“When you walk long enough in the wastelands of sleep,” the queen said, “you discover that the stars are eyes.”
Viyeki had no idea what her words meant. “Yes, O Mother of All.”
“The queen is still not entirely well after her long sleep, Magister Viyeki.” Akhenabi’s harsh voice sounded more amused than anything else, but as always with Eldest, whether the queen, the Lord of Song, or one of their shrinking number of peers from the earliest years after arriving here from the Garden, it was impossible to guess what was hidden by the masks they all wore. Where the queen’s features were forever hidden behind smooth silver, Akhenabi concealed his face behind a wrinkled, nearly translucent tissue of pale leather covered all over with tiny, silvery runes, the whole stitched directly to the Lord of Song’s own skin at the sides, mouth, and the holes for the eyes. Whispered rumors said his mask had been the living face of one of Akhenabi’s rivals. “With the help of my Singers, the Mother of the People is recovering swiftly from her great exertions in the War of Return, may she live forever in glory,” Akhenabi continued. “But the welfare of our race cannot wait for the queen’s full health, so neither will she. She wishes me to speak to you about the projects your Builders have begun in the lower levels.”
“I am honored to make my report to our beloved monarch,” Viyeki said with a small revival of confidence: if the queen wanted to know about his work, perhaps this was not his day to be punished after all. “As High Magister Akhenabi can confirm, Great Queen, we are expanding the city on Nakkiga’s lower levels to make room for all the new slaves and halfblood workers.” He spoke with a certain satisfaction: he and his order had worked hard for their queen and their people during her long sleep. “Two hundred of my Builders lead the effort, commanding a thousand mortals and almost half that number of Tinukeda’ya—carry-men, delvers, and others. We will finish in time for Drukhi’s Day.”
“Enough,” said Akhenabi abruptly. “All this detail is meaningless, because the queen commands the work to stop now.”
For a moment, Viyeki could draw no breath. “But . . . but we—!” he began.
“Do you dispute with the queen, Magister?”
“I . . . no, never! I would not dream of it,” he said, struggling to find words. “But so much work has already been done!”
“That is unimportant, Magister Viyeki,” declared the Lord of Song. “The Mother of All has different employment in mind for you and your Order.”
Viyeki watched his most important undertaking as High Magister, the greatest source of his pride, crumble away in a moment, as though some foolish apprentice had struck at the wrong flaw in a stone facing. “Of course,” he said after a pause to collect his startled thoughts. “Our lives are hers, always.”
“Queen Utuk’ku is pleased to hear that,” said Akhenabi. “Because while our monarch was deep in the keta-yi’indra, some of her nobles made decisions that are rightly reserved to the Mother of All alone. Rebuilding the old city outside the mountain gates, for instance. Or taking mortals as concubines simply to create more children—more halfblood children!”
Viyeki felt an icy fist close on his heart.
“In fact, Her Majesty was astonished to discover all that had changed during her yi’indra,” Akhenabi went on, his voice carefully pitched to show his contempt for any who would try to alter the queen’s will. “Things never done since the Eight Ships landed had been ordered in her name while she slept! Yes, Magister, our queen is unhappy—very unhappy—especially with any nobles who made these decisions while claiming the good of all as their reason, but in fact to benefit their own bodily lust and greed.”
Of course the Lord of Song himself had been involved in every decision he now recited; but Akhenabi had not lived to be the queen’s oldest and most powerful courtier by taking the blame for mistakes.
Viyeki was beginning to believe his execution might be the purpose of the audience after all. So does Akhenabi intend to sacrifice me to preserve his own life, with Tzoja his unwitting excuse? But if I am given to the Hamakha torturers, I know things about the Lord of Song himself that Akhenabi might not wish the queen to hear. Could he only be warning me, then? Might he even be reminding me—the thought was bizarre but compelling—that we have common cause, a need to protect each other’s secrets now the queen is awake? In the midst of so much strangeness, this seemed perhaps the oddest idea of all, that Viyeki might be forced into permanent alliance with the Lord of Song. His old master Yaarike had been right—there was no stranger mistress than power.
“Thus, Magister,” said Akhenabi sharply, “you can see why with so many other unwanted changes revealed to our beloved mistress upon her awakening, the queen does not wish to see her Order of Builders laboring for the greater comfort of slaves. Our race will not dwindle without them or the halfbreeds that treacherous nobles have forced upon us. The only thing our beloved queen has not decided is whether some of these mistakes were honest ones or whether they were all attacks on her sovereignty. Do you grasp this, High Magister?”
“Of course,” Viyeki said. “I am grateful that she has shared her thoughts with an object as humble as myself.”
“Good. And the queen wishes you to summon back those Builders who are working to shore up the old walls as well. All your order will be given new labors.”
This was even more surprising than ending the expansion of the slave quarters. The old walls and their guard towers were some of Nakkiga’s best defenses against the mortals, and all of them were badly in need of repair.
“I am not certain I understand,” he said carefully. “Do we speak of the walls around Greater Nakkiga, the walls that surround our old city and territory outside the mountain? Because while the queen slept, the murdering Northmen won their way to our very doorstep precisely because those walls were in disrepair, but now we have almost made them safe again.”
