Rachel Swirsky: The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window

“Ah, Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath My Window, I always knew you loved me.”

Oh yes, I had loved her. When she wanted heirs, it was I who placed my hand on her belly and used my magic to draw out her seedlings; I who nurtured the seedlings’ spirits with the fertilizer of her chosen man; I who planted the seedlings in the womb of a fecund brood. Three times, the broods I catalyzed brought forth Rayneh’s daughters. I’d not yet chosen to beget my own daughters, but there had always been an understanding between us that Rayneh would be the one to stand with my magic-worker as the seedling was drawn from me, mingled with man, and set into brood.

I was amazed to find that I loved her no longer. I remembered the emotion, but passion had died with my body.

“I want to see you,” I said.

Alarmed, the death whisperer turned toward Rayneh’s voice. Her nose jutted beak-like past the edge of her cowl. “It’s possible for her to see you if you stand where I am,” she said. “But if the spell goes wrong, I won’t be able to—”

“It’s all right, Lakitri. Let her see me.”

Rustling, footsteps. Rayneh came into view. My blurred vision showed me frustratingly little except for the moon of her face. Her eyes sparkled black against her smooth, sienna skin. Amber and obsidian gems shone from her forehead, magically embedded in the triangular formation that symbolized the Land of Flowered Hills. I wanted to see her graceful belly, the muscular calves I’d loved to stroke—but below her chin, the world faded to grey.

“What do you want?” I asked. “Are the raiders nipping at your heels again?”

“We pushed the raiders back in the battle that you died to make happen. It was a rout. Thanks to you.”

A smile lit on Rayneh’s face. It was a smile I remembered. You have served your Land and your Queen, it seemed to say. You may be proud. I’d slept on Rayneh’s leaf-patterned silk and eaten at her morning table too often to be deceived by such shallow manipulations.

Rayneh continued, “A usurper—a woman raised on our own grain and honey—has built an army of automatons to attack us. She’s given each one a hummingbird’s heart for speed, and a crane’s feather for beauty, and a crow’s brain for wit. They’ve marched from the Lake Where Women Wept all the way across the fields to the Valley of Tonha’s Memory. They move faster than our most agile warriors. They seduce our farmers out of the fields. We must destroy them.”

“A usurper?” I said.

“One who betrays us with our own spells.”

The Queen directed me a lingering, narrow-lidded look, challenging me with her unspoken implications.

“The kind of woman who would shoot the Queen’s sorceress with a roc feather?” I pressed.

Her glance darted sideways. “Perhaps.”

Even with the tantalizing aroma of revenge wafting before me, I considered refusing Rayneh’s plea. Why should I forgive her for chaining me to her service? She and her benighted death whisperers might have been able to chant my spirit into wakefulness, but let them try to stir my voice against my will.

But no—even without love drawing me into dark corners, I couldn’t renounce Rayneh. I would help her as I always had from the time when we were girls riding together through my grandmother’s fields. When she fell from her mount, it was always I who halted my mare, soothed her wounds, and eased her back into the saddle. Even as a child, I knew that she would never do the same for me.

“Give me something to kill,” I said.

“What?”

“I want to kill. Give me something. Or should I kill your death whisperers?”

Rayneh turned toward the women. “Bring a sow!” she commanded.

Murmurs echoed through the high-ceilinged chamber, followed by rushing footsteps. Anxious hands entered my range of vision, dragging a fat, black-spotted shape. I looked toward the place where my ears told me the crowd of death whisperers stood, huddled and gossiping. I wasn’t sure how vicious I could appear as a dowager with bound feet, but I snarled at them anyway. I was rewarded with the susurration of hems sliding backward over tile.

I approached the sow. My feet collided with the invisible boundaries of the summoning circle. “Move it closer,” I ordered.

Hands pushed the sow forward. The creature grunted with surprise and fear. I knelt down and felt its bristly fur and smelled dry mud, but I couldn’t see its torpid bulk.

I wrapped my bony hands around the creature’s neck and twisted. My spirit’s strength overcame the body’s weakness. The animal’s head snapped free in my hands. Blood engulfed the leaping rabbits on my hem.

I thrust the sow’s head at Rayneh. It tumbled out of the summoning circle and thudded across the marble. Rayneh doubled over, retching.

The crowd trembled and exclaimed. Over the din, I dictated the means to defeat the constructs. “Blend mustard seed and honey to slow their deceitful tongues. Add brine to ruin their beauty. Mix in crushed poppies to slow their fast-beating hearts. Release the concoction onto a strong wind and let it blow their destruction. Only a grain need touch them. Less than a grain—only a grain need touch a mosquito that lights on a flower they pass on the march. They will fall.”

“Regard that! Remember it!” Rayneh shouted to the whisperers. Silk rustled. Rayneh regarded me levelly. “That’s all we have to do?”

“Get Lakitri,” I replied. “I wish to ask her a question.”

A nervous voice spoke outside my field of vision. “I’m here, Great Lady.”

“What will happen to this body after my spirit leaves?”

“Jada will die, Great Lady. Your spirit has chased hers away.”

I felt the crookedness of Jada’s hunched back and the pinch of the strips binding her feet. Such a back, such feet, I would never have. At least someone would die for disturbing my death.

Next I woke, rage simmered where before it had boiled. I stifled a snarl, and relaxed my clenched fists. My vision was clearer: I discerned the outlines of a tent filled with dark shapes that resembled pillows and furs. I discovered my boundaries close by, marked by wooden stakes painted with bands of cinnamon and white.

“Respected Aunt Naeva?”

My vision wavered. A shape: muscular biceps, hard thighs, robes of heir’s green. It took me a moment to identify Queen Rayneh’s eldest daughter, who I had inspired in her brood. At the time of my death, she’d been a flat-chested flitling, still learning how to ride.

“Tryce?” I asked. A bad thought: “Why are you here? Has the usurper taken the palace? Is the Queen dead?”

Tryce laughed. “You misunderstand, Respected Aunt. I am the usurper.”

“You?” I scoffed. “What does a girl want with a woman’s throne?”

“I want what is mine.” Tryce drew herself up. She had her mother’s mouth, stern and imperious. “If you don’t believe me, look at the body you’re wearing.”

I looked down. My hands were the right size, but they were painted in Rayneh’s blue and decked with rings of gold and silver. Strips of tanned human flesh adorned my breasts. I raised my fingertips to my collarbone and felt the raised edges of the brand I knew would be there. Scars formed the triangles that represented the Land of Flowered Hills.

“One of your mother’s private guard,” I murmured. “Which?”

“Okilanu.”

I grinned. “I never liked the bitch.”

“You know I’m telling the truth. A private guard is too valuable for anyone but a usurper to sacrifice. I’m holding this conference with honor, Respected Aunt. I’m meeting you alone, with only one automaton to guard me. My informants tell me that my mother surrounded herself with sorceresses so that she could coerce you. I hold you in more esteem.”