by DAVID B. COE
Her mother laughed. “Hardly.”
“Will Uncle Numar protect me, too?”
The smile vanished from her mother’s face. “Why do you think you need protecting?”
“Because of what that man said today, that he feared for my safety.”
“That man was the duke of Rassor,” her mother said, frowning and taking a breath. “And he should have held his tongue.”
“You agreed with him. You said that all of you were afraid for me.”
“Did I?”
Kalyi nodded. “Why are you? Is it because of Uncle Henthas? That’s what the duke said.”
Her mother smiled, though Kalyi thought she didn’t look happy. “I don’t think Henthas will hurt you. Truly I don’t. But you lead the kingdom now, and we have enemies in the Forelands.”
“Like in Eibithar?”
“Yes, the Eibitharians are our enemies. And others as well. They may see how young you are and think that the kingdom is weak because it’s led by a child. That’s why we have Numar here. And that’s why we all need for you to be very strong and very brave. Do you think you can do that?”
Kalyi nodded, and this time her mother’s smile seemed real.
“Do you think Uncle Grigor would have hurt me?”
“Peace, child. Please. It’s time for sleep, not questions.”
“I’m sorry, Mother. Goodnight.”
But her mother just sat, staring at the candle. “Grigor was a bitter, cruel man,” she finally said. “He wanted to be king, and he didn’t care who he had to hurt or kill to reach the throne.”
“I’m glad he’s dead,” Kalyi said. She knew it was a bad thing to say, but it was the truth, and both her mother and father had always told her to speak the truth.
Her mother looked at her sharply, but then looked away again. “So am I,” she whispered.
A moment later, she leaned forward again, kissed Kalyi on each cheek, and blew out the candle. “Goodnight, love.”
“Goodnight, Mother.”
She watched her mother leave, then bundled herself in her blankets so that she could barely move her legs and arms. With the windows shuttered, the only light in the chamber came from the fire burning low in the hearth. It gave an orange glow to everything she could see, and cast strange dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling.
We all need for you to be very strong and very brave. She didn’t feel strong. She felt young and terribly small. Her father’s crown was too large for her; the throne she had sat upon during the ceremony earlier this day had seemed immense, as if she were just a baby sitting on a soldier’s stallion. She had been the only child at her investiture, she was certain of it, because she looked for others, even when she should have been listening to the prelate. Other children lived in the castle, some Qirsi, some Eandi. Most of them were her friends-because she was the daughter of the king, all the children wanted to play with her and see where the king lived and slept and planned for wars. But none of them had been invited to the ceremony. Or none had chosen to come.
Kalyi hadn’t seen any of her friends since her father died. She spent most of her days with her mother, or with Nurse, or with the prelate, who made her pray in the cloisters whenever he saw her. Before all this began, she had been tiring of her lessons, but now she couldn’t wait to get back to them. She wondered if she’d still have lessons now that she was queen. More than that, she wondered if the other children would still want to be her friends. They might not like having to bow to her and call her “Your Highness.” She would have been happy to tell them not to do any of that, but she didn’t know if she was allowed to. There was a lot she didn’t know about being queen. That was why she needed Uncle Numar.
The one thing Kalyi did know was that she could be brave. She might not have been strong like her father or the soldiers in her army, but she wasn’t going to be afraid. She had cried the morning her mother told her that Father was dead, but she hadn’t cried since, and she didn’t intend to.
Nor did she intend to let the Eibitharians frighten her. There had been a spy from Eibithar in the city a few days earlier. Kalyi had heard of it from the guards. And though everyone else in the castle seemed scared, including her mother, Kalyi was not. Father had told her many times that a soldier had to learn to master his fear. She hadn’t understood at first what that meant, but her father explained it.
“Everyone has times when they’re afraid,” he told her one bright afternoon, as they walked along the battlements facing the river. “But a good soldier is able to see beyond his fear, to conquer it in his mind the way he conquers his enemies in battle. If you fear defeat, you make plans for victory. If you find yourself fearing death, you think of how you will fight to avoid dying. A soldier who marches to battle thinking he’s going to die, probably will, just as a king who leads his army into a war expecting to lose, has little chance of winning.”
Kalyi knew that she was not a soldier, but she sensed that her father’s advice worked just as well for princesses and queens. The dukes of Aneira were afraid that Henthas wanted to kill her and that the spies from Eibithar wanted to destroy the kingdom. But Kalyi was queen now, and she refused to let those things happen.
She still needed to learn how to be queen, how to protect her land from its enemies. But Numar and Pronjed and her mother would help her. And as for Henthas, she would just stay away from him. If she had to see him, she’d make certain that someone else was always with her. Either way, she wasn’t going to be afraid of him, because then he would hurt her. Her father had told her so.
The one thing Kalyi didn’t understand was her father’s death. Her father, she was quite certain, was not afraid of anything or anyone. Yet he was dead, killed, she had heard someone say, by his own hand. Kalyi knew what that meant, just as she knew that taking one’s own life was a violation of one of Ean’s doctrines, though she couldn’t remember which. But it seemed to her that a person only killed himself if he was terribly afraid of something. Her mother said he did it because the castle surgeon told him he was dying, but Kalyi knew that her father wasn’t afraid of death. He had told her so. Which meant that there must have been another reason. She was going to find out what it was. She couldn’t really be queen yet, because she was too young. But she could be strong and brave, like her mother said, and she could discover why her father had died.
