The Hedgewitch Queen

It took every scrap of Court training I possessed to face him. “There is an army approaching, Captain. Your father—I must speak to your father. These men have ridden to warn us. We must stable the h-horses…How many? How many of yours have arrived, Adrien?” I was well to witless, but it could be supposed that the news of an approaching army would maze my humble brains.

  I know a little tale, of a man who killed a King.

  Bile scorched my throat.

  No. Tristan was the King’s Left Hand. Proof? What proof could Adrien have? It was the Duc’s lie, that Tristan had killed the King.

  And yet.

  Whatever crimes Henri di Tirecian-Trimestin committed in the name of kingship, his Left Hand committed more. Take care who you keep close to you…tis more important than you think.

  Or had she only mistrusted any man who could be the Left Hand to the King who had discarded her so ruthlessly?

  He was my Consort, and had led me through the tunnel under Mont di Cienne.

  Yet the Duc had ordered Tristan’s tongue be taken so he could not speak. Tristan had been waiting in the passage for me, with Simieri—or had Simieri come along to take Tristan unawares?

  Or had Tristan been the one to catch the Minister Primus at a different game?

  I had not seen my Captain the entire time of the conspiracy’s unwinding. He had left me in the passage when the alarums began. And something had bothered me for a long, long while, never quite articulated.

  It simply did not make sense that the King had been poisoned, for I was not so untalented a hedgewitch as to miss poison in pettite-cakes no matter how exotic the toxin…and why, oh why, had Tristan been waiting for me in that passageway?

  No. I could not mistrust him, could I?

  “Fifteen.” Adrien’s voice cracked harshly. “Fifteen of my riders left, tis all. We slowed them, killed some sentries. Much as we could do. They fear the countryside now. And the night.” He patted the horse’s wet neck. His grimace was fey, an animal’s bared teeth. “We caused some damage.”

  “Good. How many? And who?” Tristan’s tone was needlessly harsh, but this was dire news for both of us. It was slim comfort that he thought to ask the same questions I did.

  “Some thousands,” I said. “Damarsene. Flying the Duc’s colors. And with a siege train.” This time my knees did buckle. Tristan caught me, swore, and pushed a strand of my hair back. His fingers were tender, but the thought would not leave me.

  Were you part of the conspiracy, Tristan? What proof could this bandit have? “When all is revealed,” Adrien taunted him once before. So, did he suspect, or…

  The noble bandit was my newfound kin, and he had little reason to lie so grievously to me, unless he hated Tristan d’Arcenne beyond reason.

  Or unless there was truth to this tale, of a man who killed a King.

  There were too many unanswered questions. Too many mysteries conspiring to cloud my Consort, dogging his heels. If Tristan had lied about poison in pettite-cakes, why?

  And what other words of his should I mistrust?

  “Inside. Come, di Cinfiliet, there’s wine for you. And bandages. The physicker’s been called.” Tristan sounded just the same. Just as he always had.

  My heart turned to ice. I could not doubt him, my Consort, my love.

  And yet.

  I had only his word for what had happened to the King. Divris di Tatancourt could not tell me anything but rumor, which painted Tristan as the blackest of murderers. At least, the official tale spread by the Duc was that Tristan was the King’s killer. Now I wondered just who Tristan truly was a traitor to.

  Or was I the traitor for even entertaining the thought?

  Proof captured from di Narborre. A poison well to draw from, to be sure. Or proof so damning it could not be denied.

  Everything hinged on the remainder of Adrien di Cinfiliet’s tale. I could only wait, and see.

  * * *

  He refused all help from the hedgewitch, took only unwatered wine, and told my Council of the approaching army as he was: bloody, battered, and swaying with exhaustion. I caught a glint in his steely eyes as he did so, which led me to think there were other reasons behind his choosing to appear weakened. Risaine should be proud of him; he was playing his part to perfection.

  What other part is he playing, Vianne? Wait, watch. Practice your patience.

