His expression was almost contemptuous. ‘So you are happy to let things continue as they are, for Foy to remain a slumbering, decaying goddess beneath the sea, her true power and yours denied, for Rav one day to take Val’s place as the Dragon Lord of the imperial army?’
Varencienne banged closed fists against the arms of her chair. ‘No, I am not happy with it, but I can’t help feeling the odds are stacked in Gastern’s favour, or even in Bayard’s or Almorante’s. It’s too much of a risk, and I don’t want to put my children, or anyone in Caradore, in danger.’
‘That attitude has helped perpetuate empires throughout history.’
‘It is easy for you to say, Merlan. You are a free agent, unmarried and childless.’
‘If I had wife or children, I would want liberty for them. In my view, it is worth the risks. But why do I bother even saying that? I think your views are similar to mine, but you just can’t face the unpleasant prospect of disposing of your brothers.’
‘Maybe I’m not as hard and driven as you want me to be. Yes, the thought of killing my brothers repulses me. What kind of creature would I be if it did not? Surely not one fit to rule others! I could not stand before any of my kin and plunge a dagger into their heart, and if I haven’t the guts or will to do it myself, there’s no way I should send another to do it!’
‘You’re a hypocrite,’ Merlan said. ‘If someone you’d never met threatened you, your family or Caradore, you’d have them killed without a thought, in order to defend what’s dear to you. If anyone went for Ellie or Rav with a knife, you’d plunge that dagger into their hearts.’
‘This is not the same. My brothers are not a direct threat to me.’
‘Not to you, maybe, no. But we’re not seeking change simply to please ourselves, are we? What about those children who are threatened? Shan was one of them. Magravandian soldiers razed his village and raped him when he was only a child. That is what you will allow to continue with your pious morals! They are the morals of a woman in a high ivory tower, who cannot even see the world through the clouds.’
‘If I am in an ivory tower, it is that of my family and my blood. I do not believe that atrocities, such as you described, will cease with the end of the Malagash dynasty. Humans will always be cruel to one another. You are using emotive propaganda to sway me, but I can see through it. It does not change my view.’
Merlan gestured languidly with both hands. ‘So, we reach an impasse. You will put up with the way things are, and any foul developments that might occur under Gastern’s rule. However, I can’t help feeling that should any rebellious faction achieve success without your aid, you’ll be only too eager to partake of the rewards. Happily, under those circumstances, you will not have blood on your hands.’
Varencienne was silent for a moment. ‘I would like you to leave now, Merlan. I’ve heard quite enough for one day.’
He stood up. ‘Close your ears to it, Ren. That’s the best way, isn’t it? Be a good little woman of the empire, as women always have been. Great Foy, even your mother does more for your gender’s cause than you do.’
‘This is nothing to do with my gender,’ Varencienne said. ‘It is to do with my ethics. Good day to you, Merlan.’
‘We must talk again.’
‘No. Talk to Val, not me.’
He hesitated. ‘I can’t believe you’re behaving like this. You’re not the Varencienne I knew in Caradore.’
‘And you’re not the Merlan I knew either.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Merlan said bitterly. ‘The quest for the Crown changed me. I told you it did. But it is an essential, needful change. You would be wise to emulate it.’
She wouldn’t snap at his bait any further. ‘Good day to you, Merlan.’
After he had gone, Varencienne put her face in her hands. Was she right or wrong? Merlan had spoken of the great responsibility of her position, or her potential position, and in her heart she saw the sense of it: for the greatest good a few might have to be sacrificed. If she believed in that, what difference did it make if those few were her brothers?
Oltefney came back into the room, and uttered a sympathetic sound when she saw Varencienne’s agonised face. ‘What is it, my pet?’ she cried, hurrying over to Varencienne’s chair. ‘What did he say to you?’
Varencienne pressed her face against Oltefney’s belly, sank into the older woman’s embrace. ‘He spoke of the future, Teffy, and it is terrible.’
‘We should go home.’
