The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [151]
“Put her down,” the prince commanded.
Neil cut his eye toward the prince but kept Brinna bundled against him, feeling her heart strengthen.
“Do as I say!” Berimund exploded, pushing hard enough that Neil felt blood start on his neck.
“No.” Brinna’s hand came up and rested on the blade. “He saved me, Baur.” She gently pushed down on the weapon and then reached for her brother. He tugged her away from Neil and wrapped her in both arms.
Neil just stood there, his knees feeling weak.
Alis took his elbow and got under his arm to support him.
“Robert did this,” she said. “I’m certain of it.”
Neil walked back to Muriele and sank slowly to his knees, understanding finally reaching his grieving brain.
She’s gone. He couldn’t protect her anymore. There was nothing else he could do.
Except find Robert and cut him into so many pieces that it wouldn’t matter if he was alive or not.
PART IV
THE BORN QUEEN
When walks again the Born Queen, the bones of men will clatter within them; the wombs of their women will fill with venom; every rider of the night will take her lash with hideous joy. And when at last the bones shake off their flesh, and the wombs consume their bearers, and the lash murders; when finally it is only her single voice screaming in the night—when she lacks any man or beast or ghostly thing to harrow and she must at last turn on herself—then all will be still.
But ten times a hundred years will first pass.
—TRANSLATED FROM THE TAFLES TACEIS OR BOOK OF MURMURS
CHAPTER ONE
OCCUPIED
LEOFF CLOSED his eyes and let the form build in the ensemble of his mind. The first bass line began, a male voice, rising and falling: the roots in the soil, the long slow dreams of trees. Then, after a few measures, a second line entered as deep in pitch but in uneasy harmony with the first: leaves rotting into soil, bones decaying into dust, and in the lowest registers the meandering of rivers and weathering of mountains.
Now the middle voice came in: Birth and growth, joy and tragedy, suffering and learning met with forgetting, the loss of senses, discorportation, disintegration…
It wasn’t until Joven, the gardener, started shouting that Leoff understood that someone had been pounding on the outside door, probably for some time. His first reaction was impatience, but then he recalled that Joven rarely got excited and never to the point of shouting.
He sighed and set down the quill. He was at a standstill anyway. He had the form; the instruments were his problem.
When he answered the door, Joven proved to be more than excited; he seemed to be on the verge of panic.
“What is it, fralet?” Leoff asked. “Come in, have some wine.”
“It’s the enemy, Cavaor,” Joven said. “He’s here.”
“The enemy?”
“Hansa. They’ve besieged Haundwarpen, and about a hundred of them just rode into the estate. The duke didn’t leave many men here to guard it; I think they surrendered.”
“I don’t understand,” Leoff said. “I thought Hansa was beaten at Poelscild.”
“Auy. But they say Queen Anne is dead, and without her sainted power to hold them back, they’ve taken Poelscild and crossed the canal. All of Newland is in their grasp.”
“The queen is dead? Queen Anne?”
“Murdered, they say.”
“That’s terrible news,” Leoff said. He hadn’t known Anne very well, but he owed her mother, Muriele, a lot. She had lost all but one of her children now. He couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling.
Nor did he want to learn, at least not by direct experience.
“Where are Areana and Mery?” he asked, trying to keep calm.
“Lys went to find them. She thinks they’re in the garden.”
Leoff nodded and took up his cane. “Get them to the cottage and stay there with them, please.”
“Yes, Cavaor,” the old fellow said, and sprinted off as fast as he could on his aged legs.
Leoff pushed himself up and went out to stand on the stoop. Dogs were barking everywhere, but other than that it seemed a normal day, pleasant even.
He didn’t have to wait long. Within a bell, a knight with a red-plumed helm came riding through the gate, followed