The Witchwood Crown

  When the maid had gone off—rather happily and briskly for someone with a banged knee, Lillia thought—her aunt and the monk mopped the Sither-woman’s brow and limbs. When they had finished the task and arranged the blankets over her slender body once more, Thelía said, “Brother Etan, will you go to our rooms and get my husband’s book, the Sovran Remedies—oh, and now that I think of it, also my copy of Patillan. We may find our heart-shaped herb there.”

  “But how do we know she is even right about poison, Lady Thelía? This morning she was raving about mountains walking!”

  “We don’t even know why she is here, Etan,” Aunt Tia-Lia said—Lillia thought she sounded a bit cross. “Why balk at anything which might be of help? We must try our best to save her.”

  “Of course—she is one of God’s creatures, I am sure, regardless of what some think.”

  “Not just that, you silly man.” Now her aunt turned, and her expression seemed a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Can you imagine what my husband will think if we let a living Sitha die before he has even had a chance to see her? Tiamak will be broken-hearted. You recall what happened with the hedgehog, do you not? And that beast was ancient, snappish, and only had three legs. Still, when it perished he was miserable from St. Tunath’s Day all the way to the following spring.” She made a wry face. “Not that I am saying that this is the same. Poor woman.”

  “You make a good point, my lady.” Brother Etan stood. “I will go and fetch the books.”

  He gave Lillia a worried smile as he squeezed past her in the doorway. Lillia thought the monk might be a little frightened of Aunt Tia-Lia.

  The Lord Chancellor had far too many things that needed his attention to be idling at the window in this fashion, but it was hard to pull himself away. Below him, fishing boats dotted the Kynslagh like water-beetles, and when the wind changed direction he could hear the fishermen calling—not their words, but just the soft rasp of their voices as they shouted to each other, boat to boat. The sun was still two hours or more from noon, but clouds had rolled across the sky and the water was shiny gray, like a pewter plate.

  Pasevalles stifled a brief tug of selfishness: he would regret having to give this view back to Eolair when the Lord Steward returned. The window in his own chamber was largely blocked by the bulk of Holy Tree Tower. He liked to stand on top of the tower, but being so close to its walls left only a confining, prisoning view that made his heart heavy, a scene as dark as judgment, as punishment.

  Do not be distracted, he scolded himself. Froye needs an answer.

  He turned from the window with regret, but returned to the desk and the latest letter from his informant at the Nabbanai court and began to read it a second time.

  My dear sir, you cannot know how it pains me to say so, but I would not be performing my duty to your kindness if I did not inform you that things are very dangerous right now in this country.

  The duke’s brother Drusis, as you know, has made the grasslanders’ attacks on Nabbanai settlements into a cause of reproach. He rails against his brother’s laxity at every meeting of the Dominiate. The conflict has caused great unrest, not only in the mansions of the nobles, but even down in the streets among the merchants, workers, and the poor, so that it sometimes seems people here can talk of nothing else.

  And Drusis is not entirely wrong, good my lord, to warn of the dangers of this enemy. The folk of Nabban have always feared and detested the Thrithings-men, who have no fixed homes, no villages or farms, and are little better than savages. And it is true that horsemen have increased their raids of late. In the last half a year they have struck several times, burning crops and villages and attacking the tenants of the lords who own great houses along the border. This is nothing new, although the murderousness of the raids seems to be increasing. God grant we have no war with them, because the Thrithings-men are many and they are fearsome fighters, although ill-organized. They fight as a disorderly rabble, fierce when they are winning, but prone to dispersal and retreat when they suffer a setback, which is why, for all their numbers, that Nabban and Erkynland have been able to keep them penned on the grasslands all these years.

  Yet although they remain a great threat, it is not the horsemen that provoke my letter to you, but rather the duke’s brother. Drusis, despite the backing of several of the eastern and northern lords in the Dominiate, has been balked to this point in his struggle with Duke Saluceris by his lack of support among the nobles whose holdings are far from the Thrithings borderlands. His attempts to force his brother into action have therefore always failed.

