Kitabı oku: «The Bone Doll’s Twin»
THE BONE DOLL’S TWIN
Book One of the Tamír Triad
Lynn Flewelling
COPYRIGHT
Voyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2001
Copyright © Lynn Flewelling 2001
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007354412
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2016 ISBN: 9780007392261
Version: 2016-03-14
DEDICATION
for l.e. and the knapp kids up the magic staircase a long time ago
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Skalan Year
Maps
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Part Two
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Keep Reading
About the Author
About the Publisher
THE SKALAN YEAR *
I. Winter Solstice – Mourning Night and Festival of Sakor; observance of the longest night and celebration of the lengthening of days to come.
1. Sarisin Calving.
2. Dostin Hedges and ditches seen to. Peas and beans sown for cattle food.
3. Klesin Sowing of oats, wheat, barley (for malting), rye. Beginning of fishing season. Open water sailing resumes.
II. Vernal Equinox – Festival of the Flowers in Mycena. Preparation for planting, celebration of fertility.
4. Lithion Butter and cheese making (sheep’s milk pref.) Hemp and flax sown.
5. Nythin Fallow ground ploughed.
6. Gorathin Corn weeded. Sheep washed and sheared.
III. Summer Solstice
7. Shemin Beginning of the month – hay mowing. End of the month and into Lenthin – grain harvest in full swing.
8. Lenthin Grain harvest.
9. Rhythin Harvest brought in. Fields plowed and planted with winter wheat or rye.
IV. Harvest Home – finish of harvest, time of thankfulness.
10. Erasin Pigs turned out into the woods to forage for acorns and beechnuts.
11. Kemmin More plowing for spring. Oxen and other meat animals slaughtered and cured. End of the fishing season. Storms make open water sailing dangerous.
12. Cinrin Indoor work, including threshing.
* A 360-day year with four 3-day seasonal festivals.
MAPS
PART ONE
Document Fragment Discovered in the East Tower of the Orëska House
An old man looks back at me from my mirror now. Even among the other wizards here in Rhíminee, I’m a relic of forgotten times.
My new apprentice, little Nysander, cannot imagine what it was like to be a free wizard of the Second Orëska. At Nysander’s birth this beautiful city had already stood for two centuries above her deep harbour. Yet to me it shall always and forever be ‘the new capital’.
In the days of my youth, a whore’s cast-off like Nysander would have gone unschooled. If he were lucky he might have ended up as a village weather-caller or soothsayer. More likely, he would have unwittingly killed someone and been stoned as a witch. Only the Lightbearer knows how many god-touched children were lost before the advent of the Third Orëska.
Before this city was built, before this great House of learning was gifted to us by its great founder, we wizards of the second Orëska made our own way and lived by our own laws.
Now, in return for service to the Crown we have this House, with its libraries, archives, and its common history. I am the only one still living who knows how dear a price was paid for that.
Two centuries. Three or four lifetimes for most people; a mere season for those of us touched by the Lightbearer’s gift. ‘We wizards stand apart, Arkoniel,’ my own teacher, Iya, told me when I was scarcely older than Nysander is now. ‘We are stones in a river’s course, watching the rush of life whirl past.’
Standing by Nysander’s door tonight, watching the lad sleep, I imagined Iya’s ghost beside me and for a moment it seemed as if it was my younger self I gazed at; a plain, shy nobleman’s son who’d shown a talent for animal charming. While guesting at my father’s estate, Iya recognized the magic in me and revealed it to my family. I wept the day I left home with her.
How easy it would be to call those tears foreshadowing – that device the playwrights are so enamoured of these days. But I have never quite believed in fate, despite all the prophecies and oracles that shaped my life. There’s always a choice in there somewhere. I’ve seen too often how people make their own future through the balance of each day’s little kindnesses and cruelties.
I chose to go with Iya.
Later, I chose to believe in the visions the Oracle granted to her and to me.
By my own choice, I helped rekindle the power of this good strong country, and so may rightly claim to have helped the fair white towers of Rhíminee rise against this blue western sky.
But on those few nights when I sleep deeply, what do I dream of?
An infant’s cry, cut short.
You might think after so many years that it would be easier to accept; that one necessary act of cruelty could alter the course of history like an earthquake shifts a river’s course. But that deed, that cry, lies at the heart of all the good that came after, like a grain of sand at the heart of a pearl’s glowing nacre.
I alone carry the memory of that infant’s brief wail, all those years ago.
I alone know of the filth at the heart of this pearl.
CHAPTER ONE
Iya pulled off her straw wayfarer’s hat and fanned herself with it as her horse laboured up the rocky trail towards Afra. The sun stood at noon, blazing against the cloudless blue. It was only the first week of Gorathin, far too early for it to be this hot. It seemed the drought was going to last another season.
Snow still glistened on the peaks overhead, however. Now and then a plume of wind-blown white gusted out against the stark blue of the sky, creating the tantalizing illusion of coolness, while down here in the narrow pass no breeze stirred. Anywhere else Iya might have conjured up a bit of wind, but no magic was allowed within a day’s ride of Afra.
Ahead of her, Arkoniel swayed in his saddle like a shabby, long-legged stork. The young wizard’s linen tunic was sweated through down the back and stained drab with a week’s worth of road dust. He never complained; his only concession to the heat was the sacrifice of the patchy black beard he’d cultivating since he turned one and twenty last Erasin.
Poor boy, Iya thought fondly; the newly shaven skin was already badly sunburnt.
Their destination, the Oracle at Afra, lay at the very heart of Skala’s mountainous spine and was a gruelling ride any time of year. Iya had made the long pilgrimage twice before, but never in summer.
The walls of the pass pressed close to the trail here, and centuries of seekers had left their names and supplications to Illior Lightbearer scratched into the dark stone. Some had simply scratched the god’s thin crescent moon; these lined the trail like countless tilting smiles. Arkoniel had left one of his own earlier that morning to commemorate his first visit.
Iya’s horse stumbled and the reason for their journey bumped hard against her thigh. Inside the worn leather bag slung from her saddle horn, smothered in elaborate wrappings and magic, was a lopsided bowl crudely fashioned of burnt clay. There was nothing remarkable about it, except for the fierce aura of malevolence it gave off when not hidden away. More than once over the years she’d imagined throwing it over a cliff or into a river; in reality, she could no more have done that than cut off her own arm. She was the Guardian; the contents of that bag had been her charge for over a century.
Unless the Oracle can tell me otherwise. Fixing her thin, greying hair into a knot on top of her head, she fanned again at her sweaty neck.
Arkoniel turned in the saddle and regarded her with concern. His unruly black curls dripped sweat beneath the wilted brim of his hat. ‘You’re red in the face. We should stop and rest again.’
‘No, we’re nearly there.’
‘Then have some more water, at least. And put your hat back on!’
‘You make me feel old. I’m only two hundred and thirty, you know.’
‘Two hundred and thirty two,’ he corrected with a wry grin. It was an old game between them.
She made a sour face at him. ‘Just wait until you’re in your third age, my boy. It gets harder to keep track.’
The truth was, hard riding did tire her more than it had back in her early hundreds, although she wasn’t about to admit it. She took a long pull from her waterskin and flexed her shoulders. ‘You’ve been quiet today. Do you have a query yet?’
‘I think so. I hope the Oracle finds it worthy.’
Such earnestness made Iya smile. This journey was merely another lesson as far as Arkoniel knew. She’d told him nothing of her true quest.
The leather bag bumped against her thigh like a nagging child. Forgive me, Agazhar, she thought, knowing her long-dead teacher, the first Guardian, would not have approved.
The last stretch of the trail was the most treacherous. The rock face to their right gave way to a chasm and in places they rode with their left knees brushing the cliff face.
Arkoniel disappeared around a sharp bend, then called back, ‘I can see Illior’s Keyhole, just as you described!’
Rounding the outcropping, Iya saw the painted archway glowing like a garish apparition where it straddled the trail. Stylized dragons glowed in red, blue and gold around the narrow opening, which was just wide enough for a single horseman to pass through. Afra lay less than a mile beyond.
Sweat stung Iya’s eyes, making her blink. It had been snowing the first time Agazhar brought her here.
Iya had come later than most to the wizardly arts. She’d grown up on a tenant farm on the border of Skala’s mainland territory. The closest market town lay across the Keela River in Mycena, and it was here that Iya’s family traded. Like many bordermen, her father had taken a Mycenian wife and made his offerings to Dalna the Maker, rather than Illior or Sakor.
So it was, when she first showed signs of magic, that she was sent back across the river to study with an old Dalnan priest who’d tried to make a drysian healer of her. She soon earned praise for her herb craft, but as soon as the ignorant old fellow discovered that she could make fire with a thought, he bound a witch charm to her wrist and sent her home in disgrace.
With this taint on her, she’d found little welcome in her village and no prospect of a husband.
She was a spinster of twenty-four when Agazhar happened across her in the market square. He told her later that it was the witch charm that had caught his eye as she stood haggling with a trader over the price of her goats.
She’d taken no notice of him, thinking he was just another old soldier finding his way home from the wars. Agazhar had been as ragged and hollow-cheeked as any of them, and the left sleeve of his tunic hung empty.
