The Gardens of Almhain

by Laura Mallory

  The interior of the tent was shadowed, heavy material blocking nearly all natural light. Animal skins padded the hard ground. An assortment of colorful divans, pillows, and silken partitions furthered its impression of a lavish prison.

  “Who goes there?” called a soft, steely voice. Beyond a diaphanous screen of pale gold, a woman’s figure straightened from a cushion.

  “Friends, we are friends,” sang Pandion.

  The figure jerked in shock, then rose slowly and walked around the screen. The abundance of her unbound hair curled darkly around her torso, not quite concealing the insubstantial gauze of her gown.

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

  “Nay, Lenora,” spoke the Nameless.

  Shaking fingers rose to cup a tear-wet cheek. “Have you come to end my misery, then?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  With a wince of pain, the Nameless bent to place her tray upon a low stool. Swollen fingers seized the lid and lifted it, casting it to the cushioned ground. Set stop the empty plate was a slender knife, its hilt thin, hammered silver, its shaft gleaming black.

  “Use it once and wisely, not a moment too late or soon.”

  Lenora took a step forward, squinting in the low light. Her dark eyes widened, lifted to seek those of the Nameless. Instead of speaking, she began to tremble, and finally collapsed. One hand, wound in the partition, dragged the screen down with a soft tearing noise. Beneath her face, a velvet pillow slowly darkened with her tears.

  It was hours before she roused from her misery. The Nameless and Child of Time were gone, as were the silver tray and its gift. Certain that in her desperation she’d conjured them, she cried anew. Her sobs disturbed the guards, who shifted uneasily, glancing at each other to remind themselves of the punishment of interference.

  In time her cries softened and ceased. The men were exceedingly grateful, for night was falling and soon King Terrin would come.

  Within the tent, Lenora lay dispirited on the ground. The dream had dissolved the last of her waning courage. As she thought of the coming night, she knew a hopelessness so vast it was suffocating. It made her body curl inward, arms come up to shelter her head as if, by some miracle, her flesh might protect her from the sharp edges of her conscience.

  There was a sudden pain in her hip. She shifted lethargically, passing her hand along the ground. Her fingers closed on the hilt of a knife.

  *

  Terrin of Borgetza listened with half an ear to conversations of his council. Concealed beneath the massive table, his hands idly stroked the hair of the woman crouched between his knees. The texture was almost as soft as Lenora’s. The thought made his teeth clench, his neck flush darkly. Several men cleared their throats, looked away from their king’s pleasure. Most, however, grinned in the torchlight, hoping that the woman might come their way next.

  Sated, Terrin pushed the whore’s head away. She crawled from beneath the table and stood smiling unashamedly, her ochre-lined eyes passing along the table. “Who shall I service next, your majesty?” she asked, and received a chorus of cheers.

  Terrin adjusted the lacings of his breeches and stood. The fantasy of Lenora’s mouth stayed with him, made him feel buoyant and generous. “Why, all of them, my dear.”

  The whore curtsied and slipped back beneath the table. As Terrin made his way to the exit of the tent, he ignored the startled queries of several of his more officious councilmen. He left them to squabble amongst themselves, pausing to tell a squire to bring more whores and wine.

  Four guards dispatched themselves from their posts, trailing behind the king as he walked the short distance to his pavilion. The white fabric glowed from within, a servant having entered at dusk to light the numerous oil lamps. Lenora preferred darkness; were it up to her, the tent would stay pitch dark, every pillow a trap for his feet.

  Smiling, Terrin passed the sentries and ducked within. Lenora was seated on a divan, a plate of succulent fruits on her lap. She looked up at his entrance and Terrin drew a quick breath, amazed once again that she’d returned to him. Her figure had fulfilled the promise of beautiful youth, ripening into curves that dried his mouth. The famous face, too, had matured, though not a line marred its surface. She was the most beautiful woman alive.

  It was her eyes, above all, that drove him forward to kneel beside her. Cold and hard and glittering with malice. He saw the same affectations in every looking glass; thanked his ancestors daily for the blessing of Lenora di Salvatoré, who was his perfect mate.

