| |
Late Fall, 357 M.E.
Jorunn hesitated before entering the royal apartment. She was nervous about what she might encounter there, especially since her young student, Evika Videle, was with her. The queen had odd notions of propriety, sometimes.
To her very pleasant surprise, however, Jorunn and Evika found Queen Muriel seated on the outer balcony with her brother Arthur, the Bishop of Leornian. Even more surprising, they seemed to be having a theological discussion.
“The orthodox view,” his grace was saying, “which is shared by the Leafa, Glaube, and Raskolnik churches, is that Earstien can and will intervene in the affairs of the world to the benefit of his faithful.”
The queen spotted Jorunn and Evika and waved them forward with a smile. “I’ve been reading the most interesting essay,” she said. “It’s about the doctrine of the Hermetic Universe.” She inclined her head and looked at Evika. “I suppose you know what that is, young lady.”
Like the good student she had always been, Evika was thrilled at a chance to answer a question. “Yes, your majesty. The Trofast doctrine of the Hermetic Universe says that Earstien created everything, including the rules by which the universe operates, and started everything running, and then stepped back. Sort-of like a clockmaker who winds up a clock once and lets it go.”
Jorunn beamed at Evika.
“Very true, Lady Videle,” said the bishop, “but a world like that would be a world without miracles.”
“I can’t see where the Trofasts are wrong,” said the queen. “Arthur here always says I should be able to see miracles everywhere. Perhaps I’m not looking hard enough.”
Two ladies-in-waiting brought tea and cakes, and the conversation turned to lighter matters for a while. The slanting rays of the sun lit the gentle hills of the Crown Lands, where farmers were hard at work bringing in the last of the autumn harvest. The bishop said it looked as if the harvest would be particularly good this year. The queen talked about the preparations for the Finstertide ball.
After a few minutes, the bishop took his leave, and the queen focused all her attention to Jorunn.
“I have heard rumors that Lord Caedmon Aldred has left Diernemynster to do research in Odeland this winter.”
“Is that so, your majesty?”
Jorunn didn’t bother asking how the queen had heard this. Queen Muriel and her husband had spies in many places, and a great many allies in Odeland.
“This is almost providential,” said the queen with a thin smile. “Almost miraculous, one might say. I remember you saying, some time ago, Lady Jorunn, that you wished you had an opportunity to plead my husband’s case to the Freagast of Diernemynster without the interference of Lord Aldred.”
That had been almost three years earlier, before the fall of Leornian.
“A great deal has changed since then, your majesty.”
“Indeed. It has changed for the better.” Muriel’s smile widened. “So, when can you leave, my lady?”
Jorunn had no particular reason to refuse the queen’s request. A court sorcerer’s job was to be a kind of dual ambassador. She not only represented Diernemynster at court, but she also represented the king at Diernemynster. Caedmon had been the one to teach her that, ironically.
But did she actually want to be Broderick and Muriel’s representative anymore?
All the way from Formacaster to Diernemynster, up the River Colwinn and across Newshire, Jorunn worried about that dual mission. And she worried about Caedmon, too. Particularly after Evika, completely without guile, had said, “Oh, it’s such a shame we’re going to miss Caedmon. Why do we have to visit Diernemynster when Caedmon isn’t there?”
Evika, like a great many hillichmagnars, both young and old, had a hard time believing Caedmon could ever really be wrong about anything. This raised the awkward possibility that Jorunn was wrong in supporting the Gramirens in the Myrcian civil war, while Caedmon steadfastly supported the Sigors.
These days, Jorunn was trying very hard to convince herself that she had not made a mistake in tying herself to Queen Muriel and King Broderick. She had fought for them at Leornian. She had killed people for them. She had to believe they were the best choice to rule the kingdom. Broderick was strong-willed and charismatic. Muriel was highly intelligent. Together, they were active, progressive, and powerful.
To be sure, they had other, less savory qualities. They slept with whomever they wished. They were violent and cruel sometimes. They told lies compulsively, almost as if it was a game for them, and they wanted to see what they could get away with. Jorunn still resented the fact that Broderick had promised her a chance to examine the magysk arm of Domina Stylianos after the fall of Leornian, and then he had gone back on his word.
But they were still an improvement on King Ethelred the lazy philanderer and King Edgar the boorish lout. Weren’t they an improvement? She had to believe they were; she simply had to.
