Shadow Queen Read online

  My suite had lain undisturbed since the Aestival coup, and the wash of air that greeted me as I opened its door whispered of less dangerous times. The gown I had considered wearing to dinner that night but discarded still lay across the back of the couch. The room was cold, no fire in the hearth, no meal awaiting me, no lanterns lit against the falling night.

  I built a fire in the hearth with my own hands, and soon its comforting heat stole through to the corners of the room. I wasn’t hungry, but I ordered a meal anyway, so I might question the thrall who brought it to me. She was a starveling child, with a misaimed eye, a running nose and a look of intelligence about her. My Ilthean guards did not leave her alone with me, however, giving me no chance to question her in depth. I learnt only that the master of the horses was dead in the coup, as was Oren. Of Sepp, she told me, there was no sign.

  I curled up on the couch, ignoring the food, wondering at his fate. Had he fallen? Most of the Turholm’s residents would have known him, but Dieter’s soldiers had aided in disposing of the dead; he could well have been buried unremarked. My tears flowed freely. Sepp, if he had lived, would definitely have sought me out by now. I couldn’t imagine life without him.

  By the time I stopped weeping, black night cloaked the palace, cutting off the world outside my rooms, until I could almost fool myself that only familiar faces walked the corridors of the Turholm.

  The rattle of the suite’s main doors some time later startled me, snapping me from my reverie. A glimmer like the light from a hooded lantern played along the floor outside.

  Dieter! I thought, scrambling off the couch in a flurry of panic. But it was Amalia who stepped through the doorway, her pale hair gleaming in the lantern light. Relief flooded through me.

  ‘So you’ve finished tramping around pretending you’re one of the staff?’ she said, walking past me into the bedchamber, hooking the lantern onto the wall and climbing into the bed. ‘I half expected you to sleep with them as well.’

  I watched her settling the bedcovers with a sinking heart. Obviously it had been too much to hope that Dieter would leave me unwatched at night.

  ‘Are you going to stand there all night?’ she demanded.

  I lay down on the utmost edge of the bed, every muscle clamped tight. Amalia made no attempt to converse, and fell asleep easily. I, on the other hand, lay awake, my mind chasing tactics and strategies through the long darkness, wondering how many holdings Dieter had won to his side in his progression, and how far my pigeons had flown.

  A pale and creeping dawn found me weary and listless. The night had passed in worry, my thoughts circling endlessly around the same track. I needed military support to regain my throne, and I couldn’t rely on the drightens until I gauged the alliances Dieter had made. I needed the Skythes, but would my kinship with them be enough to secure their support?

  Amalia stirred as I rose, sitting up with eyes blurred by the remnants of sleep. She was awake enough to insist on accompanying me, but trail me as she might, she could do little to stop me.

  Guarded once again by Mathis and Gunther, I made for the kitchens. Instead of involving myself in the food preparation, this time I suggested a plan for the meals to come, establishing the times at which various segments of the Turholm’s population should eat.

  Next, I dared to send a detail of Dieter’s men hunting. There could be no objection to such a reasonable and necessary use of them, no matter how mulish Amalia looked, or how many disgruntled glances Mathis cast my way. I had to bite my tongue to stop a torrent of further orders, however. If I made them too fractious now, all my cautious first gains would be lost.

  Within the span of three days, I established a routine – and authority with it, of sorts. Throughout the Turholm – the kitchens, the hallways and suites, the stables and sties and gardens – the thralls fell into the habit of obeying me, though some more reluctantly than others. I even managed to get Dieter’s men to accept my commands, although on that score, of course, my authority was provisional at best. Still, it was a start.

  Intent on seeing how far I could push the boundaries, I went so far as to request that horses be readied.

  ‘What I want to know,’ the captain in charge of the stables replied, ‘is where you think you’re going that requires horses.’

  ‘You needn’t be concerned for my safety,’ I said. ‘Amalia is most conscientious; she will rustle up a sufficient escort.’

  By the clench of his jaw, he was on the point of denying me any egress from the palace. I cut him off before he could.

