Overhead, they could see some of the tree houses of the dryads, dwellings grown out of the wood, tree branches shaped into fitting accommodation through the power of wood magic. From the windows and the balconies the dryads watched them, leaning out to stare down into the path below, pointing and whispering at the strangers as they went by.
“Where is Princess Fiannuala!” someone yelled, but neither Michael nor Amy replied.
Gwenhwyvach led the two of them into a large clearing set in the midst of the forest, ringed all around by mighty trees, with the effect being almost of a courtyard in the middle of a fortress, a courtyard adorned with flowers in miniature gardens, breaking up the grass where petitioners could stand.
At the northern edge of this grass courtyard, sitting upon a slight hillock rising up out of the ground, stood one of the tallest trees in Eena, a stout oak at least ten men with arms linked in circumference, and grown out of that tree was a tangled wooden throne, a twisted thing of branches curving and swirling and intertwining with one another over and over again to form the arms, the seat, the back.
Upon the throne there sat a wizened, withered, aged dryad, his skin turned the deep red of old age for Dala’s children, his hair was turned white and starting fall like the autumn leaves, his beard was tangled up in knots, his skin was turned into a series of canyons by grief and by the cares of age. His crown was wood, adorned upon the brow with a single emerald, and a golden apple and a silver branch that served him for a sceptre lay in his lap, with his withered hands resting upon them.
King Gerallt ap Cadwal, King of Eena and Protector of the Sacred Groves, raised his weary head to look at them with golden eyes. Eyes that he had shared with his second daughter, Michael realised with a stab through his heart.
“My daughter’s companions,” he murmured, and even his voice sounded infinitely weary of the effort of continuing to exist. “Returned…without my daughter. Why?”
“Michael! Amy!” Princess Gwawr dashed into the clearing; a bright smile upon her face that made Michael wanted to veil his own with shame. The youngest of Eena’s three princesses – two living princesses now, to the sorrow of the world – was short, and young still, Michael did not believe she could be older than thirteen, and on account of her youth her skin was amongst the deepest green to be found amongst the dryads. Her hair was black and her eyes were as brown as fresh-tilled soil. She did not hide, as she had done to first behold him on his earlier visit, but looked overjoyed to see the both of them, little guessing that they had come to turn her joy to ashes. “How are you both? Is Fia with you?”
“I don’t see her, nor did Owain mention that she would be here,” Princess Cati said, striding out of the woods and into the courtyard clearing more slowly, and with greater dignity, than her youngest sister had displayed. Though she was the eldest, and heir to her father’s throne, Cati was still young, around Michael’s own count of twenty years if he guessed rightly, and her skin was still green and luscious. Her hair was red, not so red as Amy’s own but perhaps more of an auburn or a reddened brown, with bright blue eyes sparkling with intelligence in a sharp face. She walked across the grass until she stood beside her father at his right hand. “Michael Callistus, Amy Doraeus, daughter of Niccolo, it is good to see you both again.”
“It would be more a pleasure if our task were less unpleasant,” Amy whispered.
All around them, dryads were emerging out of the trees, in ones or twos or small and scattered clumps to form a second ring around the courtyard. Some had the green skin of youth, others the yellow skin tone of maturity. Others still were near as red as their king and leaned upon the sticks and props of age to keep them upright. But they all watched, all eyes were upon Michael and Amy and upon the absence of Princess Fiannuala, who had departed with them but had not returned.
Michael knelt, and he heard Amy, too, get down on her knees beside him. He laid his hands upon the grass, and felt all the tiny blades prick at his fingers as firmly as guilt pricked at his conscience. He shut his eyes.
Turo give me strength.
“Lord King,” he said, his voice ringing out across the clearing. “Princess Cati, Princess Gwawr. People of Eena. It is my solemn duty…It is with great…I regret…” He blinked, feeling the lump form in his throat. Turo give me strength.
He felt a hand upon his shoulder, heavy, but not harmful, gentle but strong. Amy’s hand, gripping him tight. She looked at him, and nodded without saying a word.
As she looked out across the clearing she said, “Majesty, princesses, dryads; Princess Fiannuala has fallen in battle. We, and the whole Empire, join with you in mourning for her.”
If Dala herself had risen from her stupor with all her wounds healed and descended upon Eena at that moment in all her majesty then the shock of her arrival would not have caused a greater silence than that which now descended over Eena. It was as though all the dryads in the forest had died along with Fiannuala, carried off by Tanuk in some secret raid, and now only their lifeless bodies remained to gaze with unseeing eyes at the human and the naiad in the centre of the circle. Such was the quiet that had befell the world on hearing that Princess Fiannuala would never return to the sacred groves.
The sound which broke the silence came from old King Gerallt himself. He gave a kind of sigh, or perhaps a wheeze, which sounded almost as though it was his last breath leaving his body, save that he was still sufficiently alive to speak, though judging by his voice he was speaking through the tears that threatened to clog his throat. His head was bowed, and Michael had to strain to hear him.
“Dead? My darling daughter, dead? My Fiannuala, Cerys’ delight, dead? You speak the truth? She’ll come no more?”