Iya was forced to take a second look when he walked up to her, clasped her hand, and broke into a sweet smile of recognition. After a brief conversation, she sold off her goats and followed the old wizard down the south road without a backward glance. All anyone would have found of her, had they bothered to search, was the witch charm lying in the weeds by the market gate.
Agazhar hadn’t scoffed at her fire making. Instead, he explained that it was the first sign that she was one of the god-touched of Illior. Then he taught her to harness the unknown power she possessed into the potent magic of the Orëska wizards.
Agazhar was a free wizard, beholden to no one. Eschewing the comforts of a single patron, he wandered as he liked, finding welcome in noble houses and humble ones alike. Together he and Iya travelled the Three Lands and beyond, sailing west to Aurënen where even the common folk were as long-lived as wizards and possessed magic. Here she learned that the Aurënfaie were the First Orëska; it was their blood, mingled with that of Iya’s race, that had given magic to the chosen ones of Skala and Plenimar.
This gift came with a price. Human wizards could neither bear nor sire children, but Iya considered herself well repaid, both in magic and later, with students as gifted and companionable as Arkoniel.
Agazhar had also taught her more about the Great War than any of her father’s ballads or legends, for he’d been among the wizards who’d fought for Skala under Queen Ghërilain’s banner.
‘There’s never been another such war as that, and pray Sakor there never shall be again,’ he’d say, staring into the campfire at night as if he saw his fallen comrades there. ‘For one shining span of time wizards stood shoulder to shoulder with warriors, battling the black necromancers of Plenimar.’
The tales Agazhar told of those days gave Iya nightmares. A necromancer’s demon – a dyrmagnos, he called it – had torn off his left arm.
Gruesome as these tales were, Iya still clung to them, for only there had Agazhar given her any glimpse of where the strange bowl had come from.
Agazhar had carried it then; never in all the years she’d known him had he ever let it out of his possession. ‘Spoils of war,’ he’d said with a dark laugh, the first time he’d opened the bag to show it to her.
But beyond that, he would tell her nothing except that the bowl could not be destroyed and that its existence could not be revealed to anyone but the next Guardian. Instead, he’d schooled her rigorously in the complex web of spells that protected it, making her weave and unweave them until she could do it in the blink of an eye.
‘You’ll be the Guardian after me,’ he reminded her when she grew impatient with the secrecy. ‘Then you’ll understand. Be certain you choose your successor wisely.’
‘But how will I know who to choose?’
He’d smiled and taken her hand as he had when they’d first met in the marketplace. ‘Trust in the Lightbearer. You’ll know.’
And she had.
At first she couldn’t help pressing to know more about it – where he’d found it, who had made it and why, but Agazhar had remained obdurate. ‘Not until the time comes for you to take on the full care of it. Then I will tell you all there is to know.’
Sadly, that day had taken them both unawares. Agazhar had dropped dead in the streets of Ero one fine spring day soon after her first century. One moment he was holding forth on the beauty of a new transformation spell he’d just created; the next, he slipped to the ground with a hand pressed to his chest and a look of mild surprise in his fixed, dead eyes.
Scarcely into her second age, Iya suddenly found herself Guardian without knowing what she guarded or why. She kept the oath she’d sworn to him and waited for Illior to reveal her successor. She’d waited two lifetimes, as promising students came and went, and said nothing to them of the bag and its secrets.
But as Agazhar had promised, she’d recognized Arkoniel the moment she first spied him playing in his father’s orchard fifteen years earlier. He could already keep a pippin spinning in midair and could put out a candle flame with a thought.
Young as he was, she’d taught him what little she knew of the bowl as soon as he was bound over to her. Later, when he was strong enough, she taught him how to weave the protections. Even so, she kept the burden of it on her own shoulders as Agazhar had instructed.
Over the years Iya had come to regard the bowl as little more than a sacred nuisance, but that had all changed a month ago when the wretched thing had taken over her dreams. These ghastly interwoven nightmares, more vivid than any she’d ever known, had finally driven her here, for she saw the bowl in all of them, carried high above a battlefield by a monstrous black figure for which she knew no name.
‘Iya? Iya, are you well?’
Iya shook off the reverie that had claimed her and gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Ah, we’re here at last, I see.’
Pinched in a deep cleft of rock, Afra was scarcely large enough to be called a village and existed solely to serve the Oracle and the pilgrims who journeyed here. A wayfarer’s inn and the chambers of the priests were carved like bank swallow nests into the cliff faces on either side of the small paved square. Their doorways and deep-set windows were framed with carved fretwork and pillars of ancient design. The square was deserted now, but a few people waved to them from the shadowy windows.
At the centre of the square stood a red jasper stele as tall as Arkoniel. A spring bubbled up at its base and flowed away into a stone basin and on to a trough beyond.
‘By the Light!’ Arkoniel exclaimed. Dismounting, he turned his horse loose at the trough and went to examine the stele. Running his palm over the inscription carved in four languages, he read the words that had changed the course of Skalan history three centuries earlier. ‘“So long as a daughter of Thelátimos’ line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated.”’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘This is the original, isn’t it?’
Iya nodded sadly. ‘Queen Ghërilain placed this here herself as a thank offering right after the war. The Oracle’s Queen, they called her then.’
In the darkest days of the war, when it seemed that Plenimar would devour the lands of her neighbors Skala and Mycena, the Skalan King Thelátimos had left the battlefields and journeyed here to consult the Oracle. When he returned to battle, he brought with him his daughter, Ghërilain, then a maiden of sixteen. Obeying the Oracle’s words, he anointed her before his exhausted army and passed his crown and sword to her.
According to Agazhar, the generals had not thought much of the King’s decision. Yet from the start the girl proved god-touched as a warrior and led the allies to victory in a year’s time, killing the Plenimaran Overlord single-handedly at the Battle of Isil. She’d been a fine queen in peace, as well, and ruled for over fifty years. Agazhar had been among her mourners.
‘These markers used to stand all over Skala, didn’t they?’ asked Arkoniel.
‘Yes, at every major crossroads in the land. You were just a babe when King Erius tore them all down.’ Iya dismounted and touched the stone reverently. It was hot under her palm, and still as smooth as the day it left the stonecutter’s shop. ‘Even Erius didn’t dare touch this one.’
‘Why not?’
‘When he sent word for it to be removed the priests refused. To force the issue meant invading Afra itself, the most sacred ground in Skala. So Erius graciously relented and contented himself with having all the others dumped into the sea. There was also a golden tablet bearing the inscription in the throne room at the Old Palace. I wonder what happened to that?’
But the younger wizard had more immediate concerns. Shading his eyes, he studied the cliff face. ‘Where’s the Oracle’s shrine?’
‘Further up the valley. Drink deeply here. We must walk the rest of the way.’
Leaving their mounts at the inn, they followed a well-worn path deeper into the deep cleft. The way became steeper and more difficult as they went. There were no trees to shade them, no moisture to lay the white dust that hung on the hot midday air. Soon the way dwindled to a faint track winding up between boulders and over rock faces worn smooth and treacherous by centuries of pilgrim’s feet.
They met two other groups of seekers coming in the opposite direction. A knot of young soldiers were laughing and talking bravely, all but one young man who hung back from his fellows with the fear of death clear in his eyes. The second group clustered around an elderly merchant woman who wept silently as the younger members of her party helped her down the treacherous path.
Arkoniel eyed them nervously. Iya waited until the merchant’s party had disappeared around a bend, then sat down on a rock to rest. The way here was hardly wide enough for two people to pass and held the heat like an oven. She took a sip from the skin Arkoniel had filled at the spring. The water was still cold enough to make her eyes ache.
‘Is it much further?’ he asked.
‘Just a little way.’ Promising herself a cool bath at the inn, Iya stood and continued on.
‘You knew the King’s mother, didn’t you?’ Arkoniel said, scrambling along behind her. ‘Was she as bad as they say?’
The stele must have gotten him thinking. ‘Not at first. Agnalain the Just, they called her. But she had a dark streak in her that worsened with age. Some say it came from her father’s blood. Others said it was because of the trouble she had with childbearing. Her first consort gave her two sons. Then she seemed to go barren for years and gradually developed a taste for young consorts and public executions. Erius’s own father went to the block for treason. After that no one was safe. By the Four, I can still remember the stink of the crow cages lining the roads around Ero! We all hoped she’d improve when she finally had a daughter, but she didn’t. It only made her worse.’
It had been easy enough in those black days for Agnalain’s eldest son, Prince Erius – already a seasoned warrior and the people’s darling – to argue that the Oracle’s words had been twisted, that the prophecy had referred only to King Thelátimos’ actual daughter, not to a matrilineal line of succession. Surely brave Prince Erius was better suited to the throne than the only direct female heir; his half-sister Ariani was just past her third birthday.
Never mind the fact that Skala had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity under her queens, or that the only other man to take the throne, Ghërilain’s own son Pelis had brought on both plague and drought during his brief reign. Only when his sister had replaced him on the throne had Illior protected the land again as the Oracle had promised.
Until now.
When Agnalain died so suddenly, it was whispered that Prince Erius and his brother Aron had had a hand in it. But the rumour had been whispered with relief rather than condemnation; everyone knew Erius had ruled in all but name during the last terrible years of his mother’s decline. The renewed rumblings from Plenimar were growing too loud for the nobles to risk civil war on behalf of a child queen. The crown passed to Erius without challenge. Plenimar attacked the southern ports that same year and he drove the invaders back into the sea and burned their black ships. This seemed to lay the prophecy to rest.
