Anna von Wessen (37 page)

“That wench!” said Vaya. “How dare she? What nerve!”

“Nessa is a girl, I think,” suggested Dio, “who is quite used to having her own way. She’s not likely to submit readily to a situation she does not approve of.”

Vaya said no more at a conversational pitch, but only continued to mumble, as she watched Nessa stalk off haughtily down the corridor.

“But none of it matters!” said Dio, as he came to kiss Anna’s forehead. “I care only that you’re safe, and that you’re here with me. Tell me, my child – are you hungry? Can I bring you meat and drink?”

“No, nothing,” replied Anna. She pressed Dio’s hand half-heartedly, partly from the want to show him she was grateful, and partly from wishing to push him a little away from her.

“Very well,” said Dio. “Come, Mila! Come, Vaya! I’ll show you to your room.”

~

Perhaps, while engaged in the business of attempting to avoid demonstrations of weakness before Xeros and Dio Constantín, Anna had not realised just how very wearied she was. There had been thus far to sustain her the memory of the previous night’s adrenaline, and then the liquid sort of strength which had filled her before Vaya came to her in the dungeons. Powerful at first, still between then and now it had trickled away like water, and at present she felt wholly empty, wholly useless. She went with a muddled head into the room Dio Constantín had allotted them, and lay down upon the shaded side of the wide bed, which was pressed up into the angle of the walls. She rolled as far as she could manage from the puddle of light cast by a lamp on a little table beside the bed.

Vaya lay down beside her, but said nothing. It seemed that she did not wish to interrupt Anna’s search for sleep. But after a little, despite the exhaustion which pervaded her every limb, Anna spoke her name. Vaya moved immediately nearer to her, and pressed her cool forehead to the back of her shoulder.

“Think more of me than to assume it has anything to do with that spiteful Endalin,” said Anna. “But do you think, just maybe, that I was selfish in leaving the castle? If I had remained, all this would have ended by morning. Why could he not have finished me straight off? Why did he wait?”

Vaya was a long moment in answering. In her mind she abhorred such talk, and scolded Anna for making use of it. Of course Anna heard these thoughts, and smiled faintly at them, but it was something different which Vaya spoke aloud.

“He came to me,” she said, “before I got free of my chamber. He told me very plainly that he did not think himself capable of killing either of us.”

“Either of us,” Anna murmured. “Perhaps you misunderstood.”

“Surely you do not think me so ignorant as
that.
No, I think he would deal with us readily enough, were we to descend upon him; but to cage and then dispatch us was something he could not do.”

“It’s a fancy he will quickly slough off.”

“Doubtless it is. But it is, at present, his genuine state of mind.”

Anna laughed bitterly. “You know,” she said, “though my first aim was to prove you wrong – I think all along I knew it to be true. Why no guards outside my cell? Why did he leave you to yourself? Why – why, why?”

She hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook.

“Come,” said Vaya, as she used both hands to turn Anna towards her. She kissed either side of her face, and drew her head down to her breast. “Come, now. We can change nothing of what’s happened, do you see? But we can change what will happen next.”

“I don’t quite know if I want to.”

“I don’t much care what you want! I’ll do it anyway, every single bit of it, if I have do it all on my own. That’s the way of it, my love. You had best accept it.”

“I am selfish for living, I know it,” Anna said miserably. “But you are selfish for keeping me.”

Vaya shook her roughly. Anna looked into her face, saw her eyes fill with black, and saw her teeth grow sharp above her lip. She gnashed them furiously.

“You stop it!” she cried. “You stop it now! What
is
is what will be, my darling! To take you from me now, they would need take both my arms, for I’ll hold you always, always! And if
you
try to take you from me – well, I shall deal with you just as harshly!”

“I belong nowhere, and to nothing!” Anna returned, nearly screaming into Vaya’s face. “I am neither one thing nor the other, not completely. I am worthless to everyone!”

“You are different, it is true, from everyone and everything else – but that does not make you worthless. You are worth more than everything, more than anything. More than anything to me! My father would not own you, and perhaps the wolves won’t, either. But you belong to me.”

