Women of Wasps and War

by Madeleine D'Este

  'My Lady,' he stuttered. 'Women are not permitted in the Cloisters.'

  'Not even the Unwanted?' Agata raised an eyebrow.

  'This is where we sleep and study. The Unwanted are allowed only in the gardens and kitchens. We do not allow them in our quarters.'

  The young Cousin reappeared and whispered into the Cousin's ear.

  'The Scion thanks you for visiting but unfortunately, my Lady, he has many pressing matters to attend to. He hopes you will attend the midday service.'

  Agata narrowed her eyes. 'Will he see me after the service? I have my own pressing matter to discuss with him.'

  The single-browed Cousin shook his head. 'I am sorry, my Lady. He is meeting with the Duke. There is so much to do to bring life back to normal.'

  Agata gritted her teeth.

  Froma leaned in. 'Did you explain properly, Cousin? We are here to--' She stopped as Agata placed a hand on her arm.

  'Very well,' Agata replied. 'The Scion is not alone. I also have much to do.'

  'Of course, my Lady.' The Cousin gestured to the door. 'As you wish.'

  Neither Agata nor Froma spoke until their feet touched the cobbles of the town Square.

  'I must go, my Lady,' Froma said.

  Agata nodded, her jaw tight. 'Thank you for your help. In both matters.'

  'Please call on me if ever you need me.' Froma strode away across the Square, turquoise veil flapping, leaving Agata with her taciturn guard by the Old Man Tree.

  Agata sighed.

  Back inside the castle, she heard male laughter as she approached the solar door. Nausea rippled across her belly as she wondered what she might overhear today.

  A different guard, with a severe widow's peak, knocked and pushed open the door. The Duke sat on the cushioned bench with his usual noblemen; Kalin, Jotek and Egid. Each had goblets in hand and the table was laden with bread trenchers and platters of beef, chicken legs and silver sardines. Agata pulled back her shoulders and entered, forcing a smile.

  'Ah, the beautiful Duchess,' said Lord Egid. His pointed salt and pepper beard was meticulously oiled. 'Come and join us.'

  'I do not want to interrupt,' she said.

  'Only if you do not mind listening to us reliving our triumphs on the battlefield,' Egid said.

  Agata swallowed.

  The Duke slurped down another mouthful of wine, barely glancing in Agata's direction.

  'How have you been busying yourself today, my Lady,' Egid continued. 'Dresses or needlework?'

  The others laughed.

  'I visited the Scion,' she replied, her fingers gripping at her necklace.

  Kalin rolled his eyes and chuckled as he grabbed a chicken leg. 'Lucky you.'

  'To discuss charitable works for the war widows.'

  'Very good. Very good,' said the Duke, finally registering her. 'We must do more for the families of the lost men.'

  Her heart swelled at the sight of approval on his face. 'I tried, my Lord. But he did not have the time to see me.'

  Egid grunted. 'I saw the Scion this morning. He was talking of an Allotment.'

  'A sensible idea, my Lord.' The weak-chinned Jotek nodded. 'An Allotment was performed after the last war.'

  'I heard the story from my own father,' the Duke said, pinching his bottom lip between his fingers.

  Agata glanced from face to face, her brow furrowed. 'What is--?'

  The Duke held up his hand. 'I shall explain later.'

  Agata closed her mouth and the room settled into an awkward silence, disturbed only by slurping and chewing. She remained standing behind the men and the Duke did not invite her to join him. Heat blazed across her décolletage and spread up her neck as she waited, but he said nothing.

  'I'll take my leave, my Lord,' she said finally, curtseying to hide her eyes.

  The Duke nodded curtly and reached for a piece of bread.

  Her heart pinched inside her chest as she closed the door behind her. She bit down on her lip and turned to rush up the stairs, as far away as she could.

  'My Lady.'

  Lord Sylwin lurched along the corridor on his bad leg.

  'Lord Sylwin.' She conjured up a weak smile as a serving girl approached with a food-laden tray. 'I will take my luncheon in my bower.'

  The girl nodded and hurried away towards Agata's rooms.

