“Nonsense,” she retorted. Beneath the dryness of her tone ran an unexpected trickle of mirth. “You do not endanger me. My heart is not made to flutter by my efforts at your behest.” She sounded remarkably untroubled for a girl who had come near to death. “And my name is Excrucia. Should you neglect it again, you will earn my regal displeasure.”
When I looked up at her, she laughed openly, allowing me to see her face.
Well.
In the ordinary course of events within the Domicile, I had seen Excrucia’s features often enough. My Queen did not permit her daughter to attend public occasions hooded or veiled. Still the sight of the girl’s face did not fail to strike me.
She might justly be styled plain when she regarded her world and those who inhabited it without expression. Her skin did not glow. Her features were blunt and irregular, with somber eyes too near-set and mouth too wide—and all dominated by a prominent nose. Moreover, her appearance was not improved when she frowned, which she did often, in concentration or social discomfort. At such times, she might have been no more than a young fishwife.
Ah, but when she laughed—when humor or sarcasm or indeed kindness ruled her—when interest, curiosity, or eagerness struck their sparks—she was ignited to beauty. Then her mien was transformed. She concealed herself when she could because she knew too well that she was plain—and perhaps because her mother’s example, or her mother’s disappointment in her, caused her shame. But our colloquies in my laborium were often blessed by such reminders as she now presented—reminders that she was not as she customarily appeared.
Her face was one that a better man than I could have loved. Her laughter and her smile enabled me to forget for a moment that I was angered by my Queen, dismayed by her deeds—and altogether baffled by Indemnie’s plight.
Sadly the moment passed. Recalled to my straits, I spoke with a measure of asperity.
“Excrucia, then. Your service itself does not endanger you. That I grant. Rather my fear is of your mother’s disapproval.
“Oh, she does not wish you ignorant. Mere study will not incur her ire. But that you pursue your studies at my bidding—” I swallowed anxiety. “Excrucia, your aid will infuriate her. That you will be barred from further contact is certain.” With difficulty, I refrained from adding, That she will have my head is probable. More quietly, I explained, “She relies upon my ignorance. She requires it absolutely.”
My words banished Excrucia’s smile. Instead she frowned—a frown that I was unable to interpret. And she did not relieve my uncertainty. Her tone revealed only restraint as she offered, “Yet you seek to defy her.”
Beyond question, I should have sent her from me. I should have refused all further converse. She was my Queen’s daughter and heir. I had no claim upon her, no right to cause her the slightest discomfort. Nevertheless I deemed myself desperate. Moreover I was too much alone with my dreads and doubts. I could not hold back.
“I seek to understand her.”
Excrucia started in surprise. “She does not wish to be understood? She does not wish her Hieronomer to understand her?”
I ground my teeth, striving to silence my unruly heart. Any utterance might prove fatal, were it reported to Indemnie’s ruler. But I found that caution no longer ruled me. Inimica Phlegathon deVry had proposed marriage to all five of the island’s barons. She urged the sacrifice of a child. An attempt had been made on her daughter’s life. And that daughter was my only ally. Common fears were forgotten.
“She believes,” I replied with some care, “that comprehension will falsify my auguries.” Quick to clarify, I continued, “As I once did myself. But now, Excrucia—” Being unable to both grind my teeth and speak, I squeezed my hands between my knees. “I have come to the end of what viscera and pooling blood can tell me. I have sacrificed chickens, piglets, lambs, and calves without number. On one occasion, I gutted a stillborn infant.” The memory set my bowels squirming. “I have gazed upon Indemnie’s dooms until I yearn for blindness, yet I find no outcome that is not ruin. And still—”
I suppressed an oath. “Guided by my poor efforts, your mother wrestles with our fate, she confronts it daily in her chosen fashion, but I am able to glean no reason for her deeds. She is Indemnie’s ruler. I cannot credit that she desires ruin. Yet her dealings hasten our end.
“I must serve her. She is my Queen. I am helpless if I do not understand.”
