Isi spoke first. “I find it very valuable that the Tiran ambassador observed all this. It might prove uncomfortable with King Scandlan if the queen of Bayern were the only witness to the mysterious death of his bride.”
“I was thinking the same during my watch this morning,” said Dasha. “There is a grave risk Scandlan will hold Bayern in blame.”
“Hold Bayern in blame . . .” Enna scowled. “What about that fact that his wife kidnapped the prince of Bayern and imprisoned Bayern’s queen, and the Tiran ambassador too?”
“A man who would marry Selia might not be able to see a situation clearly,” said Isi.
“Then I’ll help him see it clearly,” Enna said. “That hussy is the reason Geric’s scarred, Brynn’s dead, we spent an inhospitable amount of time in a dungeon, and I’m still not married to Finn.”
Rin noticed Isi flinch at the reminder of Brynn, but she said nothing about it, asking instead, “What did you do with her body?”
“It’s in the crypt. I wanted to make a nice fire for it, but Dasha thought the king should see the evidence.” Enna sat up, her face brightening with a new idea. “Isi, can I go find the corpse and kick it in the shins?”
“No!”
“Fine. I wasn’t serious anyway. Not really.” She rolled onto her side and muttered against her arm, “It’s just that I never got a chance to kick her in the shins.”
Dasha was staring at Enna. “That’s just . . . that’s creepy, Enna.”
Enna sat back up. “You know what’s creepy? A woman who can convince everyone to do what she wants, and what she wants is to be queen of the world and take a little boy from his mother, and the only friends she has are so out-of-their-mind in love with her that they’d burn themselves alive rather than go on without her. That’s creepy.”
Dasha nodded. “Good point.”
“Is that what happened to Selia’s hearth-watchers?” Rin asked. “They burned themselves?”
Dasha and Enna looked at each other, as if waiting for the other to speak first. Finally Enna groaned again and threw her hands into the air.
“They were as insane as their mistress, obviously. Dasha was keeping them nice and soaked so they couldn’t burn us, and I was . . . uh, nudging them along, trying to get them out of here and down into the dungeon. One of them got too close to the window and . . .” Enna frowned. “I didn’t realize how they’d react to her death, or I would’ve used stronger tactics to keep them away from the window. But when one of them saw the body, she started to wail, ‘The queen is dead.’ She was crazed, I mean, tearing-out-her-own-hair crazed, then she flung herself at the window and was gone. Dasha and I were . . . we were so surprised—”
“It happened really fast,” Dasha muttered.
“Four of them threw themselves out the window before
I could get enough wind coming through it to keep them back. The others weren’t happy about that. ‘We have to join our lady,’ and such stuff, and moaning, and hitting their heads, and then . . .”
Enna paused, then looked at Dasha, as if to say, It’s your turn.
Dasha winced. “When they couldn’t jump out the window, they burned themselves up. Between my water and Enna’s wind, they couldn’t throw heat away from their body, but it would seem they could still pull it in . . . and keep it in. They died really quickly, but it was . . . not nice.”
Rin shuddered and looked into the pulsing blue of the sky to keep from imagining it.
Enna said, “Please can we not think about that anymore? For a while, huh? I was really enjoying the morning for once. Razo’s alive and Tusken’s safe and . . . and can’t we think about something pleasant?”
“I have a question.” Dasha examined the print of the rug under her hands as if the pattern was more interesting than her own thoughts. “You did not tell us all last night, Isi. How did you overcome Selia?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I wouldn’t have by myself. After Rin said Tusken was safe, I wasn’t afraid to fight those fire-speakers, but Selia . . . her voice still nagged me, and I just couldn’t get myself to attack her. Then Rin . . .”
Isi looked at Rin as if asking permission, and Rin shrugged.
“Rin did it for me. She moved . . . it’s hard to explain. She walked across the room as casual as anything, but nothing could touch her—not arrows, not fire. It was mesmerizing.”
Dasha and Enna stared at Rin, waiting for an explanation.