Yaella eyed her duke cautiously from the chair near the hearth, gauging his anger. He stood before the fire, glowering at the flames, his back to her and his hands behind his back. One hand was fisted so that the knuckles had turned white; the other held that one by the wrist, as if to keep it from reaching for a weapon.
“I did tell him not to come,” Rowan said, his voice hard. He turned briefly, glancing back at her. “I remember doing so.”
“I remember it as well, my lord.” She tried to keep her tone neutral. As always, she was forced to tread a fine line between defending Shurik and not offending her duke. “But I daresay a lot has changed since then.”
“Not my wishes in this matter. The man is still a traitor. I may have granted him asylum for helping my father, but I did not make him a minister in my court. He seems too eager to forget that, and he has since the day he arrived in Mertesse. That hasn’t changed either.”
He was his father’s son in so many ways. Not just the sky blue eyes and jutting brow, but also the pride and willfulness, the quick temper and enduring anger. If anything, Rowan’s youth made him more difficult than Rouel had been. In the last years of his life, the old duke had come to recognize his flaws and had learned to laugh at them. Rowan was not ready even for this.
“Forgive me, my lord, but this is more my fault than Shurik’s. In the time since he has been living in Mertesse, he and I have grown rather… close. I believe that when he heard that we had been stricken by Grigor’s poison, his concern for me outweighed his sense of duty to you. You have my deepest apologies.”
It was a risk, but a small one. She and Shurik had not been as discreet a
s they should have been, and as a result she felt fairly certain that Rowan already knew of their affair. Even if he didn’t, it was only a matter of time before he would. Best then that he hear of it from her.
The duke kept his back to her, as if embarrassed by her admission. “That still doesn’t excuse it,” he said. But Yaella could tell from his voice that she had succeeded somewhat in blunting his anger.
“Of course not, my lord. I’m certain that Shurik realizes his error and will apologize for it. But he still needs your protection.” Now more than ever. “I’d hate to think that his affection for me might cause you to withdraw your offer of asylum.”
At that Rowan did turn. “No, First Minister. I won’t make him leave.” His expression soured. “Just keep him as far from me as possible. You’ll pardon me for saying so, but I don’t care for the man. Not at all.”
Nor he for you. “I understand, my lord. If you like, Shurik and I will ride back to Mertesse at the rear of our company.”
He nodded. “That would be acceptable. He knows to meet us outside the city gates?”
Yaella felt the color drain from her face. “The city gates?”
“Yes, of course. I don’t want anyone in Solkara seeing the man in my company.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is there a problem, First Minister?”
“Yes, my lord. I told Shurik to meet us outside the castle gates, not the city gates. I don’t know if I’ve enough time to get another message to him.”
Rowan pressed his lips in a tight line. “You should have known better, Yaella. I’ve made my feelings for this man very clear. It seems he’s not the only one who’s allowed his judgment to be clouded by his affections.”
Yaella lowered her gaze, as he’d expect. “Yes, my lord.”
He shook his head, his gaze traveling the room, but avoiding her. “Very well,” he said at last. “I don’t suppose there’s anything to be done about it. Just keep him far from me, and try not to draw any attention to yourselves. We’ll be leaving later than most of the other nobles. Perhaps he won’t be noticed.”
“Yes, my lord. Again, my apologies.”
“I’d like to be out of the city before the ringing of the midday bells. Please see to it that the men are prepared to ride and that our horses are saddled.”
She stood, eager to leave him. “Of course, my lord. I assure you, everything will be ready.”
He nodded once and faced the fire again, saying nothing. It was something his father might have done, though from Rouel it would have seemed more forceful, far less like the silent brooding of a peevish child.
Yaella bowed to the duke and left the chamber, relieved to be away from him.
At last she understood why Shurik had been so eager to serve the Weaver and why he had worked so hard to convince her to do the same. Her betrayal of House Mertesse had begun several years before, when Rouel was still alive, but it had troubled her then. Though aware of the old duke’s faults, she harbored a certain affection for him. She still remembered seeing him die in Kentigern Castle during the siege several turns before, the image so clear that it still made her shudder. Her grief at losing him had subsided, but it had yet to vanish entirely. She wasn’t certain it ever would. She had made her decision to join the movement in spite of Rouel, not because of him. Had she served Rowan at the time, rather than Rouel, it would have been a far easier choice to make.
She found the soldiers of Mertesse in the castle courtyard, watching the Solkaran army train, speaking and laughing softly among themselves. They fell silent as she approached. Eandi men always did, though Yaella still wondered if this was because she was Qirsi, or a minister, or a woman. No doubt all three had something to do with it.
“The duke wishes to leave before the midday bells,” she said, stopping in front of them. It sounded abrupt to her own ears, but even after living among the Eandi for so long, she felt no more comfortable with them than they did with her. “Make certain that you’re ready, and that our horses are waiting.”
