Deborah Hale (9 page)

Would the sages of the Vestan Council think so, too? He could feel the weight of their curious, uneasy stares resting
upon him while Lord Idrygon explained how the Hanish Ore Fleet had come to flounder in their warding waters.

After a miserable night’s sleep, Rath had woken with a headache so fierce none of Maura’s remedies could do more than blunt it. All their preparations for this appearance before the Council of Sages had not helped his head…or his temper.

He craned his neck and twisted it, trying to relieve the pressure around his throat. Though Vestan tunics flared out below the waist, the chest and arms were close fitting, as was the high collar. The one Idrygon had lent Rath fit very snug on his muscular torso, and like a noose around his neck.

Maura caught his eye and flashed a reassuring smile. She looked every inch a queen in her loose, sleeveless gown of pale blue-green linen with slender filets of matching ribbon twined through her hair.

She’d admired
his
hair, too, after Idrygon’s mother-in-law had washed it and cut it in the Vestan style. Rath had no illusions this short trim suited his shaggy mane the way it did Idrygon’s straight hair or Delyon’s crisp curls. But he’d stopped fretting about his hair when the forceful old lady had proceeded to shave him so close he feared she would scrape all the skin off his lower face.

No question—this being a king was an uncomfortable business. Rath wondered why a war-leader needed to look well groomed any more than an outlaw did. But Idrygon had insisted with some confusing talk about Council factions and support for an invasion. Though Rath had not warmed to him since their first meeting, he knew enough to respect Idrygon as a man of ability, drive and vision. The kind of man who might be able to make the dream of a free Umbria come true if he put his mind to it.

“To conclude—” Idrygon’s words drew Rath’s attention back to the council chamber “—we cannot hold Captain Gull and his men responsible for what happened when they acted on instructions from this Council. How do we know the storm that blew the Ore Fleet toward our coast was not the Giver’s will at work?”

Though Idrygon spoke in a tone of hushed reverence, Rath questioned whether the man felt any more true belief in the Giver than he once had.

“Your pardon.” A voice of quiet authority drew all eyes to a tiny old woman sitting three places to the right of Idrygon. “I am not aware of any instructions from this Council that might have summoned Captain Gull to our shores at such a hazardous time. I hope you have not taken it upon yourself to act in the Council’s name without our knowledge or consent, Idrygon.”

Her cheeks were sunken, her dark hair heavily frosted with white and she looked as though a hard gust of wind might blow her off the island. But her penetrating gaze and regal bearing told Rath she was
not
someone a smart man would cross if he had a choice. He wondered if anyone else on the Vestan Islands dared address the forceful Lord Idrygon in that chiding tone.

“I protest, Madame Verise!” Idrygon looked so offended, Rath knew he must be guilty of whatever the old lady had hinted at. “My aim has always been to serve this Council, the Vestan Islands and the kingdom of Umbria.”

This,
Rath sensed, was altogether true.

Madame Verise must have known it, too. For she waved a withered hand. “Oh very well, then be plain, lad. What summons of ours brought that ship from the Dusk Coast? And while you are at it, who are these guests you have brought before the council?”

She did not sound as though Rath’s sacrifices in the cause of good grooming had impressed her much.

“How astute of you to pose those two questions together, madame.” As Idrygon looked around at the council, he did not rub his hands with glee at the opening he’d been given. But Rath sensed he wanted to. “For they are inextricably bound.”

Rath wondered if
inextricably
meant what he thought it did.

“The summons,” said Idrygon, “is one we have sent out so often, in vain, that some here may have forgotten we do it. While others, including me, to my shame, may have come to
believe it was all a fool’s deed and that those messages would never be answered.”

A fevered whispering broke out around the Great Circle. By watching who whispered to whom, Rath could guess which side they supported. Idrygon’s talk of factions, which had only aggravated Rath’s headache first thing this morning, suddenly began to make sense.

There seemed to be two generations of sages—elders like Madame Verise, roughly the age Langbard had been. They made up the majority of the council. Perhaps a third were closer to Rath’s age, including Idrygon and his brother, Delyon.

