CHAPTER ELEVEN

DEPARTURES

“I KNOW IT ISN'T FAIR, DOVE,” Lesbeth said, drawing Anne's hair back for the pin. “But your mother feels it's best for you.”

“Roderick will forget about me.”

“If that happens, then he never loved you,” Lesbeth said. “Besides—Anne, I tried to warn you of this.”

“But you're marrying for love!” Anne said. “You're the youngest, and so am I.”

“I was patient,” Lesbeth said. “And most of all, I was fortunate.”

“I wish to be so fortunate,” Anne said.

Lesbeth came around so she could look Anne in the eye. “Then do as your mother says. You may not understand, Anne, but she is giving you a chance for true love better than ever you had before.”

“By sending me away? To a coven? That makes no sense.”

“Oh, but it does,” Lesbeth assured her. “It will keep marriage off you for a time, for one thing, and even after you leave the coven you will have a grace period wherein you might claim to be considering vows. You will have a way of delaying suitors, and thus opportunity to be courted by more of them. The more you have, the better your chance of finding one who pleases you. And if worse comes to worst—why, you can take the vows.”

“Never.” Anne tossed her head. “Besides, I've already found the suitor I want.”

“Well, him you can't have, and that's that, Anne. Not now, anyway. Maybe in a few years—maybe Roderick will prove himself in service, or in some other way to redeem his family. More likely, you'll realize that what you two share is a young passion, a teakettle love, done once the steam boils out. More men are like that than you might think.” Lesbeth took Anne's fingers in her own. “A merchant knows, never buy the first ware you see. It may appear all very well, but until you have some basis for judgment, how can you know?”

“Well, I'll get no better basis for comparison in the coven, and that's assured!” Anne replied bitterly.

“Patience,” Lesbeth replied. “And you'll have Austra with you, yes?”

“Yes,” Anne agreed reluctantly, “but it shall still be awful. Learn to be like Erren? What exactly does Erren do, besides sneak about and pry into things?”

Lesbeth made a funny little frown. “Surely you know what Erren does.”

“She's Mother's spy.”

“Yes, she's that. But she also—Anne, Erren kills people.”

Anne started to laugh at that, but then she saw Lesbeth wasn't joking. “Kills who? How?” she asked.

“People. People who are dangerous to the kingdom, and to your mother.”

“But who? Who has she killed?”

Lesbeth's voice dropped very low. “It's secret, mostly. That's the thing about Erren, she's very … quiet. But—do you remember that fat lord from Wys-on-Sea? Hemming?”

“Yes. I thought he was a sort of clown, always joking.”

“He was a spy for the Reiksbaurgs. He was part of a plot to kidnap Fastia.”

“But I remember—he died in his chambers. They said it was his heart.”

“Maybe. But it was Erren who stopped his heart, whether by poison or needle or sacaum of death it cannot be said. But it was Erren. I heard your mother speak of it, once.”

“That's …” Anne didn't know what it was. Erren had always been spooky, but … “I'm to learn such things?” Anne asked. “Why?”

“Great houses must have women like Erren. She is your mother's first cousin, you know, of gentle birth. But your mother has this in mind: If you will not serve your house in marriage, you will serve it in some other way. She's giving you a choice.”

“I don't believe it. Mother hates me.”

“How absurd. She loves you. She may love you best, of all her children.”

“How can you say that?”

“You cannot see yourself, can you, Anne? Except in a mirror, and there everything is backwards. Believe me. Your mother loves you. I, too, wish she would not send you off, but I understand why she does. You will, too, one day, even if you never agree. That's what growing up ought to be, you know, or bring with it anyhow—the vision to understand something even when you're dead set against it.”

Anne felt tears start. “I'll miss you, Lesbeth. Just as I get you back, now I have to go.”

“I'll miss you, Anne,” Lesbeth said, giving her a long hug. “And now I must go. I cannot bear to see you off.”

“Neither can Mother, it seems. Or Fastia.”

“They are already gone, Anne. Didn't you know? They left on the barge, before dawn. And everyone thinks you are with them.”

