The Queen's Consort (17 page)

Sixxteen

             
Despite their late and active night, Clairwyn rose early. When the bustle of camp drove Ansel out of bed he found her at a table set for two. He slouched into the chair opposite her.

             
“Good morrow, my prince,” she said with a smile.

             
“’Tis unseemly to be so cheerful in the morning.”

             
“After such a pleasant night, how could I be otherwise?” she teased. “I sleep very soundly when I sleep with you.”

             
He smirked and reached for a steaming mug. Clairwyn had a taste for tea in the morning, and the vile brew was starting to grow on him.

             
Under the watchful eyes of her Guard, soldiers started to break down her tent. “I’m lucky they waited until I left,” Ansel said.

             
A Guard shrugged indifferently.

             
“I insisted,” Clairwyn assured him.

             
He hoped that she spoke in jest but couldn’t be sure.

             
“Come, my prince,” she urged him. “Finish your meal. We are going to ride ahead again today. I have a surprise for you.”

             
“A good surprise?” he teased.

             
“A good surprise, she assured him.

             
In a remarkably short time they left the army behind and trotted easily down the road toward Hilltop. To Ansel’s surprise, the Guard stayed behind them. Today, Clairwyn had a short bow over her shoulder. Most Highland women, he knew, were skilled with that bow. And, sadly, they didn’t hesitate to loose their nasty short arrows on Courchevel raiders.

             
Huge, open fields lined the road on both sides. Ansel wasn’t a farmer, but the summer wheat looked brown and sparse to him. He knew that the snows had been light over the mountains and the rains sparse, and these fields suffered from the lack of water. North of here, where more water-intensive crops were planted, probably suffered even more. He hoped. What was bad for Vandau was good for Courchevel.

             
Ahead of them the land sloped steadily upward to Hilltop. Across the Central River from the town a towering bluff, sheer and shining white in the sun, housed the garrison on Eagle’s Roost. Even at this distance he could see a dozen eagles circling in the sky above the bluff.

Next to him Clairwyn looped the reins over the pommel of her saddle and fit an arrow to the bow. Ansel watched as she drew back the string, aimed down the road, and loosed the slender arrow.

              Jonas eased his horse around theirs and spurred ahead. Ansel saw him draw rein and retrieve Clairwyn's arrow. She'd taken a rabbit right through the eye.

             
“Nice shot,” he said honestly.

             
“Thank you, my prince. I like to bring an offering when I go to Eagle's Roost.”

             
Eagle's Roost housed a fort and a garrison of soldiers. Recently, Ansel knew, it had been strengthened and fortified.

             
He glanced at the rabbit. “That rabbit isn't going to feed many,” he noted.

             
“Oh,” she said with a smile, “it will feed one. And that will be enough.” He was confused, and she took pity on him. “My grandfather established a clinic for injured eagles and other raptors at Eagle’s Roost. After he retired he spent most of his time here. Growing up, I'd spend weeks helping him.”

             
“You'd think that raptors would be more of a scourge to be eliminated than a subject of rescue and rehabilitation.”

             
“The eagles and other raptors eat rabbits and rodents that feed on the grain,” Clairwyn said. “They help the farmers.”

             
“I suppose.” He'd never spent any time thinking about it.

             
“I still come to Eagle's Roost whenever I have a chance,” Clairwyn continued. “I love it here.”

             
As the road continued to wind upwards, Ansel realized why she loved it so much. Eagle's Roost was the highest point between the mountains to the west and the ocean to the east. It must remind Clairwyn of her mountain home.

             
Eagles nested on the sheer walls of the bluff. They circled overhead, sometimes flying so close that their huge wings blotted out the sun. Ansel was surprised to see that dozens of other, smaller bird species nested on the bluffs, too.

             
“The little birds aren't big enough to be a decent meal for an eagle,” Clairwyn explained. “And the eagles protect the bluffs from other predators.” She laughed. “Try climbing the bluff. I dare you.”

             
He grinned back. “I prefer my skin intact, my Queen.”

             
“As do I, my prince,” she said. “And I know you've scars enough already.”

             
A twinge of sadness plucked at him when her laughter faded. So many secrets, too many lies, stood between them.

             
“I understand your bow now,” he said, trying to distract her. “And I'm grateful you only used it on the rabbit.”

             
“Were you afraid, dear prince?” Her smile was smaller, but it was back. “Did you think my little arrows were meant for you?”

             
He put his hand over his heart. “You have already pierced me to the quick, dear Queen.”

             
“How gallant of you.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Next you'll be writing bad poetry.”

             
“Roses are red,” Ansel declared expansively, and she rewarded him with a genuine peel of laughter. “Violets are blue. Highland girls are scary and your bow is, too.”