  'Let me walk you there,' Lord Sylwin said, taking her arm. 'How are you keeping, my Lady? It has only been a few days since the men returned but I have barely seen you. I had grown used to seeing your lovely face several times a day.'

  'It is an adjustment,' Agata said, pressing her lips. 'For all of us.'

  'War is hard to describe to those who have not experienced it.'

  'But I want to hear about it. I want to help lighten the burden.'

  'There are things about war you can never understand through mere words.'

  Agata swallowed.

  'I feel like we are strangers once more.'

  'Give it time, my Lady,' he sighed. 'If only my sister were alive to advise you but you have only me.'

  Agata patted his arm. 'You are the best counsel I could ask for.'

  'She would have had much to teach you. The Old Duke was a hard man but a touch of her hand on his arm and her voice in his ear and he would bend like seaweed in the tide.'

  Agata smiled weakly.

  'Be patient, my Lady.'

  Agata nodded. 'Please join me for luncheon? I would like to hear more about my husband's mother. She sounds truly wise.'

  Sylwin shook his silver head. 'The Duke requested my company in the solar. But I promise I will come to visit you tomorrow. I do not like to see you frown.'

  She nodded solemnly as he hobbled away. Once again, left all alone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once Agata's luncheon was laid out and the wine poured, the serving girl curtseyed and closed the bedchamber door. Agata curled up on the bench, reached for an almond cake and opened the tale of Magnilla once again.

  The weak sun was already in the west as we reached the summit. The Cousin and I had stumbled and panted up the rocky and icy incline like bent old women, while the Akull men on their horses were fresh as maidens on a morning stroll. I had repeated my prayer under my breath all the while, 'O Father, Protector. O Father, my keeper. My life is yours. Keep me safe.' I rested on a lichen-covered boulder and gazed into the valley below where I caught my first glimpse of Meeraq. The town sat behind a high wall of compressed ice. As large as any big town in Nithese, Meeraq glistened in the grey afternoon light, its shingled roofs caked in snow.

  The three Akull men led us towards a gate built of solid logs where we met a guard twice my size, gobbling on a drumstick. My stomach rumbled and my fellow Cousin moaned aloud. This was the first meat we'd seen in weeks but we said nothing. I circled my forehead. The Father constantly tests us.

  The Akull leader said something in his rough tongue and the mountainous gatekeeper opened the gate. We continued into a wide street, flanked by three storey pine dwellings with carved eaves and shutters, and tiled mosaics in blues and pale yellows. The craftsmanship intrigued me but on closer inspection, I saw sin on full display. One of the repeating motifs was a naked female form. I gasped and averted my eyes. We had been right to come here. Our work and the Father were sorely needed. The people of Meeraq would know His wisdom soon. It was never too late.

  We continued deeper into the heart of Meeraq past doorways where fur pelts and hunks of wine-coloured dried meat hung alongside wooden contraptions with straight rails rather than wheels. Pale-faced but well-fed children stopped and pointed at us open-mouthed, while roaming wolf-like dogs sniffed at our legs. We turned the corner into another street and then down a narrow alleyway until we stopped outside a house like all the others, with blue and pale yellow tiled walls and pine cones and birds carved into the eaves. The door was opened and the three men escorted us into a small room.

  The Cousin and I stepped inside. The leader said a few more unintelligible words from the
doorway and closed the door behind him, leaving us all alone. I tried not to think the worst when I heard the latch close. I looked around the stark room and to my surprise, found a bowl of steaming water and a towel. Such luxury in this desolate place? Hot water was not even provided at the castle of Prince Andaras in Nithese. I praised the Father aloud as I splashed my face. My nose and cheeks burned as they thawed and I grinned. But my fellow Cousin refused to wash, his eyes never resting.

  'We cannot escape,' he said, shaking his head. 'I knew I should never have come.'

  'Why should we escape? We came here to meet with the Akull Clansmen and teach them of the Father. This is our duty.'

  'Look what happened to the other Cousin,' he said, in the lowest voice.

