The Hollow Queen (58 page)

Rhapsody kept singing, her voice stronger now.

Achmed leaned over Grunthor and gently pulled aside the sheet that covered his chest. His shirt, vastly too wide for his now-skeletal body, was open at the neck and the top of his chest, close to where the baby lay. He took the candle from the bedside table and held it aloft as he pulled the shirt gently aside.

The skin nearest the sleeping infant had taken on the color of old bruises again.

The Bolg king nodded at Rhapsody, then withdrew his hand and stood erect, watching.

Slowly, as the song continued, the giant Bolg's breathing began to match the tides of the infant's breath, the rattling receding until his chest was rising and falling with the ease of that of the sleeping baby.

The greenish tone of his skin seemed to spread out from where Meridion lay, rejuvenating the parchment hue bit by bit. It slid down the length of one arm, and as it came to the end of the wrist of the hand that Rhapsody was still holding, she looked at her son again and gasped, dragging the namesong to a faltering halt.

Meridion's tiny hand was pale as parchment.

She looked down at Grunthor's hand.

The sagging and discolored skin was tightening somewhat, the color returning to it as blood spread through the capillaries. As Grunthor's hand lost the dry, pale coloring, Meridion's hand returned to the rosy skin of youth it had had since birth.

In silence now, she leaned over the Sergeant's chest and could hear the namesong, blending with the song of the Earth, resonating in the tides of his breath. With each inhalation, his body seemed to rehydrate, reinvigorate a little, clearing away some of the aspects of withering age that had been present the moment before.

“Grunthor?” she whispered as she watched the hollows beneath his eyes fill in somewhat, his cheekbones sink back into flesh that rose beneath the hanging skin that had covered them moments before. “Can you hear me?”

The Sergeant-Major did not move.

Rhapsody reached out her hand, shaking violently, and as it moved through the air it slipped without looking into the open palm of the Firbolg king, sheathed in the thin leather glove. She cast a glance to the right to see him, staring down at his oldest friend, lost in thought.

Grunthor's forehead, a moment before pocked and sunken, had begun to regain some of its tissue, its musculature, and those muscles wrinkled at his brow.

His lips, thin as paper a few moments before, swelled back into something resembling those that had for many years sat just above his jutting jaw, below his polished tusks, and opened slightly, moving as if in the attempt to form a word.

Both Rhapsody and Achmed leaned nearer.

“Rrrrr,” the giant Bolg whispered. “Rrrraaaaa.”

The baby beneath his beard slept on, oblivious to its thickening and losing some of its gray to mossy red streaks that spilled like ink from his chin to the ends of the coarse tufts of whiskers.

“What do you suppose he's trying to say?” Rhapsody asked Achmed softly. The Bolg king shook his head, raising a finger to his lips.

The tusked mouth opened again, forming a grotesque cave from which the smell of salt and blood and decay emerged.

“Ro—rocky,” the Sergeant said softly, his voice harsh and ragged.

Achmed squeezed Rhapsody's hand, trying to quell its trembling. They waited silently.

Finally, Grunthor spoke again; it was a sound that, in the most imaginative of ways, resembled a song, deadly to the ears, agonizing in its slowness.

Rocky-boye, baby

So—tiny an' sweet

Don't fall from yer—cradle

You'll damage—the meat—

Against her will and her better judgment, the Lady Cymrian let loose a sound that was half chuckle, half choking noise. The Firbolg king smiled in relief for the first time since he had returned from the Skeleton Coast.

Eyes still closed, the Sergeant continued his painfully protracted lullabye.

'Ave—a nice morning

Enjoy all yer play

You'll be in—my—gut

By the—end of—the day

As the last plodding, off-key note sounded, the great amber eyes opened slowly, the lids thin and wrinkled, the scleras shot with blood.

Rhapsody's left hand, still trembling violently, came to rest on the hair of her beloved friend's head.

Grunthor's mouth pursed again as he prepared to speak.

“Sir?” The deep-timbered voice was a little stronger, though it still sounded costly to his throat.

“Here,” Achmed said, releasing Rhapsody's right hand and bringing his own to Grunthor's wrist, which he encircled.

“Do—me—a favor?”

“Name it.”

The Sergeant-Major cleared his throat; it sounded as if he had swallowed rocks.

“If you—please, sir, don'—be callin' the lit'le—prince a—brat no more,” he said carefully. “After all, 'im and—Oi been—sleepin' together—”

Rhapsody burst simultaneously into laughter and tears.

“As you wish,” Achmed said in what for him could be construed to be a pleasant tone.

They both smiled at their friend, whose color had returned to the hue they had always known, whose hollowed features had thickened somewhat, whose hair and beard had taken on some of their previous shades, but who still seemed wan and spent, far older than he had been when the Three had parted in the advent of war. There was no mistaking the toll his battle with the titan had taken on him, likely aging him by a generation.

But the pallor of death was no longer in his cheeks, with much of the weight returned to his heavy-boned frame, his hands the broad-palmed paws they had once been, the claws opaque once more.

Child of Earth.

The Child of Time, curled beneath Grunthor's red-brown beard with streaks of gray, stretched languidly and opened his cerulean-blue eyes, scored by vertical pupils.

And let loose a squeal of delight.

His mother quickly gathered him up and turned him vertical, holding him so that Grunthor could look up at him.

“'Allo, my lit'le friend,” the Sergeant said fondly.

Meridion answered in a slew of cackles and buzzing sounds from the back of his throat, to the Sergeant's delight.

“Oi think—'ealing me must—be a—family tradition wi' you,” he said as if the words pained him.

Achmed's brow furrowed. He looked at Meridion, who met his gaze solemnly.

