Miles Cameron - The Dread Wyrm

At the ford, he found the woman he’d missed. Sister Amicia sat on her little horse with her two attendants, Sisters Mary and Katherine.

“May we accompany you on the road?” she asked.

The Red Knight used his knees to press his riding horse close to hers. Her smile was brave. He hoped his was as good.

“You mean you wish to spend ten days on the road to Harndon with us?” he asked.

“I’ve been accused of heresy,” she said, her back straight and her head high. “I intend to meet it in person, and not cower here. I gather you have similar plans.”

He thought of various quips, but it had always been her courage he loved best. He bowed. “I’d be delighted to have your company, Sister.”

Horse by horse and wagon by wagon, the ferry took them across. In each ferry load, the weight was made up by sheep or cattle-enormous cattle with vicious horns. The lowing of the herds, the belches and farts, the sound of chewing, the hollow tread of their hooves, went on and on.

Bad Tom met the Red Knight on the south side. The road up from the ferry to the high bank was solid mud, and the younger nun’s palfrey almost lost its rider going up.

“You brought her,” Tom said with real approval.

“It’s not what you think,” Ser Gabriel said.

Bad Tom laughed. “Sometimes I think you’re the smartest loon I’ve ever known,” Tom said. “And other times the greatest fool.”

Amicia rode up in the last sentence. She laughed.

Ser Gabriel laughed. “Ten days on the road with you lot?” He smiled. “Let’s go to Harndon,” he said.

Two hundred leagues to the north, Thorn stood in his place of power, staff in left hand, but this time he cast no power. He was in his new form of stone and wood, tall and impregnable. He held the results of a year of breeding a careful, dreadful nurture.

At a distance, his right arm would have seemed to be sheathed in fur. Closer examination would indicate a dozen giant purple-black moths, each as big as a heavy bird of prey.

He reached through the aethereal until he made contact with the aura of power that was his Dark Sun. He showed the aura to his moths, and he flung his arm up, like a falconer sending his bird after prey.

And they flew.

Harndon-The Queen

Spring was a season made for joys, but Desiderata had few enough of them. She sat in her solar with Diota brushing her hair.

“Never you fuss, lass,” Diota prattled. “Soon enough he’ll come back to his duty.”

“Duty?” Desiderata asked.

“Don’t snap at me, you minx,” Diota said. “You know what I mean.”

“You mean, when I’ve had my baby, my body will be desirable again, and my lover will return?” the queen asked, mildly enough. “You mean that this is the role of women, and I should abide it?”

“If you must,” Diota said. “That’s men.”

“He is the king,” Desiderata said.

“He’s ill-advised,” Diota said, patiently. “That Rohan all but pushed the red-headed vixen into the king’s arms. The chit never had a chance.”

“I agree that she’s little to blame,” Desiderata said. She enjoyed the kiss of the sun on her bare shoulders and her hair, and listened to the sounds her baby made-increasingly strident and yet beloved sounds.

She was contemplating her unborn child when a bell rang and the outer door opened.

“Fuss, it’s the witch,” Diota spat, and moved protectively to her mistress’s other side.

Outside, a young woman said, “And where is the royal lady this morning?” in a Jarsay accent.

Lady Genevieve was the plainest-and eldest-of the queen’s ladies, a good ten years older than the queen. She wore a cross big enough to hang on a wall and her dress was plain to the point of being frumpish. She wore dark colours and sometimes even wore a wimple, although today she wore her hair in an Alban fashion-each plait was wound in the shape of a turret, making her head look like a fortress gate, which the queen found particularly apt.

“Welcome, Lady Genevieve,” the queen said.

“All this hair brushing is mere vanity,” Lady Genevieve said. She sat without asking permission. “I have brought you some religious instruction.” She looked at Diota. “You may go.”

The queen frowned. “My lady, it is for me to welcome or dismiss my servants. Of whom you yourself are one. I have never been much for formality, but you may stand until I ask you to sit.”

“Do not give yourself airs,” Lady Genevieve said. “You are a wife taken in adultery, bearing another man’s bastard, and the sign of your shame is on you every instant.” She remained seated. “My lord de Vrailly has sent me to attend you, and I shall. But do not pretend with me.”

Desiderata nodded slowly. “So you refuse my command,” she said.

Lady Genevieve was the widow of a southern lord. She knew how to make herself obeyed. “I will accept any reasonable command,” she said sweetly. “Let me read to you from the Life of Saint Catherine.”

“What if I do not wish you to read?” the Queen asked, already weary.

“You are unwomanly in your striving,” Lady Genevieve said. “A woman’s role is passive acceptance, as I told my husband on many occasions. Indeed, I was a byword for passive acceptance.” She snapped her fingers. “If your woman is to remain, she may as well be useful. I’ll have a cup of sweet cider, Diota.” She turned back to the queen. “Where was I? Ah yes-passive acceptance.”

Diota slipped out and found Blanche, one of the queen’s laundry maids, in the outer solar.

The nurse took a cup and poured cider from a jug, and then, catching Blanche’s eye, she reached under her skirts and wiped her hand there and then used it to stir the cider.

Blanche stifled a cackle and handed the nurse a slip of parchment that had been pinned to a shift.

Another of the queen’s “new ladies” came in the outer door without knocking, but by the time she came in, Blanche was folding shifts and putting them into the press.

Lady Agnes Wilkes, twenty-nine, unmarried, and with a face capable of curdling milk, stalked in and looked sullenly at the serving girl. “What are you about, slut?” she asked.

Blanche kept working. “Folding, milady.”

Lady Agnes frowned. “Do this sort of thing at night,” she said. “I don’t need to see your kind in these rooms by day, and neither does the queen. What if the King were to come?”

Diota slipped away with her cup of cider and gave it with a sketchy curtsy to Lady Genevieve, who didn’t acknowledge her at all. She took the cup and drank from it. “Tart and sweet,” she said.

Diota smiled happily. “A pleasure to serve you, my lady,” she said.

“Well,” Lady Genevieve said. “A change for the better, then. I see Lady Agnes has come in and I’ll exchange a word with her.” The older woman rose and set her cup down with a click.

She went out, and they could hear her in the outer chamber.

Diota handed the Queen the slip of parchment. The Queen seized it, read it-and then put it in her mouth and began to chew.

Diota collected cups and a shift and began to tidy the queen’s private chamber.

The two ladies came in. “Your Lady Rebecca has deserted you,” Lady Agnes said with real satisfaction. “Lord de Rohan sent for her this morning, but she’s fled. Many things are missing-she was a thief as well as a heretic. I am here to make an inventory.”

“Lady Rebecca had no need to steal,” the Queen said. “She was the lord chancellor for half a year.”

Lady Agnes made a face, and Lady Genevieve made a rude noise. “Perhaps the King pretended that she was the chancellor,” she said. “No woman could ever hold such an office.” She spoke as if she relished the low estate of women. “What foolishness. Women have no aptitude for such things. When I was with my husband, I cultivated a becoming passivity. I never put myself forward.”