The kittens, abruptly disturbed from their nap in the sun, scampered away swiftly. The three ladies quickly packed up their things, Sinthe laughing merrily at the consternation she had caused, and Brisquayne and Adèle shaking their heads and muttering mild curses. Then with triple shouts for their maids, off they went to freshen up before the royals made their appearance.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“JUST A SILLY HEADACHE”
Some hours later, when their honored guests arrived on schedule, Sieur Manassès and his wife were on hand to greet them demurely in the porte-cochère. Also forming the impromptu reception line were the Count Lancelme and his wife, the Lady Adeléonore, and the Dowager Queen Brisquayne of Kórynthia. All present bowed and curtsied deeply to one another, as the salutations were announced.
“My Lord King,” Manassès said, sweeping his hand in the general direction of the entrance hall. “We welcome you and your lady most heartily to our humble Enghieux.”
“The pleasure is all ours, my boy,” King Tancrède said, clapping the baron on the shoulder as he led his small party into the reception salon. “Hippolyte and I are looking forward to our stay here. I do hope the fishing is good.”
“Indeed, Majesty, I’ve snagged several large troutfish and one of the walleyed pike just this past week,” the sieur jabbered away, glad to have found something in common with his illustrious guest.
The monarch expressed much pleasure at the thought of the proposed fishing expedition that afternoon, and then he and the queen courteously renewed their acquaintanceship with Queen Brisquayne, stepping aside to bring forward a short, plump woman who had been waiting discretely in the background.
“But now, my dear lady,” Hippolyte said, “let me introduce to you the main reason for our visit here today. Please meet our new midwife, the Lady Mirza, a native of far-off Umm az-Zakkár.” She bowed with a flourish.
“Ve have been ever so delighted to made your acqvaintance, kind lady and gentle-man,” Mirza said, a warm smile lighting up her friendly round face, somewhat offsetting the jarring gutteral accent.
A bottle green headwrapping was completely intertwined with her steel gray hair in an outré design. She bowed to them rather formally.
“Und ve vill be very happy to have brung your daughter to the birth,” she added coyly.
Brisquayne’s mental defenses immediately snapped into place with a violence that shook her very soul. She had heard that voice somewhere before! Even if she couldn’t immediately recognize the face, she was certain this was someone from her past, someone she had once known quite well. She squinted at the strange little woman more closely.
“Well, my dear,” the dowager queen finally said, outwardly maintaining her normal demeanor, “I am so pleased to meet you at long last. Do tell us all about yourself. Have you been a midwife for very many years?”
She carefully refrained from extending her hand, since they inhabited different social levels.
“In the east,” Mirza said, “vhich is the place vherein I vas trainèd, ve take of zese matters concerning the birthing very serious. And so ve studies very hard ze zings zat are necessitated for the making of the good birt’, and ve applies zese zoughts to ze place at hand, vhich is here.”
She smiled toothily again, clearly pleased with her effort at elucidation.
“Then, you’ve been doing this for some time now?” Brisquayne said, her mind searching the æther for answers.
“Oh, many, many years have I done such zings,” Mirza said with pride. “Many—how do you say them?—ten-years.”
“Decades,” the king said, already tired of this women’s nonsense. “They’re called decades, my dear.”
But Brisquayne was distracted, paying scant attention to the pleasantries floating back and forth among their party. As Sinthe ushered them out to the sheltered terrazo and the lovely meal which awaited them there, the queen sifted back through her deepest memories to place that curious voice. There was also something else, something about the way in which the woman handled herself....
Great God in Heaven, she screamed inwardly, as she smiled absently at King Tancrède, it’s Mösza!
Suddenly the old queen felt very frightened and very much alone. She tightly pinched the fleshy part of her thigh with her left hand, focusing on the sharp pain to avoid losing control of herself.
This is no accident, she thought, it can’t be. She’s come here to....
“Mamá!” Adèle said, causing Brisquayne to look up quickly from her untouched plate of cold quail hen. “Mirza was asking you a question.”
