The Fifth Sorceress, page 23
‘The orders I am about to give you are very specific, and must be followed to the letter,’ he said sternly. ‘Order your men to cut the carcass into at least a dozen pieces, and then bury each piece in its own hole, each at least thirty feet apart from the others and no less than fifteen feet deep. Cart the pieces of the carcass at least one full league away from the city before digging the holes. And the entire process must be completed before nightfall. Do you understand?’ His eyes were unflinching.
‘Yes, Lead Wizard,’ Frederick said dutifully. Inching closer to the wizard and lowering his voice, he asked, ‘But why must we take such precautions? Isn’t it already dead?’
‘Screaming harpies have been known to regain life, even if dismembered, and especially if the various body parts were few and were laid to rest near each other.’ The infamous eyebrow came up like a weapon. ‘You don’t want to have to relive this little episode, do you, Commander?’
‘No, of course not, Lead Wizard,’ Frederick blurted, more than a little surprised. ‘All shall be done as you order.’ He turned on his heel and began to give a few of his troops the orders, as others of them began to lay sheets over the bodies of the dead soldiers.
‘A good man,’ Wigg said to himself after the prince’s brother-in-law had walked away. ‘But he limits his imagination to only what he sees before him on a daily basis, instead of allowing for the possibility of whatever his mind can conceive.’
As Tristan turned to start back to the palace, he was surprised to see his father and the five remaining wizards of the Directorate standing before him.
‘I have never seen you throw one of those before, Tristan,’ Nicholas said with no small amount of pride in his voice. ‘You are very good at it.’ He turned his attention to the Lead Wizard. ‘Perhaps if we returned to the palace, you and the other wizards could explain to me just what it is that has happened here,’ he said rather sternly. ‘I think we need to talk.’
He once again addressed the prince. ‘And as for you, Tristan,’ he said, ‘as soon as you’ve had a chance to clean up and change your clothes, your attendance is required before the queen.’ He leaned closer, smiling. ‘Don’t worry; you’re not in trouble, for once. She simply has not had an opportunity to see you much in the last few days, and would like to take tea with you and your sister this afternoon.’
Tristan hated taking tea, and his father knew it. When he started to open his mouth in protest, the king immediately cut him off with a wave of his hand. ‘You’re going,’ he said, smiling with mock ferociousness.
Tristan, his father, and the Directorate all turned away from the grisly job that the soldiers were now performing upon the screaming harpy and began to walk back to the palace.
She reached up and moved an errant gray thread of wool a bit more to the right. It had been placed in the wrong spot, she could now see, and needed to be farther away from the shadowed area she was trying to create. This one would do well in the king’s private bedchamber, she thought as one of her five handmaidens handed her more of the thick yarn. The equestrian theme suits him, and since he has never seen this particular tapestry it will come as a surprise.
Queen Morganna of the House of Galland stood up from her velvet upholstered sitting chair and walked away from the large, rectangular loom that was before her. She needed to gain the perspective that sitting before the loom and doing the actual act of creating the tapestry always denied her.
She turned to the plump, elderly woman on her right who had faithfully served as her senior handmaiden for the last thirty years. ‘What do you think, Marlene?’ she asked. ‘Is it too dark?’
Standing beside her queen, Marlene could see the faults in the work. ‘Perhaps a bit too much so around the area of the horse’s head, Your Highness,’ she replied earnestly. ‘Other than that I think it is a fine piece, as usual.’
‘And you, Shailiha, do you also agree?’ the queen asked. Shailiha stood next to her, observing the tapestry and gently gliding her hand across her swollen abdomen in what had become an automatic gesture of maternal love. I shall soon be a grandmother, Morganna thought with pride. And perhaps someday Tristan will put aside his capricious ways and add to our family some children of his own. But then a darker thought began to invade her mind, and she tried her best not to let it show through. Provided the fears of the wizards do not come to pass, as they have warned my husband, she thought.
‘Yes.’ Shailiha smiled back. ‘Too dark. But I think you already knew that, didn’t you, Mother?’ she answered playfully.
‘Yes,’ the queen answered softly. ‘I suppose so.’
Queen Morganna had spent the greater part of this afternoon doing two of the things that gave her the most joy: creating tapestries and spending time with her daughter.
Morganna had learned the secrets of the great weaving looms long ago from her now-departed mother and aunts, before she had met Nicholas and was still a peasant. Some at court thought it a waste of such an important person’s time, but no one could deny that she had talent. The various tapestries she had created over the years hung in many of the rooms of the palace and were also sometimes auctioned off at great balls, the money used to support the several orphanages in Eutracia. But this one was special. It was to be a gift to her husband.
And then the screaming harpy had come.
After hearing about the death of the harpy and the part Tristan had played in it she had felt a sudden, compelling urge to see him, and to know he was well. She had therefore requested that the king summon him to her earlier than she had first planned, to take tea with her and Shailiha. She smiled. It was just the kind of thing that Tristan so hated.
As if preordained for this very moment, the soft knock at the door came once, then twice.
‘Enter,’ she said simply, her eyes still grazing across the field of the cloth mural.
