She hadn't thought, when she'd accepted the banished Yarrow's job, that it would include all this -- and by rights it shouldn't have. Then, Empress Zardria had granted Anala admiralty powers, something that hadn't been done in Athering for over eight thousand years. For the Queen's other title in Athering was Admiral, and military and civil power were one.
As Zardria had shifted things in Athering so that civil and religious power were one, she also had made the military separate. Anala wasn't sure if this was a good idea or not. She just accepted the change and did her job.
She wondered idly if Zardria knew the extent of her Admiral's involvement with the short-lived rebellion led by Yarrow. Probably. It seemed doubtful she was that uninformed.
Keep yer friends close...she thought.
They were close to the barracks when a messenger ran up and saluted. She and Aro stopped, giving a salute back.
"At ease."
"Admiral, one of your captains has been refused entry at the hospitalis for her fever."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why doesnae Fanchone see ta 'er?"
The messenger swallowed nervously. "He says he has not the capabilities to do so, Admiral, and sent her to the hospitalis himself."
Anala thanked and dismissed the man, who ran off gratefully. "Aro, walk wit' me," she said, and turned her steps to face the direction of the hospitalis.
"Yes Ma'am," he said, his behaviour the epitome of a proper major's, as it had been for their entire working relationship.
~
Anala could see before speaking to Jera, the healer currently in charge, that the hospitalis was a goddessdamned mess. She didn't need to ask why.
Still, she played her part.
"Healer Jera, one o' me captains'd been refused treatment from ye here. I'd be much obliged if'n ye could enlighten me as ta why," she said, an admiral's sternness gracing her features, belying her deceptively mild tone of voice.
Jera paled but did not flinch, and stood her ground before the admiral. "With respect, Admiral: look around you. We're in no shape to take care of civilians, let alone your women. Three of our healers are sick with a new wave of the fever; half our staff is still scattered throughout the town as per Ghia's last orders and no abatement of the fever, and Helene is sick again -- we doubt she'll even make it this time. I'm the oldest healer here but I never aspired to leadership. I am doing all I can but frankly, I'm not made for this!" Her voice rose at the end and she stopped herself, shame flashing across her face. "Forgive me. I'm tired." Resignation settled onto her face then, and Anala could tell the woman expected a stern reprimand for speaking so to a superior officer.
The admiral merely nodded in understanding. "Let me see what I'd be able ta do fer ye, Jera," she said, and the woman's face lightened considerably.
"Thank you, Admiral. I will not forget your kindness."
"Dinnae take it for kindness. Ye keep me women healthy. I need me soldiers ready ta go."
Jera nodded, saluted, and turned back to her work.
Anala turned from the hospitalis then, and Aro followed silently.
"Major," she said, sotto voce, "'ave ye 'ad word on Ghia's condition?"
"She's alive and apparently sane, Admiral," he said, his voice just as low.
She said nothing more; just made a small "hmm" sound as she thought. They continued walking to their quarters in that silence, Aro letting Anala form something from the thoughts that danced in her head.
When they reached the doors to their adjoining quarters Anala told him to get his paperwork finished -- for with her admiralty came a new, unending mountain of it for both of them -- and disappeared into her own quarters to change.
Clothing changed to something more formal, she opened her door to leave again and jumped, startled at the sight of her major leaning against her doorframe.
She frowned at him. "I told ye ta finish yer papers, Aro."
"I've got time," he said with a nonchalant shrug. "Where are you going?"
"To tha Empress. Try'n get things back on track in tha Healer's Guild, ye ken," she replied, a bit irritated with him.
His gaze didn't waver and he didn't move out of her way. "Not down to the dungeons."
Now she really was irritated. She pushed him aside with a snarl. "Nae -- or had ye not noticed tha formals I'd be wearing? Hardly dressed fer a prison break."
He sighed and murmured an apology, but she was quite past caring. "I'd be seeing ye later, Major," she said, and then was heading down the hall.
~
The Empress was less than accommodating, but that had been expected.
"You're asking me to declare martial law, Anala," Zardria said in an exasperated voice.
Anala failed to see the problem Zardria would have with doing so, but she didn't say as much. "Not exactly, Yer Highness. I'd be asking fer either a return ta tha order o' tha Healer's Guild, or fer ye ta give me tha power ta right things." In other words, free Ghia and reinstate her, or declare martial law. Just not in so many words.
The Empress flung down the quill she was holding and collapsed back into her chair, sighing and rubbing her temples.
"You put me in a difficult position, Anala," she said, her voice tired but no less strong. "Ghia is a traitor, plain and simple. By rights she should be executed -- I certainly do not wish her let loose on the castle again. However, the alternative is not such an easy choice to make." She stood and paced the study, hands clasped behind her back, her long peplos swishing on the floor. "You failed me in Voco, Anala -- not only failing to exact a peace treaty with Lord Exsil Vis but angering him and bringing war to our western border. Umbra knows if Harbourtown will ever recover. Now you want me to put you in charge of all of Athering?"
