2
A Wooden Face
“Is that my mother?” Lillia asked, staring wide-eyed at the effigy atop the casket. The image’s hands were clasped piously against its breast, the wooden face as rigidly serene as that of any carved saint.
Simon wasn’t surprised by his granddaughter’s question. He too found his daughter-in-law Idela’s wooden likeness more than a little disturbing, with its empty expression and painted eyes that stared up at nothing. “No, little one,” he said at last. “It’s a carving. Like a doll.”
“Why did they make a doll of her?”
“To show what she looked like when she was alive.”
“Does she look different now?”
Many days had passed since Princess Idela’s death, so the king did not much want to think about it. “It doesn’t matter. Your mother’s soul is in Heaven. You’ll see her again someday, and she will look just as she always did.”
“What if I don’t go to Heaven?”
“I’m sure you will.” He looked around. Other than the honor guard of soldiers stationed along the walls, the royal chapel was empty. A long line of nobles and important commoners had passed through in the previous two days, but it seemed that everyone who wanted to pay their respects had done so. Simon felt a dark astonishment that a woman as full of lively opinions as Idela should lie so long in a covered box, so still, so silent.
“Murderer!” someone groaned—not loudly, but in the nearly empty chapel it was as surprising as a shout and Simon jumped despite himself.
Duke Osric, Idela’s father, swayed in the doorway. A few of his men tried to hold him up—he was clearly very drunk—but he pushed them away and walked unsteadily into the chapel. Pasevalles hurried in after him a moment later, begging him to come out again, doing everything he could to restrain the duke without actually laying hands upon him.
“A murderer!” said Osric again. He did not even seem to notice his granddaughter Lillia or the king, but stumbled past them and sank to his knees in front of the bier. “A murderer walks among us. Walking free! Killed my only d-daughter!”
Pasevalles’ face was full of both sympathy and distaste. The duke was sweaty, and the stains on his mourning garments suggested he had not changed them in several days. “I’m sorry, Majesty,” he said to Simon, then noticed Lillia and blanched. “By our Lord, I am truly most sorry. His Grace is distraught. He has had too much to drink as well—”
“I can see that,” said Simon, but gently. He had not expected Osric, a bluff fellow with little room for sentiment, to be so badly affected by Idela’s death. Simon looked down at Lillia, who was watching her grandfather’s heaving shoulders with horrified fascination. “But why does he keep saying that word? I do not like to hear such things in front of—” he gestured to Lillia. “Can you help him out again?”
Pasevalles grimaced. “I can only try, Majesty.” But his renewed attempts to get the duke’s attention were not even acknowledged.
“Come along, Lillia,” Simon told her. “Your Grandfather Osric is very sad. Let him be alone.”
“But he’ll see Mother in Heaven too, won’t he?”
“Of course. But he’s still sad that he’ll have to wait. We all are.”
When he got to the doorway of the chapel, Simon left Lillia there for a moment and went back to talk to Pasevalles. Osric was still on his knees before his daughter’s casket.
“Can you watch over him? I fear for him in this mood, Pasevalles.”
“I will do my best, Majesty. His guards will help me, I’m sure. We will not let him do himself any harm. I think it will pass.”
“What does he mean with all this talk of murderers?” Simon spoke softly so Lillia would not hear. “It seems plain that she fell down the stairs. I think it was caused by this terrible custom of wearing such long dresses as the women of this court do. Why they are not all falling down every day, I cannot imagine . . .”
“I do not know where this evil fancy of his comes from, Sire. As you see, my lord Osric is drunk and has not slept well for days. I have sent a coach for his wife, Duchess Nelda, but it is several days travel to Wentmouth and back.”
“God our Ransomer, how I wish his good woman had been here in the Hayholt,” Simon said. “How I wish Miriamele were here too, now that I speak of absent wives. Still no word from her?”
“You will know the instant any word arrives, Majesty.”
“Even if it is the middle of the night.”
“Yes, Majesty. Of course.”
“Good. I have never had to write such a terrible letter. It brought back . . . it brought back such painful memories.” He patted his lord chancellor’s arm. “Bless you, Pasevalles. You have been a great help to me at this dreadful time.”
“Thank you, my king.” Pasevalles bowed deeply. “I only do what any loyal servant would.”
Countess Rhona—the Queen’s close friend and the throne’s trusted counsel—asked him quietly, “How is our wee girl today?”
“Asking questions about death,” Simon replied as he watched his granddaughter walk in slow ovals, following the designs on the tiled hallway floor. “I have told her everything I know, that Idela is in Heaven, that she will see her mother again.”
