refused to acquiesce or obey the summons should he choose to make good on his threat. More and more of the ancient Families withdrew from court and stayed in their own Hundreds. In their place, a web of courtiers had emerged to insinuate themselves into her father’s good graces and sow discord in his ears. Lady Deorwynn’s Family were chief among these.
So it had been arranged for the trial to take place at Muirwood itself, where the Aldermaston of Muirwood would preside over it. Maia would have given anything to attend. The bitter feelings between her parents were creating a rift in the kingdom. It was doing the same thing to her heart.
She stared out the windows, enormous dread weighing down on her, and watched as a single rider entered the castle bailey down below. Her heart shuddered with the premonition of the news, and she set down the tome and began to pace the tower, wringing her hands and feeling sick enough to vomit.
There was a commotion on the stairs below, and she heard the clud of many boots ascending the tower. Were these soldiers coming to arrest her? She felt herself go pale with fear, and she tugged at her sleeve nervously. Before she had the chance to act, the door opened. She saw the felt hats of the soldiers first, followed by the maston swords belted to their waists. They were knights! She stared at them in surprise, and some of them gave her puzzled looks in return.
“What are you doing here, Lady Maia?” one of them asked.
“Who is it?” came a voice from lower down the stairwell.
“The king’s daughter.”
Maia swallowed as a middle-aged man reached the top of the steps. He wore a fine fur cloak, a green satin doublet, and—most importantly—the gold chain of the office of chancellor around his neck. Her eyes widened. What had become of her friend?
“Greetings, Lady Maia,” the newcomer said, bowing quickly. “Ah, here to welcome me to my chamber.”
“My lord, forgive me,” she stuttered, her mind whirling end over end. “I was anticipating—”
“Walraven’s return, no doubt. Yes, you were close to him, I daresay. He was fond of you as well, to be sure. Well, this creates an awkward moment, but we will survive it. Your father has named me as lord chancellor of the realm.”
She stared at him in blank shock.
He smiled benignly at her look. “We have not met, Lady Maia, but let me remedy that. I am Tomas Morton.”
“I know you by reputation, my lord,” Maia said, surprised. “You are a lawyer in the city and famous for your writings on ancient maston customs. You wrote a treatise on the reign of Lia Demont and the unified kingdom she ruled when the mastons fled these shores.”
He smiled at the tribute and bowed again. “No doubt your highness has not read the book yourself, as women are forbidden to read, but I have sympathy for you there, for Lia Demont was not allowed to read until she was older.”
“It was read to me,” Maia said sheepishly. It was a half lie. She had read the book herself too.
“Well, perhaps we can discuss it someday. But greetings aside, I did not expect to find you up here upon my return from the trial at Muirwood.”
“You were there?” Maia pressed.
“Of course. That is where the king appointed me his new chancellor. I am sorry to bring evil tidings to you, Lady Maia. Your father has ordered the expulsion of the Dochte Mandar from Comoros. Immediately. Irrevocably. Illegally, I might add, but such it is.”
Maia sat down on the window seat she had so often occupied in her childhood, unable to summon the presence of mind to speak.
“You are amazed, to be sure,” Chancellor Morton said.
“I am,” Maia whispered. She looked up at him and then swept her gaze over the knight-mastons who had gathered around them.
“Let me explain, as best I can, my lady.” Before continuing, he wiped his mouth and adjusted his own felt hat, as if he were loath to relive the experience. “The trial did not go as your father had hoped,” he finally said. “Queen Catrin, your mother, refused to accept the authority of the court or its legal mandate to disinherit her. She was defiant, but very humble, and she begged her husband to reconsider his rash desires.” He tapped his lips, growing silent. “I tell you, my lady, she was very convincing. She spoke with poise and passion, warning all that a great calamity would befall the kingdoms if your father’s breach of the maston decrees continued unchecked. On her knees, she begged your father’s pardon and committed herself to overlook his transgressions and mend the marriage.” His voice grew quiet. “My lady, the Medium was there so powerfully, we all felt it. We sensed the danger brooding in the room. She said we have fallen away from the maston rites, that we have forgotten our duty to rebuild the abbeys. She said we have been blinded by the machinations of the Dochte Mandar, who pit the kingdoms against one another and seek to destroy unity through intrigue.”
Maia felt her heart bursting with pride for her mother. Tears pricked her eyes, but she would not let them fall. A timid flame of hope kindled inside her.
“What then, my lord?” Maia said in a hushed whisper.
