The Born Queen Part 69

"There's that, too," Anne said. "I have found new parts of me, Austra, furious ones. They are quiet now, because I'm here with you. I needed room for them to grow, to become strong. It doesn't matter now, does it?"

"I don't want to be dead," Austra said. And more softly: "Cazio asked me to marry him."

"Really?" Jealousy was quick venom.

"I know you love him, too."

Anne didn't answer for a moment. "You're right," she said. "Or at least I'm in love with the idea of him. It's part of the notion that I can do anything I want." She thought about telling Austra about Tam-had she ever called him that?-but she refrained. "Anyway, congratulations."

"I love you, Anne," Austra said. "More than anyone."

"I love you, too," Anne said. Without thinking, she reached for her friend again. This time their fingers touched. Austra's eyes widened. The room filled with white-hot flame.

"Hespero," Anne snarled, and Anne snarled, and became. became.

All the rage was there, waiting for her, welcoming her back into her poor abused-and nearly completely healed-body.

She reached out around her, looking for the praifec, brus.h.i.+ng aside something near, a heavy, familiar presence that suddenly shrank away.

Then she saw the Kept, floating there, waiting for her.

At your service, great queen," the demon said. I am here for you. I am here for you.

"You promised to heal the law of death and die."

And so I shall, with your help, Qexqaneh replied. Qexqaneh replied. But you have things to do first. But you have things to do first.

"Yes," Anne snarled. "Yes, I do."

And the Kept took her up in his coils, and they went to Hespero's army.

Edwyn Mylton was graying, long-limbed, and awkward, but he had the eyes of a child with an active imagination and plans his parents wouldn't approve of.

"What sort of trouble are you getting me into this time, Leoff?" he asked.

"You won't believe it, I think," Leoff said, "and it is exceedingly dangerous. But I have to ask you. There's no one else I can think of."

Edwyn peered down his uneven nose for a moment. "I suppose I had better agree, then, before I know the details." He nodded at Areana. "Frauye Leovigild, it's wonderful to see you again."

"I wish it were as happy as the last occasion," she replied.

"Yes, well, the company is still good," he said. "Most of it." He nodded significantly toward the door.

"Berimund and his men are our friends," Leoff said. "Or at least we share some goals. We can trust them, I think."

"I trust your judgment, Leoff, but they were a little rough in collecting me."

"I'm sorry, old friend; that was a pretense to satisfy any curious Hansans watching."

"Yes, so they explained, but I had a bit of trouble believing it until now. So what are we doing, then?"

"We're going to sing with the dead," Leoff replied. Despite all his worries, he still managed to enjoy the expression on Edwyn's face.

Brinna handed Neil a small vial containing a greenish elixir.

"This should help," she said. "It's something I concocted from an old herbal, long ago, at my brother's request. He's hard on the drink."

Neil hesitated at the scent.

"What? Do you fear I would poison you? Or are you afraid it's a love philter?"

The elixir was as astringent and as strong as the drink he'd shared with Alis, but it did make him feel better. He'd been foolish; he might have to fight today. He should be at his best, even if that wasn't very good.

"Will this work?" he asked. "This thing you're going to do?"

She parted her hands. "I can't see that, if that's what you mean. But it might. That's something to hope on. But you and my brother, you must keep us safe until we are done. Then, whatever happens, we must find each other. I do not want to die without you."

"I don't want you to die at all," Neil said.

She placed her hand on his. "If we survive, Sir Neil, will you take me away?"

"Wherever you want."

"Someplace where neither of us has any duties," she said. "That's what I would like."

He gripped her fingers in his. Then he leaned toward her until her eyes were very close.

She bent her head, and their lips touched, and all he wanted was to take her away right then and there, forget the war, the law of death, everything. Didn't they deserve...

She touched his cheek, and he saw that she understood what he was thinking, and she turned her head just slightly from side to side. Then she got up and gently untangled her fingers from his.

"Remember your promise," she said. "Find me if I do not find you."

"How will we know when you've finished?"

"Somehow, I think you will know," she replied.

Marche Hespero drew on the faneway of Diuvo and made himself small in the eyes of the sky and of men.

The fighting had ceased at nightfall, at his order. Although his body was warded against steel, there were some things that might do him harm; the blow of a lance or mace, though it would not cut his skin, might well break bones and organs through through the skin. And a splintered lance, a broken arrow-he frankly wasn't certain what they might do. During an open melee, any of those things might find him by sheerest accident even though no eye saw him. the skin. And a splintered lance, a broken arrow-he frankly wasn't certain what they might do. During an open melee, any of those things might find him by sheerest accident even though no eye saw him.

He slipped through the lines of his men, past their fires and amid their grumbling. The enemy had withdrawn into Eslen-of-Shadows and crouched behind a low wall that had never been meant to serve as a fortification. Still, they had managed to hold it pa.s.sably well. Crotheny might have lost its witch-queen and her ability to slay thousands with a wish, but if anything, the leaders.h.i.+p of the army had improved.

He slipped over the barrier and wove through the alert front ranks, back through where men were sleeping, into the houses of the dead.

He knew his knights were questioning an attack that was not only sacrilegious and unprecedented but to their minds nonsensical. The only approaches to the castle from the shadow city were steep and fully exposed to anything the guards on the city walls might want to launch or drop on them for hundreds of kingsyards.

What he wanted, of course, was control of the throne, which finally had shown itself a few days after he had killed Anne.

He hadn't intended things to be this messy; he'd intended to seize control of Anne's gifts as he had the former Fratrex Prismo's. Her power married with his own would have made it easy enough to slay any who opposed him in Eslen and let his army walk in.