‘Yes,’ Varencienne agreed, ‘we should.’
That night, writhing restlessly in her bed, Varencienne awoke from a nightmare. At first, she couldn’t remember where she was, and the unfamiliar shapes around her in the room were threatening and unrecognisable. She called out the name of a nurse who had died when she was six years old. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she remembered she was in Magrast. The bed was cold and wide around her like an ice flat. The only time she had not slept alone, in all her life, was during her brief affair with Merlan. Valraven had never spent a whole night with her.
The dream must have been brought on by the events of the day and the fears that had quickened within her. It had to be. She couldn’t bear to contemplate an alternative.
She had been standing on the cliffs above Caradore, a fierce wind blowing her hair into her eyes, so that she’d had to hold it back with both hands to see around her. Below on the beach, two shadowy figures had been wrestling with a struggling burden. She thought they had an animal and were trying to sacrifice it to the sea. Then she had seen it was her own son in their grasp, his mouth wide as if in a scream, but all she could hear was the spiteful lament of the wind. She had called his name, but the sound had been snatched from her lips, carried back towards the castle in the hurrying air. Her feet had been mired in mud, which had also sucked at her skirts. She could not move. Rav’s voice had begun to echo in her mind: ‘Mama! Mama!’ She could do nothing, only watch helplessly as Rav was taken away from her, offered to the sea.
She had thought there was someone standing behind her, for her spine had tensed. She had turned and there was Khaster Leckery sneering down at her from a great height. Was he really that tall? His hair billowed around his face, somehow more than hair. ‘Help me!’ she’d cried. ‘Help my son.’ But it was as if Khaster were nothing more than a statue of bitterness. She had admired this man for so long, and in the dream she’d been sure he’d known that, but all there was in his eyes was contempt and loathing. He’d sprung forward suddenly, his lips stretched into an ugly snarl. He’d raised his arm to strike her, the fingers closed into a fist. Then she’d woken up.
It had been years since she’d had a dream so real it had felt like she’d been awake. In her early years at Caradore, when the magic of the sea dragons had made itself felt in her blood, strange events and dreams had occurred regularly, but since Val had performed the ritual at Old Caradore four years before, they had tailed off. Varencienne had believed a job had been done, and she’d played her part in it. The rest would be up to Val. But now, old feelings came crashing back. It was no use trying to convince herself otherwise: the dream had been a warning. But of what, of who? She couldn’t understand why Caradore should be shown to her as a place of danger.
Varencienne sat in the bed, hugging her knees, resting her cheek upon them. She shivered, feeling sick with a strange longing and a terror of the future.
Chapter Six: Mother Love
‘Are we going to let this happen, mother? Are we?’
Prince Bayard stood before the empress’s chair in her morning room, his face contused with frustrated anger.
Tatrini, the fingertips of her left hand, plunged into a bowl of rose water, while her deaf-mute manicurist worked diligently on her right hand, expressed a faint sigh. ‘Bayard, we will gain nothing from impatience.’
‘But Senefex and Mordryn will have Gastern crowned within the week.’
‘Yes. That is because they want to kee
p hold of our foreign guests in order for Gastern’s inauguration to be blessed and witnessed by all.’
‘No. It is because they afraid. Of us.’
The news had been released that morning. Of course, it would be inconvenient for people like Neferishu and Ashalan to return to their realms and then come back to Magrast for a coronation only weeks in the future. It made sense for Gastern to be crowned immediately. This did not worry Tatrini. She intended to move slowly and carefully.
‘One has to take care in times of fear,’ she said. ‘A sudden move and those who feel threatened will strike out in panic. Let their feathers become smooth.’
‘And what of Almorante? Will he wait before he acts?’
‘Almorante, I am quite sure, intends to let fate do its work. After a short time of Gastern’s rule, which I am sure will be remembered for its many instances of religious persecution, Almorante will simply become the voice of the people and slide into his disgraced brother’s place. I believe Mordryn thinks he can control Gastern, that he is a pious and loyal Madragorean, but the Archimage will have a rude awakening. Suddenly, Almorante will be a much more attractive prospect.’
