The Fall of Neskaya (32 page)

“As you wish, cousin. Perhaps after a little reflection or reasoned discussion with those older and wiser, you will see that my offer is in your own best interest.”

Taniquel heard the disappointment in his voice and sent a silent prayer that it would soon pass. He held out his arm and she placed her fingertips along it. He had not asked her to dance, and she was glad of it. Meanwhile, she had a few choice words for her uncle who, she suspected, had encouraged Darren’s suit.

Taniquel entered the brightly lit room, surging with the energy of the dancers and the bubbling conversation of those standing on the periphery. She hesitated, reconsidering. It would do no good to approach her uncle here or to demand that he take immediate action to ensure her son’s claim to the throne of Acosta, much as she might like to do so. Rafael had already made clear his commitment to caution and neutrality.

No, she would have to go slowly, build her case point by point. Once she would have given no thought to consequences or strategy, but she had learned much, including patience, since Damian Deslucido’s army came riding over the green fields of Acosta.

She seated herself beside her favorite aunt, an elderly lady who was already dozing off from the late hour and a second cup of wine punch. Presently, her uncle walked up to her, moving stiffly. He had not danced at all this evening and clearly his knee pained him. Bowing, he asked how she was enjoying the ball.

Taniquel caught the subtle shading of his words and realized that he meant her interview with Darren. So Darren had spoken first to her uncle. How like men, she thought with an instant of temper.

“It has been a pleasant evening,” she said, smiling innocently. “But I grow tired from all the dancing. I will retire now.” Taniquel held out her hand for him to help her to her feet.

As she headed for the door which would take her toward the private quarters of the castle, she thought briefly of asking for a word with him the next morning, but discarded the idea. He would think it had to do with Darren. A marriage there would conveniently remove her as a problem, along with her son as exiled heir to Acosta and all the political entanglements they brought.

Taniquel waited for a tenday more, until the council had adjourned and Darren was safely gone. Since then, she had had little to do, beyond the embroidery and music which occupied the time of the other royal ladies. After the stimulation of the council meetings, she found these diversions tedious at best. Restlessness gnawed at her. Every day that passed allowed Deslucido to tighten his hold on Acosta and here she was, doing nothing.

Now Taniquel paused at the intersection of a corridor leading to the small reception room where the council had met and where her uncle heard private petitions. Perhaps Deslucido thought her dead, perished in the unseasonable storms. Unless someone had seen her at the ball and brought word, he might not know she survived. Her brows drew together as she considered the possibility, and how she might use it to her advantage.

Men’s voices reached her from the public areas of the castle, not the usual quiet rumble but raised, clearly agitated. Her curiosity aroused, Taniquel headed in that direction. There they were, a knot of guards and men in short cloaks and boots suitable for riding, of clearly good quality. Immediately, she recognized the accents of Acosta. She hurried, moving as briskly as her long dress allowed. Once she would simply have picked up her skirts and run.

“You must leave now,” a guard insisted.

“Not without seeing the King!” “He must hear us!” “At least give him a message—let him decide!”

“Take your troubles elsewhere.”

Taniquel slowed her step to a more regal pace as she approached the men. A guard, recognizing her, bowed. They had not drawn their weapons, she noticed.

The strangers broke off their argument. One of them, a man of middle age whose cloak was thrown back to reveal a tunic bearing an eagle emblem to indicate his fealty to the Acosta throne, opened his mouth in surprise.

“
Vai domna!
Queen Taniquel!” Rushing forward, he fell to his knees at her feet. After a stunned instant, the others did the same. There were four in all, one of whom seemed to be a paxman, from the way he stood behind another. This close, their once-fine clothing showed the wear of hard usage and harder travel.

“Now, see here—” the senior of the guards began, for they knew her only as the niece of King Rafael. Taniquel held out a hand to prevent their interference.

“We thought you dead!” the Acosta noble cried.

“Dead at Deslucido’s treacherous hands!” said another.

She reached out her hands, gently raising the men to their feet. “As you can see, I am alive and well. But what has brought you to Thendara, my lords? Come, this is no place to welcome you, standing here in the middle of a hallway.” She turned to the nearest guard. “Does my uncle hold audience in the council chamber at this hour?”

“Vai domna,”
the guard said, looking plainly unhappy.

Clearly, Rafael had refused to see these men. He would not give even the appearance of partiality to their cause, she thought angrily.

“Come with me!” She turned and, with the Acosta lords at her heels and the guards a pace behind, headed for her own quarters. The guards exchanged shocked looks as they realized her destination. Right now, she was too angry to care about her modesty or reputation. These men were hers now that Padrik was dead, hers to command and defend. If her uncle would not give them the courtesy of a private hearing, that was the least she could do.

Her sitting room, although spacious and filled with late morning light, had been furnished as a lady’s retreat. Taniquel seated herself in her favorite chair. The lords, after surreptitious glances at the dainty furniture, remained standing. The effect, she realized with a secret smile, was very much as if she were holding court.

The eldest of the Acosta lords, Esteban of Greenhills, presented their case. After Acosta Castle had been so quickly taken, Ambervale forces had descended upon each vassal in rapid succession.

“It was the first we knew of the invasion,” Esteban said. “What choice had we, with no time to gather our fighting men or contact our neighbors? And with his aircars overhead . . .”