According to Idrygon, many of the older generation had become content with their peaceful, prosperous life on the Islands and were in no hurry to go to the aid of their suffering countrymen on the mainland. When pressed for action by younger members of the council, they urged delay until the coming of the Waiting King and the Destined Queen.

Well, the Council of Sages was in for a surprise today!

As Maura listened to Lord Idrygon speak, she felt as if she were teetering on the edge of Raynor’s Rift, with that terrifying chasm gaping before her.

“Every year, spring and midsummer, we send out those messenger birds.” Lord Idrygon looked around the Great Circle, fixing each of the sages with his forceful gaze. “‘Her time has come. Come at once. Gull of Duskport will bring you.’ Only the name of the captain has ever changed with the passing years. We have never known where these birds were bound, nor had any assurance they did not simply fly away to become food for hawks.”

Maura’s heart sank. She had thought herself special…chosen. Her fears had eased as her faith in their destiny had taken root. Now she wondered if that destiny had all been an illusion. As she remembered the disasters she and Rath had so narrowly escaped, all the times they had poised on the brink of death and worse, she grew dizzy and bilious with fear.

She could not sit still or remain silent a moment longer.

“I don’t understand!” She leaped to her feet, not caring that she had interrupted Lord Idrygon and drawn the stern gazes of more wizards, healers and scholars of the Elderways than she’d ever imagined could exist. “The first messenger bird found its way to our little cottage in Norest a few months ago on my twenty-first birthday. Langbard told me it had come from you. He told me you had studied the ancient writings and determined the time had come for me to begin my quest. Now are you saying it was all a mistake?”

If Lord Idrygon’s words had shaken her world, Maura’s outburst appeared to shake the Council of Sages even more. The great chamber buzzed like a wasp’s nest under attack.

Maura braced for a stern rebuke from Lord Idrygon. After his first hostile exchange with Rath, the man had extended them every courtesy. But she suspected, if she turned quickly enough, she might catch him wrinkling up his well-bred nose at the smell of them. Now he stood silent and calm, at the center of the tempest she had created, looking strangely pleased with it.

Maura turned toward Rath. He replied with a look that told her destiny might let her down but he never would.

Before Maura could say anything to him, the tiny woman who had spoken so sharply to Idrygon appeared before her. “My dear, you mentioned Langbard a moment ago. My sister, Nalene, is his wife. Are you…their daughter?”

The anxious glow in the woman’s eyes made Maura wish she could say yes, for both their sakes. Growing up with only Langbard, she’d secretly yearned for parents, but never thought of a wider family…aunts, uncles, cousins.

“Though I loved Langbard as dearly as any daughter, he was my guardian. My mother died when I was very young and she entrusted me to his care.”

The woman’s eager gaze faltered when Maura spoke of Langbard in the past.

“I call for silence!” Idrygon’s tone of authority quelled the tumult of voices. “We all have questions that want answers, but we will never hear those answers if we do not listen.”

The Council appeared to see the wisdom in that. Many who had risen sat down. Several who had moved from their accustomed places returned to their seats, including Madame Verise.

Once quiet and order had been restored to the chamber, a stout wizard with a wild shock of red hair cleared his throat loudly.

Idrygon motioned for him to rise. “You wish to speak, Trochard?”

“So I do. I believe there is one question most pressing on all our minds.” He swung to fix a stern gaze upon Maura. “Young woman, do you mean to tell us
you
are the Destined Queen?”

His tone of disbelief shook Maura. She’d expected it from Rath and people like Captain Gull. But the wizards of the Vestan Islands were the ones she believed had sent her on her quest. The ones who had summoned Rath and her once she’d completed it. If they did not believe…?

“
Am
I the Destined Queen?” She looked around at them. “I thought I was. I did what she…what
I
…was meant to do. Yet everything I have heard today makes me question if it can be true.”

“By
what you were meant to do,
” said Trochard, “I take it you mean finding the Waiting King?”