Instead, he had to make do with talents he already possessed, at least until he appropriated the sedos throne and then took control of the others. That shouldn't be so hard, with the Vhen throne empty and measures taken to keep it so. When he had both of those, he would find the keeper of the Xhes and dispense with him.

He had hoped to have Eslen-of-Shadows pacified to make the task of winning the throne easier, but he felt the power swelling toward the proscribed moment, and he also sensed the other foe he had dreamed about so long ago. He had no way of knowing who was stronger at this point, but he had taken plenty of risks, and this one last gamble for the greatest prize was surely worth it.

He was nearing the tomb itself when a soundless explosion of red-gold light came pouring from the door frame. He shrank against a cold marble wall, gathering his will to hide himself as completely as he could yet also ready for battle.

Something came flying out of the opening, a dark cloud, and a woman, glowing...

He blinked. It was Anne. It was the throne.

She was the throne. She was what he had come to claim. But how- was the throne. She was what he had come to claim. But how- Anne was the flas.h.i.+ng heart of a thunderhead, moving out over his men, bolts of blue-white lightning arcing out from her to the waiting earth, replacing silence with ear-aching thunder. He watched, frozen for the moment, as knights and soldiers and Mamres monks all perished alike, as Anne Dare-the Born Queen-only shone brighter and brighter.

His vision had started like this. Had he failed? Was there any chance to stop her now?

The Black Jester. If he could take his strength, add it to his own...

"Hespero!" a voice called over the din.

He jerked around and saw, to his great surprise, Stephen Darige.

"Brother?"

"Nice trick," Stephen said. "Good for sneaking about. Too bad you were distracted."

And with those words, their battle began.

CHAPTER TEN.

BASICS.

THE CANDLES all flickered when Brinna touched her fingers to the hammarharp, and the small room filled with the sound. Leoff waited, almost forgetting to breathe. all flickered when Brinna touched her fingers to the hammarharp, and the small room filled with the sound. Leoff waited, almost forgetting to breathe.

There it came, Mery whispering a note and then, suddenly, the same tone issuing, clear and perfect, from the mysterious woman at the keys. It s.h.i.+vered up his spine to know that she was hearing the sound itself, not in this world but in the other. He wished with all his being that he could hear what Brinna and Mery did. He knew it in his mind, of course, but his ears hungered for it, too.

Now Areana joined in with the quick line, starting low but climbing higher separately from the first theme, never touching it, as if two deaf musicians were playing side by side, each unaware of the other. The melodies wandered like that for a while, tightening but still separate until, in a moment that shocked him even though he knew it was coming, they were suddenly in unison for three notes. It sent a thrill of pure terror through him, and he suddenly very much did not want to go through with this.

But now it was his turn to sing. He prayed he was up to the task.

In the house, a hammarharp sounded a single chord, and then a voice lifted in one high, clear note. Neil was startled; it reminded him of frightening a covey of quail along the side of the road. What was more surprising, that surprise or the startlement itself?

Because it was Brinna, and the depth of that single beautiful note opened a door on everything he still didn't know about her, everything he wanted to learn. He knew she played the harp, and beautifully, and he loved her voice, but he never knew this was hidden in it.

The note dropped and wavered, and a second voice joined it, another woman: the composer's wife. The song suddenly wasn't pretty anymore, and Neil remembered a time not so long ago when he'd been sinking in the sea, dragged down by the weight of his armor, and he'd heard the Draugs' lonely, jealous song, welcoming him to the cold land of Breu-nt-Toine, a country without love or light or even memory.

In this music-in Brinna's voice-he heard again the song of the Draugs.

He walked away from the house not so much because the music repelled him as because he was drawn to it, just as his armor had dragged him toward the sea floor.

But then another memory came.

He'd been seven, in the hills, gathering the goats. Goat gathering wasn't such a hard business, and he'd been doing some of the work on his back, watching the clouds, imagining they were islands filled with strange kingdoms and peoples, wondering if he could ever find a way up to them.

Then he'd heard the horns blowing and knew the fleet was in. He jumped up, leaving the goats to themselves, and rushed down the hill trail, racing along with the sea down below, until ahead he could see his father's longs.h.i.+p with its broad blue sail and prow carved in the likeness of Saint Menenn's horse Enverreu.

By the time he reached the docks, the s.h.i.+ps was tied up. His father already was back on dry land and opening his arms to sweep his son up in rough arms.

"Fah," he shouted. The sun that day had shown a kind of gold that Neil had never seen since, although he had watched for it and had seen something of its hue that day when he had fought for the waerd. And right there on the wooden planks, in front of all his comrades, his father pulled from his things something long, wrapped in oiled cloth, its head stockinged in sealskin.

He pulled off the cloth and sock in a hurry, and there it was, his first spear, with its beautiful s.h.i.+ny blade and plain thick pole.

"I had it made by Saint Jeveneu himself," his father said, but at Neil's amazed expression, he mussed his head and corrected himself.

"It was made by an old friend of mine on the isle of Guel," he said. "No saint but a good man and a good smith, and he made it special for you."

Neil had never been so proud of anything as that spearhead flas.h.i.+ng in the sun and his father's hand on his shoulder.

When they got home, it was a different story. His mother embraced his father and had begun bringing out the supper when she suddenly looked at Neil.

"And what of the goats, Neil? Did you just leave them up there when I told you to bring them in?"

"I'm sorry, Mah," he remembered saying. "I heard the bells-"

"And wanted to see your Fah, sure, but-"

"But you don't abandon your duty, son. Now go get them."

He got them and missed supper in the bargain, but when he finally made it down and the first stars were out, he found his father waiting for him outside the house.

"I'm sorry, Fah," he said.

"Now listen," his father said. "You're going to get older, we all hope, so let me tell you something. You've heard me talk about honor. Do you know what it is?"

"It's what a warrior gets when he wins battles."