The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (9 page)

“She waited five years to quicken,” Lady Zevondeth corrected me sharply. “Don’t underestimate her as Uorsin did. He laid with her often, but her people believed that less than five years between babies weakens the mother and produces sickly children. Even for you, she wouldn’t jeopardize her third child’s future. She was a demon on the subject. She always said you three were the whole reason for everything she’d done.”

“But then she died of childbirth fever.”

“So they say.”

“Don’t you know? You nursed her, I hear.”

Lady Zevondeth looked weary. An old woman dwarfed by her velvet chair, canny eyes filmed with age.

“How and why does death take any of us? She had much to live for, but in the end, she failed to survive.”

“You said he destroyed her.”

She looked away, into the fire. “I’ll deny it, should you repeat that, and you are the one marked for the Tala, carrying the taint of traitor to Uorsin’s kingdom, not I.”

The dismissal was clear and I was out of time—the sentries knocking on the door, calling me to go.

“Thank you,” I said, though I’d paid for the information. Perhaps dearly, according to her hints. I nearly snatched up the little vial, the crimson of my blood gleaming in the firelight. It would tip the scales, though, something in me knew. Fair was fair. I turned to go.

“Andromeda,” she called after me. I looked back, and she sat forward in her chair, a strange smile twisting her thin lips. “The bear never gives up what he believes is his. He kills to keep it and he’s very good at killing. And he’s always hungry. He’s starving for the one thing he could never have. Beware of where his appetite reaches.”

I pulled open the door and began running. So I would not be late, I told myself.

Even the clatter of my armored sentries jogging behind me didn’t quite drown out Lady Zevondeth’s coughing laughter.

F
rom my nest among the trunks and bundles on top of Hugh and Amelia’s carriage, I watched the fingernail crescent moon riding high in a sky turning from darkest night to the pure blue of dawn. I pressed my sore finger, still bleeding a little, against my thumb, savoring the bruised pain. It seemed fitting, somehow, that I should hurt, even in such a minor way.

Only you can stop all this
.

Though I’d been awake all night, my mind wouldn’t settle enough for me to sleep now, as the groomsmen tucking me into the baggage had advised. They’d made me a surprisingly comfortable spot amid the softer bags, padded with blankets, a thoughtfulness for my comfort that warmed me. The way they all wished me Glorianna’s protection and vowed to protect me with their lives dug under my skin.

If my mother had lived, I would already be among the Tala. I tried to picture that girl and failed. I would have grown up Tala and perhaps their ways wouldn’t seem so strange to me. Maybe they wouldn’t have found
me
so strange. No one would have died protecting me, defending this honor I supposedly carried around with me like a precious jewel. Now, for the first time, I thought about turning myself over to Rayfe. Ending all of this, as he’d asked in my dream.

The implied warning, though—that bothered me. If my mother believed I might lose my mind if I married into the Tala, going to them full-grown—perhaps everyone was right that I needed to be saved from that. The thought fed my many fears. Salena had been nearly feral, Lady Zevondeth said. Did the Tala live like animals, roaming the Wild Lands, foraging for food and pillaging helpless villages?

If I hadn’t met Rayfe, I might have believed that. Wild inside, yes, but with the veneer of a man, at least. He’d said something about where he lived, implying I might at least have a roof over my head. And marriage. Surely they wouldn’t kill me.
Not until I produced children,
a voice whispered. Perhaps three for them, to repay the bargain. Blood for blood. I might get ten years, maybe a little more, according to their customs, before they asked for a death to balance Salena’s death. Or was that Uorsin’s thinking?

Ten years of Rayfe in my bed. Living a life where I would . . . what?

Toward the end, they had only hate for each other.
It was impossible to imagine. My mother had always seemed so strong and powerful. How had Uorsin destroyed her? Would Rayfe do the same to me?

As for that, what of my father’s threats? What were his plans for me?
He’s starving for the one thing he could never have. Beware of where his appetite reaches.

So many warnings and no sense of where I should turn, what I should do.

What’s your plan?
Dafne had asked me.

And here I still didn’t have one. Just a command from my King, the earnest love in Amelia’s eyes, promising to hide me and keep me safe, and Hugh’s noble vows. I finally fell asleep to the rocking carriage, only vaguely wondering where I’d wake up.

We stopped for a late breakfast and for everyone to stretch their legs. I climbed down from the carriage, and everyone pretty much ignored me. Amelia fluttered her fingers in my direction, but Hugh pulled her away to the satin quilts spread under an apple tree. I pulled my little cap down over my brow and went to help take food to the royals.

