The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [84]
Z’Acatto shook his head. “I told you, I’m going back.”
“I’m not asking you to get involved in this war of Anne’s,” he said. “But Austra is in trouble, and I need to warn Anne about the Fratrex Prismo. After that—”
“Hespero,” the swordmaster muttered.
“What?”
“The Fratrex Prismo is Marché Hespero.”
“The praifec of Crotheny? The one behind the murders in the woods?”
The older man nodded.
“All the more reason I have to tell her, then.”
Z’Acatto’s frown deepened. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Weren’t you the one who used to chide me for my lack of honor? For using dessrata as a thing to get money and women? For not being half the man my father was?”
Z’Acatto lifted one eyebrow. “Last time we talked about your father, you called him a fool.”
“And now you’re calling me one.”
Z’Acatto put his face in his palm. “Saints damn you, boy,” he said.
Cazio put his hand on his mentor’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.
“Oh, shut up. Let’s go steal some horses.”
CHAPTER NINE
THE QUEEN RIDES
ANNE REINED Faster to a halt just before the edge of the tree line. Below her the land dropped away in gently rolling hills. Less than half a league away the land started to climb again, a bit more sharply. A little stream wound its way down the bottom of the dale, and near it was the track of North Ratheren Road.
“I see them,” Artwair murmured softly. “Majesty, I won’t doubt your visions again. We would have been caught between hammer and anvil.”
Anne followed the line of his finger, and now she saw them, too, a vast camp in the fold of the hills, easily noticed from here but probably invisible from the road.
“How could they know we were coming? And coming this way of all the ways we might have come?” Artwair wondered. “Even if some traitor flew to them with wings, they would have still had to march here from Copenwis or Suthschild. Look how settled in they are.”
“They have a Hellrune,” Anne replied. “A strong one.”
Artwair cocked his eyebrow. “I’ve heard those stories,” he said. “It’s Hansan rubbish, meant to frighten us.”
“You’ve come to believe I can see across leagues and time. Why doubt another could?”
“Your visions have proved true time after time,” he replied. “Your Majesty was blessed by the saints.”
“If one can be blessed, so can another,” Anne said. “I thought he was out there. I can’t see him, but sometimes I think I see his shadow.” She laughed. “So I did something I’ve always disliked: I found some books on the matter. It seems some in the Hansan royal line are born with the power, and they raise them from birth on a diet of strange, distilled essences and liquors to make them stronger.”
Artwair still seemed skeptical. “If Hansa really has such seers, why would they ever lose a war? Or make a mistake?”
“Even a Hellrune isn’t perfect, I guess, and some are stronger than others. And sometimes they are assassinated before the war begins.”
“But if they can see the future—”
“Not their own, apparently,” she replied.
“Then we should kill this one.”
“I’m working on it,” Anne told him.
“So he saw us on this road—”
“And I saw the trap they set, because of what he saw,” Anne replied. “And now we must set a trap of our own.”
“We need to know their numbers,” he said. “And the composition of their forces.”
“I’ll send my Sefry tonight,” she said. “The moon will be nearly dark. They can discover what we need to know.”
Anne thought she saw a brief look of distaste cross Artwair’s face, but he nodded.
Anne woke before dawn, shivering although summer hadn’t really begun surrendering to autumn yet. She lay there, trying to remember where she was, but the colors and shapes around her didn’t make any sense. She closed her eyes and was creeping out of a hole, stretching her eight legs to tick into the sand, smelling the sweet scent of something with blood nearby. She crouched, waiting, feeling the sick power of the earth inside her, feeling the forest stretch out away from her to the great shallow sea and beyond.
She opened her eyes again and sat up, trying not to vomit, pushing at