  ‘The horses need their exercise, as do Amalia and I,’ I snapped. ‘And the horses in question are a particular breed, gifted to my stables by the Skythes. I wouldn’t want them ridden by those who cannot handle their spirit.’

  ‘My lady,’ he said, looking fit to explode, ‘my men need those horses. A number of my own are lame –’

  ‘I should hope you don’t travel without spares,’ I said.

  ‘– and the stables now belong to my lord,’ he went on, ignoring my interruption. ‘You need not worry yourself in the matter – your horses will have plenty of exercise providing mounts for my men.’

  I hesitated, debating whether to act ingenuously and insist on my own exercise, when another soldier appeared. ‘My Lord Dieter and the general are returning. They should be here in a little less than an hour,’ he reported.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Just in time for a late luncheon.’

  Both the captain and the soldier gaped at me. Even Amalia looked startled.

  ‘They’ll be hungry – and like to stay so if you don’t stop gawping,’ I said, already making for the kitchens. ‘Find the seneschal, have him ready the dining hall. In the meantime, Captain, we’ll have to discuss my horses later, if you don’t mind.’

  Leaving Dieter’s men speechless in my wake, I made my way into the depths of the kitchen. Laughter rose in me like bubbles – but a flat look from the slab-handed Leise, when I told her of Dieter’s return and my orders, quelled my mirth.

  ‘The majority are rank and file soldiers,’ I offered. ‘They won’t need much – warm bread and ale and they’ll be happy. We only need the meat and mead for a half-dozen, at most.’

  Still she stared at me. ‘We wouldn’t need any, if you weren’t so fond of tossing orders around.’

  ‘You advised me to live within the bargain I struck,’ I retorted, fighting the urge to glare her down like a common riverwife.

  She rolled one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. ‘So I did, at that.’

  We worked together in silence, and it wasn’t long before the first scents of the meat and mead known as traveller’s rest, bitter orange and coriander, rose through the steam. Others were already sawing at loaves of bread and tapping fresh barrels of ale.

  Within forty minutes we were ready, ferrying meals to the mess hall for the men, and to the dining hall for Dieter and his captains. For my part, I made my way to the upper courtyard, carrying a small wooden platter bearing a sample of the meal. The wind was brisk as I waited, blanching the great empty courtyard of colour and spirit.

  Finally, the clatter of hooves and the stamping of dismounting men on the other side of the gate announced the arrival of Dieter and his retinue. A clamour of voices bounced against the pallid arch of sky as the men relinquished their horses to the stableboys.

  Deep in conversation with Gerlach, Dieter strode through the gate with wind-flushed cheeks. His stride checked as he caught sight of me, and he catalogued my appearance with a glance. He noted the veil with a gleam in his eye, but said naught of it.

  I raised the platter and proffered its contents: two wooden cups filled with mulled mead, two hollowed heels of pumpernickel stuffed with spiced mincemeat.

  Both Dieter and Gerlach accepted their portions in speculative silence. The mead brought a flush of relaxation to their cheeks. A bite of the meat saw Gerlach closing his eyes to savour the taste.

  ‘Welcome home,’ I said, making sure not to falter on the h
ome. ‘There’s food in the mess hall for your men, and I’ve prepared the dining hall for you and your captains.’

  ‘The dining hall will do for my men, but I will take my meal in private,’ said Dieter. ‘Come. Let’s dine in my chambers.’

  He didn’t speak on the way, nor did he look at me again until we reached our destination. In silence he waited for me to dismiss the thrall. His steady, direct gaze brought the blood rushing to my skin. Under such a look, my voice failed. Instead I stood back, folding my hands before me.

  His words were as direct as his gaze. ‘What is it you want?’

  My grandmother back, I thought, unshed tears closing my throat. And your head, on a pike.

  ‘Out with it, if you please,’ he said. ‘It’s much the quickest way.’

  I sat down, my hands pressed tight together in my lap so they couldn’t shake. ‘I thought it time we discussed the conditions of our binding.’

  ‘You disappoint me. I thought you might have something worth listening to,’ he said, then began eating as if the matter were dismissed.

