As they heard, people streamed in, offering toasts and good wishes for Avonlidgh’s heir—along with their unmitigated joy that the babe would be born at Windroven.
After that, we traveled in full sight of the people, stopping often to visit at the various towns, villages, and chapels. I’d learned my lesson and did my best to convey to everyone I met my loyalty to Avonlidgh. Glorianna bless Veronica. I would have to dig deep into Windroven’s treasury to reimburse her, for she’d provided bags of coins and tokens for me to distribute.
I stopped at every chapel of Glorianna, to pray and give my blessing as Her avatar, receiving armloads of roses in return, which I then gave to children along the way. We rode on horseback in the winter sunshine, under clear blue skies, singing songs and laughing, sharing our joy with all we encountered.
Moranu’s midwinter feast had passed while I traveled—unnoticed, as that celebration, too, had been outlawed—and gradually the days would grow longer and warmer again. After an early winter, the specter of press-gangs, and more war, all under the shadow of Hugh’s death, the people of Avonlidgh seemed more than ready to celebrate. Birth and rebirth. Glorianna was the goddess of spring and I was Glorianna in their eyes. I tried to do Her justice.
By the time word would have reached Erich, we were so in the public eye, with such a groundswell of joyful support—indeed, more than a few people had joined our entourage, making the journey with us to Windroven, as a kind of pilgrimage—he couldn’t divert me without causing a civil war.
It was the most public escape possible. Ursula would be proud.
We arrived at Windroven in triumph. Jubilant people lined the winding road up to the castle itself, despite the strong breeze off the ocean, tossing roses and rose petals. My heart lifted to smell the salt and joy in the air and to see the cliffs rising over the glittering waves. It even gave me a feeling of comfort, to know Hugh lay nearby again, in the tombs overlooking the surf.
Our child would be born here, as was good and right. Ursula had done the best thing at the time, making me come away. Now I had returned knowing more about myself and my world. Seeing Windroven with more experienced eyes.
I was home.
It seemed that Glorianna smiled upon me, because within a day of my homecoming, the unusually fine weather collapsed under the onslaught of a Mornai storm. They blew in off the ocean, full of moisture and, upon meeting the colder winds from the Northern Wastes, turned into heavy-bellied storms that dumped man-sized drifts of snow over all the land.
If Erich had planned to come after me, the storm neatly prevented that.
We settled in to wait it out, spending the evenings by the fire while I worked on knitting something large enough to be a baby blanket and Dafne read to us. I asked mainly for mythology—tales of Glorianna, Danu, and Moranu—and anything that she could dig up that referenced the Tala, Annfwn, or the Great War.
Some of my ladies didn’t care to hear these tales, particularly about the demon shape-shifters, and I gave them leave to spend their time elsewhere. But I didn’t relent on what I needed to learn. If being one of my ladies wasn’t the party it had been, then they’d best learn that sooner rather than later.
Soon the snow would melt, the roads would open, and I needed to be ready to act.
Through the next snowbound weeks, my belly grew along with a picture of our history. The way the tales had it, the crops and livestock had been failing since long before the Great War. One very interesting historian traced the beginnings of the war—which did not start with Uorsin, only ended with him—to the internecine struggles between neighboring kingdoms that usually left both conqueror and conquered in worse shape than before.
“It seems,” I observed late one night to Marin and Dafne, after the other ladies had retired to their chambers, “that the concept of Annfwn being closed off isn’t all that old. The tale you just read made Annfwn sound no different than the other kingdoms—and that magic occurred everywhere.”
Marin hmphed but never lifted her gaze from her knitting. She’d been making swaddling clothes and nappies, it turned out, one after another until it seemed we’d have a mountain of them. When I complained that we’d never use them all, she actually laughed at me.
“It’s true.” Dafne set the book aside and swirled the brandy in her goblet, staring into it as if it might yield answers. “The very old tales make it sound as if magic was, if not commonplace, then pervasive. Over time it seems that the people outside Annfwn became. . . I can’t think of the right term.”
