The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [71]
“An army of Crotheny would not behave so,” Muriele said.
“It would, I promise you. It has.”
Muriele was shocked by the conviction in her voice.
“Tell me,” she said.
Alis turned away. “Never mind,” she said. “This is a boorish subject. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You didn’t. I did. And as I am the queen and you are my servant, indulge me.”
Alis fumbled at her reins and studied her horse’s mane.
“It’s an old memory,” she said. “I was only five. We were poor, you understand. My father couldn’t even afford to keep our mansion in repair; some rooms you couldn’t even go in, the floors were so rotted. The river had shifted course before I was born, and half of our fields had gone to marsh. We only had five families living on the land. I can’t remember any of their names except Sally, because she was my nursemaid. I think she must have been about twelve. I remember she had red hair and her hands were rough. She sang funny songs to me, but I can’t really remember them.
“One day a lot of strange men showed up. Some stayed in the house, and some camped in the fields. I remember my father arguing with them, but I just thought it was all very exciting. Then one day when we were at Sally’s house, she told me we were going to play a hiding game in the barn. She was acting funny, and it scared me a little. She got me up in the loft and told me not to make any noise. Then some men came in and made her take her clothes off.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. I didn’t know what was happening, what they were doing, but I could tell it hurt her, and I didn’t say anything. After they left, she cried for the rest of the day. I told my father about it. He kissed me and asked if they had touched me, and when I said no, he cried. Then he said there was nothing to be done about it. He said that we were at war.”
“The Causy rebellion.”
“Yes.”
“But Causy’s men were brutes.”
“The men at our house weren’t Causy’s men; they were knights and men-at-arms sent from Eslen. I found that out later, of course, and about all the other things those men did when they were living on our land. Not long after that I was taken off to the coven.”
“William hadn’t been king long when that happened,” Muriele said.
“Doesn’t matter who the king is. Armies have to eat. The men in them are off to fight and probably die, and it makes them—different.”
“You can’t be excusing them.”
“No. I hope the men who did that to Sally died in agony. I’m making no excuse; I’m just stating it as a fact.”
“All men aren’t like that.”
“Of course not. But one in a hundred is plenty, and there’s more than that,” Alis replied.
That afternoon, they saw ahead of them towering cloud castles flickering with incandescence. There was no sound, and Muriele felt breathless at the beauty of it. From time to time crooked blue-white lines leaped between the clouds or to the earth, but most of the fire seemed to be in the hearts of the thunderheads. Alis seemed as rapt as she.
So much beauty in the world when one had time to notice it. Why was that almost always on a journey of some sort?
Unperturbed by the fire in the north, the sun went his way toward the wood in the west, but before he reached it, a different sort of spectacle appeared before them. It looked at first like a cloud of dust, but soon enough Muriele could make out the banners and the red glint of evening sun on armor.
She remembered the little girls from that morning and felt spiders on her back.
“How many would you guess, Sir Neil?” she asked the knight as the army drew nearer. They had a good vantage from the top of a hill overlooking a long, shallow valley. Aradal had unfurled his banner, and she could make out an advance party on horse riding to meet them.
Neil pointed to marching men, who walked four abreast in a