  Twas agony to keep still and to watch. I sat in the chair at the head of the table, listening through the roaring in my ears, barely aware of what he repeated: an army, some thousands, with a siege train, answering other questions about horse and man, dispositions and colors. The Council took the news well, Perseval d’Arcenne questioning him closely as to exactly where, the manner of their siege engines, how many Adrien and his riders had killed, the speed of the interlopers. How many cavalry, how many infantry, if he had taken any prisoners.

  Which, of course, Adrien had not. His hatred would not allow it, for the one who led the army was the Duc’s dog, Garonne di Narborre. A murmur ran through the Council at that tidbit.

  I closed my eyes, sank back into the chair. The Aryx shifted, carved scales rasping against silk fouled with horse-lather. I let out a soft sigh. Breath and my usual wit threatened to desert me.

  So close to the King none suspected, not even fat Henri himself. But he was crossed; expected to be sacrificed like a chivalier on a battlechess board. Only he twisted as a chivalier does in that game; he disappeared with the key to it all, a girl with long dark hair and pretty, pretty eyes.

  Adrien had little reason to lie so flagrantly, for my protection gave him and his men shelter against di Narborre, as well as a chance to avenge the wrongs done them.

  Perhaps he had even suspected, before this. But how? Did any among the Guard know aught, or suspect? How many of the men I had trusted my life to had darker secrets?

  He said he possessed proof. If he had killed one of di Narborre’s men, would he have proof of a conspiracy even deeper than I had dreamed?

  The argument roiled around me. Voices raised, Lord Siguerre’s cranky whistle, Perseval d’Arcenne’s baritone, Tristan speaking harshly for once. I rubbed at my temples. Marquis di Falterne making a few acerbic remarks, Chivalier d’Anton seeking as usual to smooth the ruffled feathers. He and the Conte di Rivieri I had chosen because they were naturally calm and unruffled, balanced with Conte di Dienjuste’s fiery excitability and Irion di Markui’s rumbling disapproval of everything. On such short notice, and from the border provinces, I seemed to have found a great deal of talent the Court and King Henri’s Council had overlooked.

  My skull twinged with pain. Twas not the half-head; yet bad enough. Each time I think this cannot possibly become worse, it becomes so.

  From the beginning, Vianne. Adrien di Cinfiliet had little reason to lie to me.

  That does not mean something has not been concocted to use his honesty against me. But then again, what proof could he have from di Narborre that he would trust? As much as he may dislike Tristan, he is certain to hate di Narborre more, for di Narborre killed his mother.

  My heart was a chunk of lead, senselessly pulsing, though I perhaps would rather have stopped it outright, to save myself the tearing that would result if my Consort had—

  “—Your Majesty?” D’Anton, appealing to me.

  Brought rudely back to the present moment, I did not answer, massaging my temples. I stank of horsefoam, and a vision of the charred bandit village rose in front of me. The stinksweet of roasted flesh, the charred homes, the small, helpless bodies of children. If I did not find some solution, would the same happen in the clean white stone halls of Arcenne, in the streets below where the people went about their lives, going to market, going to the Temple? And the R’mini, scattered throughout Arquitaine, would suffer as well once the Damarsene were finished with our rebellion and turned to bring the country under their heel once and for all, whither the Duc d’Orlaans willed it or no.

  Each of those lives hung on me, both the lost and those needing to be p
reserved.

  I pushed myself to my feet, the chair scraping against the floor. Silence fell.

  I opened my eyes, paced to the window. Below, Arcenne lay packed behind its wall, the Keep lifting like a stone ship’s prow. A haze of smoke drifted up from the town and the outlying settlements. Trees clothed in summer leaf swayed gently in the sunshine, mountain wind mouthing the wavery glass. “Dear gods,” I whispered.

  On the mountainside, the white blocks of the Temple glistened. I remembered the statue of Jiserah, glowing with a radiance far beyond starlight or moonlight. The mysterious priestess of Kimyan, with her piercing gray eyes; and the Aryx ringing as if it would burst, power running through its straining serpents.

  The gods were watching, perhaps. But theirs was not help I could do aught but beg, and I was a beggar in so much else. I had nothing to trade save the Aryx, and it belonged to them in any event. No, there was no help from that quarter.

