"He began to court the other sea-kings of Lhant, offering them an opportunity to share in his wealth if they would be lords beneath his kingship. A few of them, seeing the fortune he amassed in his endeavors, acquiesced. Other kingdoms he took by force, executing all members of the ruling family to ensure their subjects' loyalty. One king was persuaded when King Sheldwinn took his daughter for a wife. It was hoped that she would bear Sheldwinn sons and heirs, for the king had only daughters. Sheldwinn's daughters, too, were one by one given in marriage, to bind uneasy alliances with neighboring kings.
"The eighth and youngest daughter, though, remained in Sheldwinn's castle. Though she had been born Sairesann, she was called Saire, and she was a shy, reclusive creature who never left the castle walls. Although she practiced no sorcery, she spoke to her attendants of magical things, spirits and visits from the moon goddess, Telriss. Often, she spoke a language all her own, a language no one else could fathom. Though she was thought to be mad, her father treated her kindly, and refused to consider any idea of entering her into a political marriage.
"Soon, the most prosperous regions of Lhant--the seacoasts and the arable lowlands--fell under Sheldwinn's rule. The Tarskans were never offered an alliance, for once the breadbasket of the nation was secured, Sheldwinn thought he could take the timber and the great mastwood trees that he needed from the highlanders either by force or by starvation.
"Ever ambitious, confident that the highlands would offer little resistance , King Sheldwinn betrayed two of the western "lords under his kingship" and attempted to place his own puppet lords in their stead. There was no question that his own massive forces, levied from all of the many provinces over which he now ruled, would triumph by sheer numbers. However, the opposing troops, loyal to their old kings, put up an unexpectedly dogged fight.
"Realizing their opportunity, the highland leaders united behind the fiercest and most cunning man among them, the man you call the Red King. He brought down from remote valleys in the Wyrmfang Mountains fighting men on horseback who rode like the wind and used short, powerful bows that they fired with deadly accuracy. They dressed themselves in outlandish garments, painted their faces to resemble demons, even adorned themselves and their mounts with skulls and horns from many different animals. When they attacked, they thundered forward all at once, howling like beasts and calling upon Tarrg. The sight and tumult was said to be so horrific and unearthly that many of even the most seasoned soldiers broke ranks.
"It is said the Red King knew neither fear nor mercy. When Sheldwinn's armies burned their fields rather than allow the highlanders to provision themselves, the Red King let it be known that if he had no other rations to give his troops, he would feed them the flesh of those they defeated. To prove himself a man of his word, he butchered dozens of the casualties and served their roasted flesh to his horsemen. His point was well taken.
“While King Sheldwinn was at war in the west, the Red King's cavalry swept down on Sheldwinn's castle, destroying everything in their wake. Sheldwinn's daughter Saire was presumed to have died in the carnage.
"Within weeks of the destruction of his castle, King Sheldwinn found himself and a battered remnant of his army on a hill, cut off from the armies of his supporters still pinned down by the troops from the west. He had underestimated the advantages of the greater mobility of the Red King's small mounted forces for the last of many times. Around him, his soldiers panicked as the enemy prepared for their final charge.
"That is when Saire returned to her father. His own account says: `’Of a time my child compassed her fragile arm about my waist, I kenned that I had joined her in the land of the dead. But my child was warm and smiling, and bade me not worry, for she had walked amongst the gods. “And look at the pretty thing that I have found there,” she spake, and showed unto me a shining, silver Flute, whereupon she did then most wondrously play.'
"Fiery wasps, the color of living embers, swarmed from the Flute. They settled in a cloud over the highlanders and clung to their horses, stinging the animals to death. The Red King's forces were frightened indeed, but they feared even more the fate of their families should they be defeated. Though on foot and now vastly outnumbered, they regrouped and charged as the girl played on. A wind arose; it blew a thin mist from the Flute into the faces of the charging men. It smelled like a new-mown field, and sparkled like sun on snow, but it struck the Red King's troops stone blind.
