11
Bucket of Eels
The duke and duchess had given Miriamele the largest set of chambers in the newer wing of the Sancellan Mahistrevis. As a makeshift throne room, where she could receive visitors, she chose the pretty solar with its high, wide window and its carved and gilded furniture made of southern walnut.
“It is lovely,” said Count Froye, admiring the blue and gold wall hangings. “I hope you are comfortable here, Majesty.”
“I am, my lord, thank you.” She liked Froye. Those who did not know him well thought him fretful and distracted, but she knew him for a shrewd observer of the complexity of the courts at both Sancellans, the duke’s Mahistrevis and the lector’s Aedonitis—“two squirming eel buckets of intrigue,” as Froye had once memorably named them. The High Throne’s envoy was a philosopher at heart, and observed both palaces as a studious alchemist might study a new and unusual mixture, more interested in learning new things than in being right. But he was clearly worried about the current state of affairs in Nabban, and that worried the queen in turn.
“I think I have imposed on you long enough, Majesty,” the count said. “I imagine nothing I have said is completely new to you. It is only that I would rather err on the side of too much rather than too little, at a time like this.”
“Do you really think things are at such a dangerous pass?”
“I’m afraid I do, my Queen. Which reminds me—ah! I have been negligent! I have left a friend in the antechamber who wished a few words with you. He is Viscount Matreu, a good friend to the High Throne, and since he could not be here when you arrived, I think you have not met him.”
Miriamele nodded. She remembered that Pasevalles had mentioned the viscount as a useful person to know if ever she felt herself endangered. “Of course. I have heard good things from the Lord Chancellor about him.”
“I can only echo his praise. Matreu has been a good friend to the High Throne.”
A servant was sent and a few moments later the viscount came in. “Your Majesty is very kind to see me,” he said with a sweeping bow. He paused at the finish, appearing to accidentally strike a statuesque pose, then kneeled and kissed her hand.
You like the way you look, don’t you? Miri thought. Still, she couldn’t say he was wrong to do so. Matreu was quite a handsome man, tall and well-built, with strong, even features and skin the warm color of chestnut wood. He had made some effort at tidying himself, but there was no hiding the fact that he still wore his traveling clothes: the hem of his cloak was spattered with mud. She wondered if his casual carelessness was for show.
“Rise, please, Viscount,” she said. “No need to be overly formal. We have heard good things about you back in Erkynland.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” he said. “I am a devoted servant of the High Throne.” He stood. “In fact, it is that which led to me asking for this audience.”
“Then speak, Viscount, by all means.”
He nodded. “You are of course aware that I am an ally of Duke Saluceris— a very committed ally.”
“As am I,” Miri said, smiling. “I see nothing controversial in that.”
“I am certain that Count Froye—and others—have already told you at length about the tensions that divide us here in Nabban. And I believe the duke has done everything he can to keep the peace, especially when it is his own brother Drusis who most threatens it.”
Ah, Drusis. Miri sighed inwardly. Holy Elysia, give me strength! As if I had not heard that name enough today. “And do you, too, have something to say about him, lord?”
He smiled, shaking his head. She imagined a lot of young women had felt flattered to be offered that smile. “Not about Drusis, Majesty, or at least not him by himself.” His face turned serious. “My worry is that I do not think Drusis and Dallo Ingadaris are alone in this.”
“In this what?”
Matreu made a vague gesture with his hands. “I do not have the wisdom to say, Majesty. Whatever ploy they have concocted to increase their power in the Dominiate and under the High Ward.”
“And why do you say that, Viscount?”
“Things have happened too quickly of late. People know things more swiftly than they should. It is hard to explain.” He wrinkled his smooth brow in frustration. “Forgive me for telling you about the land of your own mother’s birth, but those of us who live here are used to the struggle for power between Honsae—the noble houses—which is constant. And we all have spies in each other’s strongholds, of course, but generally they are only servants and such. Most of the more skilled players know better than to speak loosely in front of anyone outside their trusted circle.”
“None of this comes as a surprise, Viscount Matreu,” she said. “The perilous nature of keeping a secret in Nabban is well known.”
“Yes, but times are worse here now—as bad as they have been since before the Storm King’s War, I think—worse than any time before you and your husband ascended the High Throne.”
“To the point, please, Viscount,” said Froye. “Much as we value your counsel, the queen has several more people to see after you, and the day is wearing away.”
