The Oracle’s Queen

Hundreds who’d been judged healthy by the drysians had already been allowed to leave. Some went to Atyion. Others had family in other cities. But there were still over a thousand left in the encampment and even with supplies from Atyion and other towns, careful rationing was necessary, which made for short tempers.

Some of those left were too sick to move, many had nowhere to go; but most still wanted to return to the city and try to rebuild or reclaim what they could, despite warnings about tainted water and cursed ground. Day after day, they appeared before Tamír, cajoling, begging, and complaining.

Worse yet, the lords who’d come to join her were growing restless. Tamír had made it quite clear that she was in no hurry to precipitate a civil war, especially since she’d had no word from Korin yet. All her generals and advisors insisted that her cousin’s continued silence had to be taken as a bad sign, and in her heart, she suspected they were right.

Bored warriors were a danger to all. There were fights between rival factions, murders, rapes, and pilfering. She left the disciplining of the culprits to the nobles they answered to, but knew she either had to use them or send them home.

“Work parties,” Tharin advised. “Most of them are yeomen and farmers when they’re at home. Put them to work and keep them out of trouble!”

Most of her nobles had been amenable to the idea, and so she had a sizable force to work the fields and carry on with the cleansing of the city.

It was exhausting and discouraging work, trying to keep order. Tamír wasn’t trained for this and felt the weight of it all as a personal responsibility.

“If I’m to be the queen that saves them, then why doesn’t the Lightbearer show me how?” she complained to Imonus.

“There has not been one report of plague,” the priest pointed out.

That didn’t put bread in anyone’s mouth, as far as she could tell.

She was not without help, however. Duke Illardi had experience in such matters and vetted many of the supplicants for her. He was well respected and better versed in the ways of court than her warlords. Soon he was acting as her unofficial chancellor.

Nikides was proving invaluable, as well. He’d learned firsthand about matters of court protocol from his illustrious grandfather. Tactful, deeply knowledgeable in history and court procedures, and wise beyond his years, he quickly earned respect even from the older country lords.

Tamír kept the two of them by her at all audiences and they guided her when necessary.

It was during this time, too, that Tamír saw a different side of Tharin. She’d always known him as a steady and fair-minded man, a staunch warrior and friend. Now she discovered shrewdness in him, born of years at her father’s side at court and on the battlefield. He had never sought to lead, but he was a good judge of character and had a long memory. Thanks to her father’s power and influence at court, there were few among the higher nobles whom Tharin had not met at one time or another.

One morning a young knight appeared with a message from Duke Ursaris of Raven Tor. The duke had arrived the previous day, with a force of five hundred riders and men-at-arms, but had not yet come to pay his respects.

Tharin knew Ursaris from their days in Mycena and privately expressed his distrust to Tamír. “He’s a staunch Sakoran, and owes your uncle both his title and his lands, which were seized from a lord who maintained his allegiance to Ariani after Erius took the throne.”

The duke’s messenger shifted nervously until Tamír took notice of him, then bowed low, looking like a man with a distasteful duty to perform. “I am Sir Tomas, and I bring greetings from his grace, Duke Ursaris, son of Melandir, to—” He swallowed uneasily. “To Prince Tobin of Ero.”

Tharin caught Tamír’s eye and lifted one eyebrow slightly. She acknowledged the caution with a slight nod and gave the young man a stern look. “You may tell your lord that I am Tobin no longer. If he wishes parley with me, he can come himself and greet me by my proper name.”

“You may also tell your lord that in the future if he wishes to spy out the situation, he should not send a known cat’s-paw under the honorable banner of a herald,” added Tharin, glowering down at the startled fellow.

“I am a knight, Lord Tharin!”

“Then you’ve come up in the world by quite a mark. I remember a camp runner with a talent for picking pockets and telling clever lies. I remember you, Sir Tomas, and your master, too.”

“So do I,” old Jorvai growled from the back of the audience chamber, where he’d been playing dice with some of the other lords. He came forward, dropping a hand to his sword hilt. “And like Lord Tharin here, I have a good memory for faces and reputations. Ursaris always wanted his bread buttered on both sides.”