  Of late this has changed. Drusis has recently made a powerful ally, linking his fortune to the Ingadarine House, who, as you know, have long been the second most powerful family in Nabban after the Duke’s own Benidrivine House. Drusis and Dallo Ingadaris have met many times, and it is whispered that soon Earl Dallo will announce that Drusis will marry his daughter.

  I express no disapproval of House Ingadaris, of course. I know our High Queen Miriamele traces half her blood to that family, and Saluceris himself carries their blood in his veins as well. But those were days when the two houses were closely linked, which is no longer true. More and more over the last years, they have found themselves at odds, and it is no secret that Dallo Ingadaris wishes the Dominiate, where he is strong, to have a greater say over Nabban’s government. That can only happen if Duke Saluceris is weakened, and that is the reason, of course, that Dallo has shown favor to Drusis by offering him his daughter Turia . . .

  • • •

  Pasevalles didn’t bother to reread the rest, the small bits of other business he had asked Froye to undertake for him, most of which concerned the ongoing struggle between Osten Ard’s two greatest trading powers, the Sindigato Perdruine and the upstart Northern Alliance. But none of the rest of Count Froye’s news had the import of Drusis’s marrying Dallo Ingadarine’s daughter, which would add a huge complication to an already intricate, dangerous situation that Pasevalles had been worrying over for months. Drusis was growing in power too quickly, and Duke Saluceris seemed unconcerned, or perhaps was actually helpless to fight back. To Pasevalles it all smelled of disaster. Sometimes it was hard not to wonder whether he had been helping the wrong brother.

  What could be done? King Simon and Queen Miriamele were still a fortnight away from the Hayholt. Pasevalles had heard rumors from merchants, whose ships had recently returned from the south, that conflict between the two rival Nabbanai houses had grown loud and occasionally violent, with drunken street brawls and a near-riot at the Circus of Larexes after the chariot races. House Ingadaris had long resented the power King John had given to House Benidrivis, and now the Ingadarine supporters, who wore the Albatross badge of the house and called themselves “Stormbirds,” were brawling in public with the duke’s Kingfisher loyalists.

  It’s like an overturned lantern, he thought. How quickly do I have to put out this fire before it catches and grows beyond control? But Nabban was also the most populous nation of the High Ward, its leaders historically prideful and stubborn. What could he do to keep the fire from spreading too fast?

  I can do nothing, he realized. Only the king and queen can do what needs to be done. And they are not here.

  His brooding was interrupted by a knock. The guard announced Brother Etan, so Pasevalles folded the letter and put it into his purse.

  “Forgive me for bothering you, my lord.”

  “Nonsense, Brother. I welcome a distraction. What news?”

  The young monk seemed uneasy. “Lady Thelía and I have been with the Sitha woman. When she’s been able to speak, she says she has been poisoned, and it certainly seems there might be some truth to that. Nearly a month has passed since she was struck down, and still she suffers terrible fevers.”

  “What poison could have effects that would last so long and still not kill?”

  “I couldn’t say, Lord. My experience do
es not lie that way, and please remember that the patient is . . . unusual.”

  Pasevalles smiled despite himself. “That’s so. But you still have not told me how she fares at the moment.”

  “She has mostly slept since Lady Thelía began to give her physic. Her rest seems a little more peaceful now, but it is hard to say. She is very weak. Her breathing is so soft it is hard to see her breast lift and fall sometimes.”

  “I will pray for her, as I’m sure you do.” Pasevalles did his best to disperse the swarm of other worries that had beset him like buzzing flies. “Will you take some wine, Brother?”

  “No. No, thank you, my lord. I am needed back at St. Sutrin’s for Nonamansa, and I would not have His Eminence Archbishop Gervis smell it on my breath.”