One week before Finstertide, she and Evika left the golden late-autumn fields of Newshire and climbed into the Sothebeorg Mountains, where winter had already arrived. Snowdrifts were piling up in the steep valley of the Ledrith Stream, and at the top of the trail, they found Diernemynster blanketed in ice and fog.
After Jorunn sent a note announcing their arrival, they went immediately to the dormitory to warm up. Evika soon flitted away, though, running up and down the corridors to visit people she knew. Jorunn stayed in her room, sipping hot tea and waiting for an invitation to come see Astrid of Haydon or Freagast Harald.
After supper, Astrid asked Jorunn to join her in the dairy barn while she checked on the milk cows. Astrid, despite being the Freagast’s right-hand woman, enjoyed this kind of agricultural affectation. Jorunn found her shifting hay with a pitchfork while dressed in grubby work trousers, a patched calico shirt, and heavy leather boots.
“Your note said you wished to speak to me about ‘matters pertaining to the crown,’” said Astrid, pausing to wipe sweat off her brow, even as the winter wind howled outside. “I assume you mean the Myrcian crown.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Jorunn, with a little curtsy. “I was wondering if the Freagast has given any further thought to recognizing King Broderick’s claim to the throne.”
“You were wondering?” Astrid raised an eyebrow. “This was your idea and not Broderick’s? Or Muriel’s?”
“I believe it is my duty to communicate the king’s wishes to the Freagast. And to you, too, of course, ma’am.”
“The Freagast,” said Astrid, “wants very much to keep Diernemynster out of this civil war. He does not want hillichmagnars of Diernemynster to fight openly against each other. He regards what happened in the Loshadnarodski War—particularly at Yusipova’s Fields and afterward—as a terrible tragedy. I agree with him, and I trust you do, as well.”
“I...I do. Yes, ma’am, I do,” said Jorunn, looking down at the straw-covered floorboards.
She remembered with a sense of acute shame the last time she and Astrid had talked about hillichmagnars fighting amongst each other. That had been after the fall of Leornian, and it had been the only time Jorunn had seen Astrid truly angry with her. It was an experience Jorunn had no desire to ever repeat.
“Very good,” said Astrid. “Then as long as the question of the rightful succession remains open, you must agree that Diernemynster ought to remain neutral. Yes?”
“But ma’am, Caedmon is working openly for the Sigors!”
Astrid stuck her pitchfork into the hay manger and leaned against it with a sigh. “Caedmon is something of an exception. You should know that.”
Jorunn did know that, and much as she loved Caedmon as a friend and colleague and mentor, she hated him a little, too, at that moment. She would have given a great deal to hear Astrid call her “something of an exception.”
“In any case, there is something else I wanted to talk to you about. Something much more important, I daresay.” Astrid hung her pitchfork on two pegs on a nearby wall, then took down a shovel. “Fetch that wheelbarrow, will you?”
Once she had brought over the wheelbarrow, Jorunn saw what Astrid intended to do, and she hesitated. “Surely, ma’am, there are...spells we could use, rather than....”
“Certainly there are spells. But sometimes it is good to clean up messes with our hands. It keeps us from becoming too proud, I think.”
“Of course, ma’am,” said Jorunn, wincing as the first shovel-load of manure hit the wheelbarrow.
“Now, as I was saying,” Astrid went on, “there is something far more important than the current unpleasantness between Gramirens and Sigors. Something that has far, far more potential to cause mischief, not only in Myrcia, but in the wider Trahernian lands. Perhaps across the entire world.”
“And what is that, ma’am?”
“It involves your former student, Moira Darrow, I’m afraid.”
“Of course it would,” muttered Jorunn, half to herself.
“Since she ran off with Servius Faustinus,” Astrid punctuated the name by dropping an especially large and fragrant load into the wheelbarrow, “I have heard alarming reports of their behavior, working as spies and assassins and running the Empire through Emperor Tullius and Empress Vita, their chosen puppets.”
“I understand, ma’am, that Empress Vita, at least, is a very intelligent and—”
“She is a puppet. Nothing more. And now I hear Faustinus and Moira are building a network of beautiful female spies, drawn from the very worst dregs of society. What do you know about this?”
Jorunn was so surprised she nearly upset the wheelbarrow. “Me? What do I know? Ma’am, I know nothing at all. I assure you this is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.” She paused, as the bitter memory came back to her. “Although there was that female Immani spy at the fall of Leornian. But that was Intira Stylianos, daughter of the great shipping magnate—”
“Yes, I know who her father is,” said Astrid.