Tamír held up a hand to stay them. “If your master wishes to support me, then tell him he is welcome in my court. If not, he should be gone by morning or I’ll consider him my enemy.” It was no idle threat and the man knew it.

“I will report your reply, Highness.” He bowed and hurried out.

Tamír and her guard rode out by Beggar’s Bridge to see what Ursaris would do. By sundown he’d decamped and marched west, taking his warriors with him.

“Good riddance!” Ki called after them, rising in the saddle and waving his middle finger at their retreating backs. “You cowards!”

“He’s not, you know,” Tharin said. “Ursaris is a good leader and his men are brave.”

“They didn’t believe the truth about me,” said Tamír.

“I doubt it mattered one way or the other to him,” Tharin replied. “He’s made up his mind to back Korin.” He leaned over and clasped her shoulder. “He won’t be the only one, you know.”

Tamír sighed, watching Ursaris’ banners dwindle in the sunset light and dust. “I know. Do you think that Korin has lost people to my side, too?”

Tharin waved a hand around at the spreading cluster of tents and corrals on the plain. “There they are, and more coming every day.”

Tamír nodded, but still wondered how many warriors Korin was gathering, with the Sword of Ghërilain and his father’s name?

Such thoughts made her all the more grateful for the familiar faces around her.

Not all of them were as they had been, however.

Tanil’s wounds had healed, but his mind was still unhinged. Tamír and Ki visited the squire every day, in the room he now shared with Lynx. He slept a great deal and spent most of his waking hours staring out the window at the sea. The others even had to remind him to eat. His once-lively brown eyes were dull now, his hair lank and dirty around his shoulders, except for the two small tufts of unevenly shorn hair at his temples, where the enemy had cut off his braids. It was a mark of shame for a warrior. Quirion had been made to cut off his own, when he was banished from the Companions for cowardice. Now Tanil would have to prove himself worthy again, before he would be allowed to plait in new ones.

Tamír doubted he cared. The only person he would willingly talk to was Lynx, and he said very little to him. Lynx often sat quietly with him when he wasn’t needed elsewhere, concerned that he might do himself harm.

“Bad enough what those Plenimaran bastards did to him, and then left him alive with the shame of it, but he feels he failed Korin, too,” Lynx confided to Tamír and the others. “His mind wanders and he wants to go looking for him, thinking Korin fell in battle. Other times he thinks he hears Korin calling for him. I have to set a guard on his door when I’m not there.”

“How did Korin take it, losing him?” Ki asked Nikides.

“Hard. You know how close they were.”

“But he didn’t go back to look for the body, to give his friend proper rites?”

Nikides shrugged. “There wasn’t time. The citadel was overrun right after that and Lord Niryn convinced Korin to flee.”

“I’d have found a way,” Ki muttered, exchanging a look with Tamír. “I’d have made sure one way or the other.”

One rainy afternoon a few days later another familiar face appeared at her court.

Tamír was presiding over a dispute between two displaced millers over the ownership of a small, undamaged granary outside the city walls. She’d watched her uncle at this many times, but found it just as boring to adjudicate as to watch. She was doing her best not to yawn in their faces when Ki leaned down and touched her shoulder.

“Look there!” He pointed into the crowd of petitioners that ringed the hall and she caught sight of a head of golden hair. Leaving Nikides to sort out the millers, she hurried across the hall to greet her father’s liegeman, Lord Nyanis. She hadn’t seen him since the day he accompanied her father’s ashes home from that last battle. His welcoming smile now swept that memory away with happier ones and she embraced him warmly. He was one of the few lords she’d known, growing up at the keep, and she’d always liked him. Even as she embraced him, however, she remembered that he and Lord Solari had once been friends, as well as her father’s warlords.

“So here you are!” he laughed, hugging her like he had when she was a child at the keep. “And Ki, too. By the Four, look how the pair of you have grown! And fine warriors, too, by all reports. Forgive me for not coming sooner. I was still in Mycena when word of the Plenimaran raid reached me, and the spring storms on that coast forced us to march back.”

Tamír pulled back. “Have you heard about Solari?”