“My apologies,” the dowager queen said. “I seem to have been distracted by the king’s charming anecdote.”
Tancrède had been regaling the twin brothers with another hoary old fishing tale.
“No, no, no, ’tis all the one and the same.” Mirza chuckled. “My mistaken, to be sure. No, honorèd madame, I ask merely vhere is it you be from?”
“Kórynthia,” Brisquayne said abruptly.
“Oh, such a very big place is this kingdom of Kórynt’,” the midwife said, “much more big than Umm az-Zakkár.”
She slurred the “Z” and accented the last syllable of her homeland, trilling it off her tongue like the night call of a mockingbird.
“Delighted ve be to meet wit’ zee....” She bowed again.
Why are you here? Brisquayne moaned to herself. Who told you I was here?
“...Très important it is to take the care of ze little ones,” Mirza continued without interruption. “So much can happen to ze pretty bébé. Hurt he can be, or vorse, if you not careful be.”
She beamed at them all.
“Yes,” Queen Hippolyte said, “one must be very careful indeed, which is why we’re so happy to have you here, Madame Mirza. My cousin, Lady Circé, spoke so highly of you.”
“Oh,” Mirza said, laughing under her breath, “some say she be a real vitch, ha ha ha, but me, I find her most accommodate. She talk, talk, talk all ze time, she tell me zings a midvife perhaps should not hear, eh? Ha, ha. I hear nozings, like a good Mirza, but she, she zink I listen, so she send me to you. I say nozings. Better to be listened to, no?”
Brisquayne had the oddest sensation that Mirza (or Mösza, she corrected herself), was speaking directly into her own ears, that she was telling her to say nothing about her real identity, either now or later, and punctuating that threat with her evident ability to harm Brisquayne’s innocent ones at any time in the future. The dowager queen had never been so terrified in her entire life. Somehow the midwife had discovered that Brisquayne had been gossiping about her in Kórynthály. Somehow she had found her way here. Why? What possible harm had she ever done to Mösza?
“Far better, lady,” the dowager queen said, smiling a thin, wintry smile. “Now, if you will all excuse me, majesties, I am feeling distinctly unwell, and I must beg your leave to retire early.”
She rose to exit, bowing to each in turn.
“Oh no, Mamá,” Sinthe said. “Shall I fetch a physician?”
“No, it’s nothing, really, just a silly headache.” Brisquayne gestured to her temple. “I get them sometimes. I’ll try to join you for dinner later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“MY PRETTY LITTLE PLAYMATES”
Instead of returning to the spacious guestchamber which had been set aside for her, however, Dowager Queen Brisquayne made straight for the family’s small viridaurum alcove just off the little chapel that serviced Enghieux. She glanced about carefully, as she half-walked, half-ran to the hidden site, to be sure she wasn’t seen by anyone. Then, stepping inside, she focused her energies, twisted the leys, and transited directly back to her manor house, Tamásház, in Kórynthály.
“Mokey!” she roared, exiting her private mirror. “Where are you, girl?”
After conducting a thorough search of the lofty old house, room by room and floor by floor, the queen finally discovered her errant maid tucked up cozily in the master bedchamber with Luqman, the steward,
by her side. They were not asleep.
“My God!” she said, “what in the world are you two doing in here? No, never mind, don’t answer that. I can guess.”
A redfaced Luqman carefully pulled the blanket all the way up to his scrawny neck. C’est très difficile to be dignified when one has been found by one’s mistress utterly without covering.
“Uh, Madame, that is, uh, Milady,” he said once or twice, “Highness! I, uh, you see, uh, we weren’t expecting you back so soon....”
His shaky voice tapered off, leaving a total silence in its wake, as his mistress stood glaring down at the pair, like a shepherdess who has just discovered her wayward sheep.
And they certainly weren’t expecting what she did next. The dowager queen stepped forward into the room, boldly grabbed the covering, and yanked it off the bed.