“She needs to think about something else,” said Rhona. “I will arrange for her to play with some of the other children—that will take her mind off things.”
“I’m not sure,” the king said. “I’ve never met a child so hard to distract as Lillia.”
Rhona laughed, but it had a sorrowful edge. “In that way, she is much like her late mother.”
“Duke Osric worries me too. Now he is talking as though Idela was murdered.”
Rhona waved it away. “I would not let that prey on you too much. Hard, strong men like Osric do not bend well when things go wrong. Sometimes the only way they can survive is to break and then try to heal the broken place.”
Simon nodded. “There is something to that, I think.” He shook his head vigorously, as if to free himself from a clinging cobweb. “I have a kingdom to see to, dear, good Rhona. Keep a close eye on the child, will you? I cannot help fearing how clear-eyed and sensible she is being, at a time when her mother has just died.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead—” Rhona looked around to make sure none could overhear—“but her mother was never so close to Lillia in the first place.”
Simon made the sign of the Tree. “Please. Just watch over my granddaughter, Countess, and please do not say anything like that to her.”
Rhona smiled sady. “I would never say such a thing to a child, Majesty.”
When she had taken Lillia away, already fending off the girl’s questions about the decomposition of the dead, Simon made his way back to the retiring room that served as a place of work when he did not wish to brave the usual din of the Throne Hall with its crush of courtiers and petitioners. He was weary and considering a private nap, so he was a little annoyed to find Tiamak, his Wrannaman friend and counselor, waiting there for him.
“How is your granddaughter, Simon? Is she bearing up?”
“Better than I am.” He groaned as he sagged onto a chair. “This has quite unmanned me. And that it should happen the very moment Miriamele is too far away to do anything. And we sent Morgan away as well! My poor grandson does not even know his mother is dead!”
“You sent the prince away to meet with the Sithi, an important task, and the queen agreed—although I admit that it was not with much grace. Do not be too hard on yourself.”
Simon sighed. “And now Duke Osric is staggering around the Hayholt, stinking of wine and raving that Idela was murdered. What next? Will Eahlstan’s dragon come back to life and burn us all? Will Pryrates reappear too, and the lights of his tower glow red again at night?”
Tiamak did his best to suppress a shudder. “Please, Majesty—Simon—do not say such things. I do not believe you can summon bad fortune simply by speaking of it, but I doubt that your god or any of mine like to be challenged.”
The king slumped back against his high wooden chair. Tiamak took up a seat on the far side of the writing table. “In any case,” Simon said, “I do not want Osric crying ‘Murder!’ up and down the hallways of my castle. Nothing good will come of it, and it makes people fearful. That is the last thing we need when we already fear an attack by the Norns.”
“We are preparing for the possibility of an attack,” said Tiamak carefully. “We do not know anything about their plans for certain yet.”
“Now you sound like Pasevalles.” Simon scowled. “Caution, caution, make no assumptions. Am I the only person who remembers what those creatures are like?”
“I do not think so, Simon. Many faced that terror with you. They all remember, I do not doubt.”
The king looked at his counselor with irritation. “Do you mean to shame me, Tiamak?”
Tiamak shook his head, and Simon saw streaks of gray in his friend’s dark hair, something he had not noticed before. “No, truly, I do not mean anything like that. I too am frustrated and worried, I have problems of my own. But I won’t burden you. Instead, let us talk about important matters of the kingdom.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, Simon, you have requests from both the Northern Alliance and the Perdruinese syndicate to rule on shipping rights in the waters between Erkynland and Nabban. Countess Yissola of Perdruin has even demanded an audience.”
He groaned again. “Is she coming here? I do not need such aggravation.”
“So do not invite her.”
“I won’t. Merciful Elysia, people say she’s a hard, obstinate creature, and I need none of that. What else?”
Tiamak pointed to a large stack of parchments on the corner of the table. “All of this, my old friend. Did you miss it? I put it there for you to look at this morning.”
“I woke up to my granddaughter poking me in the chest. What sort of guards I have, I don’t understand—it was plainly an assault of the sort they’re supposed to protect me from. She wanted to go to the chapel and pray that Idela would remember her daughter’s saint’s day even now she’s in Heaven, because she’d promised Lillia a new dress as a gift.”
Tiamak nodded, smiling. “Your granddaughter is a strong-willed child.”
“Isgrimnur had a friend named Einskaldir who loved to kill enemies like most of us love eating supper. He had a weaker will than Lillia.”