“The king was silent. He was fearfully silent. The noble Families of the realm had all sent emissaries to try and persuade him to reconcile with your mother. She knelt in front of him, tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone was moved. The king demanded proof of her accusation against the Dochte Mandar, proof that they were plotting against the realm.” He walked to the edge of the chancellor’s desk and picked up an ink-stained quill. “The chancellor’s own hand condemned him. The queen said they needed to look no farther than the chancellor’s own satchel bag for evidence of treachery. There they would find a letter addressed to the chief scribe of the Dochte Mandar plotting against the realm, planning for a time when the Dochte Mandar might take full authority of Comoros. You can imagine the uproar, my lady. Only the Medium could have told her what was in the bag. The king ordered for the chancellor’s kystrel to be ripped from his neck and melted by a blacksmith, but he was not wearing one when he was apprehended. Even now, I have orders to expel every Dochte Mandar from the kingdom, save for Walraven.”
Maia’s eyes widened. “Why? My lord, is he to be punished?”
“He is under gua
rd, my lady. He will not be permitted to leave Comoros. Not even his bones. He knows too much.”
Maia stood and rubbed her arms, her heart pounding fast. She had trusted Chancellor Walraven. She had trusted him implicitly. Had he been using her all along? Was she one of his pawns in this terrible web of intrigue? Her heart was breaking at the mere thought of it.
“What of my mother?” Maia pleaded.
Chancellor Morton stared at her with sympathy. He sighed. “Catrin is still banished from court. Your father refuses to reconcile with her.”
Maia felt as if she had been struck a second physical blow.
“His Majesty the King has told me that you are forbidden to see or speak with her. There will be no messages delivered. That is his will.”
She stared at him in horror. “Lord Chancellor, this is unjust!”
“I agree, Lady Maia. The King is very wroth. He did not get his way, and he learned that Walraven betrayed him. You can be sure, he is quite angry still and lashes out as a man in pain is wont to do, injuring the very people who are trying to heal him. I am but a humble lawyer, Lady Maia, but I am also a maston. I will speak the truth in plainness and wisdom, as the Medium sees fit to bestow on me. We will purge the realm of the Dochte Mandar. Then I will seek to reconcile you to your father. Until then, be patient, my lady.”
Maia nodded gravely, her heart blistering with heat, and descended the steps of the tower. As she left, she heard the chancellor say, “Search the entire castle. We must round up every last one.”
The main hall was engulfed in activity, and as the news spread, people jostled past each other unseeing. Maia was quickly lost in the crowd. She bumped into the edges of the wall, nearly tripping on the scattered floor rushes. The noise of the common room became deafening, and she longed for the solitude of the chancellor’s tower. She knew she would not be permitted refuge there again.
“Lady Maia.”
She barely heard the words through the fog in her mind. Someone touched her shoulder.
Maia turned, confused, to see a page. He was about her own age and dressed in the king’s livery.
“He bid me give you this,” the boy murmured softly, holding out a small package of folded paper with a wax seal. The seal was affixed with the king’s ring—the ring that the chancellor wore.
She looked at the boy, who glanced nervously around, thrust the package in her hand, and then vanished into the crowd.
Maia hastily retreated to the gardens behind the castle grounds, crushing the small packet in her hand. Her heart pounded with anxiety. The packet was heavy, as if it carried coins. But she suspected—nay, she knew—what was in it. The wax of the seal rubbed against her palm. She fought down her emotions, struggling to breathe, and found a quiet stone bench amidst the tall hedges. She glanced around furtively, making certain she was alone and had not been followed, then sank onto the bench and broke the seal.
She opened the stiff paper and saw the first words of blotchy ink. Chancellor Walraven’s handwriting. The edges of the kystrel peeked out beneath the next fold in the paper. Her heart thrummed with fear and excitement as she set the medallion on her lap. Then, smoothing the paper out, she started to read.
Lady Maia,
I did what I did for you. Your father is determined to abandon your mother and you, his rightful heir. All his thoughts are bent on it, and as you know, the Medium responds to our deepest thoughts and emotions. I fear the curse he is bringing on his kingdom as a result. To delay this collapse, your mother and I made an alliance at Muirwood. I will fall so that you may rise. You are the rightful and lawful heir to the throne of Comoros. There are no grounds for your father to forsake his marriage. I have done my best to shield you, but it is not enough. He will punish you for his failure to rid himself of his wife. In so doing, he will punish the land.
The Dochte Mandar will be expelled. When we are gone, you will soon discover that our presence held at bay a malevolent force. You will feel the presence of unseen beings who will wish to do you harm. I can no longer protect you from them, but I leave this kystrel for you.
I may never see you again, Lady Maia. I had hoped to serve under you when you became queen. I fear I may not live to see that day. My only regret is that I never sought to become a maston myself. Had I served the Medium with but half the zeal as I served your father, then it would not have left me naked to mine enemies. Until we meet again, in Idumea.
