The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

  “I will,” spoke a voice, oddly familiar, and a tall, hooded man stepped forward from the trees, opposite Arturo and Diego.

  The flames responded to a movement of her fingers and condensed, forming spheres the size of a strong man’s fist, preparing for release.

  “No, Isidora!” Arturo cried, fearing those blue orbs and the horrible damage he knew they would inflict on skin and bone. She did not respond to his call, though her head turned slightly. He wished suddenly and deeply that he’d completed the training of a veiled-one, and possessed the power to read these men’s hearts, to proclaim them innocents.

  But he was no veiled-one, and neither was Isidora, for the Goddess had left a faction of the faithful in Calabria, and taken the rest to Alesia, and the bloodlines had grown distinct over Time’s passing.

  The stranger walked with purposeful strides, showing no fear as he came to stand before Isidora. As he lifted his hands to pull back his hood, he spoke in a clear voice, “I am leader of these men. We are scouts of Duke Damáskenos, whose lands these are, and have been charged to bring all trespassers forthwith to the duke.” He paused, a wry smile turning his mouth. “Lady Fiannan, it is a pleasure to meet you again.”

  The weapons in Isidora’s hands dissolved with a hiss as Rodrigo Vasquez, erstwhile Constable of Vallejo, knelt and bowed before her, offering the full obeisance reserved for utmost royalty. The six other men dropped their weapons and followed suit.

  “There is only one queen present here,” Isidora said softly, and her words were an echo of fallen Alesia. “Constable, meet Serephina de la Caville, heir to the throne of Tanalon.”

  Rodrigo lifted a face much thinned since last they’d seen him, and his expression was a picture in pained surprise. Still, when he unbent his broad frame and faced Serephina it was with utmost dignity, and he looked upon her for a long moment before kneeling again.

  “Your majesty,” he said softly, gently.

  *

  Two figures stood a hillside not far away, in the shade of a massive tree identical to one near a certain cove of Avosilea. The leaves above them danced, shimmering, then slowly faded, followed by the highest branches. The melting of illusion coursed down, until the wide trunk shifted and shone, dissolving without sound, and the companions stood alone on the rocky summit of the hill.

  With effort, the Nameless drew back to herself the last tendril of her outreaching power, releasing focus on the clearing where Arturo Bellamont clasped the hand of a bandit, and Isidora Fiannan was being tended to by Finnéces, the old Alesian, who alone was not afraid of the power she had wielded.

  Beside her, Pandion squirmed and tugged her sleeve. “Why didn’t you tell him about this mother?” he asked.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder, more for her own support than to placate him. Removing Isidora and Arturo from the reality they knew and maintaining the illusion for so long had taxed her greatly. So, indeed, had telling the long tale.

  “It was too soon,” she replied softly.

  Pandion huffed, but did not press her. “Where do we go now?” he asked.

  She fixed her gaze on his earnest face. “Would you travel south with me, Pandion, to Avosilea? There is a woman even now climbing the path to the eyrie.”

  “Who is she?” he asked, ever curious.

  The Nameless clenched her fingers around her beads, remembering Lenora di Salvatoré. A dormant sorrow surged within her, and pride, too.

  “She is a mighty catalyst, the mightiest since the first root-pulse of domhain lár. We must treat her gently, for of all the Long Roads, hers may be the longest.”

  Pandion nodded gravely, expression at odds with the youth of his face. “Take my hand, then, and we will go.”

  The Nameless reached for his small fingers and closed her eyes, and the world tilted strangely, blurring about her as the Child of Time drew her through It, south to Avosilea.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The estate of Duke Alvar Damáskenos was as remote as the man himself, an unassailable fortress in the highlands of Tanalon. Arturo had never met the man, but had heard stories aplenty about the great eccentric. Scorned all his life by the ruling Houses of Tanalon, he’d spent much of his youth pursuing a passion for traveling abroad, all the while collecting artifacts and scrolls of history to rival the wealth of the Academe.

