“Honor,” whispered Ani.
Wrapped around her hand and wrist were every breeze and draft, every movement of air that had touched her since Geric had left her side, and she begged of it now a new course, quick and sure. A bolt of wind like a dull arrow thumped Ungolad in his chest. He stumbled backward and, shifting his eyes, saw Ani and cursed. Geric had time to stand and shake his vision straight before Ungolad was on him again. He blocked with his sword and pushed Ungolad back. The next time, his sword was too slow and he blocked a strike with his shield. Ungolad’s shield hand suddenly held a dagger, and he stuck it in Geric’s side. Geric cried out and kicked Ungolad away, and the dagger pulled free from Ungolad’s grasp and fell clanging across the floor. Geric grimaced and advanced again.
There was power behind Geric’s strike now, as though the wound gave him strength, and the fight became as real as the pain. He was on the attack, pushing Ungolad onto the dais. Ungolad defended with his shield, and when his shield dented, Geric’s sword slipped down it to bloody his fist. They locked swords, and Geric kneed Ungolad in the belly. Ungolad lost his balace and stumbled backward against the dais steps, falling against the seat of the throne. Their swords locked again. With a shove Geric sent Ungolad’s sword slipping down his own with a painful peal of metal. Geric shook off Ungolad’s sword, found an opening, and then pierced Ungolad’s leather jerkin clean through.
Ungolad sat heavily in the throne. His sword dropped to the ground with a cry that echoed in the corners of stone. He looked around wildly.
“Selia,” said Ungolad.
His hand found the wound in his middle. He held it there, and the blood slipped through the cracks between his fingers. He looked up as if he saw Selia standing there before him, and he held up his red hand, showing her the death blood, showing her the color of his heart, a final pledge. He slumped and died.
Chapter 22
Geric sat on the dais steps and let his sword and shield drop. The echo was dimmer than Ungolad’s had been, the noise finding not bare walls but snuffed out by a room full of people. The king put a hand on his shoulder.
“Stand up, son.”
The king picked up a misshot javelin that lay on the floor, brought it down hard on his knee with a loud snap and once again to break it clean through. He dropped the pieces at Geric’s feet.
“Sword,” said the king.
Geric held out his sword, the tip murky with blood. A soldier at the king’s right cleaned it on his own tunic and handed it to the king.
“I give it back to you to wear in defense of your people and your land and your sovereign. May it be quick and thick with the blood of your foes.”
Enna came to Ani’s side. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “What does it mean?”
“It was his first kill,” said Enna. “A javelin bonds a boy to a community. A sword makes him a man.”
“I think he was already a man,” said Ani, rubbing her tired eyes.
The other workers stood near Enna. When the fighting ceased, they had gathered behind Ani. She looked at them now. Razo was stunned and tired, his thoughts seemingly caught in that moment when he had fired a javelin at Terne’s back. Ratger had a scratch on one cheek, and Offo held a hand to his arm where there was a little blood. They had all chosen to not merely make an entrance, but throw themselves into the fight.
“This’s a grim sight.” Enna looked about the room, bodies slumped and crumpled, their bleeding stopped by stones and carpets.
“Where’s Selia?” said Ani.
The king heard her and looked around. Geric sheathed his sword at his side and stood ready, a hand at his bleeding side. Razo grumbled, “Oh, that’s just perfect.”
“How did you let that murderess escape?” The king’s voice trembled with anger.
“Through the secret door,” said Ani. She remembered now, the draft that she had used as an arrow against Ungolad. It had carried images of cool stone and musty cloth and anger and a girl in yellow.
“First body,” said the soldier at the king’s side, “search the estate. Second body, secure the wall. Third body, inform the gate guards and then report to me. Go.”
Soldiers in ordered groups ran from the room, and the sounds of their boots running in the corridors bled through the stone walls.
“Sly little cat,” said the king. “She knows the punishment for treason. She named it herself.”
“She’ll be found, sire,” said a soldier. He paced to the chamber door and stood waiting for the first report.