“My apologies, Majesty.” Matreu bowed again. “Here is my concern, wrapped in a tidy bundle. I fear that someone among the duke’s closest allies is not simply untrustworthy, but is carrying tales of everything that goes on in the Sancellan Mahistrevis straight to Honsa Ingadaris. If it was only a servant spying, I would not worry—no servant can make himself privy to every important detail. But someone who is a member of the inner circle—Matra sa Duos! That is a real danger.”
Miriamele could not help a quick look around the chamber, as though someone might be lurking behind one of the arrases, but only the three of them were present and her own Erkynguards were stationed outside the door. “Do you have a particular suspicion, my lord, or is this only a general fear?”
“I would not denounce a fellow noble to the High Throne on such thin wisps of suspicion as I have at this moment. But I beg you to remember my warning and be cautious of who is listening to you if you speak any secrets.”
“In other words, trust no one?”
“Excepting your countryman Count Froye, yes,” he said, and bowed to the envoy. “And of course the duke himself.”
“I take the point.” Miri felt a prickling of uneasiness. Already she was wishing she had not come back to Nabban. Bucket of eels? Bucket of venomous serpents, more like. She pulled together a smile. “Thank you for your warning, my lord.”
“I am ever your servant, Majesty.” Matreu bowed, then gave her a bold look. “And of course your husband’s as well. We are all sorry King Simon could not come with you.”
“Not half so sorry as I am,” she said, and in that instant it was so true that it almost made her dizzy.
After Froye and the viscount had gone she sat for a time reading the Promissi in her Book of the Aedon, troubled for reasons she could not completely understand. A few of her ladies came in and strongly suggested she should eat something, but she sent them away again. Her stomach roiled and she did not feel she could eat or listen to their talk just now.
Shortly afterward, one of the heralds came in from the antechamber and announced the duke’s uncle, Marquis Envalles. Miriamele had known Envalles since before Saluceris had inherited the throne, and though she was not much in the mood for another audience, he was usually full of amusing gossip. He was also a man whose wisdom she respected; she had thought on more than one occasion that he would have made a better duke than either Saluceris or the duke’s late father, Varellan. But capability always bowed to blood, especially male blood, and Envalles had not been in the direct line.
“Send him in,” she said.
One of the marquis’s little tricks was always to dress like a harmless old man, affecting slippers and a warm shawl even on a day as hot as this one. He shuffled in, made a slow, creaky bow, and then came forward to kiss Miriamele’s extended hand. “Your Majesty,” he said, “you have not aged at all.”
“What, since you saw me across the great hall two days ago?” She laughed. “Until they finally start hanging people for excessive flattery, you will remain the wickedest man in the south, my lord. Please, seat yourself and talk to me.”
Envalles laughed. “Sadly, Majesty, I cannot now, although I pray we will find a good long time to converse before too much longer. I miss your company—and your husband’s, too. He always makes me laugh.”
She could feel her smile was a little crooked. “We all miss Simon—the king, I mean. But why can’t you stay?”
He shrugged. “Busy times, my queen, and many responsibilities—though none as onerous as yours, God give you grace. And this audience, instead of being for my own pleasure, is so I may dispatch my duty as an envoy.”
“An envoy? For whom?”
“All will become clear very soon, Majesty.” He slid something out of his jacket. It was a Book of the Aedon, and not a particularly new one by the look of it, its pages foxed and the leather cover scratched.
Miriamele could not prevent a surprised laugh. “That is very kind, Envalles. Do you worry for my soul? As you see, I have my own copy right here in my lap.”
“Ah, but this is a special copy, Majesty—my own. And you will see why it is special when you read it. But please make certain you’re alone when you do so, or at least as alone as a queen is allowed to be.” He gave her a look that she could not quite fathom. “Now, I beg you to excuse me. I will apply in the usual way for an audience, and then you and I will have a proper talk and make fun of all those around us who so dearly, dearly deserve it.”
When Envalles had gone Miriamele sat for a moment wondering at the strangeness of his visit. She lifted the book and opened it, but could see nothing that made his copy exceptional. Then, as she riffled through the pages, she encountered a folded piece of parchment, stiff and new.
The message was not signed, and it was not long. It read, “You are invited to the Sea Watchers’ Guild Hall.” The date of the invitation was for noon on the next day. “Bring as many guards and courtiers as you wish for your comfort and safety. Arrangements will be made.”