Tiamak’s smile slipped a little. “Ah, you have reminded me. I put it off until we had discussed the most pressing matters, but now I need to speak of it. Of Idela’s death, I mean.”
This time Simon’s groan was deep and heartfelt. “By the good God, what now? I confess I did not love her as much as I could have, but I was a good father-in-law to her, I think, and I have done everything I could to treat her with proper respect and mourning. What have I failed to do?”
“It’s not you, Majesty—Simon. It’s only that I have a few questions of my own about her actual death.”
“You too, Tiamak?”
“Do not look at me that way. It is my responsibility as your counselor, or secretary or whatever I might be, to ask questions on your behalf, and to accept no answer that does not have the ring of truth. But let us make that the first question—is it not my given task?”
“Yes, yes, of course it is. Merciful Rhiap, you are as bad as Morgenes. Always setting me puzzles and questions, trying to get me to answer the way he wanted, leading me by the nose like a dull beast.”
“You were never a beast, Simon—but in fact Morgenes was doing his best for you. That method of teaching is old and time-tested.”
“I know, I know. I’m not a kitchen boy any more, Tiamak.”
“Most of the time, no, you are not, Majesty.”
Simon scowled. “Feel free to tease me as much as you wish, just because I’m not the sort of king who cuts people’s heads off when they anger him.”
“I do, Simon. I do, and I and many others thank the stars, the fates, or even the gods that you and Miriamele are not those sort of rulers.”
“If you keep speaking of “gods” instead of “God,” it won’t be me you need to worry about but Mother Church.”
“She may be an admirable parent, but she is not my mother, Majesty. And the strong never need to silence the weak, or they prove that they are the truly weak ones. Now, do you have the fortitude to listen to me, or do you need to complain a bit longer about how poorly everyone treats you?”
Simon laughed despite himself. “Good God, man, you do have a sharp tongue. Even Morgenes wasn’t so mean to me.”
“Because when he was your councilor, you were still only a kitchen boy. I am councilor to a king. The stakes are much higher.”
Simon waved his hand. “Very well. You win. I will sit humble and silent while you describe my faults.”
“That is not my purpose. As I said once already, I have questions about Idela’s death. For one thing, I still do not understand exactly why she was on the stairs leading up to the uppermost floor of the residence.”
“Why shouldn’t she be? She was the mother of the heir. She was allowed to go where she pleased.”
“You miss my meaning. Why was she there? There is nothing on the upper floor that should have attracted her interest. The rooms there are empty bedchambers, seldom used except when a large party of visitors arrive—something that has not happened in a while, I might add.”
Simon groaned. “Are you going to fault me for not having more guests come to the Hayholt? I thought that was only Miri’s favorite song. It’s expensive, you know, all those visitors, and they always want to hunt and feast and have musicians every night—”
Tiamak cleared his throat. “I’m not faulting you for anything, merely wondering what Idela was doing on the stairs between the third and fourth floor.”
“Who can guess? Perhaps she was meeting a lover up there. I have certainly heard it rumored.”
The Wrannaman gave him a keen look. “Rumored that she had lovers, or that she met them in the upper part of the residence?”
“Had lovers. Not that I begrudged it to her, not after the first year or so. I would actually have been happier if she hadn’t remained my son’s eternal widow.” He looked up. “You’re staring at me again. What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. But we do keep wandering away from the point, and I am always aware that I have your undivided attention only for a short time, and then the rest of the duties of kingship will wash in like a rising river and my business with you will be obliterated.”
“Then talk faster—less scolding, more getting to the point.”
Tiamak nodded. “Fairly spoken. I had the maids go through the rooms up there. All were clean, as if unused. But one—the large one in the center where the old chimney makes one wall—was cleaner than the rest.”
Simon cocked an eyebrow. “Cleaner than the rest . . . ?”
“No dust. As if it had been tidied more recently than the others.”
The king shook his head. “It seems a small thing.”
“Perhaps. But none of the maids or other household servants can remember having cleaned those rooms since early in the spring, while you, the queen, and the rest of us were still traveling in the north.”
“Very well, but if Idela was meeting a lover there, perhaps she was also keeping the room clean herself. She was always fastidious.” He paused for a moment, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “Pasevalles found her. Are you saying he might have been her lover? That he was going there to meet her?”
Tiamak shook his head. “I would need to learn a great deal more before I would even dream of dragging anyone’s name into such flimsy suspicions as I have. In fact, as far as I know, Pasevalles has never taken a lover from among the ladies of the court—but I do not pretend to know all the gossip.”