Including Roderick, Anne thought, as she watched her aunt vanish through the arch in the stable yard. He still thinks I'm going to Cal Azroth. She and Austra had been watched like prisoners, and she had found neither the time nor the opportunity to send him a message.

Besides, she didn't know where she was going.

I'll take my first chance, she thought. They can't do this to me. Even Lesbeth, though I love her dearly, doesn't understand me. I can't be trapped in a coven. I can't. If I have to live like a bandit, or dress as a man and fight as a soldier of fortune, I will do it.

She was still thinking in that vein when the coach came, and Austra and some bearers with their luggage.

“Where do you think we're going?” Austra whispered, as the shades were drawn on the coach, and it began rumbling forward.

“It doesn't matter,” Anne said, with false brightness. “It doesn't matter one bit.”

Muriele watched the elms go by. They lined the canal like a colonnade; elms had deep, straight roots that would never undermine the dikes they were planted on, only strengthen them.

Beyond the elms, the fields of Newland went flat and green to the horizons. Only the now distant bump that was the island of Ynis marred that flatness, for even the south hills were obscured by a noon haze.

“Did I do the right thing?” she murmured. Anne's face was vivid in her mind. I hate you. What mother could bear to hear that from her child?

Some things had to be borne.

“My queen?”

Muriele turned to find the young knight, Neil MeqVren, almost at her elbow. “Yes?” she said.

“I'm sorry, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing hastily. “I thought you spoke to me.”

“No,” she said. “Only to myself, or to the saints.”

“I'm sorry to bother you, then.”

“It's no bother. You said your farewells to Sir Fail, I hope.”

“I had little time, and we spoke only a few words,” Neil replied.

“He's bursting with pride of you. If you were his own son, I think he could never be prouder.”

“If he were my own father, I could never be gladder of it.”

“I'm sure that's so,” Muriele replied.

She let silence rest between them for a moment. “What do you think of all this, Neil?”

“Newland, you mean?”

“No, that's not what I meant, but since you bring it up, you must have some opinion.”

Neil grinned a little sheepishly and looked very, very young. “I guess, Majesty, that it makes me nervous. You're from Liery, so you understand; we would never put chains on our lord the sea. We would never dream to tell him where he can and cannot go. Yet here—well, it is grand, I have to say, and astonishing—that land can be taken from the waves. And I suppose Saint Lier has raised no objection, but it seems … impertinent.”

“Even for the emperor of Crotheny?”

“Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but even an emperor is simply a man. I serve that man, and all he represents, and if you should ask me to throw my body into a hole in one of these dikes to plug it and keep the sea out, I'd do it, then let the saints judge me as they might. But still, in all—I love the sealord, but I do not trust him over my head, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Muriele said quietly. “The Reiksbaurgs began this, and my husband's people finished it. Beneath these waters, they found the most fertile soil in all the world. But don't allow yourself to be fooled; we pay a tithe to the saints of the waves, of marsh, and river. And sometimes they take their own tithe. It is, as you say, an uneasy arrangement.”

Neil nodded. “And so what did you mean, Majesty, when you asked me what I thought?”

“Do you agree with my husband? Is going to Cal Azroth what we ought to do?”

Neil considered his words carefully before answering. “The lords of Hansa are a treacherous lot,” he finally said. “They fight from the smoke, always behind masks. They pay Weihand raiders for Lierish scalps, and do not call that war. They are dabblers in shinecraft, despite all their pretense to be a holy, churchish nation. That man I fought was your man, through and through, I do believe it. And yet he would have killed you.”

“These are all statements of fact, more or less,” Muriele noted. “What do you think?”

“I think if Hansa believed that by striking at the king's family they could weaken the kingdom, they would do it. But, to be honest, this retreat to the countryside makes me uneasy.”

“Why?”

“I am not altogether certain. It feels … wrong. Why try to slay you, rather than the king himself ? And how can you be safe in any place when we don't even know how your man was turned against you? If 'twere shinecraft, I might be turned against you just as easily. I would throw myself on my sword before doing you harm, but I'll wager that knight I slew would have sworn the same thing.”

“Perhaps. Sir Neil, in some things you are wise beyond your years, but in the ways of the court you are yet naïve. It takes no shinecraft to corrupt a man, not even a Craftsman. The magicks of greed, fear, and envy are quite enough to work most of the evil you will ever see at court.