“Mossbacks,” I supplied, squinting at my stitches. Surely I’d dropped one, Glorianna take it.
“Excuse me?” Dafne asked on a laugh. I looked up, and Marin had me fixed with a knowing eye.
“That’s what Ash—the White Monk—said the Tala call us. Mossbacks, because we can’t shift and, I think, anyway, because we seem so conservative to them.”
“Very interesting.” Dafne pressed her lips together, the scent of her amusement giving me a pang for the grapes we’d eaten in Annfwn.
And for Ash.
“This explains her great interest in the Tala all of a sudden,” Marin muttered.
“Oh, stop it, you two,” I grumbled at them. “He happened to mention it once. And I know perfectly well that you figured him for Tala part-blood early on. All this reading we’ve done confirms that the prisons contain overwhelming numbers of Tala prisoners of war and their by-blows. An escaped convict is much more likely to be Tala than not.”
“They should have gone home, shouldn’t they?” Marin shook her head. “I don’t begrudge them that opportunity, but this isn’t their land. They don’t belong here.”
“I wonder why Salena stomached that.” I stared into the fire.
“If she made this grand bargain, used her people, all to save Annfwn, why did she allow them to be stranded?”
“Because she couldn’t help it,” Dafne offered in a gentle voice. “They were part of the price.”
“For what gain? If she wanted a daughter like her to hold the barrier strong, why not stay there and do it herself?”
“She was getting older and needed a successor?”
“That could be. But I have this idea that somehow Salena knew it wasn’t working—this separation of the kingdoms. She had to know of the growing strife outside Annfwn, that somehow, by condensing all the magic there, they’d starved the rest of the land. And the starving animal will always come after the fat one, no matter how well protected.”
Dafne cocked her head at me. “That’s a fascinating idea. How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
“I think . . .” I realized I was blushing in pleasure. Had anyone ever said I had a fascinating idea before? “I’ve been trying to listen to what Glorianna is telling me. High Priest Kir”—I ignored Marin’s snort of disgust—“thinks that Glorianna wants Annfwn. I think she wants Annfwn’s magic shared with the rest of us. To bring the land back to what it should be.”
“How do you propose to do that?” Dafne’s eyes were bright with interest.
“I’m not sure.” I caught Marin’s gaze and held it. “But I do know that dealing with Kir is one of the first steps.”
26
That night, instead of going to bed after I brushed my hair, I got out the doll again.
The partial doll, that is. With a sense of reverence, I unwrapped the cloth we’d stored her in and laid her on the desk I’d had moved into my private sitting room. Sometimes I went over the tales Dafne read aloud, to cement the details in my mind. As I stuffed myself with food and the babe grew, I fed my brain with information, letting that gestate, too.
That way, when the babe was born, we would both be strong and ready to act.
I set the unattached arm where it should be and studied her. It was prettier than I remembered Andi’s being, from when I would stare at it on her high shelf and beg to play with it. She’d always said no and so I never saw it close up like this.
Instead of mine being dressed in pink si
lk, as I’d first thought, it turned out the dress made up the body. Taking Andi’s advice, I’d made a slit in the back side of the doll and looked inside. Dried rose petals made up the interior, fragrantly crumbling to brown dust.
No magical motherly messages.
I’d gotten over being so angry about it, however. Something about those hours spent with Ash had released that burning resentment. Things weren’t always fair. My mother hadn’t meant to die and leave this unfinished any more than Hugh had meant to abandon me. Still, it niggled at me, this mystery that needed solving.
It had to be something to do with the missing head. I’d gone through everything in Salena’s trunk. More than once. And, while the activity made a lovely way to while away a blustery afternoon, dreaming about who my mother had been, I still knew no more than I had.
No, that wasn’t exactly true.
