Margret had one of her headaches. Skull-crushers, she called them. Usually she refused to let them keep her from her obligations, but she must be sick with worry about Loth.
Despite the summer heat, a fire crackled in the Privy Chamber. So far, nobody had spoken to Ead.
Sometimes she felt as if they could smell her secrets. As if they sensed she had not come to this court to be a lady-in-waiting.
As if they knew about the Priory.
“What do you think of his eyes, Ros?”
Sabran gazed at the miniature in her hand. It had already been passed between the women and scrutinized from every angle. Now Roslain Crest took it and studied it again.
The Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, heir apparent to the Duchy of Justice, had been born only six days before Sabran. Her hair was thick and dark as treacle. Pale and smalt-eyed, always fashionably dressed, she had spent almost her whole life with her queen. Her mother had been Chief Gentlewoman to Queen Rosarian.
“They are agreeable, Your Majesty,” Roslain concluded. “Kind.”
“I find them to be a trifle too close together,” Sabran mused. “They put me in mind of a dormouse.”
Linora tittered in her delicate way.
“Better a mouse than some louder beast,” Roslain said to her queen. “Best he remembers his place if he weds you. He is not the one who is descended from the Saint.”
Sabran patted her hand. “How are you always so wise?”
“I listen to you, Your Majesty.”
“But not your grandmother, in this instance.” Sabran looked up at her. “Lady Igrain thinks Mentendon will be a drain on Inys. And that Lievelyn should not trade with Seiiki. She has told me she will voice this at the next meeting of the Virtues Council.”
“My lady grandmother worries about you. It makes her over-cautious.” Roslain sat beside her. “I know she prefers the Chieftain of Askrdal. He is rich and devout. A safer candidate. I can also understand her concerns about Lievelyn.”
“But?”
Roslain offered a faint smile. “I believe it would behoove us to give this new Red Prince a chance.”
“I agree.” Katryen lay on a settle, leafing through a book of poesy. “You have the Virtues Council to caution you, but your ladies to embolden you in matters such as these.”
Beside Ead, Linora was drinking in the conversation in ravening silence.
“Mistress Duryan,” Sabran said suddenly, “what is your opinion of Prince Aubrecht’s countenance?”
All eyes turned to Ead. Slowly, she set down her knife. “You ask for my judgment, Majesty?”
“Unless there is another Mistress Duryan present.”
Nobody laughed. The room was silent as Roslain delivered the miniature into her hands.
Ead considered the Red Prince. High cheekbones. Sleek copper hair. Strong brows arched over dark eyes, a hard contrast to his pallor. The set of his mouth was somewhat grave, but his face was pleasant.
Still, miniatures could lie, and often did. The artist would have flattered him.
“He is comely enough,” she concluded.
“Faint praise indeed.” Sabran sipped from her goblet. “You are a harder judge than my other ladies, Mistress Duryan. Are the men of the Ersyr more attractive than the prince?”
“They are different, Your Majesty.” Ead paused, then added, “Less like dormice.”
The queen gazed at her, expressionless. For a moment, Ead wondered if she had been too bold. A stricken look from Katryen only served to feed her misgiving.
“You have a quick tongue as well as light feet.” The Queen of Inys reclined in her chair. “We have not spoken often since your coming to court. A long time has passed—six years, I think.”
“Eight, Your Majesty.”
Roslain shot her a warning glance. One did not correct the descendant of the Saint.
“Of course. Eight,” was all Sabran said. “Tell me, does Ambassador uq-Ispad ever write to you?”
“Not often, madam. His Excellency is busy with other matters.”
“Such as heresy.”
Ead dropped her gaze. “The ambassador is a devout follower of the Dawnsinger, Majesty.”
“But you, of course, no longer are,” Sabran said, and Ead inclined her head. “Lady Arbella tells me you pray often at sanctuary.”
How Arbella Glenn conveyed these things to Sabran was a mystery, since she never seemed to speak.
“The Six Virtues is a beautiful faith, Majesty,” Ead said, “and impossible not to believe in, when the true descendant of the Saint walks among us.”