  I hesitated, unsure how best to persevere, but the idea of waiting until nightfall, and bargaining with him at my weakest, spurred me on.

  ‘I won’t be sharing your chamber,’ I said.

  He cocked his brow at me, his stare reminding me, unaccountably, of his touch on my throat. A cold frisson crept over my skin.

  ‘You bound yourself to me willingly, Matilde. There’s no retracting,’ he said.

  ‘I retract nothing. I’m merely setting out what our agreement covers, and what it does not.’

  ‘What, pray tell, does it cover?’ he asked.

  ‘You have the appearance of my support, which may help sway the drightens, come the gadderen and the inevitable question of ratifying your position on the throne. If you want more,’ I said, the words nigh tripping over themselves, ‘you’ll have to pay for it.’

  His expression went blank, possibly the presage of anger. ‘I have no desire to spend the afternoon – or indeed the rest of our wedded lives – haggling with you,’ he snapped.

  ‘You’ll want to consolidate your position first of all,’ I forged on, my pulse jumping in my veins, the brand on my forehead burning in reminder of his power over me. Would my dissolution to clay be immediate? Would my consciousness fade? Would it be a true death? Or would I be ever aware, trapped in an unresponsive substance? Buried alive. In a strange way, it served to keep me focused.

  ‘Military might and strategy won you the Turholm and my throne, but only the drightens’ support will see you keep it,’ I continued. ‘Drightens who know me personally. I won’t need to speak openly, or at all, to convey whether my support is genuine or enforced.’

  ‘I won the crown without you and I’ll keep it, with or without you. Surprising as you may find this, Matte, not all the drightens supported your claim to the throne.’

  ‘Gaining the drightens’ backing with my support will still be easier,’ I replied firmly, knowing confidence and the illusion of power mattered. ‘I could bring you an alliance with the Skythes. I could give you an heir.’

  ‘Oh? I understood you were denying me that,’ he said, relaxing back and spreading an arm along the spine of the couch. His gaze never left me, however; his lack of interest was a disguise.

  ‘It’s a matter of not giving it away for free,’ I hedged, the idea of conceiving an heir with him making my voice shake a little.

  ‘Go on,’ said Dieter.

  ‘My mother was a Skythe.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a small smile. ‘The barbarian heiress, they call you. Me, I think the Skythe blood could well be all that kept you alive. It’s certainly given you more spirit than the rest of your House ever showed.’

  ‘Which I’m guessing was one of my selling points for you.’

  It was a reasonable assumption – my parents’ marriage had turned my mother’s tribe into an unofficial army along the eastern border. Maintaining good relations with them meant Dieter would not have to waste men protecting the eastern lands and could instead keep his throne closely guarded.

  ‘But a wife who brings you an alliance is more valuable than one who brings merely the possibility of one,’ I went on.

  ‘Can you?’ he asked, looking at me intently. ‘Bring me an alliance?’

  I hesitated. ‘I’m the only one who can.’

  ‘I see. Gambling you have bargaining power – when in fact you might not. Intriguing.’

  His guarded response betrayed an interest that went further than cordial border relations, I thought. Did it mean some or even all of his soldiers were mercenaries? Perhaps his alliances with the drightens were not as solid as he liked to imply, otherwise why would he entertain the thought of securing this new treaty in the short time remaining before the gadderen.

  ‘Say I choose to let you bargain,’ he said, plucking an apple from the fruit bowl and snapping off its stem. ‘What are you after?’

  ‘I want Helena’s son – Renatas – given over to me. Unharmed.’

  ‘Done,’ he said, and laughed, his odd humour touched. ‘Although I was figuring on giving you a child of your own, Matte. No need for desperation.’

  Let him laugh, I thought, submitting to his questions as he planned the journey to the Skythes. The spears of my mother’s people would strike soon enough. All I had to do in the meantime was keep Renatas out of reach, so he couldn’t be used as a hostage against me when Dieter’s men retaliated over the death of their precious lord.

