“Let us talk of pleasanter things,” she said. “Tell me more about these new windows of yours.”
He happily took her up on the change of topic. “They are remarkable. In fact, you should draw them. As beautiful as they are in reality, I am certain your rendering would bring them unique glory.”
“Oh, I can only see them by squinting, which might actually produce an interesting effect, but it would be of no use without color.”
His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “Do you not have colors? I could easily have some sent to you. Really, it is quite negligent of me to have not noticed after all these years that all your artwork is pencil, black ink, or charcoal.”
Actually, Caedmon Aldred had offered to provide her with oils years ago. But he was Ethelred’s court hillichmagnar, and the one who had spelled her tower to keep her prisoner. She assumed any especial gift from him was a bribe to gain her trust so he could report her every thought and action back to the court. Naturally, she had declined the offer.
“No, the problem is not supplies, but light. My windows are too narrow to afford the light necessary to produce true colors. And if my colors cannot be true, then I want only charcoal and parchment.”
Brandon turned in a circle, then walked the perimeter of the roof as though inspecting the defenses. “What about here?” he finally asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“Could you create true colors up here?”
She could no longer mask her feelings, and with a shaking voice and trembling hand that she rested on his forearm, she asked, “Brandon, can you actually do that? Can you give me permission to come up here whenever I want? If you cannot, say so immediately, because I do not think I could survive the disappointment.”
“Merewyn, I’m sorry. I spoke in haste.” He looked pained. “Please temper your expectations. Please know that I never see the king without pleading for your improved treatment. But I have raised your hopes unfairly. As you surely must see, my petitions on your behalf do less than I wish. But when he arrives, I will ask that you be allowed up here to draw and paint.”
She looked around at the city again, but that feeling of dizziness came back, stronger than before. She took a long, slow breath and tried to smile at Brandon.
He smiled back at her, and he seemed as genuine as she had ever known him, and yet, she could not ignore an internal tug. They had been such great friends: she and Brandon, with Fransis and Ethelred and Edgar. Yet, Edgar had arrested Fransis for Ethelred while Brandon remained Ethelred’s most loyal friend and supporter. For thanks, Ethelred had foisted his wife into Brandon’s keeping, and then ignored his recommendations for her treatment.
Had Brandon lost his sway with Ethelred? Or did Brandon exaggerate his efforts on her behalf? What were his motives? Surely he had his own agenda in all this. He had certainly paid more visits to her over the last three years, since his wife died. He wasn’t doing any of this out of a sense of altruism.
The breeze freshened. She shivered in spite of the bright sun and the sweat forming on her forehead. So much open space, so much sky and air. Her hands trembled, but she could not remember them beginning to shake. Shouts rose on the wind from the busy city streets. There were people, hundreds of people down there, both in dark corners and in the wide-open spaces—huge areas of unconfined life. Thinking about them made her feel exposed, almost naked. Could they see her? Did they recognize her?
“I believe I’m ready to go back inside. The sun is giving me a headache, and I must lie down.”
“Merewyn, let me apologize once more—”
But she felt as though she might vomit or faint if she spent another moment on this roof, all the world around her and overwhelming her, and she yanked her hand away and raced for the door.
Chapter 8
THE CHOIR LAUNCHED into the sixth and final verse, the one that started “Oh Beautiful Vesna/Where the Light always shines.” The basses dominated, as usual, and the higher voices were almost lost in the breeze. There were a few children in the group, standing down front with their mothers, but they weren’t singing. Instead, they were staring open-mouthed at Daryna.
When the song finally ended, the local patriarch stepped out from the bass section, into the center of the forest glade, and gave a little speech in Daryna’s honor. As his theme, he took the hymn they had just finished, and he started by ponderously belaboring every single image and metaphor—the dark, mysterious pines, the hidden labyrinth of mossy stone, the sun on the mountain’s peak.
