Lilith Saintcrow - The Hedgewitch Queen

“Aye, my liege?” Suitably hushed, carefully obedient.

“How long do we have?” My throat closed around the words, thick with tears. I wondered that I sounded so haughty.

“Three days, four at most. Enough time to get everyone inside the walls and—”

“I will spend tonight at the Temple. Send to Danae, priestess of Jiserah, to inform her I wish her services. Gather every hedgewitch and Court sorcerer you can find, prepare them for siege. Make certain Adrien’s men are given aught they require, and wait for me in your chambers. Go.”

The air crackled with his reluctance, and I am sure he exchanged a look with his father. The door soughed closed behind his bootsteps.

I rounded on my Council, my head held high. Adrien di Cinfiliet had dropped into a chair, and he watched me carefully from beneath the glare-white bandage. But he smiled, encouragingly, just a tiny curve of his thin lips.

It made no dent in the armor closing about me.

“ Chivalieri en sieurs. ” I let my gaze linger on Perseval d’Arcenne, who looked angry enough to spit like a Guard averting ill-luck. “I will decide tomorrow morn if I am to risk open war, or if I will surrender myself to the Duc and hope for peace. I am loath to risk even a single life.”

They stared, jaws hanging. It was a moment that would have been comic if not for the tension crackling between each man and the next. I had only a short while before their shock turned to shouting matches as they sought to change my mind, and I had little patience for such an event.

“Until I decide, I leave the preparations for this city’s defense to you. I have another duty now. Sieur di Cinfiliet, I ask for a few more moments of your time, tonight, in the Temple. Until then, rest, and look to your men and horses.” My eyes moved slowly over the faces of my Council, and the howling loneliness settled more deeply over me. “And now, chivalieri en sieurs , I wish to be alone. Be so kind as to withdraw.”

The Aryx rilled softly under my words. I did not sound like the King, but neither did I sound like a woman who could be disobeyed.

Of all of them, only d’Anton tried to speak. I lifted a hand, effectively silencing him. When they were gone, only the guards outside the door remaining, I dropped back into the chair and looked at the table, scattered with paper and candleholders. The wine decanter looked very tempting, but I required a clear head.

I let out a long breath. My head pounded. My entire body shook as if I had been struck with palsy. My right hand crept up, touched the Aryx’s pulsing. Sunlight slanted through the windows, dust dancing in each bar of thick warm yellow. The Aryx moved, serpents straining against my fingers. One hard gemstone — a serpent’s eye — drifted under my fingertip. “Gods.” My voice shook. “What did I do to deserve this?”

There was no answer. Nothing but the Aryx thrumming, singing, almost conscious against my skin. My stomach flipped, revolving, as if I had slipped on a staircase and was now starting a long fall. “Tristan,” I whispered.

I would wait until tonight, in the house of the Blessed, to speak to di Cinfiliet and hear his proof.

And what of it? What if Tristan d’Arcenne had killed the King? I had said I cared little what he had done beforehand, and I loved him. It seemed now that I had always loved him, even at Court, and only been blind to it. It hurt my heart to think of him as a traitor, but perhaps he was not. Perhaps it was another trick, a lie, something to make me mistrust him. After all, assassins had been sent to fetch me, not to kill… if I could trust what the Pruzian said.

What if I went to the Temple as suppliant and the gods were silent? What if I found no answer in the house of the Blessed? What if the city was besieged and there were yet more deaths to lay upon my conscience, people who followed me because of the Aryx, who trusted the judgment of a lady-in-waiting, a bastard royal? And what if I gave myself over to the Duc and had to endure his limp white hands on me while plague swept Arquitaine and Damarsene armies marched through her fields and orchards? What were Damarsene troops about under the Duc’s standard?

I did not trust my wit when faced with this, and the strength I would have depended on had just been rudely struck from me. What if I could no longer trust Tristan d’Arcenne? What if he was just as guilty as the Duc who had killed my Princesse?

You have suspected, Vianne. You may never fully know. But the suspicion itself will work in your heart like the poison that was not in the King’s pettite-cakes. You have known since Tierrce d’Estrienne something was amiss with Tristan’s tale, and yet you closed your eyes to it, for you needed him.

My fingers left the Aryx. I cupped my face in my hands as the sunlight burned through the empty room.

And there, alone in the Keep among hundreds depending on my wit and strength, I wept.

Ansinthe:A venomous green liquor distilled from wyrmrithe

Aufsbar :(Prz.) Client

Blessed, the:(Arq.) The Twelve Gods of Arquitaine, six Old (indigenous) and six New (brought by the conqueror Angoulême)

Demiange :(Arq.) Sorcerous or half-divine spirit; many of them wait upon the gods in the Westron Halls

Demieri di sorce :(Arq.) Sorcerous spirits of night and mischief

D’mselle :(Arq.) Honorific, for a young woman

Festival of Skyreturn:One of the great cross-quarter festivals

G’ji g’jai :(R’m.) Foreign (lit. “ Other” ), whore

Hedgewitch:(Arq.) One who practices peasant sorcery

M’chri, m’cher :(Arq.) Beloved, dear one

M’dama :(Arq.) Honorific, for an older woman

Piniel:An evergreen tree with a sharp distinctive scent, whose bristled cones bear small nuts inside.”

Rhuma:A clear, fiery liquor distilled from sucre

Sieur :(Arq.) Honorific, for a man

Valadka :A clear, very potent liquor that may cause blindness if overly indulged in

Vilhain :(Arq.) Bastard

Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington. Find her on the web at www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

I struck to kill.

The flesh, fat-rich and fed on luxury, parted under my blade. And I rammed my sword — sworn to the service of Arquitaine’s King — through the heart of that same king.

The alarums were still ringing, but a great silence had descended on me. Running feet and shouts resounded in the corridor. Henri gasped, the death-gurgle I have heard on many another’s lips.

I had killed for him too many times to count. Did he feel surprise, that the tool he sharpened had thus turned in his hand?

My throat was dry as sand in the Navarrin wastes. My heart pounded, running like a hare before hounds. Up to this moment it had been a conspiracy, one I had played at catching out. Now, with one decisive lunge, I had committed my soul entire to the enterprise