The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [109]
“Mery,” he said. “Go find your thaurnharp. You and I are going to play.”
And for the first time in a long while, she smiled at him.
CHAPTER THREE
SUITOR
ANNE STOOD on the battlements, gazing across the Great Canal down on the fires of the enemy camps. They went to the horizon, it seemed, a bloody mirror of the clear, starry sky above.
The wind had a lot of autumn in it. The unseasonably long summer had relinquished its hold on the world in a nineday, and now winter was looking for a home.
Winter that might freeze flooded poelen and let armies walk across them. Had the Hellrune foreseen an early hard freeze? Was that what the Hansans were waiting for?
She had been out of bed in a nineday; the wound was completely healed, and she was feeling fine. For another ten days she had been watching the army growing below her. Artwair had it numbered at fifty thousand, with more marching from the north every day.
Her own forces were swelling, too, as the landwaerden sent her the cream of their men and the knights from the Midenlands arrived.
A glance around showed her she was alone.
I shouldn’t feel bad about this, she thought. They’ll only kill my men, invade my kingdom. And I need the practice.
Still, it felt odd. It was one thing when someone had a lance pointed at you; it was another—
No, she thought. No, it isn’t. It’s the same.
So she reached through the night and spread her senses out, feeling the flow of the twin rivers and the terrible beauty of the moon, concentrating, breathing deeply, holding herself together as the poles of the world sought to pull her apart and past and future melted into a single unmoving moment.
Then she was done, her heart faltering in her chest. She was drenched in sweat despite the chill in the air.
“There,” she whispered. “Only forty-nine thousand of you now. Did you foresee that, Hellrune?”
Then she went down to her chambers and had Emily fetch her some wine.
Duke Artwair spread butter and soft cheese on a slab of brown bread and took a healthy bite of it. Anne dolloped clotted cream on a spongy slice of sweet mulklaif and nibbled at it. With the morning sun peeking in through the eastern window and a pleasant coolness in the air, Anne was enjoying breakfast for the first time in a long while.
“Your Majesty looks well,” Artwair commented. “You must have slept better last night.”
“I slept all night,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
“And the nightmares?”
“None.”
He nodded. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Thank you for your concern,” she replied.
She tried one of the rather large blackberries on her plate and was surprised at the tart, sweet flavor. Had it been so long since she had had a blackberry?
“Something happened in the Hansan camp last night,” Artwair said.
She thought it rather abrupt. “I’m sure a great many somethings happened,” she said.
“A particular something happened to a great many people,” Artwair said. “About a thousand men died.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Your Majesty—” He stopped and looked uncomfortable.
Anne reached for another berry. “If you had a siege engine that could reach them across the Dew, would you use it? Would you be bombarding them even now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” she said, and popped the fruit in her mouth.
His frown was small but obvious. “Why not just kill them all in their sleep, then?”
“I can’t yet. It takes too much out of me. But I think I can kill another thousand tonight. I’ll try for more, in fact.”
“Majesty, the Hansans claim their cause is a holy one and say you are a shinecrafter and all manner of things. This sort of thing only gives that weight.”
“My power comes from the saints,” Anne said. “That is why the Church fears me, and that is why they spread these lies about me. Was Virgenya Dare a shinecrafter?