Anna von Wessen (43 page)

“You don’t believe a lot of things!” Vaya exclaimed. In her voice was sounded half a jest, and hidden half a frustration. “You believe I have always been good. I haven’t! You believe we have souls. Well – perhaps you do.”

Anna heard her utter a low laugh, and whisper very quietly, “But I surely don’t.”

“It has always been yours, Vaya,” Anna told her. “Even if you could not feel it.”

“I can’t feel it now.”

“You pretend you don’t.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it frightens you.”

“Frightens me! If ever it lived, Anna, it was many years ago. Now it lies dead in a grave. How silly it would be to fear dead things!” She paused; and then said, “Better to fear tomorrow.”

Now, you must remember, that all their lives both Anna and Vaya were the fiercest of warriors. They did not fear war. It was the losses of war, the casualties of it that worried them presently; for never before had they as much as they had now, to fear from its most grisly end.

So Anna thought for a little before she answered. Little did she believe she would say what she meant; and hardly could she believe that she had, once she did.

“The grave is no prison,” she murmured. “There’s not a grave that can hold the soul, because – that goes with Him.”

“With whom?”

“With God,” Anna answered simply.

“With God!”

“With God,” Anna said, “death is not the thing we have always thought it to be.”

“And who told you that, I wonder?”

“My father. But it’s the strangest thing – and I know you won’t believe me.” She swallowed thickly, and added, “I think I had known it already.”

Vaya was quiet.

“You think I’m mad?” Anna asked nervously.

Vaya pulled her closer, and kissed her face. “I believe anything you say,” she assured her. “Anything and everything. I just don’t quite understand.”

Anna turned her head towards the windows; but the light there was too bright, and she needed avert it again, almost immediately. Her hand on Vaya’s back was shaking slightly. She tried to still it, but not soon enough. Vaya raised herself up a little, and leant against her, to look down into the face which presently seemed unwilling to look into her own.

“I don’t know why I just said those things,” Anna mumbled. “I didn’t even think I believed them.”

“But you do now?” Vaya asked seriously.

“Yes.”

A single tear – warm at first, but cooling instantly as it tracked down the flesh which had once again grown cold as death – slipped from Anna’s eye. She wiped it angrily away, and nearly screamed for her aggravation.

“Damn these things,” she said loudly. “Damn it all! My face always wet – and my chest always throbbing! Oh, I hate it!
I hate it!”

A deep growl began to sound; but she quelled it before it flew from her mouth. The chill of her pallid skin vanished like ice will do, when exposed very suddenly to flame, as a rush of hot blood swelled through her.

“Give me – the Turin,” she choked.

“No,” said Vaya.

Anna looked to her wildly, and clutched at the breast of her thin gown, where she knew that the amulet lay.

“No,” Vaya repeated. “No Turin. Not tonight.”

“But – what if –”

It was becoming very hard for Anna to speak. Her hands continued to grope, and had even ripped the stitches of Vaya’s gown, before Vaya succeeded in securing them in her own.

“No,” she said simply. She came to lean over Anna again, and then sank down to press against her. She kissed her mouth, ran a hand through her hair, and down her neck.

“I think – you’re making it worse,” Anna whispered.

But she only felt the outline of Vaya’s smile, through her kiss. She did not seem much afraid. 

Episode VII

XLIII:

The Eve of Battle

O
n the third day of the countdown tracking the arrival of the opposing factions at Castle Drelho, the inhabitants of the Weld gathered together in the chapel, much as Dio had predicted they would. And, just as Xeros had commanded, Anna and Vaya were present for the whole of this session of prayer. Anna stood beside her father, and bowed her head as he did; and even Vaya’s own face was remarkably earnest, all the while the sea of whispering voices was flowing.

They adjourned when the time for departure came. As Xeros had promised, all the Weld was given the choice of whether they would fight or no – given the choice till the very last moment – but there was not a single Narkul beneath its stoney roof who opted otherwise than to march with him. It was decided, then, that all the house would divide into small squadrons, which would take multiple and separate routes towards the castle, so that their coming should be less likely to be noticed. Anna and Vaya would shift ahead, and scout the area round the castle, so that they might hurry back and warn the others if something were amiss.

