Too perceptive, Azhure decided, but she sat and obediently told Rivkah of the true nature of the birth. “I was pleased to be rid of them, Rivkah, and I hate myself for feeling that way…but they were as pleased to be rid of me, too. And, yes, those names—StarDrifter picked them, not I or Axis.”
“And how is StarDrifter?” Rivkah asked, her eyebrows raised archly.
Azhure laughed. “We have become good friends, Rivkah, finally. Whatever tension was between us has dissipated. Without StarDrifter’s love and friendship I would not have managed.”
“And…?”
“And what?” Azhure said crossly, defensively.
“What about you, Azhure?” Rivkah said. “You are changed. Different. But,” she grinned, “still the same even-tempered girl I knew beforehand.”
Azhure relaxed enough to laugh. “Yes, I have changed, Rivkah, and learned more about myself. But…I want to talk to Axis first. Do you mind? This concerns him as well.”
“No, of course not. Azhure…”
Rivkah’s voice trailed off and Azhure looked at her. “Rivkah? What’s wrong?”
Rivkah looked at her hands knotted in her lap. She took a breath, then looked up, meeting Azhure in the eye. “Azhure, I’m over three months gone with child.”
Azhure felt a bone-sapping chill creep through her. “For a human woman you’re too old to be carrying a child,” she said finally, tersely.
For a human woman? Rivkah wondered at the phrasing, then decided it was only Azhure’s Icarii blood talking.
“Yes,” she said, “I am. This child is a gift.”
“A gift?”
“After Faraday left you and Axis, the day she healed you, she drew me out into the corridor to say farewell. Azhure, we were close, even though we had not known each other long. We had both been Duchess of Ichtar, and as such we had both suffered, and that pulled us together. And we both loved Enchanters, and suffered because of that, too.”
“And?”
Azhure’s eyes were cold, and Rivkah did not totally blame her. “And Faraday gave me a gift. From the Mother, she said. She kissed me, and when she drew back I felt such a feeling of well-being, of vitality, flood through me that I could hardly breathe. She gave me the strength to conceive this child; that night, I think. Azhure, Magariz deserves an heir. Be pleased for us.”
“Axis does not deserve another brother!” Azhure said tightly. “Brothers have given him nothing but trouble and suffering…and you would bring another into the world to plague him?” Neither doubted that the child would be male.
Both women stared at each other, then looked away, hating the distance between them.
“Rivkah,” Azhure said finally, and reached out for the other woman’s hand. “I do not begrudge you your happiness, but—”
“But how awkward it is to have a mother capable of stillbirthing a rival,” Rivkah finished for her, bitterly, withdrawing her hand. “Axis thought he was the last of the royal line of Achar. Well, he’ll have to think again.” She tilted her head back defiantly. “I will do anything to protect this child, Azhure, anything!”
Protect him against Axis? Azhure wondered, but said nothing. Damn Axis for being so sentimental that he’d given Rivkah the golden circlet and amethyst ring of Achar’s royal office. He should have had them melted down for the trouble they were. Now this legitimate brother would inherit not only royal blood, but insignia as well, and would prove a natural rallying point for every Acharite unhappy with the new order.
“Damn you, Rivkah!”
Rivkah seized Azhure’s shoulders and shook her, her own eyes as fierce as Azhure’s now. “Swear to me, Azhure, that you will never harm this child! Swear to me!”
Azhure stared at her.
“As you love me, Azhure, swear it!”
Azhure’s shoulders slowly lost some of their tension. “I swear, Rivkah, that I will never harm this child…so long as he does not challenge Axis! If he does, then know that I will stand with Axis and this vow I make to you now will become meaningless.”
Rivkah nodded tightly and let her hands drop. “I would not expect you to let the child come between you and Axis, Azhure. I accept your vow.”
Azhure relaxed. “Now I know why you were so desperate to rejoin Magariz. He does not know?”
Rivkah shook her head. “It was why I originally planned to ride north, Azhure. But this news of Axis…” her face fell and, forgetting the earlier animosity between them, both women wrapped their arms about each other and wept.
“Azhure,” Rivkah said finally, wiping her eyes, “do you know that this will be my first legitimate child?”
