Eidolon (23 page)

“I suspect all of Saggara will be on fire with chatter about you, little one,” Ildiko said. She glanced at Anhuset who watched them both from the chair she claimed. “You’ll have to assign a guard to Kirgipa, at least until the fervor about one of Harkuf’s children being alive dies down. Otherwise, she’ll be inundated with questions and driven to madness by them.”

“I’ll assign Necos. He and Kirgipa are friends, and as a former palace guard, he’ll handle any overly persistent curiosity monger with the right amount of...persuasion.”

Ildiko concentrated on running her fingers lightly over the baby’s plump body, a far more pleasant pastime than remembering the sight of the dead Kai on her bedchamber floor. “The assassin killed the guards, didn’t he?  I screamed for them but none came.”

“Yes,” Anhuset said. “Both their throats cut. They were good soldiers. All I can think is someone found out they were on guard duty today. The right amount of dream flower powder in a goblet of wine won’t give you visions, but it will make you slow. Dim your senses. Easy to sneak up on and overpower.”

Ildiko lifted the baby and kissed her forehead before returning her to her nurse. “I couldn’t sleep. No word from Brishen or about him in more than a fortnight. I was too worried, so I got up and sat by the window. I saw the door open and the Kai sneaking inside.”  She shivered and stared at Anhuset. “What if I had been asleep?”

Anhuset shrugged. “Then the queen would be dead,” she said flatly. “And likely the nurse and you.”  Her mouth turned up at one corner. “You were paying closer attention to those
gatke
lessons than I thought you were.”

Ildiko raised a hand to show the other woman how badly it trembled. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” she said. “I had to. I know this, but it doesn’t make it easier to accept.”  She returned Anhuset’s slight smile with a bleak one of her own. “I am not a warrior.”

“You were when you needed to be.”

Straightforward words without lavish, empty praise and yet Ildiko fancied she’d been given both absolution and the highest of compliments. Anhuset, whom she’d respected and admired since she first met her, approved of her actions.

When Sinhue returned with the wine, Ildiko and Anhuset toasted each other and Imi, emptied their cups and refilled from the pitcher. Ildiko glanced at the nursemaid who, with Sinhue’s help, prepared an early breakfast for the baby. The chamber had slowly darkened, and Sinhue lit the candles in a candelabra for Ildiko’s benefit.

Anhuset finished her second goblet of wine and set it aside. “Always a good way to break your fast,” she proclaimed. Again, her mouth turned up briefly at Ildiko’s chuckle. “I think now you’ll sleep,” she said. “You’ve been dealt a shock or two. Your mind needs the rest as much as your body.”

At her words, Ildiko surrendered to a huge yawn. She shook it off. “I don’t have time to sleep. The
sejm
will want to meet to discuss the Queen Regnant, and we need to find who sent an assassin to kill her.”

“The
sejm
can wait, and I don’t need your help to hunt down criminals.”  Anhuset gave a short bow. “No disrespect intended,
Hercegesé
.”

Ildiko was thrilled with her old title. Lower in status and so much lighter on her shoulders. She still occupied the role of regent, but she was no longer queen consort. Thank the gods for that. Another yawn stopped her from replying, and Anhuset left the room before she could stop her.

Brishen’s cousin was right. A sudden fatigue plagued her, as if she had rowed a merchant ship single-handedly into Pricid’s harbor. Memories of the earlier violence weighted her soul , and her mind shied away from the grisly image of the Kai assassin, dead by her hand. She sought her bed and crawled under the covers, eyes already half closed. Sleep claimed her even as Sinhue tugged the covers over her shoulders.

The servant’s voice was only a vague murmur in her ears. “Well done, Your Highness. Well done.”

She awoke to a room made gloomy by shadows and the low firelight cast by the lit hearth. The lack of sunlight edging the window shutters told her it was still nighttime. Had she only slept a few hours?  There was no one to ask. She was alone, and her heart slammed against her ribs at the sight of the empty baby bed nearby and no nursemaid in sight.

Blankets tangled around her legs, and she frantically kicked them aside. The baby. Where was the baby?

Sinhue’s serene voice stopped her from catapulting out of the bed. “You’re awake, my lady.”

Ildiko spotted her in the room’s deeper shadows where the firelight didn’t reach. She must have kept watch while Ildiko slept. “Where’s Imi and the queen?”