All the same, there had been more blights and drought in the past nineteen years than even the oldest wizards could recall. The current drought was in its third year in some parts of the country, and had wiped out whole villages already decimated by wildfires and waves of plague brought in from the northern trade routes. Arkoniel’s parents had died in one such epidemic a few years earlier. A quarter of Ero’s population had succumbed in a few months’ time, including Prince Aron, as well as Erius’ consort, both daughters, and two of his three sons, leaving only the second youngest boy, Korin, alive. Since then, the words of the Oracle were being whispered again in certain quarters.
Iya had her own reasons now for regretting Erius’ coup. His sister, Ariani, had grown up to marry Iya’s patron, powerful Duke Rhius of Atyion. The couple was expecting their first child in the fall.
Both wizards were sweating and winded by the time they reached the tight cul-de-sac where the shrine lay.
‘It’s not quite what I expected,’ Arkoniel muttered, eyeing what appeared to be a broad stone well.
Iya chuckled. ‘Don’t judge too quickly.’
Two sturdy priests in dusty red robes and silver masks sat in the shade of a wooden lean-to beside the well. Iya joined them and sat down heavily on a stone seat. ‘I need time to compose my thoughts,’ she told Arkoniel. ‘You go first.’
The priests carried a coil of heavy rope to the well, motioning for Arkoniel to join them. He gave Iya a nervous grin as they fixed a loop of it around his hips. Still silent, they guided him into the stone enclosure to the entrance to the oracle chamber. From the surface, this was nothing but a hole in the ground about four feet in diameter.
It was always daunting, this act of faith and surrender, and more so the first time. But as always, Arkoniel did not hesitate. Sitting with his feet over the edge, he gripped the rope and nodded for the priests to let him down. He slid out of sight and they paid out the line until it went slack.
Iya remained in the lean-to, trying to still her racing heart. She’d done her best for days not to think too directly on what she was about to do. Now that she was here, she suddenly regretted her decision. Closing her eyes, she tried to examine this fear, but could find no basis for it. Yes, she was disobeying her master’s injunction, but that wasn’t it. Here on the very doorstep of the Oracle, she had a premonition of something dark looming just ahead. She prayed silently for the strength to face whatever Illior revealed to her today, for she could not turn aside.
Arkoniel’s twitch on the rope came sooner than she’d expected. The priests hauled him up and he hurried over and collapsed on the ground beside her, looking rather perplexed.
‘Iya, it was the strangest thing!’ he began, but she held up a warning hand.
‘There’ll be time enough later,’ she told him, knowing she must go now or not at all.
She took her place in the harness, breath tight in her chest as she hung her feet over the edge of the hole. Grasping the rope with one hand and the leather bag with the other, she nodded to the priests and began her descent.
She felt the familiar nervous flutter in her belly as she swung down into the cool darkness. She’d never been able to guess the actual dimensions of this underground chamber; the silence and faint movement of air against her face suggested a vast cavern. Where the sunlight struck the stone floor below, it showed the gently undulating smoothness of stone worn by some ancient underground river.
After a few moments her feet touched solid ground and she stepped free of the rope and out of the circle of sunlight. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out a faint glow nearby and walked towards it. The light had appeared from a different direction each time she’d come here. When she reached the Oracle at last, however, everything was just as she remembered.
A crystal orb on a silver tripod gave off a wide circle of light. The Oracle sat next to it on a low ivory stool carved in the shape of a crouching dragon.
This one is so young! Iya thought, inexplicably saddened. The last two Oracles had been old women with skin bleached white by years of darkness. This girl was no more than fourteen, but her skin was already pale. Dressed in a simple linen shift that left her arms and feet bare, she sat with her palms on her knees. Her face was round and plain, her eyes vacant. Like wizards, the sibyls of Afra did not escape Illior’s touch unscathed.
Iya knelt at her feet. A masked priest stepped into the circle of light with a large silver salver held out before him. The silence of the chamber swallowed Iya’s sigh as she unwrapped the bowl and placed it on the salver.
The priest presented it to the Oracle, placing it on her knees. Her face remained vacant, betraying nothing.
Doesn’t she feel the evil of the thing? Iya wondered. The unveiled power of it made Iya’s head hurt.
The girl stirred at last and looked down at the bowl. Silvery light bright as moonshine on snow swelled in a nimbus around her head and shoulders. Iya felt a thrill of awe. Illior had entered the girl.
‘I see demons feasting on the dead. I see the God Whose Name Is Not Spoken,’ the Oracle said softly.
Iya’s heart turned to stone in her breast, her worst fears confirmed. This was Seriamaius, the dark god of necromancy worshipped by the Plenimarans, who’d come so close to destroying Skala in the Great War. ‘I’ve dreamt this. War and disasters far worse than any Skala has ever known.’
‘You see too far, Wizard.’ The Oracle lifted the bowl in both hands and by some trick of the light her eyes became sunken black holes in her face. The priest was nowhere to be seen now, although Iya had not heard him leave.
The Oracle turned the bowl slowly in her hands. ‘Black makes white. Foul makes pure. Evil creates greatness. Out of Plenimar comes present salvation and future peril. This is a seed that must be watered with blood. But you see too far.’
The Oracle tilted the bowl forward and bright blood splashed out, too much for such a small vessel. It formed a round pool on the stone floor at the Oracle’s feet. Looking into it, Iya caught the reflection of a woman’s face framed by the visor of a bloody war helm. Iya could make out two intense blue eyes, a firm mouth above a pointed chin. The face was harsh one moment, sorrowful the next, and so familiar that it made her heart ache, though she couldn’t say then of whom those eyes reminded her. Flames reflected off the helm and somewhere in the distance Iya heard the clash of battle.
The apparition slowly faded and was replaced by that of a shining white palace standing on a high cliff. It had a glittering dome, and at each of its four corners stood a slender tower.
‘Behold the Third Orëska,’ the Oracle whispered. ‘Here may you lay your burden down.’
Iya leaned forward with a gasp of awe. The palace had hundreds of windows and at every window stood a wizard, looking directly at her. In the highest window of the closest tower she saw Arkoniel, robed in blue and holding the bowl in his hands. A little child with thick blond curls stood at his side.
She could see Arkoniel quite clearly now, even though she was so far away. He was an old man, with a face deeply lined and weary beyond words. Even so, her heart swelled with joy at the sight of him.
‘Ask,’ the Oracle whispered.
‘What is the bowl?’ she called to Arkoniel.
‘It’s not for us, but he will know,’ Arkoniel told her, passing the bowl to the little boy. The child looked at Iya with an old man’s eyes and smiled.
‘All is woven together, Guardian,’ the Oracle said as this vision faded into something darker. ‘This is the legacy you and your kind are offered. One with the true queen. One with Skala. You shall be tested with fire.’
Iya saw the symbol of her craft – the thin crescent of Illior’s moon – against a circle of fire and the number 222 glowing just beneath it in figures of white flame so bright they hurt her eyes.
Then Ero lay spread before her under a bloated moon, in flames from harbour to citadel. An army under the flag of Plenimar surrounded it, too numerous to count. Iya could feel the heat of the flames on her face as Erius led his army out against them. But his soldiers fell dead behind him and the flesh fell from his charger’s bones in shreds. The Plenimarans surrounded the King like wolves and he was lost from sight. The vision shifted dizzyingly again and Iya saw the Skalan crown, bent and tarnished now, lying in a barren field.
‘So long as a daughter of Thelátimos’ line defends and rules, Skala shall never be subjugated,’ the Oracle whispered.
‘Ariani?’ Iya asked, but knew even as she spoke that it had not been the Princess’ face she’d seen framed in that helm.
The Oracle began to sway and keen. Raising the bowl, she poured its endless flow over her head like a libation, masking herself in blood. Falling to her knees, she grasped Iya’s hand and a whirlwind took them, striking Iya blind.
Screaming winds surrounded her, then entered the top of her head and plunged down through the core of her like a shipwright’s augur. Images flashed by like wind-borne leaves: the strange number on its shield, and the helmeted woman in many forms and guises – old, young, in rags, crowned, hanging naked from a gibbet, riding garlanded through broad, unfamiliar streets. Iya saw her clearly now, her face, her blue eyes, black hair, and long limbs like Ariani’s. But it was not the Princess.
The Oracle’s voice cut through the maelstrom. ‘This is your Queen, Wizard, this true daughter of Thelátimos. She will turn her face to the west.’
Suddenly Iya felt a bundle placed in her arms and looked down at the dead infant the Oracle had given her.
‘Others see, but only through smoke and darkness,’ said the Oracle. ‘By the will of Illior the bowl came into your hands; it is the long burden of your line, Guardian, and the bitterest of all. But in this generation comes the child who is the foundation of what is to come. She is your legacy. Two children, one queen marked with the blood of passage.’
The dead infant looked up at Iya with black staring eyes and searing pain tore through her chest. She knew whose child this was.
Then the vision was gone and Iya found herself kneeling in front of the Oracle with the unopened bag in her arms. There was no dead infant, no blood on the floor. The Oracle sat on her stool, shift and hair unstained.
