Greg Keyes - The Born Queen

“Thank you for all of your kindnesses, Duchess.”

Elyoner glanced over at Austra. “That girl is as dear to me as Anne was,” she said. “She was as much my niece as Fastia or Elseny.” She shook her head. “I am hardly thirty, Cazio. I hope when you are my age you have not lost so many dear ones.”

“Austra isn’t dead,” he said.

“No,” the duchess replied. “She isn’t. Break your fast.”

He looked down at the tray, thinking he wasn’t hungry, but the cream fritters, sausage, and dewberries invited him to try a few bites, anyway.

“Unlike Greyna’s brother, Austra doesn’t seem to have an injury to her head or any wounds at all except those cuts on her legs. You said it was done by a churchman. Do you know what he was up to?”

“No. She said he said something about the ‘blood telling’ but nothing about what that meant.”

“Curious,” Elyoner said. “In any event, whatever has happened to the dear girl, I think we must suspect some eldritch cause—something I, unfortunately, know very little about.”

“Do you know anyone who knows more?”

“I assume you mean outside of the Church?”

“That’s probably best.”

“No, not really. But surely you do.”

He nodded. “Yes, there’s an old Sefry woman in Eslen that Anne consulted.”

“Eslen won’t be easy to get into,” Elyoner said. “The city is under siege, with Hespero’s army camped on the south and Hansa on the north. The fleets have met in Foambreaker Bay, but I haven’t heard much more than that.”

“Who rules?”

“Artwair had declared himself regent,” she said. “The logical heir is Charles, but no one wants that charade again. After him it gets complicated; there’s Gramme’s bastard, Robert, any number of cousins.” “You,” Cazio pointed out.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s out of the question. I simply won’t do it. Buts it’s actually rather moot, because I suspect Eslen is going to fall, and Marcomir and Hespero will decide the matter.”

Cazio shrugged. “I don’t care who rules. They can put a pig on the throne as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll have Austra back, and I need to kill Hespero.”

“Kill the Fratrex Prismo of the Church? I’ll be interested to see how you do that.”

“I’ve met them that seemed immortal and unbeatable before,” Cazio said. “Most of them are dead now, or might as well be.”

“That’s it, then? You’re really going to Eslen?”

He nodded. “If I can impose on you for a few horses.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Do you have a plan for getting into the city?”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll have one when I need one.”

He rode out the next day with Austra in the carriage and three spare horses. He didn’t bother to find z’Acatto to say good-bye.

The road took him west across the flat yellowing grass of the Mey Ghorn plain. Clouds scudded across the sky like fast ships until near sundown they piled up and blotted out the stars. The air was wet and cool and smelled like rain when he went to where Austra lay and fed her some porridge and watered wine. She seemed thinner.

“The Sefry will know what to do,” he assured her. “Mother Uun will have a cure.”

The rain came gently enough, and he lay there listening to it on the canvas until sleep at last folded him into her blanket.

He woke to the morning songs of birds and realized that the sun was well up and he had lost time. He felt guilty for sleeping at all when every bell counted. He gave Austra her morning meal and ate a bit of dried meat. He found the horses grazing and brought them back to the harness. He settled onto the seat and started out.

It had been a long time, he realized, since he had been alone, his time in the wine cellar at Dunmrogh aside. He wasn’t technically alone now, but for all intents and purposes he was. He’d once spent a good deal of his time solitary, and he understood now how much he missed it.

What sort of man am I? he wondered. Anne was dead. Austra was well on her way to joining her. And yet, somehow, part of him was excited to be in the quiet of his own thoughts, with no one questioning him, with nothing to do but watch the road.

“Anne is dead,” he murmured aloud. He remembered his first sight of her, bathing in a pool in the wilds around the Coven St. Cer. She had become so completely a part of his life, that the thought that he would never see her again seemed not only wrong but fundamentally impossible. They had survived so much together, and for what? For her to die now? Had any of it been worth it?

But of course, no matter what one survived, death was always coming. There was no winning that game. By noon the road was winding gently downhill, and the occasional malend could be seen turning its sails in the distance. He stopped to feed and wash Austra and let the horses go to water. He was just about to start off again when riders appeared on the road ahead.

He looked about, but it was all open fields. If they were enemies, there wasn’t much he could do. Oddly enough, the impression he had was that the horses he saw were mounted by giant mushrooms, but as they drew nearer, he saw that they were Sefry, wearing their customary broad-brimmed hats to keep the sun from their dainty skins.

When they were even nearer, he recognized their colors as those of Anne’s Sefry bodyguard.

He watched them come, wondering what they could possibly be up to. Having failed their mistress, were they now on their way to cast themselves into the eastern sea?

He counted forty of them and wondered why he bothered to do that. Weren’t these friends? If they were, why did he have such a strange feeling in his belly’s abyss?

And why were they flanking him?

He drew the horses to a halt. One of the riders came forward and pulled down the gauze that hid most of his face, revealing Cauth Versial, the leader of Anne’s guard.

“Cazio,” Cauth said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes,” Cazio replied. “Fancy it.”

“You’ve heard the news?”

Cazio nodded, noting from the corner of his eye that the Sefry were continuing to surround him. “It was a terrible shock.”

“I would imagine,” Cazio said. “To have the person you were supposed to be protecting murdered in plain sight with you all around her. How could that happen?”

“I’m sure if you had been there, things would have gone differently,” Cauth said.

“I’m sure of that, too,” Cazio said.

“Austra is in the wagon, I take it.”

“Why would you think that?”

Cauth sighed. “Time is short,” he said. “I won’t waste it bantering with you. I’ve seen you fight, and I imagine you’ll probably kill a few of us if you choose to, but there’s no reason it should come to that.” “Why should it come to that?”

“It shouldn’t. We’ve come to escort you to Eslen.”

“How nice. I was going there anyway. But why do I need an escort?”

“The city is under siege. You’ll need our help to get in.”

“But why are you interested in helping? I suppose is my real question.”

“We’re not,” Cauth said. “Austra is our concern. Whether you’re there or not is immaterial.”

“What do you want with Austra?”

“That’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

“Oh, I’m very much concerned.”

Cauth started to say something, but then he peered beyond Cazio, and his face wrinkled in what seemed to be chagrin.

“Not traveling alone, after all,” he said.

Cazio turned and saw, on the hill, a line of pikemen forming up.

“Z’Acatto,” he murmured.

“Come along,” Cauth said, drawing his sword. Cazio drew Acredo, noticing as he did so that six archers had arrows aimed at him.