Nyanis’ smile faded. “Yes. I always told him his ambition would be the ruin of him, but I had no idea he’d throw in with the likes of Niryn. I’d seen nothing of him since your poor father’s passing. If I’d known, I’d have tried to reason with him and do more to protect you. As it is, I do have news for you, though it’s not good. I’ve had word from Solari’s eldest son, Nevus, on my way here. The fool wanted me to help him oppose you and take Atyion.”

“I hope you told him no?” Tamír said, grinning.

Nyanis chuckled. “Your father was my liege, and I’ll pledge my sword to you, if you’ll have me.”

“Gladly.”

He looked her up and down; she’d come to expect such scrutiny from those who’d known her before the change, and recognized the wonder mixed with disbelief.

“So this was Rhius’ great secret? I spoke with Tharin on my way in. He says I’m to call you Tamír now. Or should it be Majesty?”

“Highness, for now. It’s important that I follow the laws and rituals.”

“That would include getting back the queen’s sword.”

“Yes.”

“Then I will see it in your hand, Highness.” Nyanis knelt and presented his sword to her, right there in the bustle of servants and milling plaintiffs. “In the meantime, I repeat the pledge of my heart and my sword to the scion of Atyion. I will see the crown of Skala on your brow and the Sword of Ghërilain in your hand. I will gladly give my life for that, Princess Tamír.” He stood and sheathed his sword. “Let me present some other allies I brought to you.”

Arkoniel happened by as she was greeting the knights and lords. “Lord Nyanis! I’d not heard of your arrival.”

“Wizard!” He clasped hands with Arkoniel. “Still minding your charges, I see. Were you ever able to teach either of them to write properly?”

“One of my greatest accomplishments,” Arkoniel replied, smiling.

Taking a bitty of the red. That’s what Lhel had called the spell when she first taught it to Arkoniel. Away from prying eyes, he pressed the tiny drop of Nyanis’ blood from beneath the sharpened corner of his little finger’s nail and spread it over the pad of his thumb, then spoke the words she’d taught him. Like Tamír, he wanted to trust the man, but Solari had been a harsh lesson. He felt the tingle of the magic working, and then relief when no hint of evil intent came to him from the blood.

He’d used this spell often, and had already found a few lords who weren’t to be trusted. Satisfied about Nyanis, he returned to the audience chamber, looking for more newcomers to greet.

Chapter 13

Mahti’s first vision for this journey had been a river, and so it seemed, though his feet never left dry land. The trails he was drawn along led him east and north for the next two turnings of the moon.

For the first weeks he traveled through valleys he knew, following each one down from the peaks like the spring melt trickling down in little streams to swell the larger ones at the bottom, where the villages lay. He met with those he’d healed and those he’d bedded, and learned the names of children he’d fathered. Some begged him to stay, but the old ones who knew how to read the marks on his oo’lu gave him gifts of food that could be lightly carried and sang parting-forever songs when he moved on.

He soon left the valleys he knew, but Mahti was not lonely, for the ghost witch Lhel was often with him. She came into his dreams at night, telling him of the girl she’d shown him in that first vision. Her name was Tamír, and she’d been a boy until recently, sharing a body with her dead brother. Lhel had made that magic, with the Mother’s blessing, but she’d died before she could see the girl completely into womanhood. This, and the unhappy ghost of the boy, kept her own spirit earthbound. Like many witches, Lhel was at ease in spirit. That she stayed for love rather than for vengeance had made her a pagathi’shesh, a guardian spirit, rather than a noro’shesh, like the girl’s twin.

Lhel showed him that spirit, too, and he was fearsome, bound to Lhel and to his sister by rage. Playing his vision song, Mahti saw the spirit cords that bound them all together. They were very strong.

“I watch over her, but I wait for him,” Lhel confided, lying next to Mahti on his pallet in the darkness under an oak. “I will guide him on when he is ready to let go.”

“He hates you,” Mahti pointed out.

“As he must, but I love him,” she replied, resting her cold head on Mahti’s shoulder and wrapping her cold arms around him.