For a moment she only stared at it without understanding. Then she remembered that the Sea Watchers’ Guild was another name for the Niskies.
Jesa had just finished putting little Serasina down in the corner for her nap. The great bedchamber was full of women, all surrounding one small boy, son of the duke and duchess, who was outraged at being dressed in velvet on such a warm day.
“I don’t like it,” Blasis said, trying to shrug his way out of his doublet even as one of the ladies-in-waiting tried to button it. “Take it off.”
“Just be still, my little frog,” said his mother, laughing. “You look so handsome!”
“Want to play with my soldiers,” Blasis replied, frowning dreadfully. “Don’t want to see the queen. I saw the queen! She said I was a fine young man.” He pronounced the words as though they had been a cruel epithet.
“And you are,” the duchess told him. “Even if you do squirm and wiggle.”
“And how will you wear armor someday if you can’t even wear a nice jacket without fidgeting?” asked Lady Mindia. “Armor is much heavier.”
“Yes,” Blasis explained patiently, as to an idiot. “But then I’ll have a real sword.”
Jesa had edged near to Duchess Canthia. “My lady? May I go out to the market?”
“Whatever for? There’s so much to do and dinner is in only a few hours. What about Serasina?”
Jesa gestured to the cradle. “She sleeps, my lady. I will come back before she is awake.”
Canthia did not look pleased, but at last she nodded. “If you must. But do not linger. And be careful! There are all kinds of ruffians out these days. Serasina would be heartbroken if she lost you!”
What about you, my lady? Jesa wondered. Would you miss me too? But it was a mean, selfish thought and she secretly pinched herself. All she had in the world was because of the duchess—her clothes, her meals, this astounding, rich palace in which to live. Not to mention Serasina, the beautiful little baby girl who sometimes felt like Jesa’s own child. It was wrong to be ungrateful.
She took her purse from its hiding-place before making her way down into the great entrance hall, which was full of scurrying activity, servants and courtiers all looking busy and worried, as though the Sancellan Mahistrevis were threatened by invisible flames. Jesa patted her purse and felt the reassuring chink of her money. When she ran errands for the duchess she was sometimes given a small coin by the recipients of Canthia’s letters, and she saved them all carefully for just such moments of freedom.
Outside it was a lovely day, the heat of the late Tiyagar sun soothed by the wind off the ocean. The road at the base of the hill was a great river of humanity, surging with folk of many colors. The two things Jesa could never get used to were the sheer amount of people that lived in Nabban and the stink they made around themselves. Between the animal and human waste dumped directly into the street, the complicated smells of the markets and shops, and the strong perfumes most of the nobles drenched themselves with to ward off the other stinks, Jesa sometimes wished her nose was as blind as the eyes of Old Gorahok from back home.
She could not stay out long—there was too much noise in the duchess’s chambers today for Serasina to sleep more than an hour—so she made her way swiftly across the Mahistrevis Market directly to the stalls on the less popular, unshaded southwestern end where the Wran folk set up their blankets. Back home it was almost time for the Wind Festival, and although the celebrations among the Wrannafolk in Nabban were much smaller, those of her people who could afford it would buy new clothes for the festival days, so the blankets would be piled high with rainbow-colored garments.
Jesa was not going to a Wind Festival feast. She doubted Canthia would let her even if she were invited to one, but she enjoyed thinking about going back to Red Pig Lagoon some day to show her family and neighbors what had happened to the little girl they had sent away. How could she do that without a fine dress to show them how she had prospered in the household of the duke of all Nabban?
She walked slowly past a dozen places selling brightly dyed cloth, most of them overseen by a single Wrannawoman or Wrannaman. Some had surrendered to the powerful summer sun and slept sitting up, legs crossed, a leaf or a piece of cloth draped over their heads to keep off the sun and the flies. At the last such stand at the end of a row, a roll of brilliant fabric caught her eye, reddish-yellow as a flame, with vigorous designs in dark red and brown along its edge. The color was so magnificent that Jesa almost laughed out loud. Could she imagine herself wearing something so beautiful, so fierce? What would the people of her village think? That she looked like a queen, or like the mistress of a rich drylander? No, it would never do. But it was lovely to think about. What if the duchess lent her one of her beautiful necklaces to wear with it—the one with the crimson stones that glowed like coals from a fire? Jesa would be the finest thing the Red Pig Lagoon had ever seen! Let the old ladies cluck. Let the men talk behind their hands. They would never forget her, that was certain.