These protestations my companion absorbed with no more than a deepening of her frown. In my present state, I would not have been surprised had she elected to revile me. She was her mother’s daughter and heir. I considered it implausible that she did not aspire to her mother’s assurance and hauteur. Certainly she must remain loyal to her mother—or if not to her mother, then to her place in the succession. Yet when she spoke, she conveyed no disapprobation. With an air of impersonal concentration—indeed, with an apparent irrelevance, as though she had not grasped the import of my concerns—she observed, “She dreams that our ships will return with hope.”
By her manner, Excrucia startled me to sharpness. “Yet they do not. Those that quest northward encounter only ice. They return with rime still in their rigging. To the west, they wander until their stores are depleted to no purpose among barren atolls defended by jagged reefs. In the south, they are met with storms which challenge their best seamanship, and some are lost. And from the east no vessel finds its way homeward. No ship commanded to that heading has ever returned.”
By such signs, as by my own scrying, I was certain that one of Indemnie’s dooms would come upon us from the east.
The other, alas, gathered against us on our isle itself. And no amount of scrutiny, no quantity of entrails and blood and art, informed me which fate would be the first to befall. Indeed, I was unable to determine which was the more to be dreaded.
However, Excrucia was not ruffled by my tone. Nor did she appear discomfited by the plain thrust of my speech. Frowning still, and still with an impersonal air, she remarked, “For that reason, she provokes the barons. She toys with them to expose their conniving. What other course lies open to her? If she cannot hope for help beyond the seas, she must confront perils near at hand.”
Then by increments her brow eased its clench. A nascent smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes as she regarded me were rich with warmth.
“Now, Mayhew”—she appeared to tease—“I begin to understand the studies that you have asked of me. I undertook them willingly, having no better use for my time, but their purpose has eluded me. Why have you wished to know the earliest origins of our people upon this island? Why are you not content to imagine that we sprang full-grown from the earth? Why are you troubled by such matters as history and lineage, when Indemnie’s future is open to your arts? Why have you inquired particularly concerning alchemy in every guise and use? And why, oh, why do you attend so closely to the successions and practices of Indemnie’s rulers?
“But now at last I have you. You seek to comprehend any hidden force and factor which may bear upon our dilemmas. By doing so, you hope to understand my mother. You have confessed as much, but now I grasp the reach of your ambition.
“You do not merely wish to understand her. You are not content to serve her. You seek comprehension as a means to her salvation.”
Have I not said that she was her mother’s daughter? The dullness ascribed to her was a ruse. She wore a feigned lack of wit like a cloak to disguise her true acuity. Indeed, it was a form of deliberate plainness. It spared her the burden of the expectations which her birth and station might otherwise compel her to bear. Such concealments freed her to feel and think and act as she chose.
As for my expectations, she wore them lightly, seeming to take pleasure in them.
When I could find no reply other than to spread my hands, acknowledging their emptiness, she continued. Still with warmth in her gaze and a tease in her voice, she said, “Y
ou aim high, Mayhew. It is not conceivable that a man of your stature and gifts can effect the salvation of Indemnie’s Queen—and certainly not when her own duplicity undermines her every step. Therefore you must aim higher still.” By increments, Excrucia’s tone grew grave. “If you would save her, your only path to that end is the salvation of Indemnie itself. And that, Mayhew, is a task too high for a man of any stature or gifts.”
“As you say,” I interposed so that she would not say more. Already she named my futility too baldly. “I aspire to a feat beyond the compass of any man. Who would know the truth of this, if I do not?
“Yet if we are greatly fortunate,” and if my thin courage held, “perhaps it will not exceed one small Hieronomer aided by his Queen’s daughter and heir.”
Now I beheld a new light in Excrucia’s eyes, one unfamiliar to me—a glimpse of daring that surpassed simple eagerness or curiosity. The smile with which she regarded me was a gift as broad as a grin. “Then, Mayhew,” she said like a girl laughing, “we will make the attempt. And to begin, I must inform you that I have completed my studies.
