The Queen's Gambit: Book One of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 1)

by Beth Brower

  “You are certain you can do this?” Eleanor asked again after she sat down, leaning towards Edythe, whose wide blue eyes looked frozen. A small, nervous series of nods was all Edythe gave before stepping down from the platform onto the square.

  People cleared a way, and Edythe walked to the center. Eleanor watched, her heart constricted, wishing she could have convinced her sister not to lead the traditional dance. Edythe paused in place, and the square went silent. Then, a flute began to play the delicate Aemogen melody. Drums joined in, and, as another flute now rose with the first, Edythe began the lithe motions of Aemogen’s most common ceremonial dance. She was delicate, graceful, as perfect in her motions as were the stars in the sky.

  Eleanor had watched Edythe dance before but never in the shadow of such sorrow. It was a relief when, one by one, young women joined Edythe in the square, following her lead, until hundreds of them filled the square. On a signal from the musicians, the women paused, mid-motion, waiting with anticipation on their faces.

  The drums beat louder and faster until, with a whoop, all the young men ran onto the square and stood before a partner. Edythe was easy to spot, the only girl in black, and Eleanor sat straight and stiff until she saw that Crispin had found Edythe. The violins began to carry a merry tune, and the couples began to dance in perfect synchronicity, their laugher and calls spilling over the square, until finally, as the drums beat even louder, the women ran from the dance floor.

  The men, left alone, began to dance in strong and decisive movements, calling out several times in unison. The intensity of their movements matched the music, the drums building as the young women again found their partners on the floor. Then, the melody broke above the drums, full and clear, and all the dancers turned their last and stopped.

  The crowd of thousands cheered. The evening had officially begun.

  “This is something you Aemogens do well,” Thayne told Eleanor after several dances had passed.

  “What is that?” Eleanor asked over the noise.

  “You dance, you gather, despite sorrow, despite what is ahead.” He waved a hand towards the festivities, and then added apropos of nothing, “I should have given them to you long ago, the earrings. They become you. To be honest, I’m not sure if you would have accepted them. I underestimated Wil’s ability to convince you.”

  Eleanor moved her fingers along the edge of one of the earrings and looked back towards Danth, who was now sitting alone. A dance had just ended, and conversation filled the air as the square cleared, the people waiting to hear what the musicians would call out next.

  It was then that she saw him, standing beside the lead musician, pointing to a sheet of music. With a nod from the violinist, Wil turned away from the musicians and walked in Eleanor’s direction. His bearing was stiff, even distant, as he came towards her, having perfect posture and a sense of presence and dignity. When he stopped before Eleanor, bowed, and extended his hand, it was as if Eleanor were meeting a person she had never before seen.

  “I offer the gift, Your Majesty, of a new dance,” Wil said.

  Eleanor almost recoiled—his manner felt so strange, and she was uncertain if he even saw her, or if he was looking past her—but Eleanor stood and stretched her fingers towards his, accepting his invitation. Wil’s hand slipped around hers, and he led her to the center of the square in silence. She pressed his palm with her fingers: her way of asking what was wrong. He did not acknowledge the movement but brought Eleanor formally to a stop and turned to face her, standing quite close, waiting.

  That Wil was not pleased was clear, but there seemed to be something else. Worry? Apprehension? She almost took a step back as she identified it. Disdain. He flicked his eyes towards the musicians, and they began to play. A paced and deliberate drum was soon joined by muted bells, ringing against a young musician’s palm, and a violin, stretching over four haunting notes. All the while, Wil remained unmoving, his chin tilted high. Eleanor shivered involuntarily and looked away from his face. He held her right hand in his as if it were a foreign thing. Only as a low, clear flute began to play did Wil lift her hand towards him

  It was a haunting melody, striking Eleanor as a story she’d once heard and then forgotten. She knew the notes before they played yet was surprised with how they came together. Wil’s movements were deliberate and slow, half-paced, so that she might follow. He stepped to the right, and Eleanor followed suit, stepping to his left. He moved towards Eleanor’s left, and she to his right. In pattern with the drums, he released her hand, lifted his own, and clapped sharply to the side of his face. Eleanor mimicked his movements.