“I have tree-speaking.”
“Oh,” Enna said, nodding, as unruffled by that declaration as if she’d just mentioned she had a flea bite on her ankle.
“So . . .” Dasha looked up, her brow creased. “So you spoke to the trees and—”
“No. I mean, there were no trees around. I don’t actually speak to trees anyway. But I listen, and maybe because of all that watching and listening over the years I just know stuff about trees that made me realize that something else was possible.”
She described falling into the memories of the oak tree and realizing that trees do not comprehend time. They just exist, everything slow and careful, past and present intertwined. So for a few moments she’d walked half in the green world, seeing everything at once, moving like a tree that sways in the wind to avoid breaking.
“It seemed the right moment, the right thing to do,” said Rin. “But to be honest, I don’t really understand what I did, or if I could do it again.”
“Don’t leave out the best part,” said Isi, explaining the rest.
“Wait—you punched Selia in the nose?” Enna stared at Rin, her wide mouth turning into a huge grin. “You are my girl! So why didn’t we wake Rin for a turn at watch last night? She can handle anything if she stopped Selia.”
“But I can’t. I couldn’t do enough. Then I saw in Isi . . .” She blushed, embarrassed to describe what she thought. “I saw how powerful she is. And I tried to speak the truth of it to her, so she’d know all that she can do.” The words did not make sense outside her head, so she shrugged again. Besides, adding more detail might bring up people-speaking, and admitting that part was about as enticing as cutting off her own finger.
“So, Isi . . .” Enna peered at her friend with one eye.
“How much exactly can you do?”
Isi winced. “Some. When Rin said Razo was alive and Tusken was safe, it was as if half of the chains binding me just fell away. But I was . . . hesitant, I still couldn’t do enough. I guess Selia’s talking had hammered away at me, so that I didn’t think I had anything left. But then Rin spoke again, and I just understood. Not that I was strong, but that everything else was, the wind and the heat in the air, if I could just allow them to speak to each other through me.
“And there was another motivation. Just as I was about to attack again, I heard on the wind that you and Dasha were coming up the stairs. I didn’t want you to have to do anything. Not that I think you actually could kill anyone, you’re so bad at it. But just in case.”
Enna smirked, but there was understanding in her eyes, a softness.
“You are . . .” Dasha’s eyes were wide. “Isi, you and Rin completely incapacitated four soldiers, seven fire-speakers, and an extremely powerful people-speaker?”
“Not me,” said Rin. “I just watched. And knocked Selia. Isi did the rest.”
Isi glanced at Enna, her expression a little nervous. “Is that all right?”
Rin understood the uncertainty in Isi’s voice. Enna had always been the strongest one. She’d stopped the invading Tiran army, she was so dangerous the best soldiers stood down when she was in the room. It was Enna’s place to be powerful, while Isi was the queen. And Isi did not want to take that away from her friend.
Enna stared up at the charred roof, then a chuckle growled out of her throat.
“What?” said Isi. “What? Share your humor, Enna. I could really use a laugh right now.”
“I was just thinking . . . if Geric thinks you’re, you know, especially attractive when you’re angry, how’ll he react
when he hears about this? You should probably tell him at a time when you two are conveniently alone and sentries have been given orders not to disturb . . .”
Isi blushed and sputtered and looked as if she would order Enna to hush up, but when she opened her mouth all she could do was giggle.
Enna said, “Rinna-girl, we need to find you a suitor.”
“No thanks,” she said, and she meant it. She could not trust herself to get as close to someone as Isi was to Geric, not with the canker of people-speaking inside her. No loss, she assured herself. One time her brother Sten imitated the sound of a squirrel emitting gas, and all six brothers had laughed to tears. Honestly—to tears. It made Rin wonder about the sanity of her brothers’ wives, since they chose such boys as mates.
“Conrad told me he thought you were nice,” Isi said.
“Ha,” said Rin.
Enna elbowed her. “You’ll change your mind soon enough. Just make sure you choose a good Forest boy.”
