The Witchwood Crown

  “Berries! In Marris-month? You little mad thing.” The woman, still trying to catch her breath, was handsome by mortal standards, or so Tanahaya guessed—tall, with fine, strong bones in her face. By the name the child had given her, Tanahaya guessed this must be Countess Rhona of Nad Glehs, one of the mortal queen’s closest friends. Tanahaya did not find it strange that a noble of high standing should be minding a child, though others might have. “No, you come back with me, honey-lamb,” the countess said. “Those are owlberries and they’ll make you sick.”

  “No they won’t,” the child declared. “Because they’re forest berries. And forest berries have lots of magic. Fairy magic.”

  “Magic.” The woman in the hat sounded disgusted, but even from such a distance Tanahaya’s sharp eyes could see the smile that played across her face. “I’ll give you fairy magic, mu’ harcha! You wanted to search for early flowers, and I brought you. We have been out for hours—and by Deanagha’s spotless skirts, look at me. I am filthy and bepricked with nettles!”

  “They’re not nettles, they’re berry bushes,” said the golden-haired girl. “That’s why they have thorns. So nobody will eat the berries.”

  “Nobody wants to eat those berries but birds. Not even the deer will go near them!”

  The heavily armored soldiers, still struggling for breath in their heavy mail, faces gleaming with sweat, began to straighten up. The girl had clearly led them a long, wearying chase over the hillside. “Should we grab her, your ladyship?” asked one.

  The countess frowned. “Lillia, it is time to go back. I want my midday meal.”

  “I don’t have to do anything unless you call me ‘Princess’ or ‘Your Highness’.”

  “What silliness! Your grandparents are away and I am your keeper, little lion cub. Come now. Don’t make me cross.”

  “I wish Uncle Timo was here. He lets me do things.”

  “Uncle Timo is your sworn bondsman. No, he is your helpless slave and lets you get away with everything. I am made of harder stuff. Come along.”

  The girl called Lillia looked from the countess to all the dark bushes full of pale, blue-white fruit, then sighed and slowly walked back down the slope. If its handle had been any longer, her basket would have dragged in the loamy soil. “When Queen Grandmother and King Grandfather come back, I’m going to tell on you,” she warned.

  “Tell what?” The countess frowned. “That I wouldn’t let you run away by yourself in the forest to be eaten by wolves and bears?”

  “I could give them berries. Then they wouldn’t eat me.”

  The woman took her hand. “Even hungry bears won’t eat owlberries. And the wolves would rather eat you.”

  As the small party vanished back down the deer trail into a thick copse of oak and ash trees farther down the slope, Tanahaya watched with a kind of wonder. To think that little creature named Lillia would reach womanhood, perhaps marry and become a mother and grandmother, grow old and even die—all in not much more than one of her people’s Great Years! It seemed to Tanahaya that being mortal must be like trying to live a full life in the space between falling from a high place and hitting the ground, a rush through wind and confusion to death. How did the poor creatures manage?

  For the first time it occurred to Tanahaya of Shisae’ron that perhaps she might learn something from this task. It was an unexpected thought.

  So this young creature was Lillia, she told herself, the granddaughter of Queen Miriamele and King Seoman—the objects of Tanahaya’s embassy. She would be seeing that proud little bumblebee of a girl again.

  Bumblebee? No, butterfly, she thought with a sudden pang. A flash of color and glory beneath the sky, and then, like all mortals, too soon she will become dust.

  But if the fears of Tanahaya’s friends proved accurate, she knew, then the end for that butterfly child and all the rest of the Hayholt’s mortals might come even sooner than any of them could guess.

  • • •

  As she reined up again to examine the castle, she could still hear the faint rattle of the retreating soldiers and the golden girl’s voice, no words now but just a musical burble rising from the forest below. The wind changed, and the stink of mortals, of unwashed bodies and unchanged garments abruptly deepened; it was all she could do not to turn around and retreat. She would have to accustom herself, she knew.