The other servants gave me thin-lipped or startled looks, but I shrugged and held out my hands to be filled. One of Amelia’s maids handed me a glass teapot and a delicate little cup. I carried it to Amelia and set it beside her with a murmured “Milady,” while I bowed deep.

“It’s not funny, Andi,” Amelia muttered under her breath. Hugh caught my eye and winked, patting Amelia’s rose-clad knee.

Did I find this funny? I strolled through the camp, munching on an apple, feeling oddly free to be away from the castle and all those expectations. I liked being out in the air—all my fears and worries seemed less potent on such a lovely, sunny morning like this. On any normal day, I would have been cooped up in court, listening to tales of failed apple harvests instead of eating a piece of the fruit, counting the minutes until I could dash out to Fiona and go riding. No sense of lightness and freedom there. Inside me a fist of anger and despair festered for my father and his threats. I poked at it, last night’s scene replaying in my mind, poisonous rage spilling into my blood.

Best not to think about that right now.

“Andi?”

Dafne Mailloux strolled up, decked out now in proper ladies’ garb of a daffodil-yellow gown. It appeared we’d reversed roles, and I smiled at the thought. I ducked my head to her. “Milady Mailloux—how may I serve you?”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “I can’t believe you’re enjoying this.”

“Thank you for coming with me.”

“Thank you for saving the library.”

“Yes, well—as to that—it’s fairly temporary and contingent on my good behavior.”

“I heard the gossip, that the King threatened to burn your horse on a pyre of those books.”

Uorsin’s voice did carry. “So much for my dramatic secret escape, then.”

She dropped her voice and laid a hand on my arm. “Are you all right?”

“I still don’t have a plan.” I shrugged. “I’m being swept along.”

“You’ll know when to change that.”

“Will I? I left my horse behind, Dafne. Just like that. And I can’t decide which is worse—that I did or that what happens to Fiona matters more to me than all those people who died last night, whose names I don’t even know.” Tears were pricking my eyes, so I opened them very wide, keeping the betraying sorrow from showing.

“You’re in a bit of shock, I think.” Dafne held my gaze with reassuring steadiness. “You might give yourself more than two days to assimilate such a dramatic change in who you know yourself to be.”

Her words struck me, like little barbed arrows burrowing into my flesh. Dafne gave me a last smile and went to sit with Amelia and her other ladies, bright and lovely blossoms in the shade of the tree. I walked in the other direction.

Overhead, a giant black raptor wheeled a gentle spiral in the clear air.

We stopped for the night at the Louson country manse of one of Uorsin’s generals from the days of the Great War. He’d been richly rewarded with this fertile river valley. I blended with the servants. What had been long habit—reflexive, even—I now practiced in a more deliberate way. It wouldn’t do for me to be seen here, and General Meanneres had been to court frequently and lengthily over the years. His attention, though, was all for Amelia—with almost insultingly scant notice for Hugh, who looked more than a little irritated at Meanneres snuffling kisses on Amelia’s soft hand.

Remembering himself, or perhaps catching a glimpse of Hugh’s mood, Meanneres asked after news of the strange attack at the castle, already being called the Assault of Ordnung, usually keeping his gaze on Hugh during the conversation and not on Amelia’s gleaming white bosom. He relayed another tale, of convicts escaping from a prison nearby and wreaking havoc on the local farmers—chaos blamed on the Tala.

Meanneres never even saw me as I helped unhitch the horses and took them to the stables. I ate supper with the stable lads and lasses, too, a merry affair, as the servants from our retinue forgot who I was in the midst of pretending that I was just another servant for the benefit of the Louson folk. The servants of both households gathered around tables in the yard, enjoying the warm evening and exchanging tales. I tucked myself at the end of one bench and listened.

All any of them wanted to talk about was the Tala attack, though no one referenced them by that name.

“Did you see the demons with your own eyes?” asked one young stableboy, face alight with horrified excitement. “I heard they have teeth as long as my hand and black blood that’s poison to good people.”

“Glorianna protect us.” The prayer murmured through the group.

One of our sentries allowed as how he’d been on the wall during the attack. “The night was quiet—all as usual. Then such noise!” He shook his head, as if to clear those shrieking howls from his memory. “The air was full of these giant crows. We couldn’t see to loose our arrows, even, and when we did, we missed more often than not. The man next to me had his helm off, and one of those cursed birds went for his eyes . . .” He rubbed his own in sympathy.

“And the dogs,” another sentry added, “they swam the moat and went for the throats of anyone in their way. All the time they’re baying, just as hunting hounds after a fox. Calling and calling, like they expected some kind of answer.”

