The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [50]
“They don’t wear their livery,” he remarked.
“They are outlawed,” Elyoner said. “It seemed premature for them to make themselves targets until they had something to fight and someone to lead them.”
Neil nodded. He had traveled without standard himself, in Vitellio.
“The queen left herself defenseless, then.”
“Exactly. She must have known she hadn’t a chance of successfully fighting the coup, so she sent her men away to where they would do the most good: outside the walls. Anyway, that’s when Robert put her in the tower. He pulls her out and parades her around now and then to show that she is still alive.”
“If the queen is become so unpopular, why should he care whether the people know that?”
Elyoner smiled faintly. “Because a most peculiar thing occurred. The performance of some sort of musical stage-play—I mentioned it earlier.
“Somehow it swayed many of the landwaerden back toward Muriele and her children. In part because a daughter of one of the landwaerden families was involved and was arrested by Robert on the charge of treason. She was also condemned by the praifec, for heresy and shinecraft, along with the composer of the piece, a man who was already a popular hero of Newland. Robert is apt, I’m afraid, to act more from rage than from reason at times. Now he finds the landwaerden do not really care for him, after all.”
“Then we have a chance,” Neil said. “How many troops do these landwaerden control?”
“Their combined militias number near eight thousand, I’m told,” Elyoner said. “Robert can muster perhaps twelve thousand from the nobles who remain loyal to him. The nobles in the east and along the forest are too busy fighting slinders—and stranger things—to spare troops to help either Robert or those who oppose him.”
“What about Hornladh and the Midenlands?”
“I think Anne might be able to raise a host to match that which defends Eslen,” Elyoner said. “We shall hear more of that directly.”
“Well,” Neil mused. “Then we can make a fight of it.”
“Only if you do it very soon,” Elyoner replied.
“Why is that?”
“Because Muriele is to marry the heir of Hansa, Prince Berimund. It’s all been announced. Once that union takes place, Hansa will be able to send troops without courting the prejudice of the Church. Indeed, Robert has already agreed to let z’Irbina station fifty knights of the Church—and their guards—in Eslen to support any ruling that comes down from Fratrex Prismo. They are on the march as we speak. You cannot fight Robert, Hansa, and the Church.”
“And you, Duchess? What part will you play in all of this?” Neil asked. “You seem awfully keen on the small details of this conflict for someone who shan’t take sides.”
Elyoner chuckled. It was an odd sound, both childlike and world-weary.
“I never said I hadn’t taken sides, my dove,” she replied. “It’s just I find the question of my allegiance tedious, like the rest of this business. War does not suit me well. As I said earlier, I mostly want to be left alone, to do as I please. My brother assures me that this can be the case so long as I follow his instructions.”
Now, at last, Neil began to hear the warning bell ringing in his head.
“And those instructions were…?” he asked.
“They were rather specific,” she said. “If Anne comes across my stoop, I am to make certain that she vanishes, immediately and permanently, along with anyone who accompanies her.”
STEPHEN GLANCED at Dreodh, but the man didn’t challenge the girl’s assertion.
“You told your parents to become slinders?” Stephen asked, trying to find some way the pronouncement made sense. “Why would you do that?”
Stephen studied the girl for some sign that she was something else, perhaps an old soul transposed to a young body or a creature that resembled a human being only so much as a hummingbird resembled a bee.
All he saw, however, was that odd, long moment that suspended between child and