  Tanahaya had never liked the squat, cheerless look of men’s buildings any more than she cared for men’s odor, and the Hayholt, this great castle of theirs, was no different. Despite its size, it seemed nothing more than a collection of carelessly built dwellings hiding behind brutish stone walls, one wall set inside another like a succession of mushroom rings. The entire awkward structure perched on a high headland above the wide bay known as Kynslagh, as though it were the nest of some slovenly seabird. Even the red tiles that roofed many of the buildings seemed dull to her as dried blood, and Tanahaya thought the famous castle looked more like a place to be imprisoned than anything else. It was astounding to realize that a few mortal decades earlier—an eyeblink of time to her people—the Storm King’s attack on the living had ended just here, only moments from success. She thought she could still hear the great crying-out of that day and feel the countless shadows that would not disperse, the torment and terror of so many. Even Time itself had almost been overthrown here. How could the mortals continue to live in such a place? Could they not feel the uneasy dead all around them?

  Watching the girl had brought her a moment of good cheer, but now it blew away like dust on a hot, dry wind. For a moment Tanahaya’s hand strayed to the Witness in her belt-pouch, the sacred, timeworn mirror that would allow her to speak across great earthly distances to those who had sent her. She didn’t belong here—it was hard to believe that any of her race could in these fallen times. It was not too late, after all: she could beg her loved ones in Jao é-Tinukai’i to find someone else for this task.

  Tanahaya’s impulse did not last. It was not her place to judge these short-lived creatures, but to do what she had been bid for the good of her own people.

  After all, she reminded herself, a year does not dance itself into being. Everything is sacrifice.

  She lifted her hand from the hidden mirror and caught up the reins once more. Even from this distance, the stench of mortals seemed unbearably strong, so fierce she could barely stand it. How much worse would it be when she was out of the heights and riding through their cramped streets?

  Something struck her hard in the back. Tanahaya gasped, but could not get her breath. She tried to turn to see what had hit her, simultaneously reaching to draw her sword, but before it cleared the scabbard another arrow struck her, this time in the chest.

  The Sitha tried to crouch low in the saddle but that only pressed the second arrow more agonizingly into her body. She could feel something like a cool breath on her back and knew it must be blood soaking her jerkin. She reached down and broke the second shaft off close to her ribs. Free of that obstruction but still pulsing blood around the broken shaft, she threw herself against Spidersilk’s neck and clung tightly, aiming now only for escape. But even as she clapped her heels against the horse’s side a new arrow hissed into the animal’s neck just a handspan from Tanahaya’s fingers. The horse reared, shrilling in pain and terror. As Tanahaya struggled to hang on, a fourth arrow took her high in her back and spun her out of the saddle. She fell into air, and for a mad moment it seemed almost like flight. Then something struck her all over and at once, a great, flat blow, and a soundless darkness rushed over her like a river.

  PART ONE

  Widows

  Locusts laid their eggs in the corpse

  Of a soldier. When the worms were

  Mature, they took wing. Their drone

  Was ominous, their shells hard.

  Anyone could tell they had hatched

  From an unsatisfied anger.

  Th
ey flew swiftly toward the North.

  They hid the sky like a curtain.

  When the wife of the soldier

  Saw them, she turned pale, her breath

  Failed her. She knew he was dead

  In battle, his corpse lost in the desert.

  That night she dreamed

  She rode a white horse, so swift

  It left no footprints, and came

  To where he lay in the sand.

  She looked at his face, eaten

  By the locusts, and tears of

  Blood filled her eyes. Ever after

  She would not let her children

  Injure any insect that

  Might have fed on the dead. She

  Would lift her face to the sky

  And say, “O locusts, if you

  Are seeking a place to winter,

  You can find shelter in my heart.”

