Found ran from the cries of the dying men, women and children caught in the river. Her mad scramble into the bush dwindled into a trot and then quick walking, as she pushed through mallee and skirted banksias to climb a gentle slope. As she paused on the ridge to catch her breath a little dark-haired boy stopped beside her and grabbed her hand, an unexpected contact that sparked her memory. Jon, she thought. The name was very special.
‘Keep going,’ Blossom wheezed as she clambered up the slope with two more women in tow and two men trailing. ‘They mightn’t cross over, but we can’t risk it,’ she said as she reached the crest.
‘Come on,’ the little boy urged, tugging at Found’s hand. She looked down at the child’s upturned face and let him lead her down the slope, deeper into the bush.
‘The Whispering Forest will be our saviour,’ argued the man named Hoe as they crouched in the shade of a white gum. ‘It’s dark and it’s vast. The barbarians won’t come in there and if they did we’d be too hard to find.’
‘Who’s been there?’ Blossom asked, looking around at the survivors. No one replied.
‘It’s the only place we’ve got,’ said the second man, Brace. ‘But it’s three days hard walking.’
‘What about the children?’ a thin-faced woman asked. Three children huddled at her feet. ‘They won’t be able to keep up.’
‘They’ll have to,’ Hoe replied. ‘It’s keep up or be taken by the barbarians.’
‘That’s if they’re chasing us,’ another woman interrupted.
‘You can be sure they’ll come after us, Cream,’ Blossom said. ‘If not straightaway, then soon.’
‘How do you know?’ Cream asked.
‘You’ve seen for yourself,’ Brace replied. ‘The kingdom is falling apart. Who’s going to stop them?’
‘The Queen,’ Cream stated.
‘If the Queen’s army was going to stop them, why are the barbarians already beyond Quick Crossing?’ Brace asked.
Found listened to the conversation and the planning, but she was flicking through memories that were tracing her mind. She knew the Whispering Forest. She’d been there, a long time ago, although she hadn’t been inside of it. When? Why had she been there? Who is Jon? she wondered. The little boy leaning against her was named Magpie and he had adopted her.
‘His mother was on the first raft,’ Blossom explained, as they made camp. ‘We had to get out of Quick Crossing as quickly as we could. Magpie was separated from his mother and his sisters. When we were far enough along the river to swap passengers, he wanted to stay on our boat so he did. He’s seven, I think. He obviously likes you.’
Why did he make Found think of that other name? She was distracted by a flock of chattering brown-and-gold honeyeaters in the trees, trilling their excitement at the sinking of the sun, and she watched them dance and flit between the branches. The sky was dissolving into lighter shades of blue and pink and amber. She instinctively touched her chest. I should know something about amber, she mused.
‘I wish we had a fire,’ Magpie muttered, pressing closer to her side.
‘Not tonight,’ Hoe said across the circle, overhearing the boy’s wish. ‘Tomorrow night we might be able to make a small one, but if we make one tonight the barbarians might see it.’
‘Is that true?’ Magpie looked up at Found for his answer.
‘It’s true,’ she confirmed. ‘But I’ll make you a fire tomorrow night.’
‘Promise?’
She smiled. ‘I promise.’ The boy snuggled against her, as if acknowledging her promise as true, and she ran her fingers through his tangled dark locks. Does he know that his mother died today? she wondered. And then she wondered why she felt so confident that she could keep her promise about lighting a fire. How did she know what to do?
Except for the vague grey moonlight, it was dark, but Magpie was still shaking her arm. ‘What?’ she whispered.
‘You were talking. It was scary,’ he whispered.
‘Was I?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought I was asleep?’
‘You were, but you were talking.’
‘What did I say?’
‘I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense.’
She cuddled the boy against her, whispering, ‘I’m sorry. You go to sleep now,’ and listened to the sounds of the night as Magpie shuffled to get comfortable. The men were snoring. So were some of the women. Someone should have taken watch, she considered, but no one here knows anything about the army. She paused. How do I know? And then out of the depths her dream took shape as she remembered what she’d seen.