  Her carefully painted nails lifted a ripe grape from the platter and offered it. Terrin opened his lips to take it onto his tongue. Before she could retract her hand, he seized her wrist and covered her fingers with his mouth. Rolling his eyes to her face, he saw the flush of anger on her high cheekbones, the unmistakable racing of the pulse in her smooth neck.

  Slowly, he slid his tongue over the sharp nails. He anticipated the attack of her left hand, grabbed it before she could rake his face. The small, fine bones of her wrists in his much larger hands made him feel immensely masculine and powerful. Smiling, he jerked her hands above her head, his knee forcing her legs apart. The platter of fruit fell to the floor, grapes scattering.

  She turned her head away to hide her both her revulsion and desire as he shifted forward, pressing himself against her. In a coupling of instinctive effort and a play to his passions, she struggled, testing the strength of his hands.

  “Lenora, Lenora,” he chided softly, head bending so that his lips grazed her neck. “How well you know me.”

  She tossed her head back, away from his seeking tongue. “We have an agreement,” she snarled.

  Terrin chuckled with real mirth, rocking his hips to torment her with the threat of penetration. “Yes,” he agreed, “and I will continue to uphold my end. Destroy the High Cleric and you will come willingly to my bed. And you will never run from me again.”

  Her hair flung across his face as she stared at him in haughty challenge. “I will never come willingly,” she retorted. “But if you do not kill Viccole, our bargain is null and I will not come to you at all.”

  He lifted his face to laugh, loud and long. “And what will you do instead, my pet?” he asked, eyes crinkled with humor as he gazed down on her.

  Lenora felt again the edge of a wide precipice before her. It was always the worst when he laughed, for then he was truly handsome. In his sparkling dark eyes she could not help but see a younger man, a man who might have been good and kind.

  “I will kill myself,” she made her voice say.

  Though she meant the words, she knew immediately her mistake. The humor about his eyes died, was replaced with something infinitely more threatening. “I would not live,” he whispered, “were you to do such a thing.”

  Lenora knew of the many rumors, both in Terrin’s camp and abroad, of his unhealthy obsession with her, begun when she killed his chancellor and escaped to Tanalon. In the years since, the king had become introverted and cautious, even paranoid. While his court continued its compulsive displays of intrigue and debauchery, Terrin’s personal exploits remained strictly private. Still, where there were servants there were wagging tongues, and it was said his penchant for sadism had grown ever more lurid and violent.

  It was widely accepted that he had succumbed to the madness of his forefathers.

  Rumors were dangerous sources of information, especially when its subject and creator were one and the same. They led to faulty assumption, like the madness of King Terrin.

  She’d known it the moment she’d seen him again, upon being presented like an exotic gift by the caravan master who’d taken her west from Seizo.

  The lines of truth were blurring again, as she’d not thought possible. And she was as powerless to stop it now as she had been at seventeen years old. Her hatred was all that kept her from going mad herself, though it was more elusive now,
harder to reach and hold.

  Terrin released her hands, brought the chafed skin to his lips. “There is no one for me but you, Lenora.”

  Closing her eyes on the sudden pain of her heart, she thought of the cove in Avosilea and the boy who’d followed the trail of her underskirts. Devlin, she whispered, deep within.

  Aloud, she spoke what she feared above all things to be true, “And there is no one but you for me, my king.”

  Terrin stilled at her tone, looking up to see the tears which leaked from the corners of her tightly closed eyes. A melancholy he could not name descended upon him. He mused ironically that perhaps it was a symptom of the mind-illness that haunted his line.

  Carefully, he tucked Lenora’s arms to her chest, lifted one of her legs and moved it atop the other so that she turned onto her side. He positioned himself behind her, encircled her with his arms. “I will conquer Calabria for you,” he spoke into her hair. “You will be my queen, the mother of kings, and will never want for anything.”