“I fear ‘tis so, Lord King,” Michael murmured.
“How?” Cati demanded. Her breast was heaving with silent sobs, her blue eyes were moist with tears, and her green hands were clenched into fists by her sides. “How? Where? Why? Answer me!”
“In battle with Quirian, our enemy, in the ruins of Aureliana,” Michael said, his own voice near as hoarse as that of the king. “He was too swift for us, and far too strong.”
Cati swallowed hard. “And her…and the…what have you done with my sister’s body?”
“We laid her to rest in Aureliana,” Amy said. “In a garden there.”
Cati took a deep breath, her chest still heaving, and then exhaled at just as much length. “I see,” she said. “It was good of you to bring us this news in person.”
“No!” Gwawr yelled. “You can’t just…you can’t say that. You can’t…Fia’s dead and they’re still here! It isn’t right!” She slammed her hands down into the ground, and instantly a score of twisting vines leapt up out of the soil all around Michael, wrapping around his arms, his legs, his body as they pulled him down onto the ground, pressing his face into the dirt as other vines began to wrap around his neck and choke the life out of him.
“Michael!” Amy yelled, leaping to her feet, one hand reaching for the hilt of Magnus Alba.
“No,” Michael choked, motioning desperately with his hand for her to stand down even as he found himself struggling to find breath for more words. He could see spots in front of his eyes; every breath was an agonising struggle. He shook his head with what little movement was allowed to it. “No,” he gasped.
Amy hesitated, one hand upon her sword, looking from Michael to Gwawr and then back again. “Michael…”
No, Michael thought. Let me bear this, our Amy, so long as they leave you be.
“Princess Gwawr,” Amy called. “Please, princess, stop this.”
“Why?” Gwawr demanded, tears running down her face even as grief conquered her voice. “Why should I stop?”
“Because you insult our sister with his display,” Cati snapped, and with a motion of her fingers the vines that bound Michael to the ground and squeezed his throat were all severed, and Michael lay on the grass upon his belly gasping for breath as all restraints fell away from him.
Gwawr
looked up at her elder sister. “Cati…”
“Fiannuala was brave,” Cati declared, in a voice that could be heard around the courtyard. “Fiannuala was noble. Fiannuala was kind. Fiannuala was faithful. Fiannuala was beloved by all of us. Even I, who did not show it often, cared for her even more than a sister should.
She walked out into the centre of the courtyard, turning this way and that to look at every dryad gathered round in turn. “I grieve for her. I grieve as few of you will know. And yet to cast blame upon her comrades for her fate, cruel as it is, demeans both us and all our memories of Fiannuala. Was she a stripling girl to be dependent upon others? Was she some defenceless thing, to require protection? No, to both. Fiannuala was a warrior such as our race has not seen in this forest for many generations. And, much though it pains me, she has met the warrior’s end.
“And so, though we will all mourn for her, we will not demean her by suggesting that she was not responsible for her own fate.” She looked at Michael and Amy. “The warrior who made an end of her, Quirian, is he dead?”
“He is,” Amy said.
Cati nodded. “Then she is avenged. Let all the forest weep! Let the birds and beasts be mournful! Let us grieve, together, for all our lost pride, she who we loved so well.” Her voice rang as loud and as clearly as a trumpet, and her poise and bearing were as noble as a queen and not for the first time Michael was struck by how clearly it was she who ruled in Eena, and not her tired and aged father on his wooden throne. It was that, as much as anything else, that had led Fiannuala to accompany Michael and the rest: she had wanted to escape her sister’s shadow, and to win great glory in her own right, and adorn her name with honours that would shine brightly without the shade of the trees.
Michael got up off his belly, though only so far as his knees. “Thank you, princess.”
“As I said,” Cati replied. “Fiannuala made her own choices. Where will you go once you leave here?”
“To Eternal Pantheia,” Michael said.
“Was your Gideon Commenae restored to his high place then?”
“No,” Amy said. “Gideon also perished in the fighting, Tullia too.”
“It seems that we are not alone in grief then,” Cati replied. “I hope it was worth it.”
“The Empire was saved,” Michael replied. “That is worth any price.”
Cati did not reply directly to that, instead she said, “If not Gideon Commenae, then who waits for you in Eternal Pantheia, the Empire’s capital? Or perhaps I should ask what?”
“Princess Imperial Romana, the first since the Founding,” Michael said. “She waits for us to return, and serve her.”
“I see,” Cati murmured. “Is she new? I don’t recognise the name.”
“She is recently ascended to the Imperial dignity,” Michael replied.
Cati was silent for a moment, brushing the tears that had gathered upon her cheeks, looking deep in thought. “When you return to Eternal Pantheia and to your Princess Imperial I will go with you.”
Michael frowned. “Princess?”
“No!” Gwawr yelled. “No, you can’t go! Father, tell her she can’t go?”
King Gerallt raised his tired and weary eyes to look upon his eldest daughter. “I allowed your sister Fiannuala to go…aye, to go to her death, it now transpires. Now I must send you on your way as well and wonder if I shall hear that you, too, have perished from the mouths of these two? Cati, my firstborn, my eldest, my heir…do you hate me so that you would seek to kill me slowly, with cuts to my heart and wounds of grief?”