“Every child in the kingdom knows the story,” he said, gesturing grandly as he paced back and forth.
“If every child knows it,” thought Daryna, “then you don’t need to tell it again.” But of course she knew he would.
“Every child knows how our Blessed Matushka lived in a stone labyrinth on the mountainside, like the holy hermits of old. She tended to the sick of this area; she gave counsel and spread Earstien’s Holy Light to all who visited her. Soon her fame spread far and wide, until even at the royal camp, her praises were sung.”
Daryna folded her hands and lowered her head modestly. She noticed the toes of her boots were getting worn. Should she have gotten a new pair before this trip?
“Three times,” cried the patriarch, “three times the king sent and begged the great lady to come to court. Only on the third time, when she heard the king’s little daughter languished, dying of fever, did she agree to come. And so she left her sanctuary here, but only so that she could become our Holy Mother, the guardian and guide of all the Loshadnarodski people.”
That wasn’t really how it had happened, but sometimes it was nice to hear someone add new embellishments to an old, tired tale.
“We are so honored,” he concluded, “to be able to sing ‘On the Slopes of Mount Vesna’ for you, my lady, within sight of Holy Vesna, where the Light, indeed, always shines.”
They all turned to look north, where the bare granite dome of the peak rose high over the surrounding forest. They were just in time to see a cloud drift over and cover the mountain in shade. It was all Daryna could do not to burst out laughing, but she managed to contain herself and give the usual prayers and blessings to the choir and the spectators. They had come to see her, and to see the queen, and to wish the royal party luck as they crossed the border into Myrcia.
Daryna didn’t come here very often anymore, but whenever she did, she was struck by how close Mt. Vesna stood to the border. She thought, “I might have ended up in Myrcia.”
How different her life might have been then. She had been wandering alone, heartsick, bedraggled, and starving, and she hadn’t cared where she went. She had found the mountain, and the labyrinth, and the little hermit’s cottage entirely by accident. But that was a part of the story no one in Loshadnarod knew.
For them, the story of Daryna Matushka started here. And in a certain sense, they were right. Living here in the wild, tending to sick and dying travelers, had made her who she was today. By the time the king’s priests had found her, her old life was fading from memory. She had even started to forget Faustinus. Maybe if they had let her stay here, she would have been able to forget him entirely.
“I love that story,” said Queen Nina, falling in beside Daryna as the service broke up. “I love it every time I hear it. And that song. Isn’t it lovely?” She started singing it again in a trilling soprano, pausing halfway through the second line to nudge her son. “Come on, Vadik! You know the bass part, don’t you?”
“I can’t hit the low notes,” he said sourly. Then, leaping at a chance to change the subject, he pulled Anik Kaur forward to walk with them. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. Once we cross the border, I’m only going to speak Myrcian. No Loshadnarodsk at all. And you two,” he looked at Anik and Daryna, “will please correct me if I make any mistakes. I don’t want to sound like a fool when I speak to King Ethelred and Prince Maxen.”
“An excellent idea, your royal highness,” said Anik. “Might I propos
e that we all try it together?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Nina, whose Myrcian was far shakier than her son’s. “Sincerity is more important than knowing all the right words. We and the Myrcians are all Ivichs, aren’t we? We all worship Earstien. The crucial thing is to speak from the heart, isn’t that right?”
“Sincerity is important,” agreed Anik, “but it will help if the Myrcians can understand us.”
As they walked back through the scattered tents to the royal enclosure, Nina started telling the story of how she had met Queen Merewyn. Everyone present had heard it before, but that didn’t stop her.
“I was eight, and she gave me this ruby pin.” Nina gestured to the pin, which she wore proudly in her quilted riding tunic. “And she said to me—I’ll never forget it—she said to me,” Nina switched momentarily to her heavily-accented Myrcian, “‘Let’s always be friends.’ Of course, I had to ask my father later what ‘always’ meant, because I barely spoke any Myrcian in those days. But I think I knew the gist of what she meant immediately, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to express it.”
