The Born Queen Part 32

"I thought you would come around," z'Acatto said. "There's another bag down there with some drinkable but unexceptional wine; food, too. If you'll get that-"

"I can't go back," Cazio interrupted. "Not yet. There are a few things I have to do yet. And I'm going to need your help."

Z'Acatto shook his head. "I told you, I'm going back."

"I'm not asking you to get involved in this war of Anne's," he said. "But Austra is in trouble, and I need to warn Anne about the Fratrex Prismo. After that-"

"Hespero," the swordmaster muttered.

"What?"

"The Fratrex Prismo is Marche Hespero."

"The praifec of Crotheny? The one behind the murders in the woods?"

The older man nodded.

"All the more reason I have to tell her, then."

Z'Acatto's frown deepened. "Don't be a fool."

"Weren't you the one who used to chide me for my lack of honor? For using dessrata as a thing to get money and women? For not being half the man my father was?"

Z'Acatto lifted one eyebrow. "Last time we talked about your father, you called him a fool."

"And now you're calling me one."

Z'Acatto put his face in his palm. "Saints d.a.m.n you, boy," he said.

Cazio put his hand on his mentor's shoulder. "Thanks," he said.

"Oh, shut up. Let's go steal some horses."

CHAPTER NINE.

THE Q QUEEN R RIDES.

ANNE REINED Faster to a halt just before the edge of the tree line. Below her the land dropped away in gently rolling hills. Less than half a league away the land started to climb again, a bit more sharply. A little stream wound its way down the bottom of the dale, and near it was the track of North Ratheren Road. Faster to a halt just before the edge of the tree line. Below her the land dropped away in gently rolling hills. Less than half a league away the land started to climb again, a bit more sharply. A little stream wound its way down the bottom of the dale, and near it was the track of North Ratheren Road.

"I see them," Artwair murmured softly. "Majesty, I won't doubt your visions again. We would have been caught between hammer and anvil."

Anne followed the line of his finger, and now she saw them, too, a vast camp in the fold of the hills, easily noticed from here but probably invisible from the road.

"How could they know we were coming? And coming this way of all the ways we might have come?" Artwair wondered. "Even if some traitor flew to them with wings, they would have still had to march here from Copenwis or Suthschild. Look how settled in they are."

"They have a h.e.l.lrune," Anne replied. "A strong one."

Artwair c.o.c.ked his eyebrow. "I've heard those stories," he said. "It's Hansan rubbish, meant to frighten us."

"You've come to believe I can see across leagues and time. Why doubt another could?"

"Your visions have proved true time after time," he replied. "Your Majesty was blessed by the saints."

"If one can be blessed, so can another," Anne said. "I thought he was out there. I can't see him, but sometimes I think I see his shadow." She laughed. "So I did something I've always disliked: I found some books on the matter. It seems some in the Hansan royal line are born with the power, and they raise them from birth on a diet of strange, distilled essences and liquors to make them stronger."

Artwair still seemed skeptical. "If Hansa really has such seers, why would they ever lose a war? Or make a mistake?"

"Even a h.e.l.lrune isn't perfect, I guess, and some are stronger than others. And sometimes they are a.s.sa.s.sinated before the war begins."

"But if they can see the future-"

"Not their own, apparently," she replied.

"Then we should kill this one."

"I'm working on it," Anne told him.

"So he saw us on this road-"

"And I saw the trap they set, because because of what he saw," Anne replied. "And now we must set a trap of our own." of what he saw," Anne replied. "And now we must set a trap of our own."

"We need to know their numbers," he said. "And the composition of their forces."

"I'll send my Sefry tonight," she said. "The moon will be nearly dark. They can discover what we need to know."

Anne thought she saw a brief look of distaste cross Artwair's face, but he nodded.

Anne woke before dawn, s.h.i.+vering although summer hadn't really begun surrendering to autumn yet. She lay there, trying to remember where she was, but the colors and shapes around her didn't make any sense. She closed her eyes and was creeping out of a hole, stretching her eight legs to tick into the sand, smelling the sweet scent of something with blood nearby. She crouched, waiting, feeling the sick power of the earth inside her, feeling the forest stretch out away from her to the great shallow sea and beyond.

She opened her eyes again and sat up, trying not to vomit, pus.h.i.+ng at the bedclothes with only four limbs, trying to regain herself.

Quiet yourself. Don't panic.

She was there again, the arilac, a brand in the night, and fear crept away.

But she still didn't know where she was, exactly.

"Mistress?

She knew that voice. Nerenai.

"Dreaming," she murmured. "Stronger every night. Harder to remember..." She s.h.i.+vered again, wondering what she was talking about, because she'd lost it again.

"What is it?" Another voice asked. It was Emily, her other maid.

"Majesty has had another bad dream," Nerenai said. "This is what I'm good at. Go back to sleep."

"I'll wait to see she's okay," Emily replied.

Something warm touched Anne's lips, and then she tasted something slightly bitter. She liked it and drank more.

"This will help," the Sefry said. "Was it prophecy?"