‘Two children, one queen,’ the Oracle whispered, looking at Iya with the shining white eyes of Illior.
Iya trembled before that gaze, trying to cling to all she’d seen and heard. ‘The others who dream of this child, Honoured One – do they mean her well or ill? Will they help me raise her up?’
But the god was gone and the girl child slumped on the stool had no answers.
Sunlight blinded Iya as she emerged from the cavern. The heat took her breath away and her legs would not support her. Arkoniel caught her as she collapsed against the stone enclosure. ‘Iya, what happened? What’s wrong?’
‘Just … just give me a moment,’ she croaked, clutching the bag to her chest.
A seed watered with blood.
Arkoniel lifted her easily and carried her into the shade. He put the waterskin to her lips and Iya drank, leaning heavily against him. It was some time before she felt strong enough to start back for the inn. Arkoniel kept one arm about her waist and she suffered his help without complaint. They were within sight of the stele when she fainted.
When she opened her eyes again she was lying on a soft bed in a cool, dim room at the inn. Sunlight streamed in through a crack in the dusty shutter and struck shadows across the carved wall beside the bed. Arkoniel sat beside her, clearly worried.
‘What happened with the Oracle?’ he asked.
Illior spoke and my question was answered, she thought bitterly. How I wish I’d listened to Agazhar.
She took his hand. ‘Later, when I’m feeling stronger. Tell me your vision. Was your query answered?’
Her answer obviously frustrated him, but he knew better than to press her. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I asked what sort of wizard I’d become, what my path would be. She showed me a vision in the air, but all I could make out was an image of me holding a young boy in my arms.’
‘Did he have blond hair?’ she asked, thinking of the child in the beautiful white tower.
‘No, it was black. To be honest, I was disappointed, coming all this way just for that. I must have done something wrong in the asking.’
‘Sometimes you must wait for the meaning to be revealed.’ Iya turned away from that earnest young face, wishing that the Lightbearer had granted her such a respite. The sun still blazed down on the square outside her window, but Iya saw only the road back to Ero before her, and darkness at its end.
CHAPTER TWO
A red harvest moon cast the sleeping capital into a towering mosaic of light and shadow that nineteenth night of Erasin. Crooked Ero, the capital was called. Built on a rambling hill overlooking the islands of the Inner Sea, the streets spread like poorly woven lace down from the walls of the Palatine Circle to the quays and shipyards and rambling slums below. Poor and wealthy alike lived cheek-by-jowl, and every house in sight of the harbour had at least one window facing east towards Plenimar like a watchful eye.
The priests claim Death comes in the west door, Arkoniel thought miserably as he rode through the west gate behind Iya and the witch. Tonight would be the culmination of the nightmare that had started nearly five months earlier at Afra.
The two women rode in silence, their faces hidden by their deep hoods. Heartsick at the task that lay before them, Arkoniel willed Iya to speak, change her mind, turn aside, but she said nothing and he could not see her eyes to read them. For over half his life she’d been teacher, mentor, and second mother to him. Since Afra, she’d become a house full of closed doors.
Lhel had gone quiet, too. Her kind had been unwelcome here for generations. She wrinkled her nose now as the stink of the city engulfed them. ‘You great village? Ha! Too many.’
‘Not so loud!’ Arkoniel looked around nervously. Wandering wizards were not as welcome here as they had been, either. It would go hard with them all to be found with a hill witch.
‘Smells like tok,’ Lhel muttered.
Iya pushed back her hood and surprised Arkoniel with a thin smile. ‘She says it smells like shit here, and so it does.’
Lhel’s one to talk, Arkoniel thought. He’d kept upwind of the hill woman since they’d met.
After their strange visit to Afra they’d gone first to Ero and guested with the Duke and his lovely, fragile princess. By day they gamed and rode. Each night Iya spoke in secret with the Duke.
From there, he and Iya spent the rest of that hot, sullen summer searching the remote mountain valleys of the northern province for a witch to aid them, for no Orëska wizard possessed the magic for the task that Illior had set them. By the time they found one, the aspen leaves were already edged with gold.
Driven from the fertile lowlands by the first incursions of Skalan settlers, the small, dark-skinned hill people kept to their high valleys and did not welcome travellers. When Iya and Arkoniel approached a village, they might hear dogs barking the alarm, or mothers calling their children; by the time they reached the edge of a settlement, only a few armed men would be in sight. These men made no threats, but offered no hospitality.
Lhel’s welcome had surprised them when they’d happened across her lonely hut. Not only had she welcomed them properly, setting out water, cider, and cheese, but she claimed to have been expecting them.
Iya spoke the witch’s language, and Lhel had picked up a few words of Skalan somewhere. From what Arkoniel could make out between them, the witch was not surprised by their request. She claimed her moon goddess had shown them to her in a dream.
Arkoniel felt very awkward around the woman. Her magic radiated from her like the musky heat of her body, but it was more than that. Lhel was a woman in her prime. Her black hair hung in a tangled, curling mass to her waist and her loose woollen dress couldn’t mask the curves of hip and breast as she sauntered around her little hut, bringing him food and the makings for a pallet. He didn’t need an interpreter to know that she asked Iya if she might sleep with him that night or that she was both offended and amused when Iya explained the concept of wizards’ celibacy to her. The Orëska wizards reserved all their vitality for their magic.
Arkoniel feared that the witch might change her mind then, but the following morning they woke to find her waiting for them outside the door, a travelling bundle slung ready behind the saddle of her shaggy pony.
The long journey back to Ero had been an awkward time for the young man. Lhel delighted in teasing him, making certain that he saw when she lifted her skirts to wash, and losing no opportunity to bump against him as she moved about their camp each night, plucking the year’s last herbs with her knobby, stained fingers. Vows or not, Arkoniel couldn’t help but notice and something in him stirred uneasily.
When their work in Ero was finished this night, he would never see her again and for that he would be most thankful.
As they rode across an open square, Lhel pointed up at the red full moon and clucked her tongue. ‘Baby caller moon, all fat and bloody. We hurry. No shaimari.’
She brought two fingers towards her nostrils in a graceful flourish, mimicking the intake of breath. Arkoniel shuddered.
Iya pressed one hand over her eyes and Arkoniel felt a moment’s hope. Perhaps she would relent after all. But she was merely sending a sighting spell up to the Palatine ahead of them.
After a moment she shook her head. ‘No. We have time.’
A cold salt breeze tugged at their cloaks as they reached the seaward side of the citadel and approached the Palatine gate. Arkoniel inhaled deeply, trying to ease the growing tightness in his chest. A party of revellers passed them, and by the light of the linkboys’ lanterns Arkoniel stole another look at Iya. The wizard’s pale, square face betrayed nothing.
It is the will of Illior, Arkoniel repeated silently. There could be no turning aside.
Since the death of the King’s only female heir, women and girls of close royal blood had died at an alarming rate. Few dared speak of it aloud in the city, but in too many cases it was not plague or hunger that carried them down to Bilairy’s gate.
The King’s cousin took ill after a banquet in town and did not awaken the next morning. Another somehow managed to fall from her tower window. His two pretty young nieces, daughters of his own brother, were drowned sailing on a sunny day. Babies born to more distant relations, all girls, were found dead in their cradles. Their nurses whispered of night spirits. As potential female claimants to the throne dropped away one by one, the people of Ero turned nervous eyes towards the King’s young half sister and the unborn child she carried.
Her husband, Duke Rhius, was fifteen years older than his pretty young wife and owned vast holdings of castles and lands, the greatest of which lay at Atyion, half a day’s ride north of the city. Some said that the marriage had been a love match between the Duke’s lands and the Royal Treasury, but Iya thought otherwise.
The couple lived at the grand castle at Atyion when Rhius was not serving at court. When Ariani became pregnant, however, they had taken up residence at Ero, in her house beside the Old Palace.
Iya guessed that the choice was the King’s rather than hers, and Ariani had confirmed her suspicions during their visit that summer.
‘May Illior and Dalna grant us a son,’ Ariani had whispered as she and Iya sat together in the garden court of her house, hands to her swelling belly.
As a child Ariani had adored her handsome older brother, who’d been more like a father to her. Now she understood all too well that she lived at his whim; in these uncertain times, any girl claiming Ghërilain’s blood posed a threat to the new male succession, should the Illioran faction fight to re-establish the sacred authority of Afra.
With every new bout of plague or famine, the whispers of doubt grew stronger.
In a darkened side street outside the gate Iya cloaked herself and Lhel in invisibility, and Arkoniel approached the guards as if alone.
There were still a great many people abroad at this hour, but the sergeant-at-arms took special note of the silver amulet Arkoniel wore and called him aside.
‘What’s your business here so late, Wizard?’
‘I’m expected. I’ve come to visit my patron, Duke Rhius.’
‘Your name?’
‘Arkoniel of Rhemair.’
A scribe noted this down on a wax tablet and Arkoniel strolled on into the labyrinth of houses and gardens that ringed this side of the Palatine. To the right loomed the great bulk of the New Palace, which Queen Agnalain had begun and her son was finishing. To the left lay the rambling bulk of the Old Palace.
Iya’s magic was so strong even he couldn’t tell if she and the witch were still with him, but he didn’t dare turn or whisper to them.
