The Hedgewitch Queen

I bolted for the safety of the watercloset, my legs threatening to shiver out from under me. I gained my sanctuary and pulled the door shut, just as I heard Jierre di Yspres open the door. “Breakfast, Captain, d’mselle.”

  I let out a long, shaking sigh and leaned against the door. The sliver of mirror over the washstand revealed my face, flushed cheeks and dark eyes, my hair mussed and tangled, the copper serpent of the Aryx glinting above the collar of my shirt. There was nothing in the mirror to warrant attention.

  Just the provincial hedgewitch, Lisele’s strange pet lady-in-waiting. That was all. Nothing to catch Tristan’s eye.

  Yet it seemed I had.

  Not just a King’s jest, perhaps? I could not even speak my hope to myself.

  Find something else to fret at, idiot. You are at the edge of the Shirlstrienne, pursued by di Narborre, and entrusted to the care of a bare half-dozen men who may turn on you in an instant if their Captain decides you are not queenly enough.

  Or not tractable enough.

  The Aryx, much as I wished to hand it over to the Captain and be shed of the burden, was my best defense. I touched the copper edge above my shirt, fascinated by the play of light on supple metallic scales. Pulling down the material a bit revealed the rest of the Great Seal of Arquitaine.

  “Why do you stay with me?” I asked quietly, aware I was speaking to a magical object. If I was exceedingly lucky, it would not answer. “I am not the one you want.”

  But you may have to play at being so, like one of a Comedie-Trajique troupe. Imagine, Comtesse di Rocheburre used to say. Imagine, and you will do. She was speaking of being a noblewoman and moving gracefully, but I would hazard it applies here.

  I may have to hazard it will apply here.

  The Aryx only glinted, throbbing against my skin like a second heartbeat. I shook my head, my legs trembling with the aftermath of fever, and decided to set about making myself presentable.

  But before I did, I studied myself for a long moment, one thought filling me until I thought I would cry out from the immensity of it.

  Tristan d’Arcenne kissed my hand. I watched in the mirror as bright scarlet rose in my cheeks. When I could set the thought quietly down without blushing, I began to move again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Breakfast for me was broth and new bread, and I was finally hungry. I set to with a will, and the lieutenant peeled an apple for me, quartered it. They ate morning pies, full of egg and salted pork, and there was hot chai and fresh milk to wash them down. There were also slices of the Shirlstrienne cheese, soft and flavored with piniel, studded with nuts.

  Afterward, di Yspres set to carrying saddlebags and gear downstairs. D’Arcenne gave me the leather doublet, and I retreated to the watercloset to make myself at least a little more ready to endure another day of horseback. I was combing my hair—Tristan had given me the servant’s bag back—when I heard di Yspres.

  “We must make haste,” he said quietly. My fingers moved of themselves, braiding. “Tis an uneasy air in the town this morn. I think we should take the back way out.”

  “Of course.” D’Arcenne was manifestly unsurprised.

  “I thought she was not a Court sorcerer.” Leather creaked as di Yspres hefted gear around. He could catfoot when he chose to, but there seemed no call for it at the moment, so he was loud as a Navarrin metalsmith.

  “She is not. The Aryx.” A slight, embarrassed cough.

  “The Aryx?”

  I finished my braid and tied it off with a blue hair ribbon brought from the Palais. Why could not I have brought something practical? Chiding myself for it comforted me. Something other than hair ribbons.

  “It seems to have awakened.” The Captain’s tone did not alter. Still, di Yspres inhaled sharply, as if he had been pinched.

  Awakened? I wrapped the braid around my head, threading another ribbon through it. No servant girl to help with this, either, though I did not feel this lack as much as I could have. It was not quite an affectation to braid my own hair in the style of di Rocancheil at Court, but twas close. It is the Great Seal, it never slumbers.

  How long had the King had it? Easily thirty years of his reign, since his crowning. I attended Lisele’s dressing and had never remarked it in her possession. As far as anyone knew, the Seal lay in the treasure house of the Raven Tower, safely locked away until needed for a fête or particular ceremony.

  I could not wake, Lisele had whispered. Had she been seeking to do so?