  Upon the death of his avaricious father the Duke, as sole heir Alvar had returned home to take control of the crumbling estate. In the past fifteen years, he had transformed the duchy into a thriving city unto itself, reviving its coffers and population, all the while displaying contempt for the nobles of Tanalon who spent their lives devoted to vices of greed, hypocrisy, and sloth.

  Along with his distaste for the appetites of the wealthy, Duke Damáskenos discouraged all contact with the Holy Church of the God, and maintained a state of free worship and speech. It was this last facet of Damáskenos’ eccentricity that had led Rodrigo Vasquez to travel so far north after the burning of Vallejo and appeal for placement of his men among the duke’s infamous guard.

  In Vianalon it was rumored that the core of the duke’s guard were barbarians, men with skin like ebony and giant proportions, honor bound in some distant land to serve him until his death. Arturo was thinking of this intriguing possibility as they approached the fortified city on horseback. He scanned the high parapet, noting that the walls were well maintained and manned in intervals by alert, pale-faced sentries.

  Rodrigo halted their progress a safe distance from the dry moat defending the front face of the castle. Beyond, a sheer crag guarded the rear of the fortress, the barren, jagged rises gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Forests spotted the landscape east and west; south, on more even land, stretched well-tended fields awaiting the growing season.

  At a nod from Rodrigo, one of his men stepped forward and lifted a horn to his lips, blowing three long notes. The bursts of sound expanded through the valley, echoing against the rock. As the last note faded away, the call was answered from within the castle, two long notes ending on a sharp burst.

  With a heavy grind of iron and groaning of wood, the drawbridge began to descend. The horses stamped nervously, snorting and tossing their heads. There was a resonant thump as the thick wooden bridge slammed onto the packed earth their side of the moat. Rodrigo tapped his heels to his horse’s sides and approached the bridge only to stop abruptly several feet from its edge.

  Looking forward, Arturo mused that some rumors among Armando’s fanciful court were, after all, based in truth.

  Seven men occupied the mouth of the fortress, astride magnificent stallions whose coats shone as brilliantly black as their riders’ skins. The men’s faces were wide and proud, with smooth features and pronounced bones. The whites of their eyes were bright against black irises and skin.

  The central man lifted his reins and his stallion strode with immaculate grace across the bridge, stopping in its center without any visible command of its rider. Arturo shared a glance with Diego, and for a moment neither were thinking of the exotic warrior, but of his horse, and acknowledging with a certain awe that they’d never seen a beast such as this, not even in Argenta, known for its incomparable horseflesh.

  Atop the magnificent animal, the dark eyes of the rider passed over their company, measuring and calculating, before coming to rest on Rodrigo.

  “What have you found hiding in Damáskenos’ hills, Vasquez?” he asked, his voice accented by no familiar tongue, though the words were both precise and deeply sonorous.

  Unfazed, Rodrigo gave a partial bow from his saddle. “My lord Mufahti, these men and women are refugees of Vianalon. They seek an audience with the duke.”

  Mufahti smiled fiercely, teeth vividly white. “Refugees are always welcome here.” His dark eyes scanned their company once more; suddenly he stiffened, gaze locked behind Arturo, where Isidora sat astride. Even with the distance betwee
n them, Mufahti’s hiss of breath could be heard. Beyond him, the six other men began to murmur.

  “What’s this?” roared a voice from within the distant courtyard. There was a heightened level of activity beyond the moat, women and men dashing back and forth across the wide yard.

  A man walked in their midst, bareheaded and undistinguished but for the mantel of worldly command that rested on his shoulders. He was of no impressive height or build, with thinning hair and a thick midsection. At his approach, the six men touched knees to their stallions who, in perfect concert, pranced apart to allow access to the bridge.

  “Mufahti!” exclaimed the man, in a voice seemingly too large for his small frame. “Why are you keeping my guests out in the cold?”

  It was not, in fact, cold at all, with the sun shining warmly on their heads and backs.