“Get that thing out of my chair,” said the king. Two soldiers removed Ungolad’s body from the throne and wiped off the blood with a tunic torn from one of the fallen. The king sat down, his elbows on the rests, his head in his hands.
“Sire,” said Geric.
The king waved him toward the door. “Go on, son, you’re not doing me any good by bleeding.”
A gray-haired soldier held a white handkerchief swiftly turning red to Geric’s side. He bade him lean upon him, and together they walked across the chamber. Ani watched him, wondering, Will he come to me now? Should I go to him? She hesitated, and Geric left the room, his eyes on the ground. Later, she thought. She hoped.
Servants were gathering fallen swords and javelins in their arms like wood for a bonfire. Ani took a breath and approached the king and tried to avoid looking again at the bodies that lay at her feet and made her eyes itch and the room tip unpleasantly. Already estate workers were dragging away the bodies and rolling up blood-spotted carpets. Ani was feeling rolled up and blood spotted herself, but her friends stood at her back.
“Sire.” She spoke again in the Bayern accent, having found that it felt most natural. “I’ve a bold request.”
The king looked at her without raising his head. “It would seem, my dear, that you’re in a good position for making bold requests.”
“There’re men in my company who’d like to receive their javelin and shield. I ask for them, and also mercy for Ratger, who left his post at your gates to come with us on this errand.”
“All those boys?” said the king.
“Yes, Razo here slew Terne before he could slay me, and Offo and Beier and Conrad . . . Where’s Conrad?”
“Conrad?” said Enna.
The workers looked from one to another, bewildered. “He was with us,” said Razo.
With dread they looked through the bodies for sight of Conrad’s orange cap, freckled face, and boyish hands. Among the Kildenreans there were three Bayern soldiers, but not Conrad.
Someone screamed. Ani looked behind the throne. The tapestry thumped, and a high voice shouted curses.
“Lift it aside,” said the king. Two soldiers jumped to the task, unveiling Conrad standing in the portal, his hands full of pale hair. Behind him, prostrate on the ground, he dragged Selia. His hands were bleeding from her fingernails and his face was red from exertion, but his eyes met those of his friends and suggested a glimmer of humor.
“Look what I found,” he said. “The pretender yellow girl, though she’s not so yellow as ours now that I get a look at her. But she scratches like a cat.”
The soldiers were upon her and in moments had her standing with her arms pinned behind her back. Conrad released her hair and put his hands to his mouth, nursing the scratches. Ungolad’s body was one of the few still in the room. It lay near Selia’s feet, partially covered by a stained rug. She glanced at it, then returned her gaze to the king, no recognition registering on her face.
“Let me loose,” said Selia. Her voice sounded falsely sweet and tight with anger. “Let me loose, sire, I promise I will leave. You don’t want to kill a lady. I’m a lady.”
The king wrinkled his brow and sighed. “You may save your breath, lady. The crime of treason has been named, and the punishment you yourself have specified.”
Selia looked at the king, panic alive in her eyes, and she stomped and screamed as though even then the barrel-held nails pierced her skin. Her face conto
rted red and purple, and she thrashed against the soldiers’ holds.
“Enough,” said the king, his hands covering his ears. “We’ll talk of this later. I want this child out of my hearing.” The king gestured, and the soldiers carried her from the room, spitting and swearing vengeance. She did not meet Ani’s eyes.
Selia’s howl faded down the corridor and all were quiet, listening, until Enna snorted and said, “And a meow to you, too.”
“Did you see that I caught her, Enna?” said Conrad. He dabbed a bleeding scratch against his tunic and smiled with pride. “By her hair and all. I saw her sneaking away, and I thought, That’s the one what tried to kill our goose girl, and there’ll be no more of that. So I ran after her and found her trying to get through a window.”
“Sire,” said Ani, “this is the goose boy, Conrad.”
Conrad stuck out his hand to shake, then dropped it and bowed gawkily.
“She’s the real yellow lady,” he said, pointing at Ani, “and I’m sorry I ever thought otherwise.”
A draft left Ani’s hand and nudged Conrad’s cap off his head. He looked at her with mild panic, and she grinned. “Nicely done, Conrad.”