  He repeated the steps, this time to her left, and she, in turn, stepped to his right. After repeating this twice, he raised her arm high above her head and led her in a circle: Wil remaining in the center with Eleanor revolving around him. They repeated these steps and increased in speed, now following the melody at the intended pace.

  Wil led confidently, his movements controlled, watching her face all the while with a look she couldn’t understand. A few times she had seen Wil dance, and had thought him formal then, but it was nothing like the manner he now exhibited: stiff, straight, his eyes watching her, his chin tight, almost defiant. He released her hand and lifted his fingers to his palm in a clap, before stepping around her and clapping again. Eleanor followed. Then Wil lifted her right hand with his, leading her around again, and she spun beneath it. The music increased in speed and volume, and he dropped his hand to her waist, as they repeated the steps of the dance.

  Other couples soon joined in, mimicking Wil and Eleanor, until the whole floor was filled. The melody still carried the dance, strong and strange, but familiar. Spell-like, Eleanor thought.

  Each time the dancers lifted their arms to clap, it was like a whip, cutting through the music, beautiful, arched, harsh. All the strings had now joined in, building the flair of the melody, and the dancers responded. Eleanor was certain that the dance must be beautiful to watch, the movements being so intimate and strong between the women and the men, between her and Wil. She was so close to him, but he still kept her out.

  As she turned, Eleanor saw Thayne, watching from the platform, standing with his eyes narrowed. She lost her view of him as other dancers moved before her, and then Wil lifted Eleanor’s arm, spinning her around.

  The instruments were reaching with great exertion, and Wil spun Eleanor faster and faster in the motion of the music. All the dancers, now confident in the steps, wove around one another. Eleanor felt her body follow Wil’s. This dance was not like the native fluidity of her people, and Eleanor felt herself being carried away. But by what? The waves of the sea? A constant wind? Or, a desert in storm. Eleanor blinked and tried to pull her hand away, but Wil held on. The music increased, heading towards a finish, and she stared at Wil, wide-eyed. She did know this music, she realized, and the memory of it flooded her mind. She had played it as a child, when her mother had desired her to learn the Imirillian song sent down by her friend Edith from the court of Emperor Shaamil. The musicians played the final note, and the dancers spun to a perfect stop, their hands clasped above their heads, faces close together, breathing hard.

  Eleanor caught her breath as she suddenly understood everything: the music, the questions, the careful narration of his past. Eleanor knew that she stared into the eyes of an Imirillian prince.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, breathing hard, her face close to his. “Tell me!”

  “Maydan dabyen veratym,” he said. The words were soft, but Eleanor had understood. In perfect Imirillian, Wil had said, “I have to go.”

  He was still holding her hand above her head. Eleanor slipped her fingers away from his and gripped his wrist.

  “Guards!” she cried out.

  Thayne was shouting as Wil gave Eleanor a last look, the corner of his mouth twitching as if in pain. Then, with a sharp twist of his wrist, he was gone. She could not hold him.

  Hastian was at Eleanor’s side in an instant, as was Aed
on. The crowd on the dance floor disintegrated into confusion.

  “Eleanor, what happened?” Aedon asked.

  “Find him,” she called. “Find Wil! He’s a traitor.”

  “What happened, Eleanor?” Aedon asked again. “What did he say?”

  Shouts of the search could be heard spreading down the stairs as guards raced into the torch-lit city. Eleanor stood, feeling stunned, listening to their calls, while the haunting melody of Imirillia played itself over and over in her head.

  Chapter Twenty

  The war council convened soon after Wil’s disappearance. No one knew what to say. It had been a risk to trust him, something they had coolly calculated up front, and now, none of them believed it to be true. None of them had bothered, after the first few months, to check their attachment, Eleanor realized as she stared at the empty chair at the table.