“I have now perused every volume, scroll, and tattered parchment preserved in the Domicile. A strenuous endeavor, I do assure you.” Briefly she caused her eyes to cross, perhaps hoping to win an answering smile. “If you are willing, and your duties permit, I will share my learning.”
I sat before her mute, striving to mask the force of my relief. I had made shameless use of her, yet she rewarded my presumption with bounty. It was possible, or perhaps probable, that her studies had been as futile as my own. Nevertheless her willingness in my cause surpassed my prayers.
At my silence, she lifted an eyebrow, awaiting some response.
Swallowing weakness, I said unsteadily, “Your Highness. Excrucia Phlegathon deVry. Friend. I am yours entirely.” Then I thought to add, “Do not mistake my silence. It signifies astonishment, nothing more. I am amazed that you condescend to aid me. Nothing less than my Queen’s summons will coerce me to delay your tale.”
To this offering, she granted another laugh. “Flattery? From the Queen’s Hieronomer? I am raised up in my own estimation. There is no other man in all the realm who would trouble to flatter me.”
I would have suspected her of mockery, either of me or of herself, but I heard no jeer in her laugh, no self-pity in her tone. Defying my natural disbelief—indeed, my native caution—I deemed her pleasure genuine.
While I marveled at her, her humor receded, allowing a frown to reclaim her brow. Her gaze left my face and appeared to consider a more distant vista, as though she endeavored to refresh from afar her recall of scrolls and parchments.
“In truth,” she began, “the scale of my learning is not large. What records our ancestors preserved are both random and fragmentary, rife with hints but miserly with knowledge. The tale which I have gleaned is as much supposition as fact. Yet I doubt not that it will hold your interest.”
I murmured an assent that did not deflect her from her thoughts.
“In sum, then,” she informed me, “it appears plain that the realm began as five separate colonies widely scattered around our shores. Their documents do not reveal any early knowledge of each other. Nor do they account for the establishment of these colonies, apart from one suggestive fragment which mentions ‘abandonment.’ Alas, that fragment expresses neither desire nor execration regarding this abandonment. It confirms merely that our first ancestors came to Indemnie from some other land. That they all came from the same homeland is implied only by the fact that their documents are written in our tongue.
“On one detail, however, the earliest surviving records of the five colonies are in agreement. At the time of their establishment, this isle was utterly barren.”
Involuntarily I gaped at Excrucia, but she did not pause to acknowledge my surprise. In a tone desiccated by concentration, she said, “The soil was rock and sand. There were no native plants. And no planting could be attempted because there was no water. Some few small springs were discovered, but the streams issuing from them were worse than brackish. Whoever drank therefrom became gravely ill, and some perished. If the colonists were indeed abandoned, they were abandoned to die.”
Ere I could expostulate, she continued more briskly, “Regarding their survival itself, I stand on firm ground. We are here. We prosper. The colonies grew to become baronies. The barons were united under the rule of the first queen. So much is certain.
“Regarding the means by which they procured their survival, however, I have gleaned little. On one parchment I read these words. ‘By my command, and having no other hope of life, my gift-kin and adherents—and I myself—have turned all our efforts to the search for chrism, sacrificing our stores of food and water in the attempt. Only our livestock and game animals were spared.’ The outcome of that search is not described, but it must have succeeded. Like the others, that colony endured. This detail is confirmed by the name of the document’s author, a name which endures among us. He called himself, ‘Lord Tromin Phlegathon.’”
I held up my hands to interrupt Excrucia. The name Phlegathon twisted in my vitals, as did the notion of “gift-kin,” but for the moment a more pressing concern gripped me. “Are there other references to this chrism? Have you determined what it is?”
The word was entirely new to me. I could not guess its import.
