“Look at them all,” Miriamele said. For a moment Simon thought she was talking about the unhelmeted soldiers, but then realized she meant the cheering residents of Erchester. Main Row had opened up into the wide thoroughfare just before the Nearulagh Gate and the entrance to the Hayholt. “Half of them have never known anything else but peace. Or you and I as their monarchs.”
“But surely that is good.” His own mood had been sorrowful all day, but his wife’s thoughts seemed even darker, grim enough to worry him. “That’s what we worked for. To give them peace and help keep them fed. That’s good, Miri.”
“It has been. Perhaps it won’t be from now on.”
He pursed his lips and kept silent. Simon had learned early in his marriage that there were times when he could only make things worse. She’s never forgotten what her father did to these people and this land, he thought. She’s never forgotten her father at all, more’s the pity.
For a moment he thought of King Elias back in his brief heyday, riding through this same gate on the way to his coronation, beneath these same wonderful, detailed carvings of Prester John’s century-old victory over Adrivis, the last imperator of Nabban. The decline of the ancient southern empire had begun long before, but after John’s victory, Nabban, once the master of the world, had become merely a part of John’s own empire—a domain stretching from the islands in the warm southern ocean to the freezing northlands of Rimmersgard. And when John had died at last in great old age, and Miriamele’s father, the king’s handsome, brave son Elias had taken the throne in peaceful succession, it had briefly seemed a great empire in truth, an empire of peace and plenty—and permanence.
But only a scant year later Erchester had become a haunted place, with men and women scuttling like beetles from one place of dubious shelter to another, houses collapsed under the weight of snow and neglect, and strange shadows walking the empty streets by night. The Hayholt and its proud towers had become something even more frightening, a warren of whispered secrets and heart-rending screams that could not be ignored but were never investigated, as the castle’s dwindling population hid behind locked doors after sundown.
In the end, Miriamele had been forced to kill her own father. It was to save him as much as to stop him, and had quite possibly saved them all, but she never spoke of it, and Simon tried never to mention it.
But it will never be that way again—we won’t let it. Miri must know that. Yes, bad things will still happen—that’s the lot of mortal man—but Miri and I, we are meant to be the happily-afterward.
The king found himself unconvincing.
• • •
If Erchester was a broil of banners and cheering throngs, the royal company found a slightly more reserved greeting in the castle itself, although the courtiers and servants were clearly delighted to see their monarchs returned. Simon, Miriamele, and the other nobles dismounted in the Outer Bailey and most of the troops dispersed from there to the barracks, although the royal guard still surrounded the king and queen. Simon did his best to look pleased and grateful as functionary after functionary came forward to greet the royal couple and welcome them home.
The last of them, holding the Hayholt’s ceremonial keys, was Lord Chancellor Pasevalles himself. He knelt before them and presented the box and its shiny contents, but did not immediately rise. His straw-colored hair still showed no gray, Simon noted with a touch of envy, since Pasevalles was only a few years younger.
“I fear we have much to discuss,” he told them now. “I know Your Majesties are both weary—”
“No, you are right, Lord Chancellor,” Simon said, and Miri nodded. “There are things you must know immediately as well. In fact, once we eat and take a short rest, the queen and I will need you in the Great Hall when the clock strikes two. Count Eolair and Duke Osric and the others of the Inner Council will be wanted as well. Oh, and make sure Prince Morgan is there too, please.”
“Of course, Majesty.” But Pasevalles looked ill-at-ease.
“What’s wrong, Lord Chancellor?” Miri asked.
“Just . . . many things have happened in your absence.” He leaned forward and spoke quietly, although the nearest of the courtiers stood some distance away. “We have received what seems to be an envoy from the Sithi.”
“From Jiriki and Aditu? We have?” Simon was astonished, and his heart seemed to swell in his chest—this was good news indeed. “Excellent! Where is he? Miri, did you hear?”
“I heard.” But the queen was looking at the Lord Chancellor’s face, and saw there what Simon had not noticed. “But there is more, is there not? You said ‘seems’.”