  Why lock it away, unless it was dormant? The old books and tapestries spoke of the ruler of Arquitaine wearing the Aryx by the grace of the Blessed. Yet it had not been worn openly for many a year, many a reign. No war or invasion to make it necessary—Tiberius had not needed it; he made his diplomatic coup with the Damarsene by dint of sheer cunning alone.

  Or so the histories said. Now I wondered, and my head hurt with the implications. Had Tiberius’s cunning been exercised in keeping the Damarsene from guessing that the Seal of the Blessed slumbered, instead of in other directions? Had they known, very little would have stopped their fine army—and the hateful Pruzians, always at the back of Damar to make mischief or pick at the leavings—from trampling our borders. Arquitaine is a rich prize, and our gods are not as bloodthirsty as the Pruzian’s black bird-god, or the Damarsene’s jealous, bull-headed blasphemy.

  The Aryx did help me with the witchlight. A chill touched my back. But why? If it could do so, and yet not aid Lisele…

  I bit my lip, looking at the washstand. Porcelain shone white, as I worked the problem inside my skull and found my wits thankfully less dull. At least, there was not the maddening sensation of seeking to think through porridge. I felt much more my usual sharp-eared, intrigue-catching self.

  If the Aryx fed Court sorcery, would it do the same for hedgewitchery?

  I pulled the medallion from under my shirt easily. It glowed mellow in the skylight’s shaft of gleaming sunlight. Three serpents—copper, silver, black gold, twisting around each other, two with ruby eyes, the black serpent with eyes of diamond. I cupped it in my palm, listening to its pulse.

  It will not let you remove it, some deep part of me whispered suddenly, both awed and frightened. It will never willingly let you remove it.

  I knew better than to doubt—it was the same voice that had told me once to comfort my Princesse while she sobbed, when she had sent all her other ladies-in-waiting away. The King had not come to celebrate her birthday, being delayed by a diplomatic crisis—something about the Navarrin ambassador’s sudden about-face during trade treaty discussions, I thought, although I had only been twelve and had only the foggiest notion of politics. Their Prince was now a King, and his greed was likewise kinglike in size. Thank the Blessed the mountains made him an ally, by dint of Arquitaine being too difficult to attack. Of course, the fact that our naval power kept Tiberia in check as well had summat to do with Navarrin’s good graces.

  In any event, I had crept into Lisele’s chamber and held her during that long-ago storm of tears, and afterward my place as her favourite was assured. Particularly since I never told a soul. The better I kept my Princesse’s secrets, the more assured my place became. The voice of warning had risen since then, during difficult intrigues, when I had to navigate not merely myself but Lisele through treacherous waters and to safe harbor, with her pride intact and my own reputation kept small and eccentric.

  The deep voice had never led me astray.

  Coils moved against my palm, metal sliding as supple as living tissue, the serpents writhing, straining. Gemmed eyes watched me, unblinking. Beautifully carved scales rasped against each other, a faint whispering in the silence of the tiled washroom.

  My mouth went dry as a Tifrimat sand dune. Even Court sorcery could not prepare me for this. If I tried to remove it from my throat, would it stick to my fingers, fusing to my flesh again? Bile rose to the back of my tongue, the breakfast I had been so hungry for craving escape.

  My flesh shuddered on my bones at the thought of d
ropping the Aryx down my shirt again and feeling those delicately carved metal serpents slither-rasp against my chest.

  The serpents slowed and ceased, but now the black gold was the uppermost and would show over my shirt. Trembling returned, settling into my marrow. I cannot hide this. I cannot brook the feel of this against my skin.

  Then, I must. Tristan would wish it.

  I braced myself against the wall, a most unladylike sheen of sweat on my forehead. I forced myself to consider this as if it were a riddle, or an intrigue. I had studied the Graeca philosophers’ Rules of Logic—one could not study Tiberian and not hear of the Rules—and they would tell me to cease my thrashing and begin in a particular place.

  First, what could I state with any certainty?

  The Aryx will not harm me—or at least, it has not yet. And it does not slumber. I had used it to power the witchlight. Whatever it had been before, it was most definitely awake now.