  I tutted. 'He died spreading the word. A pious death. He is with the Father in the Land Beyond the Sunset right now. There is no reason to be sad. He is receiving his reward. I hope when my time comes, I am on a mission for the Father.'

  'It might come very soon,' the Cousin said, slumping onto a cot.

  I took my Teachings out and prepared for the moment we would be called to meet their King. I did not sit but I paced the small room with a lightness in my chest, awaiting my chance to prove my true devotion to the Father. How pleased He would be when the Akull turned to Him.

  The door opened.

  'Come.' A different man in white spoke our language with a thick accent, his white hair piled on his head in a bun like a maiden. 'She is ready for you.'

  I smiled but then my brow furrowed. Did he say 'she'? I shrugged, assuming my ears were blocked after the whistling winds of the plains.

  But I was wrong.

  We followed him through narrower streets banked by snow. 'See the Father is with us,' I said, pointing to the late afternoon sunlight and the glowing golden snow but the other Cousin merely grumbled. I clutched my Teachings to my chest. My heart swelled with hope and as we walked, I searched for the perfect passage from the Teachings to begin with.

  Then we turned a corner and I gasped at the tall wooden tower unlike anything I'd seen before. It was not cylindrical like the four towers of the Sulun palace but broad and fat at the base with curved walls and a domed roof, like an acorn. The dark-stained exterior was painted with soaring eagles, diving fish, giant bears and some mysterious creature with a horn on its forehead. The other Cousin took in a similar sharp intake of breath, but his comment was not as complimentary.

  'Heretics,' he muttered.

  'I think it is glorious,' I said as we started up the wide row of steps towards a massive sliding door. Outside the entrance, a muscular guard with a long white moustache stood under an awning. Wooden racks ran along the wall filled with boots of different shapes and sizes. The door frame was decorated with depictions of the sun, moon and stars and Akull warriors with flowing white hair.

  I took a step forward towards the door and the guard yelled, the force of his voice stopping me dead. I shrugged with a trembling smile. He pointed at our feet and shook his head, frowning. Hesitantly I removed my boots, my feet ripe after months on the road, but I followed his orders and he slid open the heavy door.

  Like the exterior, the interior took the breath from my lungs. The pine walls of the vast room stretched into a dome in the sky, the ceiling seeming to soar up forever, buttressed by white rafters. To my left and right lay fire pits, which spat sparks and poured out heat. In the centre of the room was an enormous chair carved from a single mammoth tusk, intricately patterned with motifs of icicles and swords and eagles and inlaid with black onyx. I blinked twice, then three times and then I knew I had heard our guide correctly. She sat on the throne while her white-headed court sat at her feet on fringed cushions and rugs.

  'Bow when Queen Magnilla speaks to you,' said the educated man who spoke our language.

  The room rippled with murmurs as we approached the throne.

  'She is beautiful,' whispered the other Cousin, his mouth agape. I did not know much of women but she was luminescent. Her white hair was pinned back from her face with combs of yellowing bone and shone like a shower of ice rippling down her back. Dressed immodestly in eggshell-coloured leather hose and a clinging leather tunic, she slung sideways over the arm of her throne rather than sitting upright. Her silver eyes were inquisitive as she tilted her head with a slight smile. Some might say her smile was cruel but I saw only curiosity. And her curiosity was returned, I longed to know everything about this woman.

  'Who are you, strangers?' she said.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The midday sun streamed through the solar windows as the Duke took a long draught of wine and settled back, listening to Lord Kalin regaling the room with another of his Sulun conquest stories.

  'The most luscious thighs you'd ever seen. Soft as clotted cream.'

  Lords Egid and Jotek roared with laughter.

  'If nothing else, you have returned with good tales,' said Lord Sylwin, wiping tears from his eyes. 'I wish I could have joined you. This cursed old body.'

  Kalin topped up his goblet with a sigh. 'But life is back to normal. Goat stealers and fights in the Inns.'

  The Duke chuckled as he sliced sausage with his pocket knife.

  'You have not told your tale, my Lord,' Sylwin said.

  The Duke glanced up at his great uncle, his pulse quickening. He produced a smile. 'It's a very simple story. Nothing like my old friend Kalin's tales over here.'