‘Precisely!’ Bayard cried, gesturing abruptly with his arms. ‘Where will we stand then?’
‘Exactly where we do now,’ Tatrini said softly. She lifted her hand from the bowl, examined her fingernails. ‘Remember, my son, where we began. Gastern is the devoted follower of Madragore, Almorante fancies himself a magus, but we know the truth. Only through the dragons will you acquire the throne. The elements must combine to create a greater whole. You are fire, Bayard, and the fire drakes will bow to you, but we need others.’
‘If you’re talking of Valraven Palindrake, forget it,’ Bayard said. ‘That is a pipe dream. He’ll never support me.’
‘I accept you are right,’ Tatrini said mildly, ‘and have amended my views.’
Bayard frowned at her. ‘But he was your water man, wasn’t he? The dragon heir, avatar of the sea dragons?’
‘He is that,’ Tatrini said, ‘but then, so is his son.’
‘Ah,’ said Bayard, beginning to smile.
‘Indeed. Earth is a problematical element, but I have made a decision. Leo must be our basilisk.’
‘My brother Leo?’ Bayard pulled a disagreeable face. ‘He’s just a boy.’
‘As is Rav. That doesn’t matter.’
‘And air? Have you someone lined up for that? Another of my puling siblings, perhaps?’
Tatrini winced as her manicurist dug too deep into a cuticle. ‘Ah, how appropriate,’ she murmured. ‘A thorn.’
‘Mother?’
‘Yes, I have an avatar of air waiting in the wings.’
‘You have not said a name. This disquiets me.’
‘As well it should. Sometimes, the past comes back with the force of an apocalyptic storm. But you must face it, Bayard, as a divine king would face it, with dignity and equanimity.’
Bayard said nothing, staring at her with wide eyes, his handsome face as white as bone.
Tatrini made him wait for a while, then said, ‘Bayard, you must listen to me now. I have not told you why I feel you, above all others, should take Gastern’s place. Never think I do not know what you are, what you have been. But despite your less prudent excesses, which I trust age and experience will temper, you are still nobility. You, as your ancestors did, will rule through a superior strength. Empires have risen and fallen throughout history, but they all suffered the same fate before they fell: they became sickly. This need not happen to Magravandias. We, the true Malagashes, hold our feelings of power in esteem. We do not curb or repress them. As nobility, we believe we have a right to give free vent to our instincts, whether they are animosity, compassion, cruelty, love, raiding, changing or destroying. Unlike your brothers, who feel they have to justify these instincts or indeed suppress them, as in Gastern’s case, you, my son, know as I do that what is good is what is useful. Those who seek to overthrow our rule – in essence Mordryn and his minions - are riddled with pathetic ascetic beliefs in piety, rectitude and righteousness – a disease of the psyche! They have no nobility. They have risen from the ranks of those who resent our power and therefore seek to destroy it. Only the weak make of their weakness a virtue. The Malagash dynasty, through the Madragorean priests, has been infected by the sickness of moral virtue. It is in danger of becoming like those we are supposed to rule, full of fear. Under your father’s rule, the empire expanded, yes, but where was he? Sitting here amongst his advisors, doing what the priests told him to do. We should not be subservient to them, terrified of their god, who is but a distorted image of the elemental fire drakes. Neither should we put our feelings of power onto entities outside ourselves. We are power too, like and equal to them. Life is nothing other than the will to conquer and we must affirm this. If you doubt my words, look only upon the battlefield, with which you are already intimately familiar. You are a hedonist, but your will is great. You have fought alongside your men in battle. You are an elemental force, primal in your being, an authentic man. Not everything about you is admirable, but what you represent is nobility’s highest aspiration.’
Bayard stared at her in silence after this speech; the only sound in the room was the scrape of a sandboard against the empress’s fingernails. Then Bayard said, ‘Who is air, mother?’