Ariani’s fine house stood surrounded by its own walls and courtyards; Arkoniel entered by the front gate and barred it behind him as soon as he felt Iya’s touch on his arm. He looked around nervously, half expecting to find the King’s Guard lurking behind the bare trees and statuary in the shadowed garden, or the familiar faces of the Duke’s personal guard. There was no one here, not even a watchman or porter. The garden was silent, the air heavy with the scent of some last hardy bloom of autumn.
Iya and the witch reappeared beside him and together they headed across the courtyard towards the arched entrance. They hadn’t gone three steps when a horned owl swooped down and pounced on a young rat not ten feet from where they stood. Flapping for balance, it dispatched the squeaking rodent, then looked up at them, eyes like gold sester coins. Such birds were not uncommon in the city, but Arkoniel felt a thrill of awe; owls were the messengers of Illior.
‘A favourable omen,’ Iya murmured as it flapped away, leaving the dead rat behind.
The Duke’s steward, Mynir, answered her knock. A thin, solemn, stoop-shouldered old fellow, he’d always reminded Arkoniel of a cricket. He was one of the few who would help carry his master’s burden in the years to come.
‘Thank the Maker!’ the old man whispered, grasping Iya’s hand. ‘The Duke is half out of his mind –’ He broke off at the sight of Lhel.
Arkoniel could guess the man’s thoughts: witch, unclean, handler of the dead, a necromancer who called up demons and ghosts.
Iya touched his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Mynir, your master knows. Where is he?’
‘Upstairs, Mistress. I’ll fetch him.’
Iya held him a moment longer. ‘And Captain Tharin?’ Tharin, the knight in charge of the Duke’s personal guard, was seldom far from Rhius’ side. Illior had not spoken for him, but Iya and Rhius had not discussed how he was to be kept away from this night’s business.
‘The Duke sent him and the men to Atyion for the rents.’ Mynir led them into the darkened audience hall. ‘The women have all been sent to sleep at the Palace, so as not to disturb the Princess in her labour. It’s just your Nari and myself tonight, Mistress. I’ll fetch the Duke.’ He hurried up the sweeping staircase.
A fire burned in the great fireplace across the chamber, but no lamps were lit. Arkoniel turned slowly, trying to make out the familiar shapes of furniture and hangings. This house had always been alive with music and gaiety. Tonight it seemed like a tomb.
‘Is that you, Iya?’ a deep voice called. Rhius strode down the stairs to meet them. He was nearly forty now, a handsome, broadly built warrior, with arms and hands knotted from a life spent clutching a sword or the reins. Tonight, however, his skin was sallow beneath his black beard and his short tunic was sweated through as if he’d been running or fighting. Warrior that he was, he stank of fear.
He stared at Lhel, then seemed to sag. ‘You found one.’
Iya handed her cloak to the steward. ‘Of course, my lord.’
A ragged scream rang out overhead. Rhius clutched a fist to his heart. ‘There was no need for the herbs to start the birthing pangs. Her waters broke at mid-morning. She’s been like this since sunset. She keeps begging for her own women –’
Lhel muttered something to Iya, who interpreted the question for the Duke.
‘She asks if your lady has any issue of blood?’
‘No. Your woman keeps claiming all is well, but …’
Upstairs, Ariani screamed again and Arkoniel’s stomach lurched. The poor woman had no idea who was in her house this night. Iya had given the couple her solemn pledge to protect any daughter born to the royal house; she had not revealed to the child’s mother the means the Lightbearer had given her to do so. Only Rhius knew. Ambition had guaranteed his consent.
‘Come, it’s time.’ Iya started for the stairs but Rhius caught her by the arm.
‘Are you certain this is the only way? Couldn’t you just take one of them away?’
Iya regarded him coldly. She stood two steps above him and in this light she looked for an instant like a stone effigy. ‘The Lightbearer wants a queen. You want your child to rule. This is the price. The favour of Illior is with us in this.’
Rhius released her and sighed heavily. ‘Come then, and let’s be done with it.’ Rhius followed the two women up and Arkoniel followed him, close enough to hear the Duke murmur, ‘There will be other babes.’
Princess Ariani’s bedchamber was stifling. The others went to the bed, but Arkoniel halted just inside the doorway, overwhelmed by the heavy odour of the birthing chamber.
He’d never seen this part of the house before. Under different circumstances he’d have thought it a pretty room. The walls and carved bed were covered with bright hangings embroidered with fanciful underwater scenes, and the marble mantle was carved with dolphins. A familiar workbasket lay on a chair by the shuttered window; a cloth head and arm protruded from beneath the half-open lid – one of the Princess’s lady dolls, half finished. Ariani was famous for her clever handiwork and all the great ladies of Ero and some of the lords had one.
Tonight the sight of this one knotted Arkoniel’s guts.
Through the half-open bed hangings he could see the bulging curve of Ariani’s belly and one clenched hand gleaming with costly rings. A plump, sweet-faced serving woman stood over Ariani, murmuring to her as she bathed the labouring woman’s face. This was Nari, a widowed kinswoman of Iya’s, chosen to be the child’s wet nurse. Iya had intended for Nari to bring her own babe to be the companion of Ariani’s, but the gods had other plans. A few weeks earlier Nari’s child had succumbed to pneumonia. Even in her grief, Nari had faithfully squeezed the milk from her breasts to keep it flowing. The front of her loose gown was stained with it.
Lhel set to work, issuing quiet orders while she laid out the things she needed at the end of the bed: bunches of herbs, a thin silver knife, needles of bone, a skein of silk thread, impossibly fine.
Ariani lurched up with another wail and Arkoniel caught a glimpse of her face, glassy-eyed and drugged now, behind a tangle of lustrous black hair.
The Princess was not much older than he was, and though he seldom allowed himself to think on it, he had harboured a secret admiration for her ever since her marriage to Rhius had brought Arkoniel into her sphere. Ariani was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and she’d always treated him graciously. Hot shame washed over him; this was how her kindness was repaid.
Too soon Iya turned and motioned for him to join her by the bed. ‘Come, Arkoniel, we need you now.’
He and Nari held Ariani’s feet as the witch felt between her thighs. Ariani moaned and tried weakly to pull away. Blushing furiously, Arkoniel kept his face turned away until Lhel had finished her examination, then hastily retreated.
Lhel washed her hands in a basin, then bent to pat Ariani’s cheek. ‘Is good, keesa.’
‘There are – there are two, aren’t there, Midwife?’ Ariani gasped faintly.
Arkoniel shot Iya a concerned look, but she only shrugged. ‘A woman needs no midwife to tell her how many babes she has in her belly.’
Nari brewed a dish of tea from some of the witch’s herbs and helped Ariani to sip it. After a few moments, the woman’s breathing slowed and she grew quiet. Climbing onto the bed, Lhel massaged Ariani’s belly, all the while murmuring to her in a soothing, singsong voice.
‘The first child must be turned into position to enter the world so that the other may follow,’ Iya translated for Rhius, who stood now in agonized silence by the head of the bed.
Lhel moved so that she was kneeling between Ariani’s knees, still rubbing her belly. After a few moments the witch let out a soft cry of triumph. Watching from the corner of his eye, Arkoniel saw her lift a wet little head into view with one hand. With the other, she held the child’s nostrils and mouth shut until the rest of it was birthed.
‘A girl keesa!’ she announced, taking her hand from the child’s face.
Arkoniel let out a gasp of relief as the girl child sucked in her first lungful of air. This was the shaimari, the ‘soul’s breath’ that the witch was so concerned with.
Lhel cut the birth cord with her silver knife and held the child up for all to see. The baby was well formed under the birth muck, and had a thick head of wet black hair.
‘Thank the Lightbringer!’ Rhius exclaimed, leaning down to kiss his sleeping wife’s brow. ‘A first born girl, just as the Oracle promised!’
‘And look,’ said Nari, leaning forward to touch a tiny wine-coloured birthmark on the child’s left forearm. ‘She has a favour mark, too, just like a rosebud.’
Iya gave Arkoniel a tight, triumphant smile. ‘Here’s our future queen, my boy.’
Tears of joy blurred Arkoniel’s vision and tightened his throat, but the moment was tainted by the knowledge that their work was not yet finished.
While Nari bathed the girl child, Lhel began coaxing forth the twin. Ariani’s head lolled limp against the pillow. Rhius retreated to the fireplace, mouth set in a grim line.
Tears of a different sort stung Arkoniel’s eyes. Forgive us, my sweet lady, he prayed, unable to look away.
Despite Lhel’s efforts, the second child came wrong way around, a footling breach. Muttering steadily in her own tongue, Lhel worked the other leg free and the little body slid out.
‘Boy keesa,’ Lhel said softly, hand poised to cover the child’s face as it emerged, to prevent that all-important first breath so that the soul might not be fixed in the flesh.
Suddenly, however, there was a loud clatter of horsemen in the street outside, and a shout of, ‘Open in the name of the King!’
Lhel was as startled as the rest of them. In that instant of distraction the child’s head slipped free of his mother’s body and he sucked a breath, strong and clear.
‘By the Light!’ Iya hissed, whirling on the witch. Lhel shook her head and bent over the squirming babe. Arkoniel backed quickly away, unable to watch what must follow. He shut his eyes so tightly he saw flashes of light behind the lids, but he could not escape the sound of the child’s loud, healthy cry, or the way it suddenly choked off. The silence left in its wake left him dizzy and sick.
