The Queen of Attolia Read online

  The valley before them was filled from side to side with a heavy carpet of vines. The few trees still standing had been engulfed. Their dead branches poked through the lush greenery of the suffocating creepers. “A narrow dirt path led to a small clearing where a flat green patch of grass grew. There was room for the three to sit, but they would have to leave their horses.

  “Your Majesty, please,” the commander of her guard pleaded in an urgent undertone. The queen only smiled.

  “I’m sure you will find a comfortable place around the rim of the valley,” she said. The commander sighed and bowed his head to inevitability.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  The magus carried the saddlebag with their meal in it down to the clearing, which turned out to be a fine carpet of moss, not grass. In places where the moss was thin, paving stones showed through. The tiny open space, entirely surrounded by vines, had once been a terrace or forecourt to a building. After he’d lowered the saddlebag to the ground, the magus went to look more closely at the vines. They had smooth stems and dark matte leaves. Their bright red blossoms were tissue-thin, the five petals crumpled around the stamen and pistils.

  “Don’t pick them,” the queen warned. “Here they are sacred to the memory of Hespira, though they are dragged out as weeds anywhere else.”

  The magus straightened. “Hespira?” he said, puzzled. “I don’t know Hespira. Is she the goddess of the temple?” He had seen under the vines the shattered ruins of a temple.

  Eddis shook her head. Eugenides had stretched out on his back and closed his eyes. “Hespira’s mother planted the vines that destroyed the temple,” said Eddis.

  “A rival goddess?” the magus asked.

  “A mortal woman,” Eddis answered as she settled herself on the moss and opened the saddlebag. “The goddess Meridite abducted her daughter.”

  “Is there a story that goes with this?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Eddis.

  The magus glanced over at Eugenides, who opened his eyes long enough to say flatly, “Don’t look at me. I’ve retired from storytelling.”

  “Eugenides, sit up and eat, and don’t be cross,” said Eddis.

  “Am I cross?” Eugenides asked.

  “Yes,” said Eddis. “Magus, don’t sit there. Sit on this side.” She pointed to a place on the moss, and the magus sat, seeing no difference between it and the place he had chosen himself.

  “She wants the commander to have a good shot at you,” Eugenides pointed out with a touch of malice. He was still lying down, and his eyes were closed. The magus looked up to the rim of the valley to see the commander and several of his soldiers standing with their feet squarely planted and their crossbows trained on him. Two others were circling the rim of the valley in order to have the magus in their sights from the far side. The magus glanced at Eugenides. He hadn’t needed to look to know they were there.

  “I only want the commander not to worry himself,” said Eddis calmly. “He will fret if I am between him and the magus.” The queen hadn’t looked up to the hillside either.

  “What about the magus fretting?” Eugenides asked, and Eddis lifted her head from the package she was unwrapping to look at her guest.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” she reassured him. “They are only being cautious, not bloodthirsty.”

  “It would be one way to prove your loyalty to your king,” Eugenides said.

  “A fatal way,” observed the magus.

  “True, but they can’t be too careful,” said Eugenides. “It might be worth it to you to clear your name. Did you miss the subtle negotiations at the edge of the valley? The commander didn’t want to be left behind. He didn’t want the queen alone in the valley with you.”

  The magus had heard the exchange without understanding its significance. He pointed out what was obvious to him: “But we aren’t alone.” Eugenides lay on the moss less than a man’s-length away.

  “You may as well be. I never would have been considered a match for a soldier of your reputation,” said Eugenides. Unspoken was the assumption that he was no longer a match for anyone. There was a dryness to his words that was almost, but not quite, bitterness.

  The queen explained. She spoke quietly, but her words had sharp edges nonetheless. “In his life Eugenides has gone to great lengths to portray himself as a noncombatant, so people assume he is. He has to live with the fruits of his labors and sometimes finds them unsweet. Sit up and eat,” she said to her Thief, and this time he levered himself into a sitting position.

  He ate with his left hand. The hook on the end of his arm lay at rest in his lap.