“Fiannuala was a warrior, and left to fight and seek adventure beyond our woods,” Cati said. “I am no warrior, I admit it. I am your daughter, your eldest and your heir, and I believe that I may serve you and serve Eena better for now in Eternal Pantheia than here.”
“But why?” Gwawr wailed.
“Because Fiannuala was right, we cannot huddle in these trees for all eternity,” Cati said. “I ask the King’s leave to go to Eternal Pantheia and re-negotiate the terms of our agreement with the Empire. It is time for the dryads of Eena to return to the wider world and make ourselves known once more.”
“But-“ Gwawr began.
“I said I am no warrior,” Cati said firmly. “I do not go to battle; I do not risk my life. I go to talk, to meet with the human princess who holds our woods in the palm of her hand and make a friend of her. Father, I beg you, for the sake of Eena and in memory of Fiannuala, give me leave.”
King Gerallt bowed his head, seeming to become even older as he did so. “You have your mother’s boldness in you. It does not burn so clearly as Fiannuala’s courage on the battlefield, but you have it, nonetheless. I give you leave, and pray to Dala that I will live to see your safe return. Take with you twenty volunteers skilled with the bow and the spear, for your protection and your honour, and return safely, as swiftly as you may.”
Cati bowed. “I thank you, father.”
“Cati, don’t,” Gwawr murmured.
“I will return,” Cati said. “I swear I will return.”
“Fia swore too,” Gwawr said mutinously.
“But I am no warrior,” Cati said. “And so no danger shall come between me and my word.”
Gwawr’s shoulders slumped, and her head bowed. “Then go. Come back if you like, or don’t. I don’t care.”
“I will come back,” Cati replied. “And it will be best for everyone, for the whole forest, that I went.”
“I said I don’t care,” Gwawr spat.
So much grief in this one house, and all because of us, Michael thought. May God forgive us all.
Cati turned back to Michael. “What is this new princess doing, in Eternal Pantheia, this Princess Imperial Romana? What is she like?”
Michael paused for a moment before he replied. “She is remaking the Empire, princess.”
Cati nodded. “Then let us go, and see if I cannot remake Eena, too.”
The War Cry Sounds
“Pater Lannius? Cimon thinks he may have found something.”
The eyes of Lannius Martius were a deep grey, like a storm rolling in fast, and most of the time Mark found he couldn’t even guess at what was going on behind them, but they positively gleamed at that bit of news. “At last!” he cried as joy disfigured his face – unfortunately that was no figure of speech, his face wasn’t wonderful to look at anyway and the manic expression he was contorting it into only made things worse. “At last! I knew it; I knew it would be here. Show me, captain, you must show me at once.”
“Now hold on, boss, and calm down a moment,” Marcus drawled. He raised one hand, both to stop Pater Lannius from running immediately up the mountainside from their camp and to indicate that he shouldn’t get so worked up so easily. Captain Marcus ‘Mark’ Constantine had been in the treasure hunting game for about ten years now, and he had gone looking for enough ancient tombs and lost cities to know that it didn’t do any good to let the client get too excited too early. Too much excitement could lead to despondency when things proved less profitable than hoped for, and despondent people didn’t spend as much in the long run.
“Calm down?” Lannius shouted. “But you said-“
“That Cimon thinks he’s found something,” Mark said. “More specifically, he thinks he’s found metal under the rock. He also thinks, though he’s less certain of this, that there may be a void under the metal. But I don’t know that it’s this tomb you’re looking for. It may not be anything at all.”
“But this must be it, Captain, it can’t possibly be anything else,” Minerva Martius declared. She was trembling with excitement as she emerged from her tent carrying thatbold book she was always reading: the strange one with all the scrolls bound up together and squashed beneath two lots of hard black leather. Mark had never seen a book quite like it.
Minerva continued, “Thanaril says that the tomb of Iriali could be found true east of Tar Rapha and north west of the village of Eizo Tara, upon the sight of her last stand. We’ve found th
e remains of Tar Rapha and Eizo Tara-“
“You mean you think you have.”
“So this place must be what we’re looking for,” Minerva went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “Iriali’s tomb; her final resting place. And you see-“
“Come now, Minerva, I am sure the good captain here is far too busy to listen to your stories.” Lannius chuckled as though he expected Mark to agree with him, though Mark himself said nothing. Personally he wouldn’t have minded listening to Minerva talk some more. She wasn’t the first prim, buttoned up, well educated girl to be swept away by Mark’s rugged good looks and boyish charms, for Mark had run into more than a few in his time; but Minerva was the first one who he...he felt...she was different. Nothing had happened yet and already he was dreading how it might end, or that something might happen to her before it got that far.
So if she wanted to read to him out of that whole damn book he was happy to let her. Minerva had a very fine voice.
But she wasn’t bold enough to deny her father, and so her mouth snapped shut and she said no more.
“Come, captain,” Lannius said, emphasising Mark’s title in a way that made it seem half an insult. “Show us to this...possible nothing, that you have found.”
Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3) Page 15