  —HSU CHAO

  “The Locust Swarm”

  1

  The Glorious

  The pavilion walls billowed and snapped as the winds rose. Tiamak thought it was like being inside a large drum. Many people in the tent were trying to be heard, but the clear voice of a young minstrel floated above it all, singing a song of heroism:

  “Sing ye loud his royal name

  Seoman the Glorious!

  Spread it far, his royal fame

  Seoman the Glorious!”

  The king did not look glorious. He looked tired. Tiamak could see it in the lines of Simon’s face, the way his shoulders hunched as if he awaited a blow. But that blow had already fallen. Today was only the grim anniversary.

  Limping more than usual because of the cold day, little Tiamak made his way among all the larger men. These courtiers and important officials were gathered around the king, who sat on one of two high-backed wooden chairs at the center of the tent, both draped in the royal colors. A banner with the twin drakes, the red and the white, hung above them. The other chair was empty.

  As a makeshift throne room in the middle of a Hernystir field, Tiamak thought, it was more than adequate, but it was also clearly the one place King Seoman did not want to be. Not today.

  “With hero’s sword in his right hand

  And nought but courage in his heart

  Did Seoman make his gallant stand

  Though cowards fled apart

  “When the hellspawned Norns did bring

  Foul war upon the innocent

  And giants beat upon the gates

  And Norn sails filled the Gleniwent . . .”

  “I don’t understand,” said the king loudly to one of the courtiers. “In truth, my good man, I haven’t understood a thing you’ve said, what with all this shouting and caterwauling. Why should they have to lime the bridges? Do they think we are birds that need catching?”

  “Line the bridges, sire.”

  The king scowled. “I know, Sir Murtach. It was meant as a jest. But it still doesn’t make any sense.”

  The courtier’s determined smile faltered. “It is the tradition for the people to line up along the bridges as well as the roads, but King Hugh is concerned that the bridges might not stand under the weight of so many.”

  “And so we must give up our wagons and come on foot? All of us?”

  Sir Murtach flinched. “It is what King Hugh requests, Your Majesty.”

  “When armies of the Stormlord came

  Unto the very Swertclif plain

  Who stood on Hayholt’s battlements

  And bade them all turn back again?

  “Sing ye loud his royal name

  Seoman the Glorious!

  Spread it far, his royal fame

  Seoman the Glorious!”

  King Simon’s head had tipped to one side. It was not the side from which he was being urgently addressed by another messenger, who had finally worked his way to a place beside the makeshift throne. Something had distracted Simon. Tiamak thought that seeing the king’s temper fray was like watching a swamp flatboat beginning to draw water. It was plain that if someone didn’t do something soon, the whole craft would sink.

  “He slew the dragon fierce and cold

  And banished winter by his hand

  He tamed the Sithi proud and old

  And saved the blighted, threatened land . . .”

  Murtach was still talking in one royal ear, and the other messenger had started his speech for the third time when Simon suddenly stood. The courtiers fell back swiftly, like hunting hounds when the bear turns at bay. The king’s beard was still partly red, but he had enough gray in it now, as well as the broad white stripe where he had once been splashed by dragon’s blood, that when his anger was up he looked a bit like an Aedonite prophet from the old days.

  “That! That!” Simon shouted. “It’s bad enough that I cannot hear myself think, that every man in camp wants me to do something or . . . or not do something . . . but must I listen to such terrible lies and exaggerations as well?” He turned and pointed his finger at the miscreant. “Well? Must I?”

  At the far end of the king’s finger, the young minstrel stared back with the round eyes of a quiet, nighttime grazer caught in the sudden glare of a torch. He swallowed. It seemed to take a long time. “Beg pardon, Majesty?” he squeaked.

  “That song! That preposterous song! ‘He slew the dragon fierce and cold’—a palpable lie!” The king strode forward until he towered over the thin, dark-haired singer, who seemed to be melting and shrinking like a snowflake caught in a warm hand. “By the Bloody Tree, I never killed that dragon, I just wounded it a bit. I was terrified. And I didn’t tame the Sithi either, for the love of our lord Usires!”