I shivered remembering that lonely cry.

“And the demons?” urged the first stableboy.

“I dunno.” Another soldier drained his mug before he continued. “I don’t know what demons look like, but they captured one . . . man, I guess he was. Black hair as long as a woman’s, and pale white skin. Whiter than the pampered breasts of Princess Amelia.”

No one cast awkward looks in my direction at that. They’d forgotten my presence entirely. I let the stories roll over me. They exhausted the Assault at Ordnung pretty quickly, since it seemed very few people had seen much of anything and it hadn’t lasted all that long, all told. They’d gone on to wilder and more gruesome tales from the distant past. I didn’t know a lot about battles, but this one hardly seemed devastating. Rayfe was simply tweaking Uorsin’s nose, the thought came to me. And he’d sent his people close enough to offer that urgent invitation to me, to provide distraction, if I’d been brave enough to take it.

If the sentry hadn’t held me, in that wild and painful longing, I would have gone. I shivered at how close I’d come to disaster.

And yet—the thought whispered to me that I could go now. Walk off into the night. He’d find me, no doubt. That black bird—surely it was the same one—had followed us all day. Uorsin had underestimated Rayfe in thinking he wouldn’t know I’d left Ordnung.
I have the taste of your blood now.
It seemed that something moved in the deep shadows, just beyond the stables, where the lamplight failed to penetrate. Nauseating fear chilled my gut, and yet I stood, strangely compelled, torn between the opposing forces of my terror and my longing.

“There you are,” Lady Dulcinor hissed in my ear. “I’m sent to fetch you, Princess Andi. I’ve been standing here forever, looking and looking for you. I didn’t dare ask any of them, because I promised to be discreet, of course. Still, I thought, surely I’ll see the Princess immediately and it will be no trouble, but then I didn’t see you and—”

“Yes, Lady.” I bobbed and ducked my head. “I’ll come serve you right away.”

She gaped at me and I simply started walking, as if she’d scolded me to hurry. Moranu, I’d never done this sort of subterfuge before, either, but some things seemed intuitive. She scrambled after me.

“Where are we going?” I asked under my breath.

“Princess Amelia asks that you meet her in Glorianna’s chapel. I’m sorry, Princess An—”

“It would be wise, I think, not to call me by name.”

“Oh, but I would never wish to show you a lack of respect, Prin—”

“Maybe best not to talk at all, hmm?”

I found Glorianna’s chapel easily enough, since they’re always situated on the south side of any property, and almost always as pink as can be managed. If the property owners can’t find a way to make the chapel pink, they plant pink roses or add stained glass or what have you. They’re always lit from within, too, so at night like this the chapels are beacons of glowing pinkness.

Amelia met me as soon as I walked in the door, enveloping me in a crushing embrace of amethyst silk a shade deeper than her eyes.

“Oh, I hate this!” she exclaimed. “How are you holding up—is it awful?”

“No, darling.” I hugged her back, seeing she was on the verge of tears. “It’s fine. I’m fine. All is going well.”

“I’m just so afraid. I keep thinking—what if the Tala attack us while we’re on the road? Hugh says he and his men will fight them off, but I worry so. We won’t reach Avonlidgh for days, even going at this pace. The tales people told at court dinner. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I’ve heard stories, too. You know how people are, always wanting to top each other with something worse.”

“It’s not something to laugh at, Andi.” Amelia clutched my shoulders, digging in with a fierce grip. “If something were to happen to you, I—”

“Nothing will happen. Don’t fret so much. Look—I’m fine.”

“You’re
not
fine,” she hissed. “Don’t pretend for me that all of this isn’t awful. I’m stronger than you and Ursula think. And I’ve arranged for a protection ceremony. There are three priests of Glorianna here and they’ll do a High Protection, just for you. That way if there is any magic—or anything—you’ll be safe.”

I opened my mouth to protest. The last thing I wanted to do right now was spend the next several hours being purified by Glorianna’s priests. The desperation in Amelia’s face stopped me.

“Thank you, Amelia.” I hugged her again and she relaxed fractionally. “Let’s do that.”

The priests waited for us at the altar, slender young men with bald heads and ornate robes in shades of mauve and rose. Consecrated to Glorianna as boys, they never knew a woman’s touch—or a man’s, for that matter—as their vows prohibited it. Stories abounded, though, of what Glorianna’s priests got up to with one another, as part of her worship. Virginity could be a relative concept. Many noble families sent sons who seemed overly feminine as youths to Glorianna’s temple. Whether this was to offer the boys an accepting home or to save the family from shame very much depended on the family.