Before Maura could reply, Rath rose and stood beside her. “Why?” he challenged her inquisitor. “Is there some
other
quest the Destined Queen was supposed to undertake?”

“Please, Rath…” Maura begged him through clenched teeth. Had he so quickly forgotten his promise to play the king in council chambers?

Well groomed and wearing the regal Vestan garb, which forced him to stand tall, he looked more like a king than she had ever imagined possible.

In a few blunt words, he told the Council of Sages how
Maura had found and rescued him within hours of the messenger bird reaching Langbard’s cottage. He went on to speak of Langbard’s murder and their flight to Prum, where they had discovered Exilda, the guardian of the map, murdered, also.

He cast a challenging glare around the Great Circle. “The Echtroi seem to place more faith in this legend than the lot of you.”

Trochard’s face flushed redder than his hair and others among the older sages betrayed similar signs of chagrin.

While they chewed on that tough crust, Rath went on to recount the rest of their adventures. As he spoke, Maura noticed how the older members of the Council winced and paled at the dangers they had faced. Meanwhile, younger members like Idrygon hung on every word, an eager glow in their eyes. All looked equally perplexed when Rath told what he and Maura had discovered in the Secret Glade.

“So
you
are the Waiting King?” murmured Madame Verise. “How can that be? You did not lie sleeping in the Secret Glade for hundreds of years.”

Rath shook his head then cast a sidelong glance at Maura. How could he explain what they had not fully fathomed?

Then Delyon rose from his seat. “I believe I can answer that, if I may speak.”

“Go ahead.” Rath tried not to let his relief show, but Maura could sense it as he sank into his chair beside her.

“As most of you know,” Delyon looked around the Great Circle, “I have worked for several years to decipher our oldest scrolls which are written in a language that predates
twara.
I believe that language may have been spoken by the Great Kin before the Sundering, which divided the children of Umbria from the children of Han.”

“Speculation!” muttered Trochard, loud enough for all to hear.

Delyon pretended not to. “My study of these works leads me to believe that Queen Abrielle used the Staff of Velorken to work her enchantment upon King Elzaban.”

Trochard leaped to his feet. “We asked for answers, not star-tales, upstart cub! Everyone knows the Staff of Velorken was destroyed during the Sundering.”

Delyon ignored him. “Abrielle was a powerful enchantress, wise beyond her years, having served as apprentice to the Oracle of Margyle. I believe she knew or discovered the whereabouts of the Staff of Velorken and used it to keep Elzaban’s spirit alive in this world. When a young child or a pregnant woman entered Everwood, Elzaban’s spirit might be reborn within that body, waiting to be fully woken by a future daughter of Abrielle.”

A fresh buzz greeted Delyon’s explanation. The tone of some comments sounded doubtful and hostile, but more sounded guardedly accepting.

Maura was not certain what to think. Did this mean there had been other men who’d lived and died, never knowing the spirit of the Waiting King slumbered within them? Other women, destined to call forth that fallow potential for greatness, only to fail? The possibility chilled her.

“I smell a conspiracy!” Trochard pointed a finger at Delyon. “This
research
of yours everyone thought so harmlessly foolish has been nothing but a ploy to justify your brother’s machinations!”

“Enough, Trochard.”

Madame Verise fixed him with a reproachful stare as she rose from her seat. “We may question young Delyon’s scholarship, but I am satisfied as to his integrity. And I can vouch that the man who raised this young woman…”

She glanced toward Maura. “Your pardon, my dear. I do not believe you were properly introduced to us.”

“I am Maura.” She rose and made a self-conscious bow to the Council. “Maura Woodbury, ward of the wiz—”

But she did not get to finish, for the Vestan Council of Sages suddenly erupted in a more fevered clamor than before.

Maura cast a questioning look at Rath. He only raised his
brows and shrugged, clearly as puzzled as she. When she shifted her gaze to Idrygon, hoping for some explanation, he replied with an approving nod and a cold smile that did not allay her confusion…or her misgivings.