  What if the Aryx remembered I was not the royal it wanted—merely a hedgewitch pressed into service to hold it until someone else could be found? “Do not strike me down, I beg of you,” I whispered to the Seal. “I mean no harm.”

  The snakes stirred again, slightly. I managed to restrain a flinch, but only just.

  There was a courteous tap on the door that nearly sent me out of my skin. “D’mselle? Are you well?”

  I had to try twice before my dry throat would give out a word or two. “Well enough.” It took another effort to make my clutching fingers loosen and let the Seal nestle against my shirt over my breastbone.

  I flinched. Heavy sluggish warmth spread from the contact, and the sensation was at once terrifying and queerly comforting.

  I exited the watercloset to find the lieutenant alone, leaning at the mantel with his feathered hat clasped in one brown hand. His lean face changed at he gazed upon me. “D’mselle? Your Majesty?”

  I swallowed again, drily. “Chivalier di Yspres.” It took yet more courage I did not know I possessed to lift the Seal with damp fingertips. “Might I have you examine this?”

  He took two steps away from the mantel, and paled, stopping dead. “Gods,” he breathed. “The serpents…they have moved.”

  “So I am not crazed.” I should have felt relieved, but fresh unsteadiness welled through me. “I…”

  His dark eyes widened until I saw an echo of the child he must have been. “You are the Queen. I thought…but you…”

  To hear him flounder snapped me back to some manner of sense. “I seek only to be the Duchesse di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy, sieur. I must stop Tris—ah, the Captain from pursuing a ridiculous course of action and finding himself murdered for it.” You are not ideal, but I have you off balance now. You may even help me. “Will you help me?”

  His throat-apple bobbed as he swallowed, his gaze moving from the Seal to my face. “The Aryx has not awakened since the time of King Fairlaine.”

  “I thought…” There were indeed stories of the power of the Aryx before Queen Toriane’s death—but none after. It was not spoken of, for the wonders of Court sorcery practiced by the nobles still held at festivals and fêtes. Hedgewitches practiced only among the peasants, and physicked their betters for coin.

  Yet had not the nobles been using less and less Court sorcery? After all, it had become more difficult, even for those of noble birth. Some said the illusions wrought now were more wondrous and complex, yet…

  I did not wish to travel further down that road. I had Jierre di Yspres in a state most conducive to intrigue now—or as conducive as he would ever be. I decided to return us to a more promising line of conversation. “I do not wish the Captain to kill himself seeking to field an army and put me on a blood-soaked throne. I do not want this, sieur chivialier.” I used his given name, then, judging the time right. “Jierre. Please, aid me. Help me.”

  He looked about to reply, but just then Tristan d’Arcenne opened the door after a token knock. “Is she—ah. D’mselle. Are you ready?”

  I dropped the Aryx back down my shirt, despite the crawling in my flesh at its warm living pulse. Distract his attention, or di Yspres’s face will tell all. The man is almost useless. Irritation boiled under my breastbone. I had been so close.

  “Ready enough.” I tried a bright smile as if for a dress fitting. The Captain paced into the room to take my arm. The touch of his hand on my elbow sent a firebolt through me.

  “You still look pale, Vianne. I wish there were some other way.” A faint, vertical worry line between his charcoal eyebrows gave the words some truth.

  “I shall be well enough,” I lied, and let him lead me from the room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tierrce d’Estrienne huddled under red tiled roofs, narrow cobbled streets Tristan guided us through like thread through needle-eye. The market sounds came from a street away from the inn, which was a scrubbed-white building I would never be able to find again, did you return me to the town and ask me to do so at daggerpoint. Twas eerie to hear the life of a town echoing all about us, and yet every street d’Arcenne chose was well-nigh deserted.

  Di Yspres rode silent behind us. I looked a boy too young to ride a destrier, perhaps—my braided hair safely hidden under Tinan’s hat—and the peasants would not question obvious nobles.

  But they could be questioned later, and they might remember. We could only hope our pursuers would not know the correct questions to ask. Much now depended on whether yesterday’s visitor had sent a missive to his master.

  Once we left the town’s edgings, we found ourselves on a cart track slipping into the shadows of the forest.