  “Well, by the Bowl of Saint Pelippa, what would he have you drink instead? Nothing but well water? It would be a short, sad, and sickly life for you then, wouldn’t it?”

  Etan smiled, but his heart did not seem to be in it. “I suppose it would, my lord. But there is something else I wish to talk to you about. It concerns the princess. Dowager Princess Idela, that is.”

  “Ah.” Pasevalles did his best to keep a cheerful expression on his face. “Of course. I asked you to help her with those books of her husband’s. Did you know the prince, Etan?”

  “Prince John Josua? No, Lord Chancellor. I was still at the abbey of St. Cuthman’s in Meremund when he was taken from us. I know the prince was a much-loved young man, a great scholar.” There was still something odd in Etan’s expression, but Pasevalles could not unpuzzle it.

  “Yes, he was a very fine man, Brother. But God did not give him a strong body, and he was often sickly. That is one reason, I think, that he grew so bookish. The volumes he collected could take him to many places that his frail body could not.”

  Pasevalles wished he could return to the matter of Froye’s letter. “And were the volumes worthy of being preserved in the new library? Of course, simply having belonged to the prince would give them value, I think, since the library is being created in his honor.”

  “Yes, lord. Most of them were interesting but not unusual. However . . .”

  Etan trailed off. Pasevalles could hear it too, the noise of a scuffle just outside the door. His hand dropped to the dagger at his waist, but a moment later he recognized one of the voices—a small but distinctly high-pitched voice.

  The door popped open and Princess Lillia spilled into the room, followed closely by a flustered Erkynguardsman, who might as well have been trying to capture an oiled serpent. “Pasevalles!” the child shouted. “Lord Pasevalles! Have you heard the news?”

  “I’m sorry, my lord,” the red-faced guard said. “I was afraid I might hurt her if I grabbed too hard . . .”

  Pasevalles waved him out, but before the guard could retreat, another face appeared in the door behind the princess.

  “Oh, you wicked child!” said Countess Rhona. “Mircha love you, you are quick as a cat! I’m sorry, Lord Pasevalles, she simply outran me.”

  “Have you heard?” said Lillia, jumping up and down in excitement. “Have you heard? Grandma and Grandpa are coming!”

  Pasevalles tried to make sense of the sudden eruption. “Have I heard what? Yes, they are coming soon. A fortnight, perhaps . . .”

  Lillia stopped and her eyes grew wide at the importance of her message and at Pasevalles’ amazing, wonderful ignorance. “No! They’re here!”

  He turned helplessly to the countess. “What is she talking about?”

  “She’s telling the truth, actually, Lord Pasevalles. The messenger just arrived. They’re not here, Lillia, you silly girl, but they are very close. The messenger says they stayed last night at Dalchester, but are already on the road for home today.”

  “Dalchester? But they will be here by tomorrow night! Why are they so early?”

  Countess Rhona shook her head. “The messenger from the king and queen would not say—not to me, anyway. He’s waiting for you down in the post hall. Will you go to him?”

  “Of course.” Pasevalles stood. “This is excellent news! Brother Etan, we will continue our conversation some other time, yes?”

  “Yes, my lord.” The monk looked a bit grim, but Pasevalles supposed it was the memory of dealing with the dowager princess that made him so.

  He is a little unhappy with me for using him as a shield against Princess Idela, perhaps. Still, no matter. Etan’s discontent, whatever caused it, could wait. The king and queen were returning—early, yes, but not a moment too soon as far as Pasevalles was concerned. Many things had to be made ready to welcome them home as they deserved.

  26

  The Inner Council

  The Avrel gusts were so strong they made the banners on tower tops jump and snap—“a wind so hard you could hang your clothes on it,” as old Rachel the Dragon, the mistress of chambermaids during Simon’s youth, used to say. Simon even saw a few green and gold pennants whisked from people’s hands and thrown up into the sky to race with the clouds. Market Square was filled with cheering people, thousands of them, along with hundreds of merchants busily selling them beer and food, as well as at least a few other folk, Simon felt sure, intent on picking their pockets. All of Erchester, it seemed, had come out to welcome home their queen and their king.