The owner of the stall was an old woman as thin and brown as rawhide cord, who watched Jesa with a sharp eye, as if she expected the young woman to snatch up the cloth and run away.
Doesn’t she see my clothes—palace clothes? This is a dress that the duchess herself once wore!
But she smiled and said, “Good day, Mother,” in Wran speech.
The old woman’s expression did not become more welcoming, but she nodded her head, then replied in Nabbanai, “And to you, daughter.”
“You have some very beautiful things here.”
The woman nodded again, as though it were only the obvious truth. “My son owns a fine shop in Kwanitupul. He sends these to me. The drylander women love them.”
Jesa wondered if those drylander women actually bought anything. She could not imagine one of Duchess Canthia’s ladies wearing anything so vivid. “I’m sure.” She bent down and gently touched the flame-colored cloth. “I have never seen anything like this since I’ve been in Nabban.”
The woman did not reply, and when Jesa stood she saw that the stall owner was staring at her even more openly than before, her mouth a little open. “I know you,” the woman said.
Jesa was surprised. “I beg your pardon, Mother?”
“I know you, girl. You live in the Great Lodge.” That was how the Sancellan Mahistrevis was called by the Wran folk. They called the other palace, the Sancellan Aedonitis, “the God Lodge.”
“I do.” She could not keep the pride from her voice. “I am nurse to Duchess Canthia’s daughter.”
But the old woman shook her head. “Bad. That is bad.”
Jesa gaped. “What do you say?”
“It is a bad place. A bad time. You listen to old Laliba, girl. Ask anyone here, they know me.” She spread her scrawny arms to either side. “They know Laliba only tells the truth.”
“What truth? What do you mean?”
Laliba glanced around again before leaning forward. She looked like a snake preparing to strike, and Jesa backed away. The woman was still staring fixedly at her, but now her reddened eyes terrified Jesa.
“If you do not listen, it will take you too!” she declared. “The Great Lodge will burn from the inside. I can see it! Many will die.”
All thoughts of cloth and jewels gone, Jesa turned and began to run back toward the Sancellan Mahistrevis. She realized that the people she passed, many of them her own folk, were staring at her in curiosity, so she forced herself to slow down and walk, but she badly wanted the safety of the palace’s walls around her once more.
Duke Saluceris did not like the idea of the Niskies’ invitation at all. “The Sea Watchers? That guild hall is in the worst part of the Porta Antiga.”
“I have guards, Your Grace—quite a few,” Miriamele pointed out. “And we have a harbor in Erchester as well, not to mention in Meremund, where I spent my childhood. I am not naive about the sort of folk one is likely to find there.”
He frowned. “That is not what I mean, Majesty. It is not just the danger of being attacked but of disease. The place is filthy, and the Niskies—well, the plague has started there several times in the past.”
Plague had appeared in many harborside communities over the centuries, both in the south where Niskies lived and in the north where they did not, so she thought it unlikely sea watchers were the cause. “I owe them my respect, Your Grace. One of them saved my life when I was younger.”
The duke swallowed another argument. “I cannot gainsay you, Majesty, of course. But if you must go, take a carriage—take mine if you wish. I would not want you and your men on foot in that low place. It is treacherous and full of danger—a nest of eels.”
Miri was greatly amused to hear him use almost the same phrase about Porta Antiga that Froye had used to describe the two Sancellans. “Thank you, sir, but I will use my own, just to make sure my coachmen are not enjoying themselves too much and entirely forgetting their work. I will be careful. And I will keep my eyes wide open—that I promise.”
Despite the duke’s worries, Miri found the old harbor district quite lively, at least on its outskirts. People of all types thronged the streets, merchants, traders, sailors, prostitutes, as well as all those who worked for them or dealt with them. The crowds had a rough-and-tumble look that reminded Miri of brawling Meremund, a place she still dreamed of, though she had not lived there for any long stretch since her childhood. But as the coach rolled down the hilly streets toward the docks the streets became emptier and quieter. Most of the largest ships, the great merchant caravels and cargo barges, now docked at the Porta Nova, a league away on the other side of the city.
The old harbor at Porta Antiga dated back to the time of the imperators, and perhaps even earlier. During the days of the Second Imperium the nobles of Nabban, always frustrated by the Niskies and their unwillingness to bargain—which meant unwillingness to be bullied into accepting what the nobles offered, Miri felt sure—had convinced the imperator to build a new harbor. Now the only ships that regularly called at Porta Antiga were those of fishermen and the poorer merchants.