“As to why me, rather than the king, I admit to puzzlement there, as well.”

“Maybe …” Neil frowned to himself a moment. “What if all your enemy desired was to separate you from the king? To divide your family?”

Something about what the knight was saying seemed very right. “Go on,” she said.

“If I were the king, suddenly deprived of children and— wife—I would feel the weaker. Like a wagon missing a wheel.”

“My husband still has his mistresses. And his brother.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. But—what if it were they who wanted you out of the way?”

Muriele stared at the young man, suddenly realizing she did not have a measure of him at all. “By the saints, Sir Neil,” she murmured. “It was purest libel for me to call you naïve. Accept my apologies, I beg you.”

“I know nothing, Your Majesty,” Neil said slowly, “but I follow the lady Erren's advice to the end of the path. In my mind, I must think everyone in the world your enemy. The lady Erren included. Myself included. And if I think like that, everything seems suspicious. And if I think like that, saints willing, I will not long stand surprised when your true foes raise their hands again. Instead, I will slaughter them where they stand.”

The passion in his voice sent a shiver through her. Sometimes, at court, one forgot that there were real people in the world, genuine people. This young man was such a one, still. He was genuine, he was dangerous, and, saints willing, he was hers.

“Thank you, Sir Neil, for your opinion. I find it worth considering.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty, for listening to my concerns.”

Lesbeth tossed back her auburn hair and stared off across the western bay, and the great white teeth of Thornrath that marked it from the periwinkle sea beyond. She could just make out the white sails of a merchantman, near the horizon. A gull wheeled overhead, no doubt eyeing the remains of the baked hen, Donchest cheese, and honey cakes still spread on the picnic cloth.

“A beautiful day,” her brother Robert said, sipping from the last half of their second bottle of wine. They sat together on the westernmost prominence of Ynis, a grassy spur littered with the crumbled ruins of an old tower.

“It is,” Lesbeth replied, flashing him a smile she didn't quite feel. Robert had been … brittle since he learned of her betrothal. She'd accepted his invitation to picnic, in hopes of healing that. But she hadn't dreamed he would bring her here of all places. Robert was spiteful, yes, but usually not to her.

Just concentrate on the sea and sky, she told herself. Concentrate on the beauty.

But Robert seemed determined not to let her.

“Do you remember how we came up here as children?” he asked. “We used to pretend the tower there was our own castle.”

“Those were excellent days,” Lesbeth said, around the lump in her throat.

“I knew you, then,” Robert said. “Or thought I did. I always fancied I knew your least thought, and you mine.” He swallowed another mouthful of wine. “Then.”

Lesbeth reached for his hand and took his fingers in hers. “Robert, I am sorry. I should have asked your permission to marry. I know that. And I'm asking now.”

An odd look crossed Robert's face, but he shook his head. “You asked Wilm's. He's the eldest.”

Lesbeth squeezed his hand. “I know I caused you pain, Robert. It's only that I didn't know how to tell you.”

“How can that be?” he asked.

She drew a deep breath. “It is as you say. Once we were so close, one of us could not blink without the other knowing. And now, somehow—”

“You don't know me anymore,” he finished for her. “We have grown separate. Ever since that day when Rose—”

“Please, stop!” Lesbeth closed her eyes against the terrible memory, willing it away.

“As you wish,” he said. “But we never spoke of—”

“Nor shall we. I cannot.”

He nodded, and a look of resignation crossed his face.

“Besides,” she went on. “I know you believe my prince Cheiso insulted you—”

“I do not believe he did,” Robert said. “I am certain of it.”

“Please, Robert. He did not mean to give offense.”

Robert smiled and held his hands up. “Perhaps he didn't,” he allowed. “And so where is he now? I should think he would have come to ask permission—if not from me, then at least from Wilm. Why did he leave you to do it?”

“He will arrive within a nineday or two,” Lesbeth replied. “He had matters pressing him. He asked me to wait, so we might travel together, but I was impatient. I wanted to share my news.” She turned her head to the side. “Please, Robert. Be happy for me. You are my brother, and I do love you, but after—”

“After we killed Rose?” he said bluntly.