“Imi is attending personal business. The queen is with Kirgipa and half the garrison keeping watch over them.”

The amusement in the servant’s voice and confirmation of the baby’s whereabouts sent a surge of relief through Ildiko. She rubbed at itchy eyes. “How long did I sleep?  Surely more than a few hours.”

Sinhue opened one of the chests that held Ildiko’s clothing and laid underskirt and tunic on the bed. “Since yester eve. The day has come and gone.”

Ildiko’s eyes rounded. “That long?  Why didn’t you wake me?  I can’t waste my time sleeping.”  Her rest hadn’t even been restful. Dark dreams plagued her, visions of the Kai she killed interspersed with those of Brishen and the low, stunned sound he made when Serovek ran him through with the sword.

“Sha-Anhuset said not to disturb you unless the
herceges
himself strode through the redoubt’s gates.”  She handed Ildiko a new shift and stockings, a smile curving her mouth. “Only the foolish and the reckless ignore an edict from sha-Anhuset.”

“I’m supposed to meet with the
sejm
.”  She shrugged on a soft woolen shirt and stepped into the underskirts Sinhue handed her. “The gods only knows what rumors are swirling about regarding the queen.”  She suspected half the council accepted Ildiko’s inadvertent admission that a child of the heir apparent had survived the
galla
attack in Haradis while the other half soundly rejected it. This would be a contentious meeting.

Sinhue laced the underskirt until it fit snug against Ildiko’s waist and held the long tunic while she slipped her arms through the arm holes. “The
sejm
has been told to gather whenever you’re ready. Shall I bring you something to eat or do you wish to eat in the hall?”

“Here, I think.”  She’d savor the solitude before facing the
sejm
to answer a slew of questions and probably as many accusations about keeping the Queen Regnant’s identity a secret for her own nefarious purposes.

She was slipping on her shoes when a frantic beating at the door made her and Sinhue exchange wary glances. “
Hercegesé
, come quick!”

“Oh my gods,” Ildiko whispered. “The baby.”  She bolted toward the door and jerked it open. A Kai soldier stood on the other side, her eyes shining like twin lamps in the dark corridor. “Where’s the queen?” Ildiko snapped.

The soldier backed up, a confused frown lining her brow. “With her nurse and guards, Your Highness.”  She gestured with a tilt of her head toward the stairwell. “Sha-Anhuset sent me to find you. Riders approaching the redoubt with an army behind them. Scouts say it’s the
herceges
and his Wraith Kings.”

She almost didn’t move out of the way in time before Ildiko was running down the corridor toward the stairs with Sinhue calling after her. “Your Highness, your shoes!”

Ildiko ignored her. Shoes be damned. She’d destroy hers within seconds of entering the muddy bailey, but she refused to take precious time changing into her boots.

For the first time since Ildiko had come to live at Saggara, the bailey was empty except for carts and a pig loose from its pen. Everyone had gathered on the surrounding plain outside the gates. The soldier Anhuset dispatched to fetch her touched her elbow, guiding her through the throng of Kai. Many bowed as she passed, some whispering her name, Ildiko
Hercegesé
, in admiring tones. Word of her fight with the Kai assassin had spread.

She found Anhuset with Mertok at the front of the crowd. Kirgipa stood nearby, the Queen Regnant in her arms and a contingent of guards encircling her. Ildiko calmed at the sight. The baby was safe.

Anhuset pointed to a line edging the horizon, darker than the descending twilight.  “Brishen and the dead,” she said.

Ildiko peered in the direction the other woman pointed but couldn’t make out anything other than the darker line of demarcation. She listened for the sound of distant hoof beats or marching steps but heard only the rumbling conversation of the gathered crowd who watched with her.

The dark line widened across the plain, spreading like a nebulous high tide as it drew ever closer to Saggara. Soon the entire plain, once dusted in starlight, turned black. Some of the Kai uttered prayers to their gods while others wondered if any of their deceased loved ones rode with the
herceges
.

Vaporous shapes roiled within the cloudy depths, vague outlines of people with ever-shifting faces and will-o-the-wisp eyes. Chills spread down Ildiko’s back and arms. The dead, Kai and human, covered the dormant carpet of dropseed grass in a purling shroud. Silent. Watching the living Kai watch them.

They halted, as if waiting for a command, and soon horsemen emerged from the revenant line’s flanks, two on either side. The rode to the front, where three reigned in simulacra horses and a fourth advanced toward the Kai. Ildiko gave a dry sob at the sight of her husband in beaten, gouged armor.