They were each escorted to a room with, to Ani’s delight, a real mattress and enough pillows to make her body forget the cruel slats of her hard little bed in the west settlement.
When morning declared its fullness in Ani’s east window, she rose and bathed and sat in a much too comfortable chair with her back to the light, letting its heat dry her just washed hair and sipping from an endless pitcher of iced grape juice. She was just thinking about skulking down the corridor in search of the others when her door was rapped and opened by Enna.
“May I enter?” she said.
“Enna, you’re not going to get formal on me now. Last night Ratger bowed to me, and Razo asked my leave to depart to his room.”
“At least Conrad’ll never bow,” said Enna, sitting beside Ani. “I’ve never seen him so content as he was last night, bleeding hands and all. He almost looked smug.”
Ani smiled. “Keeping geese was too dull for him. He’d make a fine peace-keeper.”
“Yes, I think he’d stay in the city, unlike Finn and some of the others whose faces seem full of the Forest.”
“Oh, Finn’ll never leave the Forest, especially not if he could accompany a certain lady there.”
Enna smiled and stretched her feet to reach a spot where a sunbeam warmed the floor. She cleared her throat before speaking. “Isi, you’ve spoken to the prince? To Geric?”
“He . . . I . . . no.” Ani sighed. “He’s stashed in a sickroom somewhere, getting that dagger wound tended, and I was afraid to ask to see him in case, you know, in case he didn’t really want me to.”
“Of course he does,” said Enna.
“Well, I don’t know, we were friends, but there were lies between us, and what if he was happy he was going to marry Selia?”
“Not likely,” said Enna.
That was just the response Ani had hoped for, though she was uncertain if it was true. She poured grape juice for Enna into a white cup. The juice sliding against the sides of the cup looked like thick blood against pale skin. Ani shivered.
“What a day it was,” she said.
“Yes,” said Enna. “Do you think they’ll really stick that Selia into a barrel studded with nails?”
“I do. I think they will. We’ve seen them hang traitors and murderers up on the walls, and she’s both. I don’t know what to think of it, Enna. I don’t know how to feel. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, But she’s a friend. And then I remember, no, no she’s not, she never was. She really did kill. She really would’ve started a war so that she could wear rubies on her brow.”
“Have you seen Talone?”
“I tried. They won’t let me go to him, saying that he’s fine and resting and doesn’t need overconcerned friends bothering him out of his sleep.”
“But you worry still,” said Enna.
“I want to see him well. I can’t get certain images to rest easy in my mind, and one of those is Talone, and Ungolad’s sword is in him, and he’s on the ground.” Ani shook her head.
“It was a horrible day,” said Enna. “I’ve never seen such things and don’t care to. Maybe I never should’ve come inside, but all I could think of was getting to you. I was horror-struck just thinking that you were alone again, and after all I’d promised.”
“Thank you,” said Ani. She fingered Enna’s thick locks. They were as smooth as wet clay between her fingers. “I always wanted black hair. I thought it was exotic.”
Enna laughed. “Now you’re the exotic one, with your hair longer than a horse’s tail and yellow, even.”
A knock sounded, and Ani jumped up to admit a prim little man in shiny boots who called her to the king.
“I’d hoped to see my friend,” she said. “Talone, who’s wounded. Last night the physician sent me away to let him rest.”
“I hear your friend’s in no danger. The king’s call’ll be heeded first.”
Ani shot Enna a look of lighthearted terror and followed the man out.
He introduced her into the conference room, a small but brightly lit space. The air was tense. Several men sitting at a great wood table covered with maps and letters rose as she entered. Geric’s face was flushed, as though he had been shouting before her arrival, but she was relieved to see him sitting up and looking well. The prime minister’s face barely buried a glower. The king motioned for her to be seated.
“Good morning, my dear,” said the king. “We’re sorry to have neglected you so long and to greet you now with the grim details of a war meeting in place of a banquet and procession. All in its course.” He cleared his throat, and his expression seemed unsure, but when he spoke again the words bore all the power of the throne. “We beg you to give us reason to believe there’s no war preparing in Kildenree.”