Your servant.
Maia felt the tears slip from her lashes and drip onto the folded paper, smudging some of the words. She struggled to rein in her feelings, but she could not, and hung her head, weeping softly in the gardens.
Chancellor Walraven had sacrificed his position, his eminence, and his future to preserve her right to inherit the throne. To stall the decline her father’s debauchery had caused in court and throughout the kingdom. Weeping was an unfamiliar act. She did not like the way it made her tremble and shake, her nose drip, the wildness it threatened to unleash inside her. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, trying to calm herself. What a strange mixture of emotions. Gratitude and sadness, hope and desolation. She would not be able to see her mother. She would not be able to see her friend, her mentor—the man who had taught her to read even though it was forbidden by his own people. She would remember that. She would always remember him. She sighed, struggling to tame her tears until she finally succeeded. She wiped her mouth and read the letter twice more.
Once she had it memorized, she turned her attention to the kystrel. Cupping it in her hand, she felt the hard edges of its woven, whorl-like pattern. It did not represent any specific creature. It was just a ring of interwoven leaves that were neither uniform nor precise. A kystrel—named after the falcon. A small bronze chain was affixed to it.
Maia stared at it, remembering that long-ago day when she had watched the chancellor use his kystrel to summon mice and rats to the tower. At the time, he had said she was too young to use one. He had warned that her years as an adolescent would be full of turbulent emotions—a storm of feelings she would have to learn to control before using a kystrel. He had promised to give her one when she became an adult. The fact that he had done so now meant that he did not expect to live to see that day. The thought grieved her.
Maia straightened the chain and slung it around her neck. She waited, pensive, trying to see if she would feel any different. But she felt the same as she always did. Nothing had changed.
She tucked the kystrel into her bodice so that its cool metal was pressed against her skin, then folded the paper tightly and hid it in her girdle. She wondered if she would see Walraven again.
He will be dead in a fortnight.
Maia stopped, eyes wide. She had heard the whisper in her thoughts as loudly as if someone had spoken them. It made gooseflesh spread across her arms and neck and a shiver go down her spine.
A fortnight later, when news arrived of Walraven’s death, she learned to trust the voice of the Medium.
The Naestors fear us greatly because the Dochte Mandar have taught them to. They have witnessed the evidence of the Medium’s destruction when a people violates laws of justice, honor, and compassion. Thoughts bring good or ill, depending on the prevailing temperaments. More than anything else, the Naestors fear the annihilation they witnessed after coming to our shores and the mastons who, despite the fervor of their faith in the Medium, could not prevent it. You will learn, great-granddaughter, that the Dochte Mandar took upon themselves the duty to control the feelings of the population. They seek to prevent another Blight. What happens to the flood when the levees are stripped away?
—Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Myriad Ones
You say the watchword is ‘Comoros’?”
Maia stared up at the captain, high on his saddle. He was a big man with a blond turf of stubble on the dome of his head and a trimmed goat
ee. He had an easy smile, but his eyes bored into hers and stared up and down her body. A twitch at the corner of his mouth flashed and was gone.
All around these men, Maia could feel the sniffling, snuffling reek of the Myriad Ones. Oily blackness gripped her heart. There was a mewling sound, inaudible to the ear, that felt like the whine of a bow driven over a lute string at an awkward angle. It made her teeth hurt and her stomach shrivel.
Jon Tayt hefted an axe in his hand, and the hound Argus growled threateningly.
There were twelve men in all—each on horseback, dressed in the king’s colors, and carrying weapons. Three had crossbows.
“Let us pass,” Maia said, her voice sounding hollow even to her.
The captain of the riders looked at her. His eyes burned with desire. “Kill the dog and the hunter. Bring her to my tent.”
Jon Tayt planted his foot and hurled the axe at the nearest man holding a crossbow. The blade snapped the taut crossbeam, and the mechanism shattered in his hands. Argus snarled and barked furiously, yapping at the horses’ legs as he darted in and out between them, causing the steeds to snort and buck at the commotion.
Jon Tayt drew another axe and sent it winging into the chest of a second crossbowman, toppling him from the saddle.
The kishion struck from the shadows of the road. He had skulked into the darkness the moment they heard the riders’ approach, and now he emerged, digging his dagger into the captain’s leg, making him howl with pain.
Someone grabbed a fistful of Maia’s hair and yanked, dragging her backward. She tripped as her attacker’s horse jostled her and pain shot across her scalp. Reaching back, she grabbed the man’s gloved wrist and tried to pull him off his horse, but all she managed to do was collide with the beast.