Taniquel nodded. They feared
clingfire
more than they feared conquest. The mere threat of such a terrible weapon was perhaps its greatest power.

Esteban had bowed his head, as if pleading for forgiveness for a weakness that was none of his fault. “We had no idea any of the royal family survived. Later we heard rumors that Deslucido’s heir, he who now wears the crown of Acosta, had married—” He broke off at her involuntary expression of horror.

Quickly she said, “You did not come to Thendara to seek
me
out. What is your mission then?”

“We came to beg Hastur’s protection, to offer him our fealty,” said Esteban.

“To be ruled by Hastur instead of Acosta . . .” she murmured confused. They must be desperate indeed. She remembered Deslucido’s speeches about the welfare of all Acosta, how the people would profit from his rulership. Esteban and the others did not look like hothead rebels who would march to war for an abstract idea. They were practical, hard-working men, she saw that in their weather-seamed faces and callused hands, the unselfconscious way they wore their once-fine clothes. “Please go on.”

“Deslucido, he promised us fairness, that we’d all be part of a greater kingdom. Not that we had any power to negotiate terms—Javier of Terrelind put up a fight, and he and his two sons were killed. And then his tax collectors arrived.”

The faces of the other lords hardened. Esteban went on, “We used to tithe ten or sometimes fifteen parts to the hundred of our harvest to Acosta. Deslucido wants
half.
”

“Aye, and any lord who so much as breathes a protest finds his son or daughter or wife seized to guarantee his loyalty,” the second lord put in.

“Your Majesty—” Esteban held out his hands, his expression questioning whether she understood what Deslucido’s demands meant. The lands of Acosta produced a bounty in rich years, but not every season. Half the harvest might feed the people at famine levels, with nothing left to store for the truly lean years. She remembered, and not too long ago, when she and Padrik had gone hungry after the royal granaries were emptied. Three poor harvests had followed a year of floods and killing frosts. It was the way of the world and she had been taught her duty was to share in the hardship of her people.

Her hands had clenched into fists in her lap, crumpling the fine silk of her gown. What did he intend to do with all that food? The answer came to her mind almost as quickly.

Acosta was a stepping stone, not an end in itself. Deslucido needed its farmlands productive, its fighting power intact. For his own use. Next would come conscriptions of fighting men and horses, seizures of wagons, arrows and swords and the precious metal to make more of them.

So, before starvation stripped their lands and harsh penalties weakened them past the point of effective action, these men had come to place their case before the Hastur King, only to find he would not even hear them.

She rose, smoothing her gown around the rounded contour of her belly. “Hastur is not yet a party to these wars, but you have done better than you guessed by coming to me. I bear the son of Padrik Acosta, true heir to the throne.”

She paused, caught by the sudden flare of light in their eyes. Their hope and awe swept through her, amplified by her empathic
laran.

And darker, like an underground river,
We will have our kingdom back. She will lead us to freedom!

Taniquel paused, her throat momentarily closing around the words. She stiffened, lifting her head to the demands of the moment. “Return to Acosta with this news and with my promise. My son and I will return . . .”

. . . will return . . .
The words tolled through every fiber of her being.

For this I was born
comynara.
This is my destiny.

Esteban’s face drained of color as he knelt once more before her. She had rarely seen such naked devotion. In that moment, he would have died for her.

“Will you accept my oath?” he asked her.

She had never done so before. It was Padrik who ruled as liege to the vassal lords, as his father had before him. She’d been daughter, wife, and now mother, never thought to be more.

She had already given them her oath. All that remained was to accept theirs in return, to complete the balance, question and response, power and responsibility, birth and death.

The ritual phrases rose unbidden to her tongue. Her hands enclosed Esteban’s in the ancient gesture of loyalty received and given in return.

After they left, she remained in the chair while the sun moved slowly overhead. She had given away her life, without quite understanding why, only that it was the will of the gods and that she had no choice. She did not know if she ever had.

T
aniquel rose reluctantly from sleep, as if she were drifting through molten honey. In the months since Julian Regis was born, her dreams had been increasingly vivid, but rarely so pleasurable. After fragments of the usual familiar bits of day thoughts, she’d found herself on a smooth gray plain under a featureless sky. The sense of utter, unchanging stillness might have smothered her if she had not as quickly been caught up in a forest of gauzy scarves, growing like exotic plants from the tile-smooth floor and waving in invisible breezes. Their colors reminded her of her gowns back at Acosta, red and bronze and shimmering peacock. As she moved among them, letting the finely-woven fabric slip between her fingers, she caught the mingled scents of cedar gum, incense, and rose petals. Music reached her, the far-off ripples of a harp, then deeper—a hunting horn. Soon the reds gave way to blues, often as pale as ice. She seemed at times to be wading through cool blue flames. They parted as she passed.

An open space appeared before her, circled round with flickering blue lights. In the center stood a man, naked except for the fire. Even though he faced away, she would have known him anywhere. Her heart leaped.

He turned with that smile which she remembered a thousand times. Blue flames lapped at him, and yet his bare flesh bore no burn or blister.

“Through water, you came to me,” he said, although his lips did not move. The words echoed in her mind. “Through fire, I will come to you.”