Frowning more deeply, she replied, “I have not. Of references I encountered perhaps a score, but they offered no word of explanation. In one scroll, I read the words, ‘Lord deVry having discovered chrism, we were at last able to secure water.’ A parchment devoid of names states, ‘With chrism sufficient to our needs, we began to flourish.’ It must have been common knowledge among the colonies that chrism was vital to their survival. All knew what it was, and why it was necessary, else some scribe would have recorded the knowledge to preserve it. Yet I have found no such record.”
What, none? Unable to arrange my thoughts, and unwilling to demand an account which Excrucia could not supply, I mused instead, “Livestock and game animals? If the straits of the colonists were dire, why were such beasts spared?”
She implied uncertainty with a shrug. “As I have confessed, my tale is largely supposition. However”—for a moment, her gaze returned from its distance to meet mine—“the word ‘hieronomer’ occurs with some frequency, even on the oldest parchments. I surmise, therefore, that the beasts were preserved for the use of the colonists’ hieronomers. Indeed, I suspect that the colonists relied upon hieronomers in their quest for this chrism.”
Well. So much I understood. Hence my first interest in lineage. Like the people of Indemnie, I with my small gifts could not have sprung full-grown from the earth. Names such as Phlegathon and deVry spoke of my Queen’s earliest ancestors. I also had such ancestors, though they were nameless. So I had always believed. To the best of my knowledge, I had inherited my aptitude for augury from my mother’s mother, a village hieronomer of no small repute in her day. I had therefore concluded that those abilities which I possessed—and which my two sisters, my brother, our parents, and our friends alike did not—were an effect of lineage. My gifts, like their uses, were an expression of blood.
However, I did not speak of such matters. My own lineage surely played no part in Indemnie’s dooms. Rather my concerns pertained to Excrucia’s—by which I chiefly mean to her mother’s. It was Inimica Phlegathon deVry who would bear the brunt of impending crises, not her lowly Hieronomer.
Nodding my acceptance of my companion’s conclusion, I inquired, “Have you been able to determine what followed from the discovery of chrism?”
She nodded, her gaze once more fixed upon her studies or her thoughts. “To some extent, I have. That which I have gleaned resembles a preliminary sketch rather than a true portrait. The rendering becomes more complete in more recent years, but the older portions are mere outlines.
“For the colonies, foul springs
were made clean rivers, how I know not—though I surmise that the transformation was achieved by some effect of chrism—or, more likely, by the use of chrism in the hands of those colonists referred to as gift-kin. In similar fashion, barren rock and lifeless sand became loam. Grasses became crops. Shrubs became trees. Habitations were built, first scanty, then more enduring. Here one document cites the efforts of the adherents. Another praises them, though without explicit cause. By increments which would perhaps astound us, the colonists prospered. They began to multiply. And as they grew, these burgeoning populations began to encounter each other.
“That these encounters were greeted with recognition rather than animosity is a further supposition—one, however, which is supported by their shared tongue, by the absence of any hint of conflict in their few records—and also by a substantial increase in the number and clarity of their documents when contentions later arose between the colonies. These contentions plainly concerned access to lands, or to stands of timber. Perhaps they also concerned available sources of chrism, though the writings say as much only by inference. However, there is this in addition. These contentions did not end in bloodshed. Rather they were resolved by negotiation.”
To myself, I thought, Hence Indemnie’s long history of peace. Though the colonies were five, they were one people, all transplanted or abandoned for no cause that I could discern. They had no natural antipathy.
Still I sat silent, unwilling to interrupt Excrucia’s tale.
Once again, her gaze returned to her surroundings, and to me. “It will interest you, I think, to hear that these negotiations were not conducted by names such as deVry and Phlegathon. The scrolls speak of Lords Plinth and Estobate. One parchment cites a Harmoty Indolent. And another states that all matters pertaining to leadership and rule were managed by families that were not ‘gift-kin’—who were therefore presumably descended from the ‘adherents.’ The tasks of the gifted were deemed too vital to be vexed by the more mundane affairs of expanding populations.”
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