The queen is come!
The queen is come!
A clear space grew around Atan, revealing more fallen people. Some were still moving, others horribly still.
“Shouldn’t we carry them inside the palace?” Atan asked, pointing behind her. “Is there a healer?” As people looked at each other as if waiting for the someone to be the first to move, Atan heard whispering. “What did she say?” and “I’m not touching one of the Norsunder offal.”
Atan turned in a circle, tightened her stomach, and tried to look princessy. “Find a healer! Our first duty is to the fallen.” Ordering a crowd didn’t work. So try individuals? “Brick! Pouldi! Can you help Rel inside?”
“Glad to!” Brick said from somewhere in the crowd, and Pouldi’s genial voice followed, “Hai! Shift it, there. Make way.” The two boys leaped to Rel’s side. Mendaen helped as all three got Rel to his feet and began moving toward the palace.
“Some of the rooms are burned,” a shrill voice cried.
“Find rooms that are not burned,” Atan said. One by one, just like building a ward, Atan thought tiredly. “We’ll use that wing of the palace, right there, for the wounded, as it’s close. It’s not burned—I was just in there.”
Yes, people could agree to that.
“I’ll help!” Sana said.
“Me, too! Me, too!” Voices chimed in, and as the Shendoral group began moving purposefully, people emerged out of the crowd to offer help carry, to find blankets, to fetch bandages.
Atan was relieved to see Rel borne inside. Then Mendaen vanished with a bunch of other people, mostly men, who divided up and began moving up the streets in search of Norsundrians. They waved swords and other implements, like blacksmith tools and hoes.
That was when the first person came out of the crowd and addressed her. “Are you really the princess?” the woman asked, looking doubtfully into Atan’s face. She flushed. “You have a look of the royal family. Very much. But... the princess Yustnesveas is a babe in arms!”
“My guard, named Gehlei, ran with me...” The crowd fell silent as Atan told her story. At the end, Atan felt her voice going hoarse. She hadn’t eaten since they’d left the caves, nor had anything to drink. She was desperately thirsty and found herself repeating words without knowing what to say as people just stood there, staring.
Lilah stepped up to her side. “Hannla’s going to find us some food,” she whispered. “I think you need some supper.”
Atan gazed at her, the sides of her vision glittering. “Julian! I nearly forgot. I promised her...”
Lilah looked up into her face, recognizing that lost look. She’d seen Peitar wearing that same expression, at the end of the revolution. Well, she’d been in this situation before, and Sartor might be the oldest country in the world, but those people looked a lot like ordinary people to her. “Hannla has her,” Lilah whispered. “You need to eat.”
“I can’t. There’s too much to be done,” Atan said over the slowly rising hubbub. The silence had broken, and now it seemed that everyone wanted to be heard—to tell their story and to get justice, aid, direction.
There were too many wounded to be seen to, and too many people wandering around. Some were angry at having discovered their houses burned down, others having been looted.
Hinder reappeared, shoving his way unceremoniously, Sinder helping. Over his arm Hinder carried a basket of fresh food.
“It’s that inn down that street,” he said, pointing. “If you’ll see to it they get paid, they said they’ll feed all comers, until supplies run out.”
“Then let us send for food for the wounded right now,” Atan said as Lilah handed her some bread and cheese. It might be hundred-year-old bread and cheese, but to the people walking around, talking, exclaiming, exploring, it was yesterday’s provender.
She scarcely got to eat half of it.
Everywhere she walked, she saw expectant faces, many wanting to tell their story of the war, others wanting decisions to be made. Decisions, revisions, compromises, most of them were increasingly painful.
The sun vanished, yet the streets were still filled with people carrying lamps, torches, candles. Atan stayed where she was, constantly surrounded, until Lilah and Hannla got the morvende to link hands in a circle around Atan, and draw her gently but inexorably inside the palace.