Azhure blinked, bewildered. “But Borneheld…”
Rivkah smiled and told Azhure what she and Magariz had told no-one previously. That she had bribed an old Brother of the Seneschal to marry her and Magariz. “We were so young,” she said quietly, “and all we had was one night. Poor Magariz, for years he wondered if Borneheld was his son.”
“And you told no-one of this?” Azhure was aghast.
Rivkah laughed. “What good would it have done, Azhure? The Brother was so old he would have died within a year or two, and there would have been no other way to substantiate the marriage.”
“You never told StarDrifter?”
“No. What was the point? It would not have interested him one way or the other.”
Azhure laughed. “Poor Borneheld. Not knowing all those years that he, too, was a bastard. And commanding his mother’s husband!”
“Azhure,” Rivkah’s laughter died, “will you stand by me?”
“Yes, Rivkah. Yes, I will.”
36
BACK TO THE SACRED GROVE
That night, as Faraday travelled back to the Sacred Grove to collect more seedlings, she found Azhure sitting waiting for her in the centre of the grassy circle, Caelum playing at her feet, and several of the Horned Ones seated with her, chatting about the intricacies of the Star Dance.
“Faraday!” Azhure leapt to her feet, and the Horned Ones rose gracefully beside her.
Faraday ran and hugged her. “Azhure! Ah, you look so well! And the new babies?”
“They are beautiful children, Faraday, and doing well. I am back in Carlon now.”
“You used Spiredore to reach here.”
“Yes. I hope I am not disturbing you.”
“Nonsense!” Faraday linked her arm with Azhure’s. “Let’s leave the Horned Ones to watch over Caelum and we shall wander, you and I, through the trees of the Sacred Grove to Ur’s nursery.”
She winked at the Horned Ones, who did not seem to mind being left so precipitously to child-mind, and drew Azhure towards the encircling trees.
“I can see by the power in your eyes, Azhure,” she said after they had left the Grove well behind them, “that you have learned well from your time on the Island of Mist and Memory.”
“I am now not such a mystery, Faraday,” Azhure replied quietly, and told Faraday of her mother and something of what had happened in the Sepulchre of the Moon.
Faraday laughed, knowing that Azhure withheld as much as she told. “You are more a mystery than ever. But,” her smile died, “something is troubling you. What is it?”
“And you,” Azhure noted, but did not push. Faraday would tell if she wanted to. “Faraday, Axis is hurt. Badly. Crippled. There was a battle in northern Aldeni.”
“Azhure!” Faraday stopped, and her expression reminded Azhure how much Faraday loved Axis. “Tell me!”
Azhure told her what she knew, which was not much. “In the morning I will start my journey to him.”
“Can you help him?” A living soul trapped in a corpse? Oh Mother, help him!
“I hope so, Faraday, I hope so.”
Faraday shuddered, suppressing the impulse to drop everything she was doing to rush to his side. He was bound to Azhure now, and she would have to be the one to help him. If he could be helped. “He must survive, Azhure.”
Azhure felt a moment’s jealousy as s
he watched the emotions rush across Faraday’s face; Faraday had already demonstrated her love and her power by saving Axis’ life after the SkraeBold attack at Gorkenfort. Could she do the same? “I know, Faraday. You do not have to tell me.”
The women continued walking, slowly and silently. About them crazily coloured birds and beasts gambolled, and Azhure wondered that so much gaiety could flash about them when they were wrapped in such morbid thoughts.
Her mind drifted to Rivkah. Faraday had enabled her to conceive a future rival for Axis. Why? Simple revenge? Azhure was about to broach the subject when Faraday spoke, driving the thought completely from her mind.
“I have some news of my own to impart,” Faraday said. “You were right to warn me about Gilbert and Moryson.”
“Faraday! Did they hurt you?”
“Not through lack of trying, Azhure.” Faraday told of her encounter with Gilbert, and Moryson’s strange intervention. “I have seen nothing like it, Azhure. He was not the Moryson I remembered. He seemed crazed…oh, I don’t know…different. And why strangle Gilbert like that? I’d have thought he would have been as eager to see me dead as Gilbert was. And Moryson has not baulked at murder before—Rivkah and, I suspect, Priam have both been victims of his ambition. Azhure,” Faraday abruptly switched the conversation away from Moryson, “Gilbert tried to murder me on behalf of Artor, but it was not simple religious zeal that drove him. His eyes glowed with…well, with power. Artor’s power.”
