Chapter Ten

 

 

Danya watched the young woman eat. Hunger was getting the better of her. Through the second bowl of stew, she showed no sign of slowing. On the third, the spoon hesitated above the bowl. The woman licked her lips and watched Danya watch her.

“Are you going to eat?” the woman asked.

Almost a command, Danya fought the urge to retrieve a bowl for herself. The young woman might have been a queen, but she hadn’t any idea how to use her magic. A trained queen would only issue such a command when she absolutely needed to. Untrained, she would ask questions that would almost seem a command.

Not a waste of magic, not really, the commands simply made the untrained seem unstable.

“No, I ate, thank you,” Danya said quietly.

She was aware that there was something different about this queen. Besides the fact that the woman was linked to three others. In the past there had been others linked to other queens. Danya hadn’t told Rewel about those ones, the links hadn’t really meant much. In this case those links made the queen stronger, a fact she knew Rewel would leap at, hoping to link the queen to the village.

“It’s your home,” the woman said.

The others hadn’t noticed when Danya slipped into the servant role. They had accepted without question. After all, no rank was above a queen, all alive were meant to serve the queens who, in turn, gave a service to the people that no other could provide.

Different from the others in magic. Vastly different in background as well.

“It is, yes,” Danya said. “Is there something I can call you by? My name is Danya.”

“You said that already,” the woman said, spooning more stew into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully. “Do you know who sits the throne?”

“No, though your horse carried the mark of the palace,” Danya said.

“The mark of the palace?” The woman stared at Danya, not understanding.

“The raven’s head.” Danya watched the woman’s confusion play over her face. “Raven palace. Where the throne is. Black raven’s head on red. According to rumour, the banner stands behind the throne itself.”

The woman frowned. She thought very hard and made a face. “I missed it every time.”

“You had no idea the name of the palace?” Danya asked.

“Well, you don’t know the name of the one who sits the throne,” the woman countered.

“No, I don’t. Who rules matters little this far out. Queens come and queens go,” Danya said. “If the one who sits the throne is mad, we do not feel it this far out. She does not send soldiers or tax men or merchants or healers our way. I couldn’t care less as to who sits the throne.”

“Aren,” the woman said.

“Sits the throne?” Danya asked.

“Is my name.”

Dread prickled through Danya. Queens tended to tell the truth even when they attempted to lie. Surely, she told herself, if the one who sat the throne came to them, they would recognize her. Everyone recognized the one who sat the throne. The first thing Danya recalled being taught was how to recognize the one who sat the throne, to separate her from others of her rank.

“Do you like the stew?” Danya asked, redirecting the conversation.

“To be honest, it tastes terrible, but I’m hungry,” Aren said. “I’m sorry to be a burden on you. I’ll send word to Av and he’ll come get me. When is the next messenger through?”

Certain that she could get a missive to the palace without gold to pay a messenger? That was interesting.

“Not for some time. Do you have title?” A title might explain how Aren planned to get a missive out.

“Lady, I am inheritor for the Bilgern Vineyards.”

“Oh, I heard they make fantastic wine,” Danya said with a smile.

Aren frowned.

The information was years old. Danya could only assume Bilgern had suffered. Being the heir to the vineyard would make the woman Lady Aren Bilgern. Perhaps Av was her steward.

“A little far for Av to come all the way out here to fetch you,” Danya said smoothly. “He might be better sending a coach.”

“Oh no, Av’s a warrior,” Aren said, pausing to chew a mouthful of stew. “I’m pretty certain he’d insist on coming to get me himself. I don’t quite understand the rank. I understand the claiming and the whole ordering me about because he believes I’m his, but I don’t know how far that is. I’ve never been around a warrior before.”

Fishing for information. Danya had no idea how this could happen. Obviously the reason why Aren hadn’t been trained was because no one else had known, which was why she had never been taught about the other ranks. No point wasting gold to pay a governess to teach an heir of a failing estate what a rank was or how to deal with them.

Why could Aren not ask those at the palace?

She was hiding, that was why she had run. No one at the palace knew she was a queen, or they knew now and that was why Aren had fled.

The possibility didn’t link well with the man named Av. Unless Av had been Aren’s protector, trying to place her near the throne while the rest of the palace believed her to be a commoner.

“When a warrior has claimed a body, he will go to the ends of the world to retrieve them,” Danya said. “Do you like Av? Is he interesting?”