             
They drew rein at the gate of the garrison. The guards looked at him oddly, but Ansel didn't care. Clairwyn smiled at him, and it felt as if the sun was shining for him alone.

             
He followed her through the gate and into the courtyard, where they dismounted and left their horses. They climbed to the roof of the garrison and looked at the nearly-flat fields of Vandau. An eagle-eyed soldier could see for miles in every direction.

Several large cages for injured birds had been built against the sheltering wall. Clairwyn had said that she came here often, and the bird handlers were obviously ready for her. One man held a hooded eagle on his wrist.

              Ansel hadn't fully appreciated the size of the birds before. This one was huge, with a massive, curved peak and wicked talons. The wind ruffled its feathers as it waited, patiently, for whatever would happen next.

             
“This is one of our permanent residents,” the handler said. “We found him with a broken wing. It didn't heal properly. He can't fly.”

             
Clairwyn didn't touch the bird. “I always regret that they have to be hooded,” she said.

             
“They're wild animals, my Queen,” the handler said. “They're tame enough only as long as they can't see.”

             
“I know. But I wish we could convince him that our intentions are good, that we mean him no harm.”

             
Ansel looked at her. “They can't be tamed by kindness. They will always be wild.”

             
She nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if it is kinder to keep him prisoner here, even though it is for his own good. If they had their choice, every one of these birds would leave this shelter and never return. They would rather die in the wild than live here, where they are cared for.”

             
Ansel shifted uneasily. Her far-away eyes made him think that Clairwyn was talking about more than the bird, but he had no idea what else she could mean. He didn't like it.

             
“I wish I knew what I could do differently,” she said. “To make him happy, to make him want to stay.”

             
He knew the answer to this. “There is nothing you can do,” he told her. “You cannot change his nature.”

             
She didn't look at him. She gestured and Jonas came forward with the dead rabbit. One of the handlers tossed the corpse into the cage, then released the eagle from the blinder that controlled him.

             
The bird flapped his wings and pounced heavily on the rabbit, tearing it to shreds with his beak and talons. Clairwyn watched impassively, her eyes still distant.

             
Ansel shifted uneasily. He wanted her back with him, laughing and smiling and loving. “The bird is safe and well-cared-for here,” he said to her, easing an arm around her shoulders.

             
“But he would rather be anywhere else, even if it meant his death,” she replied.

             
“Sometimes a little deception is necessary.” He thought of all the truths he hadn't spoken to her.

             
“He hates me for it.” She raised her troubled eyes to his. “I wish that we could be completely candid.”

             
That could never happen. Touching her only with his lips and fingertips, he kissed her. He didn't care about the embarrassed audience that scrambled away to give them privacy.

             
Ansel tried to pour out all of his feelings in the kiss, to convey all of the emotions he couldn't acknowledge, much less speak aloud.

             
Gods help him, he loved her. And, with him at her side, she marched to her destruction. He had to find some way to turn her from this path.

             
Ansel wrestled with his conscience. He’d never worried before about emotions, his own or anyone else’s. He knew how to think things through. He was a soldier. Give him an order, a task to complete, a city to take, someone to kill. He could handle that. He could plot an assassination over breakfast.

             
In fact, he’d plotted Clairwyn’s assassination while eating a cold meal of leftover bread and meat with his father.

             
He didn’t know how to deal with emotion. He knew what his body wanted. That was easy. He wanted her.

But he also knew how to ignore the needs and desires of his body. He could press on through pain, through cold or wet or heat. He’d been well-trained to ignore hunger and thirst.

Clairwyn accepted his kiss with trust and tenderness, believing the promise in his lips and body.

He didn’t deserve her trust or her tenderness, but he craved them as much as he wanted the rest of her. If only she’d stayed the beautiful girl he’d coveted, if only she hadn’t grown into an enemy to be crushed.

The questions plagued Ansel with doubt. The only thing he could be sure of was what he could feel and touch and cherish, and right now he held her in his arms.

Seventeen

             
Hilltop was more of a crossroads than a real town but, twice a year in the spring and fall, it came to life at sowing and harvesttime.

             
Now it was early summer and Hilltop should have been a ghost town of graineries and warehouses awaiting the bountiful harvest. Instead the hot, dry weather had driven the population for miles around to the town to support the Queen’s army.

             
“My Queen,” the mayor greeted them in the town’s open square.

             
Clairwyn swung off her horse and walked forward to meet him. “I am glad to see so many people here. Hopefully they have come to swell the ranks of my army.”

             
The council was made up of mostly middle-aged men and women, and they were all eager to talk to her.  “There is no work for our men in the fields this summer,” a man said. “Little snow fell in the mountains this year, my Queen. And the rains have not yet come. The hard ground that serves your troop so well for training will bear little fruit this fall.”