  “When do you wear the hook and when do you wear the false hand?” the magus asked with a straightforwardness that surprised the queen.

  “The hand is less noticeable,” Eugenides answered, unoffended. “But the hook has a number of uses, and the false hand isn’t good for anything. So I teeter between vanity and function.”

  “And when you stop teetering, where will you be?” the magus asked.

  Eugenides shrugged. “In the madhouse…or maybe in a nice home in the suburbs, keeping books.”

  The magus suspected that the very blandness of his voice covered over some ugliness the way a covering of leaves can hide a pit trap. The magus didn’t risk falling. He changed the subject.

  “Would you tell me the story of Hespira?” he asked Eddis.

  Before she answered, Eddis looked up to check the position of the sun. “I’ll tell it to you if you like. We have the time. Eugenides, if you are going to lie down again, put your head on my knee.”

  The magus lifted his eyebrows. The queen noticed that he raised both at the same time. Eugenides had lately taken to raising just one when he was being amused, and she wondered whom he was copying. Eugenides rested his head on her lap. Pensively she tried to brush away the crease between his brows. She knew the magus wondered at his bad temper.

  “We are sending a message to the queen of Attolia,” she explained, speaking to the magus though she continued to look down at Eugenides. “My guards will see how fond I have grown of my Thief, and gossip. The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia’s master of spies, and he will carry the news to her.”

  “Her secretary of the archives,” murmured the magus.

  “Hmm?” asked the queen.

  “Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so—”

  “Accurate?”

  “Overly direct,” said the magus.

  Eddis laughed.

  “Attolia has been unaware of Eugenides’s activity?” asked the magus.

  “As has Sounis,” said the queen, “until now.”

  “And what has happened to change that, if I may ask? I had a most relaxing stay in your lodge, but not an informative one.”

  “Yes, I didn’t know you had an interest in botany,” said Eddis.

  “I don’t really. I have a friend who does. He isn’t well enough to travel and relies on acquaintances to send him samples and drawings. And how is your war progressing?” he asked, declining to be sidetracked by scholarly inquiry.

  Eddis smiled. “Seeing himself betrayed by Attolia, Sounis has been most kind in relieving the strain of Attolia’s embargo on Eddis. We have received several shipments of grain and other necessities in exchange for a promised delivery of cannon, which I regret to say we are going to be unable to deliver.”

  “So you turn a two-way war into a three-way one?”

  “A war we would lose to a war we might survive.”

  “Why not take Sounis as an ally against Attolia and fight a war you might win?” the magus asked.

  “Because as an ally Sounis would expect to bring his army across Eddis, and that will never happen while I reign,” said Eddis with absolute conviction.

  “I see,” said the magus. “And for the duration of this war…?” he asked.

  “You will be a prisoner in Eddis,” said the queen. “I am sorry. We will try to make you comfortable.” />
  The magus bowed his head politely.

  “The goddess Meridite had a son by a blacksmith. You know Meridite?”

  “Yes,” said the magus.

  “Good,” said the queen, and began her story.

  The goddess Meridite had a son by a blacksmith. It was an unusual union, and some say that she was tricked into it by the other gods, but whatever she thought of the father, she seemed fond of the son. His name was Horreon, and she watched over him as he grew up. The blacksmith had no wife, and so father and son lived alone, and Meridite visited from time to time to see how the boy was growing. He worked by his father’s side, learning his trade from a very early age. He had a gift, no doubt from his mother. Everything he made was the finest of its kind. When he was young, he made horseshoes lighter and stronger than anyone else’s. His blades were sharper; his swords never broke.

  His father was a surly man to begin with and grew more so, jealous of his son. Finally Horreon left the blacksmithing trade and became an armorer. His forge he set up deep in the caves of Hephestia’s Sacred Mountain. He used the heat from its fires to work the metal and chained a monster to his forge to drive the bellows to blow up the flames. The shades traveling to the underworld and those summoned back by sacrifice to provide prophecies were said to stop on their way to speak with him.