Lhel had been a beautiful woman, with her thick hair and ripe body. The marks of the goddess covered her skin like twig shadows on snow and her power still clung around her like a scent. She inflamed Mahti’s flesh as if she’d been a living woman. Because she was a pagathi’shesh, he lay with her like a living woman under each full moon, but only then. By the full light of the Mother’s face they might make more guardian spirits together, who could be incarnated as great witches later on. Any other night risked making the souls of murderers and thieves. But she often lay with him, even without coupling, and he wished he’d known her in life.

She was also his guide, and in his dreams showed him rocks and trees to look for to keep him on the path he’d chosen. She told him of other people around the girl who had been a boy, showed him faces: a boy with brown, laughing eyes; a fair-haired southland warrior filled with love and sadness; the young oreskiri he’d seen in the first vision, who was filled with pain; and an old woman oreskiri with a face like flint. He would know the girl by these people, Lhel said.

The way grew harsher as he pushed ever east and north, and so did the people who lived there. They were still his own kind, but they lived too close to the southlanders to be generous or welcoming to a stranger heading in that direction. They showed him scant courtesy, just enough not to offend the Mother, and sent him on his way with silence and suspicious looks.

On and on he went, and the mountains shrank to hills. The Retha’noi villages grew smaller and meaner and farther between, then there were no villages at all, just the occasional camp of hunters or a lone witch.

Another two days and the hills gave way to forest and spring rushed up to meet him, even though at home he knew people would still be breaking ice on the water buckets in the morning. Here the grass was green and lusher than any meadow he’d known. The flowers were different, and even the birds. He knew from the old tales that he had at last reached the outlying lands of the southlanders.

The first ones he met were a family of wandering traders who’d had dealings with the Retha’noi and greeted him with respect in his own language. The patriarch’s name was Irman and he welcomed Mahti into their tent like kin and sat him at his side by the fire.

When they’d washed their hands and eaten together with his wife and sons and all their wives and children, Irman asked after hill people Mahti might know, then asked the nature of his journey.

“I’m seeking a girl who was once a boy,” Mahti told him.

Irman chuckled at that. “Can’t be many of those about. Where is she?”

“South.”

“South’s a big place in Skala. From where you’re sitting, it’s just about all south from here. Go north and you’ll soon find yourself in the Inner Sea.”

“That is why I must go south,” Mahti replied agreeably.

Irman shook his head. “South. All right then. Your kind has a way of getting where you need to go. You carry a fine oo’lu, too, I see, so you must be a witch.”

The man said it with respect, but Mahti caught an undercurrent of fear. “You people distrust my sort of magic, I’m told.”

“Like poison and necromancy. I don’t think you’ll get very far if people know what you are. I’ve seen some of the good you folk can work, but most Skalans would burn you without a second thought.”

Mahti considered this. Lhel had said nothing of such dangers.

“Do you speak Skalan?” Irman asked.

“Yes, I have learned it from a boy,” Mahti answered in that language. “Our people are learning it from traders, like you, so know to protect ourselves. I am told to say I am from Zengat, to fool them.”

At least that’s what he thought he said. Irman and the others stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“I am not saying the words?” he tried again.

“You’re getting a few of them, here and there,” Irman replied, wiping his eyes. “People will take you for simpleminded rather than Zengati, talking like that. And the Zengat aren’t exactly loved in Skala, either.”

So it would be harder than he thought, making his way in a place where no one liked or understood him. “If you will teach me to speak better, I will heal your ills and make good charms for you,” he said in his own language. He pointed over at one of Irman’s women with a big belly. “I will play blessings for the child.”

The young woman glared at him, muttering something in her own tongue.

Irman growled something at her, then gave Mahti an apologetic look. “Don’t mind Lia. She’s from the towns and doesn’t understand your folk the way we hill people do. I’ll take your healing on my animals, if you swear to me by your moon goddess you mean no harm.”

“By the Mother, I swear I work only good,” Mahti promised, pressing a hand to his heart and gripping his oo’lu.

He stayed three days in the forest with Irman and his clan, practicing his Skalan and laughing at himself and his people who’d thought they knew the language. In return, he healed a spavined ox and played the worms out of Irman’s goats. It scared his hosts a little, when the witch marks showed on his skin as he called his power, but Irman let him heal a rotten tooth all the same, then asked him to play over his old wife, who had a lump in her belly.