A man in a blue robe came to her, but he was old and he said that his name was Samuel. ‘You will die and come back to life,’ he told her. ‘You will slay your lover, Treasure Overbrook, son of Queen Sunset,’ he said. ‘Your firstborn Jon will also be your secondborn when your firstborn dies.’ He threw off his blue robe and took the form of a soldier, a young man with one leg. ‘Don’t forget me, Meg. I will always love you. Don’t forget me.’
‘My name is Meg,’ she whispered.
‘You’re talking again,’ a tiny plaintive voice said in her embrace.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. She held Magpie closer and felt gladness seep through her heart. My name is Meg, she reminded herself.
‘Who is Queen Sunset?’ she asked as the line of people straggled across the open plain of yellow grass.
Blossom Beekeeper stopped and stared at her as if the question didn’t make sense. ‘Are you serious?’
She stopped as well and hesitated, thinking that her dream had somehow been crazy after all. ‘I know my name,’ she said, hoping to retrieve the moment.
‘And?’
‘It’s Meg.’
‘Meg who?’
She was embarrassed again. ‘Just Meg.’
Blossom smiled, saying reassuringly, ‘That’s a start, at least. The rest will come back then.’ She started walking again, concentrating on tying her hair into order.
Meg followed, with Magpie a few paces ahead. ‘Is there a Queen Sunset?’ she asked.
Blossom laughed. ‘Yes. She is the queen of our kingdom.’
‘Where is she?’
‘A long way in that direction,’ Blossom said, pointing south-west without breaking stride. ‘Do you know her?’
Blossom laughed again, and when she caught her breath she said, ‘I don’t even know anyone who’s seen the Queen.’
‘What about Treasure Overbrook?’
‘Now I think you’re remembering an old ballad,’ Blossom said. ‘Marchlord Overbrook was rumoured to be the Queen’s bastard son. He was slain at the Battle of the Whispering Forest by a girl named Lady Amber. The ballad’s called The Blue Knight and the Red Lady I think.’
‘How does it go?’
‘Good Jarudha! I can’t sing.’
‘Just a little bit,’ Meg begged. ‘Please?’
Blossom grunted and chuckled quietly. ‘I can’t believe anyone would ask me to sing,’ she protested, but seeing the desperate appeal in Meg’s green eyes she acquiesced. ‘All right, I’ll sing a little bit—at least what I can remember. And I won’t sing it loud either.’ She cast a forlorn glance at Magpie, before she drew her breath and sang:
‘A bolder knight ne’er there was in all of Sunset’s kingdom,
Than brave Marchlord Overbrook, the Blue Knight named was he,
For he wore spell-charmed armour, the Rebel’s hope and light,
Protected by the Seers, he slew his enemy.
‘Twas said he came of Royal blood, a prince without a father,
‘Twas said he had no equal, no peer to match his arm,
But never did he reckon with the power of a woman
Whose cunning and whose magic would penetrate his charm.’
Blossom looked at the line of women and children winding ahead and behind. There were twenty-seven survivors and they were heading into foreign land, and they needed to find fresh water. The sun was hot.
/> ‘Go on,’ Meg begged. ‘You can sing.’
‘You have a strange idea of what is good singing.’
‘I was a minstrel, once.’ Only as she finished the statement did Meg realise what she’d said.
‘Were you?’ Blossom asked, stopping Meg with her outstretched arm.
She blushed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, I don’t even know why I said that.’
‘More memory coming back,’ said Blossom. She peered into Meg’s filthy face. ‘Perhaps you were. Cleaned up and in better finery I think you’d be a very pretty woman.’
Her observation made Meg blush again. ‘Please sing the rest,’ she asked.
‘I’ll save it until we make camp,’ said Blossom, walking on.
‘Just one more verse,’ Meg pleaded.
‘Jarudha! You are impatient,’ Blossom complained—but she sighed and sang:
‘Now Sunset’s troops had fought and won and drove the Rebels east,
And trapped them on the verges of the Whispering Forest green,
And there it was the famed Blue Knight his nemesis was facing,
A red-haired girl in soldier’s garb, and barely yet sixteen.