  Though he was served by the lesser spirits of the mountain, he had no human company, or anyway very little. His armor was said to preserve the wearer from any attack, but it took a brave man to venture into the caves to request his work, and there were not many. Those that chose to venture into the caves had to find a guide, a spirit or a shade, to lead them to Horreon’s forge.

  One day, his mother came down to visit him and found him alone and melancholy. He had sent away the lesser spirits and was sitting by his forge, idly tapping his hammer and watching the sparks fly up. She asked him what grieved him, ready to put it right, and he told her he wanted a wife. Surely, she said, he could have any he chose.

  But what wife would choose him? he asked. The goddess looked at him, and it was true. He was not attractive, no more than his father had been. He was short, and his arms and shoulders were massive with the strength of his work. His brow was low; no doubt his eyebrows nearly joined as he scowled into his fires. As a child, standing at his father’s side, he’d been scarred by the sparks that flew from the anvil. Where the wounds had been sooty, the scars were black. His face was pockmarked, as were his hands and his arms. He lived his life in the dark so that his eyes would be able to distinguish to a degree the colors of heated metal. What wife would choose to live with him?

  What matter if she chose or not? said the goddess. The wife he chose would have him. She was the goddess Meridite, and she would see his wishes granted.

  His wish was for a wife who chose him, he said. He had no heart for an unwilling wife. The goddess Meridite kissed her son on his black brow and went away.

  She spent some time looking for a girl both pretty and well mannered and willing to live in a dark hole but found none. She remembered that a pretty face is not the best indicator of a tractable wife and looked among the ugly girls, but not even an ugly girl would marry a man who was pockmarked, who worked in the dark with spirits and monsters. No father would let his daughter go to such a husband, so Meridite turned back to the pretty girls and looked for one with no father to protect her. Now the prettiest of the girls was the daughter of Callia, who was a widow and a priestess of Proas. You know Proas? Yes, that’s right, the god of green and growing things.

  One day, as the girl walked the road between the temple of Proas and her home, the goddess Meridite saw her. Appearing at a bend in the road, Meridite called out to the girl, and the girl turned. Meridite looked her over carefully and could see no flaw that would make her an unsuitable wife. The goddess held out her hands and took the girl’s. “Beautiful child, can you sing?”

  “Yes, Goddess,” Hespira answered.

  Meridite was a little cross to be identified as an immortal so readily. She pouted. “You know me?” she said.

  “Yes, Goddess,” said Hespira.

  “Then you know I have a son?”

  “Yes, Goddess.” Hespira knew she had any number of sons and waited to hear which one the goddess spoke of. She was patient. It is the gift of all the followers of Proas, and no doubt she had learned it from her mother. She was also clever. If the goddess had looked beyond Hespira’s beauty, she would have seen this, but she didn’t look.

  “Horreon. He’s ill, very likely he will die.” Meridite sighed.

  “I am sorry,” said Hespira, though Meridite didn’t seem overly concerned. Meridite only thought it would seem unlikely that she was looking for a wife for her son if he was supposed to be on the verge of death.

  “He asked me to find someone to sing to him,” said Meridite. “Will you come?”

  One does not refuse a goddess. Hespira agreed but asked if she might send a message to her mother. Meridite consented. She called a dove to bear the message, but once the bird was out of sight, it dropped to the ground dead, and so the message disappeared.

  “Come to my temple first,” said Meridite, and offered Hespira food. She declined. The goddess pouted, and Hespira agreed to have something to drink. When the goddess wasn’t looking, she carefully tipped the drink into the basket she carried. Then, quite cheerful, Meridite took Hespira down into the mountain along the twisting black caves in total darkness. Hespira was frightened. She had not reckoned on being so hopelessly lost. She wondered if her mother was looking for her.

  Her mother had waited until the end of the day, and as the sun was setting, she had walked the road between the temple and her home, calling her daughter’s name. When there was no answer, she had gone from door to door, asking at each house. The people there could only shake their heads and say that they hadn’t seen the girl.

