Chapter 14

 

As she expected she would have to, Zora did the evening ritual that day and the morning ritual the next day. Lina is still sick, she tried to reassure herself, and she’s been drugged the entire time I’ve known her. She can’t have really meant what she said about not wanting her life back...

There was no formal court that morning, so Zora took Lina’s sewing and went to sit with her ladies. Kyril was out with his Companions again, working on dispelling the various rumors, and Lina was still pretending to be Zora.

Lady Esme had apparently realized that her days as a poisoner were at an end—at least for the moment—and was trying another tactic. Seating herself at Zora’s elbow, where she could speak without being overheard by the attendant priestesses, who included Lina, she began by expressing concern for the king’s health. “It would be a bad omen if the Year-King were to sicken before the Sacrifice,” she said with false concern.

You’d probably be thrilled if he dropped dead before the Sacrifice, Zora thought, carefully keeping her face blank and her stitches even. And you shouldn’t be talking about the Sacrifice at all, even—or especially—to me. Aloud she said calmly. “Lord Kyril is well, thank you. He was merely tired by the long ritual two days ago.”

“And concerned for your health, no doubt,” Lady Esme said archly.

“He loves me,” Zora said simply.

“You know that’s not really true.” Lady Esme’s voice dropped lower, even as she forced a smile onto her face as if she were making pleasant conversation. “He doesn’t love you any more than my father did. It’s just part of the spell.”

Zora considered smiling back, but decided it was too out of character for Lina. “I truly am sorry for your father’s death,” she said gently. “As for Kyril, he sought out my company from the day he arrived in the city, and he cared for me even before the Choosing.”

“And in a couple of months, you’ll be killing him,” Lady Esme snapped, still keeping her voice down. “A fine return that is for his love!”

“It’s the will of the Goddess.”

“And it will be someone else next year, and the year after that, and the year after that—for the rest of your life! How long can you live with yourself as you repeatedly betray every man who loves you? How can you live with yourself now?”

After a morning like that, Zora was perfectly content to sit silently in the Queen’s chapel with Lina. She really didn’t want to think about Lady Esme’s questions. The problem is that she’s right about some things. Not many, but some. Why should anyone have to kill someone who loves her every year? Can the Goddess really want that? And could I do it if she did?

~o0o~

Lady Esme started in again the next morning after court. Lina still showed no signs of wanting her life back—or of being able to cope with it if she had it—and Zora didn’t want her exposed to Lady Esme’s malice. It’s easier for me to deal with Lady Esme than with Lina having hysterics because of her, and if Lady Esme is getting to me, Lina can’t begin to cope. I’m just going to have to pretend to be the Queen for a while longer. It’s a good thing I’m her Heiress; nobody else could get away with this.

“I miss my father,” Esme said, in what Zora suspected was one of the few really honest statements the woman had made in the past year. “But at least I knew him before he died. You didn’t even have that.”

Zora didn’t know what Lina would have said to that, so she kept her eyes on the embroidery in her lap and didn’t reply.

“What was the Queen thinking of when she had you so late in her life, knowing that you would never have a father, and that you wouldn’t have a mother for long?”

“I don’t think she expected to die as young as she did,” Zora said, allowing her voice to tremble slightly. “And how can I miss a father I never knew?”

“You could stop this, you know.” Lady Esme’s voice was even lower, but still firm.

“What do you mean?” Zora knew that Lady Esme had to be plotting something, but not what it was. Surely she can’t hope to end the Sacrifice forever. Can she?

“You’re the last of the royal line, as long as you don’t bear a daughter,” Lady Esme explained condescendingly, as if to a small and not-very-bright child. “If you’re not here, there’s nobody else they can force to do the Sacrifice.”

“There must be somebody in line after me,” Zora said, hoping Lady Esme really believed that there wasn’t. She actually does think the Sacrifice can be ended.