  “Can you believe it?” he asked his wife.

  Miriamele was smiling, but it was the smile she wore when her days holding court ran long, when she was worried and tired. “Believe what?”

  “This.” People in the crowd were actually calling out his name, familiar as old friends. He could never quite make her understand how strange it seemed to him. His wife had been looked at all her life, praised and scorned by folk she had never met, her clothes and appearance and even her facial expressions discussed by strangers as comfortably as if she were a member of their household. “All right, me. They all came out to see me—a kitchen boy. Because someone else decided I’m a king, so they all said, ‘Well, that’s all right then. Hooray for King Simon!’”

  Like Rinan, he thought, and the memory of the boy’s pale, slack face came back to him, as it had for days. The harper hadn’t seen someone who had once been a confused, frightened youth like himself, he’d seen only a grown man. He’d only seen the king. And he’d done what his king had told him to do. Now that boy is dead, Simon thought, buried with two dozen more men in a field by the side of the Frostmarch Road. Because he believed—

  “You hear cheers only for the king?” Miriamele asked him.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, dear one,” he told her. “I meant because you’re used to this.” He looked at the children leaning perilously out of the upper windows as they left Market Square and entered Main Row, took a deep breath, and did his best to stop thinking about the harper. “I’m not. I never will be. What do they see?”

  “They see the king—and the queen. They see us and they know that things are as they should be, that God is still watching over them.” She looked out across the field of faces. “They see that the seasons will come and go as they should, that the rain will fall and the crops will grow. They see that someone is here to protect them from the evil things they fear.”

  “You don’t sound as if you believe any of that.”

  “Oh, Simon, what does it matter?” Miri looked at him, but only for a moment, then turned back to the crowds, her queenly smile once more in place. “It’s all a pageant, like St. Tunath’s Day. We pretend to take care of them and they pretend to love us.”

  “But they do love us,” Simon said. “Don’t they?”

  “As long as the seasons turn and the rain falls and the barley sprouts, yes. Not that you and I have much to do with any of that. And if we go to war and their brothers and sons die, they’ll blame us.”

  He looked at her face, her wise, familiar, beloved face. “You’re frightened by what happened on the road
—aren’t you? And that White Hand fellow’s message?”

  “Of course I’m frightened, and you should be too. Because you were almost killed, Simon. Because we thought we had pushed those pale-skinned things back into the mountains for good. And now it’s going to start all over again. The war with the Norns almost killed us when we were young and strong, and we are neither of those things now.”

  “I was frightened for you as well,” he said, not certain what he was defending, but still feeling a need. “I heard your voice just before they charged. I didn’t know where you were!”

  Miri reached across to touch his hand but said nothing more for a while.

  They rode through the widest streets and into St. Sutrin’s Square. Here the crowds were making festival in front of the great church; they cheered loudly as the royal procession made its way past. Musicians were playing and those who had room to dance were dancing. Simon and Miriamele stopped to exchange greetings with Archbishop Gervis and the mayor of Erchester, Thomas Oystercatcher, a fat, shrewd man who made sure everyone saw him bow to the king and queen—but not too low—and be acknowledged in turn. The merchants and city government of Erchester always fiercely protected their independence, even on a day of celebration. After his bows, the mayor straightened and waved his cap to the crowd as though he were the one being celebrated.

  “Squeezing every last drop out of the teat, Lord Mayor?” the queen asked him, but quietly, so that only the mayor, the king, and the archbishop heard her.

  The tall buildings on either side of Main Row now blocked the sun, and the returning royal party rode down a long corridor of shadow, horses’ hooves squelching in the mud. The soldiers in front of them had taken off their helmets to show their faces as they waved to the crowds on either side, many of them friends and loved ones who had not seen them since the beginning of winter.