‘Enough,’ Blossom said. ‘I don’t know it all, anyway. I think I skipped some verses to get to that point.’
‘But what happened? At least tell me the story.’
Blossom kept walking. ‘The story is that Lady Amber disguised herself as a soldier and found a weak link in Marchlord Treasure’s magical armour and brought him down single-handedly when a thousand men couldn’t. The Queen made her a Marchlord and a Seer for saving her kingdom.’
‘Is Lady Amber fighting the barbarians now?’
Blossom stopped again, hands on her hips. ‘Meg, I don’t know where you’ve been or who you really are, but you sure don’t know much. Lady Amber was killed fighting the Rebels a decade ago.’
‘How?’
‘So many questions!’ Blossom snapped.
Meg dropped her gaze and lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up.
‘They say,’ said Blossom kindly, ‘that she called down the Demon Horsemen on her enemies and everyone was consumed in fire, even her.’ Blossom chuckled. ‘I’ll tell you a secret, though. I don’t believe there ever was a Lady Amber, not like the one in the ballads. She’s just another heroic character. And there’s certainly no Demon Horsemen.’ She patted Meg’s shoulder. ‘Come on. We’ve a long walk. Too much talking just makes us more tired.’
Meg fell into step with Blossom and Magpie took her hand. As the words of the ballad repeated in her mind, she felt as if the story and the people were familiar. The face of a handsome young man lingered at the margins of her memory and she noted the curious feature that he had one blue eye and one grey eye. Why did she see him like that?
PART TWO
‘Some would argue that we are only the sum of our memories and the memories of those who know us. When those are gone, what remains to say that we ever existed?’
FROM MUSINGS ON THE SOUL: AN EXPLORATION OF SELF BY SEER HOLYVISION
CHAPTER SIX
News of his mother’s assassination and the capitulation of the Queen’s army reached him a day before his ship was due to anchor in Port of Joy and he went below decks to howl out his grief. His mother wasn’t meant to die. He always expressly forbade attacks against her. The word was that a young Seer who claimed that she killed his father had taken it upon himself to carry out a personal act of revenge in the palace and killed the Queen in full view of witnesses. He was struck down by the Elite Guards trying to make his escape. The Queen’s death signalled to her supporters that the war was lost. Her main army, already in retreat, surrendered on Kangaroo Plains. Her second army, stemming the incursions of the Coalition of Chiefs’ forces, was yet to surrender because its leader had not formally offered his allegiance to the Prince, but Future knew that was only a matter of circumstance and time. He really didn’t want to negotiate with the Coalition of Chiefs if they had taken control of substantial tracts of the Western Shess land, so the stoic resistance by the Queen’s soldiers in that region was something he would commend when he took command.
This morning, with the sea breeze at his back and the ship on which he was sailing cutting through the green ocean of Royal Bay towards the docks, the white palace walls glittering in the sunlight, his spirits were buoyed at the prospect that he was the new king. He’d wanted his mother to crown him despite their war for the throne, but now he was king by absolute right as the sole inheritor as well as the conqueror. Jarudha held him in His hand and guided him to the throne. The city, the lands, the oceans were his to command.
‘It’s been a long time, Your Highness,’ said Seer Weaver as he joined the Prince on the foredeck of the Kerwyn ship.
Prince Future smiled and licked the salty spray from his lips before replying, ‘It’s been almost thirteen years since I last set foot in my home as a free man. I thank Jarudha for His protection throughout that time.’
Weaver bowed his head briefly and said, ‘As the new king, Your Highness, your service in Jarudha’s name I’m sure will be faultless and generous.’
‘And you? Are you glad to be home?’
The Seer stared at the dark line of buildings squatting along the curving shore of the bay, flanked to the north and south by the tall limestone cliff-faced promontories of the palace and the notorious Bogpit. Waves shattered into white plumes on the smooth rocks. ‘I will be home when Jarudha’s Paradise is here in this world as the scriptures promise. Until then, my life is a continuous journey, and if the promise isn’t fulfilled in my mortal lifetime I will be a traveller until Paradise is made to be.’