Anala stood and took the unfair criticism, not letting it stoke her ire. With tight control she said "With respect, Majesty, if'n I'd be such a failure, why did ye promote me?"
Zardria turned to face the admiral again. "Pray tell me what choice I had, Anala. It had always been my plan to separate civil and military power -- to give a bellica admiralty powers. With my sister breaking laws left and right and just generally being a pain in my side, and no other bellica with her skill -- save you, of course," she said with a smile that was almost kind. "I had thought maybe such a promotion would make you less likely to fail me in the future."
"Have I failed ye since, Majesty?" Anala asked equably.
Zardria stared at her a moment before responding. "No. You have not. Very well," she continued, expelling a sigh through her nostrils, "I shall consider very carefully each option, with all due seriousness. That is all I promise. Dismissed," she added, almost carelessly.
Anala bowed low, expressed her heartfelt thanks, and left.
Beginning her arduous climb down the stairs with a nod at the guards posted outside the Empress' study, Anala wondered if she would ever understand the capricious, dark-haired leader. With a shudder she thought of her father -- no, she could never use that term -- of the man who had sired her and of the similarities between him and the woman she now served. Of the similarities between the admiral and empress.
Lord Lihin was officially Zardria's father. Anala doubted that claim to be true. The Empress not only looked more like Queen Zameera's second consort, but their behaviour wildly shifting between pleasant and maliciously tyrannical from one moment to the next, and the seeming lack of a conscience...the resemblance was uncanny.
She thought of herself, of the mood swings that had plagued her as a young girl, tempered only by military discipline and too many emotional wounds to name. She thought of her almost cruel treatment of her women that nonetheless inspired an almost fanatical devotion. She thought of her growing devotion to Zardria, and realised that she understood more of the Empress than she'd thought possible.
She realised, too, that along with that understanding came a growing respect for the leader of the world as they knew it.
That thought was truly terrifying.
~
Anala had no re
ason for wandering the castle that night aside a weary need to escape her quarters and her lover, who was wearing a hole in her rug with his pacing.
He'd done it each night since the Birthright Ceremony -- only three times but already she was tired of it. He ranted and paced and paced and ranted, trying to puzzle out what they could do now Yarrow was gone.
She never said anything, never answered. She laid back on her bed and watched him move, admiring the way his muscles rippled as he propelled himself into insanity on her floor. There was not much else to do when she had nothing to say. What could she tell him? "Actually, Aro, I'd be starting ta like the Empress."
That would go over well.
So every night she let nothing come to her lips except the desire to kiss him till he shut up, which usually she did once he'd expelled the first large rush of rant. Then she'd push him back on the bed and get him to stop saying anything for a long while.
Tonight she only felt tired. Her earlier epiphanies combined with his determined drive to get himself killed in the name of things like honour and justice and freedom -- it was all too much.
She left her room before he could even really begin, saying she needed to walk tonight.
"Do you want company?" his voice followed her, a lost little boy.
"Nae," she barely said before she was gone, where, she didn't know.
She'd walked for almost an hour, just going up and down the hallways of the castle, and still could not formulate a coherent thought to save her life. It was as if all the thinking had been done already, on the stairs of the Spire as she'd left the Empress' audience, and now her brain could carry on no more -- done, done, done, it was, done and it would leave her to die herself, in ignorance of any sort of truth she could have grasped.
She found her feet leading her to the stables, and decided, on the basis of the first real thought of the night, that she could stand to pay a visit to her horse. Endymion would not expect conversation from the admiral; would not need any deep realisations or philosophies born out of a time of war and revolution. All Endymion would need would be a scritch on the nose and some loving touch, some sweet nothings murmured to assure the stallion that he was the only male in Anala's life.
Sometimes she felt he really was.
When she reached the stables she stopped short at the sight in front of her.
There was the entire first regiment, from the looks of it, saddled up and in the process of leaving silently. In the middle of the night. Without her leave.
Her entrance caused a stillness to settle over the group, and they gave her furtive looks filled with guilt.
Recently promoted Captain Coalette, the highest ranking officer closest to the admiral, spoke for the group.
"We're sorry, Admiral," she said, and Anala thought the girl might suffocate from the guilt on her face, "but we can't stay here. We're leaving to join Yarrow."
Anala stood still, staring at her women -- no, Yarrow's women -- blankly until, like settling into a horse's trot, everything clicked into place in her head and she could suddenly think again.
Nothing was ever simple in this world.
She stepped forward, coming beside the flank of Coalette's horse. "Well then. Ye better make it real," she said, and offered the side of her head to the young captain.
Coalette looked confused. "Ma'am?"
Anala sighed in exasperation. "Yer sword. Hit me wit' tha pommel."
"Oh," she said in sudden understanding, surprise now dominating her features where guilt had fled. "Are you sure?"
"Goddessdamnit yes I'd be sure," Anala snapped. "Now do it afore I'd be like ta change me mind!" She gave them her Bellica's Glare.
Guilt came in to invade Coalette's features again, successfully routing any other emotion that may have camped out across her face, and the captain drew her sword and swung the hilt down towards Anala's head.