What followed seemed to take a very long time, although in truth they had only minutes. Lhel took the living child from Nari and placed her on the bed next to her dead twin. Chanting over them, she drew patterns in the air and the living child went still as death. When Lhel took up her knife and needle, Arkoniel had to turn away again. Behind him, he could hear Rhius weeping softly.
Then Iya was at his side, pushing him out into the cold corridor. ‘Go downstairs and hold off the King. Keep him as long as you can! I’ll send Nari down when it’s safe.’
‘Hold him off? How?’
The door swung shut in his face and he heard the key turn.
‘Very well, then.’ Arkoniel dried his face on his sleeve and ran his hands back through his hair. At the top of the staircase he paused and turned his face up to the unseen moon, sending a silent prayer to Illior. Aid my faltering tongue, Lightbearer, or cloud the King’s eyes. Or both, if it’s not asking too much.
He wished now that Captain Tharin was here. The tall, quiet knight had a manner that put everyone at their ease. With a lifetime of hunting, fighting and court intrigue behind him, he was far better suited than a green young wizard to entertain a man like Erius.
Mynir had lit the bronze lamps that hung between the painted stone pillars in the hall and stoked the fire with cedar logs and sweet resins to make a fragrant blaze. Erius stood beside the hearth, a tall and daunting figure in the firelight and Arkoniel bowed deeply to him. Like Rhius, the King had been shaped by a lifetime of war, but his face was still handsome and filled with a youthful good humour that even a childhood spent in his mother’s court had not extinguished. Only in recent years, as the royal tomb filled with the bodies of his female kin, had some come to regard that kindly visage as a mask for a darker heart, one that perhaps had learned his mother’s lessons after all.
As Arkoniel had suspected, the King had not come alone. His court wizard, Lord Niryn, was there, as close to the King as the man’s own shadow. He was a plain fellow somewhere in his second age, but whatever gifts he possessed had lifted him high and quickly. For years Erius had had no more use for wizards than his mother, but since the death of the King’s wife and children, Niryn’s star had risen steadily at court. Lately he’d taken to wearing his thick red beard forked and had affected costly white robes embroidered with silver.
He acknowledged Arkoniel with a slight nod, and the younger wizard bowed respectfully.
Erius had brought along a priest of Sakor, as well, together with a dozen of his own Guard in their pick spurs and gold badges. Arkoniel’s stomach did an uneasy roll as he caught the glint of mail beneath their red tunics and saw the long knives they carried at their belts. It seemed an odd sort of company to bring into his sister’s house on such an occasion.
He forced a respectful smile, wondering bitterly who had alerted Erius. One of the household women, perhaps? Clearly Erius had been prepared for this visit, despite the hour. The King’s greying beard and curly black hair were neatly combed. His velvet robes looked as fresh as if he’d been on his way to the audience hall. The Sword of Ghërilain, symbol of Skalan rule, hung at his hip.
‘My king,’ Arkoniel bowed again. ‘Your honoured sister is still in the midst of her pains. Duke Rhius sends his respects and asks me to sit with you until he is able to attend you himself.’
Erius raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Arkoniel? What are you doing here? Last I knew, neither you nor that mistress of yours practices midwifery.’
‘No, my king. I was guesting here tonight and have been making myself useful.’ Arkoniel was suddenly aware of the other wizard’s steady gaze. Niryn’s bright brown eyes protruded a bit, giving him a perpetually surprised air that the younger wizard found unsettling. He carefully veiled his mind, praying he was strong enough to keep Niryn from his thoughts without the other man suspecting.
‘Your honoured sister’s labour is a difficult one, I fear, but she will be delivered soon,’ he continued, then wished he hadn’t. The King had attended the births of all his own children. If Erius decided to go upstairs, there was nothing he could do, short of magic, to prevent it. With Niryn here, even that risky avenue was closed to him.
Perhaps Illior had heeded his prayer after all, for Erius shrugged agreeably and sat down at a gaming table by the hearth. ‘How’s your skill with the stones?’ he asked, waving Arkoniel to the other chair. ‘These birthings generally take longer than you’d expect, especially the first. We may as well pass the time pleasantly.’
Hoping his relief was not too obvious, Arkoniel sent Mynir off for wine and sweets, then settled down to losing as best he could.
Niryn sat beside them, pretending to observe the play, but Arkoniel still felt the pressure of his regard. Sweat prickled under his arms and down his back. What did the man want? Did he know something?
He nearly dropped the gaming stones when Niryn suddenly asked, ‘Do you dream, young man?’
‘No, my lord,’ Arkoniel replied. ‘Or if I do, I don’t recall them when I wake up.’
This was true enough; he seldom dreamed in the normal sense, and foreknowing dreams had so far proven to be outside his ken. He waited for Niryn to pursue the question, but he only sat back and stroked the tips of his forked beard, looking bored.
Arkoniel was in the midst of his third game of Geese and Squares when Nari came downstairs.
‘Duke Rhius sends his regards, your majesty,’ she said, curtsying low. ‘He asks if you would like your new nephew brought down to view?’
‘Nonsense!’ Erius exclaimed, setting the stones aside and rising. ‘Tell your master his brother is happy to come to him.’
Again, Arkoniel had an uneasy sense that the King meant more than he said.
That sense grew stronger when Niryn and the priest accompanied them upstairs. Nari caught Arkoniel’s eye as they followed and gave him a quick nod; Iya and Lhel must already be safely away. Entering Ariani’s room, Arkoniel could sense no trace of magic, Orëska or otherwise.
Duke Rhius stood on the far side of the bed, holding his wife’s hand. The Princess was still blessedly asleep, no doubt well drugged. With her black hair combed back smoothly and a hectic spot of colour high on each cheek, she looked like one of her own dolls.
Rhius lifted the swaddled child from the bed and brought it to the King. He’d recovered enough to act his part with dignity.
‘Your nephew, my liege,’ he said, placing the infant in Erius’ arms. ‘With your leave, he shall be named Tobin Erius Akandor, in honour of your father’s line.’
‘A son, Rhius!’ Erius undid the swaddling with a gentle, practiced hand.
Arkoniel held his breath and blanked his mind as Niryn and the priest extended their hands over the sleeping child. Neither appeared to notice anything amiss; Lhel’s magic had covered all trace of the abomination she’d wrought on the little body. And who would think to look for hill witch magic in the chamber of the King’s own sister?
‘A fine boy, Rhius, to bear such a name!’ Erius exclaimed. The birthmark caught his eye. ‘And look at the favour mark he bears. On his left arm, too. Niryn, you know how to read such things. What does this one mean?’
‘Wisdom, your majesty,’ the wizard told him. ‘A most favourable trait in your son’s future companion.’
‘Indeed it is,’ the King said. ‘Yes, you have my leave, Brother, and my blessing. And I’ve brought a priest to make an offering for our little warrior.’
‘You have my thanks, Brother,’ said Rhius.
The priest went to the hearth and began his droning prayers, casting resins and little wax offerings into the flames.
‘By the Flame, he’ll make a great playfellow for my Korin in a few years’ time,’ the King went on. ‘Just think of the two of them, hunting and learning the sword together when your Tobin comes to join the Companions. Just like you and I were, eh? But there was a twin, too, I believe?’
Yes, thought Arkoniel, the King’s spies had been thorough, after all.
Nari bent down and lifted another tiny bundle from behind the bed. Keeping her back to the Princess, she brought it around to the King. ‘A poor little girl child, my king. Never drew breath.’
Erius and the others examined the dead child just as closely, moving its flaccid limbs about, verifying the gender and feeling its chest and neck for signs of life. Watching from the corner of his eye, Arkoniel saw the King cast quick, questioning look at his wizard.
‘They know something. They’re seeking something,’ Arkoniel thought dizzily. Niryn’s question about dreams suddenly took on a dire resonance. Had the man had a vision of his own, a vision of this child? If so, then Lhel’s magic did its work again, for the older wizard replied with a quick shake of his head. Whatever they were looking for, they hadn’t found it here. Arkoniel glanced away before any expression of relief could betray him.
The King handed the body back to Nari and clasped Rhius by the shoulders. ‘It’s a hard thing, losing a child. Sakor knows I still grieve for my lost ones and their dear mother. It’s cold comfort for you, I know, but it’s best this way, before you’d both become attached.’
‘As you say,’ Rhius replied softly.
Giving Rhius a last brotherly thump on the shoulder, Erius went to the bed and kissed his sister gently on the forehead.
The sight made the blood pound in Arkoniel’s head as he thought of the swordsmen in the hall below. This usurper, this killer of girls and women, might love his little sister enough to spare her life, but as the Lightbearer had shown, that forbearance did not extend to her children. He kept his gaze fixed on the floor as the King and his councillors swept out, imagining how differently this little drama would have played out if Erius had found a living girl child here.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Arkoniel’s knees turned to water and he sank into a chair.
But the ordeal was not yet over. Ariani opened her eyes and saw the dead child Nari held. Pulling herself up against the bolsters, she held out her arms for it. ‘Thank the Light! I knew I heard a second cry, but I had the most awful dream …’
The nurse exchanged a look with Rhius and Ariani’s smile faltered. ‘What is it? Give me my child.’