The more I assembled the pieces of the woman and queen she’d been, the more I understood the sacrifices she’d made. All for love of Annfwn. Or perhaps, for the world outside Annfwn, too. It would have pained her greatly to know of her people stranded outside the barrier. I knew that in my heart. Once Andi had been born, Salena would have wanted to take her to Annfwn. That seemed clear. Had they gone then, Salena could have opened the wall to her outcast warriors and raised at least Andi in the witchy ways she’d inherited.
But she hadn’t. All because of me.
She’d had to wait another five years—to make sure I’d be strong, giving me the gift of health and time—and made sure I’d be born.
Even if she hadn’t counted on her untimely death, it only made sense if I had a purpose, too.
My mother had foreseen something for me. A destiny as important as Andi’s. Though I knew it to be small of me, I felt better knowing that. And she had left me the doll, carefully kept in the magical storage place. A message only for me.
I just had to figure out how to read it.
Eventually, the Mornai storms unclenched their fists and the snow stopped falling. Within days, the drifts began melting and people dug their way out. Before three days had passed, a messenger from Erich appeared on my doorstep much like the unpleasant beetles that plagued the kitchen staff the moment winter thawed.
I read his letter several times, more interested in what it did not say. Not that he’d mention my secret mission, but neither did he inquire about the babe, unless asking after my health counted. He of course invited me to visit Castle Avonlidgh, but also suggested that he might make the journey to Windroven for the “summer festivities.”
Why he’d resorted to that euphemism, as if the birth of Avonlidgh’s heir was some sort of state secret, I didn’t understand.
He also indicated that High Priest Kir had wintered with them—quite the stroke of luck for me—and inquired after my spiritual progress. Taking that as a sign, I seized the opportunity and replied that I’d greatly love for Kir to visit, to provide much-needed guidance. I also made it clear that I’d failed in my “quest for Glorianna’s service” and indicated a level of shame that sent me fleeing from the public eye. I invited him to officiate at the Spring Feast for Glorianna.
The trap laid, I waited for my prey to arrive.
I might not have my mother’s talents for foresight and strategy, but I rather thought she’d have been proud.
Kir arrived a week before the spring equinox. Though the wind off the ocean blew chilly, the sun shone warm and welcoming. Setting my plan in motion, I made sure to welcome his arrival with appropriate grandeur, all the better to convince him of my continued fealty and admiration.
Flattering the flatterer.
All the priests within traveling distance met Kir at the base of the mountain, forming an honor guard to convey him up the hill. A brace of muscular young soldiers seated Kir on a traveling chair the size of a throne, draped in streamers of ribbons and roses, and hefted it to their shoulders, carrying him like a king. Or a god. Children dressed in shades of white to bright pink lined the road up the mountain, singing praise to Glorianna in their high, clear voices. They waved blossoming cherry-tree branches and pussy willows from the fens.
The people of Windroven turned out in force for the rest of the welcoming ceremony in the great inner courtyard of the castle. I should have predicted, but they were jubilant that the High Priest of Glorianna’s Temple would officiate their spring festival, and they praised me for making it happen. Glorianna smiled upon the people of Avonlidgh again, they told one another, full of hope in new birth.
Kir lapped up the adoration as . . . well, as I once had. His narrow face cracked open with smiles, and I smelled the love of power filling him. It all seemed a little much to me, but I was glad to observe. The people conflated their love of Glorianna, and all the good, life-giving blessings she brought, with the High Priest.
I would have to be very careful how I destroyed him.
Receiving him on foot, so he could look down on me from his platform of youth and vigor, I also curtsied deeply, gazing up at him through my lashes. I wore a pink gown—of course—cut very low to display the upper curves of my breasts, which had grown quite large in my pregnancy. In contrast, my hair spilled loose like a maiden’s. Only I knew of the heart of the much-wiser crone who lurked inside me.
The men lowered his chair and he rose, stepping down and taking my hands. Kir smelled giddily of candy and overeating, beaming at me with fatuous condescension. “Your Highness,” he cooed, “I am witness to a miracle indeed, for, impossible though it may be, you are even more surpassingly beautiful than when last I saw you.”