“Madame!” Luqman exclaimed, utterly mortified, struggling unsuccessfully to shield himself with his hands. Emöke squealed like a shoat at the butchering block, desperately hunching her knees up in front of her bare chest. Unfortunately, that move left another, even more crucial portion of her anatomy wholly unprotected.
The queen grabbed both miscreants quickly, taking each of them by a foot, and her mind surged massively up their bodies and into their brains, completely and immediately subduing both their wills to hers.
“Now, my pretty little playmates,” she said, “we’ll just see what’s really been going on here.”
She ruthlessly shuffled through their helpless minds, sifting their memories like so many grains of sand.
But these were simple minds, she soon realized, wholly concerned with their temporary carnal pleasures and minor household advantages. There were no devious, hidden plots folded away in their tiny brains, no secrets save those of the most banal kind.
“Néma!” The queen spat in disgust, releasing them with great disappointment. Neither of them had known a thing about Mösza.
Emöke and Luqman suddenly realized that, first, they were very naked, and second, that their mistress was still standing there glaring down at them.
“Pah!” Brisquayne scoffed, as both tried again to cover themselves, “nothing I haven’t seen before. Luqman,” she said, “as of this day you’re dismissed from my service. You will return the place setting from my royal china that you stole, and you will also pay half the wages due you to the church, in atonement for your sins.
“Mokey,” she said to the wide-eyed girl shivering before her, “your wages are henceforth reduced by one-third, and you’re also returned to garde-robe duty. You will both report to Rövigó at once, and tell him what I have told you. Now, get out of my bedroom!” she yelled, and they went scurrying off as fast as their legs could carry them.
Even before they had cleared the doorway, the queen started to laugh out loud, the tears streaming from her eyes. She laughed and laughed until her sides ached. She couldn’t remember having seen anything so funny in years. She would have to make certain to return unexpectedly from her other trips again in the future. This would make a good tale to tell around les échecs table the next time she met with her small circle of old friends.
Outside, the sun was just beginning to skim the horizon. She stirred herself from her reverie, and hurried back to her private transit mirror. She must return to Neustria before she was missed. As she set her leys for Enghieux, she swore that she would find out who betrayed her. She also took a holy oath to herself, on all that was sacred to her, that never in her lifetime would she allow that thrice-damn’d bitch Mösza to harm any of her precious ones. Not ever. No one could threaten her and hers and be allowed to live.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“ALL IS LOST”
The first day of June, the Feast of Saint Ioustinos the Philosopher of Nablus, found the Kórynthi army encamped in the Lüstern Field, below the city and castle of Karkára, on the western slope of the Carpates Mountains. At least two thousand Pommerelian soldiers held this mountain fortress, which dominated the plains of southern Einwegflasche, and blocked access through the Karkára Cut from the Kórynthi County of Westmark. King Kipriyán had decreed that the citadel must be taken before the army could proceed to its rendezvous with the forces of Prince Ezzö. The threat to their extended supply lines was just too great to leave an army of such size lingering behind them.
For four days they had tried to find the key to the great fortress perched four thousand feet above them, to no avail. The War Council was now debating their next step.
“Sire,” Prince Arkády said, “we have several choices. We can ignore this threat”—groans emanated from around the table—“which we all agree is not an option, or we can reduce this citadel forthwith. But we can’t afford to wait much longer. The fall of Lockenlöd Castle and the death of Count Iselin mean that the Princes Ezzö and Pankratz will be turning their thrust south within a few days, as soon as they’ve regrouped. Although we don’t have as far to travel, we have a much larger army to move.”
“If I may play devil’s advocate,” Prince Nikolaí said, “I never supported stopping here in the first place.”
He looked around the table at the grim faces of each of his comrades, gauging their measure.
“We need to take advantage of the invasion of the west by Duke Ferdinand. For the moment, the Walküre king has been forced to split his army into several groups to fight our various thrusts into his country. If we move fast enough, with or without the Forellës, we can catch them with their belts knotted ’round their knees. As for Karkára, we can bottle them up with a thousand men stationed along the canyon walls.”