‘It was stillborn, my love,’ Rhius said. ‘Let it be. Look, here’s our fine son.’
‘No, I heard it cry!’ Ariani insisted.
Rhius brought little Tobin to her, but she ignored him, staring instead at the child the nurse held. ‘Give him to me, woman! I command it!’
There was no dissuading her. Ignoring the soft cry of the living child, she took the dead one in her arms and her face went whiter still.
Arkoniel knew in that instant that Lhel’s magic could not deceive the child’s mother the way that it had the others. Twisting his mind to sight through her eyes, he caught a glimpse of the strips of skin Lhel had cut from each child’s breast and sewn with spider-fine stitches into the wound left on its twin, just over the heart. With this exchange of flesh, the transformation had been sealed. The girl child would retain the semblance of male form for as long as Iya deemed necessary, just as her dead brother had taken her form to deceive the King.
‘What have you done?’ Ariani gasped, staring up at Rhius.
‘Later, my love, when you’re rested. Give that one back to Nari and take your son. See how strong he is? And he has your blue eyes …’
‘Son? That is no son!’ Ariani cut him off with a venomous glare. No amount of reasoning prevailed. When Rhius tried to take the dead child from her, she lurched from the bed and fled to the far corner of the room, clutching the tiny corpse against her stained nightdress.
‘This is too much!’ Arkoniel whispered. Going to the frantic woman, he knelt before her.
She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Arkoniel? Look, I have a son. Isn’t he pretty?’
Arkoniel tried to smile. ‘Yes, your highness, he’s – he’s perfect.’ He touched her brow gently, clouding her mind and sending her once more into a deep sleep. ‘Forgive me.’
He reached for the little body, then froze in fear.
The dead child’s eyes were open. Blue as a kitten’s one moment, the irises went black as Arkoniel watched and fixed accusingly on him. An unnatural chill radiated from the little body, slowly spreading to envelop the wizard.
This was the cost of that first breath. The spirit of the murdered child had been drawn into its body just long enough to take hold and become a ghost, or worse.
‘By the Four, what’s happening?’ Rhius rasped, leaning over him.
‘There’s nothing to fear,’ Arkoniel said quickly, though in truth this tiny unnatural creature struck fear to the core of his heart.
Nari knelt beside him and whispered, ‘The witch said to take it away quickly. She said you must put it in the ground under a large tree. There’s great chestnut in the rear courtyard by the summer kitchen. The roots will hold the demon down. Hurry! The longer it stays here, the stronger it will grow!’
It took every bit of courage Arkoniel possessed to touch the dead child. Taking it from Ariani’s arms, he covered its face with a corner of the wrappings and hurried out. Nari was right; the waves of icy coldness pouring from the lifeless body grew stronger by the moment. It made his joints ache as he bore it downstairs and out through the back passage of the house.
The moon watched like an accusing eye as Arkoniel placed his cursed burden at the foot of the chestnut tree and mouthed, forgive me once more. But he expected no forgiveness for this night’s work and wept as he wove his spell. His tears fell on the little bundle as he bent to watch it sink down into the earth’s cold embrace between the gnarled roots.
The faint wail of an infant came to him on the cold night air and he shuddered, not knowing if it came from the living child or the dead one.
CHAPTER THREE
For all their power, these Orëska wizards are very stupid. And arrogant, Lhel thought as Iya urged her down a back stair and away from the cursed house.
The witch spat thrice to the left, hoping to cut the bad luck that had bound them together all these weeks. A real storm crow, this wizard. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner?
Lhel had scarely had time to finish the last stitch on the living child before the elder wizard was urging her away. ‘I’m not finished! The spirit –’
‘The King is downstairs!’ Iya hissed, as if this should mean something to her. ‘If he finds you here, we’ll all be spirits. I will force you if I must.’
What choice did she have? So Lhel had followed the wizard away, thinking, Be it on your head, then.
But the further they got from that house, the more it weighed on her heart. To treat the dead so brutally was a dangerous affront to the Mother, and to Lhel’s craft. This wizard woman had no honour, to abandon a child’s spirit like that. Arkoniel might have been made to listen, but Lhel had long since realized that he had no voice in the matter. Their god had spoken to Iya and Iya would listen to no other.
Lhel spat again, just for good measure.
Lhel had dreamed the coming of the two wizards for a full month before they’d appeared in her village: a man boy and a woman who carried a strange burden in a bag. Every divination she’d done as she awaited their arrival indicated that it was the Mother’s will. Lhel must give them whatever aid they asked. When Iya and Arkoniel did finally arrive, they claimed that a vision from their own moon god had brought them to her. Lhel had taken this as an auspicious sign.
Still, she had been surprised at the nature of their request. Orëska must be a pale, milk-fed sort of magic indeed, for two people possessed of such powerful souls not have the craft to make a simple skin binding. Had she understood then the true depth of their ignorance, she might have tried to share more of her knowledge with them before the time came to use it.
But she hadn’t understood until it was too late, until the moment her hand had faltered, letting the boy child draw his first breath. Iya would not wait for the necessary cleansing sacrifice. There was no time for anything but to complete the binding and flee, leaving the angry new spirit lost and alone.
Lhel balked again as the city gate came into sight ahead of them. ‘You cannot leave such a spirit earthbound!’ she said again, struggling to free her wrist from Iya’s grasp. ‘It grows to a demon before you know it, and then what will you do, you who couldn’t bind it in the first place?’
‘I will deal with it.’
‘You are a fool.’
The taller woman turned, bringing their faces close together. ‘I am saving your life, woman, and that of the child and her family! If the King’s wizard caught so much as a whiff of you we’d all be executed, starting with that baby. She’s all that matters now, not you or me or anyone else in this whole wretched land. It’s the will of Illior.’
Once again, Lhel felt the massive power coursing through the wizard. Different Iya might be and possessed of unfamiliar magic, but there was no question that she was god-touched, and more than a match for Lhel. So she’d let herself be led away, leaving the child and its skin-bound twin behind in the stinking city. She hoped Arkoniel had found a strong tree to hold the spirit down.
They bought horses and travelled together for two days. Lhel said little, but prayed silently to the Mother for guidance. When they reached the edge of the highlands, she allowed Iya to give her into the care of a band of caravaneers heading west into the mountains. As they parted, Iya had even tried to make peace with her.
‘You did well, my friend,’ she said, her hazel eyes sad as she took Lhel’s hands. ‘Stay safe in your mountains and all will be well. We must never meet again.’
Lhel chose to ignore the thinly veiled threat. Fishing in a pouch at her belt, she drew out a little silver amulet made in the shape of a full moon flanked on either side by slender crescents. ‘For when the child takes woman form again.’
Iya held it on her palm. ‘The Shield of the Mother.’
‘Keep it hidden. It’s only for women. As a boy, she must wear this.’ She gave Iya a short hazel twig capped on both ends with burnished copper bands.
Iya shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’m not the only wizard to have studied your ways.’
‘Then you keep them for her!’ Lhel urged. ‘This child will need much magic to survive.’
Iya closed her hand around the amulets, wood and silver together. ‘I will, I promise you. Farewell.’
Lhel stayed with the caravan for three days, and each day the black, cold weight of the dead child’s spirit lay heavier on her heart. Each night its cry grew louder in her dreams. She prayed to the shining Mother to show her why she had sent her here to create such a thing and what she must do to make the world right again.
The Mother answered, and on the third night Lhel danced the dreamsleep dance for her guides, seducing away just enough of their thoughts to remove any memory of her and the supplies she took with her.
Guided by a waning white sliver of moon, she threw her travelling sack over her horse’s neck and turned back for the stinking city.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the uneasy days following the birth, only Nari and the Duke attended Ariani. Rhius sent word to Tharin, sending the captain on to the estate at Cirna to keep him away a while longer.
A silence fell over the household; black banners flew on the roof peaks, proclaiming mourning for the supposed stillbirth. On the household altar, Rhius set a fresh basin of water and burned the herbs sacred to Astellus, who smoothed the water road to birth and death and protected new mothers from childbed fever.
Sitting at Ariani’s bedside each day, however, Nari knew it was not birthing fever that ailed the woman, but a deep sickness of heart. Nari was old enough to remember Queen Agnalain’s last days and prayed that her daughter was not afflicted with the same curse of madness.
Day after day, night after night, Ariani tossed against her pillows, waking to cry out, ‘The child, Nari! Don’t you hear him? He’s so cold.’
‘The child is well, your highness,’ Nari told her each time. ‘See, Tobin is in the cradle here beside you. Look how plump he is.’
But Ariani would not look at the living child. ‘No, I hear him,’ she would insist, staring around wildly. ‘Why have you shut him outside? Fetch him in at once!’
‘There’s no child outside, your highness. You were only dreaming again.’
Nari spoke the truth, for she’d heard nothing, but some of the other servants claimed to have heard an infant’s cry in the darkness outside. Soon a rumour spread through the house that the second child had been stillborn with its eyes open; everyone knew that demons came into the world through such births. Several serving maids had been sent to Atyion already with orders to keep their gossip to themselves. Only Nari and Mynir knew the truth behind the second child’s death.