"The rest was not war, but slaughter. Few returned, and the one who did to tell this story made his way back to the Wyrmfangs still sightless."
Elzin smiled widely to disguise a bored yawn. "Well, you didn't take your lessons from Master Pierzil, that's for sure. But what does all that have to do with now, anyway? After all, it happened over eight hundred years ago."
"And in all this time the isle has never experienced another true crisis, and the Flute has been comparatively tame. Before you, it was so potent only in the hands of Saire. With it she built her father an empire which has stood to this day. Is it coincidence, or does the Flute sense it will be needed again?"
"Well, if it has any plans, I can assure you that the Flute hasn't bothered to ask my advice," said the blonde with an amused grin. She tried to imagine herself as a part of some history, years from now. Impossible. She was just a regular person who had happened, by good luck alone, to kneel in the right spot at the right time. Caldan had a vivid imagination, that was all.
"This won't stop me from playing in the villages, will it?" she asked as she reached for her glass of wine. "I hope not, because that's where the Saireflute should be, not all locked up behind walls where only the Queen's cronies can hear it."
"Hold very still," said Val Torska. He plucked something from the broad seam of her robe. Elzin stared at the deadly thing that he held aloft for her inspection. Nestled in the folds of her heavy, dark vestment, the black dart had, until then, gone completely unnoticed.
"Whether or not you wish to continue is up to you, Saire Elzin. I do not think that I need to further elaborate on the perils of this undertaking."
Elzin blinked hard, as if she could not believe what he held before her. It was not real, something whispered in her head. It was not real, and she was not Saire. This was not some storyland where millers' daughters came to power, not a place where dark assassins tried to kill them. Unmoving, he held the dart aloft. With a trembling hand, she reached for the thing, her face so pale the bruises stood out like silhouettes. He let her take it from him carefully. She imagined the stinger of one of the Saireflute's wasps, a real thing, sharp and deadly like this, not a story that the count or the schoolmaster had made up. She stroked the short, black feathers, smaller than an arrow's.
It looks well made, she thought. Someone took the time to craft this, to make it right for killing me. She could not imagine someone hating her that much, to go through so much trouble. Her mind lurched back to Shelvann. That poison, too, had been truly meant for her.
This was real. She had to believe it, despite the pain and fear it caused her. Someone wanted her dead. Her travels made her an easier target, but there had been an attempt at the castle as well. Nowhere was safe.
"He didn't really need this," she told Caldan bleakly as she gave him back the dart. "All he had to do was get the Saireflute. Unless I play it each Saire, I'll die. It's part of me now. That's why I had to curse him. I didn't have a choice." She drained her wine in one quick gulp. "I want to go on. I need to, we both know that. Besides, if someone's going to kill me, I'd rather it be out here than in the castle. In the White Theater, there would have been no grassy field of butterflies that turned to flowers."
Elzin placed her hands on Caldan's shoulders. She sighed. "I'd give a lot, Caldan, to have just one flower now. Just one, for me and you."
He laid a hand over hers. "There will be others. Other flowers, other times," he said, then turned to face her, the chair between them. "We will go now; you need your rest."
Elzin glanced at Castandra to make cer
tain the girl's head was still lowered. Then she stepped neatly around the chair and kissed Caldan firmly on the lips. "Just in case something does happen, I wouldn't want you to have to guess how I felt about you, flowers or not."
It wasn't exactly the best excuse that she had ever invented, thought Elzin, but it would have to do.
And it did. His response was all she had hoped; it seemed he would take her in his arms then and there. Elzin leaned to him eagerly, but then guilt cast its shadow over his features and he glanced unhappily at the tense, unyielding back of his waiting daughter.
He only took her hand and squeezed it gently.
"Sleep well, Elzin."
Chapter Eleven
Like tigers in a tempest,
we must roar above the din
to be heard above the screaming
of the nightmare soul of sin.
