Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

Well, no matter , he thought, trying to quell the screaming voice that burned in his ear. He has the armies .

Now, Tristan Steward , he whispered into the wind. Regin .

He waited until the command caught the west wind, then turned to his livery driver and the soldiers who served as his escort and smiled beneficently.

“Well, gentlemen, we are but a day from home. I can almost hear the sweet music of the bells of Bethe Corbair on the wind; shall we saddle up, then, and be off?”

Cristan Steward swung open the door just as McVickers, the new knight marshal of the united army of Roland, was preparing to knock.

“Come in, McVickers,” he said thickly. The soldier stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He stood at attention, waiting for the prince to speak, but Tristan merely returned to his desk and the enormous pile of parchment documents he had been paging through. After a few moments, McVickers spoke.

“What can I do to be of service, m’lord?”

“You can stand there quietly while I get the maps together, McVickers.” The prince’s voice dripped with venom. The soldier inhaled deeply and remained at attention.

Finally Tristan found what he wanted. He spread the sheets out on the long table near the window and gestured impatiently to McVickers. The soldier came and stood by his side. He stared down at the maps that the prince was arranging on the table. Finally he spoke.

—i

“Canrif, m’lord?”

“Yes,” Tristan answered, smoothing the corner of an ancient map that was attempting to reroll itself. “The Bolglands.”

“Sir?”

Steward’s eyes glittered impatiently. “What is it you don’t understand, McVickers? I’ve summoned Stephen Navarne and asked him to bring from his museum the drawings of the internal tunnels and mountain passes that were built in the Cymrian times; I doubt there has been much structural revision. Most of the changes will have been to the outer defenses, to the outposts and perhaps in the field tunnels known as the breastworks.”

“I—I don’t understand, m’lord.” McVickers stammered as the enormity of what the prince was contemplating began to dawn on him. “You—you aren’t planning to—attack the Bolglands, are you, sir?”

The madness in Tristan’s eyes shone brighter than the morning light outside the library window. He had been in a rage of sick disappointment ever since the coronation, when the Patriarch’s untimely demise had caused a panic, and thereby prevented him from the private audience with the new Lirin queen he had been craving with anticipation. He had been forced to leave immediately with the benisons and the other provincial leaders, to return to Sepulvarta for the funeral. Rhapsody had not attended; she had already said her goodbyes.

But at least she was now ensconced in Tyrian.

Out of the Bolglands.

Out of harm’s way.

“Yes, McVickers,” he said darkly. “Yes, I am. It’s only a shell at this point, anyway; a plague of some sort has destroyed the army and most of the populace. Those Bolg that remain must be contained to ensure that the disease does not spread to Roland. Now gather your generals, and begin a muster. I want to leave as soon as all the provinces have sent their soldiers, when the last troops arrive from Yarim two months hence.”

McVickers nodded, feeling the weight of an executioner on his neck as he did.

“Yes, m’lord.”

The sheer scope of the cathedral, its massive domed ceiling overarching a hall the length and breadth of several city streets, only served to unnerve Achmed even more.

He had surprised Grunthor to the point of speechlessness when the Bolg king announced that he wanted to stay near the basilica of the Star for a few moments after the benisons had left, along with the weeping faithful, as night fell on the conclusion of the funeral rites for the Patriarch. Lanacan Orlando, who had passed up the service itself to remain behind in the Patriarch’s manse, comforting the grief-stricken abbot and ordinates, had already departed to return to Bethe Corbair. His coterie had headed north toward the crossroads of the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare, the roadway built in Cymrian times bisecting Roland from the seacoast to the edge of the Teeth. Achmed reasoned they could catch up with him easily by traveling overland. You know why he stayed in the rectory ? Achmed had asked. Binding more thralls ?

That, and he can’t go into the basilica. It’s blessed ground . The giant Sergeant-Major stood, still befuddled, at the back door in the dark vestibule near the entrance to the nave, the largest part of the basilica, where the faithful stood or sat during services. He kicked his toe through the debris left behind from the funeral, scattered feathers that had been used in the ceremony by the congregation to help speed the Patriarch’s soul to the Light, soiled with mudfilth from the soles of ten thousand feet amid a sea of candle drippings and torn flower petals. Idly he wondered if any of the ashes from the Patriarch’s body, set alight on the great brazier that had been erected on the altar, were mixed in with the grime that marred the beautifully crafted mosaics on the floor beneath his boots.

Achmed looked over his shoulder for the fifth time, assuring himself that he was indeed still alone in the vast cathedral, then reluctantly made his way down one of the main aisles to the sanctuary where the pyre-altar stood atop a platform above a great number of stairs. Outside the cathedral the bells of the enormous tower known as the Spire were tolling the endless death knell. When he reached the foot of the stairs he stopped, then cleared his throat nervously in the haze of smoke that still hung heavy in the air.

“I hate priests,” he said aloud, his eyes fixed on the coals that had gone dark after being doused with holy water. He stared at the funeral brazier, from which a tendril of smoke rose questioningly.

Achmed rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke in the direction of the smoldering pile of brush and ash.

“I came to say that—I regret the way things came to pass,” he said quietly. “I would have avoided it if there was any other way.”

The cathedral echoed with silence except for the reverberations from the endlessly tolling bells.

“Your death saved her life. Though we never met, given the choice, I think you would have wanted it that way, too.”

A sudden wave of discomfort flooded Achmed; he turned rapidly on his heel and hurried back down the aisle toward the shadowy vestibule. When he was almost at the end he turned once more to where the altar was now enveloped in darkness. “Bye, Father,” he said.

Her workout at the lists that morning had been particularly tiring, and Rhapsody had embraced her bath with thankfulness. She came into her bedchamber, refreshed and dressed in one of the simple, artful gowns the Lirin seamstresses had fashioned for her. The clothing was a pleasure to wear, causing the body to feel unrestricted and light, and the color matched her eyes perfectly.

With a deep sigh she fell back onto the bed and stared up at the graceful engilder trees that served as bedposts, to their intertwined branches that served to form the canopy, lacy leaves casting sunlit shadows in dancing patterns on the bed and over her. The fire roared on the hearth, driving the chill from the room and warming the trees, keeping them in a false state of summer, even in winter.

In the courtyard below she heard the echoing sounds of distant commotion, and she rose and moved to the window, wiping away the frost and looking to see what was happening. Far off at the edge of the palace walls she could see amid a vast number of Lirin guards a large cavalcade of visitors forming an uneven line. The line swelled and grew larger as more joined, jostling and laughing, spiced with the occasional sound of argumentative confrontation. Their noise was unmuffled by the cold; steaming vapors rose from the distant conversations.