             
“That will never do,” Clairwyn said, looking at the cloudless sky. “We have stores enough to feed our people through a long winter, but we must have more to feed an army through what might be a long war.”

             
“We must have rain, my Queen, and soon. Or this year's harvest will be lost.”

             
“So little is required.” Clairwyn leaned down and closed her fingertips around a pinch of dust. “And yet it is so desperately needed.”

             
Everyone watched as she put the dust on her palm, then lifted her hand to her lips. She blew out gently and the dust seemed to swirl and grow darker, heavier, larger, and then seemed to expand.

             
Anxious murmurs swept through the crowd but Clairwyn started speaking in a calm rhythm. Although he didn't understand the words, Ansel recognized the language of the Highlands.

             
The darkness swelled to envelope them, then the crowd, then the watching army and the whole town of Hilltop and all the way to the distant horizon. But, before the crowd could panic, it started to rain.

             
It was a slow, steady, soaking rain, exactly the kind that farmers loved best. Clairwyn lifted her palms and her face and laughed out loud.

             
The mayor and the council put their heads together. “My Queen,” the mayor said, “the councilmen and -women have agreed. Their young men will sow the fields, then catch up to your army as it marches.”

             
“Excellent. I could ask for no more—except, perhaps, a dry place out of the rain?”

             
“Come inside, my Queen. We have prepared your largest warehouse to receive you and your party.”

             
The warehouse was cavernous and filled with chairs and tables. There was room for the mayor, the council, and other distinguished guests as well as the Queen, Ansel, her Guard, and two entire squadrons of her soldiers.

             
Massive beams rested on the stone walls and lifted the roof high overhead. Ansel listened to the sound of rain on the roof and realized it was metal. Metal? It astonished him.

             
Clairwyn caught his look. “Metal roofs,” she agreed. He hated it when she read his mind. “Our stores of grain are too precious to risk to leaky and flammable wood and the metal, when pounded thin, is lighter and stronger than stone or tile. Much more suitable to cover a large space.”

             
He glanced around the massive—and empty—warehouse. “You say that you have a year's worth of grain in storage?”

             
“More or less. Hilltop is the major storage site, but it is not the only one.”

             
“When you say a year's worth you mean enough to supplement a poor harvest, right?”

             
She shook her head. “No. If we didn't grow an ounce of grain or a single turnip this entire year, we would have enough on hand to feed our people until next fall and the next harvest.”

             
Incredible. A bad harvest in Courchevel meant a hungry winter and a lean spring for his people. And he suspected that what constituted a “bad year” here was vastly different from what the people of Courchevel would consider bad.

             
He listened to the rain on the roof and hid his smile. Rain was good for farmers but bad for armies. Clairwyn would find that out in the morning when the mud bogged down her troops. Perhaps he could convince her to return to Haverton. With him, of course.

             
In a distant corner of the warehouse a band started making noises. An army of young men and women, loaded down with trays of food and drink, walked toward them.

             
“Come, my Queen,” the Mayor said grandly. “Let us celebrate the gift of rain, so important to the land and fields we depend on. And we celebrate your arrival, of course.” 

             
“Of course.” Clairwyn winked at Ansel, then let the mayor lead them to the head table.

             
The Hilltoppers really knew how to throw a party. Even Ansel had to admit it. Of course, it might have been the free-flowing grain alcohol talking. Or the platters of fresh-baked bread, or the roast sweetmeats. Ansel stopped thinking about it and just enjoyed the celebration.

             
There was a lull in the music and a steely-eyed woman slipped past the line of soldiers and approached the head table. Ansel sobered instantly. He wasn't so infected by gallantry that he didn't think a woman could be a killer. His hand found the comforting grip of the throwing knife he’d stashed inside his tunic. One wrong move and the woman would get a blade in her heart.

             
“My Queen,” the woman called.

             
The mayor shifted to look at the speaker. “Who is that? Who dares approach the Queen?” His voice slurred a bit. “Get rid of her!”

             
“Stay,” Clairwyn said quietly, and Ansel realized that an odd silence had gripped the room.

             
“You may come forward,” Clairwyn's voice seemed to fill the room to every corner.

             
The woman realized that every eye was on her and some of her confidence seeped away. “My Queen, I—” She met Clairwyn's eyes and straightened. “I come to accuse one of your soldiers of raping me.”

             
A groan rippled through the room. Ansel leaned back in his chair, bored. Rape was regrettable, of course, but it would happen.