The Niskies, however, had refused to move out of their immemorial home to be closer to the new harbor. And when the nobles and traders found they still desperately needed the Sea Watchers’ Guild to keep the predatory kilpa off their ships, they had been forced to begin a ferry service between Porta Nova and the old harbor just so that the Niskies could reach the ships they protected in a timely manner.
There was a lesson there, Miri thought, but she was not quite sure what it was. Stubbornness and consistency was part of it—even wealth and the rights of high birth had to bow to necessity in the end.
The clacking of hooves on cobblestones lost its steady rhythm as the coach slowed to a halt. The guildhall was not particularly impressive, a ramshackle, two-story edifice, made mostly of wood, stretching along the main roadway between two piers, though the roofline was covered in carved sea beasts and fanciful fish. Miri thought it felt different here than in the outer part of the neighborhood. Many Niskies were in the street, though almost every one of them seemed to be on the way to somewhere else. She found it hard to tell which were male and which female, since they all wore the same heavy, hooded sea-cloaks, even in this warm weather.
“It looks as though it might fall down in the next storm,” said Sir Jurgen darkly. The young knight clearly did not approve of the Niskies’ hall. “Can they not come out to you, Your Majesty?”
“What better way to promote understanding than to force them out of their hall and make them bend a knee in front of the queen on the street?”
“What understanding are we trying to promote?” wondered Froye, but since he asked it as though he truly wanted to know, she took his question at face value.
“Whatever understanding that has prompted this invitation,” she said. “Do not forget that I owe the sea watchers a great debt.”
Froye nodded, but Jurgen did not know the story. “Truly, Majesty?”
“Truly, Jurgen, and I will tell you about it some day. But now I must go in, because that is the noon bell ringing.”
A group of what she took for Niskie dignitaries were waiting inside the hall, dressed in the same heavy cloaks as the others she had seen, but with richer fabrics and less muted colors. She was pleased and surprised when the youngest of them stepped forward and pulled back his hood.
“Greetings, Your Majesty,” he said. “You honor us with your presence.”
“Gan Doha. It’s good to see you again.” She looked around the high-ceilinged chamber, its walls decorated not with paintings or tapestries, as would be the case in other such places, but carved wooden shapes that reminded her of those hanging in the Taig in Hernystir, except that she could not tell what these carvings were meant to represent. She began to glimpse a pattern to their arrangement, but before she could give it much thought Gan Doha bowed and then extended his hand.
“Let me lead you,” he said. “The elders wait for you in the Talking Hall downstairs. I fear the invitation is for you alone, Majesty, not your soldiers.” He shook his head sadly. “My people are very particular about such things. Our secrets have been kept for centuries, and though we will gladly share them with you, honored queen, there are limits. I apologize.”
“Preposterous!” said Froye. “The queen does not go anywhere without the Erkynguard!”
“Then we must regretfully say that we have asked the queen here for no purpose,” said Gan Doha. “Would the Church of Usires allow soldiers into the lector’s private chapel? Do not fear—no harm will come to Queen Miriamele while she is here. That I can promise you.”
“You can’t do it, Majesty.” If Sir Jurgen meant to whisper to her, the young knight reckoned without his anger. He was was loud enough to make some of the Niskies take a step back. “I can’t let you go off on your own with these . . . people. For one thing, your husband would never forgive me if something happened to you. And I would never forgive myself.”
Miriamele looked at him for a moment, then at Count Froye. At last she turned back to Gan Doha. “Could I bring one guard with me? Sir Jurgen was ordered by my husband to be my special protector.”
Gan Doha thought about it for a moment, wide, heavy-lidded eyes downcast. At last he looked up. “I think it can be done. But your guard will have to stay silent. And if he harms anyone in his zeal to protect you, the elders will be very angry. Angry with me, I hasten to say—not you, Majesty.”
“Very well. Do you hear, Sir Jurgen?” She did her best not to smile at the knight’s fiercely serious face. “You may come along, but you must be silent and try not to kill anyone without asking me first.”
The knight looked from her to Froye, then surveyed the hall as though making certain that assassins were not already lurking and waiting. “Your wishes are all that matter to me, my queen.”