“Ugh!” cried Anna. Her muscles trembled and flexed beneath the sheets, desiring to hit something, to break something. “And how can you love me?” she demanded. “A beast like me! You – you so beautiful – so perfect . . .”

“Perfect!” said Vaya with a laugh. “There is only one place, Anna, where I am perfect. In your own eyes.”

Anna let fall her head, and wept into Vaya’s neck. Her ire was extinguished like the flame of a candle. Vaya held her for a long while, but finally drew up her face, and kissed her lips. “What salty tears you have!” she said.

Much in spite of herself, Anna smiled.

“I must ask you now,” said Vaya. “What is this name – Mila?”

“My name,” answered Anna with a shiver. “My true name.”

“Your true name!”

“Yes. It is Mila – Mila Constantín.” She swallowed hard, and added, “But I trust you won’t mind not to use it.”

“Oh, no! You are my Anna – only my Anna.”

Anna sank down into her arms again, and was very nearly asleep, when a sudden thought entered her head, and swarmed all round like a buzzing gnat, till finally she resigned herself to rouse up, and ask the question.

“I only wonder,” she said, “how you escaped your chamber to begin with?”

Vaya frowned. “I could tell you no more, really,” she said, “than you could tell me.”

“What?”

“I’ve no idea how it happened. One moment I was trapped – and the next I was free. I cried out for help . . .”

She paused, and frowned much more deeply. “I cried out for help,” she repeated, “and I was free.”

But they were not yet prepared to understand. So they only slept.

XXXVIII:

The Speech

T
hough of course there was no sign within the mountain of the rising of the sun, the sound of a heavy fist upon the chamber door marked the coming of morning. Anna and Vaya dressed themselves, and opened the door to find Dio Constantín waiting.

“Good morning!” said he. “You slept well, I hope?”

Anna nodded, and stepped out into the corridor to join him.

“First we go to breakfast,” he went on, “and then we will meet Leventh. Come!”

He did not bring them into the massive dining hall, where there were numerous tables laid for the inhabitants of the fortress; but brought them instead to a modest room with a little round table, upon which there was a meal laid out for them.

“It’s not much,” he said. “I’m sure you know already that we are not so wealthy as King Ephram. It is all we can do, really, to keep up by way of the trades we have learnt. The younger ones go by day into the neighbouring towns, where they have set up little businesses for themselves. Repair shops, book stores, gasoline stations and woodcutter’s sheds, you can find our people in all of them. There was a time when I went, too – but I have not done so, since I turned eighty. The privileges of old age, I suppose! If you do not know, Mila, you shall learn that the Narken are a poor race. Most of us, that is. The Weld, certainly! We have not the ancient wealth of the Endai and the Lumaria, and we have not the appetite for thievery which Wolach so prizes. It seems we have been always too busy staving off the combined attacks of those previously mentioned, to think of becoming entrepreneurs!”

He laughed heartily, and took a seat at the table. “But we have wholesome food,” he added, “and quite everything we need. So let us eat!”

Anna fell upon her food with nothing less than voracity. It was not until she had cleared her plate that she looked up, and saw Vaya looking dubiously down at her own. Dio was quick to notice, as well.

“I know, Vaya Eleria,” said he, “that it has been a great many years since you have tasted animal flesh. When you came here after you woke, I understand that Xeros took pity on you, and fetched you a body freshly dead from the town. But it seems you are to stay here for an indefinite length of time – and therefore you must learn to eat as we do. But I know it can be done!”

“During my first life,” said Vaya, with a look of distaste upon her face which she was wholly unconscious of, “when my home alternated regularly between Drelho and the Weld – I made a great effort, in that latter place, to eat as the wolves did. But with their own meat I needed eat more frequently, almost as often as they did themselves. When I had managed it for several days, however, I always grew ill. My strength left me almost entirely, and I could scarcely move from my bed.” She hung her head in shame, and added, “It was always then that I returned to the castle, and partook of a meal to make me well again. Everyone knew that I did it. But my Weldon friends were too loyal to judge me.”

“I see,” remarked Dio kindly. “I cannot promise you, Vaya Eleria, that you won’t grow ill again – but there is nothing for it. You must try.”

“Of course I must,” rejoined Vaya with a resolute nod. “I understand.”