“I
finally have Trochard where I want him!” Idrygon beamed at Rath and Maura as they ate their evening meal in the fountain courtyard of his villa. “Exposed to the Council for the carping old hypocrite he is.”

“Explain this faction business to me again.” Rath took another big bite of a tasty dish of eggs, cheese and vegetables. Now that he had seen the Council in session and knew the names of some members, it all might make more sense to him.

“With pleasure, Highness.” Idrygon raised his wine goblet in a salute that made Rath almost as ill at ease as Idrygon’s use of the title. “It is quite simple. As you saw today, many among the Council are elders. Some made their home here before the Hanish Conquest, others fled here to escape it. The years since have been full of trouble and danger, but the elder sages provided prudent, cautious leadership that has served us well.”

“But times have changed,” said Maura.

Idrygon looked surprised by her comment. His wife and mother-in-law were eating in silence, which Rath guessed was their custom when Idrygon started on this subject. Delyon had
a scroll draped over his knees. Reading while he ate, he scarcely seemed to notice the conversation or the food that he popped into his mouth at regular intervals.

After an instant’s hesitation, Idrygon recovered his composure and nodded to Maura. “True, Highness. Times
have
changed. In recent years, younger members have joined the Council. Members who grieved the oppression of our kin on the mainland and who believed we should take measures to aid them.”

Rath raised his goblet in a salute to Idrygon. So there
had
been folk on the Islands who thought beyond their own peace and comfort to care what happened in the rest of the kingdom. That came as welcome news.

Idrygon shook his head. “I regret, our efforts have been thwarted by Trochard and his followers, always protesting that we must take no action until the coming of the Waiting King.”

Beneath the table, Rath clenched his fist. He’d once despised the whole notion of the Waiting King for just that reason—because his countrymen might linger idle and passive in their misery waiting to be delivered from the Han, rather than seizing the chance to rise up on their own behalf.

“To be fair,” said Idrygon, “some of the elders, like Madame Verise, were sincere in their beliefs and would endorse necessary action if and when the Waiting King answered their summons. I suspected all along that the others had no true faith in…you. All they wanted was to protect their own interests.”

“It all makes sense now.” Rath unfastened the top button of his tunic and leaned back in his chair. “Why that Trochard fellow and some of the others were so unwilling to believe Maura and I could be who we say we are.”

“Casting unfounded aspersions upon my brother’s integrity as a scholar!” Idrygon glanced at Delyon for the first time since the meal had begun. “Brother! The king and queen of Umbria are our guests. Can you show them the small courtesy of
not
reading at the table?”

“Your pardon!” Delyon hastily rolled up the scroll and dropped it beneath his seat. “When I read something that takes my interest, I become blind and deaf to everything around me.”

Maura chuckled. “I take no offense, Delyon. In fact, it makes me feel quite at home. My guardian was the same. He did not even need a scroll to read—he could just as easily get lost in his own thoughts and never hear a word I said. You remind me of him.”

For some reason that notion did not sit well with Rath. Perhaps because he could not read the simplest scroll in modern Umbrian, let alone some ancient language. Even if he was able to help liberate the kingdom, how could a man with so little schooling and experience hope to rule it?

After a despairing look at his brother, Idrygon was quick to turn the discussion back to his favorite subject. “Speaking of your guardian, Highness, it is fortunate he was the brother-in-law of Madame Verise. She is well respected by all factions of the Council. If she endorses you, Trochard will have to go along, or risk being exposed for the cowardly fraud he is.”

From what he’d seen of her during the Council meeting, Rath had formed a good opinion of Madame Verise. It was clear she held strong opinions from which she would not be easily swayed, but neither was her mind completely closed to new ideas. Rath could imagine Maura maturing into just such a wise old lady.

“It was canny of Madame Verise to suggest consulting the Oracle,” said Idrygon. “Even Trochard will have to abide by
her
decision.”

But so would Idrygon and his faction. Rath sensed a shadow of apprehension in their host.

Maura set down her goblet after a deep drink of
sythwine.
“Why did they all start talking so loudly after I told them my name?”