“I’ve wondered about him myself, I’ll admit,” Simon said. “Whether he might be one of those, you know . . .” The king colored. “The other sort.”
Tiamak smiled again. “I understand, sire. But I ask your leave to inquire around the castle—discreetly, I promise you—about Princess Idela and any lovers she might have had, especially in recent days.”
“But why? You don’t believe the drunken nonsense that her father is spouting, do you? That she was murdered?”
“In truth, no, because I can see no purpose to it—no gain for anyone. But there is still something about her death that troubles me, and she was part of the royal family, after all. Any crime against your family—any possible crime, I should say—is a threat to you and the queen as well. And preventing or uncovering such things is certainly a part of the trust you have placed in me.”
“I suppose that’s so.” Simon let his head fall against the high back of the wooden chair. “I imagined all sorts of things could go wrong while Miriamele is in the south, but never this. And I also never imagined how tired I would be, just trying to do it all without her. I miss her, Tiamak. I miss her badly.”
“We all do, Majesty,” he said. “But I’m certain you feel her absence more deeply than any of us.”
Pasevalles knocked at the door of Duke Osric’s chambers. He told the servant who opened the door, “Get the duchess.”
“But she is sleeping, my lord!”
“It makes no difference. Get her now.”
The servant went off shaking his head, which made Pasevalles want to shove a dagger into the lazy, disrespectful fool’s back and leave him bleeding and weeping on the floor.
Patience, he told himself. Cultivate patience at all times.
He went back down the hallway where the duke was sitting on the landing of the stairs, head in hands.
“Your Grace,” he said, gently touching the duke’s shoulder. Osric might be drunk, but he was still a large, strong man and there was nothing to be gained by startling him into anger. “Your Grace, please get up. Your wife is coming.”
“Nelda?” Osric stirred, looked around, then lowered his head to his hands again, as if the weight was too much for his neck. “What is she doing here?”
“She arrived this morning, Your Grace. You greeted her yourself.”
“No. Don’t want to see her . . . don’t want her to see me. Like this.”
Pasevalles suppressed a noise of frustration. “She’s coming, my lord. You might as well straighten up.”
Duchess Nelda appeared in the corridor. She wore a nightcap and voluminous nightgown despite the late hour of the afternoon. Her long journey from Wentmouth had exhausted her, and seeing her daughter’s body lying in state had been enough to send her weeping to her bed. But she was still the more alert and composed of the two. “Osric? Osric, what are you doing? Get up now. Come to bed.”
The duke groaned. “Oh, my dear, what are you doing here?”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been here since early this morning, as you’d know perfectly well if you hadn’t drunk so much. Come now. Aedon save us, it is hard enough . . .” She looked torn between anger and a flood of tears. “Come now. Come lie down. I will stroke your head.”
At last Osric allowed himself to be coaxed to his feet, and with the help of the servant and Pasevalles, was led to his bedchamber. To his hidden disgust, Pasevalles even had to help the duchess pull off Osric’s boots. The duke’s feet were cold and gritty and stank of dried sweat.
“Thank you, Lord Pasevalles.” Duchess Nelda’s doughy face looked as though it might collapse into grief again at any moment, but she did her best to smile. “You are very kind.”
“This has been a terrible blow to all of us, Your Grace.” He left her trying with the servant’s help to get her husband’s legs under the bedcovers, but the duke was already snoring loudly, limp and heavy as a dead codfish.
Pasevalles retreated to his chamber and washed his hands three times to remove the smell of the duke’s flesh.
Twenty years earlier, Pasevalles had also washed his hands more than once, but not in such luxurious surroundings. On that day he had knelt beside a stream in the Kynswood, washing a dead man’s blood from his hands and clothes. Afterward, he left the woods and made his way into Erchester, then up Main Row and through the castle gates with the tradesmen and workers who were entering the Hayholt for the day.
Once inside the walls he had stopped to look over the great common yard where his father Brindalles had died during the last battle in Erkynland of the Storm King’s War. Even at that early hour of the day the yard between the castle’s outer and inner baileys had been full of people, servants and soldiers, tradesmen and farmers, none of them paying any attention whatsoever to the fair-haired youth in ragged clothes standing just inside the shadow of the massive gate tower.
Pasevalles hadn’t known how he would feel about this place where his father had been hacked to death by Norns, but after the years of imagining it, he surprised himself by feeling almost nothing, just the same dull resentment he had long held over the way that life or God had favored some—but not him.