  In such a way were they introduced, by a subdued Rodrigo Vasquez, to Duke Alvar Damáskenos, who gazed up at them, smiling, then welcomed them into his home as would a man his wayward children after a parting of many years.

  *

  Serephina di Isabelle y Armando de la Caville was singularly relieved, for the first time in more than a month, to be alone. It was not that she disliked her companions on the road; in her own way she had grown fond of each of them. Only, for too many years she had acted a certain way, ever conscious of eyes watching, ears listening, unable to take confidence with any cleric or lady in waiting.

  She was her father’s daughter, and it was not in her nature to give freely of her thoughts, or to invite familiar bonds. She did not imagine they knew it, but in truth, those she’d taken flight with from Vianalon were the closest she’d ever come to friends.

  Old Finnéces, with his gentle eyes and soft, deferring speech. Young Edan, who had taught her some of the words he made with his hands, and with whom she shared rare laughter at her fumbling fingers. Arturo and Diego, both of whom she’d known for years, and trusted implicitly. Hadrian Visconte, another man of honor, and his father, the Scholar whom her own father had ordered maimed.

  She did not know how she felt about that, as yet.

  There was Isidora Fiannan, too, and she was not settled on her feelings for the woman, either. There had been a moment on the road, when the lady had refused to take up a weapon of defense, that her expression had reminded Serephina of her father, so uncompromising it had been, even in clear folly.

  There was no cruelty in Isidora, though, that much she knew. There was much of unheard music in her being—inheritance of fabled Alesia—in the blue eyes and golden hair, and lilting voice. It was also a cause for envy of a different, more personal sort. She felt it in the wound already half-healed, whenever Arturo Bellamont looked upon the Lady Fiannan.

  And then there was Ignacio Benefice, her father’s Minister of War, whose loyalty she had come to realize was now hers, whatever that foretold. It was yet another path of thought she had shied from this last month, for it brought her back—so swiftly back—to mourning bells ringing, to all that she knew coming to an end.

  Walking untended through castle Damáskenos, warded by the word of the Duke, Serephina de la Caville, last of the noble House that had ruled Tanalon for more than six generations, came upon the arched entryway of a chapel of the God. Above, there was carved into the stone a phrase, one she could not know had been uttered by the last Lady of Alesia to the new, upon her coronation as High Priestess.

  The sun must rise.

  She passed beneath the arch and through the small antechamber, walking in the shadows of a few fluttering torches, and entered the chapel proper. It was not a large place, and was sparsely adorned with three stone benches and an altar, but she was alone, which suited her.

  Above the modest altar was the only testament that the holy space was, in fact, maintained by a noble house. There, mounted cleverly so that it seemed suspended away from the wall, was a large golden disc of the God. With an eye trained to wealth, she knew it was gold through and through, its surface polished and detail rendered intricate by some artisan’s tiny tools so that each small divot and rise caught the meager light and held it, then gave, just as the sun brought light to the land day after day.

  She had never been overly fond of the God as a child, much to the chagrin of her late mother, whose family bred more clerics than noblemen. As she grew older, though, and the tensions of politics rose from beneath the opulent, flighty surface of court life, Serephina had learned that faith was not so important in Vianalon as appearing to be faithful. She formed the necessary habit of attending daily services, even grew to enjoy them as respite from the demands of court, listening to the droning liturgies with half an ear as she daydreamed of foreign princes and new ribbons. Her clerical tutors had looked more kindly upon her, and for a while, before Felipe’s death and her own, it was marked that Queen Isabella greatly loved her eldest child.

  The truth, as ever, was at odds with popular view. Isabella de la Fontina, prior to her royal marriage, had protested loudly against the union, stating her piety and wish to remain unwedded to any but the God. She was also, in stark contrast to her public persona, a surpassingly vain and sensuous woman, and during the lengthy process of negotiations between Houses Fontina and Caville, entertained any number of noblemen in her bedchamber.

