empress of storms (24 page)

Pelas flicked long fingers in a languid wave. “Oh, yes, that was the decision that was passed down.”

A very subtle word choice, admitting that the council had cleared her of wrongdoing without committing himself to that decision. Danaë forced her attention back to her accuser. “I hope that answers your question, citizen.”

The man bowed jerkily, then scuttled off. Conversation started up again, but now there were sideways glances towards her, both from her guests and the commoners. Using every bit of her training, Danaë forced herself to be a charming hostess, rising at the end to hand out gold coins to the onlookers still hovering around the hall’s periphery. Most of them accepted the largesse with bows and words of thanks, but here and there she saw doubt in a weaver or a housewife’s eyes.
Did you kill your father? Would you do something like that?

And if you would, what else would you be willing to do?

By the time she was able to flee up to her chambers her face ached from the strain of maintaining a pleasant expression. Stalking past a startled Flavia, she went to her balcony and threw the doors open, clenching her fists on the stone balustrade as she stared at the sea below. 

I want to drown him in the middle of a room. I could desiccate his very bones, turn him into an Illian mummy. Or I could run a spear through his filthy, lying gut.

“My queen?” Flavia bustled onto the balcony, concerned. “What happened?”

Danaë hunched her shoulders. “The whispering isn’t confined to the nobles anymore. A citizen spoke up during the feast. He said there’d been talk of me casting spells on the sea the day Father died. Akrolos covered for me, but—” She shook her head. “Damn Pelas. He has me fighting fog. I don’t know what to do.”

“Speak with Magistra Ife,” Flavia urged. “She returned from the library an hour ago and asked to speak with you after the feast. Maybe she can come up with a way to spike Pelas as well.”

Danaë rubbed the skin on her forehead where her diadem had chafed. “Is she in her rooms?”

The answer was yes. She found the Ghobian mage in a pretty set of rooms down the hall from the royal family apartments. Ife looked up from a thick tome, eyes alight.

“We had it wrong,” she said, holding her place in the book with one finger. “The Tsinti seer said ‘a road of dawn,’ but I believe what she meant was ‘morning road.’ No wonder I didn’t recognize it.”

“So you know what it means,” Danaë said, taking a seat in one of the room’s upholstered chairs.

“Yes. The Morning Road spell creates a path between two mirrors. You could put one mirror in Ghobos and one here, and cross the continent with one step after casting the Morning Road.”

“I’ve never even heard of it.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s a very old spell, and difficult to perform. Only experienced magisters would think to attempt it. But if the seer is right we’ll need to cast it at some point.”

“Can you do that?”

Now Ife looked determined. “Yes. That being said, I may need your assistance to cast the spell. We’ll need to get the adept’s band off your wrist as soon as possible.”

“Good luck with that,” Danaë said through her teeth.

“Why?” The mage frowned, eyes narrowing. “What happened?”

Danaë explained the events in the banquet hall and Pelas’s sly reaction. Ife leaned back in her chair, one finger across her lips. After a long moment she shook her head. “I suppose there’s no other option, then. I’ll have to have a talk with him.”

“Magistra, I mean no offense, but Pelas is a grand magister and you’re…” Danaë trailed off, swallowing the observation that Ife was a low-level mage. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said instead. “And Pelas will find a way to hurt you if you try and protect me.”

Her interim tutor’s smile was kind, but there was a glint in Ife’s eyes that was far more warlike. “I appreciate your concern, my dear. But you need to have that band off your wrist. If your grand magister isn’t willing to play fair on his own, then someone will have to talk some sense into him.” She tapped one long finger on the table. “Now, be a good girl and fetch me something to write with. I need to compose a letter.”

****

Matthias stood at the bow of the
Aegis
, wind tugging at his hair as the ship cut through the waves. Andros hadn’t seemed surprised at his queen’s request for immediate departure the day before, guiding the royal trireme out of the harbor within the hour.

A harried Mohrs had muttered imprecations about the state of the royal laundry, but managed to produce clean clothes for the next day before retiring to a cabin. Matthias spent the rest of the night trying to get comfortable in the royal cabin’s berth, imagining he could still smell Danaë’s perfume on the bedding.
Forgive me for leaving you, little bird. But my mind won’t rest easy until I know whether or not Lukas is at this abbey.

He rose with the ship’s bells, eating a plain breakfast of bread and cheese while watching the sea hiss by. “This island, Atredes,” he now said to the captain of the Hellene royal guard, “tell me about it.”

Kostas nodded. “It is a small island, majesty, sparsely populated,” he said. “Its main settlement is the Abbey of Lis, which serves the bulk of the smaller islands east of the archipelago.”

“Is the abbey a purely religious retreat?”

“No. It also serves as a hospital for fishermen, sailors, and other sea folk. The monks consider it a holy duty to tend to their illnesses.”

An ideal place for a wounded, half-mad man to wind up. “How good are the monks at healing?” Matthias asked.