“You waste time just as your workers waste efforts on those useless walls, Builder.” Akhenabi pronounced the order’s name with scorn. “The queen says we no longer need to protect ourselves from the mortals.”
Viyeki was astonished. “We . . . we do not?”
“No.” The Singer’s voice grew harsher. “Soon the mortals will need to protect themselves from us instead. The most recent War of Return is not over. But this audience nearly is.” Akhenabi spread his gloved hands in a signal that demanded attention, but Viyeki was so stunned by his words that he could not have spoken if he wished. “The queen commands that all building in the lower levels and at the outer walls of Nakkiga must stop. You will see to that personally, Magister Viyeki. Later you will receive word of what new works your order will undertake. Is that understood?”
It did not appear he was going to die, or at least not at this moment, but beyond that Viyeki could scarcely grasp what he had just been told. Was this a plot of Akhenabi’s to snatch even more power? Did the magician only pass along the queen’s wishes—did Utuk’ku truly mean to go to war with the mortals again?—or did he somehow press his own ideas in her name? Akhenabi was subtle beyond Viyeki’s understanding, but surely the Lord of Song knew how hopeless such a war would be. Even with the new generation of halfbreed warriors, the Hikeda’ya were still vastly outnumbered by the Northmen on their borders, let alone the rest of the mortals in all their ugly, wasp’s-nest cities scattered across the known world.
“I understand,” was all he said out loud. “I will do whatever my queen wishes, as always, and I thank her and the sacred Garden for her confidence in me.”
“One last thing that our beloved Mother of All wishes to make clear,” declared the master of the Singers. “From now on the queen commands that all mortal breeding-women will be kept in the lower level pens with the rest of the slaves unless needed, and then returned there afterward. Do you hear this, High Magister?”
Viyeki could only nod.
“Good. The queen’s confidence in her noble ministers
, like her love for her people,” said Akhenabi, “is wonderfully deep. But not endless.”
A door opened in the wall. Akhenabi glanced at it, then back to Viyeki; the meaning was clear.
Viyeki bowed and said, “We all sleep until the Queen wakes us,” then performed his rituals of leavetaking before backing out of the vast white bedchamber.
Outside, his thoughts as disordered as if he had taken a bad fall, it was all he could do not to stumble down the palace stairs and corridors like a drunkard. He could make no sense out of what had just occurred. Did the queen truly know what was happening, or did she still wander in dream while only seeming to have wakened? Was Akhenabi an enemy or an unlikely ally, and was Viyeki really meant to send his favorite, Tzoja, out of his household entirely? Most disturbing of all, what on earth could the Lord of Song have meant by saying, “The War of Return is not over”? Were those merely words meant to inspire? Then why abandon the work on the outermost walls? Viyeki had feared many things from this audience, but had not imagined confusion as its main product.
His household guards and his secretary were waiting for him outside the palace gatehouse. Yemon could have no idea what had happened during his audience, but recognized that his master’s thoughts should not be interrupted, so he accompanied Viyeki all the way back to the residence in silence. Neither did he ask any questions when they were finally through the doors of the house itself, because Viyeki left them all suddenly and without further orders, shut himself in his study and latched the door behind him.
His wife Khimabu could not rouse him when she was preparing to go to bed—Viyeki told her loudly and angrily to go away. And much later, when Tzoja knocked softly at the study door and called to him, the mother of his child received no answer at all.
6
An Aversion to Widows
Even several days after they had departed Hernysadharc, the queen was still angry.
Spring was coming on quickly even as they traveled farther north, the snow reduced to patches upon the open meadows, in treetops, and on the upper slopes of the hills; the breeze carried warm hints of grass and flowering things. It all should have made for a pleasant ride, but Miriamele could not shift the mood that had seized her.
“Your Majesty looks a bit fierce,” her husband said. “Frightening, a lesser man might even call it.”
Simon was only trying to amuse her, she knew, but she was not in the mood. “If you must be told, I am still furious with that preening, giggling bitch, Tylleth.”
“Then you think she is a real danger?” Simon’s look said he truly wanted to know. Miri felt a sudden wash of gratitude that she had found such a man, one who cared what she thought because he trusted her and loved her, not because of the crown on her head.
Could I rule with any other? I cannot imagine such a world.
“If she were merely some chattering magpie of a courtier Hugh was bedding, no, I would not,” she told him. “But she has him wrapped around her finger. And you heard what Eolair said. Witchcraft!”
Simon frowned. The two of them were riding a short distance behind the vanguard; for once they had the chance to speak privately. “Perhaps. But even so, don’t be so quick to put all the blame on her,” he said. “Hugh has changed since I first knew him, and not for the better.”
“Doubtless. But you didn’t speak with her as much as I did. Although not for lack of the woman trying to get you to notice her.”
Simon frowned. “Do you think so?”
“Think so? Blessed Elysia, she was all but rubbing her bosom against your arm when they showed us around, sliding against you like a cat in heat.”