“She had a magysk arm made from metal and gemstones by Servius Faustinus, and I was going to—”
“We have spoken of this before,” said Astrid, now in a warning tone. “I know she was very effective in her own way. But it does not matter if Faustinus gives her magysk eyes made of rubies or a solid gold backside. She was still only one woman. Now it seems Faustinus and Moira are refining their methods. They are opting for quantity, rather than quality. I assume you can see how dangerous it would be for the two of them to have their own, vast, private spy organization.”
Jorunn didn’t like the way Astrid was looking at her now, like she was the one who had made this mess, metaphorically speaking, and was now obligated to clean it up. Yes, Moira had been Jorunn’s student at one time, but the foolish girl had finished her training nine years ago. Was it really only nine years? It felt as if it had been decades. In any case, Jorunn wasn’t responsible for anything Moira had done since then, and she frankly resented the implication that she ought to feel responsible.
A few minutes later, when the manure was dumped on a steaming pile behind the barn, Astrid said they were finished for the day. Jorunn took some time to clean herself thoroughly with magy, soap and water, and magy again. Then she went in search of Evika.
She found the girl in the second floor common room of the dormitory, chatting and laughing with a slim, dark-haired young man. The moment they saw Jorunn, the man jumped to his feet and gave her a low, graceful bow.
“Ah, Lady Jorunn! Seeing you brightens my day like a noontide sun. It has been far too long, has it not?”
Jorunn reluctantly shook his hand. “Hello, Ferruccio. Yes, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“Did you know Ferruccio here was a student with Moira for a while?” cried Evika. “Well, I mean, obviously you do, since you were there, too. But he’s been telling me all sorts of stories about their schooldays.”
“Oh, has he, now?” said Jorunn, looking at Ferruccio with narrowed eyes.
“Yes! Apparently he and Moira and some other people had a club here for a few years right after they finished at Atherton. It was a Picnic Club, apparently, and it sounds like so much fun.”
Ah, yes. The notorious “Picnic Club.” Moira and her little friends would swear nothing “untoward” had happened during their excursions into the hills around Diernemynster, but Jorunn had her doubts. At the very least, they had gotten very drunk and flirted shamelessly with each other, and that was bad enough.
“Evika, come with me,” said Jorunn. “Ferruccio, it has been charming to see you again. I suppose you’re just passing through, aren’t you? Evika, now, if you please. I have an assignment for you in the library.”
Jorunn didn’t really have an assignment for Evika, but in the time it took to walk to the library from the dormitory, she managed to think of one. It was only the next day, when Jorunn heard secondhand that Ferruccio had, indeed, left Diernemynster, that it occurred to her she might have asked him for news of Moira. After all, he was Immani by birth, and last she had heard, he was still living somewhere in the Empire.
That gave Jorunn pause. Was Ferruccio involved in this new spy network with Faustinus and Moira? Was he helping them now?
“No, no, no,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “None of this was my fault, and none of it is my responsibility to fix. I am not going to let Astrid make me feel guilty. I came here to do a job, and I’m not going to lose sight of that.”
If she still had any hope of winning Diernemynster over to the side of the Gramirens, however, that was dashed the next morning, when Freagast Harald himself sought her out after chapel. He was very kind and very pleasant, as he always was. But he made it very clear that he wanted to stay neutral in the civil war.
“It is usually best not to interfere at all,” said Harald. “And where we must interfere, we should do as little as necessary. As of now, it seems all Caedmon is doing is to protect Edwin Sigor personally. You are more than welcome to do the same for Broderick Gramiren, if you wish.”
Jorunn wasn’t sure she liked that idea. She didn’t want to serve as personal bodyguard to either Broderick or Muriel. Earstien only knew the sort of things she would have to witness if she stayed with them night and day. And even if they had been innocent and blameless in their personal lives, Jorunn wasn’t sure now that she wanted to get too close to them. It was always a danger to get too close; that was what she was trying to teach Evika—what she had tried and failed to teach Moira.
It started with ale at the C&G and turned into Picnic Clubs, and before you knew it, you were running all over the Empire, living in sin with another hillichmagnar, and building a team of seductive assassins to rule the world.
