The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [106]
The chapel on Skern had a rough image whittled from an old piece of mast found as driftwood.
Neil knelt, placed two silver coins in the box, and began to sing his prayer:
Foam Father, Wave Strider
You feel our keels and hear our prayers
Grant us passage on your broad back,
Bring us to shore when the storm’s upon us,
I beg you now
Grant passage to my song.
It echoed weirdly through the halls, coming back to him to form odd harmonies. He tried to focus beyond that, to fill his mind with the presence of the saint, with the wild salt spray, with the great eternal thing that was the ocean. And at last he did, as the rhythm of his prayer ebbed and flowed, and he felt the deeps beneath him once again. He prayed for Alis and Muriele, for Queen Anne and his friends, for the dead and the living.
When he was done, he felt better, and humbled. Who was he to disparage what sort of chapel someone chose to build?
Before Muriele could find any words to meet Robert with, Marcomir’s voice began rattling in such rapid Hansan that she couldn’t have understood him if she was trying to, which she wasn’t. She was vaguely aware that Berimund also was shouting. Robert’s grin became somehow more wicked.
Marcomir’s tone dropped, and he finally switched back to the king’s tongue.
“You do not speak to me like that,” he said very coldly. “It is a mistake you will regret.”
Muriele kept her gaze on Robert as she replied.
“Here is the proof of your hypocrisy,” she said. “You claim my daughter to be a witch, and yet you harbor this—this thing at your court. He is a fratricide and an abomination of nature. Cut him; see if he bleeds. Feel his heart; see if it beats. You will find it does not. But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, dear,” Robert began. “I know we’ve had a bit of a tiff, Muriele, but really—”
“Swiya! Silence!” Marcomir snapped at Robert before turning his full fury on Muriele.
“I ought to kill you like a rabid bitch, right here and now,” the king said very quietly. “You twist words, but I know the truth. You speak for her.” He came closer. “There will be no truce with evil, no compromise, and no peace. We will destroy your daughter and the heretics who follow her, or we will perish trying. In either case, no peace will ever be made, so I need never explain what happened to you.”
“You would not,” Muriele said.
“He wouldn’t,” Berimund replied.
“What do you know, whelp? What makes you so compliant? Have you lain with this mother of witches?”
“I have not,” Berimund replied.
“Haven’t you?”
“I just said that I have not,” Berimund gritted out.
The old king straightened a bit. “Very well,” he said. “Then you take her to Wothensaiw and strike off her head for me.”
Berimund went pale. “Father, no.”
“You are my son and my subject,” Marcomir said. “As neither can you refuse me.”
She actually heard him swallow. “Father, you’re angry now. Take some time—”
“Berimund, before the Ansus and all my men, do this or you are not my son.”
“It’s not right, and you know it.”
“I am king. What I say is right.”
Muriele felt the tightness in her chest and realized her breath had been caught there for a while. As she let it out, she seemed to be drifting away with it, watching it all from above.
Berimund’s head bent and then nodded.
When he looked up, his eyes were brimming. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Berimund—”
“Hush, Majesty.”
As they led her off, she saw Robert moving his lips, perhaps taunting her, perhaps trying to tell her something. Either way, the glee on his face was obvious.
Neil and Alis were escorted back to Berimund’s “rooms,” where they were free to wander in what amounted to a small mansion. He walked about restlessly, learning the floor plan, finding the ways in and out.
Worrying about Muriele.
Alis had managed to charm one of the retainers into giving her an extended tour of the castle. He would rather remain here, where he could greet the queen when she