The old woman lay shivering on a blanket under the moon, while her whole clan looked on with a mix of wonder and concern. Mahti gently felt the swelling and found it hot and angry. This called for a deep healing, like the one he’d done for Teolin.

He drew Irman aside and tried to explain about playing the spirit out of the body in order to work there without disturbing it.

The man rubbed his cheek where Mahti had driven out the bad tooth. At last he nodded. “You do what you can for her.”

Mahti settled down beside her and rested the end of the oo’lu near her hip. “You sleep now, woman,” he said, using his newly learned Skalan. “Good sleep. I make you not sick. You give me—” He didn’t know the right word for it. He needed her agreement.

“I give you leave,” the woman whispered. “It won’t hurt none, will it?”

“No pain,” he assured her.

He droned her to sleep and called her spirit up to bathe in the moonlight, then set to work exploring her abdomen. To his relief it was only an abscessed ovary. A bad one, to be sure, but he soon cooled the hot humors and drew them away. It would take a few days and some cleansing herbs to finish the job, but when he played her back and bade her open her eyes, she pressed a hand to her side and smiled.

“Oh yes, that’s much easier! Irman, he is a good healer. Why do folks tell such tales of them?”

“We can make harm,” Mahti admitted. “Bad witches, too, but also those who fight the southlanders.” He gave the others an apologetic little bow. “Not friends, but those who kill us to take away our land.”

“Is it true, your people used to live all the way to the eastern sea?” one of Irman’s grandsons asked.

Mahti nodded sadly. The old ones still sang of sacred places by that salt water—rock shrines and sacred springs and groves that had gone untended for generations. The Retha’noi still had their hills and mountain valleys because the Skalans didn’t want them yet.

On the fourth morning he prepared to take his leave. He’d dreamed of Lhel again the night before and she was impatient for him to move on, but to the north again, not south.

Irman gave him food and clothes to help him move better along his journey. Their tunics and trousers fit closer than his loose shirt and leggings, and they weren’t sewn with any charms. Mahti sewed some on the inside of the tunic, and kept his elk and bear tooth necklace and bracelets. He accepted a Skalan knife, too, and hid his own in a cloth bag with the food they’d given him.

“What about your horn?” Irman asked as Mahti fitted it into its cloth sling. Mahti just winked. It was easy enough to make people not see it if he chose.

“Now can I tell that I am Zengat?” he asked, grinning.

“Better than saying what you are, I guess,” Irman said. “Are you sure you have to do this ‘sojourn’ of yours? You’d be better off heading home.”

“The goddess will help me.” He didn’t tell him about Lhel. Southlanders didn’t understand the dead.

He walked south until he was out of their sight, then turned north all that day and the next, and the forest grew thinner. He could see over the tops of the trees in places, to an endless expanse of flatland. It was green, and dotted with forests and lakes. He hurried on, anxious to see what it was like to walk in such a place, with the sky so wide overhead.

He went on like this for three days, when his feet brought him to a wide river. There were many villages and farms, and herds of cattle and horses.

He could not swim, so he waited for darkness to look for a way across the water. The moon rose full and white in a clear sky, so bright his shadow showed sharp and black on the dew-laden grass.

He had almost reached the river when he met a new group of southlanders. He’d just left the safety of a small wood and was striding across the moon-bright meadow when suddenly he heard voices. Three men ran out of the dark wood and made straight for him. Mahti dropped his traveling sack and pulled the oo’lu from its sling, holding it loosely in one hand.

The men came on, letting out cries that were probably intended to frighten him. Mahti’s fingers tightened on the smooth wood of the oo’lu, but he was smiling.

The men drew swords as they came close. They smelled dirty and their clothes were ragged.

“You!” the tallest one hailed him roughly. “I can smell the food in your bag from here. Hand it over.”

“I need my food,” Mahti replied.

“Bilairy’s balls, where you from, talking like you got a mouthful of stones?”

It took Mahti a moment to puzzle out what the man was asking. “Zengat.”

“Fuck me, a Zengat, way down here all by his self!” one of the others exclaimed, stepping closer.