“No,” Lady Esme shook her head. “The Heiress before you were born was disinherited and sent away. They said she was unsuitable.” Her lips thinned. “Do you know why they said that?”

I can make a few really good guesses, Zora thought. “Why?” she asked, curious as to what Lady Esme knew or would admit to.

“The only reason they didn’t want her to be Queen was that she didn’t want to do the Sacrifice. She didn’t want your father to be killed.”

Well, that’s certainly true—if incomplete.

“That’s the only reason they banished her, because she didn’t want to kill someone every year or raise fatherless children.”

“But she can’t be the only relative I have,” Zora protested weakly.

“If you had any suitable relatives,” Lady Esme said scathingly, “would your Regent have come from your mother’s guardswomen?”

Zora had never been so glad to be called to a meal in her entire life.

~o0o~

Apparently, however, the Goddess didn’t feel she had enough problems to deal with. Lina slept through the afternoon’s meditation again, and when Zora joined Lina and Kyril that night at bedtime she discovered that Kyril had turned his mind to their problems and decided to help.

“Zora, remember when you said that you could be Lina indefinitely, but the problem was that she couldn’t be you?”

Zora nodded, vaguely remembering having said something like that. What she couldn’t remember was when she had said it. Was it a long time ago, or does it just feel that way?

“Well, actually,” Kyril corrected himself, “she could replace you easily enough—she looks just like you, after all—but she needs to be able to act like Zora.”

Zora decided that he didn’t mean to insult her, but if he thought that Lina could come anywhere close to handling Zora’s life, he had to be suffering the worst case of ‘Year-King idiocy’ in history.

“Unless one of us can teach her to shape-change,” she pointed out, “there’s no way she can impersonate Zora. And there is more to Zora than the physical appearance—I’ve spent months being tutored by the priestesses, on top of what I’d already learned from Marfa and Akila. Furthermore, even if she is a shape-changer—and I believe she is—she can’t learn to shape-change when she can’t even stay awake all day! Look how long I was stuck as a dog, and I wasn’t nearly as sick as she’s been.”

“She doesn’t have to shape-change,” Kyril said. “We can dye her hair brown.”

“Are you insane?” Zora demanded. “First, that would prevent her from taking her rightful place when she recovers, and second, hair grows. As soon as she has brown hair with blonde roots, it’s going to be very obvious. And she’d have to dye her hair without anybody noticing, which would be impossible because dye stains things it touches, like towels, which the maids would notice. And skin, which everyone would notice.”

“But if I can pretend to be you, you won’t have to try to be both of us,” Lina said. “I want to help, even if I can’t be Queen. Which I can’t,” she added hastily. “I don’t understand why you aren’t falling asleep in the middle of the day, too.”

Zora looked at her in surprise. “I get strength from the morning and evening rituals,” she said. “Don’t you, when you do them?”

Lina frowned. “I think I used to,” she said, “but I can’t really remember. My mind’s all fuzzy.”

“That’s probably just from the potion,” Kyril said reassuringly.

“It probably is,” Zora agreed. “Between the potion at night, which turned out to have poppy juice in addition to everything else that was in it, and the broth Esme was giving you in the morning, which severed your connection to the Goddess—”

“What?” Kyril interrupted, surprised and horrified.

“I told you,” Zora said impatiently, “the morning I got a dose by mistake—don’t you remember?”

“If you mean the day you staggered in here after court, collapsed, and slept for the rest of the morning,” Kyril retorted, “you weren’t very coherent—and besides, that was ages ago!”

“Fine! I’ll be coherent now. Do you remember the potion your sister used your blood for?”

“Gods and Goddesses,” Kyril whispered. “Esme is making that?”

“She was,” Zora said. “At least until a few days ago, when the Shield-Bearer drank it.”

Lina gasped. “Is the Shield-Bearer all right?”

“She’s fine,” Zora assured her. “She barely noticed the effects.”