“Faraday, be careful, very careful,” Azhure said. “Artor now walks this land.” She hesitated. How much could she tell Faraday? “This Prophecy has unleashed more than just Axis and Gorgrael.”
Faraday gazed at her. You and me? she thought, and who else? What else?
“Yes,” she sighed, lowering her eyes. “None of us will ever be the same. Moryson, strange man, told me that too. He said that if Artor was to come after me personally then I was to turn to you for help.”
“Moryson said that?” Azhure frowned. “But he does not know who I am. He disappeared from Carlon well before I…” she drifted into silence, thinking furiously, but keeping her thoughts guarded. Moryson?
“Well, whatever, why-ever, Moryson thought that you would help me.”
Azhure smiled and slipped an arm about Faraday’s waist. “Never doubt it. Call me, Faraday, and I will come. There is no-one more than I who would like to see Artor’s damned Plough burned to ashes. But I hope you heed Moryson’s warning, as mine. If Gilbert is dead, then there are others Artor can use as instruments.”
“Yes, Mama,” Faraday said gravely, and Azhure laughed.
“And how goes the planting?”
“Oh!” Faraday smiled happily, glad they had moved to a more pleasant subject. “Azhure, the planting goes so well! All of southeastern Tencendor now sways to the music of the trees of forest Minstrelsea, and I am currently in the Bracken Ranges…I will spend Yuletide at Fernbrake Lake. And from there I move to Skarabost.”
“And are you looking after yourself, Faraday? You are more than vulnerable at the moment.”
“Ah, I have a companion. Let me tell you about her.”
For a while longer they walked, talking of this and that, until they reached the gate into Ur’s garden.
“Faraday,” Azhure said as they paused, watching Ur hobble up the garden path towards them, “how will the trees help Axis?”
Faraday looked at Azhure with her great green eyes. “As they know best, Azhure, as they know best…that is all I can say on the matter. We each, methinks, have our mysteries to guard. Ah, here is Ur. Ur, look who I have brought to visit!”
Azhure turned and took Ur’s hand, smiling with genuine warmth. Her eyes slipped over her shoulder. The nursery behind her looked far less crowded than previously.
“So much has gone home,” Ur said softly, “and yet so much more has yet to go. Perhaps, my dear, you can help Faraday transfer some of the seedlings tonight.”
37
“YOUR TONGUE IS FAR TOO SWEET!”
Azhure hugged Ysgryff. “Thank you, Ysgryff, for so much. Your friendship, your stories to while away the long nights on the Seal Hope, and most of all, thank you and yours for keeping the secret of the Island of Mist and Memory for so long.”
Ysgryff unexpectedly found himself choking with emotion. He had thought himself too cool and far too calculating to fog up this badly. But then he had never had such a niece before, either. She had done both the House of Nor and Niah proud, he decided, patting her back. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Azhure?”
She leaned back in his arms and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “No, but that has never stopped me before.”
He laughed and let her go. “You look tired, niece. Perhaps you miss the swaying bunks of the Seal Hope.”
“And perhaps I spent the entire night gardening, uncle,” she grinned, refusing to elaborate. “Now, say goodbye to your daughter. When she returns hopefully she’ll bring her husband with her.”
Ysgryff turned to Cazna, who looked more cheerful than she had for months, and hugged her. His youngest daughter had also done him proud, and Carlon would be a bare and lonely place with both Azhure and Cazna gone. Well, perhaps he would invite some of the Icarii Enchanters to visit him—Stars knew, enough of them were flying the southern skies now to spare him an hour or two for a chat.
The group was standing outside the door of Spiredore in the weak mid-morning sunshine. Everyone, save Azhure, looked mystified, some almost unnerved. How was she going to get them all to Sigholt? The only horse present was Venator, his red coat gleaming with impatience, held by a groom to one side. Azhure had greeted the horse with affection. It had been a long time since she’d been able to ride, and she patted his neck and pulled his ear and whispered to him that within the day they would be racing across northern Tencendor.