All the way back to Formacaster, Jorunn thought about the dangers of attachment to the mundane world, and by the time she and Evika arrived in the city, in the middle of a steady cold downpour, she had made up her mind to tell Queen Muriel that they could no longer help her.
The queen received them in one of her inner parlors, facing the great Palm Court, where it was still warm. But even so, the queen was wrapped in a huge dark robe of sable fur that seemed to swallow her up. When Jorunn told Muriel about the Freagast’s decision, the queen at first did not seem to have heard her. Jorunn went on, explaining that she and Evika would be leaving court, and still, the queen seemed oddly distracted.
Finally, the queen looked at Evika and smiled. “How old are you, my dear girl?”
“M-me, your majesty?” Evika fussed with the lace cuffs of her dress. “I’m 22, ma’am.”
“Ah, what a lovely age. And you’re so pretty and accomplished. Did you know I have an opening just now for a lady-in-waiting?”
Evika seemed too stunned to reply at first, but as she began to understand what the queen meant, and what the queen was offering, a smile started to form on her lips.
Quickly, Jorunn jumped in before the girl could get her hopes up. “Unfortunately, your majesty, it is not the custom for hillichmagnars at court to accept appointments to the royal household.”
“I’ve read that the Blessed Terrwyn Sarn served as something like a lady-in-waiting to Maud Dryhten, first Queen of Myrcia.”
“Lady Terrwyn was over 600 years old at that time, your majesty,” said Jorunn. “She was not a mere student, as Evika is.”
“I...I’m sure I can help the queen, ma’am,” said Evika, looking confused.
“That’s right, dear,” said Muriel, with a crooked grin. “You will stay here with me for a while. Whether we call you a ‘lady-in-waiting’ or not, I’m sure you can be a great help to me. You see, Lady Jorunn, my husband and I need a sorcerer on our side. If you will not help us, then you must find someone to take your place.”
Jorunn shivered. “And...and Evika?”
The queen walked over and slid a hand up Evika’s shoulder, so it seemed she was inches from tearing at the girl’s throat with her long, silvery nails. “Evika will stay here. Just to make sure you do your utmost, and to give you an incentive to return soon.”
For the first time, Evika seemed to realize something was wrong, and she looked back and forth from Jorunn to the queen with a worried frown.
“I have no idea how long it might take,” said Jorunn. “I can’t guarantee anyone at Diernemynster will want to come here and serve your majesty. I believe I was alone in that regard.”
“Oh, I understand completely,” said Muriel. “It needn’t be a hillichmagnar of Diernemynster. Indeed, it needn’t be a true hillichmagnar at all. In Sahasra Deva, they train ordinary people to use magysk weapons.”
“Yes, your majesty. They call them ‘Yothas.’”
“Indeed. One of them would do nicely, I’m sure.”
“But I can’t guarantee any of them will want to join your service, either, your majesty.”
“Then pray for a miracle.” Muriel patted Evika on the head. “Good luck, now. I’m sure you’ll want to leave immediately. After all, the sooner you find someone and bring him back, the sooner your little student here can get back to her lessons.”
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to take Evika away by force and leave the castle. With a simple pressure spell, Jorunn could blast the queen out through the glass doors and let her fall sixty feet to the floor of the Palm Court. She didn’t even have to kill Muriel, though. She could have put the queen to sleep and disarmed any guards they met on the stairs.
But doing that would mean admitting she had been wrong about Muriel and Broderick. It would mean admitting Caedmon had been right. It would mean Broderick was not the perfect king at the perfect time, sent by Earstien like a miracle to revive Myrcia and end that blasted war with Loshadnarod. Instead, he was a cold and dangerous man, with a soul as dark and empty as the Void. It would mean that Muriel had taken the formidable intelligence that Earstien had given her and wasted it all on vanity, cruelty, and lust.
Jorunn would have to look back on everything she had done in the past five years and admit she had been helping a pair of vicious, murderous usurpers. What sort of example would that be for Evika?
And the land of her birth—her beloved Annenstruk—was on the wrong side, too, if Broderick wasn’t really the rightful king. Thousands of men from half a dozen countries had died for nothing if Edwin Sigor had been the true king all this time.
That seemed too much to admit at one time for Jorunn. She could let herself go so far as to believe Muriel was a terrible person. But the rest would have to wait until later, when she and Evika were finally far away from this place.
“Very well, your majesty.” Jorunn curtsied. “I will do my best, and I will return as soon as I can.”