  And Tristan…

  I was alone, as surely as I had ever been at Court, even among the whirl and glitter. Loneliness in disaster is the fate of every man or woman, though, and it does little good to bemoan it.

  “Your Highness?” Perseval d’Arcenne. “We await you.”

  And you will have to await me a few moments longer, Minister Primus. I touched the glass. Ran my fingertips over its rippling surface. I cannot do this. I cannot. I do not know why the Aryx has chosen me, but tis wrong. I cannot order more death, I cannot be responsible for this. A war on the other side of winter I thought I could avert, or at least it would give me enough time to find a solution. But a war here and now, and the Damarsene on Arquitaine soil?

  Blessed preserve us all. How much more prayer would I indulge in before I ceased to think of myself as irreligious?

  “D’mselle?” Baron d’Arcenne’s voice held irritation, and the snap of command. “If you would be so good as to—”

  “Enough, Perseval.” My tone could have shattered the window. “When I wish for you to speak to me as if I am your lackey, I will inform you of the event. Until that time, be more careful of your manner. Tristan?”

  “Aye, my liege?” Suitably hushed, carefully obedient.

  “How long do we have?” My throat closed around the words, thick with tears. I wondered that I sounded so haughty.

  “Three days, four at most. Enough time to get everyone inside the walls and—”

  “I will spend tonight at the Temple. Send to Danae, priestess of Jiserah, to inform her I wish her services. Gather every hedgewitch and Court sorcerer you can find, prepare them for siege. Make certain Adrien’s men are given aught they require, and wait for me in your chambers. Go.”

  The air crackled with his reluctance, and I am sure he exchanged a look with his father. The door soughed closed behind his bootsteps.

  I rounded on my Council, my head held high. Adrien di Cinfiliet had dropped into a chair, and he watched me carefully from beneath the glare-white bandage. But he smiled, encouragingly, just a tiny curve of his thin lips.

  It made no dent in the armor closing about me.

  “Chivalieri en sieurs.” I let my gaze linger on Perseval d’Arcenne, who looked angry enough to spit like a Guard averting ill-luck. “I will decide tomorrow morn if I am to risk open war, or if I will surrender myself to the Duc and hope for peace. I am loath to risk even a single life.”

  They stared, jaws hanging. It was a moment that would have been comic if not for the tension crackling between each man and the next. I had only a short while before their shock turned to shouting matches as they sought to change my mind, and I had little patience for such an event.

  “Until I decide, I leave the preparations for this city’s defense to you. I have another duty now. Sieur di Cinfiliet, I ask for a few more moments of your time, tonight, in the Temple. Until then, rest, and look to your men and horses.” My eyes moved slowly over the faces of my Council, and the howling loneliness settled more deeply over me. “And now, chivalieri en sieurs, I wish to be alone. Be so kind as to withdraw.”

  The Aryx rilled softly under my words. I did not sound like the King, but neither did I sound like a woman who could be disobeyed.

  Of all of them, only d’Anton tried to speak. I lifted a hand, effectively silencing him. When they were gone, only the guards outside the door remaining, I dropped back into the chair and looked at the table, scattered with paper and candleholders. The wine decanter looked very tempting, but I required a clear head.

  I let out a long breath. My head pounded. My entire body shook as if I had been struck with palsy. My right hand crept up, touched the Aryx’s pulsing. Sunlight slanted through the windows, dust dancing in each bar of thick warm yellow. The Aryx moved, serpents straining against my fingers. One hard gemstone—a serpent’s eye—drifted under my fingertip. “Gods.” My voice shook. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  There was no answer. Nothing but the Aryx thrumming, singing, almost conscious against my skin. My stomach flipped, revolving, as if I had slipped on a staircase and was now starting a long fall. “Tristan,” I whispered.

  I would wait until tonight, in the house of the Blessed, to speak to di Cinfiliet and hear his proof.

  And what of it? What if Tristan d’Arcenne had killed the King? I had said I cared little what he had done beforehand, and I loved him. It seemed now that I had always loved him, even at Court, and only been blind to it. It hurt my heart to think of him as a traitor, but perhaps he was not. Perhaps it was another trick, a lie, something to make me mistrust him. After all, assassins had been sent to fetch me, not to kill…if I could trust what the Pruzian said.