A uniformed member of the Guard, one of two who were always stationed just outside her door wherever she might be, entered the room and bowed. ‘Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but the prince is outside the door, and says that you called for him.’
‘Thank you, Jeffrey. Show him in,’ she said. Turning to her five handmaidens, she said, ‘You are all dismissed for the afternoon.’ Smiling at Marlene in particular, she added, ‘I shan’t put you through any more of my artistic ramblings today.’
‘As you wish, Your Highness,’ Marlene said as she began to shoo the reluctant ladies from the room. Joining the queen in her quiet time was always one of the best ways to catch up on the palace gossip, and the very subject of that gossip was about to enter the room. None of them, including Marlene, really wanted to leave.
The senior handmaiden leaned in toward the queen, a knowing smile on her face. ‘You realize, of course, the position you now put me in,’ she said teasingly. ‘For the next two days they will all hound me mercilessly for any news of the prince that might come my way.’
Morganna smiled back at her friend and confidante of so many years. ‘He has been so busy getting into trouble lately, I wouldn’t know where to begin even if I chose to tell you.’
Marlene winked knowingly and curtsied, then turned to hustle the remaining handmaidens out of the room like a mother hen trying to retain control of her wandering brood of chicks. They all curtsied as they passed the prince, and the queen watched her son bow to them and smile courteously. The younger of the handmaidens twittered and blushed. Morganna shook her head and raised a knowing eyebrow at Shailiha. It was always the same.
Despite his choice in clothing and the fact that he was again dirty from head to toe, the queen smiled with pride. Regardless of his recent misbehavior, she loved this one more than her life. Shailiha had always been the stable one, the obedient one, the respectful one, but Tristan had always been her favorite, right or wrong. Over the last two days he seemed to have developed a more mature and commanding demeanor, and after hearing about his adventures, she knew why.
She walked up and embraced him, kissing him upon his right cheek.
‘Sit down, Tristan,’ she said, ‘and I will have some tea sent in.’ She motioned him to a small but elegant sitting area that faced two very large, open, stained-glass windows, from which could be seen the Eutracian countryside.
Before sitting down, Tristan reached up to her cheek and used the underside of his thumb to wipe away a small smudge that he had left there. He had rushed to change and wash – he must have missed some dirt on his cheek. ‘The queen mustn’t be seen like this,’ he said, smiling into the eyes he loved so much. ‘The palace wags will talk. And given the fact that I have already supplied them with so much lately to talk about, let’s not give them any more.’
He turned to Shailiha with a look that he hoped would garner him some sympathy, but his sister simply smiled back cattily, enjoying his discomfort. He playfully narrowed his eyes. ‘I suppose you’re here because you want to be,’ he whispered. ‘As for me, I’d rather face one of Wigg’s interminable lectures in the Wizards’ Conservatory than take tea, even if it is with the two of you.’
Morganna, her attention once again upon the tapestry, said, ‘Why don’t the two of you go out on the balcony? I shall join you when the tea arrives. Besides, I want to get this dark area repaired, before I lose the light.’
Tristan, with his sister in tow, begrudgingly walked to the stained-glass balcony doors and opened them wide. After watching his sister gently lower herself into one of the high-backed upholstered chairs, he sat in one next to her, crossed his long legs, and looked out to the tranquil scene below.
Still looking out over the balcony, he whispered, ‘Are you going to tell me, or shall I have to command one of the wizards to torture it out of you?’
Shailiha looked over to his sharp profile to find a look of playful nastiness on his face.
‘Tell you what?’ she asked. She bit her upper lip to keep from smiling, obviously having trouble controlling either the urge to reveal a secret or her enjoyment of his discomfort, or both. The prince thought it was both.
Behind him, he heard his mother call for Jeffrey.
‘Yes, Your Highness?’ the guard asked.
‘Please send for tea and scones for three,’ she said simply.
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ the short reply came.
‘I really don’t want any tea, Mother,’ the prince said over his shoulder in his most apologetic manner. Tristan hated the idea of taking tea, of sitting around holding dainty china in the air while eating with the points of his teeth and pretending to be polite to the kinds of people who generally attended such things – even if those people were, in this case, only his sister and mother.
‘Then don’t drink any,’ the queen called with a laugh. ‘Besides, the reason I asked for the two of you to meet me in private wasn’t really about having tea.’
Tristan felt something inside of him slip a little. I’m probably due for another of their talks regarding the last couple of days, he reflected glumly. What could my mother say to me that all of the others already have not? He sat patiently next to his teasing sister for as long as he could without saying anything more, but eventually he simply had to ask.
‘You know why we’re here, don’t you?’ He looked conspiratorially into Shailiha’s eyes, begging for a clue.
Shailiha’s expression changed slightly, from one of mischief to one of affection. ‘Yes,’ she whispered back. ‘I never could keep a secret from you, and you know it. I do indeed know why we are here, but that is for Mother to say, not me.’ She cast her eyes down and rubbed her hand across her unborn. Suddenly, her hazel eyes flew open.
‘What’s wrong?’ Tristan asked quickly.
‘Nothing, really.’ Shailiha smiled. ‘She just kicked. She has been doing rather a lot of that lately.’