“No, no, trust me,” said Isi, “one of the Gerhard clan is the way to go. I wonder if any of Geric’s cousins—”
“Sorry, I have to agree with Enna here, Your Majesty,” said Dasha. “Forest boys are far superior to your city stock, no matter how fine the breeding.”
“That’s right,” said Enna. “They’re not dull and worried about dirtying their fine silk tunics. Not that Geric’s that way necessarily, but Forest boys are ready for anything, well-tumbled and apt to climb.”
Dasha was nodding emphatically. “And they love their mothers, the truest of sons, which is so sweet.”
“And just smart enough—not bookish and silly with big words, just as smart as you want them to be.”
“And they are loyal, completely loyal and faithful and true and—”
“And they know how to cook a mean stew—”
Dasha raised one finger. “Ooh, and skin a squirrel! Because . . . you never know when you might need to skin a squirrel.”
“Right. And they know how to love.”
“It’s all true.”
“Every word.” Enna really looked at Dasha. “You’re agreeing with me. Great crows, we see eye to eye, on this matter at least. Pinch me, someone, so I can—ouch! What’re you doing?”
Dasha batted her eyelashes innocently. “You did say to pinch you.”
Part Four
The Forest
Chapter 28
By the next day, Isi had put Castle Daire in order—meals had a schedule, watch rotations were precise and well manned, and the roof over Selia’s antechamber was ringing with hammers and the shouts of workmen. Isi kept Rin beside her as she interviewed each member of the house hold, watchful for those who were full of Selia’s voice and might, for instance, consider crushing poisonous berries into Isi’s dinner.
In the afternoon, Rin was in the courtyard practicing slinging with Razo and Dasha when a sentry announced approaching horsemen. The three ran out as a small group of Bayern soldiers gained the wall’s gate.
“Ho there, you lazy brigands!” Razo shouted. “What have you been doing these past days, polishing your boots while the girls and I take down a tyrant?”
Two horsemen galloped ahead of the rest, and Rin recognized Geric and Finn.
“Does anyone smell roasting meat?” said Razo. “Oh, wait, it’s just Geric’s face.”
Dasha nudged his arm and spoke low. “It is not seemly to talk that way about a king before his men.”
“Men? It’s just Finn.”
The king’s head was no longer bandaged except for a thin band over his left eye, but the skin along his left side was red and puffy.
“Is Tusken here? And Isi?” shouted Geric.
“They are, Your Majesty,” Dasha answered. “Both here and well.”
Much of the pain in Geric’s face seemed to go away. “What’s happened?”
Razo rubbed his hands together, gleeful with the news. “You’ll never guess, King Scarhead—oof!” He rubbed his arm where Dasha had just elbowed him, then cleared his throat. “You’ll never guess. So I’ll tell you. You have to be really ready, though. Are you ready? It was . . . Selia.”
“What?” Finn stood up in his stirrups.
“Selia?” Geric leaned forward on his horse, gaping. “But . . . the Selia who was dead?”
Razo beamed. “Well, she’s dead now. Some folk you have to kill twice. Like me, for instance. It seems—”
But the castle gate was opening, and in a streak of yellow and blue Isi was running, and Geric was dismounting and running too. He grabbed Tusken first from her arms, hugging him and tossing him in the air.
Finn leaped from his horse to greet Enna, and she entwined herself into him, their arms around each other, their faces close. Though they did not kiss, Rin thought that the way they looked at each other was even more intimate.
It’s too bad Finn doesn’t have a brother, Rin thought, then stung with the thought.
“Let’s get married,” Enna was saying with yearning in her voice. “Please, let’s get married right now.”
Finn put his face into her neck and whispered something that made her hum.
I don’t really need my own Finn, thought Rin, feeling her face go hot. It’s no loss.