They rounded the wall of green and gold embroidered curtains that made up the royal enclosure and came to the entrance, where the royal guards on duty lowered the silver silk cord to let them through.
In front of the great pavilion, a huge map painted on ox hide had been spread over a large trestle table. Polkovnik Anton, the commander of the queen’s guards, was deep in conversation there with Grigory. The Polkovnik wore his battle armor—thick leather with little plates of copper and steel riveted in overlapping layers. Grigory had on the new tunic that Daryna had given him yesterday. The dark green wool and silver lacings set off his pale skin and blond hair perfectly.
The two men were laying out knotted bits of string and pointing at landmarks with thin tree branches, calling out orders while a pair of royal scribes made notes on wax tablets.
“There you are, my dears,” said Nina. “You missed a lovely service. Have you worked out our route to Leornian, yet?”
Grigory took charge and pointed out the various baronies and earldoms they would be passing through as they made their way down the valley of the River Trahern. “The Polkovnik,” Grigory nodded to the officer, “has sent messengers ahead. We can assume that at least some of these nobles will invite us to dine and stay with them. Though, of course,” he added awkwardly, “those invitations will probably be more numerous as we get farther away from the border.”
“Why would that be?” Nina frowned. “Surely our closest neighbors, who know us the best, would welcome us.”
“Perhaps,” said Vadik in a low voice, “it has something to do with our raiding companies stealing their livestock from time to time.”
“Oh, that hardly ever happens at all anymore,” said Nina, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Now, Vadik, come with me. We need to decide on a suitable present for when we meet Queen Merewyn.”
With a haunted expression, Vadik said, “Mother, please. Don’t make me look at any more blasted tapestries and silverware.”
“Your majesty should remember that we still have no guarantee of seeing the Myrcian queen,” said Anik.
“Nonsense,” said Nina, as she started leading Vadik to the pavilion. “King Ethelred will let her out to meet us. You must have faith. Isn’t that right, Daryushka?”
“H’m...faith. Yes, your majesty. Absolutely,” said Daryna.
“Vadik, darling, let’s write a letter to King Ethelred right now,” said Nina. “I’ll tell him that I simply have to meet with Merewyn. You can help me with the Myrcian, and then we can have Daryushka and Anik check our work.”
“Mother, maybe I should write the letter myself,” said Vadik.
“Nonsense!” she said, as they disappeared under the tent flap. “We can do it together. Won’t it be fun?”
The Polkovnik excused himself and took the two scribes to a little red side tent, where they would presumably start drawing up more messages to send ahead of the royal party. Grigory watched them go for a second, then glanced at the larger pavilion, where Vadik was just disappearing.
“Would it seem rude if I asked something?” Grigory said, looking from Anik to Daryna and back again.
“It depends on the question, I suppose,” said Daryna.
“Good point,” Grigory admitted. “But what I’m wondering is...should we really be trying to get Queen Merewyn released?”
Anik nodded. “It is a trifle tangential to our primary mission of obtaining help for our mines.”
“I remember hearing stories about her,” said Grigory. “This was when I was at school in Sahasra Deva, I mean. Here in Loshadnarod, people are more circumspect about Queen Merewyn. But at school people said the most vile things about her.”
“As a former Sahasran schoolboy,” said Anik, grinning, “I don’t think I would put too much stock in the veracity of dormitory rumors.”
“Then what did happen?” said Grigory, lowering his voice. “Look, the safety of our mines matters to me. And...I’m sorry, but it looks as if our mission to get new pumps is now somehow tied to winning freedom for this Myrcian queen. So I have to ask: what did she do to get locked up? And does she really deserve to be let out?”
Daryna beckoned him and Anik away from the map table, toward a quieter corner of the enclosure near her own sleeping tent. “Very well,” she said, “what are these horrible rumors you’ve heard about her, Grigory Rodionov?”