The moment Atan stepped inside, her thoughts flew to Rel. “He’s asleep,” Hannla said to Atan’s worried question. “And so is Julian. I took her to my family’s pleasure house. We tucked her up, and she dropped off before I could count to three.”
Count to three... sleep... Mendaen and Sana closed the door to the wounded wing at midnight. Despite the rapping and banging, they kept it shut and guarded it.
Atan wasn’t even aware. After she saw Rel resting comfortably, his shoulder bound up, she discovered her feet ached almost as badly as her head. She made it to the women’s side, and there was a bed...
o0o
The second morning of her queenship, she remembered the gown that she had made so long ago, and her promise to Gehlei. She ducked out of the wounded wing and its makeshift tumble of bedding on the floor that had been looted from rooms above, and found a private corner where she hastily changed. This palace was supposed to be home, but it felt cold and strange and unwelcoming. She had no idea where anything was, and the smell of burnt wood in the old state areas was horrible.
When she emerged wearing her new dress, yesterday’s worries crowded back, Merewen foremost, Rel second, with that anxious sense of responsibility for Julian a close third. She made her way to the wounded wing, to discover that Rel was gone—he’d gone off with Mendaen and the others to do... something, no one knew what.
No one knew anything. People walked about, poking, exclaiming, asking for her. Atan wanted to run and hide, but by midmorning a vast change occurred when many of the old palace servants reappeared, people who had sensibly gone to ground at the end of the war.
They took over, chasing off would-be souvenir-seekers and loungers. Those with legitimate business were told to line up in the square, where someone would take names and business. The new queen would see people by appointment only—as always.
As always, just like normal, remember the rules. These were magical words, promising the restoration of order, and the crowds thinned rapidly. That freed Atan to walk the length of the great building that had housed her ancestors for so many centuries. She surprised little groups here and there, busy with brooms, mops, wood-working tools, needles and thread. All traces of the century-old battle were being removed from the public rooms. Only the private wing upstairs remained untouched, pending Atan’s orders.
She could not yet face her parents’ rooms.
When she neared the kitchen, she smelled baking bread, a homely, simple smell, but somehow it made her throat close up with the ache of sadness. She ran into the linen room, where stacks and stacks of beautiful linens waited to be used, and she stood there with a century-old damask table cloth pressed over her face as sobs shook her.
Your work begins, Tsauderei’s voice echoed. Your work begins... She fought the tears under control and walked out, determined to start. She’d begin with promises.
She found Hannla in the wounded wing, and said, “Please take me to Julian.”
Hannla smiled. “She’s waiting for you.”
Atan turned her head, and to her relief, found Lilah talking to Dorea. She beckoned, and Lilah accompanied Hannla and Atan for Atan’s first foray into the city. As they walked across bridge over the middle branch of the river, Atan asked Lilah questions. “What do you think she meant by... what do you think they...”
Lilah prefaced almost every remark with “Peitar says,” or “When Peitar...” Atan found these comforting, as she respected Peitar, who had become a king only months before. If he could manage, she could manage.
When they reached Blossom Street, and Hannla ran ahead to let the family know who was coming, Atan said in a low voice, “I don’t know if
it’s a good thing or a bad thing that we haven’t seen the Ianth sisters, or any of the Parleas Terrace people.”
Lilah’s smile had vanished when Atan mentioned the sisters. She liked Arlas, but found Irza difficult. But this was Irza’s country, not Lilah’s. “I think it’s more a... a thing. Maybe they went home to find out who is alive, and if their houses are still there. People having been talking about burnings and nasty things like that.”
“That makes sense. So let me ask how Peitar dealt with the aristos?”
“What I saw was that they wanted everything to go back to the way things were. You know, they didn’t want Peitar to take away their land, or titles, or privileges. And he didn’t, except for some of the privileges. I mean, they are answerable now. I told you about that.”
Atan’s neck tightened as she reflected on how easily Peitar had been able to change some of Sarendan’s rules. She suspected it was not going to be the same with Sartor; in one day she’d been hearing references to past battles, laws, customs. How Peitar became king is not a map for me to follow.