--“Song of the Sinful”, The Hymns of Shador
The Queen's toad face twisted. The two livid red dots on her cheeks, which began the size of coppers and were now the size of saucers, spread each time she repeated the word. Each time the spots grew wider, the courier cringed smaller.
"DEAD?" bellowed the monarch, and suddenly only the tip of her nose, between her flared nostrils, was white--a tiny maggot in a vat of blood. The courier cowered, unaware he had dropped to his knees, and far beyond caring.
"Y-yes, Your Majesty. I'm sorry--"
"Why would you be sorry, you bumbling boob? You didn't kill her, did you?" The Queen leaned over him. A squashed pug and the courier yelped in unison.
"No, Your Majesty, no!" He clasped his hands together in supplication. "She fell from a horse! It was an accident!"
"You dare to interpret what it was? You will be giving your opinions to the beetles if the details of your observations fail to satisfy me.
"Now, tell me what you saw and leave me with Beksann's last message."
o0o
Back in her chambers, the Queen quaffed a cup of tonic to steady herself and grumbled. Elzin be cursed for running off where she couldn't watch her personally. The longer the Saire was away, the more worried the Queen became. Now Beksann was dead, and there would be no opportunity to replace her with another spy as intimate.
Still, Beksann's demise was doubtless unintentional after all. While she could envision Elzin learning of her handmaid's reports, Hulgmal could scarcely imagine the Saire resorting to murder to correct the situation.
Even more distressing was the old nurse's report. The Saire had changed into a snow lion before a large gathering. Beksann knew how her regent felt about Elzin, and yet she had been unable to compose an account that did not also communicate her awe. "When first our Saire began to play, she took on the glory of the sun. The voice of the beloved Flute was huge and grew still louder. She did not play long. Of all the birds and beasts of Lhant, the Great Lady transformed into the most powerful, amidst a sunburst of purest white," the old woman had written.
The Queen ground her molars. Surely Beksann exaggerated, but, just as surely, such a spectacle must have made a dangerous impression upon the local country bumpkins. Worse yet, the Saire had not sickened further, as she had when she ruined the White Theater's fireplace and later boomed and glowed like a thunderstorm.
Something was amiss. The Saireflute no longer seemed the mildly amusing antiquity it had been while Welmiann held it. Its potency appeared to be growing.
She must monitor the situation more closely. She must know how Saire Elzin handled this power so she would know how to handle Saire Elzin. No common tart was going to take what was hers. She snapped her fat fingers awkwardly. She knew just the person to send.
"Guard," she said, "fetch me a bottle of wine--and my son, Prince Heratinn."
Chapter Twelve
Both warriors drew their weapons
and soon they both drew blood.
First, it was a trickle,
and then it was a flood.
--"Song of the Great War"
Castandra paced in her sleeping area, wild with fury. It annoyed her enough to have been dragged from her research to assure the secrecy of her father's meeting with the Saire. What information of any importance could be entrusted to that witless trollop anyway? Obviously, he had only wanted to flatter the dullard.
Then, the wax in her ears refused to soften. She had been unable to hear a word that had passed between them. At first she thought it an accident, but then, when she had used the cover of her long eyelashes to take a quick and somewhat truncated peek, she saw that hussy of a Saire force a kiss on her father!
Couldn't Elzin tell that he wanted nothing to do with her? She was nothing more than a selfish, silly child in a chubby woman's body, and even if she could not know the most important reasons why he would not have her, the slut ought to have the sense to realize she was totally beneath a man of his importance.
Yes, Elzin was and would never be anything more than an ignorant common wench. Imagine, a grown woman crossing her eyes and making faces! The Flute's choice of such a worthless creature simply proved its uselessness and caprice. Better for Lhant if the wretched instrument were tossed into the sea; and the Saire with it.
No wonder her father had put the hard wax into her ears. He had wanted to spare her the worry over the danger to which the Saire, with her brazen advances, exposed him. Well, she would put a stop to that!