“Do you not know, Highness?” Whatever it was, the notion seemed to restore Idrygon’s confidence. “The Woodburys of Galene are a family of noble lineage, descendants of Queen Abri
elle. They’ve lived quietly since their patriarch Brandel died. He was a strong force on the Council and much respected.”

Maura lowered her gaze to her lap for a moment and Rath sensed her struggle for composure as she whispered, “Then I do have a family?”

That would mean a great deal to her, he knew. Enough, perhaps, to keep her here on the Islands if the Oracle determined there had been some mistake and the Council ruled against aiding them? Or was that wickedly selfish for him to hope?

“Would you like to go to Galene and meet them?” asked Idrygon. “I am not certain what relation they might be to you, but their endorsement could only strengthen our position with the Council.”

“I should like that very much, thank you,” replied Maura. “Once I have met with the Oracle.”

“Of course.” Again Idrygon looked unsure. “The Oracle.”

Rath had sensed a similar hesitation from several of the sages when the Oracle of Margyle had been mentioned. What lay behind
that
? he wondered.

Back on the mainland where life was a raw struggle for survival, he’d enjoyed a measure of confidence. Here on the Islands, Rath felt far out of his depth.

“Follow this lane. It will bring you to the dwelling of the Oracle.” Delyon pointed to a gated trellis between two high banks of hedging. It was so overgrown with twilight vines that it almost blended into the shrubbery walls on either side.

“Are you not coming with me?” asked Maura. The prospect of meeting this mysterious woman whose memory reached deep into the past and who could also catch glimpses of the future intimidated her.

“I wish I could.” Delyon sighed. “I have been trying to arrange a meeting with her for the longest time—to talk over my research and find out if I am on the right track. But the Oracle is getting more and more reclusive as time goes on, Madame
Verise says. I wonder how the Council persuaded her to see you and His Highness?”

For a moment Maura wondered who Delyon was talking about. Then it dawned on her that he must mean Rath. She found it difficult to get used to everyone in Idrygon’s household addressing them by title.

“I can wait for you here,” Delyon offered, “if you think you will not be able to find your way back afterward. I wish I’d thought to bring a scroll with me to read.”

“I will not keep you hanging about here when you have work to do.” Maura pointed toward a lower hill. “Besides, I can see your house from here. I’ll have no trouble finding my way back.”

This was not the mainland, after all, where a young woman had to be careful about walking alone. Perhaps one day that would change. And her dreaded meeting with the Oracle of Margyle might help pave the way.

That thought gave Maura courage to smile and nod when Delyon said, “You’re sure?”

She did not wait to watch him go, but squared her shoulders and pushed open the vine-covered gate. Once through, she followed a path that wound through a bit of woodland until it opened near a cottage with white plaster walls, like those of Idrygon’s elegant villa. Its thatched roof made the place look much more homey and inviting to Maura. Perhaps she did not need to be so anxious about meeting a woman who lived in a modest dwelling like this one.

“Hello.” The sound of a child’s voice startled Maura.

She spun around to see a young girl with a mane of wild dark curls picking mushrooms by the edge of the wood. She looked no older than Noll Howen back in Windleford, perhaps ten or eleven.

“H-hello.” Maura pressed her hand to her chest to quiet her pounding heart. “Do you live here?”

A ward of the Oracle, perhaps, as she had been of Langbard.

“I do.” The girl rose from the ground, dusting off her skirts. “You’ve come from the mainland, haven’t you…Mistress Woodbury?”

“That’s right.” Maura wondered how the child knew her name. “To see the Oracle. I have heard people talk about her since I was your age and younger, but never thought I would meet her face-to-face. Is it true she is hundreds of years old?”

The child laughed so hard she practically doubled over. When she had finally mastered her mirth, she picked up her mushroom basket. “What queer ideas people get! Though I reckon it isn’t so far wrong, in a way.”

The door of the cottage opened just then and a middle-aged woman bustled out carrying a bundle of washing.