Pasevalles nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty. The envoy is not a he, but a she. And somebody tried to kill her. Whether they succeeded still remains to be seen, but she is in grim condition.”
With the return of the royal party, the stables hosted a bustling, noisy throng of horses, grooms, stable boys, muckers, and of course several dozen squires, each watching jealously over his master’s or mistress’s prize mount. The returning animals blew and nickered loudly as they were led to their stalls, as though greeting all the friends and relatives they had left behind.
In other circumstances, especially after the morning’s long ride, Morgan would have happily let his own squire Melkin take charge of Cavan, but the gelding had begun to limp during the last part of the journey through Erchester, and Morgan wanted to make sure that he would be looked after properly. He saw one of the older grooms and beckoned him over.
“Yes, Highness? And welcome back home, Prince Morgan.”
“Here now, Cavan, settle.” Morgan patted the horse’s neck. “He’s favoring his right front foot. I think there might be a small stone under his shoe, but I couldn’t find it.”
“I’ll have the farrier see to him directly, Your Highness,” the groom said, bowing and taking the reins. “And we’ve got plenty of good, sweet summer grass for him as well, don’t you worry.”
As Morgan watched the groom lead his palfrey off through the surge of bandy-legged men, scurrying boys, and snorting horses, something struck him on the back of the legs so hard that his knees almost buckled, and a pair of arms snaked around his waist and squeezed. A brief instant of surprised panic vanished at the sound of a familiar voice.
“I’m so angry at you! You said you would write me letters, and you didn’t!”
He tried to reach back to pry his sister loose, but she was already scrambling around to the front and had begun clutching at his tunic and stamping on his feet as though she meant to climb him like a tree.
“Hold, hold!” he laughed. “I did write to you.” He bent down and picked her up and embraced her. “You’re heavier. Have you been sneaking sweetmeats out of the kitchen? Wasn’t anyone watching over you?” He held her away from him, although her vigorous wriggling made it difficult to keep his grip. It was more than a little shocking to see that she looked older, too, her face clearly longer and thinner, even as she stretched it in a grimace. “And you’ve lost a tooth, Lil! You look like an old beggar woman!”
She tried to slap his head but he avoided the blow. “You wrote one letter, Morgan,” she said, “and that was so long ago—in Feyever-month! I know because I got it just after Candlemansa. Grandma and Grandpa sent me lots of letters in the royal post, and Uncle Timo too, but you only sent that one!” Lillia stared at him with the fiercest of scowls, then suddenly she brightened. “Did you know there’s a Sither here in the castle? She’s nearly dead but Aunt Tia-Lia said she’s a real fairy.”
He had no idea what his sister was talking about, and could not help laughing. “I missed you too. I’m sorry I didn’t write more.” He embraced her and kissed her cheek, but she still struggled. “Now I need something to eat, and badly. Can you help me with that?”
“Silly.” She gave him a look that contained as much disgust as love, and in that instant Morgan felt himself to be truly hom
e. “You don’t need help. Someone will get it for you. You’re a prince.”
“Ah, you’re right. I forgot. Very well, then I command you to go and find me something so I can break my fast.”
She shook her head. “That’s silly, too. I’m a princess. I don’t have to.”
“Then I suppose I will have to kidnap you and force you to do my bidding!” He bent suddenly and grabbed her around the waist, then lifted her up and dumped her over his shoulder. “Captured by a fierce giant! Princess Pigling is surely doomed!”
She stopped kicking and squealing for a moment. “A giant! I forgot! One of the soldiers told us there was a giant where you were, and the knights all fought with it! Is that true, Morgan? Did you really fight with a giant?”
Something like a shadow swept across his thoughts, darkening the moment of happiness into something more complicated. He carefully set her down on the hay-strewn floor. “Nothing to worry about,” he told her. “I never saw any giant.”
“We missed you so! You must be delighted to be home, Your Majesty. Back where things can be done properly.” Smelling of orris root and ever so slightly of perspiration (because the day had turned warm) Lady Tamar, wife of the Baron of Aynsberry, bent and began lacing up Miriamele’s corset. A young woman of fragile health, Tamar had not traveled north.