Still, he had come to the Hayholt for a purpose, and he knew that purpose would not be served by standing on the common, brooding. He needed to find a crack he could use to enter in the system—someone to whom he could attach himself and make himself useful. And it should be someone with powerful friends.
Within a short time he had found the ideal candidate—Father Strangyeard, the gentle, one-eyed priest who was a close associate of the High King and High Queen and now acted as their chief almoner, disbursing the throne’s money to various worthy causes. Because Pasevalles with his noble upbringing could read and write and speak well, he had quickly secured a position as a cleric working with the account books of the castle’s busy Chancelry, and made himself as useful there as he could. Father Strangyeard soon took a liking to the young Nabban-man, in part because Pasevalles was often still bent over his accounts long after the other clerics had left, candle burned down almost to nothing. The old priest would sometimes bring him a cup of wine and share stories of the fierce, frightening days of the war, when Norns had moved through the Hayholt by night and the mad King Elias, with the aid of the dreaded red priest, Pryrates, had almost brought the undead demon Storm King back to life.
Pasevalles had always listened to Strangyeard’s tales with apparent fascination, and in turn shared some carefully altered stories of his own life, about his sorrow at his father’s early death and the cruel way he had been thrust from his patrimony by an evil relative. Pasevalles had practiced making faces in a looking glass most of his life so he would be able to appear as other people did, and as he relayed these stories he wore a mask of deep sadness combined with a bit of a yearning expression that suggested a young man trying to lift himself above his sorrow and do something useful with his life.
Strangyeard always enjoyed “our talks,” as he called them, and the courteous, hard-working new cleric had quickly become one of the priest’s favorites. After several months had passed, Pasevalles shyly—or at least that was the face he had chosen—admitted that he was the nephew of Baron Seriddan of Metessa and son of the man who had heroically masqueraded as Prince Josua in the last great fight and lost his life doing so.
Strangyeard was stunned. “The nephew of Metessa? But that means you’re—don’t tell me, I know his name, I swear I do—Brindalles! You are the son of Brindalles! But why didn’t you tell me, young man? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did not want to presume on old acquaintances,” Pasevalles told the old priest. “I wanted to show what I could do on my own, like honorable Sir Fluiren in the stories. Besides, I am no knight, and my father was only the baron’s younger brother.”
“But you have more than proved your worth!” Strangyeard assured him. “And it is not more warriors we need in these thankfully peaceful days. We need men of learning willing to take on hard work, like you, young man—just like you!”
This additional mark of family heroism had only done Pasevalles good in the old priest’s eyes, and as the years passed he had risen swiftly through the ranks of the Almonry. When the old Lord Chancellor died, Father Strangyeard became the new Chancellor—complete with a noble title that the old priest never used and hardly even seemed to remember. Of course, he took Pasevalles with him. And when the Red Ruin felled Strangyeard himself, it seemed only natural to King Simon and Queen Miriamele that Pasevalles, Strangyeard’s chief assistant, whose history was now known to all, should succeed him as Lord Chancellor. He was gifted with a title of his own and the income from a barony in Hewenshire, and for the first time since his father and uncle had died, he had money of his own.
For a little while he had simply enjoyed the greater freedom, the better food and drink and clothes, the admiring way that people looked at him, but after awhile even those pleasures were not enough. Weary of hard work in the Almonry and Chancelry, he briefly contemplated a life as a peer of the realm, but the idea of living in a small castle in windy, rainy Hewenshire was not worth considering. And in any case, he had developed other interests, some of which were best indulged in a large city like Erchester. More diversions were to be found in the old scrolls and papers and books that filled the castle, many of which had not been examined for generations. From those records, and from documents he obtained by other methods, he learned more of the castle’s history, and—more importantly—of the history of what lay below it. Then the desire to see for himself became stronger than his caution, and he began to explore. And what he found there had changed everything.
“Baron Pasevalles! My Lord!”
Startled out of his memories, he took a moment to compose his features before turning. Duchess Nelda, now wearing a more suitable embroidered robe and slippers, was hurrying after him down the hall, swaying like an overloaded oxcart.
“Yes, Your Grace? Is everything well?”
She stopped beside him, already a little out of breath. “The duke is sleeping. I wanted to thank you for your help. You are very kind.”
He smiled, wondering what else was on her mind—he could not imagine the stout duchess hurrying herself just to thank him. “No need, my lady. The duke is a good friend.”
She hesitated. “You won’t tell the king, will you? I mean, how you found Osric? It is just that my husband is so distraught over our poor Idela . . . !” Tears welled in her eyes, and to stave off that unpleasant display, Pasevalles laid his hand on her arm.