She took a few bites of the cold beef, but covered her mouth almost immediately with her hand, and looked as if she would be sick. “That’s enough for one day, I think,” she said, as she slid the remainder of the food across to Anna.

After this they made their way to Leventh. As they walked through the corridors, Anna could not but perceive that Dio seemed to be pondering something. His thoughts, however, were not easy for her to read; and he said nothing of whatever it might have been, but only shuffled along beside her, with a peculiar expression upon his face. 

Leventh was awaiting them in the Table Room.

“There is a conference this morning in the Hall of Magen,” he said to Anna and Vaya. “I am sure neither of you is fool enough to think it’s not about you – but Xeros thinks it best that you don’t attend. So I thought that we would talk a little about –”

Dio, of course, knew already what Xeros’s decision had been concerning this particular affair; and it was the sole reason for the uneasy attitude previously mentioned. He had been frowning, too, since the moment Leventh began to speak. So ultimately he was driven to interrupt him, and to say:

“I only wonder, Leventh, if you agree with this decision? They are speaking at this very moment about Mila and Vaya – mostly about Mila. Don’t you think it only fair that they should be present to state their own cases?”

“I suppose it doesn’t much matter, Dio, what I think,” said Leventh. “Xeros has spoken. That is the end of it.”

“Hmmm,” murmured Dio. “I wonder if it is.” 

Quite unexpectedly he turned away from Leventh, and beckoned for Anna to follow him back out into the corridor.

“Dio!” pronounced Leventh severely. “You know better than this.”

“Probably I do, Leventh,” answered Dio. “Probably I do.”

But still he went on his way down the corridor, ever and anon waving his arm to motion Anna forward. These signals were entirely necessary, too, for Anna was highly doubtful of whether she really ought to follow him, what with the disconcerted look upon Vaya’s own face, and the repeated entreaties of Leventh for them to return to the Table Room.

Within a few minutes they had come up alongside the wide doorway of the Hall of Magen. The shining mahogany doors were propped open against the walls, and there came a faint glimmer of light from within, which reached its yellow fingers to crawl across the stone floor.

All four stood for a moment, silent and still, merely observing the scene which opened through the doorway. Xeros stood at the front of the hall, towering in all his mighty bulk over the numerous chairs which his people occupied. They sat like a dark and quiet sea, listening to him speak.

“I understand you have arguments,” Xeros was saying, “and many doubts. I have heard them, I think, very patiently. But
you
must understand that this thing is not so simple; that it is much bigger than –”

“Meaning what?” cried a member of the audience. “That Anna von Wessen is more important than us? That her life matters more than ours?”

“Of course not!” exclaimed Xeros. His face was flushed, and he was growing irritated. “But there are more considerations, Leus, than one. You see that? We are on the brink of war; and we should be thinking –”

But again he was interrupted.

“I care not what war looms,” spoke out another outraged listener. “Never will we be so desperate as to fight alongside a Lumarian!”

A rather quieter voice succeeded this one, and said, “You forget this is not the first time we have done so. What of Vaya Eleria, and her old allegiance to the Weld? If she claims that Anna von Wessen –”

“Ah!” said someone else. “Vaya Eleria! Don’t speak of her to me, if you please. Have
you
forgotten, Brudo, that she has been staying at Drelho for months? That she has been with Ephram? I ask you – how do we know we can trust her? How do we know it wasn’t she who gave Krestyin away, all those years ago?”

Anna, for one, had heard enough. She took a step into the hall; and though Dio Constantín did not try to stop her, Vaya and Leventh put out their hands to do just that. Anna pulled her sleeves from their grasp, however, and could not be deterred from her purpose. She took several steps more, till she had entered the wide aisle between the great mess of chairs. She walked along it briskly, with a calm countenance betraying none of the terrible anxiety which welled up as she considered the audacity of her arrival. But she strode on, on and on quite all the way to the front, ignoring as best she could the many eyes upon her. The hum of their thoughts, too, pressed mightily against her; and it was all she could do to resist succumbing to the rage that the unspoken words engendered.

She looked into Xeros’s face as she came to stand before him. His displeasure could not have been more obvious.

“You should not be here,” he whispered. “Go back.”