  ELEVEN

  ROUSED IN DARKNESS by a rough shake, I scrambled straight from sleep to blind panic. Had they found Renatas? Perhaps the boy had grown hungry and ventured into the kitchen before everyone slept, or perhaps Amalia had followed me, in spite of all the care I took –

  The feeble light of a candle flame struggled to relieve the darkness. Incapable of reaching the room’s corners, it was enough to reveal Amalia standing over me, laughter in her foxfire eyes. ‘Morning isn’t your best time, is it?’

  Understanding came too late to slow my thumping heart. ‘We’re leaving?’ I asked, glancing around the room, trying to gauge the time. When Dieter had said to be ready early, I hadn’t suspected that meant before dawn. ‘Now?’

  ‘Diet’s already dressed,’ she said. As was she. ‘Probably mounted by now, too. I’d say you have about five minutes.’

  Necessity gave me speed. I pulled on the clothes Amalia handed me, then grabbed my makeshift veil and knotted it in place before she hurried me through the corridors. We emerged into the glimmering dawn to find Dieter and his men ready to depart.

  A handful of soldiers waited in a cluster by the doorway, Mathis among them. They hurried me atop a horse so fast we were trotting out in Dieter’s wake before I’d even finished gathering my reins.

  Clouds blew in soon after the sun rose, chilling the air and dimming the landscape. The rain arrived during the first afternoon, a steady drumming which turned the grass to slops. Our pace slowed to a crawl as the horses climbed rain-slick slopes. For the first time I was grateful for my veil: I could pull the tail of it forward to shield my numb cheeks and chin from the worst of the downpour.

  It took three rain-filled days for us to cross the eastern arm of the Dragonstail mountains, days I spent hunched inside my oilcloth wrap, wondering what lay ahead. On the fourth day we crossed into the border lands, descending the skirts of the mountains to the vast, empty plains that, further east, beyond the River Pela, became the steppes. There was a palpable change in the way we rode, a stiffening of the shoulders, and a deepening of the seat on the horse’s back. It was as if the immeasurable span of the sky pressed us down.

  These lands supported few holdings, all of them belonging to the Sueben tribe and beholden therefore to House Svanaten. Good feeling for my House ran thin here, however. My father had taken a barbarian bride from the Nilofen, one of the fiercest and mightiest Skythe tribes, buying an army to guard our eastern border, and surcease from raids. In return, howev
er, he had ceded to the Nilofen the right to winter here. Nigh-barren by Turasi standards, these lands were yet richer and gentler than the steppes, the Skythes’ traditional homelands. Grandmother had been forced to give substantial tax concessions to pacify those thanes whose lands were annually invaded and, they claimed, denuded.

  Directions from the first holding we reached sent us northeast, and on the seventh afternoon smoke from distant fires muddied the horizon. We would reach the Nilofen on the morrow. I shrugged my wrap tighter, grateful that the rain had stopped, and wondered what reception I might find. I did not even know if any of my mother’s immediate family still lived.

  Hoofbeats roused me from my reverie. Gerlach had nudged his mount over to my side, proffering a heel of bread smeared with thick, cheesy butter.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, hunger not allowing me to refuse it.

  He simply nodded, and rode alongside in silence while I ate, then offered me a swallow from the flask at his saddle horn. What I expected to be water turned out to be liquor, its hot spice so unexpected I nearly choked on it. Instead, just as undignified, I croaked.

  Gerlach took back the flask with a faint smile, hooking it onto his saddle with practised ease.

  ‘I’ve not seen you smile before,’ I said on impulse.

  ‘I’ve had little reason of late,’ he said, a sparkle in his eyes.

  I hovered on the edge of questioning him. How much, if any, of Dieter’s military strength was mercenary, and therefore of questionable loyalty? What was Dieter’s faith, and Gerlach’s, that allowed a man to be both prester and soldier? Asking might mean the end of his good humour, though, and it wouldn’t yield answers. Amalia, with her fierce pride, would be easier to goad into talking. So I let the moment pass.

  He watched me as if he’d read my thoughts, but when I didn’t speak, said, ‘Your husband would like a moment. When you’re ready.’

  Of a sudden I was glad I hadn’t pried. Dieter’s summons wouldn’t have included food, and time to eat it in peace – that had been the general’s idea.