“Glorianna has favored us with your visit, High Priest.” I said it breathlessly, gazing at him with more of that adoration he seemed to love so well. “I’m so grateful for your visit—I’m in dire need of your guidance.”
He patted my hand, happy to be of fatherly assistance—and to direct me toward his cause. How I hadn’t recognized the smell of ambition on him before, I didn’t know. But what mattered was that I knew it now.
“Of course, my child. Shall we go to the chapel to pray?”
“Oh, no! I wouldn’t presume. Besides, we have a feast prepared in your honor. There will be time enough for me to tell you of my visions from Glorianna, so you can interpret them for me.”
My seed planted in his mind, I allowed Kir no time to question me further, but swept him into a grand banquet. I strung him along that way for the next several days, always keeping him busy with some entertainment or treat. All designed to puff him up and increase his sense of importance. At every opportunity, I flattered him, hanging on his every word and letting him believe that he, and he alone, could tell me how to interpret the visions. I’d insisted on waiting for the equinox, so Glorianna would smile upon whatever Kir told me I should do.
By the eve of Glorianna’s Feast Day, I had Kir so burning with curiosity and so feverish to hear my mind so that he could use me to further his power that he nearly salivated when he looked upon me. Not with lust—at least not for my body—but with a desire as twisted as the ones his retinue whispered of to the Windroven servants. Taking a page from Veronica’s book, I’d encouraged the staff to share what they knew with me. They channeled the information gleaned from Kir’s people up through Marin and Dafne, ranging from some as prosaic as Kir’s preferred wine, which I immediately sent for, to the horrible insinuations of Kir’s predilection for very young boys, who were then sent off to the White Monks to be sealed in silence.
I thought of Ash then. That wasn’t exactly true. I thought of him all the time. But I realized then that I’d never asked how he came to be one of the White Monks. Or if he’d simply assumed the disguise. Somehow I thought it had been more than cover.
Kir hadn’t once inquired after his erstwhile assistant. I’d asked Graves and his men to stay out of sight, lest Kir remember them, and I’d made sure Kir and I had little time for conversation. Still, it irritated me, his lack of concern for Ash. I’d planned to say he’d disappeared and was presumed dead—to give Ash
room either way, should he ever rejoin us in the world of moss-covered stones—but Kir never asked.
I lay in bed the night before solstice, awake late and staring at the pink rosettes frolicking on the canopy overhead. The window shutters were open a little to the spring breezes, but a fire crackled in the hearth to offset them. A deep loneliness ran through me, a cold, gray sorrow that chilled me. With a start, I realized that tomorrow would have been my first anniversary.
Hugh and I had married only a year ago.
It felt like a lifetime.
Running a hand over my belly, so oddly hard, I missed both men. Hugh and Ash. And with them came the empty spaces where Andi and Ursula should be. And the old mourning for my mother. Some of them were dead. Some so far away that they might as well be gone from this earth.
Restless, I rose and put on my robe. In my sitting room, the chair by the banked fire sat empty. No Ursula to pierce me with her knowing looks. Wandering into the hallway, I smiled at the guards who’d been playing cards but leapt to their feet to follow along behind me. “I’m only stretching my legs a little,” I told them. “I thought I’d walk up to the turrets, taste the wind.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” one replied. “We followed behind Princess Andromeda often enough.”
That’s right. Andi had paced all over Windroven during the siege. As surely trapped within as the Tala had been trapped without. Not unlike the situation we found ourselves in now, but without the obvious armies. The siege had solved nothing. It had only caused more death and suffering.
“Which rooms were hers again? I think I’ll go there instead.” They led me to the tower room I vaguely recalled Hugh saying he’d given her. He’d always been considerate that way, remembering people’s preferences. He’d commented that Andi liked to be able to see a long way.
The Tears of the Rose Page 26