It was a lie, of course. Her true faith—the faith of the Mother—blazed as strong as ever.
“They must tell tales of my ancestors in the Ersyr,” Sabran said. “Of the Damsel, especially.”
“Yes, madam. She is remembered in the South as the most rightwise and selfless woman of her time.”
Cleolind Onjenyu was also remembered in the South as the greatest warrior of her time, but the Inysh would never believe that. They believed that she had needed to be saved.
To Ead, Cleolind was not the Damsel.
She was the Mother.
“Lady Oliva tells me that Mistress Duryan is a born storyteller,” Roslain said, giving her a cool look. “Will you not tell us the tale of the Saint and the Damsel as you were taught it in the South, mistress?”
Ead sensed a trap. The Inysh seldom enjoyed hearing anything from a new perspective, let alone their most sacred tale. Roslain was expecting her to put a foot wrong.
“My lady,” Ead said, “it cannot be told better than it is by the Sanctarian. In any case, we will hear it tomor—”
“We will hear it now,” Sabran said. “As more wyrms stir, the story will comfort my ladies.”
The fire crackled. Looking at Sabran, Ead felt a strange tension, as if there were a thread between them. Finally, she rose to take the chair beside the hearth. The place of the storyteller.
“As you wish.” She smoothed her skirts. “Where shall I begin?”
“With the birth of the Nameless One,” Sabran said. “When the great fiend came from the Dreadmount.”
Katryen took the queen by the hand. Ead breathed in, steadying the roil within her. If she told the true story, she would doubtless face the pyre.
She would have to tell the tale she heard each day at sanctuary. The butchered tale.
Half a tale.
“There is a Womb of Fire that churns beneath this world,” she began. “Over a thousand years ago, the magma within it came suddenly together, forming a beast of unspeakable magnitude—as a sword takes shape within the forge. His milk was the fire within the Womb; his thirst for it was quenchless. He drank until even his heart was a furnace.”
Katryen shivered.
“Soon this creature, this wyrm, grew too large for the Womb. He longed to use the wings it had given him. Having torn his way upward, he broke through the peak of a mountain in Mentendon, which is called Dreadmount, and brought with him a flood of molten fire. Red lightning flashed at the summit of the mountain. Darkness fell upon the city of Gulthaga, and all who lived there died choking on pernicious smoke.
“There was a lust in this wyrm to conquer all he saw. He flew south to Lasia, where the House of Onjenyu ruled a great kingdom, and settled close to their seat in Yikala.” Ead took a sip of ale to wet her throat. “This nameless creature carried a terrible plague—a plague no humans had ever encountered. It made the very blood of the afflicted burn, driving them mad. To keep the wyrm at bay, the people of Yikala sent him sheep and oxen, but the Nameless One was never sated. He lusted after sweeter flesh—human flesh. And so, each day, the people cast their lots, and one was chosen as a sacrifice.”
All was silent in the room.
“Lasia was ruled then by Selinu, High Ruler of the House of Onjenyu. One day, his daughter, Princess Cleolind, was chosen as the sacrifice.” Ead spoke that name softly, reverently. “Though her father offered his subjects jewels and gold, and pleaded with them to choose another, they stood firm. And Cleolind went forth with dignity, for she saw that it was fair.
“On that very morning, a knight from the Isles of Inysca was riding for Yikala. At the time, these isles were riven by war and superstition, ruled by many overkings, and its people quaked in the shadow of a witch—but many good men dwelt there, sworn to the Virtues of Knighthood. This knight,” Ead said, “was Sir Galian Berethnet.”
The Deceiver.
That was the name he now had in many parts of Lasia, but Sabran had no idea of that.
“Sir Galian had heard of the terror that now abided in Lasia, and he wished to offer his services to Selinu. He carried a sword of extraordinary beauty; its name was Ascalon. When he was close to the outskirts of Yikala, he saw a damsel weeping in the shadow of the trees, and he asked why she was so afeared. Good knight, Cleolind answered, thou art kind of heart, but for thine own sake, leave me to my prayers, for a wyrm doth come to claim my life.”
It sickened Ead to speak of the Mother in this way, as if she were some swooning waif.