  'What can I say?' Kalin leaned back with his hands behind his head. 'Damsels love me.'

  Guffawing, Sylwin replenished the Duke's wine. 'My Lord, don't be so modest. Battlefield stories are always interesting. Indulge your old Uncle.'

  All eyes were on the Duke.

  'Very well,' he said, clearing his throat.

  He took the goblet from Sylwin's hand and emptied the contents in a single draft. He longed to loosen his tunic. 'My enemy was a Hende.'

  'The Hende,' scoffed Kalin. 'Their skills are in the forges, not on the battlefields.'

  'Rightly so. With the sharpest sword I've ever seen. It sang through the air. Cleaving right through to the bone with a single swipe. The physician proclaimed it was the cleanest cut he'd ever seen.'

  His great uncle whistled through his yellow teeth.

  'I foolishly allowed him one clear strike.' He continued, patting his empty hose. 'But the Father blessed me that day and I am here to tell the tale. In the eyes of the Father.'

  'Luck and years of training.' Jotek winked.

  'You did not give in, my Lord,' Sylwin nodded.

  'All your hours of swordsmanship lessons came back to me, Uncle. Like second nature,' the Duke said and the old man bowed his head. He took another sip of wine, pausing to piece together a believable story from all the battlefield tales he'd heard since childhood. He wished he was more like Kalin, a natural storyteller.

  'Go on, my Lord,' Sylwin said.

  The Duke tugged at his tunic neck and gestured to Wladek, pointing to the window. 'His keen blade found my thigh, slicing right through to the bone. But I managed to stay in the saddle and Mortu and I pushed forward, thrusting at him. Oh my beloved horse,' he sighed. 'Then the Hende churl struck once again. This time, Mortu felt his blade and my faithful old steed collapsed to the ground, and I came crashing down with him.'

  Sylwin pursed his lips and nodded solemnly. 'Such courage, my Lord.'

  'I slid from the saddle and we fought hand to hand in the mud.' The Duke waved his arm for extra effect. The Lords and his great uncle were silent, their eyes glistening and alert, fixed on him. He licked his lips and carried on. 'We wrestled in the dirt, rolling over and over. Him on top. Then me. Spitting and grunting. Once or twice I feared our battle would be my last. I can still see his fiery eyes glaring down at me. That wicked grin.'

  'But your leg? The pain, my Lord? The blood?'

  'It was strange. At the time, all I could hear was the thundering of my own heart. It felt as if I was peering through a tunnel and my black-clad opponent was all I could see.'r />
  'And how did you finish him off?' Sylwin rubbed his hands.

  'My trusty sword did not let me down. I grunted and strained and somehow managed to overcome him. Then the point of my blade found his heart and I plunged in deep with all my remaining strength and it was all over. Another victory for the Vorosy Clansmen.'

  'But with the loss of your leg.'

  'Tis nothing.' The Duke feigned a smile but his belly plummeted each time he remembered he was now only half a man. The Father's revenge is swift and absolute. 'The victory was worth my small trouble.'

  The men murmured in agreement.

  'Although...,' the Duke said with a laugh. 'I shudder every time I see a man with an axe. Believe me, a battlefield surgeon's blow is more frightening than a Henden sword.'

  The Lords nodded and chuckled along with him.

  'We are all grateful for your healthy return,' Sylwin said. 'Your battle scar will be a constant reminder of your bravery and your sacrifice for your people.'

  'Hear, hear.' Kalin raised his glass and the other lords charged their goblets into the air but the Duke's mind drifted away.

  The men seemed satisfied, even impressed. Only one other man knew the whole mortifying truth. His chest tightened. How long would he be silent? When would his secret be revealed to the world?

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The bower was quiet all evening. The Duchess was wrapped up in the pages of a small book as Sira went about her chores without distraction or conversation. Sira was glad. She had feared if she started to speak, she'd talk and talk until she talked herself out of the plan.

  Then the moment arrived.

  'I am going now,' she said as she slid the bed-warmer under the coverlet. Her heartbeat quickened as she said the words aloud.