  Meridite, confident that the drink she had given Hespira would leave her ready to fall in love with Horreon when she saw him, gave up any pretense that he was ill. Her son had wanted a willing wife, and lo, Meridite had made one willing. She smiled in the darkness, pleased with her gift to her son.

  She brought the girl to the edge of the cave where the forge was and left her. Suddenly alone in the dark, Hespira stopped at the entrance and stood looking into the space before her. The cave was empty of minions. There were no spirits; the fire was quiet; the chained monster slept curled at Horreon’s feet. Horreon himself sat on the stones at the lip of the forge. The fire was dim, and by its light he was gently tapping a bit of metal he had heated. Each time he tapped the metal, sparks flew up into the air. Glowing with their own light, they danced in front of the forge, swinging in circles and dipping in sequence like the dancers at a festival.

  “They are lovely,” said Hespira from the entranceway, and Horreon looked up, startled.

  “If you have no light, you have come a long way in the dark,” he said. “Are you a shade?”

  “No,” said Hespira. “I am a living maid.” She stepped forward, carefully picking her way across the rough ground of the cave floor.

  At the sound of her voice the monster by the forge awoke and slunk toward her, his chain rattling out behind him. He was black and the size of a large dog, with leathery black wings that whispered as they dragged behind him and claws that scrabbled against the stone beneath him. Hespira hesitated. Surely Horreon could have no reputation as an armorer if all of his customers were eaten. Bravely she held one hand forward as she would to a strange dog, and the bat-winged creature lifted its head and a forked tongue licked out once and then twice to brush her skin before the monster turned back to the forge and lay down again while Horreon looked on.

  “You wish armor for your lover or your brother?” he asked.

  “No,” said Hespira. “Your mother brought me.”

  Horreon scowled suddenly, his brows drawing down, and Hespira’s heart quailed.

  “And why did my mother bring you?” Horreon asked.
r />   “She said you had asked for someone to sing to you,” Hespira answered.

  Horreon still looked suspicious, but he scowled less.

  “Sing, then,” he said gruffly.

  Hespira stopped in the middle of the floor. After a moment she opened her mouth and sang the nanny song about the boy who was rude and got not and the boy who was good and got much.

  Horreon grunted. “Forgive me my rudeness,” he said.

  “I may,” Hespira said.

  Horreon looked her over, reevaluating what he saw. “When might you forgive me?” he asked.

  “When I have a chair to sit in, and a pillow,” said Hespira, “and light to see with whom I speak.”

  Horreon laughed. It was a rumble in his chest that Hespira didn’t at first recognize. Then the armorer stood and bowed and offered her his arm, and together they stepped across the cave to a stair and door that led to a room lit with lamps where there was a single chair.

  “No pillow,” Hespira pointed out.

  Horreon stuck his head out the door and bellowed in a voice that seemed likely to split the stone walls around them, “A pillow!” and a moment later he reached into the hallway and pulled back an embroidered pillow. He closed the door, then saw Hespira’s look of reproach and opened it again to thank whoever or whatever lingered in the hall. Horreon brought the pillow and placed it in the back of the chair, then offered the chair to Hespira. She sat. Horreon sat at her feet, and they smiled at each other.

  Callia searched and found no sign of her daughter. Finally she went to the temple of her god and made a sacrifice and begged him to tell her what had become of Hespira. The god sent her into the forest to await an answer. There she saw the trees twisting, their branches dipping and reaching like hands passing a burden until finally the dead dove dropped at her feet. She bent and collected the message from its leg and knew where Hespira had gone. She went to the caves in the Hephestial Mountain and searched through them for Horreon’s forge, but mortals cannot find the forge without a guide, and she had none. She wandered through the darkness bearing a small lamp and calling her daughter. She could hear Hespira singing somewhere in the dark, but the sound of her voice was carried through the caverns and gave her no direction. Her daughter, in the rooms with Horreon, could not hear her calling. Horreon heard and for a moment was silent. Hespira asked him what was the matter.