Still, over the next few days, Rin let the thought wander through her mind from time to time. Sometimes she imagined a boy who was nice, who was curious about what the trees thought, who might hold her hand and walk with her under the Forest canopy. The way Enna talked about Finn sometimes made Rin want to climb a tree and never come down. But other times she felt a curious flutter tickle her heart, and a longing seize her belly. A nice boy who would like to be Agget-kin too, and build a seventh house in the homestead, where she could embrace her ma again, play with the little ones, live under the trees she knew, be Rin and be at home.
It never took long for the hope to snap. The memory of Selia was like seeing herself reflected in watery glass.
King Scandlan arrived a few days after Geric. He had thick lips constantly parted in confused amazement, and eyes that were lined and sad. He went straight to the crypt, where he knelt beside Selia’s body and wept. Like a thunderstorm she must have come in, brilliant and frightening, and made the world seem beautiful in a new way. And then she’d left him in silence. Rin could see that Scandlan was not soothed by the quiet after the storm.
She sat on the steps that led to the crypt, her arms around her knees, listening to the echo of the king’s throat-cracking sobs. The smell was all of dungeon.
She stood, poised to go down to the king, words and the sounds of words scampering in her mind. She had things to say.
An image of Selia handing scissors to Cilie burned in Rin’s mind. She fled back upstairs.
But she found herself hovering about all day, outside the king’s chamber, near his table at supper, watching him. A king, a man of greatness, ruler of Kel, brought to his knees by Selia. By a people-speaker. Fascination and horror battled inside Rin. She could not look away. And still the words danced.
The day after his arrival, Isi, Geric, and Dasha counseled with Scandlan in one of the side chambers on the third floor. Rin played with Tusken in the central chamber, the roof now solid above them. The door slammed open, and the king of Kel stormed out.
“She was my wife,” Scandlan said, his lips quivering. “I know she would not do the things you say she did. You break into my fortress, kill my queen, and expect me to throw a banquet!”
Isi and Geric watched him go.
Dasha sighed. “He is haunted by Selia. After seeing what those hearth-watchers did to themselves, it makes me wonder . . . did her people-speaking leave permanent damage? Maybe those who were closest to Selia will never recover.”
“That would be a tragedy for anyone,” said Geric. “But for the king of Kel, it’s dangerous.”
Rin shuddered, as if she could feel the taint of people-speaking slide through her, a thick black snake tense in her throat. Dasha might be right. Cilie sat in the dungeon now. When
she’d heard of her mistress’s death, instead of trying to escape, the abandoned waiting woman had taken a knife and cut off her own hair.
Lord Forannan and Lady Giles, the original denizens of the castle, returned from their brief exile in the town of Daire. That night they organized a feast for their sovereign, enlisting twelve town men to perform the hummers dance. The men wore sacks over their heads painted with grotesque faces, red eyes wide, red lips in exaggerated smiles and sneers. One sack face was blank.
The dancers’ wooden swords sliced and dove as the men jumped and rolled, rocked and swung in complicated maneuvers, almost touching and always escaping. Women sat to the sides, beating drums in a hard, throbbing rhythm, and the dancers hummed a tune more animal than human.
Rin watched Scandlan. His gaze followed the dancer with the blank face, his own eyes wide and red lips parted as if painted on. The drums beat faster. The dance grew more intense, the men blinded by their sacks still moving together, ducking from the slice of wooden swords, sword against sword whacking in time, one, two, three, and again, their shirts stained with sweat, the drums even faster and dancing so quickly it seemed impossible they would escape the touch, but again they ducked, rocked, spun, and escaped, one, two, three, faster and hotter, drum beats so tight it seemed one continuous bang, men moving so quickly they seemed always about to fall, when someone yelled and eleven swords turned as one, pointing in. The faceless dancer was caught inside the circle of swords.
The drums stopped. The humming stopped. The faceless dancer fell.
Scandlan rose so quickly from the table he knocked his plate to the floor. He did not pause at the crash, but fled from the castle.
Rin followed.
The music started again behind her as she crossed the threshold into the yellow-hot heat of the last of the summer evenings. Scandlan stood atop a battlement overlooking the wood, his arms crossed over his chest. Soldiers approached him, but the king shooed them away.