“It will remain between us.” He did not bother to tell her that Simon already knew about the drunken duke’s behavior. It was always useful to have a favor in hand.
“Oh. Oh, thank you.” The duchess was still trying to catch her breath. “Bless you, my lord. The king has so much on his mind already, with the queen away in Nabban and all.”
It was interesting, he thought, how women seemed to cope with troubles better than men. Only Pasevalles himself saw everything, but in general, women saw more than men did, and were better at keeping it to themselves. He wondered how he could make Nelda’s gratitude useful. “The secret is safe with me.”
She thanked him again and turned back to her bedchamber and the slumbering duke.
Pasevalles watched her go. His face showed nothing, but he was thinking about secrets, thinking about favors, and, as always, thinking about what he would do next.
Already the city of Meremund was falling away behind them, the harbor small and pretty as a jewel box, the great spire of St. Tankred’s just a slim dagger’s point poking above the housetops. Miriamele stood at the quarterdeck rail and watched the froth of the Hylissa’s wake and the seabirds hovering above it, gliding and flipping like leaves tugged from their branches by the wind. Being on the open ocean at last gave her an unexpected sense of freedom, a feeling that she could at any moment simply change direction and keep going, sail away from every responsibility and care. The sea went on forever as far as anyone knew, and there were moments when that seemed like exactly the right amount of distance to put between herself and the cares of the High Throne.
But I could not go without my Simon. And I would not leave him behind to deal with my responsibilities. He never wanted anything but me, poor fellow. I wanted both him and the throne.
“Come away, Majesty, please.” Lady Shulamit and two other of the queen’s female companions had come out on deck. It was a fairly warm morning, but Shulamit was dressed as though for a bitter storm, wound in a thick cloak that had been reinforced with at least two woolen scarves, one around her neck and the other covering her ears and the underside of her chin, so that she looked like a lumpy nun. “It isn’t safe. There are kilpa about. See, there!” Shulamit pointed out into the sun’s glare with a shaky hand.
Miriamele frowned. “First of all, those can’t be kilpa, not this far north and not so many. Secondly, even if those were kilpa, they do not climb onto large ships, so we would not be in danger.” But a black trace of memory suddenly came to her, a nightmarish vision of hooting, gape-mouthed phantoms.
That was more than thirty years ago, she told herself. And the Storm King’s return had made the dreadful sea-creatures restless and dangerous in those days. Still, she stared at what Shulamit was pointing at, low bumps dragging white ripples. They might be sea otters, which often moved in large family groups. Kilpa did not. So those couldn’t be kilpa. Simple. But she did not feel as comfortable in that certainty as she would have liked.
“Come, Majesty,” said Shulamit. “Denah must have put out something to break our fast by now. You must be hungry.”
Her two other ladies-in-waiting agreed that, yes, Miriamele must be hungry.
“But I’m not. Not yet. I think I will walk on the deck a little longer. It’s a bright, clear day and I’m enjoying the view, but the rest of you look cold. You go ahead and I’ll join you soon. And don’t worry.” She smiled at Shulamit, although it was a little forced—Miri hated to be mothered. “I promise I won’t lean over the railing, in case the kilpa have learned to leap like dolphins.”
When she had at last persuaded her ladies to leave her, Miriamele walked back to the starboard rail and stared out across the coastal breakers to the darker green of the ocean. Within an hour or two they would be out in the open sea, and then the deck would be colder and the motion of the ship a great deal rougher. She was not going to be hurried away from a calm morning.
As she stood watching the blue of the sky deepen, she felt rather than saw or heard someone standing beside her. One of the ship’s boys was waiting for her attention, a youth of perhaps ten years, his eyes wide and his mouth clenched tightly shut as if to protect himself from accidentally saying something treasonous or heretical in front of the queen. The thought amused her.
“Y’r Majesty,” he said when he saw her looking, and then made a strange half-bow, as though he wasn’t quite sure whether he should try it at all. “Begging pardon. A message, that is. I mean, that’s what I have. For you.”
“A message?”
“Yes’m.”
She looked at him. He stared back, hair wild from the wind’s handling, eyes still wide as wide could be. “And the message is . . . ?” she asked at last.
“He wants you to come see him. Said to tell you . . . secret-like.” Only now did he think to look around, although Hylissa’s sailors were far too busy making ready for the open sea to pay attention even to their monarch.
“And who is ‘he’? The captain?” She had a thought. “Escritor Auxis, perhaps?”