Hannla’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Come in, come in!” She waved from the doorway of a three story building whose light stone was covered with some kind of vine. Brightly shuttered windows were all open in spite of the cold.
Inside, Atan and Lilah found a scene akin to that at the palace—cleaning, repairing, polishing, and sewing.
Hannla turned, her curly hair bound up in a kerchief, and called, “Here, everyone, it’s the new queen!”
People stopped in the middle of their tasks, brooms and dust cloths and scrub brushes in hand, and performed bows and curtseys.
A spurt of humor made Atan wish that Rel was there to see those brooms and dust cloths waving. She said awkwardly, “Please don’t let me interrupt. I came to see Julian.”
Julian herself appeared from a side room wherein Atan glimpsed cheerful decorations in bright greens and golds and pinks. “Atan!” she cried, and pointed back into the room. “We’re playing a game.”
Atan paused and glanced in the room, where she saw children gathered on a thick rug woven in patterns of vines. In the middle of the group lay a game board with six sides. On it was painted colorful patterns on which rested markers.
“I came to see if you are all right,” Atan said to Julian. “I’m sorry I lost track of you last night.”
“Hannla said you had to worry about the hurt people,” Julian said. “I didn’t get hurt.” She added proudly, “That man was going to break my fingers, but I bit him. I’m glad I did.”
“So am I,” Atan said honestly. “Tell me what happened.”
Julian did, in a jumbled fashion. Atan comprehended the gist, angry at first at the Ianths for abandoning Julian until Julian herself made it clear that she wouldn’t go, that she’d had her own plan. Atan tried to imagine Irza standing there, afraid Julian would begin screaming and bring the Norsundrians. She still didn’t quite understand why Julian rejected Irza’s company, when she and her sister had been such dedicated caretakers, but now was not the time to get into that. If ever.
I just don’t know enough about small children, she thought as she studied the child’s solemn brown gaze. But here, like with the kingdom, I had better make a start. “Julian. We are the only ones of the family left. I’m sorry, but from what I heard last night, it seems that your mother did die somewhere outside the city, and my family is all gone as well. If you want to be my family, I will be yours.”
“You mean, be a Landis?” she asked.
Atan took her hands. “If you like.”
Julian said, “I would like to be a Landis with you, but I don’t want to be a princess.” She braced herself for Atan to argue.
Atan saw those thin shoulders hunch and the small mouth press into a line. “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be. I’d just like to have you as family.”
Julian grinned, bouncing a little in her happiness.
Atan bent and kissed the top of her fresh-washed head. “Do you want to stay with Hannla, then? Until we can figure out how we’re going to live in that big palace?”
“I want to stay here,” Julian stated. “Princesses live in palaces.”
“All right. Stay here, where it’s warm and you have friends to play with. Then—whenever you want—you can come to the palace and pick out a room for your very own, and you will not have to be a princess in it.”
Julian agreed. Atan saw her run back to take up the game again. She stood in the doorway long enough to watch Julian, who seemed happy with the company of children her age.
Feeling a strong sense of relief, she went out to seek Hannla, to be told that she and Lilah had gone back to the palace to help with the wounded. “Thank you,” Atan said awkwardly, as a round woman with curly hair bowed. She had to be Hannla’s aunt. “I’ll find some way to pay you, when things get settled.”
“There is no need, your highness,” Hannla’s aunt said. “You restored Hannla to us. I still don’t remember what happened, only that I was helping to carry blankets to help the people forced out of their homes by fire. Hannla’s mother sent the child with me, carrying a basket of fresh buns. But then...”
She passed her hand across her face. “I found myself standing in the middle of the Grand Chandos Way, and the blankets were gone. People were wandering around, and Hannla wasn’t there. I was searching, and searching, and fell asleep again... and then people were shouting in the streets, and the Norsunder warriors were riding away as fast as they could, and then Hannla came home, took the rest of our blankets, and ran out again!” She smiled happily, and went on to exclaim and wonder and guess at what had happened to them all before Atan freed them from the evil spell.