“He’s a warrior,” Aren muttered, scrunching up her nose. “He orders me about and says I need to train to defend myself but won’t teach me how to fight like a man because he only wants me to hold against an enemy until someone else arrives to save me. Like I’m some fragile rose that will crumple the first time someone troddens over me. Which they will, because he hasn’t shown me how to stand and defend!”

“Troddens isn’t a word,” Danya said quietly.

“I don’t care, trod is a word and trods sounds like prods, which is not as dangerous as trod actually should be, so I made a new word and it will forevermore exist,” Aren said stoutly, spooning stew into her mouth to chew defiantly before she growled sternly. “I don’t like warriors.”

“Why not? If Av is doing something inappropriate…” Danya trailed off, aware that women did not always want to talk bluntly about the topic.

“His cousin threatened to take him on. And why, you might ask? Why would one warrior challenge a warrior who is stronger than him? At least I think Av is. Since Jer is stronger than Url and Av is stronger than Jer, therefore Av is stronger than Url. Or was it just that Jer was stronger than Er? He did say that he didn’t want to try his cousin to defend Av’s honour,” Aren rambled to herself.

That made four warriors who knew who and what Aren was. A warrior for each of the queens Aren was linked to, perhaps? Without asking directly, there was no way for Danya to know.

“Why didn’t the one who sits the throne stop them?” Danya asked. “It’s her duty to protect the queens around her. If she doesn’t defend them, commoners will not respect her, or them.”

“She wasn’t there at the time,” Aren said.

“Did you report it to her?” Danya asked.

As she asked herself what state of affairs the palace had fallen into. The throne changed hands quicker than it ever had in the past. How much tradition could survive with so much shifting?

“She was… made aware.”

“And she still did nothing?” Danya pressed.

“It would not have been politically sound for her to step up to protect my interest,” Aren said.

“Meaning she didn’t know that you had rank,” Danya said, watching Aren empty the third bowl.

Finally the woman appeared to be satisfied, her hunger sated. Aren pushed the bowl away and sat back in the chair, hands settling in her lap. Danya watched the queen look over the room. Aren’s focus shifted to Danya and for a moment the world did a sickening spin. She felt as if something else was looking through Aren.

“She knew,” Aren said quietly.

The one who sat the throne knew Aren had rank and still allowed her to run away? Danya wondered how strong the one who sat the throne was, truly. Perhaps Aren was the weaker of the two.

“Then why didn’t she step in to protect you?” Danya asked. “I’m sorry to ask so many questions. It simply seems that in order to understand you better, and you’ll be here a month probably, I should ask. In order to fill in what I know about your past.”

Aren drew in a deep breath, then sighed it out. “The throne thought it best if I be mated to the youngest son, a commoner scribe, of the southern baron. Av had already claimed me, filed papers with the throne in order to capture and possess me, I’m not certain what they’re called.”

“I’ve heard a little about that tradition. It can be awkward for the one who has had papers filed for her. Or him. You can file them for a warrior, actually. They call it the right to stumble,” Danya said, smiling gently.

“Right to stumble?” Aren asked.

“You have a right to stumble and make a fuss and weep to draw the attention of the warrior you want. Allow him to save you even though you are strong, I believe is how it goes. I could look it up in the books, if you like. We’ve a small library here. My mother was a knowledge keeper for the village and prided herself on her books.”

“I would be interested in that,” Aren said in response. “The throne believes it can do as it pleases. It might be of aid to me, to know my rights. I know of my right to education, life, and clean water. But beyond that rights aren’t exactly spoken of.”

“I will pull out the books and read through them,” Danya said. “Why did the throne want to mate you off to a commoner? That hardly makes sense.”

“I know that, but my mother and father arranged the mating and the court supported it. Which means the throne supported it and there was nothing to be done but to mate. Url, Av’s cousin, made comment to try to claim me at a breakfast table. The throne allowed this because I don’t know why. All it did was irritate Av. The throne looked the other way because Url couldn’t claim me because I was already promised to someone else.”

Throne.

Aren kept using that term, completely ignoring the one who sat it. Av obviously lived at court. Another warrior claiming her at breakfast meant a visitor to the palace. There to see the one who sat the throne. Aren’s parents arranging a mating between her and the southern baron’s son? Arranging a mating that was enforced by the throne? Supported by the court?

“Aren, who sits the throne?”

“It’s the winter season, the queen is not on palace grounds.”

“But come spring, who will sit the throne?” Danya pushed.

Aren shrugged. “Not important. I’m not going back there.”

Danya couldn’t shake the feeling that, as Aren met her eyes, the throne stared back at her.