“It didn’t affect my sister much either,” Kyril said, “and she had just been chosen to be the Earth Mother’s priestess. But it made Zora really sick.”

Zora shivered at the memory. “I thought I was dying, alone and cut off from the Goddess. At least when Lady Esme gave it to me I recognized it and knew it wasn’t fatal—just very, very unpleasant.”

“But it didn’t make me sick like that,” Lina said, obviously trying to reason it out. “Does that mean I’m not supposed to have a bond with the Goddess?”

“Of course you’re supposed to have a bond with the Goddess,” Zora snapped. “You’re the Queen!” She forced herself to get a grip on her temper and looked steadily at Lina. “What I suspect happened is that she started giving you the evening potion first. That way you wouldn’t notice when she gave you the second one. She must have started giving it to you last summer, when you lost the ability to”—she choked back ‘walk the labyrinth’ in view of the fact that Kyril was listening—“sense the presence of the Goddess. At some point this winter, she must have removed at least one of the potion ingredients from the beef broth.”

“Why?” Kyril asked.

“It had to wear off before the Choosing, because Lina would need the link to the Goddess for that,” Zora explained. “After the Choosing, however, Lady Esme could put the full potion back into Lina’s midmorning cup of broth, and her link to the Goddess would go away again. Actually, this is good news, because it means the effects aren’t permanent, even with daily use over several months.”

“I think you’re right,” Lina said thoughtfully. “I started taking the evening potion over a year ago, soon after last year’s Choosing. I was nervous about the...rituals...and I was having trouble sleeping, so Lady Esme made it for me.”

“Were you nervous about the rituals before or after she started talking to you about them all the time?” Zora asked.

Lina stared at her. “How did you know?”

“That her tongue is as poisonous as her potions?” Zora shrugged. “She’s been trying it on me.”

Kyril chuckled, “I’ll bet she’s not getting far.”

“With me, no. But with Lina...”

Kyril’s grin vanished instantly. “Can’t we get rid of her?”

Lina shook her head sadly. “No, we can’t. It was the King’s Boon.”

“The what?” Kyril asked.

“When the king comes from Diadem,” Lina explained, “he gets to ask for a favor for his family. Esme’s father asked that she be given a position and a home at Court for as long she wanted it.”

“And she’s still here,” Zora said. “Lucky us.”

“But does that apply after his death?” Kyril still seemed confused.

Lina gaped at him in astonishment, so Zora explained. “That’s precisely when it does apply, Kyril. When the king comes from here, he knows he’s going to be dead in a few months. The King’s Boon allows him to provide for any family he leaves behind.”

“Oh,” Kyril said, “of course. I’m so used to knowing and pretending that I don’t that I forget that someone who’s lived here all his life wouldn’t be expected to pretend.”

“And would probably have family here.” Lina was recovering from her surprise at Kyril’s obtuseness. “I didn’t expect Esme to stay here after his death. I thought he just wanted her to be able to stay with him during the last months of his life, and perhaps have a guarantee that she would always have a place to live if she needed one. She certainly can afford to live elsewhere, and,” she frowned thoughtfully, “I think it’s painful for her to remain here. She must be reminded of his death every time she looks at me.” She shivered. “I sometimes think she hates me.”

“It’s not personal,” Zora assured her. “If it was just you she hated, the potion wouldn’t have worked on me. And she can certainly afford to live elsewhere. The records say all taxes are forgiven for the rest of her life.”

“That’s right,” Lina said. “I’d forgotten that bit. She doesn’t even have to do training with the Guard now.

“So is she staying here to punish herself?” Kyril asked.

Zora shook her head. “I think she’s trying to destroy—it’s hard to say. She’s not exactly trying to kill Lina, although I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t mind the Queen’s death. It’s more that she’s trying to get rid of the entire royal line—or something like that.”

“Can she get rid of it?” Kyril asked.