“Well...that she had all sorts of affairs, and she manipulated people into trying to kill her husband, the king. And some other stories, which I don’t believe.” Grigory blushed. “Things about bathing in blood and...and something about livestock that I won’t repeat.”
“There was only one affair,” said Anik. “This is the story I heard from a Myrcian diplomat who was a friend of mine, back when I still worked for the Sahasran Vizierate of Foreign Affairs. And,” he sighed, “it is quite a tragic tale. Merewyn agreed to marry the king, even though she loved his cousin, Fransis Sigor. But then she and Fransis couldn’t keep themselves apart.”
“But there was something about a revolt against King Ethelred, wasn’t there?” Grigory asked.
“Yes,” said Anik, “Fransis was the Earl of Wellenham, the heir to the duchy of Newshire. He was the captain general of all Myrcia. And he was the most popular man in the kingdom. Especially after the bread riots in Leornian, when Fransis fed the people and listened to their complaints, rather than massacring them, as the king had ordered. People began to say Fransis should be the king, rather than Ethelred. So finally he tried to overthrow his cousin, but he was caught and executed before the rebellion could even begin. As for Merewyn, well....” Anik shrugged.
“Well, what?” Grigory demanded. “Did she take part in the revolt or not?”
“No one really knows,” said Anik. “There are rumors—I’m sure you heard them at school—that she was intimately involved in the plot. People even say she was the one who drove Fransis to start the rebellion. But at his trial, Fransis swore she was innocent, and so he went to the gallows alone.”
After a pause, Daryna took up the thread of the story. “Of course, everyone knew she had been cheating on the king, and that, in itself, is high treason. But the king commuted her death sentence and ordered that she be confined to the Bocburg in Leornian for the rest of her life.”
Grigory pondered that. Then, looking back toward the royal pavilion, he asked, “Why are we helping her, then?”
“There are some people who still believe she was truly innocent,” said Anik.
Daryna added, “There are other people who think Fransis should have won and become king. There are people who think Ethelred is a hopeless case, and everything in Myrcia went wrong the moment the queen was locked in that tower.”
Anik chuckled. “I would have put it more diplomatically than that, my lady, but yes. That’s exactly how it is.”
“All I wanted was a new pump for a mineshaft,” said Grigo
ry with a sigh.
“I have every confidence we will find engineers in Leornian who can help us,” said Anik, patting Grigory on the back.
“But how can we do this?” Grigory said. He turned to look at the royal pavilion for a second. “We’re a land of tents and shepherds and rough miners. My lady, my lord, you have seen the world, and you know what people are like there. How do we ask for help without looking helpless?”
“How do we ask for help without making ourselves a target for invasion?” said Anik. “I suppose we must trust Earstien to provide a way. As a professional diplomat, that idea frightens me. As a convert to your faith, though, it gives me hope.”
Daryna was about to add her own words of encouragement when she felt a sudden throbbing pressure in her face. It started as a low pulse in the back of her jaw and moved forward, until her incisors were shivering against each other like a rusty knife dragged over a slate.
It was magy. Someone else’s magy.
She clenched her teeth, but the throbbing continued. She looked wildly from side to side, ignoring Anik’s sudden expressions of concern and Grigory’s offer to find her some water.
She looked up and saw the falcon high overhead. It let out a shrieking cry and began descending in circles toward her. The panic faded, and she realized she knew the feel of that magy. She knew who had sent the bird to her. It was as clear as if he stood there himself, with his icy blue eyes and his long, auburn hair tied back with cheap twine.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said to Anik and Grigory, “I have a message from Lord Caedmon Aldred.”
The bird continued to circle above her as she jogged out of the royal enclosure and headed for a more private spot among the birch and pine at the river’s edge. Only at the last moment, she remembered to pull out one of her big, gauntleted riding gloves and slide it on before the falcon swooped in and landed.
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