Lesbeth nodded silently, unable to go on.

“It was an accident,” he reminded her.

Lesbeth didn't remember it that way. She remembered a cruel game, played with a servant, a game that went further than it ever should have. And she remembered knowing that Robert meant for it to go that far, from the very start. After that, she hadn't wanted to know what Robert was thinking anymore.

But she nodded again, as if agreeing with him. “I cannot speak of this,” she said again.

“I'm sorry,” he murmured. “I've spoiled our outing. That was not my intention. There are years between us we cannot repair, I know. Silence has worked on us like poison. But we are twins, Lesbeth.” He stood suddenly. “May I show you something?”

“What is it?”

He smiled and for a moment looked like the boy she remembered. “A wedding gift,” he replied.

“Up here?”

“Yes.” He looked a little embarrassed. “It's something I worked on with my own hands. It isn't far.”

Lesbeth smiled tentatively. There was so much hurt in Robert, so much broken. She did love him, though. She took his hand and let him pull her up, and followed as he led her into the mostly wild gardens around them. When they had been young, these had been well-tended, but over the years this spot had fallen out of fashion, and the roses and hedges allowed their own way. Now, in places, it was as dense as a true forest.

Robert did not lead her far. “Here it is.”

Lesbeth could only stare in dull shock. The sun was shining, flowers were blooming. She was going to be married. How could he do this?

He had dug up Rose. Her little bones—she had been ten— lay in the bottom of a yawning hole in the earth. Her clothes had gone to rotten rags, but Lesbeth recognized what remained of the blue dress she had last worn.

“By all the saints, Robert—” The horror choked off anything else she might have said. She wanted to run and scream, and bawl her eyes out. Instead she could only gaze into that hole, into that terrible crime of her past. She had never known what Robert did with the body. They had told everyone Rose had run away.

I'm sorry, Rose, she thought. Saints of grief, but I'm sorry.

“I love you, Lesbeth,” Robert said softly. “You should have asked my permission. Mine, not Wilm's. Mine.”

And as she turned to face him, he struck her in the breast, so hard she staggered back and sat down, her skirts billowing around her. She stared up at him, more perplexed than hurt. Robert had never hit her before, ever.

“Robert, what—” As soon as she tried to speak, she knew something was very, very wrong. Something inside her was all twisted, and her breath hurt like fire. And Robert, standing over her—his hand was still a fist, but there was a knife in it, the narrow bodkin he always wore at his belt, the one Grandpa had given him when he was eleven. It was red to the hilt.

Then she looked down at the front of her dress and saw the wet redness over her heart. Her hand was sanguine, too, where she had pressed it without thinking against the wound. As she watched, blood actually spurted between her fingers, like a spring bubbling from the earth.

“Robert, no,” she sighed, her voice high and strange. “Robert, do not kill me.”

He bent over her, his dark eyes glistening with tears. “I already have, Lesbeth,” he said, very softly. “I already have.” And he kissed her on the forehead.

Shaking her head, she crawled away, trying to get to her feet, failing. “I'm going to be married,” she told him, trying to make him understand. “To a Safnian prince. He's coming for me.” She could almost see Cheiso, standing before her. “I'll give him children. I'll name one for you. Robert, don't—”

Sheer panic swept through her. She had to get away. Robert had gone mad. He meant to hurt her.

But there was no strength in her arms, and something closed around her ankle, and the grass was sliding beneath her, and she was leaving a broad trail across it, like a giant snail, except that the trail was red.

And then a moment like floating, and Robert's face before her again.

“Sleep, sister,” he said. “Dream of when we were young, and all was well. Dream of when you loved me best.”

“Don't kill me, Robert,” she begged, sobbing now. “Help me.”

“You'll have Rose,” he said. “And soon enough—soon enough, you'll have company aplenty. Aplenty.”

And he smiled, but his face seemed very far away, retreating. She hadn't felt the fall, but the empty sockets of Rose's little white skull were right next to her.

Lesbeth heard the music of birds, and a whispering she ought to recognize, words she half understood. They seemed very important.

And then, suddenly, that was all.