And so it began. The humans of the fortress bade their friends many tearful goodbyes, and then took themselves off quickly. We say quickly, because they were somewhat disconcerted by the way the hungry Vaya had eyed them, all through the evening. Of course she felt very badly for this; but there was no one, surely, who could say that she had behaved any less honourably than she was able. 

The Narken began sorting themselves straightaway into their squadrons, and made ready to issue from the fortress by several different exits. Nessa had gone on already with Cassandra MacAdam, so as to hide the latter away for safekeeping. She would set out with Balkyr’s house, then, which was to attempt to arrive at the castle round about the same time as did the Weld, to coordinate their first attack.

Vaya nodded to Xeros, and Anna kissed her father, as the rushing tide swept on its path; and when there was nothing more to do or say, they shifted away, and found themselves once again (with no little displeasure or discomfort on their own parts) in the thick forest which surrounded Drelho: Anna in her Narkul form, and Vaya clad in a suit of chainmail which had been her own all those years ago, and which had been passed down from King to King of the Weld, by order of Krestyin’s last will and testament.

They stood for a moment looking about them. Vaya was standing very still, and wobbling slightly from side to side.

You’re all right?
Anna asked her.

Vaya made no answer, but only smiled sickly, and pressed a hand to her rumbling stomach. She had taken supper with Anna that very day – and had eaten, too, just as much as Anna did eat – but for her the food was already burnt away. It was not what the body wanted, and it would not do. She was weak, and weary; but she would not yield when Anna begged her to stay behind; and there was terrible battle stretched far as her eye could see.

~

While Anna and Vaya drew back into the denser forest, to await the arrival of their wolfen comrades, quite a hubbub was overtaking the interior of the castle – whose face, no doubt, betrayed nothing at all of the frazzled nature of its clockwork.

Much to the ignorance of the wolves, all of Black Manor and Night House, as well as some members of the larger English houses, were already gathered inside Drelho. All of Night House, that was – save for those whom Ephram had mentioned, that night in Vaya’s chamber, while Anna was locked in the dungeons. These were the ones who “whispered regularly into Balkyr’s ear,” and who did not desire the war they had worked (or perhaps only sneaked) so long to avoid. And where had they gone? Well, surely they could have no more place with Koro, after such a show of cowardliness and betrayal.

But anyway. Ephram had suspected for a while, you see (had done so even more, after he learnt the shocking truth about Anna; though really the line drawn between was unjust, as Anna had never had anything at all to do with it) that there were Weldon agents inside his castle. How this could be, he had no idea. He knew only that it was.

His first inclination, of course, was to kill the servants. But then he had another idea. Why not use them to his own advantage? If he thought rightly (and he had hardly any doubt that he did), then surely any message he let slip past the ears of the servants, would find its way whole to the ears of King Xeros. Therefore he spread a lie concerning the date of Koro’s arrival; gave the thing time enough to fly whither it would; and then bound and locked the servants so very tightly, they could not ever dream of escaping, even were the castle burning down to cinders, and their very survival depended upon their ability to break free. In this way, the castle was filled and guarded to the utmost (with its population brimming at more than fifteen thousand), entire days before Anna and Vaya came to its forest.

Now, Ephram had called to all the Kings and Queens of the Night Council, whom we designated before as “definite constituents” of his army in times of need. But, in spite of their earlier strong passion for war with the Narken, none had come save Abrast. His Ria refused to join him; and all her foreign comrades were just as craven. It is not certain whether they were afraid of the Narken themselves, whose strength they had pretended always to scorn. Perhaps (and this is more likely) they feared the legend of war that was Vaya Eleria, and favoured no loyalty to the Council so much as they did their own heads. Or perhaps – and this, when something combined with the second probability, is most likely – it was Anna von Wessen they feared: the half-Lumarian, half-Narkul whose might was sought by no less than Wolach himself. Whatever the true and full reasons, they were “cowardy custards” enough, the lot of them! We asked where the absent of Night House could have gone; and it seems plausible enough that they were doing nothing less, at present, than making merry in the halls of Eirich, Devin, Ursula and Ria.