“My thanks,” the Bolg king said with equal seriousness.

The child stared at him for a long moment.

Then opened his mouth and belched resoundingly.

The recuperating Sergeant and the Lady Cymrian both laughed as the Firbolg king turned away in disgust.

“I had best get my little Namer back to his father,” Rhapsody said, wrapping his blanket more securely around him. “Ashe will be none too pleased with what might seem like a risk I have just undertaken if I don't return him shortly.”

“He would be right to be displeased,” said Achmed evenly and under his breath as he took her elbow and led her to the door. “You had no idea what sort of damage your son could have incurred, even if he did bring Grunthor back somewhat from the brink. While I do not question your maternal instincts, I suggest that you consider whether the loss and return of your true name and your experiences in battle may have left your judgment slightly impaired.

“Go home, Rhapsody—go back to Highmeadow, to your family, to your realm, to your responsibilities for this battered Alliance. You have earned your happy ending; go enjoy it. Leave us to our aftermath; we will retrench within the mountains, rebuild, and take advantage of an extended period of silence from the ways of those who live in the upworld. Thank you for your ministrations to Grunthor, and those of your son. Go home.”

The Lady Cymrian stared at him in shock. Then her eyes narrowed. She opened the door and handed Meridion to Ashe, who was pacing in the corridor, and who took him eagerly. She signaled that she would return in a moment, then closed the door and went back to the Sergeant's bed, where she whispered his true name one last time, then bent down and pressed a warm kiss onto his forehead.

“I love you,” she said softly. “I love you. I love you.”

Beneath her the giant Sergeant-Major smiled.

“Feelin' is mutual, miss.”

“I will be back to see you no later than spring, or at Second Thaw if you need me earlier. You know how to reach me on the wind if there is a pressing need or something urgent; otherwise keep in touch with me by bird. If for any reason you want me here, let me know and I can be back in a sennight, now that I know all the liveries where Achmed keeps his Wings.” Grunthor nodded as she squeezed his massive hand. “And any heartfelt poems you would like to exchange, I am more than happy to return in kind, but please, no more shrunken heads. The ones you sent me for my birthday two years ago were enough to last me the rest of my life.”

The giant sighed dispiritedly.

“Give my love to the Sleeping Child,” Rhapsody continued. “And tell her I will see her in the spring as well. Rest now, and regain your strength. Thank you for keeping the Three intact.”

“Doin' my best.”

She kissed him again and crossed the room, where she stopped before the Bolg king.

“If you think you can get rid of me that easily, you have misread the field reports badly,” she said matter-of-factly. “You don't need to preach to me about the cost of war; I have lost my beloved knight, and almost lost one of my dearest friends; our continent has lost tens of thousands of innocent souls; hundreds of thousands across the world are dead. Alliances, kingdoms, dynasties, and friendships have been needlessly shattered. When I return to Highmeadow I will be undertaking a Lirin mourning ritual the likes of which has never been seen on this continent.

“But it is flagrantly stupid to have paid the cost of war and then to not relish the freedom that cost purchased. I am not leaving you and Grunthor for any ‘extended period.' Ever. I intend to be a pain in your arse, a burr under your saddle, and the irritating other side of your obnoxious coin for the rest of my life. You will need me if you want to ever explore the other colors of the Lightcatcher, and to be the
amelystik
to the Sleeping Child, to check in on and oversee your schools and hospices, which you
will
reinstate now that the war is over, to monitor your agricultural program, to train the midwives, and to make certain decorum is being maintained in Ylorc—which means, in addition to all the other rules, no public urination,
whatsoever
. Make use of the damned privies—it took long enough to unclog and clean them. Don't eradicate or supplant everything I have done in this place, no matter how much you may want to. I'm not your bloody courtesan, I'm fucking Firbolg
royalty
. I was the duchess of Elysian long before I became Lirin queen or Lady Cymrian, and I will be damned if you think you can unseat me from my titles in and my responsibilities to Ylorc. Unless you want another war on your hands—”

Achmed laid a gloved finger on her lips.

“Enough,” he said quietly. “Gained. Go home.”

“I also love
you
,” Rhapsody said. “Don't forget that. Behave yourself.”

She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, then opened the door and took her leave with her husband and son.

The Firbolg king listened until he could no longer hear the sound of her footfalls echoing quietly in the stone hallway. He followed her heartbeat until she had made her way out of the mountain and down to the scarred fields beyond the steppes, then turned back to the Sergeant, who was resting with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

“Still bossy, ain't she?” Grunthor said weakly. “That's a relief, at least.”

“I don't expect even an intercontinental war could change that.”

“You still 'aven't told 'er. Bad plannin', sir.”

Achmed smiled slightly as he poured the Sergeant some water. “We will see. Before you get too opinionated, have a drink.”

He held the glass to his friend's lips, banishing the thoughts that were crowding at the edges of his mind.

 

69

HIGHMEADOW, NAVARNE

Gwydion Navarne was just finishing his supper in the small private dining room in the residence quarters of Highmeadow when a tap came on the door. He wiped his mouth with his linen napkin, bemused at how life had returned from the horror of daily bloodshed and strife to elegant etiquette in a mindlessly quick time, knowing it would take far longer for his soul and memory to go back to normal.

“Come.”

Manus Kral, the chamberlain, opened the door and stepped to the threshold without crossing it.

“M'lord—”

“Let me in—
now
.” A harsh feminine voice assaulted Gwydion's battle-damaged ears; he looked questioningly at Manus, who was staring helplessly at him in return; then the chamberlain was pushed aside as a familiar woman thrust herself into the room.