“I did not notice.”
“You don’t convince me—how could any man fail to notice that woman’s breasts? She was all but carrying them around on a cushion and calling them the crown jewels.”
Simon grinned and for a moment was a boy again. “Well, then, you’re right, my dearest—I did notice. It embarrassed me, because I knew you were looking. I promise you, I care nothing—”
“That is not the point. Don’t be thick.”
“Ah, wife. You still retain your power to charm me.”
“Stop. I won’t be put off by your good mood. That woman frightens me. Even Inahwen—gentle Queen Inahwen!—calls her a danger. She is trying to raise demons! As Pryrates did!” Both of them had almost met death at the red priest’s hands; she knew Simon would not pass over it lightly.
“Yes, yes, I heard everything Eolair had to say.” Simon shook his head. “But we already have plenty of other problems, my dear. And Hernystir may be under the High Ward, but they are also a kingdom in their own right. What should we do? Seize the king’s mistress and put her on trial for trying to raise demons? Aedonite rulers passing judgement on pagan nobility for witchcraft? Many of the Hernystiri are already chafing at being ruled by foreign Aedonites. We might as well send in the questioners of the Sacred College.”
“Don’t blind yourself, Simon,” she said, more harshly than she intended. “Not everyone means well, as you do. You are too naïve sometimes.”
“Please don’t treat me like a child, Miri.” For the first time, her husband’s equable mood soured. “Don’t instruct me as if I was still a scullion. Not after all these years.”
After that, they rode for a while in silence. She was sorry to have scolded him, but not enough to apologize. Her husband’s inclination to trust was part of the reason she still loved him so powerfully, but that didn’t mean she was wrong.
Miriamele had already conceived a deep dislike of Hugh’s intended before Eolair had told them of his conversation with Queen Inahwen. Certainly Lady Tylleth’s easy familiarity—as if Miriamele, a queen herself and the daughter and granddaughter of kings, were nothing more elevated than an elder sister—had set her teeth on edge. But the woman also seemed amused by everything going on around her, not like Miriamele’s dear friend Rhona, who genuinely could not help finding things funny, but in the superior way of someone who treasured a secret that everyone else would be shocked to know. Hearing about Inahwen’s fears had only solidified Miriamele’s own concerns. Still, Simon was right about one thing—the High Throne had many other problems more tangible and more pressing. The horrible mess of the Northern Shipping Alliance’s near-war with the old meddler Count Streawé’s daughter, the Countess of Perdruin, had the potential to throw trade into chaos up and down Osten Ard, to name only one.
But as she thought of such things, Miri found a core of sadness inside herself that had little to do with the affairs of state.
“It was hard, being away from home on his birthday,” she said, the first words either she or Simon had spoken in some time. “I did not expect it to be so hard after all this time. But it was.”
Her husband accepted the offered peace. “For me, too, my dear. I sometimes feel like a cat.” He saw her look and smiled sadly. “I mean, Old Shem the groom used to say that he had to watch the stable cats carefully, because if they had a small spite, a rat bite or wound from another cat’s claws, all would seem well and healed on the outside, but the wound would still be festering under the skin. Sometimes it would kill them weeks later, when they seemed to have been long past it.”
“Now that’s a lovely, reassuring thought.”
He flushed. “I meant only that grief . . . that sometimes we have not healed as well as we thought, my love.”
She saw that she was doing it again, biting at him when she most needed their old companionship, the thing that bound them together from the very beginning as surely as the love they later came to feel. The subject of John Josua especially brought it out in her, as though her husband somehow bore the blame for that agonizing loss instead of being another victim. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It is hard sometimes. I thought it would be easier as the years went on. I suppose most of the time it is. But when it isn’t . . .”
“I try to remembe
r all the good that came from his life, cut short though it was. I remind myself of the good things we still have . . . Morgan, and Lillia.”
“Do you count the Widow too?”
He smiled, but there was a pained twist to it. “Idela is the mother of our grandchildren. And I don’t think she is as dreadful as you sometimes paint her.”
“John Josua should not have married so young. And he should not have married her.”
“He loved her. No one could talk him out of it, Miri. You know that.”
“But we were his mother and father! We should have—!” This time she swallowed the words before they could come out, then violently expelled her breath. “All the saints, give me strength! I cannot bear to hear myself.” She bent forward in the saddle and ran her fingers through her horse’s mane, trying to distract herself. She saw Eolair riding a short distance away, close to them now but not too close. “Everything seems sad or frightening to me today,” she told her husband. “Isgrimnur, John Josua’s birthday, and that mad, rude performance in Hernystir. Hugh treated us like unimportant old relatives. And spending three days with that witch he’s going to marry only made it worse. Demons or no demons, that Tylleth probably killed her husband, you know. People certainly think so.”
“People think many things. Often they are wrong.” This time, Simon’s smile looked a bit foxy. “Perhaps you simply have an aversion to widows.”
She glared, but she knew it was only a jest. “There is Eolair. Ask him to tell you again what he thinks of her. And what Queen Inahwen thinks.”