  What if I went to the Temple as suppliant and the gods were silent? What if I found no answer in the house of the Blessed? What if the city was besieged and there were yet more deaths to lay upon my conscience, people who followed me because of the Aryx, who trusted the judgment of a lady-in-waiting, a bastard royal? And what if I gave myself over to the Duc and had to endure his limp white hands on me while plague swept Arquitaine and Damarsene armies marched through her fields and orchards? What were Damarsene troops about under the Duc’s standard?

  I did not trust my wit when faced with this, and the strength I would have depended on had just been rudely struck from me. What if I could no longer trust Tristan d’Arcenne? What if he was just as guilty as the Duc who had killed my Princesse?

  You have suspected, Vianne. You may never fully know. But the suspicion itself will work in your heart like the poison that was not in the King’s pettite-cakes. You have known since Tierrce d’Estrienne something was amiss with Tristan’s tale, and yet you closed your eyes to it, for you needed him.

  My fingers left the Aryx. I cupped my face in my hands as the sunlight burned through the empty room.

  And there, alone in the Keep among hundreds depending on my wit and strength, I wept.

  Glossary

  Ansinthe: A venomous green liquor distilled from wyrmrithe

  Aufsbar: (Prz.) Client

  Blessed, the: (Arq.) The Twelve Gods of Arquitaine, six Old (indigenous) and six New (brought by the conqueror Angoulême)

  Demiange: (Arq.) Sorcerous or half-divine spirit; many of them wait upon the gods in the Westron Halls

  Demieri di sorce: (Arq.) Sorcerous spirits of night and mischief

  D’mselle: (Arq.) Honorific, for a young woman

  Festival of Skyreturn: One of the great cross-quarter festivals

  G’ji g’jai: (R’m.) Foreign (lit. “Other”), whore

  Hedgewitch: (Arq.) One who practices peasant sorcery

  M’chri, m’cher: (Arq.) Beloved, dear one

  M’dama: (Arq.) Honorific, for an older woman

  Piniel: An evergreen tree with a sharp distinctive scent, whose bristled cones bear small nuts inside.”

  Rhuma: A clear, fiery liquor distilled from sucre

  Sieur: (Arq.) Honorific, for a man

  Valadka: A clear, very potent liquor that may cause blindness if overly indulged in

&
nbsp; Vilhain: (Arq.) Bastard

  extras

  meet the author

  Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington. Find her on the web at www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

  Lilith Saintcrow, photo © Daron Gildow, 2010.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed THE HEDGEWITCH QUEEN,

  look out for

  THE BANDIT KING

  by Lilith Saintcrow

  An Excerpt from The Bandit King

  I struck to kill.

  The flesh, fat-rich and fed on luxury, parted under my blade. And I rammed my sword—sworn to the service of Arquitaine’s King—through the heart of that same king.

  The alarums were still ringing, but a great silence had descended on me. Running feet and shouts resounded in the corridor. Henri gasped, the death-gurgle I have heard on many another’s lips.

  I had killed for him too many times to count. Did he feel surprise, that the tool he sharpened had thus turned in his hand?

  My throat was dry as sand in the Navarrin wastes. My heart pounded, running like a hare before hounds. Up to this moment it had been a conspiracy, one I had played at catching out. Now, with one decisive lunge, I had committed my soul entire to the enterprise

  I gave the blade one last twist, freeing it from the suction of muscle. The thrust had been true, years of daily practice on the drillfield honed and distilled into murder. Henri’s elaborately-curled hair fell in disarray, and his lips shaped a question. He fell before he could give it voice, a bubble of bright blood bursting on his lips, so recently touching a dainty teacake.

  He hit the floor in a sodden, shapeless lump of velvet and silk. I crouched easily, a duelist’s move once the duel was done, to watch an enemy’s last gasping moments. The sucking sound of a breath caught in a bloody throat, echoed by so many victims, now visited the man who had made me a weapon.