So all these had stayed away for their lack of courage. And really, Abrast was no different. He fought daily, it is true, against the forces of both Wolach and Trydon; but he was no more present at Drelho due to his own bravery, than a robber is present at the scene of his looting for the nobility of his own trade. The fact of the matter was that, though he feared Vaya to the utmost, he bore a painful embarrassment in relation to her which would not admit for his failing to attempt, at the very least, to kill her. She said once that he had used to fawn at her feet – and this, to be sure, was an understatement. Quite as much in awe of her as was everyone else in those times (probably even more so), he had once entertained the very fondest hopes of marrying her. There was no one who did not know it. And then, when her traitorous habits were discovered – well, you can imagine how very chagrined he (one of the foremost and mightiest Kings of the Night Council) was. Chagrined! The word is not strong enough. His shame was of a mortal degree. Therefore his present purpose at Drelho had naught at all to do with his hatred for the Narken, but rather with a more deep-rooted loathing for the one with whom he was still (it cannot but be said) strangely infatuated. For it can only be admitted, that for him Ria was a poor substitute.

Ah! If only the business of psychiatry were a practised one among the Lumaria! Doubtless it would be a very thriving one, too.

The very moment, then, that Anna and Vaya huddled down outside the castle, Ephram was presiding over a crowd which had gathered inside the royal chamber. In chairs round his throne sat Koro, Abrast and Josev. Before him were spread a goodly number of the Lumaria who were present inside Drelho.

“There is no doubt that our message has reached them,” said Ephram; and his voice rang out over all those many heads, and reverberated between the stone walls. “The Weld will come within the next two days. Vaya Eleria will come. Anna von Wessen will come.”

Of course they knew, too, all about the approach of Byron Evigan. We mean him no slight, be assured; but it was as Leventh had said, and he was a very,
very
stupid fellow. It was no old ally who had come to tell him of Koro, but merely a member of Drelho who had lived some days now in the most prized position of Ephram’s cloak pocket. Ephram and Koro knew of the steward’s plans with the wild Lumaria, almost directly they were made. They knew he would come in two days. They believed that the Weld would come first.

With all this going on, however, none of them had much thought to spare for Wolach. Therefore
his
coming was something of a secret to them; and would be something of a surprise, when finally he arrived.

~

At that moment, too, Wolach was marching. He moved swiftly; though not so swiftly as the Weld. He brought with him only a fraction of his massive army, for of course he could not leave his own borders unprotected for the sake of his treasure hunt, and neither could he hope (even if he were crazed enough to attempt it, which he nearly was) to pass through the lands unseen, with a tail of more than a million soldiers at his back.  

Yet he was confident in his own victory. So confident was he, that he came from the direction of his own homeland; the direction from which everyone had expected him to come, and the one Vaya had verified with her reconnaissance. He had not fear enough to organise a surprise attack. He was on his way from Hungary, where Vaya had earlier spotted him, and where he had been in the works of persuading a renowned house of Narken to join him in the march to Drelho. Even now they were following behind him, as mere shadows of the night which passed in and out of the hollow places like ghosts – and with their numbers, his force was pushed to nearly ten thousand.

But it was as Leventh had suspected, and he knew nothing of Anna’s escape from Drelho; knew nothing of the Lumaria there assembled; knew nothing of the Weld’s intention to lay siege. He knew nothing, either, of Byron Evigan. Such a silly creature as the steward had surely never factored into the drawing of his plot. So he was much surprised indeed, when he met with that fellow’s army at the border of Germany. For someone who claimed to know all, it seemed he was awfully uninformed. 

But as for the steward. He had paused with his wild cohorts to take humans from a nearby town; and as Wolach drew near, he caught the scent of the Lumaria there. When he came across them, sacking houses (and children’s beds) for their supper, he set upon them immediately, and it was not very long at all before Byron was killed. His forces fled immediately to the winds, wanting nothing more to do with the battle, now that the steward was unable to fulfill his promises. 

So, immensely pleased with this small conquest, Wolach went forth again towards Drelho. He was so bent on his purpose, that he hardly stopped to think of what the steward’s presence could have meant, so near to his own in the wilderness, and coupled with the assembly of a great host of wild Lumaria. He had known, of course, that the steward absconded from Drelho after Ephram’s succession to the throne. Probably he only thought, then, that if the steward
was
marching to Drelho (he had not delayed slaying him quite long enough to find out) it was only for his own selfish reasons. It is a marvel, really, how a ruler of whole countries could prove so very dense. But bloodlust (and carnal lust as well, for that matter) is a powerful drug. So Wolach merely pressed on, dreaming every moment of taking Anna von Wessen for himself, just before he tore out her throat.