“She believes she can—as long as she thinks Lina has no possible successor. That would explain the Queen’s Lace in the potion. As soon as Lina has a daughter, there’s one more generation to get rid of.”

“But how would that help her?” Lina asked, obviously bewildered.

“It wouldn’t help her personally—aside from any satisfaction she might gain from getting rid of us.” Zora thought about it. It really was a good question. She would have sworn Esme didn’t have an altruistic bone in her body... “Lina, what was Lady Esme like before her father was chosen?”

Lina shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met her until her father chose his Boon, and she’s so much older than I am that I never really got to know her—not that it would have helped much at that point. She was over thirty, so why would she pay any attention to a seventeen-year-old?”

Zora mentally reviewed everything Esme had said to her. “I think she’s trying to end the Sacrifice, once and for all.”

Lina gaped at her. “Can she do that?” She sounded hopeful.

“Not while you live,” Zora pointed out, “but her plan may be ‘no Queen equals no Sacrifice’—which makes a certain amount of sense, given that there weren’t any while you were a child.”

“But that still doesn’t gain her anything,” Kyril pointed out.

“It ensures that no other girl loses her father the way she did,” Lina said slowly, “or the way that I did.”

Kyril looked sharply at Zora over Lina’s bowed head.

Uh-oh. Lord Ranulf must have told him that Briam was Lina’s father. Zora shook her head. She’s got enough to deal with without our telling her that her father survived long enough to have me. “Let’s just get some sleep.”

She went to her bed in the anteroom, and fell asleep almost immediately, dimly aware that Kyril and Lina were still talking in the next room.

~o0o~

“Another day, and I’m still the Queen,” Zora sighed to herself two weeks later. Despite the fact that she was getting energy from the rituals, she was tired. And worried: about Lina’s health and mental state; about whatever Kyril was planning now; about what Esme would try next; about what would happen when it was time for somebody other than Zora to attend the Queen. At least she could do something about the last problem. As Queen, she could order Zora to continue in attendance on her. The priestesses would accept it because they thought having a priestess her own age was a good influence on the Queen and because they didn’t really want to spend time with Lina themselves. As for the rest, she would just have to watch and listen to Esme and Kyril as much as possible and hope for the best. Prayer would be good, too.

When she returned to the Queen’s room after breakfast to change for the morning’s petition hearings, it appeared as if her prayers were at least beginning to be answered. Both Kyril and Lina were out of bed and dressed. Even though Lina was dressed in Zora’s clothing, it was a definite improvement to have her out of bed so early in the day.

“Feeling better?” Zora asked hopefully.

“A little bit,” Lina said. “I don’t feel up to being Queen, but I’m beginning to feel like I can manage youngest priestess—as long as nobody ever sees me unveiled!”

“It’s a start,” Zora said. “Come sit in on the petition hearings, and Kyril can go out with his Companions. Even though I don’t hear it directly, I can tell there’s gossip about the amount of time he’s supposedly alone in your room.”

“It would be better if we started acting normal again,” Kyril agreed. “I’ll spend more time in public view.”

“And I’ll spend more time in attendance on you, Zora,” Lina said. “But what are we going to do when they want another priestess to replace you?”

“Maybe you’ll be able to be Queen yourself by then,” Zora said hopefully.

Lina shook her head emphatically. “No!” she said firmly.

“If you can’t be Queen by the time someone suggests switching priestesses, I’ll just have to say that I want to keep you with me. Given that they think I’m a good influence on you, they’ll probably agree readily enough.”

“They think you’re a good influence on her?” Kyril asked incredulously.

“Yes, but they won’t keep thinking that if we’re late for the morning hearings.” Zora grabbed the green veil and tossed it at Lina. “Here, put this on and hurry!”

“You shouldn’t be giving orders to the Queen,” Kyril said.

“When she’s willing to be the Queen again, I’ll be delighted to stop!” She stalked out of the room with Lina, now veiled, following her.