The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [99]
“You mention the danger of them coming down the Dew. Have you any reports from the east?”
“No report of attack yet, no, but I expect it.”
“And the south?”
He nodded. “We’ve heard that at least three Church legifs are camped along the Teremené River. That news is a few days old, of course. They may have started fighting already.”
Anne remembered Teremené.
“The river is in a gorge there,” she said. “They’ll have to cross at Teremené town or go north into Hornladh…” She trailed off.
“Majesty?”
She closed her eyes. Nothing; just another stupid thing I’ve done. Cazio, be as smart as I think you are.
“The Hellrune can’t help those in the south. I’ll see what my visions can tell me about what the Church is up to. Is there anything else?”
“Not that I know of, Majesty.”
“Thank you, Duke. I’d better rest now.”
She met her arilac on a heather-covered down overlooking an azure sea. The air was warm and wet and a little dirty-feeling.
The arilac seemed more human each time they met, although she still shone unnaturally at times.
“You were outmaneuvered,” the woman said. “With the law of death broken, the Hellrune is stronger than even I suspected.”
“You should have warned me,” Anne replied.
The arilac raised a fiery eyebrow. “That would have been an insult to your intelligence. If you could see the results of what he saw, how could you not imagine it wasn’t possible for him to do the same?”
“But when does it end?” Anne asked. “If I had seen the trap, couldn’t he have seen me seeing it? And so on, into utter madness?”
“Yes and no. As you’ve learned, the future isn’t a fixed thing if you can see it. But it has a path and momentum. When the Hellrune saw that your army would march the way it did, and you saw that he had seen that, you might have done a number of things. You might have decided not to go that way, or not march at all, or bring thousands more with you—or what you did: try to turn the trap against itself. The Hellrune would have been shown all these paths, but dimly, and one would have seemed infinitesimally brighter. In turn, his possible reactions—abandon the plan, send more men, and so forth—would be even more contingent, first because your choice was one of dozens, then because his was. That’s why you didn’t see the reversal of the trap: It was a wispy thing, unnoticeable. For him to see the outcome of his reversal I would call impossible, which is why you managed to escape. So to answer your question, your duel with the Hellrune went as many strokes as it could, and he won. When you are in full mastery of the power, you might see one step farther. Might.”
“Then I must guess, you are saying, where Hansa is concerned.”
“No, no,” the arilac said. “He can’t know you’ve seen something unless you react to it.”
“Then what use to see it?”
“It can inform your strategy.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Yes, poorly. Suppose I predict an army coming down the Dew River, and Artwair diverts troops to stop them, and instead the army never marches east but comes here instead?”
“You will find you can rarely see more than a nineday or so when specifics are involved. Visions of the far future are usually vague as to when and how they will happen. The Hellrune’s is limited in the same way, and he is not here, Anne. His shadow is still in Hansa. It takes a rider to bring information from him, a rider that may or may not arrive and will always be late. You’re closer to where the war is being fought now. And now you know to be cautious.”
Anne nodded. “Very well. But first I must see what the Church is up to on our southern border and what danger I’ve put Cazio