“Yes, Minister,” said the highest-ranking of them.
She hesitated, then nodded and started away.
“Are you well, Minister?” the man called after her.
Yaella turned again, staring at the man in wordless surprise. He was broad in the chest and soldiers, thick-necked and tall, like all of Mertesse’s soldiers, indeed, like all the Eandi warriors she had ever seen. It sometimes seemed to Yaella that they were all the same man, created over and over again so that dukes and kings would have soldiers to fight their wars. Yet here was one of them asking after her health like an old friend.
“Forgive me,” he said, perhaps mistaking her astonishment for ire. “But we’d heard that some of the Qirsi were slower to mend than others.”
“It did take me some time, but I’m feeling much better, thank you.” She felt that she should say more, but she couldn’t find the words. “It was kind of you to ask,” she finally said, then cringed at how foolish it sounded.
“Not at all, Minister. We’ll be ready before the bells.”
“Thank you,” she said again, before hurrying away.
She had always thought of her betrayal of House Mertesse as being a betrayal of its duke. But walking away from the men of Mertesse, Yaella could not help thinking that her deception went far deeper. She had ridden to war with the Mertesse army. For all she knew, the men with whom she had just spoken had been with her in Kentigern, taking shelter in the mists she raised, and protecting her life with their blades and shields. Hadn’t she betrayed them as well?
Shurik would have laughed at her, she knew. They were Eandi, just like Rowan. Probably they were worried for her health because they knew the company might need her mists on the ride back to Mertesse. There were brigands on the roads of the Great Forest, some of them riding in large groups. The soldiers merely wished to know how much magic she could wield on their behalf. This, at least, is what she told herself.
The fact was, however, the man had seemed genuine in his concern for her. She almost wished that he hadn’t.
The minister walked back to her chamber and gathered the few items she had brought with her to Solkara in her satchel. Then she returned to the courtyard and the castle stables. Her mount was there already saddled for her, white and glorious in the morning sun. Rowan had not yet arrived, but the rest of his company was there, awaiting their duke in the cold.
When Rowan did finally arrive, he did so in the company of Chofya, Kalyi, the archminister, and the brothers Renbrere. The Solkarans said a brief farewell, as did Rowan, though awkwardly. Yaella found it difficult to believe that he was but a few years younger than Numar, so great was the difference between her duke and this refined man who would lead the kingdom.
Within just a few moments, Rowan had climbed onto his mount and was leading the company of Mertesse out of Castle Solkara. As she had promised, Yaella rode at the rear of the company, expecting to see Shurik awaiting them just beyond the castle walls. Fortunately, he understood the duke even better than she. Rather than waiting for them in the open, where Rowan and others watching the duke’s departure might spot him, he remained concealed until he saw Yaella. He caught up to the riders of Mertesse just as they reached the city marketplace, pulling abreast of Yaella without fanfare.
“I take it you’re riding back here so that your duke doesn’t have to be near me,” he said, smiling thinly, his voice low.
She would have liked to deny it, to soften the blow. But she wouldn’t have fooled him, and he probably was just as happy to ride with her behind the others.
“That’s about right.”
“Was he angry with me for coming?”
“Very. But I told him that your passion for me had clouded your mind.”
Shunk glanced at her, grinning. “Did you really?”
“I might have said ‘affections’ rather than ’passion,‘ but otherwise, yes, that’s what I said.”
“And what did he have to say?”
She smiled. “Very little.”
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“Well, that must have been a welcome change.”
Yaella laughed, drawing scowls from the soldiers riding a few fourspans ahead of her.
The company reached the north city gate and passed through, the Solkaran guards there raising their swords in honor of the duke.
When they were through the gate, and on the road running alongside the river, Shurik asked, “So has he demanded that I leave the castle?”
“No. I think he might have had it been his decision to grant you asylum. But because his father promised to protect you, he feels compelled to honor that pledge.” She looked away, following the flight of a raven that soared overhead. “Would it matter if he had made you leave? I seem to remember you telling me when you first came to Solkara, that our… friend has instructed you to go elsewhere.”
“Our friend told me to find Grinsa,” Shurik said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Since then, Grinsa has found me.”
Yaella faced him once more. He was staring straight ahead, his expression bleak and his jaw tightening. He had told her briefly of his encounter with the gleaner, but with his visits to the castle so short and secretive, they had yet to speak of it at length. She knew that Lord Tavis of Curgh had been with the gleaner, and that they had escaped through the south gate of the city wall, but that was all.
“You don’t have to tell our friend that,” she said softly, watching the soldiers riding in front of them for some sign that they could hear her. “Simply tell him that you found Grinsa, just as he asked.”
“It’s not that easy,” Shurik said. “I have no idea where he’s gone. Finding him means nothing.”
“Surely he didn’t think you could keep Grinsa here against his will, not if this man really is what we suspect.”
Shurik looked over at her. “He is that. He used mists and winds to escape the guards, and he shattered their blades. He may even have whispered to my mount, trying to make the beast throw me. This from a man who claimed to be a gleaner and nothing more. He must be a Weaver.”
“All the more reason for our friend to forgive you. You couldn’t hope to stop him.”