The Fall of Neskaya (33 page)

Taniquel reached out her arms to him, but he was gone. She was alone in her huge bed in Hastur Castle. Only the faintest dawn light glimmered outside the east-facing windows.

Slipping from her bed, she padded barefoot to the cradle only a few feet away. Her son slept on in perfect serenity. Now four months old, he was quickly losing the shapelessness of the newborn. His cheeks, smooth as damask rose, curved gently into lips which moved softly as if nursing. A cap of curls, dark like hers, covered his scalp.

Looking down at him, her heart grew steady and her breath softened. A smile touched her lips. She had struggled through the icy wilderness, the frozen river, and more for his sake, never thinking what he might give her in return.

From the moment of his birth, he had been an unfailing source of the most remarkable feelings, a bubbling of golden warmth from the depths of her heart, a certainty, a peace. She’d had no idea such happiness existed until she’d held him in her arms. Yet how fragile a baby’s life could be and how uncertain his future. She shivered at the thought of anything happening to him.

By the time Taniquel had finished dressing, quietly so as not to arouse the attention of her maids, Julian had woken. She nursed him, sitting in the big padded chair by the fireplace. Just as she was finishing and tucking the folds of her loosely gathered gown into place, the nurse bustled in, full of exclamations that she should have been summoned at once, that it was not seemly for Her Majesty to tend the baby all by herself, and similar nonsense which Taniquel had heard a dozen times too many.

“Never mind!” Taniquel said with an edge of sharpness to her voice. Reluctantly, she handed the baby to the nurse. “I’ll be in my uncle’s chambers. If you would be so good as to change his clouts, you may bring him to me there.”

She found Rafael finishing his breakfast and poring over the day’s agendas. He brightened as she entered and kissed him on the cheek, inviting her to eat with him.

Taniquel helped herself to generous portions of the breakfast laid out on the sideboard, sausages, pastries stuffed with spiced fruit, and boiled eggs. Having finished, she resisted the urge to pace and instead seated herself beside the small spring fire.

He regarded her, eyes bright under bushy brows. “I see that you are restless this morning,
chiya
, but what would you do?” His hand swept across the neat lines of secretary’s script. “There’s nothing more exciting here than an embassy come from Isoldir to discuss fishing rights and river tariffs.”

She pressed her lips together. In a glance, she’d recognized the Elhalyn crest on one of the documents. Darren-Mikhail again. He’d written once before, formally asking for her hand in marriage. Undoubtedly, as she’d told her uncle, he fully believed he was saving her from a future as a disgraced and homeless widow. Rafael’s response was that since she had matured with motherhood, a man did not need to take pity on her in order to desire her in marriage. To which she replied, with some tartness, that if the man were that entranced with fertility, he might woo a she-
oudrakhi
in her place. As Taniquel, Queen of Acosta, she had obligations beyond the entirely unnecessary attentions of a husband.

It became a game between them, that whenever she would remind him of her determination to regain Acosta for her son, he would reciprocate with a reference to Darren’s offer of marriage.

After a knock on the inner door, one of Rafael’s personal pages entered and bowed deeply. “Your Majesty, the Councillor requests your presence. There is a—” the child stumbled over the unfamiliar word as he struggled to repeat exactly what he had been told, “—a deputation arrived at the castle.”

“Indeed?” Rafael, clearly in a good humor from the morning’s light banter, raised one bushy eyebrow. “What sort of deputation?”

“Men. On horses. With banners.” The child grinned. “I saw them riding up.”

Taniquel’s throat went suddenly dry. “What color were the banners?”

“White and black.”

Her eyes locked with her uncle’s.
If you will not deal with Deslucido for my son’s sake, then you must for your own.
She kept silent. If she pursued the matter too aggressively, he grew resistant and ill-tempered. With a degree of self-control she’d never had to practice as a pampered young queen, she refrained from bringing it up again.

Rafael’s expression remained tranquil as he said, “Ask Gerolamo if he would be so kind as to inform these messengers I will receive them. Have them standing ready.”

After the page departed, Taniquel burst out, “Uncle! You will not—”

“I agreed to receive them, but I did not say
when.
If you would
be
Queen rather than playing at it, you must learn that all things happen in their proper time, whether it be an assault on Ambervale Castle or the protocol for receiving uninvited guests.”

She caught the wry note in his voice. “And so, the audience will be at your pleasure and not necessarily theirs.”

“Naturally. There is nothing so deflating to a man’s self-importance as to arrive in the morning with pennants flying and colors bright, and not be able to speak his speech until just before dinnertime, knowing that by then no one will be able to concentrate on his words. A grumbling stomach can be an excellent ally.”

“Then I will attend to my own affairs,” she said, rising, “rather than drive both of us to distraction. These emissaries may spend the day in idleness and worry, but I have better things to do.”

“Ah,” he sighed, “that is exactly what your mother would have said. You look much as she did at your age, have I told you that?”

Even as she smiled and kissed him on the cheek before departing, Taniquel thought,
One way or another, no matter how this business with Deslucido falls out, I must leave Thendara eventually. I can never go back to being a child in my uncle’s castle.