~
It must have worked, for Anala awoke later on the stable floor with a pounding headache and the feeling of dried blood on her face. Aro's face hovered above her, looking worried.
"What happened?"
She grunted and sat up slowly, explaining to him of the first regiment's mutiny. For some reason, she forgot to tell him the part where she let them go.
He frowned. "Let's get your head checked out by Fanchone."
"Nae," she said, standing up unsteadily. "I'd be fine. 'Sides, I'd need ta tell tha Empress."
Aro nodded and got up to follow her, his face a careful blank, but not before she'd noticed the look of betrayal that had stolen across it.
She sighed inwardly and turned her face forward.
It was the only direction she could go.
Empress-Mother Zanny
She was surprised, to say the least, that she had lived this long. She had expected Zardria to do away with her worthless life long before the Birthright Ceremony -- indeed, had been expecting it for years. The fact that she'd been allowed to draw breath for as long as she had was completely unexpected.
Not wholly welcome.
It was stressful, to not know when one's time was gone. To expect it for so long and never have it realised.... Nightmares were made of this.
Add to that, the very idea that she might never make it into any sort of afterlife, that the Goddesses might not even take her for Tyvian, and the source of all of Zanny's many neuroses suddenly became very clear.
When the message came, three days after the investiture of her niece and in the middle of the night, that she was to attend upon the Empress in her study it had been a relief. Indeed, she had laughed out loud, a sound that she'd not made for a long time. Before the messenger's baffled eyes, she said a last goodbye to her rooms and went to meet her end with all the dignity and grace she could muster.
She descended the stairs slowly, enjoying her last physical exertions in this lifetime.
Mayhap her last, ever. Would she be reborn? She doubted it.
Despite the weight of nothingness that loomed up in front of her and pressed down on her, a tiny spark of hope flared to life in her soul -- hope that a Goddess would take pity on a woman and let her have more than mere oblivion. Even eternal damnation would be preferable to that terrifying blankness that threatened her, that came closer with each step she took towards the study. That spark of hope turned into a small flame and stayed deep within her, secret and small, un-confessed even to herself.
"Come in, Aunt," Zardria said, and Zanny jumped, suddenly realising she'd been standing in the open doorway to the study for a while. She took several steps inside and the door swung shut behind her, though no one touched it. She heard the bolts slide into stone, again untouched, and if she could have felt fear she would have felt it then, faced with the young woman who gazed upon her in a decidedly predatory fashion. Thankfully she only felt numb.
"I assume I've underestimated your power, Zardria."
"You have," the Empress said, rising and coming around to the front of her large desk. "But when have you ever been right about anything?"
Zanny didn't even flinch. The words no longer cut.
"What are you, Niece?" The question was stupid. Zanny regretted it. Zardria would never tell her -- not even with Zanny's death a tangible, inevitable thing in the air between them.
Zardria smiled slowly, showing her teeth, and Zanny thought she saw pointed fangs, equidistance from each other, white and shining in the Empress' mouth.
No. That wasn't possible.
Her thoughts trailed off as she noticed the young woman's nails.
Or rather, claws. They were black and thick and sharp, and reminded Zanny of the talons of a hawk or eagle or some other predatory bird. Large claws, more than capable of disemboweling a lesser creature with one livid swipe.
A lesser creature like me.
Her eyes darted back to Zardria's face, and she swore the girl's eyes had changed from gray to black, the whites totally occluded.
A shiver went down Zanny's spine as she felt fear, real, honest-to-goddess fea
r, for the first time in months.
Fast as a snake, then, Zardria's hand darted out towards Zanny's chest, and the older woman stumbled back, grateful to have avoided the strike, although it could only have put off the inevitable.
Then, before Zanny's disbelieving eyes, Zardria's hand held up a bloody lump, and the Empress's smile widened.
"Surprise," she whispered.
Zanny collapsed to the floor, the air around her rushing up and into the hole she could now feel in her chest. Lights danced in front of her eyes as shadows flew in to obscure her sight, and she could swear she saw Zardria begin to eat the organ that had once resided behind its sturdy cage of ribs -- supposedly safe from the world, but Zanny knew that to be a lie. Then she could no longer see her niece but perceived a rushing in her ears; a feather brushed her face and as she looked up she saw black wings, a scythe strapped to the strong back of the bare-chested woman who now gathered Zanny up into Her arms.
Zanny tried to look upon the woman's face, to glean her identity, but it was hooded, and it struck her as oddly fitting that things should be hidden from her in death, just as they had been in life. Then nothing more reached her but the steady rush of air as she was carried up, up, and up, past all mortal knowledge.
Caelum
Jourd'Althea, 6th Duema
The funeral, against all custom, was the day after Zanny had been found, asleep in her bed. She'd passed peacefully in the night, it was said.
This had to be a lie.
Caelum didn't know exactly how Zanny had died, but he knew Zardria had killed the woman. The rumours he'd heard from the servants when they thought he was out of earshot had made his skin crawl.
Bellica Page 60