“I wish to speak,” Anna stated firmly.

“This is not the time. Go back!”

“I will not, King Xeros. I will stand until I am heard.”

“Very well,” he answered flatly. He turned from her almost resentfully, and went to position himself with a stoney countenance near the wall, where Anna saw now that Vaya, Dio and Leventh had come to stand, as well. They watched her nervously.

Anna turned to face the crowd. She stood silent for a moment, merely sweeping her eyes over the many heads, and collecting her racing thoughts. It was a most difficult thing, to speak those first words. But finally she said:

“I do not blame you at all for wishing me gone. Probably, if I were you, I would hate me, too. For many years, from the strange place where I was led to stand, I even thought I hated
you.
It’s the most natural thing in the world, I think, to hate what we don’t understand.”

She paused for breath; for her heart was hammering at treble-speed, and she was having more than a little trouble containing its rampant march. She took this short space of time to look into the nearest faces with great feeling, imploring them with the desperation of her pounding heart in a way which her words could not seem to manage.

“This has been a most incomprehensible time,” she resumed. “All my life, you see, I have been a Lumarian – and have accepted every horrid thing which the title entails. All that time, though, I did not think those things horrid, for I had no reason to. Only recently have I truly begun to understand the long crime my life has been. I can do nothing for it now. Probably I would not even want to continue to live with such knowledge – if I did not feel somehow that my doing so was necessary. I wish for you to know that I did not come here to hide, but to fight. Perhaps there will never be a place for me amongst you; but there is none for me anywhere else. Only allow me to try and gain your trust! But give me a chance, and your cause will be mine. Your every thought will be mine. Don’t you see already that they are?”

She looked with shining eyes towards the place where Dio Constantín stood. Then she pointed to him, and said, “That man is my father. Seventy-six years ago I was lost to him. He had every reason to believe me dead. But he did not! All those years he hoped; all those years he searched for me. I can think of no other cause for him to have done so – other than that he knew, he knew somehow that one day I would fight. Perhaps he never considered all the damage I would do beforehand, but he loved me without knowing me, and forgave me in the way that only a father can do. Look to him now! You see that brave man who stands there – who nearly gave his life for me, so many times? Without him I would be dead. Look into his face, and see if he doubts. He knows just as well as anyone what I am – but he does not doubt me.”

She sighed, and bowed her head wearily. But quickly she looked up, and turned her face to Vaya.

“You see, too,” she said, “that Vaya Eleria stands here beside you. You doubt her as you doubt me, and not without cause. I will speak for her now without her leave, and hope that she will not be too angry with me for it.”

She looked with a thin smile into the swarm of faces; and was much surprised to see it reflected in some. This time she made out Nessa’s face, looking at her very seriously from the front row of chairs. She did not smile; but neither did she frown.

“Like me,” Anna continued, “Vaya has made many mistakes. She would not tell you otherwise. But when she fought with your fathers and mothers, centuries ago – she loved them! She would have died for them. She did die for them! Perhaps you do not know that after King Krestyin’s death, her father offered her reparation. But she refused. She died then, just as the wolves had died. Just as her comrades had died! If that does not serve to persuade you of her loyalty – which has never faded, but which has come to you again today – then I should think nothing can. Nothing else could convince you of her; and in that case nothing can convince you of me.”

For a moment all was silent. Truthfully Anna was hardly at all hopeful that her words would be well received; and so she was wholly and thoroughly astonished, when the entire fortress rose from their chairs in a single movement. Some looked to Anna with unexpected respect. Others sighed almost in reluctance, as if unable to bear ill will which appeared to them now so unwarranted. A goodly number from the front of the crowd even came forward, and drew near either to shake Anna’s hand, or to lay their own upon her shoulders. She recognised Griel, who emerged suddenly from the throng, and stooped down to kiss her head.

“It is not for me,” he said, “to question the mysteries of the world. You were sent to us for a reason, Anna von Wessen! Only God knows that reason.”

Anna looked at him confoundedly. But he was almost immediately swept out of her sight, as more came forward to meet her. Her brows knit together in profound thought, and she spent that little time which was left before she was finally drawn along from the hall by the hand of Vaya, simply wondering.