“Good,” she said. “Froye, I beg your pardon, but I must leave you here for a little while with the rest of the guards.”
“How long, Majesty?” The count was clearly not happy.
Miri looked at Gan Doha, whose sun-browned face showed little expression. “Perhaps an hour of the clock,” he said. “The elders can be slow to come to the point sometimes, but they know that Your Majesty’s time is precious.”
“Very well,” she said. “We are agreed. Lead on.”
Gan Doha took a torch from a sconce on the wall, then led Miriamele and Jurgen through a nondescript wooden door that opened onto a narrow stairwell with unfinished wooden walls gone gray from years of salt air. They descended several flights, until Miri saw that the wooden walls had become rough-cut stone and realized that they must have left the guild hall. They were climbing down into the bedrock of the Porta Antiga itself.
Jurgen stopped on the next landing. “Is this a trick?” he demanded. “Does this stairway never end?”
“I told you that the elders were waiting downstairs.” Gan Doha sounded amused.
Even Miri feeling a bit reluctant, they followed him farther down, and at last reached the bottom. Gan Doha led them through another door and into a chamber that quite beggared Miriamele’s expectations.
The vast space had been cut into the very stone of the promontory on which the Porta Antiga was built. In places along the base of the wall and floor Gan Doha’s torch revealed chisel marks, but the upper surfaces had been carefully smoothed and covered in painted pictures. Miri thought she could make out big-eyed creatures and strange, misshapen ships ranging all the way up the wall from eye level to the shadows of the high stone ceiling. Strangest of all, though, was the single immense decoration that hung from that ceiling, a slender, curving object almost as long as the chamber itself—so long that at first Miri took it for the backbone of some impossibly huge fish or a whale. It shone in the torchlight, as smooth as if every inch had been lovingly polished by thousands of hands. Jurgen stared at it with his mouth open.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It is called the Spar,” Gan Doha told her. “It is the only remaining piece of the great ship that brought our ancestors to Jhiná-T’seneí, before it was swallowed by the sea. You know of the Eight Ships, do you not, Majesty?”
“The ones that carried the Sithi and . . .” for a moment she could not think of the proper name the Niskies used for themselves, “. . . and the Tinukeda’ya here from their old land.”
“From the Lost Garden, yes.” Gan Doha nodded, and for a moment they all stared up at the gleaming timber. “It is a beautiful thing, is it not?”
“It’s so big!”
“So were the Eight Ships, the stories tell,” said Gan Doha. “Big as cities. Now let us go to the elders.”
And even as he spoke, a light bloomed at the far end of the great stone chamber, and for the first time Miri saw a table there, with a number of shapes seated around it.
Did they only now light a lamp, she wondered? Have they been sitting here in the near-dark, waiting for us? She felt a little superstitious shiver.
Almost two dozen Niskies were ranged around the long, rough table. Gan Doha introduced them, but the names slid past her in a flurry of unfamiliar sounds and only the last one captured her attention.
“. . . And this is Gan Lagi, the eldest of my clan,” Gan Doha finished, indicating a squat, extremely weathered woman. The elder’s eyes were large and hooded like a sea turtle’s, and she scarcely moved except to incline her head toward the queen.
“Thank you for coming to us, Queen Miriamele,” said the old Niskie woman in hoarse Westerling. “We welcome you beneath the Spar.”
“I am honored,” Miri said. “And I will be forever grateful to your clan. I will never forget Gan Itai, and I would like to do something to honor her memory.”
“You honor her well simply by taking us seriously,” Gan Lagi told her. “And we know that you have little time before your absence makes those who came with you fretful.” The old Niskie stole a sly glance at Sir Jurgen, who seemed caught in a strange and disturbing dream, glancing from the assembled Niskies and then up to the mighty Spar, then back to the sea watchers again. “Now we must speak of the things my people need you to know.”
“Do you rule over all the Niskies?” Miri asked her.
“Me? Rule over all the folk?” Gan Lagi shook her head. “I do not even rule over my own clan. They ask me for advice and I give it. Sometimes they even show wisdom and follow it.”
Miri heard Gan Doha make a snorting noise beside her—a quiet laugh, she realized. “Very well. And is it advice you wish to give me?”
“Not advice, Majesty. A warning, perhaps.”
Miri felt Jurgen stiffen beside her and inch closer. “Go on,” she said.
“You know a bit of our history, I think. My kinswoman Gan Itai told you some of it when you were together on the Eadne Cloud.”