The short walk to the Saire's rooms did nothing to cool the sorceress's temper. When the guards challenged her, she answered curtly that she would speak to the Saire.
"The Great Lady is resting," one informed her.
Castandra, taller even than any of the guards, glared down at them. "You misunderstand. I will see the Saire. I will see her now. You may announce me if you wish, or I will announce myself."
o0o
Elzin hastily lit a lamp and let Castandra in.
"Did you forget something?" the Saire asked with genuine curiosity. Had the girl come back to try to make things better? One look at her face convinced Elzin that such was not at all her intention.
"No, but you seem to have. In fact, you seem to have forgotten a number of things, your place not the least among them."
Elzin put one hand on her hip. "My place? My place? You're unbelievable! No wonder you don't have any friends. I suppose next you'll expect me to fall down at your feet and beg forgiveness for allowing my common self to be chosen Saire!"
"Don't be ridiculous. I couldn't care less if that exalted tin cylinder chose a nightsoil collector to be Saire--although it seems to have done its best to do its worst. I refer to the way that you force yourself on my father."
"Why you stuck-up little snob," Elzin said. "You're jealous, aren't you? You're jealous that your tame, predictable magic looks so dull next to the Flute's, and you're jealous of your father's affection for me! He's a grown man, Castandra. You need to stop this childish meddling and leave us alone."
"Jealous? Of you? You, who have had nearly every undiscriminating male in Lhant between your thighs? You, a worthless strumpet whose loftiest thought never goes beyond who you will take to your bed next? You, who haven't the wit to see the deathly peril that you place my father in when you use your position to thrust yourself upon him?"
"Deathly peril!" Elzin's laughter dripped sarcasm. "Really, Castandra, I'm not diseased. And anyway, I'm not exactly forcing anything on your father. It certainly wasn't my idea for him to start making secret visits to my bedroom in the castle. Maybe you'd better ask him about those before you start accusing me of matters you're apparently too young and naive to understand!"
"Lower your voice, you beastly slut!" hissed the sorceress. "I am not concerned about whatever pox and vermin you might carry down there. My fears are for my father's reputation. If the Queen were so simple as to believe that he would… would… rut with something like you, she might twist it into treason as well. He could die because of your insatiable and grasping lust.
"And would you care, you filthy lowland she-goat? No, you would p
robably like that, wouldn't you? You would like for others to believe your lies, and you wouldn't care who had to suffer for them." Castandra began to wail. "My father would never profane himself with a unspeakable thing like you--never! He would sooner tryst with a nest of vipers than with you!"
"Is that so?" said Elzin. "Well maybe you should have asked your father about that before coming here. Maybe you should go ask him about it right now. Yes, that's right," she said, spurred on by the sorceress' horrified expression. "Just ask him whether or not he thinks I'm good enough for him. But first, take your precious, unsullied rump out of my room before I have someone haul it away."
The two must have had the same idea, for as the Saire reached for the door, her hand brushed Castandra's. Each girl jerked back as if she had been stung. Their eyes met in a fierce glare, and then Castandra flung open the door and fled, hounds loping behind.
o0o
Oh, Goddess… Standing in the open doorway between her suspiciously impassive elite (four now, instead of two) Elzin suddenly regretted her angry challenge. What if Castandra did speak to Caldan?
So what? she told herself. Let her. She swept aside any lingering doubts with the memory of his expression when she had kissed him. That's right. Let her go and tell him how she spoke to me. Caldan would defend her, she assured herself stubbornly, even to his own blood.
Elzin slipped back into her room quietly and sat down on her bed. She found it difficult to believe that anyone could think so poorly of her, much less be so insulting. What if all of Lhant's nobility felt that way about her? All of them, except, she prayed, Caldan. She swiped at her damp face, but every tear was replaced by many more. Finally, she brought the case that held the Flute to her bed. Its presence reassured her, and after a time, she fell asleep with it nestled in the crook of her arm.
The Night Holds the Moon Page 13