“Is
she
the Oracle?” Maura whispered to the child. It was difficult to imagine such a famed personage stooping to a mundane chore like laundry. Then again, people might think the same of her and Rath—the Destined Queen compounding liniment and the Waiting King cutting hay on Blen Maynold’s farm.

“No, silly!” The child began to laugh again as she shook her head. “
I
am.”

Maura almost laughed at that jest until the woman with the laundry called, “Is that the guest you were expecting, mistress? If you want to bring her inside, I can fetch you some cakes and lipma cordial.”

“Cakes!” squealed the Oracle like any other child her age at the prospect of a treat. “I should have guests more often!”

While Maura tried to recover from her shock, the servant woman shook her head. “Now, mistress, you know the Council doesn’t approve of you being bothered too often. Madame Verise said this lady is a special case.”

“Your pardon, great Oracle!” Maura made a deep bow to the child. Her face felt as if she had a bad sunburn.

“It’s all right.” The child shrugged. “You gave me an excuse to laugh. I don’t get those often enough lately.”

In her large misty-gray eyes, Maura caught a glimpse of wisdom and sadness far beyond her years.

“Will you come in for cakes and a drink?” The Oracle nodded toward the cottage. “The cordial is from a batch the last oracle put down two summers ago. We had a fine harvest of
lipma
fruit that year.”

“The…last oracle?” Maura followed the girl into a snug cottage, where she immediately felt at home. “Is a new one chosen when the old one dies?”

“Oh, no.” The Oracle laid her mushroom basket on the table. “That wouldn’t do at all. Then the memories would be lost.”

The memories?
Maura wanted to ask, but refrained lest the Oracle get tired of hearing herself repeated over and over.

Perhaps the Oracle divined her question anyway, for she beckoned Maura through the cottage to a large open porch with a spectacular view down to the sea. “Come, sit down and I’ll tell you how it is.”

Maura sank onto a cushioned chair that looked to be made of many slender branches woven together into a light but sturdy seat. She wondered what other astonishing revelations the young Oracle had in store for her.

The child seated herself on the chair opposite Maura’s. “Like every other oracle for hundreds of years, I was brought to this house when I was a baby to be raised by the last oracle.”

“Do you ever see your other family?” Maura thought of the Woodburys of Galene, whom she could hardly wait to meet.

“I have no other family. That’s how the Council knew I was the one. An orphaned girl child born at the right time.”

Maura nodded. That made a kind of sense.

“Have you ever performed the passing ritual?” asked the Oracle.

“For my guardian, Langbard, this past spring.”

“Langbard?” The Oracle’s eyes took on a far-off look and her innocent young lips curved in a not-so-innocent smile. “He was a fine-looking fellow. If we’d been twenty years younger…”

Realizing what she’d said, the Oracle hid her face in her hands. “Your pardon! Please do not think ill of me. That name brought back such vivid memories that, for a moment, I could feel the old oracle within me.”

Maura wondered what
that
meant.

The child hastened to explain. “When an old oracle raises her successor, every day is like a prolonged passing ritual. There would never be time to share all the memories going back so many generations, otherwise. By the time the old oracle is ready to depart this world, the new one has received the accumulated wisdom and experience of all those who have gone before her.”

“Amazing!” Maura whispered, not aware she’d spoken aloud.

“It can be.” The Oracle sighed. “When all goes as it should.”

The child’s wistful words jolted Maura upright in her chair. “But your oracle died too soon, didn’t she, before your training was completed?”

With a wary nod, the child drew her legs up onto the chair and hugged her bent knees. “Just a few months ago, she got very ill suddenly and the healers could do nothing to help. At the end I was with her all the time while she poured memories into my mind until I was afraid my head would burst.”

Maura rose from her chair and knelt beside the child. “That must have been a sad and frightening time for you.”

“It isn’t fair!” The young Oracle struck the side of her chair with her fist. “This never happened to any of the others—why me? These are restless times. So many things will change. So many important decisions will need to be made. People will want my advice. But what can I tell them and how can they trust me? I am not ready, and so much wisdom gathered over the generations has been lost.”