“It’s still too risky,” General Lord Rónai said. “We need those supplies....”
“Why?” Nikolaí asked. “If we march quickly, the trains’ll never be able to keep up anyway. So we scavenge from the land, just like all armies do. Already our wagons are being picked to pieces by the partisans coming out of the Läuterung Hills to the west, and we can’t stop them without detailing most of our force to permanent guard duty. We throw the dice, and we either win or lose. If we win, we have the spoils of a nation to divide amongst us. If we lose, well, there won’t be nearly as many mouths to feed on the way back, and everything’ll be chaos anyway as we try to withdraw.”
The king finally broke his silence by grunting for attention.
“I won’t hear of withdrawing,” he said, “and we won’t leave a substantial force of the enemy nibbling at our rear. We take the castle. Now, tell me how we do it.”
He glared back at them all.
“I have an idea,” Prince Kiríll said. “I spent some months a few years ago in Westmark, hunting and fishing in the Carpathian foothills, and I know that Karkára is vulnerable to attack from the northeast. Although the main road from Podébrad gives one no particular advantage, there’s a little-known trail that follows a southern branch of the Paltyrrh River called the Vá’al to a point just north of the citadel. A small force could come in through this back way, scale the walls undetected, and open the gates to a full-scale assault. I’d be happy to volunteer, since I know the way.”
“How long would it take to get this started?” the king asked, obviously quite pleased with his son’s initiative.
“A few days at most,” the prince said. “I’d have to use your personal viridaurum to transit to Myláßgorod, round up enough trained men, and then either ride to Podébrad in Westmark if the roads are dry, or take the whole lot through the mirrors, and get new mounts and gear up north. We could reach there by the fourth of the month, I think.”
“So ordered!” the king roared. “Gorázd, settle the arrangements. Kir, make us all proud. We’ll be waiting for your signal.
“Now, any other business?” he asked.
They had begun discussing the disposition of troops for the forthcoming attack, when a messenger was abruptly announced. He staggered into the tent, haggard and worn, his face and clothing soiled, his hair sweaty and hanging loose, his helmet and much of his armor gone and his overtunic in
tatters.
“Majesty!” he managed to gasp, almost falling over before grabbing the edge of the table. Several men rushed to his aid.
“Something to drink,” he said.
“Get that man some wine,” Kipriyán ordered, motioning to a servant. “And a stool for him to sit on. Quickly!”
When the messenger had had a few moments to gain control of himself, he looked up from his cup, and they could see the weariness and despair etched in his face.
“Sire,” he began again, “all is lost. I....”
He couldn’t continue.
“Who is lost? Where?” Arkády asked.
The soldier looked over at the prince before continuing.
“Duke Ferdinand,” he said.
“What!” the king said.
“Tell us your name and rank,” Arkády commanded.
The soldier motioned for more wine.
“Sir Eumen von Lettów,” he said. “I was assigned as a military adviser and trainer to the Duke of Mährenia’s army. We started from Rautenstahl, heading down the Cacÿparis River into Pommerelia. We invested Trüdigar, and captured it on the ninth, with almost no casualties. Three days later at Kölkeimás we ’whelmed Count Theodebert’s army, and then attacked the citadel itself. The castle fell on the seventeenth.”
He sipped more wine, swallowing heavily, and wiped his hand on his dirty breeches, before continuing.
“We followed the Kleine due east from Kölkeimás, meeting only partisans, figuring either to strike out from the river when it turned south, or to run with it straight into the Ærénosë, and then march along that waterway to Balíxira. Tuesday night we camped along the river bank, posting most of our scouts and pickets to the east. I was sent north into Martandö to ride my customary circuit.
“I had stopped to answer a call of nature when I heard some riders coming fast just to the south of me. I quickly blindfolded and tethered my mount, and climbed partway up a tree. A large mounted force of Pommerelians, four or five thousand at least, was moving through the night. I followed at a distance, hoping somehow to find a way through to the other side to warn our men.
Killingford: The Hieromonk's Tale, Book Two Page 9