“Oh, yes. Delighted.” But after the comparative freedom of months of travel, of many days’ riding for every day spent on the heavy, public business of state, Miriamele was in no hurry to return to more formal attire for this Inner Council meeting. She had never liked wearing a corset at the best of times, but now it felt like being nailed into a coffin.
In quick order, the women arranged her jewelry and pinned her heavy headdress into place. Lady Tamar, who had discovered she was with child just when the royal progress had set out for Rimmersgard, was now very distinctly rounded. “You are so beautiful, my queen,” Tamar said as she viewed the ladies’ handiwork. “How proud your husband will be!”
Miriamele only sighed. She felt like a saint’s statue being prepared for a feast day.
Lady Shulamit leaned in. “By your leave, Majesty, may I paint your face? Forgive me for saying so, but your skin has been much reddened by the sun.”
“Oh, very well.” Miriamele hated this too, but suffered it for high occasions—times when she felt she must look the part of the perfect queen. She wrinkled her nose at the vinegary smell of the whitener, but let the young noblewoman apply it. She could feel it drying her already dry skin when Lady Tamar passed her a mirror. It was difficult to lift the glass to a position where she could see her reflection with three women leaning over her and another one bumping uncomfortably against her shins while she put Miriamele’s shoes on. When the queen finally caught a glimpse of herself, smeared white as a phantom, she nearly dropped the mirror.
“No!” she said. “No. Take it off.”
“What? Take what off, Majesty?”
“The face paint. I will not look like this. Not today.” What had stared back from the mirror was not her own familiar, aging features but something like the hideous apparitions she had seen rushing toward her out of the blackness beside the North Road, the corpse faces of the escaping Norns. “Now, Shulamit. It makes me look like one of the White Foxes.”
The ladies were surprised enough that they barely hid their startled looks, but Lady Shulamit dutifully began to scrub away the lead and vinegar whitener with a damp cloth.
Miriamele’s hands were shaking so badly that she had to clasp them together in her lap. She knew her ladies must be confused. How could they know what she had seen, what she had felt? Those who had accompanied her to Elvritshalla had been in the tents and under guard when the Norns fought their way down the steep hill, whereas Miriamele had been out in the darkness, in the crush of men and animals, looking for her husband. The ladies had seen nothing but each others’ worried faces as they huddled together in the royal tent, waiting for the whole frightening thing to end. But their queen had seen that huge monster crash through the trees toward them like an ogre from the earliest hours of time, when God’s misfit creatures still roamed the land, and men could only hide from them and pray for salvation.
The giant had been bad enough, but these women could not even dream of what it had been like as the Norns had swept down in the monster’s wake, lying close against their dark horses, their faces appearing out of the night like funeral masks, shrieking and laughing as they plunged through ten times their number of armed men and vanished into the grasslands beyond the road, leaving behind only the bodies of those who had been unable to get out of their way.
No, Miriamele decided. I will not go to council looking like one of those horrid demons.
“Go to, scrub it all off,” she said. “Better I should be as sun-pinched as any peasant. And I will not wear the black mantle, either. Bring me the blue one, with the stars, the one like an evening sky. Yes, we continue to mourn Duke Isgrimnur, but today I must wear something different.”
Her ladies, not entirely understanding the queen’s strange mood, hurried to obey.
• • •
To Miri’s surprise, her husband was waiting for her outside the throne room.
“Where are the others?” she asked. “Why haven’t you gone in?”
“Because I wished to go in with my wife—my queen.” He smiled, but she could tell he was as troubled as she was. “I went to see the Sitha messenger.”
“Did she speak to you?”
He shook his head. “Thelía has done all she can for her, and she rests peacefully, but she scarcely moves. They say she seems to be slipping farther away each day.”
“Is there nothing to do for her?”
“Yes—or at least I think there might be. We must send her back to her people, Miri. They have healers that know more than even Tiamak or his lady, especially about healing their own folk.”
Now it was Miriamele’s turn to shake her head. “Sweet Elysia! I had hoped we would have a few days to take our rest, to think and talk and take council about this attack by the Norns and the message on the arrow. But I should have known better.”