             
Clairwyn, predictably, was not as dismissive. A woman would think worse of rape, he supposed. She'd probably give the woman a nice payout for her “injuries,” although that would set a bad precedent. It would lead to all kinds of “victims” coming forward with claims.

             
“The soldier is here?” Clairwyn asked.

             
“I am, my Queen.” A big, brawny man came forward. “This woman has accused me. We did lie together one night, it shames me to say, but she did so willingly.”

             
“That is not true.” The woman was pale and shaking, but she stood resolute.

             
“This grieves me.” Clairwyn stood and moved around the table to approach the pair. “One or the other of you does lie. I will have the truth, and one of you will be punished harshly.”

             
They each regarded her steadily.

             
“I implore you now to confess. It will go easier for you, I promise.”

             
Neither accused nor accuser spoke.

             
Clairwyn sighed. “Very well.” Ansel wondered if they would now go through the tedious process of gathering evidence, listening to testimony, and weighing the facts. Hopefully Clairwyn wouldn't expect him to sit through the whole boring trial with her.

             
“Bring me two mugs of ale,” Clairwyn said.

             
A servant pushed his way through the crowd and placed two mugs on the table before her.

             
Clairwyn opened a small pouch at her waist and took out a folded paper packet. She measured the contents into her palm and poured equal amounts into each mug. Black smoke curled from them.

             
She lifted the mugs. “I warn you now: confess. After you drink from these mugs I will not be able to halt the process or ease the pain of the guilty.”

             
“My Queen,” the woman asked, “what will happen if we drink?”

             
“You will each relive that night from the other's perspective. The truth will be known to all.” 

             
“I'm not afraid.” The woman's shaking hand reached for a mug. “He has already done all he will to me.”

             
“And I am not afraid of the truth.” The man took a mug. He drained it in one long draft and slapped it down on the table.

             
“Go ahead,” Clairwyn told the woman.

             
She lifted the mug to her lips and drank. Everyone watched her as she lowered the mug.

             
For a long moment nothing happened.

             
Then the woman’s eyes flashed and she seemed to grow taller and stronger. At the same time the big, brawny man seemed to shrink down into himself, as if he wanted to be invisible. The woman strode forward and slapped him briskly. He fell to the ground, cringing and weeping.

             
“Enough.” Clairwyn caught the woman's hand as she pulled her arm back for another blow. “You don't need to see any more of his mind.”

             
The woman's face cleared as the man covered his. He writhed on the floor, begging, pleading, weeping—

             
It was painful to bear and excruciating to witness. Ansel's eyes roamed the hall and he saw that every soldier, every man, stood riveted to the scene unraveling before him. Obviously their comrade had brutally raped this woman, and now his punishment was to relive her pain.

             
Finally the big man cowered on the floor, reduced to a sobbing heap.

             
“Help him to his feet,” Clairwyn instructed.

             
Reluctantly two men moved forward and, though the brute flinched away, they got their hands under his arms and lifted him up.

             
“The truth is clear to us,” she said, “and, perhaps, it is now clear to you.”

             
Wiping clumsily at his tear-streaked face, the man nodded. “I am truly sorry,” he said.

             
“You will be.” Clairwyn's voice was calm but cold. “I sentence you to suffer all of your victim's nightmares and terrors. Until her pain eases, you will bear the burden of the pain you inflicted.”

             
He looked horrified, but nodded. “I am your servant,” he said.

             
“You are. You serve a Queen. And you should never forget it.”

             
Ansel realized that her words were for the crowd. The poor bastard had learned his lesson the hard way. She'd made quite an example of him. And, judging by the stunned expressions of her soldiers, they'd learned from his mistakes.

             
Clairwyn whirled toward the head table. “Mayor,” she said, “I thank you for your gracious hospitality. But it is time for me to retire.”

             
Taking his cue, Ansel came to his feet. He walked to her and offered her his arm. As he escorted her to the door, he lowered his mouth to her ear.

             
“Remind me never to cross you,” he said.

             
Her gracious smile never faltered as she took her leave of the crowd. “Let us hope you never will,” she replied.

             
It rained steadily all night, turning the training fields, camps, and roads to mud. The sun peaked out in time to shine on Clairwyn as she followed Ansel outside the next morning.

             
“Just look at this mess.” Ansel shook his head with mock regret. “Perhaps you and your Guard should retreat to Haverton, my Queen. The mud will greatly delay your army.”

             
“I thank you for your advice, my prince. But we must press onward.” She picked up a clump of mud and threw it into the air.

             
The wind caught the mud and spread it over and around the camp, then raced down the westerly road. Ansel blinked, then stared. The ground under the camp and the hard-packed dirt surface of the road were dry. Under his own feet, the mud had disappeared and the ground looked as if it had not felt a drop of rain.