  “Why are you so insistent he’s an Imirillian prince?” Aedon asked. “There is no sense in that. Surely, he was simply a soldier or a spy.”

  “I know who he is,” Eleanor replied sharply. She was furious. “He is Prince Basaal, the seventh son of the emperor of Imirillia.” The words choked in her throat.

  Thayne joined Eleanor and her council, sitting pensively and listening.

  After hearing Eleanor’s suspicions, he lifted his hand to his chin. “You’re right,” he said. “I knew he was familiar to me—his eyes, that face—he is the son of my cousin, the Marion princess, Edith, third wife of Emperor Shaamil.”

  Thayne’s confirmation cemented Eleanor’s self-conscious rage. The afternoon that she had spent in his company, at the fortress of Anoir, where she had spoken so openly about Edith and her mother, flitted across her mind, and she blanched.

  “It still makes no difference,” Aedon answered pragmatically. “We took every precaution to keep any essential information from his knowledge, and he did not press it. He is a traitor,” Aedon said, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows. “And, if the queen’s instincts prove correct, the possible leader of this entire invasion,” Aedon added. “It was a gamble that we took because, in one fashion or another, we would gain more than we lost. And, we did. He prepared his enemy’s army for war and prepared them well.”

  Eleanor knew what Aedon said was true. It made all rational sense, being the very argument she had presented six months previous. But, the thought of Wil’s intimate associations with her, with all of them, stung severely. She pulled at the chain around her neck.

  “But, he knows we are planning to bring down the mountain,” Gaulter Alden pressed. “If the soldiers we dispatched cannot catch him—”

  “They won’t,” Eleanor interrupted.

  “Then he will move his army one day sooner,” Gaulter Alden continued, “and we are finished.”

  “He won’t,” Eleanor said. “If there is anything that I do know about this prince, it is that his honor would not allow himself to use any information he might have gained to his unfair advantage.” She stood then, taking a few steps back, gripping the back of her chair. “I could strangle him.”

  Late into the night, long after she should have been asleep, even long after a storm had rolled into Ainsley and began to pelt the windowpanes with rain, she finally allowed herself to admit what she had felt for Wil. But, Eleanor refused to stay on this thought, moving past what it confirmed, back into her anger. She had used him, she decided, as he had used her.

  It was all so very politick, she thought.

  ***

  The soft, dismal rain greeted Eleanor’s army the next morning as they prepared to move west. She was dressed in her white gown, but wore a deep green cloak to keep dry. To the chagrin of the stable master—and the rage of Eleanor—Thrift was discovered to be missing from the stables. Wil, or rather, the Imirillian prince had made use of Thrift’s speed and nondescript coloring, leaving his own horse, Hegleh, eating contentedly in the stables. Eleanor decided to ride the white horse to war, in part practicality and in part revenge.

  Now, as her army moved out of Ainsley, Eleanor focused only on what was ahead. They would bring down the mountains, and her people would be protected from the invading force that threatened her country. They would then go to whatever lengths necessary to ensure that Aemogen was insulated from the hungry powers of the continent. She determined to do the same for her heart.

  As the soldiers of Aemogen continued to march, Eleanor’s resolve on behalf of her people grew. It was late, when they stopped for the day. The rains continued on, but the men settled themselves in as best they could. As Eleanor lay alone in her tent that night, she again found herself awake, fighting the misery that plagued her in the darkness. When she did sleep, she dreamed he was next to her and she had dismissed something that he said with a shake of her head but had smiled at him all the same. His company had felt sure, and she had turned towards him with a question.

  Then Eleanor woke with a start. A lightning flash filled the tent, and she saw the silhouette of a man standing before her. She cried out, jumping to her knees, but the flash came again, and no one was there. Eleanor knelt, frozen on her cushions, wide-eyed and gasping for breath. No one had heard her scream, for the storm was too loud, but her heart pounded fiercely.

  She cursed herself and fought back the warm tears, angry at herself for wishing she had Wil at her side as they were marching into war. Angry at herself that she still wore his pendant around her neck. As she lay back down and covered herself with blankets, she cursed him; with all the pain in her heart she cursed his path.