  The tension in her body slowly faded until she lay quiescent in his arms. Terrin kissed her neck, breathed the scent of her hair. She shuddered slightly; thinking it a shiver of cold, he held her more closely. “I waited so long, Lenora,” he whispered, “for you to come home to me. When I heard of Armando’s death, the voices of my ancestors cried, ‘She offers you a kingdom!’ Was it not so, my love?”

  Lenora took a slow breath, kept her muscles relaxed despite the alarm she felt as his words. It was the first she’d heard him speak of voices in his head. She murmured, “It was so, Terrin. And what else did your ancestors say?”

  His voice was dreamy and soft, “That you were a gift of the Gods, a woman shaped perfectly for me.”

  “Do they speak to you often?” she breathed.

  Warm breath tickled her neck as he tucked his head. Though he made no noise, she could feel the laughter in his chest vibrating against her spine. With candor, he said, “All the time. They tell me amazing things, like the world is a giant sailboat floating on a starry sea, chasing a fish in the shape of a moon.” By the last word, his voice had broken with hilarity. “Oh, woman, you really think me mad?”

  “Not in the least,” she said, relief not quite hidden in her voice.

  Terrin was a ruthless and brilliant king. In private circumstances, he was a lover both skilled and cruel. He’d shaped her life and warped her heart, but she found herself almost pitying him. For he did not know—would not, until his life’s blood poured out—that she was indeed his mirror, and the perfect catalyst of his downfall.

  On her first journey to the eyrie of Avosilea, the enchantress had said that her heart’s death would bring disease wherever she walked. Lenora had run from the eyrie, unwilling to face the rest. On her final visit, the story had been finished, the Long Road laid out.

  Devlin had broken her heart and Terrin had set it wrongly.

  It must break again to be healed aright.

  She listened to the soft breathing of the man at her back, thought of the knife concealed beneath a rug just feet away, and whispered, “I love you, my mad king.”

  He was asleep and did not hear.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Arturo and Devlin stood on the Viana’s muddy western bank, studying the bridge. It was a forgotten artifact of Tanalon’s past, its length barely adequate to span the present day waterway. There were cracks visible on the stone pillars, their foundations stressed from years of shifting underwater terrain. The graceful arches of the support beams whispered of skilled hands and proud builders, but above, the heavy wooden planks were disintegrating. In places the disrepair was so dire that the shadowed water below was touched by unintended shafts of sunlight.

  Already, twenty or so veiled-ones had braved the bridge and gained the eastern bank. Even with their lightest of steps, their feet had disturbed the decrepit boards, sending chunks of splintered wood into the water.

  “The river is still flooded from spring runoff,” Arturo said, rubbing his face with his hands. “I didn’t want to risk the horses and wagons in a water crossing.”

  Devlin made a noise of agreement in his throat, gaze darting over the muddy shallows to the dark progress of the strongest currents. “The alternative is swing back north, to cross at the level marsh.”

  “Which is probably a lake after our recent passing,” Arturo grumbled. “We would lose more than a week. We cannot afford it.”

  The Master of Knives shrugged. “Either way, we’ll lose time. We’ll have to take our chances in the water. Move the horses and wagons north to a safer crossing; mount a dozen rope pulleys for the men to haul themselves across. If we kept up the crossing day and night and the average crossing took three minutes or less…” He squinted in thought. “Over twenty-six thousand men would take approximately four days.”

  Arturo unclenched his teeth. “And days on top of that for the crossing of gear and horses. I should resign, let a man lead who wouldn’t have made this error.”

  Devlin slanted him a pointed look. “It wasn’t your decision alone, if I remember. Should your queen resign for refusing to allow us to commandeer the barges of L’Sere?”

  “It was a problematic proposal,” he hedged. “Archers on Vianalon’s walls would have mounted assault from above.”

  “No less problematic than this,” Devlin said dismissively. “It isn’t as though anyone expected you to conjure a crossing or change the course of a river.”

  A spark of memory flitted like a firebug in Arturo’s mind. He rubbed his suddenly tingling palms on his thighs, felt thickness in his throat as his heartbeat accelerated. Months ago, in Vianalon, Isidora had dreamed, and in the dream the Nameless had directed her north.