"No," Anne replied. "Those are-sharper. No, this-this is different. Like memories so real, I think they're mine. Sometimes not even human memories. I think, just now, I was a spider." She stopped again. "It sounds crazy, but it's getting harder to remember who I am when I wake up."

Nerenai was silent for a moment. She gave Anne another sip of the tea. "Nothing vanishes," she said. "When we die, the river takes it all, but what is in us does not go away."

"I've seen that river," Anne said. "I've seen it take a man."

"Yes. It swallows us, and in time it pulls us apart and we forget everything. But the things we knew are still there, in the waters-but not in us us anymore, because the thing in us that holds it all together is gone." anymore, because the thing in us that holds it all together is gone."

She was moving her fingers as if sketching.

"There is another river," she continued, "or perhaps another part of the same one, and there, those with the power to do so can drink and bring those memories and knowledge back into the world, held in new vessels."

"It's more than memories," Anne said. "There is something more there." She took a longer sip of the tea and realized she did feel better. "It will drive me mad. What use to have the memories of a spider?"

"It sounds dreadful," Emily said.

"Was it an ordinary spider?" Nerenai asked.

"That's a weird question," Emily opined.

Anne considered that. "No," she said after a moment. "Nerenai is right. I think the spider was like me. I felt power in it, the way I feel when I use Cer's gifts."

"Maybe you are the spider, remembering Anne," the Sefry said.

"Don't joke," Anne said, feeling sick again, knowing the Sefry wasn't joking.

"Yes, Majesty," she replied.

They sat there for a while in the dark, but Anne didn't feel like going back to sleep. Not much later, word came that the night patrol had come back, so she rose and dressed and went to the war tent.

She found Artwair, the earl of Chavel, and Captain Leafton of her Craftsmen mulling over and marking on a map. They all bowed when she entered.

"Yes, yes," Anne said. "What's the report, Duke Artwair?"

"Heol and his boys make them at about ten thousand," he said. "Half on either side of the road."

"That's only about two thousand more than we have," Anne noticed.

"Auy. But given surprise and their situation-they expect us between them, in the valley, remember-they could have murdered us with fewer men. A few volleys from the archers and a few charges with heavy cavalry to break our center before the men could be decently ready to fight. They could have done it with six thousand."

"And so what do we do?"

"There are just over three thousand foot on this side of the valley and about five hundred horse. If we try to move our whole army up, they'll detect us and have time to bring the other half over and face us with greater numbers."

"So we send the horse now," Anne said. "We have what, three thousand?"

"About that. We've the earl's five hundred and fifty, a thousand heavy lancers with Lord Kenwulf, another thousand of mine, your fifty Craftsmen, two hundred light horse, and your hundred Sefry mounted light infantry. If we take them unawares, we can decimate those on this side. By the time the rest come over, our foot will have arrived and we can fight this battle on our terms."

"It means leaving the foot marching unprotected by cavalry," Leafton pointed out.

"Who do they need to be protected from?"

The Craftsman shrugged.

"Raiht," Artwair said. "Better we should leave a small mounted force here. Perhaps that would suit you, Earl."

"Whatever pleases Her Majesty pleases me," the earl said, "but I would prefer to ride with the attack. I think that my archers might have been practically invented for this situation."

"He has a point," Leafton said. "We've archers in the light cavalry, but they and the Sefry generally dismount to fire. We could use archers experienced at actually shooting from horseback."

Artwair nodded and sent a probing look at Anne.

"Yes, come along with us, Cape Chavel," she said. "It ought to be fun."

Preparations went quickly, and before midday they were riding. Anne was surrounded by her twelve Mamres-gifted Craftsmen and her Sefry guard in their broad-brimmed hats and scarves. Ahead of her was the vanguard, Kenwulf's heavy horse, fifty knights, each with twenty handpicked riders. The light horse and Sefry rode on the right wing, and the earl's men on her left.

Two bells later they were trotting down the hills. Anne had a brief view of the camp, and her scalp started to tingle. Had they been noticed yet? The ground must be starting to tremble from so many hooves.

They breasted a wide ridge, and there was nothing but a few hundred kingsyards between them and the enemy.

The Hansans were boiling like ants whose hill had just been kicked, trying to make formations, but as of yet she didn't see a single pike hedge, although a rickety-looking s.h.i.+eld wall was forming.

"Give the order to charge," she told Leafton.

He nodded, lifted his cornet, and sounded it. The heavy horse in front of her formed a line five deep and two hundred wide, ma.s.sed together so closely that an apple thrown among them wouldn't find its way to the ground. They began the advance slowly but soon began to gather speed.

The air was already thick with the arrows of her men, and she felt a savage joy as they swept down from the ridge, her guard forming a wall around her.

Joy mingled with the now familiar sick rage of Cer as she reached out toward the Hansans, feeling the wet insides of them. As if with her hands, she softly squeezed.

And as the heavy horse shocked into them, she heard the vast sob of their despair. Some who had lifted their pikes dropped them.

The vanguard tore through the half-formed Hansan lines, and the light horse spread to encircle them. But to her chagrin, the knights around her were drawing to a halt.