Cazna stood back from her father and rejoined Rivkah, standing with Imibe and the two nurses Azhure had hired in Pirates’ Town; each nurse carried a baby in her arms. Around their legs wove excited Alaunt hounds, occasionally forgetting themselves enough to bay at the water and the silent tower before them. They could sense the change in Azhure and the magic awaiting them.
Azhure was, for the first time in months, dressed in slim-fitting grey breeches and a deep-red tunic, her hair left to flow loose down her back. She turned for a final look at Carlon, waved at Ysgryff, then inclined her head towards Spiredore. “Are you ready?”
Rivkah stepped forward, then hesitated. Azhure had refused to explain how she was going to take them to Sigholt, and Rivkah couldn’t get the faint suspicion out of her mind that this was all a ruse designed to cover Azhure’s own plans to travel alone to the north. Was she going to shove them inside the tower, lock the door, then get on Venator and gallop northwards?
“Nothing of the kind,” Azhure said, and opened the door. “Come,” and she stepped inside.
Rivkah glanced at the others, annoyed at having her thoughts so clearly read, then followed Azhure into Spiredore.
She stopped almost immediately, her eyes rising upwards, awed by the incredible interior of the tower. Azhure smiled and pulled her gently to one side. “Step over here, Rivkah. There is still a crowd to come.”
And a crowd it seemed, once Cazna and the nurses had stepped inside. The Alaunt rushed about the central atrium, and Venator, at Azhure’s whistle, trotted through the doorway, trembling slightly at the closeness of both humans and hounds.
Azhure patted him on the neck, quietening him down, and hoped that Spiredore would adjust its risers to his needs.
Behind them the door closed of its own accord, and Azhure wondered if Ysgryff and the servants and even Carlon were still there at all, or if, once the door had closed, there was only one world, and that world was Spiredore.
She grinned at the faces watching her, lifted Caelum more comfortably in her arms, then walked over to the first rise of the stairs. “Spiredore,” she said clearly, “I…we…wish to go to the bridge before Sigho
lt.”
And without another word or explanation, she started to climb.
The horse snorted, then stepped after her, his hooves slipping and rattling on the wooden risers.
“Rivkah?” Cazna said in a small voice, and Rivkah grasped the young woman’s hand.
“It will be an adventure, Cazna, and you will love Sigholt. Come on,” and she led her forward. The hounds bounded past them up the stairs, and Rivkah looked over her shoulder to make sure the nurses followed.
They climbed for almost an hour until Rivkah could bear no more. Her legs were aching, and she had to shift her small satchel from arm to arm to relieve some of the strain on her shoulder. She touched her belly briefly, worried for the baby. What if she was too old to carry this child to term?
“Azhure?” she called. “What are we doing? Why are we climbing into this tower?” She stared upwards until the madly tilted balconies made her dizzy. She swayed on the stairs, and as she did so all her fears rushed to the surface and she cried out, frantically grabbing the railing for support.
Instantly Azhure was by her side, her arm about Rivkah’s waist. “Shush, Rivkah. All is well, we are almost there. Trust in Spiredore. Come. You too, Cazna, walk with me up the front, and then you will see.”
She pulled them up the stairs, brushing past the horse who had his head up and his ears pricked curiously.
“See?” They had reached the head of the stairs and before them stretched a long corridor, a soft blue mist hanging about its walls and ceiling so that the corridor seemed almost circular.
“What?” Rivkah stopped dead. “How can that be in this tower? It stretches farther than…” She stopped, stunned by what she saw at its end. Cazna, at her shoulder, likewise stood unbelieving.
“Sigholt,” Azhure said proudly, and Sicarius gave a great cry and bounded down the corridor, disappearing into the sunshine at its end.
Rivkah’s eyes filled with tears. What kind of magic did this tower, and Azhure, command? There at the end of the corridor, bathed in sunshine, was the bridge that led into Sigholt, behind it rose soft grey walls and, from the darkness of the fortified gate, strode a man, grey and gaunt, but still alive.