Future could offer nothing in response. The Seers always gave him the impression of being dissatisfied, even when events were turning in their favour. He stayed silent and gazed at the white palace walls. He, at least, was home.
‘When the Prince has had time to settle in, then we should bury the Queen,’ Diamond said in answer to Goodman’s query.
‘Yes, Your Eminence. You are right,’ Goodman agreed. ‘I’ll attend to the Prince’s arrival.’ He withdrew from the Counsel Chamber, heading for the quarters of the Elite Guards.
Diamond nodded to three disciples. The young men in their yellow robes bowed to the Seer and followed Goodman. The Seer studied the chamber, noting as he always did the symmetry in the octagonal architecture. The space was empty, the Queen’s death momentarily suspending the need for diplomatic meetings. The Tithe Lords and surviving Marchlords were gathering in the palace, anxiously awaiting the arrival and imminent coronation of Prince Future, wondering how the change in leadership would affect their personal status, wealth and lives, but they were barred from entering the Counsel Chamber until it was graced with a Royal personage. Diamond was flouting the rules with his presence, but he had long discarded fear of recrimination from the earthly leaders. To Jarudha, and only Jarudha, was he accountable.
He sighed and looked at the Royal throne. The frame covered with gold leaf, cushioned with black fabric embroidered with gold serpents, it sat at the top of five marble steps to proclaim worldly authority. He, in his eighty-two years of life, had seen four members of the Royal family take their turns on the throne—Queen Sunset; her father, King Godson; his father, King Firstborn; and his father, King Longarm. The ascent of Prince Future would herald the fifth that he’d seen in that line. Jarudha was kind to let him witness so much change in the mortal world, but he didn’t expect to see Future’s successor. He would be pleased and incredibly blessed to witness the coming of Jarudha’s Paradise in the mortal world, but he did not hold hope for it to happen in his lifetime. The younger Seers and the disciples would see that come to fruition. He would only see it when Jarudha called his people, the living and the dead, to walk the verdant pastures of Paradise when all the souls were purified and set free.
His gaze dropped from the throne as he turned towards
the door. There was a lot of work to do. A prince was arriving to become a king and he had to conduct the sacred and ancient rites of the coronation. He was an acolyte when Queen Sunset acceded to the throne. Now, as the oldest and most respected of the Seers, he had responsibilities.
Marchlord Blade Cutter received the news of the Queen’s death in the morning as he was about to lead twenty thousand men into battle. He read the letter from Kneel Goodman in silence, the only visible effect being his knuckles whitening as he tensed his fists. When he finished, he mounted his horse and said to the messenger, ‘Tell the Royal Intermediary that I will keep the southern borders safe until the matters in the palace are resolved and new orders are despatched.’ Then he ordered his attendant Shieldmasters to ready the troops.
Later, as the battle unfolded through the foothills above the Southern Reaches, Marchlord Cutter gathered a Group of Elite Archers and rode along a ridge, seeking a Coalition war band to engage. As Marchlord, he was seldom able to get into the fighting as he had in his days as a soldier and a Leader. Even as a Shieldmaster he’d been able to take risks by leading his troops in headlong charges, feeling the thrill of battle rush through his veins. He’d served more than fourteen years in the Queen’s army, a life devoted to protecting the kingdom of Western Shess from its enemies within and without. He had many brief loves, but he was married to Gentle who’d given him three boys. The marriage was in its eighth year and he had only seen the first two sons on his annual visits. Tallspirit was already seven. Brightwater was five. The youngest, Peace, was two, and Blade had not yet seen him because of the southern war. With the Queen dead and her son ascending the throne, perhaps there would be a break from endless war and he could go home to be the father he wanted desperately to be.
An approaching rider interrupted his thoughts. ‘Enemy camp, Marchlord,’ the scout reported as he reined in.
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