Maggie Furey - Sword of Flames

“I don’t know,” Raven wailed. “I would have them arrested as traitors, but we don’t know who they are. And how can I counter their vile calumnies? If I make any public protest, it will just add fuel to the rumors and make matters worse.” She twisted her hands together. “I never realized that being Queen would prove so difficult…”

“It isn’t, necessarily,” Elster told her wryly. “All you need is the backing of the military and the Priesthood—and, as a secondary consideration, the rest of the populace.” She smiled at the distraught girl and patted the seat beside her. “Here, child—sit down and stop panicking. Have some wine. Now, let’s think this through together, shall we?”

Meekly, Raven sat, and accepted the goblet that the other thrust into her hands. Elster let her take a long draft before saying: “First, I suggest you employ a taster. As a physician, I have an extensive knowledge of poisons…”

The color drained from the Queen’s face. She began to choke.

“It’s all right. I haven’t done anything of the kind,” Elster shouted over her splutters, hoping that the lesson had hit home. “But I very easily might have.”

Raven’s face went from chalk to crimson in an instant. “Hag! Harpy!” she shrieked, launching herself at the physician with her taloned claws extended. Elster’s old bones rediscovered a nimbleness they had lacked for years as she grabbed the girl’s wrists in her strong, gnarled hands and hung on grimly until Raven’s struggles ceased.

“Enough!” the physician panted. “Forgive me, Majesty—but it was a lesson that you had to learn.”

Raven glared at her, speechless with rage—then, after a long moment, she found her voice. “If you ever do that to me again,” she growled, “you’d best make sure you poison me in truth—for otherwise I will have your head!”

“If you give me a chance to do that again,” Elster countered bluntly, “then I suggest you tell the guards to take your own head. It will save time in the end.”

The Queen bit her lip, as if to hold back an angry retort; then she shook her head and suddenly burst out laughing. “Do you know, Elster, sometimes you remind me of the Lady Aurian? She is as plainspoken and impatient with fools as yourself.” Her face suddenly sobered. “And I have been a fool, have I not? Bearing in mind my mother’s fate, I should be more wary…” She frowned. “But tell me: who would undertake the perilous position of Queen’s taster? How can I condemn a friend to constant danger? Yet how could I trust an enemy? Who would I choose for such a task?”

“Cygnus.” The name was out of her mouth before Elster knew it.

Raven’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “But why? You trained him yourself. He helped you to save me. Cygnus is a friend—is he not?”

How can I tell her? Elster thought. The Queen has no idea that Cygnus was responsible for the poison that killed her mother. And, besides, he has repented and reformed—or has he? It was no good. The physician could call herself a foolish old woman and chide herself for being overly suspicious, but she could not shake off a lingering feeling or mistrust. Whoever had spread those rumors knew entirely too much—and who knew more than herself and Cygnus? Yet she could scarcely accuse him with no proof. No; probably the best place to keep the young healer from further mischief would be at the Queen’s side—where I can keep my eye on him, Elster thought. And I’ll be watching him like a hawk.

“You must be patient with the Queen, my friends, for she is little more than a child as yet.” Cygnus looked from one to the other of the three figures seated with him at the table. Aguila, Captain of the Royal Guard, would be the hardest to sway. The young physician would have to handle him very carefully, for his sworn duty was to protect the Queen. The other two posed less of a problem. Skua, Acting High Priest following Blacktalon’s demise, was also the head of the Temple Guard, and would do anything to have his temporary position officially confirmed. As for the leader of the Syntagma, Aerillia’s warrior elite—well, Sunfeather had been Cygnus’s closest friend ever since the two had been fledglings. After the accident that had almost claimed the life of the handsome, brilliant young warrior and led to Cygnus’s eschewing the Way of the Sword for the Way of Healing, Sunfeather’s rise through the ranks of the Syntagma had been meteoric. The healer often reflected that his friend’s close brush with death had led him to seize upon everything that life could offer with greedy hands. When the existing Wingmarshal had met with a mysterious but fatal accident after crossing Blacktalon, Sunfeather had been all too ready to step into the role.

It was good, Cygnus mused, to have friends in high places. After his first attempt to get rid of Aurian and Anvar—and to claim the Harp of Winds from the fallen tunnels below the temple—had failed, he had been racking his brains for an alternative. Though no plan had suggested itself as yet, he had decided that the first step lay in driving a wedge between Queen Raven and the Mages. Divide and conquer, as his old military tutor always used to say. Cygnus had convinced himself that it should not be too difficult to turn these three powerful men against the Queen’s alliance with Aurian, though there was a hard look in Aguila’s eyes that caused him some qualms.

Clearing his throat and fighting down the hollow feeling of nervousness in his stomach, the physician addressed his fellows: “I have called this gathering so that we four may consider what must be done for the good of our people—and the good of the Queen, of course,” he added hastily, with a sidelong glance at Aguila.

The weather-beaten, tawny-haired captain looked unimpressed. “I hope so,” he said bluntly. “Queen Flamewing’s tragic fate is a disgrace from which the Royal Guard will not easily recover, and I have sworn a solemn oath that it won’t happen to her successor. Your clandestine meeting stinks of treason, Cygnus—and for your sake, you’d better convince me otherwise.”

Cygnus cursed inwardly. When Blacktalon had perished, many fortunes had been reversed overnight, and the leadership of all Aerillia’s military forces had undergone a rapid change. Trust this loyal, conscientious lowborn bonehead to have wrested control of the Royal Guard. It would take some quick thinking now to keep control of the situation]

“You wrong me, Captain,” the physician said in injured tones. “You should know that I, of all people, am loyal to the Queen. Why, did I not labor with Elster to save her life after the High Priest’s reprehensible attack upon her person? Did Blacktalon not intend to take my life, too? Each day I thank Yinze that Her Majesty is safe now, and upon her rightful throne at last.” He looked at the faces of his companions to judge the effect of his words and, encouraged, continued:

“I merely speak now for the good of both the Queen and her subjects. Can it truly benefit Aerillia when its ruler has become enamored of foreign groundling Wizards? Have you all forgotten the bitter lessons of the Cataclysm?”

“I don’t know about that, but it seems that you have conveniently forgotten a fact or two,” Aguila growled. “For one thing, we have the foreigners to thank for ridding us of Blacktalon and putting the Queen on her throne. They have labored long and hard since they came here to get our crops growing again, to save Aerillia from starvation.” He leaned over the table and fixed the bristling Cygnus with his gaze. “And also,” he went on, “if my memory does not deceive me, it was Incondor, one of the Winged Folk, who set in train the catastrophe of the Cataclysm. He was every bit as much to blame as the groundling Wizard Chiannala.”