Atan made herself wait patiently until the end of this story, so much like the many she’d already heard. She thanked the woman again and walked out, proud of herself for finding her way back over the bridge to the square. Just like the records said, one could always orient on the white-stone tower, which nothing had been permitted to exceed in height.
She returned to the wounded wing, which she’d finally realized was the old guard barracks. Here she found Rel helping to pass out bread to those too hurt to move. He and Mendaen were deep in talk until she walked in, then both smiled her way.
Relief blossomed inside her “How do you feel?”
“Wound’s clean,” he said. “Hardly feel it.” He hefted his basket with his good arm.
“We went to the garrison,” Mendaen said soberly. “It’s nearly empty. Most everyone must have been killed before the magic took hold. Rel showed the rest of us how to set up.”
Atan turned Rel’s way, as he said apologetically, “Only what I’ve seen in other places. I worked half a summer as a guard trainee, and from what I saw there and on my travels, most garrisons are pretty much alike.”
Mendaen said, “A few old guards, retired, showed up. They’re going to help us get patrols going again. In case Norsunder is around still.”
Atan understood in his determination to keep working that this was Mendaen’s way of dealing with the fact that both his parents, who had worked at the garrison, had been among those dead. Mendaen turned his dark gaze up to Rel before saying, “We asked him to help by leading a patrol, at least.”
Rel gave his head a shake. “I’ve never made patrol captain anywhere. Haven’t any idea how to.”
“Your highness,” someone said, plucking at Atan’s elbow.
She became aware of a crowd of people having come up behind to listen. Foremost were some of the palace servants. Atan turned, seeing in each face the urgency of someone who had something to say, to ask, to report.
She wanted to stay, to thank Rel, to talk further, but that pressing sense of duty drew her away. Later, she thought. There will always be later, and she smiled inside.
o0o
Atan’s neck ached and her feet hurt and she was thirsty again, when she found Hinder at her side. Impatience burned in her middle, but she resolutely
banished it. The line of people wanting to talk seemed like it would never end, but end it must. And Hinder would not bother her with something trivial.
Hinder said, “Rel is leaving. I thought you should know.”
FOURTEEN
Atan’s mind blanked. Voices dwindled into the chatter of distant birds.
She scolded herself. Of course Rel would leave. He wasn’t Sartoran. He had never claimed to be taking up his life in Sartor. In fact, she remembered him saying that he’d planned to travel to Everon next.
She remembered every conversation they’d had.
“I must thank him,” she stated firmly. To the waiting people, she added, “Rel the Traveler was one of those who helped me end the spell.”
As those in front turned to their neighbors to whisper, she slipped behind Hinder, who elbowed expertly through the press.
Atan’s throat had tightened again. She had to thank Rel properly, in a way that showed how much she appreciated his help. It was important to make that clear, and to also make it clear he could come again to visit, that he would always, always be welcome.
What would be a way to thank him that was suitable? A gift, maybe? She liked the idea of a gift, but what? What would be important to Rel? She had absolutely nothing... except a palace full of stuff. It was all hers, because no other Landises had appeared. She really was the last. Norsunder had been very thorough.
But not thorough enough.
She straightened her shoulders and whispered to Hinder, “I’m going to get something.”
There were all the people waiting to talk to her, but she discovered that if she moved, they had to move away. They could not keep her in one place. So she gained more confidence, saying right and left, “I will return in a moment. I have something to see to.”
As soon as she reached the back hall beyond which the servants didn’t let anyone penetrate, she smiled at the old fellow on guard there and ran to the tower.
When she reached the upper room, memory brought Merewen back, and the grief and worry. But she didn’t pause, because she was not going to worry. She looked around, then caught sight of the swords in a carved wood rack near the table on which she’d found the great book.