Loyalty to the Duke guaranteed Mynir’s silence. Nari owed allegiance to Iya. The wizard had been a benefactress to her family for three generations and there were times during those first few chaotic days when only that bond kept the nurse from running back to her own village. Iya had said nothing of demons when Nari agreed to serve.
In the end, however, she stayed for the child’s sake. Her milk flowed freely as soon as she put the dark-haired little mite to her breast and with it all the tenderness she’d thought she’d lost when her husband and son had died. Maker knew neither the Princess nor her husband had any to spare for the poor child.
They must all call Tobin ‘he’ and ‘him’ now. And thanks to the outlandish magic the witch had worked with her knives and needles, Tobin was to all appearances a fine healthy boy child. He slept well, nursed vigorously, and seemed happy with whatever attention was paid him, which was little enough by his own folk.
‘They’ll come ’round, little pet my love,’ Nari would croon to him as he dozed contentedly in her arms. ‘How could they not and you so sweet?’
As Tobin thrived, however, his mother sank ever faster into a darkness of spirit. The bout of fever passed but Ariani kept to her bed. She still would not touch her living child, and she would not even look at her husband, or her brother either, when he came to call.
Duke Rhius was near despair. He sat with her for hours, enduring her silence, and brought in the most skilled drysians from the temple of Dalna. The healers found no illness of the body to cure.
On the twelfth day after the birth, however, the Princess began to show signs of rallying. That afternoon, Nari found her curled in an armchair next to the fire, sewing a doll. The floor around her was littered with scraps of muslin, clumps of stuffing wool, snippets of embroidery silks and thread.
The new doll was finished by nightfall – a boy with no mouth. Another just like it followed the next day, and another. She did not bother to dress the things, but cast each aside as soon as the last stitch was tied off and immediately began on another. By week’s end half a dozen of the things were lined up on the mantelpiece.
‘They’re very pretty, my love, but why not finish the faces?’ Duke Rhius asked, sitting faithfully by her bedside each night.
‘So they won’t cry,’ Ariani hissed, needle flying as she stitched an arm to a wool-packed body. ‘The crying is sending me mad!’
Nari looked away so as not to embarrass the Duke by seeing his tears. It was the first time since the birth that Ariani had spoken to him.
This seemed to encourage the Duke. He sent for Captain Tharin that very night and began to talk of the child’s presentation feast.
Ariani told no one of the dreams that plagued her. Who could she tell? Her own trusted nurse, Lachi, had been sent away weeks ago, replaced by this stranger who would not leave her side. Nari was some relation of Iya’s, Rhius had told her, and that only made Ariani hate her all the more. Her husband, the wizards, this woman – they’d all betrayed her. When she thought of that terrible night, all she remembered was a circle of faces looking down on her without pity. She despised them.
Exhaustion and grief had weighed down on her like a stack of wool quilts at first, and her mind had drifted in a grey fog. Daylight and darkness seemed to play sport with her; she never knew what to expect when she opened her eyes, or whether she dreamed or woke.
At first she thought that the horrid midwife Iya had brought had returned. But soon she realized it must be a dream or waking vision that brought the dark little woman to her bedside each night. She always appeared surrounded by a circle of shifting light, mouthing silent words at Ariani and gesturing with stained fingers for her to eat and drink. It went on for days, this silent pantomime, until Ariani grew used to her. At last she began to make out something of what the woman whispered and the words pulled fire and ice through her veins.
It was then that Ariani began to sew again, and forced herself to eat the bread and thin soups Nari brought to her. The task the witch had set for her would take strength.
The child’s presentation took place a fortnight after the birth. Ariani refused to come downstairs and Nari thought this just as well. The Princess’ strength was returning, but she was still too strange for company. She would not dress and seldom spoke. Her shining black hair was dull and tangled for want of care and her blue eyes stared strangely, as if she was seeing something the rest could not. She slept, she ate, and she sewed doll after mouthless doll. Duke Rhius saw to it that word of a difficult lying-in was spread around the Palatine, as well as rumours of his wife’s deep and continuing grief over the loss of the dead girl child.
Her absence did not mar the celebration too badly. All the principal nobles of Ero crowded into the great hall that night until the whole room seemed to shimmer with jewels and silks under the flickering lamps. Standing with the servants by the wine table, Nari saw some whispering behind their hands and overheard a few speaking of Agnalain’s madness, wondering how the daughter could have gone the way of the mother so quickly and with no warning at all.
It was unseasonably warm that night, and the soft patter of autumn rain swept in through the open windows. The men of the Duke’s personal guard stood at attention flanking the stairs, resplendent in new green and blue. Sir Tharin stood to the left of the stairs in his fine tunic and jewels, looking as pleased as if the child were his own. Nari had taken to the lanky, fair-haired man the day she met him, and liked him all the better for the way his face lit up the first time he saw Tobin in his father’s arms.
The King stood in the place of honour at the right of the staircase, holding his one remaining child on one broad shoulder. Prince Korin was a bright, plump child of three, with his father’s dark curls and bright brown eyes. He bounced excitedly, craning his neck for a look at his new cousin as Rhius appeared at the top of the stairs. The Duke was resplendent in his embroidered robe and circlet. Tobin’s dark head was just visible above the edge of his silken wrappings.
‘Greetings and welcome, my King and my friends!’ Duke Rhius called out. Descending to where the King stood, he went down on one knee and held the child up. ‘My king, I present to you my son and heir, Prince Tobin Erius Akandor.’
Setting Korin down beside him, Erius took Tobin in his arms and showed him to the priests and assembled nobles. ‘Your son and heir is acknowledged before Ero, my brother. May his name be spoken with honour among the Royal Kin of Skala.’
And that was that, though the speechifying and drinking of toasts would go on half the night. Nari shifted restlessly. It was past time to feed the child and her breasts ached. She smiled as she heard a familiar hiccuping whimper. Once Tobin started squalling for his supper they’d soon let him go, and she could retreat to her quiet chamber at the top of the house.
Just then one of the serving maids let out a startled squeak and pointed to the wine table. ‘By the Four, it just toppled over!’
The silver mazer for Rhius’s toast lay on its side, its contents splashed across the dark polished wood beside the honey cake.
‘I was looking right at it,’ the maid went on, voice beginning to rise dangerously. ‘Not a soul was near it!’
‘I can see that!’ Nari whispered, silencing her with a pinch and a glare. Whisking off her apron, she blotted up the spilled wine. It stained the linen red as blood.
Mynir snatched the cloth away and balled it tightly under his arm, hiding the stain. ‘By the Light, don’t let any of the others see!’ he whispered. ‘That was a white wine!’
Looking down at her hands, Nari saw that they were stained red, too, where the wine had wet them, though the droplets still clinging inside the rim of the cup were a pale golden colour.
There was just time to send the trembling girl away to fetch a fresh mazer before the nobles came to make their toasts. Tobin was growing restless and fussy. Nari held him while the Duke raised the cup and sprinkled a few drops of wine over the child, then a few more over the honey cake in the traditional offering to the Four. ‘To Sakor, to make my child a great and just warrior with fire in his heart. To Illior, for wisdom and true dreaming. To Dalna, for many children and long life. To Astellus, for safe journeys and a swift death.’
Nari exchanged a quick look of relief with the steward as the droplets sank away, leaving the cake’s sticky surface unstained.
As soon as the brief ceremony was finished Nari carried Tobin upstairs. The babe knew her and squirmed and grunted, nuzzling at her bodice.
‘You’re a pet, you are,’ Nari murmured absently, still shaken by what she’d witnessed. She thought of the spell sticks Iya had left with her, wondering if she should use one to summon the wizard back. But Iya had been very clear; she was only to use those in the direst circumstances. Nari sighed and hugged Tobin closer, wondering where such portents would lead.
Passing Ariani’s door in the upper corridor, Nari caught sight of a small patch of red on the wall, just above the rushes that covered the floor. She bent for a closer look, then pressed a hand over her mouth.
It was the bloody print of an infant’s hand, splayed like a starfish. The blood was still bright and wet.
‘Maker keep us, it’s in the house!’
Cheers and applause burst out below. She could hear the King proclaiming a blessing for Tobin’s health. With trembling fingers, Nari wiped at the mark with the edge of her skirt until the handprint smeared to a pinkish smudge. Nari pushed the rushes up to cover it, then slipped into Ariani’s chamber, fearful of what she might find.
The Princess sat by the fire, sewing away as madly as ever. For the first time since the birth, she had changed her nightdress for a loose gown and put on her rings again. The hem was damp and streaked with mud. Ariani’s hair hung in damp strands around her face. The window was shut tight as always, but Nari could smell the night air on her, and the hint of something else besides. Nari wrinkled her nose, trying to place the raw, unpleasant odour.
‘You’ve been outside, your highness?’
Ariani smiled down at her needlework. ‘Just for a bit, Nurse. Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Yes, my lady, but you should have waited and I’d have gone with you. You’re not strong enough to be out on your own. What would the Duke say?’
Ariani sewed on, still smiling over her work.
‘Did you see anything … unusual out there, your highness?’ Nari hazarded at last.
Ariani pulled a tuft of wool from a bag beside her and tucked it into the muslin arm she’d sewn. ‘Nothing at all. Off with you now, and fetch me something to eat. I’m famished!’
Nari mistrusted this sudden brightness. As she left, she could hear Ariani humming softly to herself, and recognized the tune as a lullaby.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
