The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [146]
The queen must have sent her maids away along with everyone else. The covers had been stripped from the bed and wadded up on the floor in a kind of nest. The stench of urine rose from an uncovered chamber pot. It was almost too much, and Aryn staggered, but Lirith's grip on her arm held her steady.
“Your Majesty,” Aryn said. “Are you well?”
It was a ridiculous question. However, Ivalaine seemed not to hear her. She paced before the cold fireplace, muttering, as if she was the only one in the room.
“I was young . . . so young, and still a maiden. But I did as they asked. I did what they wanted me to do. I sacrificed myself to that bloody bull.”
Aryn cast a startled look at Lirith. The witch's dark eyes were locked on the queen.
Ivalaine pulled at her hair as she paced. “A male witch, one of full blood. They needed him for their schemes, and I helped to create him, I gave him up for them.” Clumps of hair came away in her hands. “But he is my son. I cannot let them . . . I cannot let her use him. She would . . . in the shadows . . . not alive, and not dead . . . she thinks she can stop me from . . . from . . .”
Ivalaine's words phased into a meaningless hum. She stared with empty eyes, swaying back and forth.
“Now, sister,” Lirith whispered. “While her guard is down. You must spin a thread out to her, you must try to glimpse what is in her mind.”
Fear paralyzed Aryn. She couldn't.
Lirith squeezed her arm. “You must. You are stronger than I. And we have to know.”
Aryn let out a moan, then she shut her eyes and reached out with the Touch. She could see the queen's thread. It flickered like a dying candle, bright one moment, dull the next. Aryn hesitated, then extended a shining hand and gripped it.
Wonder filled Aryn, and terror. She saw everything in an instant. It was all so clear, only it was chaotic, fragmented—like gazing into a shattered mirror. There, in one shard, was Ivalaine as a pretty young maid, no more than sixteen. And there was King Boreas. Only he wasn't a king yet, but rather a man just entering his prime. And there, in another shard, was a woman in a dove gray gown whom Aryn recognized only from paintings. Queen Narenya. A baby appeared in her arms, an infant with dark hair. The broken shards started to align themselves. . . .
Ivalaine had been so young—just sixteen winters old—and newly a witch. She had been willing, even eager, to do as her coven bid her. For many years they had been trying to bring about the birth of a male witch, one as full in his power as any woman who ever touched the Weirding.
To match the men of Vathris, we must have a man of Sia, spoke the wise ones, the crones, the seers of prophecy.
Many of the most powerful witches had used herbs and spells, along with the simpler magics of wine and beauty, to find their way into the beds of strong warriors, but to no avail. A few girl children had been born strong in the Touch, but no males. Until . . .
Aryn could see it as if it was happening before her. Ivalaine had clad herself in one of Narenya's gowns and had waited in a chamber. The king was brought to her, his mind fogged by herbs that had been slipped into his wine. He was rough, but so dull were his wits that he did not hear her soft sounds of pain, did not see the blood upon the sheets.
Yet that was only half the deception, for Narenya had secretly followed the ways of Sia herself. Though she loved Boreas, her duty was to the Witches. Unable to bear his child herself, for she proved barren, Narenya did what she knew she must. With the help of her two handmaidens, both disciples of Sia, she had deceived the king and his court. It had been simple enough to pad her gown a little more each week, and when she was alone with Boreas in their chamber,