“Yes. She told me about you, the Tinukeda’ya, but I do not remember much. I learned more later on from the Sithi.”
“The Zida’ya do not always tell the truth about us,” said Gan Lagi sourly, “but that is not to our point today.” Her eyes were sharp in their nets of wrinkled flesh. “It is important for you to know that we Tinukeda’ya have some gift for seeing and for understanding. Sometimes we know things before other mortals know them. Sometimes we have even glimpsed the days to come in ways that our Keida’ya masters could not.”
“Keida’ya?”
“An old name for the tribe from which both the Zida’ya and Hikeda’ya spring—those you call Sithi and Norns. But even when we see what is coming, we Ocean Children are not always believed.” Some of the other elders made quiet moaning noises.
“I fear I do not take your point,” Miri said.
“It is coming,” Gan Lagi promised. “In long-ago days, before Nabban rose, many of us lived in the island city of Jhiná-T’seneí. We foresaw a great disaster would come to that city, and we warned our masters who did not believe us; so countless Keida’ya perished when the earth shook. Jhiná-T’seneí was swallowed by the sea, and in the north mighty Kementari was thrown down as well, all its columns and walls broken into dust. By the time your grandfather grew up there—Warinsten as the mortals now call it—only rubble and old stories remained of the immortals’ great city of Kementari. But many Tinuka’ya escaped those two disasters and settled here on the coast.”
“I have learned a little about those ancient days, but not much.”
“The history is not so important. I tell you about it only so you will understand that we Tinukeda’ya sense things others often do not. That is important to know, because of late our people have been greatly afflicted with visions and voices.”
“Visions?”
“And voices, yes. They come to us mostly in our dreams and call on the Tinukeda’ya by our ancient names, and always they summon us north. And it is not only the scryers and horizon-watchers among us who have these dreams. They come to many, including some folk of Nabban who have only a little Niskie blood in them.”
Miriamele was puzzled. “Voices that summon you north? What do these voices say, exactly?”
Gan Lagi shook her head emphatically; her hood slipped backward a bit, revealing her sparse white hair and the rough, almost scaly skin of her neck and cheeks. “The voices do not often use words, Queen Miriamele, so it is difficult to explain. They put ideas in our heads, ideas of being safe from earthly woes, or about a great cause—the dreams are different for nearly everyone. But the meaning is always clear: Come north! You are summoned! And the dreams are very strong, very . . . convincing. Of course, most of us do not trust them—I certainly do not, not after all the evil that has come to us out of the north. But we felt you and your husband should know of these dreams that summon us.” She made a simple gesture, spreading her hands toward the other Niskies, two dozen pairs of wide eyes listening in silence. “You are the only ones we trust.”
“But why would you be summoned? Do you think the Norn Queen wants you to fight for her?”
Gan Lagi shrugged. “We cannot say. When the dreams first started we sent some of our clansfolk north to investigate, but none have returned. All is mystery, but we thought you should be told what we know. That is all I have to say.” Gan Lagi bobbed her head—almost a bow, but not quite. “The other elders and I thank you for honoring us with your presence.”
Niskies did not seem to make courtly small talk. The conversation finished, Gan Doha led her and Jurgen back across the great chamber and up the stairs once more. Miri was puzzled and troubled by the strange warning, and it was only when they reached the last flight that she realized Jurgen had been silent the whole time. “Are you well, sir?” she asked him.
He did not reply for several more steps. “I am your sworn bondsman, Majesty. I know all the good you and King Simon have done, and I have heard all the stories of the strange things you two have seen. But I am not sure until today that I truly believed them.”
She was amused, despite her concern over the Niskies’ strange message. “And do you now?”
“I must thank you, Majesty.” Then, to her surprise, he tried to drop to a knee in the narrow stairwell.
“Get up, Jurgen, please.”
He rose. She could see his cheeks were flushed as Gan Doha opened the door and let in the light of the guildhall. “I beg your pardon, Majesty,” the knight said. “But I want to thank you. I had wondered if I would ever see something as astounding as what you and the king have seen. Now I have. I . . . I do not know what else to say.”
“I am glad it brought you pleasure,” she said, “but I hope you never have to see some of the less enjoyable things Simon and I encountered.” Froye and the guards were hurrying toward her, the count’s face showing his fulsome relief that she was safe. “There are many I wish every day that I could forget.”