‘She?’ Tristan asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Shailiha said softly. ‘My baby is a girl. I just know it. Don’t ask me how, but for some time I have sensed that it will be a girl, with blond hair like mother and me. And green eyes like Frederick’s, of course.
‘Tristan,’ she then softly asked, looking a bit more seriously into his face. ‘Will you do me a favor?’
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Anything – you know that. I always have, and I always will.’
She reached out to take his hand, and before he could comment or pull it back she placed it lightly upon her abdomen, where hers had been only a moment before. As if Shailiha could command it, the baby kicked, and Tristan jumped back a little in surprise. I have never before felt life within another, he realized. Somehow it makes the fact that she is pregnant just that much more real.
‘I placed your hand there for a reason, brother,’ she said softly.
‘And that is?’
‘To show you that the consequences of one’s action have very real effects upon the lives of others, as Father tried in his own way to tell you in the room below the palace. I do not say these things simply to drive home the painful points that Father made before, but to tell you that I believe I am the only person in the world who truly understands you. I hope and pray with all of my heart that you will heed that which your family has told you.’ She smiled softly into his eyes as she searched her mind for the proper analogy. ‘This kingdom is about to become yours, and you must grasp it firmly, yet tenderly, the way a man would hold the woman he loves most, never letting her go.’
She has a special way about her, especially when it comes to loving and understanding me, he thought. She always has. He slowly removed his hand from her and smiled into the lovely face before him. My sister. My twin, and my best friend.
‘I will do my best, Shailiha,’ he said, fearing that his voice was about to crack. ‘For you, anything. Wherever you may go, whatever may happen. For you, anything.’
A knock came on the door, and after a greeting from the queen two liveried servants entered with a silver tray holding two pots of tea and a plate filled with scones. The queen thanked them, and they bowed and left the room. Morganna beckoned for her children to leave the balcony and rejoin her in her private quarters.
The queen poured herself a cup and tentatively tasted it, making sure it wasn’t too hot. ‘I understand you have been very busy lately,’ she said to Tristan as they each took a seat around the small table now loaded with tea and scones.
Tristan turned rather uncomfortably in his chair as he watched Shailiha bite her lip, trying to control an impending smile. He turned back to the queen. ‘If you are referring to the Caves, Mother, that wasn’t really my fault.’
‘The Caves?’ Morganna asked innocently. ‘No, your father has already told me all about that, and I leave the handling of such things to him and the Directorate.’ She smiled knowingly into his dark blue eyes. ‘I was referring to Evelyn of the House of Norcross.’
Tristan swallowed. Hard. He was certain that he must be blushing, but surely this couldn’t be the only reason she asked him here. Evelyn wasn’t the first of those his mother had known about. And he would rather face a thousand screaming harpies than have to discuss his private matters of the heart with either of his parents or his sister.
‘Don’t worry, Tristan. Your secret is safe with us,’ his mother said lightly, pressing one of her hands against his crimson cheek. She and Shailiha had always been more forgiving of the prince’s dalliances than had been Nicholas or the Directorate – after all, they were women and could better understand the effects he had on so many of the young ladies of the realm. And she could tell that his heart was breaking at the thought of becoming king, and then a wizard of the Directorate. There was so little about any of it she could do.
‘I also heard about the harpy. Are you sure you are all right?’ She glanced over at his shoulder, thinking of the knives he so often carried there. ‘Your father says you are very good with those knives of yours,’ she said encouragingly. ‘I think he now better understands why you carry them.’
Tristan shrugged. ‘It was really Wigg who killed it,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘I just did what I could.’ He watched while she took another sip of tea. ‘Mother, is there a special reason you asked me here today?’ he asked.
Morganna smiled to herself, once again reminded that the man sitting before her was not only her son, but also a very special person, indeed. She rose and walked a short way over to a mahogany writing desk that sat against the opposite wall. Opening the top drawer, she took out a velvet-covered box. She returned to her chair and held the small box in her lap with both hands.
‘This was to be a gift to you from your father, your sister, and me after your coronation as king,’ she began quietly, ‘but we have decided to give it to you now, instead. Your father wanted to be here, but many important affairs have commanded so much of his attention of late that Shailiha and I decided we would present it to you ourselves.’ She handed him the box and, smiling, sat back in her chair.
Tristan took the box from his mother and slowly opened the lid.
What he saw took his breath away, and he could feel his eyes begin to tear.
Inside the box was a piece of gold jewelry on a gold rope chain. But not just any jewelry. Hanging from the chain was a small medallion, and engraved upon it was a broadsword with a fancy hilt, superimposed with a roaring lion. The heraldry of the House of Galland, the same as appeared upon breastplates of the Royal Guard. He took it from the box and held it before him as he watched it turn in the light. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
Morganna could tell instantly that he was pleased. ‘We had it made for you last month, as we knew the time of your father’s abdication was coming near. Please wear this with the Paragon, which will be placed around your neck that day, as a token of the love of your family.’ She blinked back the tears that threatened when she thought about what she could not tell him. How do I tell my son that I must give this to him now, because of what the wizards have told us? That if we do not show our love for our children now, we may soon never be able to again?