The boy looked alarmed, as though he might have been tasked with messages from those worthies as well and had somehow completely forgotten them. “No’m. Don’t think so, no. From the Niskie-fella. He’s in the hole. Wants to talk to you, if Y’r Majesty finds it confident.” He frowned, then brightened. “Convenient. I mean.”
“The hole? Ah, do you mean the Niskie Hole? Tell me where it is, and I’ll go directly.” But she was not as blithe as she made out. Memories of the hooting kilpa clambering onto her ship, of flames in the sails, and above all, of a keening, desperate song, were now besieging her in earnest. “I did not know we even had a Niskie on the ship.”
“Came on at Meremund, he did. We take ’em on much farther north nowadays.” He was proud of having a seaman’s knowledge beyond his years, but there was something else beneath his words, something fearful. “I’ll show you where. Thank you, ma’am. Your Majesty, ma’am.”
“Very well. And what’s your name, young sir?”
Again the eyes widened. He clearly did not know why she was asking, and for a moment she thought he was considering giving her a false name, but at last fear or training won out. “Ham, Majesty. Like the back of y’r leg.” He colored, suddenly and brightly. “Not your leg, ’course. Not Y’r Majesty’s. But someone’s.” He started to turn around to point at the back of his leg, then thought better of it, and stood looking completely dumbfounded. It was all Miri could do not to smile.
“Very well, Sir Ham. You have delivered your message most bravely. Now lead me to the Niskie Hole and I will give you a fithing-piece for your services.”
Ham escorted her to a small door at the end of a narrow passageway under the forecastle. After the boy had been generously rewarded and had hurried off, she knocked on the door and was invited inside.
The cabin was small even for shipboard, and unadorned but for a thin pallet and a sack laid out upon it. A slender person in a gray hooded cloak, who had been bending over the sack, straightened at her entrance. He was smaller than she was, with long, thin fingers showing at the end of his wide sleeves, a deeply tanned face, and huge, dark eyes. Even if his size and shape had not suggested it already, those gold-flecked eyes would have told her this was a Niskie.
“You do me an honor, Queen Miriamele,” he said, but did not bow or take her hand, almost as though they were equals. “Forgive me not coming to you, but it is never good to court unnecessary talk on a ship. I am Gan Doha.”
She started. “You have the same name as another of your kind I used to know.”
He nodded. “Gan Itai. My great-great grandmother.”
Something too large to express suddenly welled inside Miri’s breast. “She saved my life.”
“I know,” said Gan Doha. “It is one of our clan’s proudest tales.”
The powerful tide of memories did not prevent a sudden bite of suspicion. “Gan Itai died with the Eadne Cloud in the middle of the Bay of Firannos. How could even her family know of it?”
“She did not—not exactly. But sit, please. Even a sea watcher cannot keep a queen standing.” He smiled, but it was an odd, half-hearted thing. He pushed a low stool toward her, a gesture that reminded her so strongly of his ancestor and herself in a tiny cabin much like this, that she struggled against tears. But she still wondered how this Gan Doha could know anything about what had happened on that ill-fated ship all those years ago—a lifetime ago.
Before she could ask her first question, the Niskie held up a long forefinger. “First let me tell you what I know and why I know it, instead of playing at riddles. When you were young you ran away from your father, pretending to be a commoner. You were taken up by Earl Aspitis, whose ship Eadne Cloud was my great-grandmother’s responsibility—her instrument, as we Tinukeda’ya say. Latterly you found out that Aspitis was an ally of your father and planned to force you to marry him. My foreparent Gan Itai decided—and for more than one single reason—that she could not stand by and see it happen. So instead of singing the monstrous kilpa down, as is our usual task, she called them up instead. She summoned them, and they came to Eadne Cloud in terrible numbers. Does this all have the sound of truth to you, Queen Miriamele?”
“Yes, yes it does. But how do you know this?”
“I am reaching that. When the burning and crippled ship at last began to sink, my great-grandmother was determined to sink with it—she had betrayed her trust, after all, and helped to destroy her instrument, however important her reasons. But a wave swept her over the side, and she could not reach the ship again, so gave herself to the sea. But she did not die—not then. Later, in the early hours of light, another ship found her still afloat but dying. Before she breathed her last breath, she told everything to the sea watcher of that vessel, and he brought the tale back to our people in Nabban. When you and your husband the king at last were victorious, we thought of our foreparent’s part in it all and were proud. And you have not disappointed us—although that is not true for all those who have ruled in your name here in the south.”
