“No, of course not. But leaving the cursed thing out this way for everyone to see seems like . . . like saying that the truth doesn’t matter.”
Binabik nodded gravely. “Perhaps. But sometimes, I am thinking, a lie is only the truth that is believed at that time. Nobody meant to teach you something that was wrong, I am thinking.”
Miriamele appeared from the chapel, trailed by Sisqi and Qina, looking like a mother bear with two cubs. “Ah, yes, the old throne,” she said. “We kept it outside for a while, but the common people hated that. They loved my grandfather Prester John—they love him still—and they’ll always think of it as his throne. So at last I convinced my husband to put it back here, in the Great Hall.”
“Convinced?” Simon let out a snort. “More like ordered.”
“Decisions between wife and husband have sometimes complication,” Sisqi suggested with a smile. “Some things I am thinking must be explained by one to the other.”
“Yes, very often,” Miri agreed. “Especially to husbands.”
“If everyone is finished amusing each other with how stupid and stubborn I am,” Simon said darkly, “perhaps we could go outside and talk there. I’m tired of dust and statues and old bones. And also old stories that aren’t true.”
“We can’t go out until Eolair arrives,” said Miriamele. “He is coming to meet us here.”
Simon scowled, but knew there was nothing to be done. He got out of his chair and lowered himself onto the top step of the da?s, pointedly ignoring his wife’s frown. She disliked his habit of doing unkingly things, even when only friends were around to see. “Morgan is not going to join us,” he told Miri, but did not explain farther. “Who else are we waiting for?”
“Ah, here you all are,” called Eolair as he entered through the ornate throne room door.
“And now we are going outside.” Simon clambered to his feet. The most important thing about leading, he had learned, whether the thing being led was a kingdom or a small group of friends, was simply to take initiative, then others would follow. Miriamele knew this too, of course. Sometimes it became a race between the two of them to see who would get to implement a decision first.
A dozen Erkynguards followed the company out of the throne room, trailing the king and queen as always, like a pack of helmeted hounds in green livery. Simon sometimes said trying to go anywhere without them was like trying to sneak through the kennel yard with a handful of meat scraps.
“We may be grateful for that, one day,” was Miriamele’s usual reply.
Outside, as the sun climbed high in the sky, Simon led his friends toward the Tower Garden, as it was called, because it was built beside the spot where Green Angel Tower had once stood. The garden had high walls and, after all these years, tall trees, along with a complicated braid of pathways marked by hedges. They left the guards outside, except for a pair inside the only gate. The largest remaining piece of the angel herself, the statue’s head, sat on a plinth of stone at the center of the garden. A group of servants had just finished setting out a noontide meal of cold meat, fruit, cheese and bread on the shady grass; Simon thanked them and dismissed them. He was determined that at least this once, he and his friends could pour their own wine. “We need only wait for Tiamak,” he said. “He has some business to attend to, but he said he should be here by the time the bells ring noon. Pasevalles, too.”
“You planned all this, didn’t you?” his wife said.
“I told you I didn’t want to be inside. Look, Miri, it’s a lovely Avrel day. Why shouldn’t we be out in the sun with our friends?”
She laughed. “Why shouldn’t we, indeed? I think it’s a very fine idea, husband.”
? ? ?
Tiamak arrived a short while later, but Pasevalles sent a message begging forgiveness: a small crisis in the counting house was going to prevent him joining them, so they toasted him in his absence. But despite the warmth of the afternoon and the extreme pleasure of the company, Simon drank very moderately, and saw that Miri did the same. Without discussing it, they kept the conversation to pleasant subjects. Qina and her father sang a Qanuc song about a clever snow rabbit outwitting a fox, and the girl acted out the part of the rabbit with such shrewd charm that everyone laughed.
When they had finished eating, Sisqi rose and signaled her daughter to come with her.
“The meal was good,” Sisqi said. “Now we go, but first we say our thanking.”
“Where are you off to?” Miri asked.
“They are off to find Little Snenneq,” Binabik said. “Qina is convinced that her young man is not receiving enough nourishment, and she wishes to take him some of what we ate for our luncheon.”
Simon, thinking of the stout young troll, who despite his short stature was wider than the king himself, could only chuckle. “Very sensible,” was all he said out loud, but Binabik saw his look and smiled.
“You will be understanding the pity we show him,” said his friend, “in memory of another young man lost in strange lands who also was being always hungry.”
“I still sometimes dream of those pigeons you roasted for me when we first met in the woods,” Simon admitted. “I think those were the finest things I’ve ever eaten.”
“No better sauce there is being than hunger.”
When mother and daughter had gone, Miri and Simon looked at each other, then at the three who remained, Binabik, Eolair, and Tiamak.
“You are not just our oldest friends,” Simon said. “But more important, you were with us in the Storm King’s War. You all know we’ve seen many strange signs of late—Lady Alva’s Norn and Sithi corpses, the Norns and their tame giant far to the south of their usual haunts. And an envoy to us from the Sithi, after all these years, ambushed in our own Kynswood.”
“Don’t forget the message from this Jarnulf man traveling with the Norns,” his wife said. “He says the Norn Queen is awake, and that she seeks a witchwood crown.”
“I think we all take the threat of trouble from the Norns seriously, Majesties,” said Eolair. “But remember, Isgrimnur said he thought very few of them were left when he besieged Nakkiga, and they are slow to breed, like the Sithi. Still, I have dispatched messages to our allies to prepare against the possibility of war—but quietly, for now. It is the border forts that are most important, to protect us, but even more importantly, to let us know of any attack from the north as quickly as possible.”
They discussed how to get more soldiers into the Frostmarch forts without causing an alarm, and about establishing a more trustworthy system of sending and receiving messages.
“I will inform Sir Zakiel, Majesties,” Eolair said when they had done. “The arrangements can be underway by tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Simon. “Then, Tiamak, perhaps you can tell us whether you have learned anything new about the message on the arrow. Do you know yet whether this Jarnulf fellow is in fact some relative of Jarnauga’s, or what he means by the Witchwood Crown?”
Tiamak shook his head. “About Jarnulf we have nothing to tell you. Binabik and I have studied everything we can find here in the Hayholt, and he is mentioned in no Scrollbearer’s letters. There is also no mention in letters or books of any witchwood crown. The nobleman Cais Sterna of Nabban, who visited old Asu’a in the days the Sithi still ruled there, said that the fairy rulers wore crowns that, though beautifully carved, were made of ordinary birchwood.”
“Is there anyone else who might know?” Simon asked. “Mother Church must have lots of books. And you mentioned Scrollbearers. Is there still a League?”
“Of sorts,” said Tiamak, frowning. “Binabik and I, of course, and Josua—if he yet lives. Gelo? once was offered a place, but she suggested we give it instead to Faiera of Perdruin. Gelo? never much liked to tie herself down to the things of men and women. She was happier in the forest, with her animals and birds.”
“Then what of this Lady Faiera?” asked Miriamele. “Now that you say her name I remember it, but I have not heard you speak of her in years.”