Ani’s head bent back slightly, as though pushed by the king’s words.
“I don’t understand, sire.” Ani swallowed a laugh. “You’re still contemplating war?”
“Unless you can give us evidence.”
“Evidence? Of what? Of peace? Teach me how to give evidence of peace and I will.” She paused to check her anger. The men still stared. “You must know that Kildenree will not attack Bayern.”
The prime minister rose, exuding authority with one exact gesture of his hand. “This, my dear, is evidence.” He picked up several papers before him. “Letters given to us by the Princess Anidori-Kiladra, or this Selia, if you will. They’re written and signed by the queen of Kildenree and detail inimical intentions, with dates, numbers, places, all stamped with the royal insignia.”
Ani grabbed a parchment and had to absorb its aspect for only a moment before understanding. “This isn’t my mother’s hand. Forgery. Selia’s mother is the key-mistress of the palace, a woman with access. She might have found a way to steal my mother’s crest ring to make the seals.”
The prime minister glanced at the king’s thoughtful face and turned back to Ani with new ardor. “Evidence. Show evidence and we’ll believe. It’s another ploy, Your Highness, to keep us unwitting and unprepared while our enemies move to crush us in our sleep.”
“Oh, stop it.” Ani covered her face in her hands and breathed in the momentaty darkness. She dropped them and stood up, anger prickling her fingertips. “This is ridiculous. You want evidence? History will show you that Kildenree hasn’t warred with any of its neighbors in over three hundred years. Numbers will prove that Kildenree is far too small to attack a kingdom like Bayern. And the girl who gave you the only evidence you have to the contrary is a fraud, a deceiver, and a murderer. You should already know these facts.
“But in a country where you hang your dead up on walls and pride whether or not a man bears a javelin more than his character, how am I to persuade you out of a war? It would be suicide for Kildenree to war on Bayern and butchery for Bayern to attack Kildenree. If you don’t
believe me, then send me back. Or if you don’t trust me to leave, I’ll return to my little room on the west wall and tend your geese, and you can be sure that on my watch no thieves will touch my flock.”
Ani walked to the door but stopped and turned around. “Did you know that there’re workers in your city who aren’t allowed into shops and taverns because they’re from the Forest and therefore don’t hold a javelin? And men who call themselves peace-keepers, obeying their own code of law and not the king’s, sworn to keep the streets safe because the king’s soldiers do not or will not? And areas so crowded that children live on the refuse of others?”
While the prime minister’s look remained indignant, Geric’s eyebrows raised and the king looked up from his study of his hands.
“I see from your faces that you don’t think much about these things. Maybe I know more about your city than you do, and I certainly know more of Kildenree. Believe me, there is no war. If you want evidence, explain why a mother would send her first daughter into her enemy’s camp. I’ll be your evidence.” She shut the door behind her.
An hour later, Geric found her sitting on the steps to the kitchen in the shade of the tallest chimney. Her anger had worn down into a righteous indignation that was fraying into embarrassment when she saw his approach. She knew it was Geric from a distance, and she felt spots of heat on her cheeks. She covered her face with her fingers. He smiled at her, and there was real humor in the lines of his smile. He sat beside her and after a moment released a short laugh.
“That was something,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone make the king and his entire council feel like utter fools.”
“They listened?” she said.
“Oh, yes, thoroughly. You, my lady, have just stopped an unnecessary war.” He looked down and swallowed. “May I beg your pardon? I’ve behaved so badly to you, and I’ve been aching to explain.”
“Is this about the ‘I can’t love you as a man loves a woman’ bit?”
Geric grimaced. “Ah-ha, yes, that’s the very line. I, you see, I noticed that last day in the goose pasture that I’d begun to—feel—something about you that I shouldn’t, as I was betrothed and all, and I thought it best if I just stopped seeing you altogether. I was feeling rather terrible for betraying your sentiments, besides having lied to you about who I was. But then when I saw you yesterday, well, maybe you can imagine that I haven’t had a steady heartbeat since you walked into the throne room.”