  The Shirlstrienne’s fringes were lovely as a courtsong, trees arching up over the cart track, dappling the grass and dusty wheelruts with shade. They provided a measure of relief from the heat, though dust danced and swirled fair to choke one.

  The sky remained clouded, yet the day was close and oppressive. Dark clouds stacked themselves in the northern sky, glimpsed once or twice before the trees closed us away. I shivered, the unpleasant sensation of approaching storm weighting my arms and legs. I was sensitive to such things even without the help of hedgewitchery; sometimes at Court the looming of a storm would send me to bed with half my head knotting itself tight with pain. Lisele fretted, and Comtesse di Rocheburre and Lady di Chvreil also suffered storm-pains and the half-head after, so I knew I was neither imagining the agony nor likely to die of it.

  Though dying might have been preferable, once or twice. The half-head is distinctly unpleasant, and those who do not suffer it rarely understand.

  D’Arcenne’s arms tightened. “What is it?”

  I prayed the Blessed would spare me the half-head. “Merely a storm. I am well enough.”

  Di Yspres was before us, gloomy light gathering between the trees. His horse paced, sprightly for such a large creature, and dappled leaf shadow ran wetly over beast and rider. The feather in his hat bobbed, a lazy counterpoint.

  I searched for aught to say. “How far to the others?”

  “Another hour.” His breath touched my ear once more, and a hot flush went through me. “Perhaps a little less. They know we are approaching.”

  I nodded. Uneasiness prickled at my nape. But was it danger, or because his arms were around me? He could not help it; we had to ride double, and were I to perch on the back of the saddle and hold him I might well shatter any illusion I ever had of being graceful by falling and breaking my neck.

  That would solve the present quandary nicely, would it not? I straightened, seeking to lean away from him, but his arms tightened again, pulling me back. The horse’s hooves clopped on the dusty track.

  “The trees become very thick. If the storm breaks we shall be dry for a short while at least while we unpack the cloaks. But you are still uneasy, no?”

  I nodded. “Still uneasy.” I gave up trying to lean away from him, and he sighed.

  “You are safe, Vianne. I swear it.” Was something caught in his throat? And why would he address me so familiarly
? I was not dreaming.

  Of course, I was important to him—if only because I was the means of his revenge. As long as he still thought me capable of serving that end, I was reasonably safe. And yet, I could not allow him to harm himself. Perhaps he would listen to reason. He was reasonable.

  Sometimes.

  I rested my head against his shoulder. It was easier to speak without his gaze on me. “I do not wish you to die pursuing this ridiculous course, Captain.”

  “I survived Court, and the Duc d’Orlaans’s tender attentions. I think I have the skill to survive reaching Arcenne.” Was he bridling? I could not tell.

  “Afterward,” I persisted, felt him tense. “After Arcenne. You plan to field an army, do you not? I wish no such thing. We may find another to hold the Aryx, one more suited, and all will be well.”

  “You are the holder of the Aryx.” Tristan’s tone was soft, inflexible, gentle. “You are the rightful Queen of Arquitaine. Whence comes this uncertainty of yours?”

  “I am an illegitimate royal at best. That does not make me a Queen. There must be someone else.” Someone who could direct this warmongering spirit of yours more fruitfully. And less dangerously.

  “There is the Duc.” A humorless jest, delivered through clenched teeth. “He killed his brother to gain the throne, and would force you into a wedding and bedding within a day were he to capture you.”

  I blew out a long sigh, forgetting that such a thing was not pretty manners. My frustration was not mannerly at all. “But certainly there are others. There must be others!”

  “There are no others. Did you not listen, Vianne? The royal bloodline has been exterminated, even its most diluted branches. Every royal scion the Aryx might find remotely acceptable is dead. Except for you and the Duc.”

  And that is exceeding suspicious. “Why was I not killed? Poison in a cup, knife in the dark?” Or a poison killspell? I am no Court sorcerer, and no fair hedgewitch either, apparently. Since I could not scent poison on a pettite-cake.

  And yet I wondered about that. Something about the King’s chai before his death disturbed me greatly. I could not lay my finger on it, and had not time to think, for d’Arcenne now chose to speak further.