  The minstrel looked at up at him, mouth working but without sound.

  “And the rest of the song is even more mad. Banished the winter? You might as well say I make the sun rise every day!”

  “B-But . . . but it is only a song, Majesty,” the minstrel finally said. “It is a well-known and well-loved one—all the people sing it . . .”

  “Pfah.” But Simon was no longer shouting. His anger was like a swift storm—the thunder had boomed, now all that was left was cold rain. “Then go sing it to all the people. Or better yet, when we return to the Hayholt, ask old Sangfugol what really happened. Ask him what it was truly like when the Storm King’s darkness came down on us and we all pissed ourselves in fear.”

  A moment of confused bravery showed itself on the young man’s face. “But it was Sangfugol who made that song, Your Majesty. And he was the one who taught it to me.”

  Simon growled. “So, then all bards are liars. Go on, boy. Get away from me.”

  The minstrel looked quite forlorn as he pushed his way toward the door of the pavilion. Tiamak caught at his sleeve as he went by. “Wait outside,” he told the singer. “Wait for me.”

  The young man was so full of anguish he had not truly heard. “I beg pardon?”

  “Just wait outside for a few moments. I will come for you.”

  The youth looked at the little Wrannaman oddly, but everyone in the court knew Tiamak and how close he was to the king and queen. The harper blinked his eyes, doing his best to compose himself. “If you say so, my lord.”

  Simon was already driving the rest of the courtiers from the pavilion. “Enough! Leave me be now, all of you. I cannot do everything, and certainly not in one day! Give me peace!”

  Tiamak waited until the wave of humanity had swept past him and out of the tent, then he waited a bit longer until the king finished pacing and dropped back onto his chair. Simon looked up at his councilor and his face sagged with unhappiness and useless anger. “Don’t look at me that way, Tiamak.”

  The king seldom lost his temper with those who served him, and was much loved for it. Back home in Erkynland many called him “the Commoner King” or even
“the Scullion King” because of his youthful days as a Hayholt dogsbody. Generally Simon remembered very well indeed what it felt like to be ignored or blamed by those with power. But sometimes, especially when he was in the grip of such heartache as he was today, he fell into foul moods.

  Tiamak, of course, knew that the moods seldom lasted long and were followed quickly by regret. “I am not looking at you in any particular way, Majesty.”

  “Don’t mock me. You are. It’s that sad, wise expression you put on when you’re thinking about what a dunderhead one of your monarchs is. And that monarch is nearly always me.”

  “You need rest, Majesty.” It was a privilege to speak as old friends, one that Tiamak would never have presumed on with others in the room. “You are weary and your temper is short.”

  The king opened his mouth, then shook his head. “This is a bad day,” he said at last. “A very bad day. Where is Miriamele?”

  “The queen declined any audiences today. She is out walking.”

  “I am glad for her. I hope she is being left alone.”

  “As much as she wishes to be. Her ladies are with her. She likes company more than you do on days like this.”

  “Days like this, I would like to be on the top of a mountain in the Trollfells with Binabik and his folk, with nothing but snow to look at and nothing but wind to hear.”

  “We have plenty of wind for you here in this meadow,” Tiamak said. “But not too much snow, considering that there is still almost a fortnight of winter left.”

  “Oh, I know what day it is, what month,” Simon said. “I need no reminding.”

  Tiamak cleared his throat. “Of course not. But will you take my advice? Rest yourself for a while. Let your unhappiness cool.”

  “It was just . . . hearing that nonsense, over and over . . . Simon the hero, all of that. I did not seem such a hero when my son . . .”

  “Please, Majesty.”

  “But I should not have taken it out on the harper.” Again, the storm had blown over quickly, and now Simon was shaking his head. “He has given me many a sweet hour of song before. It is not his fault that lies become history so quickly. Perhaps I should tell him that I was unfair, and I am sorry.”