In the great hall, Taniquel waited in her usual place to the side of her uncle’s throne. Her chair, although small, had armrests and now she was grateful to have something solid to wrap her hands around. Beyond the dais, the hall was already abustle with preparations for the evening meal, servants arranging trestle tables, replacing
laran
-charged glows, laying down fresh rushes, carrying pitchers of watered wine and ale, baskets of bread, bowls of fresh cherries and redfruit. A maid stooped to pick up the nubbin of gnawed bone left by the pair of spaniels which were Rafael’s companions, and sent them yipping and frolicking, as if it were a game.

At the
coridom’s
announcement, the men from Ambervale approached. They had come unarmed, with scabbards empty. Taniquel recognized the officer from the occupation of Acosta, although she did not know his name. He and the others bowed to Rafael with proper deference given a host king.

The officer, although not a trained Voice capable of the exact replication of the words he was entrusted with, including the vocal tone and inflection of the original speaker, nevertheless recited his messages well. After the usual courtly greetings, he phrased an elaborately polite demand for Taniquel’s surrender. He reiterated the peaceful transition of power at Acosta, the many courtesies extended to the young Queen, the offer of honorable marriage, the lamentations and grief when she had been thought lost in an unseasonable storm, the bridegroom so anxiously and ardently expecting her return. He did an excellent job implying that she had freely consented to marry, that she and Belisar were in fact already husband and wife by the old mountain traditions, lacking only the formality of the
di catenas
ceremony to make their union incontestable, and that to prevent her return constituted nothing less than interfering with the most solemn and private family matters.

Taniquel could not see her uncle’s expression as he listened.
He knows I did not consent,
she thought.
He knows this is a lie.
Yet it was the sort of lie so easily given. Deslucido’s agents would of course portray him in the most flattering tones, a just and generous king, a devoted father-in-law, and she a mere woman, fickle and capricious, giving her promise one moment and running away the next, a woman who did not even know the father of her son, if Darren’s report of the rumors were true. In the end, it would come to Belisar’s word against hers that they had not shared a bed as well as a meal and a hearth.

The discussion then shifted to territorial issues, with nothing resolved. So smooth was the transition, that an implied message lay in its very ease. The two missions were inextricably linked. Deslucido had laid claim to the Hastur lands bordering Acosta, a thinly inhabited hilly area called Drycreek. Taniquel thought that the time to answer this threat was before Deslucido had time to solidify his hold on Acosta, but she said nothing. The time for preemptive action had passed, despite her urging. All the smiths in Zandru’s forge couldn’t put that banshee chick back into its egg. And now Deslucido knew she lived, knew where she was, and intended to use her as a bargaining point.

The messenger did not, of course, explicitly say that Deslucido would withdraw his claims to the Drycreek borderlands if his son’s marriage were successfully consummated, but his meaning was clear.

The audience went on long enough for Taniquel to wonder at the stamina and persistence of all parties involved. Nothing was concluded except an agreement to continue the discussions.

Taniquel had no doubts that Deslucido would launch an armed assault without hesitation. If it were necessary for the welfare of the Hastur kingdom, she might well be offered as the price of peace. She must not expect otherwise.

Not just for Julian’s sake or for Acosta’s, but for her own. She was no longer the dutiful child who left her uncle’s house for an arranged marriage. She had become something more, the Queen who accepted the fealty oaths from men twice her age, the woman who stood alone against Belisar and the Deslucido
laranzu,
who fought her way through ice and storm and
laran
spells. Before Ambervale marched on Acosta, she had no idea she was capable of any of this.

Shuddering, she wished for a small portion of the unearthly calm she had seen in Lady Caitlin’s eyes. At least, decorum required her to sit still, to show nothing of her inner turmoil. Gradually, heartbeat by beat, her anxiety quieted, to be replaced with a new resolve.

As the days piled one on the other, Taniquel grew heartily wearied of the long hours of sitting, listening to very little of substance and a great deal implied in language so indirect and flowery as to be infuriating. More than once, she was tempted to excuse herself to play with Julian, or walk in the gardens, or practice her archery or ride out beyond the city walls, attended by a horseboy or two. If this is what it meant to rule a kingdom, to sit for hours and fence with words, then she must learn it.

The morning after the first audience, Rafael had invited Taniquel to talk strategy over breakfast in his sun-filled sitting room and this soon became their habit. Today, more informal than before, she cradled Julian in her arms. He’d fallen asleep nursing and the thin shawl she used for modesty still draped her breast.

“If there is any hope of avoiding outright warfare and a return to the Ages of Chaos,” Rafael said, “we must find it.”

The baby must have felt the sudden leap in tension in her body, for he whimpered and stirred. She patted him, rearranging the folds of her bodice and folding the shawl.

“No matter what you give him, Deslucido will not be satisfied,” she said. “He is only testing you for weakness.”

Gray-frosted brows lifted minutely. “Never fear, I am not in the least considering giving him what he wants. I think this problem is part of a larger, one small feint on the chessboard. It isn’t clear what his game is, but this,” he jabbed the armrest of his chair with one blunt finger, “is only an opening gambit, a carefully calculated move.” Seeing her puzzled expression, he went on. “Charming as you are, my dear niece, you are not worth a war. Why should Deslucido go to such trouble to secure but one of a half-dozen kingdoms? Why not marry his son to an eligible daughter of Linn or Verdanta or Hawksflight?”