  ***

  “How can it be?” Eleanor cried to Aedon in dismay, disbelieving what he had said. “How could the rain have damaged the powder to such a degree?”

  After three days of marching, they had arrived, and the cliffs of Aemogen pass stood tall before Eleanor and her men. The news, when they had arrived, had rattled Eleanor’s already damaged spirits.

  “The rain these three days has been relentless,” Aedon answered, after conferring with the High Forest miners, who were responsible for orchestrating the powder lines through the abandoned mines. “It has waterlogged the mountains, causing parts of several tunnels to collapse. We are lucky that it did not ignite a spark and send half of the mountain down on itself already, without enough powder to finish the job,” he explained. “The miners have been working tirelessly, but it is a dangerous proposition. Almost all the powder we have is trapped up there in those mines.”

  “We must close off the pass,” she said, her voice sounding frayed. “To fight is impossible!”

  “Steady, Eleanor,” Aedon said, grabbing her shoulder. “You are speaking from fear. We’ll go back to camp and think—this is your strength. Let us use it.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes. “I will speak with Tomas and the other miners directly, Aedon, to know the extent of the damage. Perhaps it will only take a few hours to resolve, and we will be ready to bring this mountain down tomorrow, as planned.”

  They rode back towards the miners’ camp, which was set up a safe distance from the pass. They gathered together in council with the men of each mine. Thistle Black was there, displeased and none too quiet regarding his disapproval of how High Forest had operated things. Then Tomas stepped forward, mud beneath his boots, brushing the rain from his face as he addressed Eleanor, her council, and the miners.

  “We all know that some of the tunnels have been damaged—a sheer miracle that the mountain has not already blown,” Tomas said, looking harried. “Which could also indicate significant water damage to the powder. There are only a few barrels left that have not already been placed in the mines, and we need to use them in the most effective way possible. The Imirillian army is set to attack tomorrow,” he said. “So, we’ll need to be quick about what we try to do. Who has an idea?”

  They all stood silent. It had been such a brazen plan, dangerous, almost mad, Eleanor realized. One spark and half the mountain could have come down on itself.

  “Can we clear the tunnels?” a man asked.

/>   “Not enough time,” Tomas replied, “and using a shovel with all that powder underneath would be a death wish.”

  “Is there no way to connect the tunnel around the rubble with the powder that remains?” another miner asked.

  “It may have once been possible,” Tomas conceded. “But now, there isn’t time.”

  “Exactly how many barrels can still be placed?” a man from Quickly fen asked.

  “Ten,” Thomas said. “We packed the tunnels with almost everything we had.”

  “Then, let’s try and connect the lines with the remaining powder,” came the shout.

  “Don’t be idiots,” Thistle Black said. He had finally stopped grumbling quietly to speak aloud. “We could use those ten barrels to better advantage if we increased our area of impact.”

  “What do you mean?” Aedon asked.

  “Don’t just blow up the cliffs from the inside,” Thistle Black explained. “There is ample powder there already. We need to place the remaining barrels at the base of the cliffs for additional impact.”

  “But, we have to be able to light the powder without killing a dozen miners,” Tomas replied. “And there are pockets of powder that are now isolated inside the mines because of the internal rock slides. The only openings are too small for a man. We need a way to ignite them.”

  “Well, if I didn’t have a way to do both, I wouldn’t have spoken up now, would I?” Thistle Black shouted, leaving the group and walking towards his own supply wagons. Eleanor waited with the other men for him to return. When he did, he carried a long spool of what appeared to be rope.

  “We’ve been using this technique at South Mountain fen,” he explained. “It’s a rope that we run from the powder towards a safer location, where we can light it on fire.”

  “We’ve experimented with that before,” Tomas said. “The flame doesn’t always make it to the powder, and we have such long distances to cover that it’d be impossible. I still can’t see how we’re going to light the powder without men willing to do it themselves.”