Miriamele did not at first know what to say. She had thought for so long that Gan Itai’s death had at least been swift that she was overcome by learning the truth, and now tears did come to her eyes. “She saved me. She truly saved me!” was all she could say.
Gan Doha did not try to soothe her or silence her, just waited patiently until she had dabbed her eyes dry. “I did not tell you this to make you sad,” he said at last.
“I do not mind. I owe Gan Itai more than I can say—more than I could have repaid even if she lived. Is there something I can do for her family? I should have thought of that before—should have tried to find her relatives.” A spate of fresh tears came. She blotted them with the sleeve of her gown. “I have done badly by your family, Gan Doha, and I apologize. The truth of being a monarch is that you are always disappointing someone, cheating someone else, though you never wish to do it.” I sound like my husband, she thought, and a fresh pang of missing him added to her sudden unhappiness.
“We want and need nothing from you,” the Niskie said, “—at least, nothing in the way of reward or thanks. But our elders wish an audience with you when you reach Nabban. They say it is important to both your people and mine. That is why they sent me to Meremund to sing for Hylissa, so that I might have this chance to speak with you. I did not think I would be lucky enough to manage it so soon. Will you come to them in Nabban without making much of it? The elders said to tell you that they think secrecy is better than openness, at least until you have heard what they have to say.”
“Of course,” she told him. “As I said, I owe you and your people far more than that. But how will I know where to come, and when?”
“That will be made clear when the time is closer,” Gan Doha said. His wide eyes hinted at some amusement she did not understand. “Do not be surprised. We have ways to communicate even within the great Sancellan Mahistrevis itself.”
When she left the Niskie and made her way back up to the forecastle, Miriamele was so full of confused new thoughts and old memories that she did not at first hear that someone was calling her. It was Denah, her pretty young maid, and the girl had been searching for Miriamele long and hard enough that her round face was flushed and her curly hair had come loose and spilled from beneath her headdress.
“Your Majesty, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere! The captain wants you.”
Miriamele rolled her eyes. Barely an hour out of port and already she was being batted from place to place like a shuttlecock. “And does the captain expect me to hurry to him, like a tavern maid?”
“No, Majesty! He’s right there! See, he’s coming!”
Captain Felisso was indeed bounding up the ladder from the main deck, waving something white in his hand. “Majesty, Majesty, a thousand pardons— no, a hundred thousand, because we could not find you!” Felisso was Perdruinese by birth, and when excited or angry his old accent strengthened, so for a moment she couldn’t understand what he’d said.
“But I’m here, Captain. I did not fall off the ship and no matter what my ladies might have said, I was in no danger of being snatched by a kilpa.”
He gave her a surprised look at that, but quickly recovered his aplomb. “Just so, just so. But I am still so very dreadful sorry I could not find you, in case there was a message back. But wait, of course, the messenger is still on board. He came in a little boat of his own. Foolish me. Yes, of course you can send a message back. He said it was very important.”
“Who said? I confess I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, Captain.”
“A messenger set out from the port only moments after we were casted off. We saw him and did our best to wait until we could meet him with our own boat. He had a message for you—from the king, he said. From your husband in Erkynland, the king himself!”
“Yes, my husband is the king, that much is certainly true.” Already she was looking at the folded white sheet of parchment with trepidation. “May I have it, Captain, if it is truly for me?”
Felisso jumped as if someone had swung an ax at him. “Oh, by the saints, Majesty, of course. Forgive me.” With a sweeping bow, he handed her the letter.
The seal was Simon’s. The hand was his too, both the legibility and the spelling as usual leaving something to be desired. She read the first line, then the second, then read them both again. A hole seemed to have opened in the middle of her body. She thought she could feel cold air blowing right through her.
“Majesty?” said Denah, frightened by Miri’s face. “Are you ill?”
“Please, Majesty, can I give you my arm?” said the captain. “I pray it is not bad news.”
“Oh, but it is,” she said, then realized she had spoken so quietly that they might not even have heard her. “I fear it is,” she said more loudly. The day seemed to have turned into something unreal, a dream, a mistake, something that should be discarded and started over. “My husband writes to say that Princess Idela, the wife of our son—and the mother of the heir to the High Throne—is dead.”
She left the captain standing, sputtering out sympathy and protestations of grief. When Denah wanted to walk with her, she waved the girl away. She did not want to speak to anyone.
Everything. Nothing. She felt everything and nothing. The world she had greeted that morning was not the world she had thought it was, and she was lost and alone on a world of water, agonizingly far from home.