The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [110]
And so it went. That brief moment when she had felt something like a queen had vanished, and she was once again a little girl who hadn’t done her lessons. For all she knew, she was making Artwair the king, and given what her aunt had said about trusting relatives, that was no idle worry.
But she also knew that by herself she could never organize something so complicated as a war.
The proceedings ended only because Artwair declared a break for the night. Elyoner had prepared an entertainment for the guests, but Anne avoided that, sending Austra to the kitchen for some soup and wine and retiring to her quarters.
Neil MeqVren went with her.
“Did you understand any of that?” she asked him once they were seated.
“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “War was much simpler where I come from.”
“What do you mean?”
“My family served Baron Fail. If he told us to go and fight someplace, we did, because that’s what we did. There wasn’t much more to it, thank goodness.”
“I suppose I imagined I would make some sort of speech about right and wrong and the honor of fighting for the throne, and men would just fall in line.” She sighed.
Neil smiled. “That might work for a battle. Not for a war, I think. Then again, I mostly know battles. And I thought you did quite well, you know.”
“But not well enough.”
“No, at least not yet. It’s one thing, I suppose, to ask men to risk their lives. It’s quite another to ask them to risk their families, their lands, their aspirations, their dreams…”
“Most of them are just greedy, I think.”
“There’s that, too,” Neil granted. “But the fact is, there’s a very good chance we’re going to lose this war, and they all know it. I wish that loyalty to Your Majesty could be enough to make them accept that risk, but—”
“But it isn’t. I’m really just a symbol for them, aren’t I?”
“Maybe,” Neil conceded. “For some of them. Maybe even for most of them. But if you win, you’ll be queen in fact as well as in name. In that case, you can even let Artwair or whoever advises you make all the important decisions. But I don’t think that’s how things will go. I think you will lean only until you can stand.”
Anne stared down at her lap.
“I never wanted this at all, you know,” she said faintly. “I only wanted to be left alone.”
“That’s not really your choice,” Neil said. “Not anymore. I’m not sure it ever was.”
“I know that,” Anne said. “Mother tried to explain it to me. I didn’t understand then. Maybe I don’t now, but I’m starting to.”
Neil nodded. “You are,” he agreed. “And for that I’m sorry.”
WINNA LOST her mind within a bell of entering the Halafolk rewn.
Aspar had noticed her breath coming quicker and quicker, but suddenly she began choking, trying to talk but not getting any words out. She sat heavily on an upjut of stone and rested there, quaking, rubbing her shoulders, trying to find her breath.
He couldn’t blame her. The cavern had become a charnel house, a place of death on a scale that paled anything Aspar had ever seen. The dead lay embanked on either side of a river of blood, and it was easy to imagine what had happened: the woorm crawling along, the slinders throwing themselves at it from either side, tearing at its armor with bare fingers and teeth. Those who weren’t crushed by its passage had succumbed to its poison.
Of course, they weren’t all dead yet; a few still were moving. He and Winna had tried to help the first few, but they were so clearly beyond all hope that they now just avoided them. Most didn’t even seem to see them, and blood ran freely from their mouths and nostrils. He could tell from the way they breathed that something was wrong inside, in their lungs. Surely it was too late for the Sefry medicine to have any effect. Anyway, he and Winna needed what was left.
If they came across Stephen or Ehawk…
“Stephen!” Aspar shouted into the hollowness. “Ehawk!”
The two of them might be anywhere. It could take months to find them if they were among the dead.
Aspar put his hand on Winna’s shoulder. She was trembling, mumbling.
“We’re…we’re not…”
Over and