‘Tayven Hirantel,’ Tatrini answered. ‘You might remember him.’
Bayard’s poise was remarkable. ‘A whore,’ he said in a flat voice.
‘A dead whore, if you could have had anything to do with it,’ Tatrini said. ‘But still, he lives. Yes, I know about what you did, Bayard. You acted through fear, which I hope you regret.’
‘Why him?’ Bayard said. ‘I should imagine he regards me as fondly as Palindrake does.’
‘Hirantel is a rare creature,’ Tatrini said. ‘And very similar to you, although I’m sure he’d be most affronted by such an idea. I have him in custody, in a safe place. He is a survivor, who has held onto life and power with matchless tenacity. For this reason, he will eventually see reason. I’ve kept him waiting. By now, he will be in a frenzy of anxiety and curiosity, wondering what I have in store for him. When he finds out, it will come as a relief.’
Bayard smirked. ‘Your faith is as great and optimistic as that of Mordryn.’
‘It is not faith,’ Tatrini said. Her manicurist had now finished her job and gathered up her tools. Tatrini thanked her, momentarily dismissing Bayard from her attention.
He, meanwhile, paced her chamber, apparently so full of words he couldn’t decide which to spit out first.
‘Varencienne will be here soon,’ Tatrini said. ‘You’d better go.’
‘She is my sister, and I’ve not yet seen her,’ Bayard snapped. ‘Has Palindrake turned her against me?’
‘Varencienne is a moderate,’ Tatrini replied. ‘Now she is adult, she deplores certain of your behaviours.’
‘What? Are mine any worse than Palindrake’s?’
‘If you are present, she will not speak freely.’
Bayard’s face had gone quite white again. He was learning to contain his anger, gradually. ‘How under your thumb is she, mother? Will she surrender her son to you?’
‘I enjoyed our chat, Bay. We will speak again soon.’ She knew he detested being dismissed, but respected her enough not to argue.
He bowed curtly. ‘I hope your chat with Ren goes as favourably as the one we’ve just had.’
Tatrini smiled mildly. ‘Goodbye, Bay.’
The empress, in fact, felt slightly anxious about seeing her daughter, but knew she only had herself to blame. Over the last ten years, when she could have been cultivating Varencienne’s friendship, she had left her to her own devices. What an oversight not to realise the quiet little teenager would turn into a stubborn and independent woman. Varencienne had been a nobody here in Magrast, hidden in the shadow of her brothers. In Caradore, she’d found status and power, thin
gs that any Malagash craved, although Varencienne herself would be the last to admit that.
Only minutes after Bayard had left, Varencienne came marching into her mother’s chamber, her face set rigidly for a fight. Tatrini sighed inwardly. She saw her younger self in the challenging expression before her. It was the one she had used to persuade her mother-in-law she was ready for the knowledge guarded by the Malagash queens.
‘Ren,’ she said, ‘you appear most defensive. Sit down and relax.’
‘I don’t intend staying for long,’ Varencienne replied. ‘I’m taking the children home tonight.’
‘Oh, a change of plan? Yesterday, you seemed quite taken with the idea of spending a little time with your friends here. And there is Gastern’s coronation, of course.’
Varencienne folded her arms. ‘Stop toying with me. I don’t belong here anymore. I won’t be part of your schemes, or anyone else’s. Neither will my children. As for seeing Gastern crowned, I couldn’t stoop to it. I doubt sincerely he’ll live to enjoy his new position for long.’
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ Tatrini said. ‘You’re aware I don’t want Gastern on the throne, and for very good reasons, but there are ways to change the situation politically.’
‘I’m sure,’ Varencienne said, ‘but it won’t happen. If you truly think otherwise, you are not the woman I believe you to be.’
This was going to be more difficult than Tatrini had thought. She could see the resentment and fear in her daughter’s eyes, qualities that should be overcome. ‘Why are you so afraid?’ she asked.