  Despite rumor, Armando had wedded his chosen queen, whose House had bloodlines dating back, as Caville’s did, to Tanalon’s founding.

  Years later, his daughter would realize that Armando had not cared at all for Isabella, only for the children she would produce. The Queen, young and free and ill-suited to motherhood, had bent beneath the royal command and emerged a bitter, hateful woman. What kind of person her mother might have been, had she been loved, there was no telling.

  It was a confusing mix of emotion and politics, and merely another bit of information about which Serephina did not know how to feel. She was schooled in policy and rule, and there was little room left for the deciphering of personal sentiment.

  Kneeling now before the altar, she touched her fingers to her breast and bent her head. She did not pray—there was too much pain tied up with the God’s Church for her to seek Him—though she sought peace by diminishing her thoughts, clearing away as best she could the haze of tragedy, of her kingdom’s peril.

  Much later, when all but one torch had burned down, and her legs were near numb, Serephina stood and turned to discover she was not, after all, alone.

  Duke Alvar Damáskenos had visited Vianalon only once in her life. She had been young, young enough that protocol hadn’t bound her, and she’d been sitting on her father’s knee in one of the many gardens that occupied the palace’s open spaces. They were alone but for the customary guards when the herald had arrived to announce the duke.

  Her father had gently deposited her on the ground and touched her shoulder. She remembered that touch—every little touch that spoke of what he would not say aloud—and also that she’d begun picking flowers for a wreath as the nobleman was escorted into the garden.

  Her father and the duke had been close enough for Serephina to hear their low, clipped conversation, though far enough away that the words were unclear. She doubted that she would have understood them, at six years of age. Still, it had seemed that the bright afternoon grew suddenly dim, vivid colors of flowers growing muted as above, clouds rolled in to obscure the sun.

  The duke was much older now, and smaller in the way that perspectives change as a child grows. He was sitting on the last bench, nearest the chapel’s entrance. An unimpressive figure, though his eyes were quick and bright. As she walked toward him Serephina thought of that sunny afternoon grown dark.

  The duke had never returned to Vianalon, though the details of his meeting with the king were never clear. Once, years later, she’d asked her father what had transpired, and he’d replied, in his usual obscure way, that there were some choices that once made altered a good man into something other
.

  She had known then, as she knew now, that he’d been speaking not of the duke, but of himself.

  Serephina reached the bench and bowed her head slightly. “My thanks, and the thanks of House Caville, for this refuge.” The words were oddly toned in the chapel; more to do with the shadows of life than the sudden sound of her voice.

  An echo of a smile crossed the duke’s face. “Come if you will, your highness, and sit beside me. If it’s not too late and you are not too tired, there are words we must exchange.”

  Knowing that this moment had been coming did not make it easier for her. She had expected, at the least, to have a day to prepare. Sitting on the stone bench, she wished that she were more tired, that she could beg off the meeting. It was not to be, so she sat composed—her father’s daughter—and prepared to make a friend of her father’s enemy.

  The duke’s first words, however, shattered whatever poise she might have claimed.

  “I loved your father a great deal,” said Alvar Damáskenos. “I was aggrieved to hear of his passing.”

  Without waiting for a response, without even looking at her, the duke told her then of that meeting in the garden, the words exchanged between two men who had been inseparable as children, only to be divided by choices made in adulthood.

  By the time Serephina found her bed, it was close to dawn. She did not sleep, but lay atop the soft mattress staring sightlessly into a past of which she had no part, and forward to a future that was wrought with darkness and war.

  “I have never forgiven Armando for the Year of Death, though in my heart I knew he was merely a tool of rage wielded by someone else. He knew, too, I think, and perhaps that was the worst knowing of them all. He carried great grief in his heart for the past, a wound that no mortal touch could seal. He was a good king, a steady and far-sighted ruler. What greatness might he have achieved if not for his one act of hatred, his subsequent self-loathing? I will never know, and it is perhaps my most private and greatest sorrow.