“Yes, my dear one, you probably should have.”
She sighed. “Did you see our granddaughter?”
“I did, but only for a moment. I swear Lillia has grown a handspan since we left. She scolded me for going straightaway to a council meeting, so I’ve promised to watch her ride her pony later.” He crooked his elbow. “Shall we go in, my dear? The others are waiting for us.”
The great throne room had been cleaned and the banners carefully dusted for the return of the High King and High Queen, but the months away made it seem almost unfamiliar, Miriamele thought. The vast chair of dragon’s bones, Prester John’s famous throne, sat on the daïs at one end of the hall, soaked in sunlight that arrowed down from the high windows, its back shadowed by the lowering, monstrous skull of the dragon Shurakai. The beast had been the centerpiece of a great and momentous lie, its death claimed by King John when, in fact, it had been killed by Simon’s ancestor Ealhstan the Fisher King. For that and other reasons, Simon had never much liked the object, and for a while had even banished it from the throne room entirely: for a year or more after they had been crowned the great chair languished in the courtyard outside, exposed to the elements. But though Simon disliked it, the people of Erkynland felt very differently, and eventually he had given in and allowed it to be moved back into a position of honor in the hall. Still, neither he nor his wife would sit in it. Miriamele understood that it meant continuity to the common people, but she hated it for the memory of her father’s last mad years.
In any case, she reminded herself, we are two, not one—a king and a queen, ruling together, even if some of the nobles seem to forget that sometimes. A single throne would not do for us both. And suddenly she felt a flush of gratitude for the man at her left, the kitchen boy she had ma
rried.
I tried to keep him out of my heart, she thought. The saints know that I tried! I did not wish this life for him. I was raised for this duty that never ends—he should have had something better. But thank God I have him!
She gave Simon’s arm a squeeze. He could not have guessed what she was thinking, but he squeezed back.
• • •
The Pellarine Table sat at the base of the daïs. The long table had been in the castle for centuries, a gift from the Nabbanai imperator Pellaris to King Tethtain, the Hernystiri conqueror who had briefly added Erkynland to his domains, and who in his last few years of life had even used the Hayholt as one of his royal residences. Seated around it, attended by a number of serving-folk, waited over a dozen people in a surprising assortment of shapes and sizes, the greatest gathering of the Inner Council since Miriamele and Simon had begun to put their own more cautious stamp on the government of Erkynland and the High Ward.
To the left of Simon’s empty chair sat Count Eolair in his post as Hand of the Throne, so deeply caught up with a pile of correspondence that at first he did not realize the king and queen had entered the throne room. To his right was Pasevalles, the Lord Chancellor, carrying his own wooden box full of letters. On the other side, next to Miriamele’s chair, pride of place went to Lord Constable Osric, Duke of Falshire and Wentmouth as well as father of John Josua’s widow Idela. Miriamele did not much like her son’s widow, but she had better feelings about Osric himself, a careful, sensible land-owner who had distinguished himself in the Second Thrithings War before his daughter had been born.
Ranged on either side of them sat several more friends and court notables: Tiamak; Sir Kenrick and his commander, Sir Zakiel, prominent officers of the Erkynguard; and His Eminence, Archbishop Gervis of St. Sutrin’s, the highest religious authority in Erkynland, a generally benevolent and occasionally useful fellow who also served as the Royal Almoner. Gathered at the table as well were Lord Feran, Master of Horse and marshal of the castle; and Earl Rowson of Glenwick, whom Simon and Miriamele referred to privately as “Rowson the Inevitable.” Because he was head of one of Erkynland’s most powerful families—some of old King John’s earliest supporters—Rowson had to be included in even the most intimate gatherings of power, despite being one of the stubbornest and least inquiring people in Erchester. Simon had a slightly more optimistic view of him, which was another of the many reasons Miriamele felt that her husband was as lucky to be married to her as she to him: she was his only defense against his abiding flaw of too much kindness. Simon found it hard to say no to even the scruffiest and laziest ne’er-do-wells.