  Toward a river that runs against nature.

  Looking at the veiled-one, he said haltingly, “I saw the Nameless once bring springtime to a barren ridge.”

  Devlin, deducing the direction of his thought, shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, friend. The unique gifts of the Nameless originate in the time before the sundering of mystic blood. We veiled-ones are possessed of ties with the land, yes, but it is the Taproot that calls to us, moves through us. The particular power you’re addressing belonged to Alesians alone.”

  Belongs, Arturo corrected privately.

  Instead of disproving his theory, Devlin’s words only served to solidify his resolve. Gazing at the water, he let the muted rush of its passage fill his ears, cloud his senses. Whitewater bubbled around the central current, which flowed like dark glass. He imagined the trough beneath, rock and debris worried away by the river’s patience to finally create an illusion of menace.

  It was just water, though, as changeable an element as any. Trees may be felled, rocks deposed from the ground, earth moved to reshape mountains and valleys, to redirect rivers. And in his bones, Arturo knew that this river was the one referred to in Isidora’s dream.

  Before his thoughts could cycle further, a rider approached the foot of the bridge. Manuel di Lucía dismounted on level ground and strode purposefully down the bank. Indifferent to his muddying of his cloak’s hem, spoke as he walked, “I’m disappointed, Bellamont. I would have thought Tanalon capable of maintaining civil roadways.”

  Deciding he quite liked the forthright Argentan king, Arturo snorted in humor. “It’s a bridge in the middle of nowhere, likely built with the intention of harvesting that forest.” He squinted up the hillside. “There,” he said, pointing. “Do you see where the trees grow evenly spaced? The hill was replanted.”

  “Fifty-years ago, I’d say,” Manual said with a bark of laughter.

  “Unfortunately for us, this is the only bridge in Tanalon,” he added. “The rest were torn down by Church order some sixty-years past.”

  “Whatever for?” the king asked, thick brows lifted in surprise.

  Devlin turned from watching the river, lines of mirth showing about
his eyes. “It’s just a guess, but I’d imagine they wanted to discourage armies.”

  The talk of cutting forest sparked a sudden inspiration, and before Manual could retort, Arturo whistled for one of the scouting party. The man, Rodrigo Vasquez, moved nimbly down the bank. He bowed to Manual before saluting Arturo. “Your orders?” he asked.

  “Swing back to the columns, find me Astin di Salvatoré and Elazar Laroque.”

  “Sir,” Rodrigo said, and jogged up the bank to his horse.

  “And who are these men?” Manual inquired. “Giants whose backs we may walk across?”

  Thinking of Elazar’s small stature, Arturo grinned. “Fresh eyes, you know.”

  As morning passed to midday and the sun grew warm enough for them to discard their cloaks and gloves, three riders finally approached the riverbank. Their horses left to graze, two men came forward. When they had slid their way to the water’s edge, Arturo said politely, “Thank you for coming.”

  Astin shrugged, while Elazar displayed his gold tooth in a grin.

  “Tell me again,” Manual murmured, eyeing Elazar, “what their purpose is?”

  Arturo gestured to the shorter man, who bowed. “Elazar Laroque, former dock manager of L’Sere.” His hand swept toward Astin, who likewise bent forward. “Astin di Salvatoré, craftsman.” Astin lifted a sardonic brow in reply but said nothing. Smiling, Arturo continued, “They’re going to thwart nature and get our army across the river.”

  Astin gawked while Elazar turned to look at the waterway, then at the forested hillside. He said perfunctorily, “I’ll need four-hundred strong men, each with an axe. Another hundred to cut and haul rock from that ridge yonder.”

  Manual groaned. “Even if we had four-hundred axes, are you planning to cut the entire forest?”

  Elazar turned back, lifted a narrow shoulder. “No one said it had to be a refined crossing.”

  The king’s eyes widened in understanding. “You’re going to dam the river?”

  “Why not?” Elazar grinned. “It would take longer to build a bridge.”