She left Anhuset’s side and stood in the open space between the living and the dead. Brishen dismounted and strode toward her. He stopped an arm’s distance away and pulled off his helmet. Gasps filled the frigid night air as the Kai faced a Wraith King for the first time.

Even Ildiko, who had witnessed Brishen’s transformation at Saruna Tor, consciously planted her feet so as not to skitter away from him. He wore the same face, carried himself with the same grace and power, but the eye that gazed at her and the people he had battled
galla
for wasn’t Kai yellow, but ethereal blue threaded with lightning. It stared through them instead of at them. The sword he carried glowed with the same otherworldly luminescence as his eye. Shadow clung to him, as if he not only wore darkness but spawned it as well. It hollowed his features, casting the fine bones of his face into a spectral gauntness.

Ildiko blinked, and he was Brishen once more, leader, loving husband and friend. She crushed the hem of her tunic in her hands to stop herself from trying to touch him.  Neither living nor dead, he shimmered in front of her, a lodestone to which she would always be drawn.

She had no idea why he returned to Saggara with the dead still bound to him, but she thanked any god listening that he was here. “Prince of night,” she said, and reached out to caress the air in front of him. “Welcome back.”

His rigid stance eased a fraction, and he leaned toward her, yearning rippling in every slope and bend of muscle covered by leather and mail. A smile played across his mouth. “Woman of day,” he said, and the endearment held the worship of a supplicant before a beloved deity. “I’ve missed you.”

He was so close, a breath away from her fingertips, and lethal to any living touch. Still, Ildiko’s hands tingled with the temptation to grasp him, assure herself he was real and unharmed, even in this unholy incarnation. Instead, she asked the question she knew hovered on the tongue of every Kai behind her. “Are the
galla
gone?”

Once more his phantasmal gaze swept the crowd. “They’re gone,” he said.

The crowd erupted into thunderous cheers and applause. Ildiko didn’t join in. Instead, she looked beyond Brishen to the three Kings who waited in the distance with the dead. There should have been four. Her heartbeat sped up. “Where is the fourth King?”

Brishen’s shoulders drooped as if the question carried the weight of a thousand sorrows. “Taken by the
galla
.”  The echo of ghosts whispered in his answer.

The crowd continued to cheer behind them, but their voices seemed far away. “Who?” She dreaded his answer. Not Serovek, she pleaded silently, picturing the Beladine’s laughing eyes and the way his teasing drove Anhuset to distraction.

“Megiddo.”

Ildiko closed her eyes, recalling the monk’s quiet dignity and unhesitating bravery in volunteering to help Brishen. To suffer such a fate…  “I’m sorry,” she said.

“So am I,” he replied, the chime of mourning in his voice.

Brishen turned his attention to the crowd, and their cheers quieted. He raised his voice, its tone no longer mournful but sure and strong. “I come to you now so you may know it’s safe to return to your homes, your farms, your holts and villages. And soon I will return to Saggara.”

More cheers followed his declaration along with shouts from the crowd. “The Queen is safe!  The Queen is here!”

Brishen tilted his head, puzzled, and looked to Ildiko, the obvious question in his expression. She grinned, relieved to offer good news to blunt the horror of Megiddo’s fate. “There’s someone you should meet,” she said and motioned for Kirgipa to come forward.

The nursemaid handed the baby to Ildiko and bowed before stepping back. Ildiko tucked back swaddling and turned the infant to face Brishen.

He only looked more puzzled. “Who is this?”

“Harkuf’s youngest child. The daughter born a few months ago.”

Brishen inhaled sharply, gaze darting back and forth between Ildiko and the baby. He opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by a frantic screech. A single, swirling cloud of black erupted from the revenant army and hurtled across the stretch of grass toward Brishen before taking form.

Ildiko cried out, startling the baby. Screams and sharp cries rose from the crowd as almost all of Saggara dropped automatically into genuflection. Anhuset leapt forward, blade drawn, and shoved Ildiko behind her. Guards flanked either side, enclosing regent and regnant within a cage of armor, weaponry, and grim-faced Kai with no inclination to join the others in subservient posturing.

Secmis. As terrifying and malevolent in death as she had been in life, her form smoked and roiled before Brishen who showed no surprised at finding her there.