“Very good, majesty. Of course, they have their limits. But the abbey is well-respected among Hellenes, and the abbot is thought to be a very wise man.”

Matthias noted that Kostas didn’t call the abbot a holy man. That reassured him. In his experience the higher the religious leader went, the more agnostic they became. “Will he object to a Ypresian landing there?”

Kostas’s mustache twitched. “You are now the queen’s consort, majesty, which makes you Hellene in our eyes. I can’t see the abbot objecting to your presence. Although he might suggest that a donation to the abbey wouldn’t go amiss.”

The captain’s prediction turned out to be correct when the trireme closed in on the tiny island of Atredes after dawn, pulling into an even tinier harbor. The abbey of Lis has been built on the crest of the island and was a collection of white stone outbuildings arranged around a colonnaded structure with a simple peaked roof. 

The monks working the harbor recognized Kostas, summoning a cart to ferry them up the hill to the abbey. The edges of the winding road had been kept free of brush and other hazards, but the rest of the island boasted lush greenery. Matthias spotted a number of olive groves heavy with gray-green fruit before the cart pulled into a well-tended courtyard.

A short man with a hairless pate and sharp, amused eyes waited there, his off-white tunic stained here and there with smudges of dirt. “Your majesty,” he said as Matthias got out of the cart, “this is a most unexpected pleasure. I am Abbot Demetrios. Forgive my appearance—I was working in the garden when I heard of your arrival.”

Matthias gave him a respectful nod. “I see news travels fast.”

“It’s a small island,” Demetrios said. “News can’t help but travel fast. How can I be of service to you?”

“It was my understanding that a badly wounded Ypresian man was brought here about a year ago, your grace.” Matthias steeled himself. “Is he still alive? And if he is, may I speak with him?”

The abbot’s expression turned thoughtful. “Brother Jonas is indeed alive, thanks be to the gods and the timely intervention of Brother Spiros. As to whether you may speak with him, you may do so if he wishes it. But if he does not, I will not press him on it.”

Matthias clenched his teeth, but nodded. Demetrios disappeared into the abbey while a waiting monk showed Kostas and him to a small, whitewashed room. Matthias turned down an offer of bread and olives, preferring to pace the confines of the room while Kostas took up a parade rest stance next to the door.

A bemused Demetrios soon returned. “Brother Jonas has agreed to speak with you,” he said.

“Good.”

“On one condition.”

“And that is?”

“That you do not attempt to remove him from the abbey or the island. He has already stated that he intends to take holy orders with us, and I will not have his vocation impeded. Do you agree to this condition, majesty?”

For a moment Matthias regretted leaving Schrader back in Hellaspont. He thought about ordering Kostas to help him, but the expression on the captain’s face indicated that he would be a very reluctant participant in a forced removal. “I do.”

“Very well.” Demetrios gestured for them to follow him down through a maze-like set of corridors. At the end of them was doorway that led into a walled garden, presumably the same one where the abbot had been working before their arrival.

The space was empty except for one white-robed figure kneeling in the dirt, hands working along the rows of plants. The monk was bald like all the rest of his brethren, but Matthias could see pink and red scars striping the curve of his skull as if some creature had attacked him from above.

He gestured for Spiros to stay in the doorway and stepped onto the soft soil, each step muffled in the dirt until he stood behind the gardening monk. After so long, he wasn’t sure what he felt, if he wanted this man far from home to be his son or not. “Brother Jonas?”

The monk raised his head, then twisted to face him. For a moment Matthias wished he hadn’t. The man’s face was a ruin of scars and gouges, one going directly over his left eye. The eye socket gaped empty, another wound among so many.

But the other eye was hazel brown, and as familiar as his own. It blinked, sable lashes a brief flash of beauty in that ruined face.

“Hello, Father,” said Lukas.

10

LUKAS 

“So it is you,” Matthias said. He’d expected to face the hale, healthy form of his son, not this battered wreck. “How long have you been here?”

“Didn’t the custom officer at Armede tell you?” Lukas’s scarred mouth quirked. “That is how you found me, isn’t it?”

“Yes, once we thought to expand the search guidelines.”

“Mm.” Lukas’s good eye blinked slowly. “Of course. You would have come through Armede on your way to Hellaspont for the wedding. I hope Danaë wasn’t too angry that I’d abandoned her.”

Matthias stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“No. You want to talk about why I’ve been gone for so long.” Lukas dusted his hands together to brush off the dirt and Matthias saw more ragged scars, the bulk of them on his son’s palms. Defensive wounds.

Lukas got to his feet with a small groan, one hand going to the small of his back. His form was frail under the white tunic, the muscles he’d developed over years of horse riding and weapons training gone for the most part. “There’s a bench at the back of the garden. We can talk there.” He glanced back at the doorway opening onto the garden and the watchful form of Kostas there. “You can bring your guard if you like, but I assure you no harm will come to you here.”

Matthias weighed his son’s words. He doubted Lukas could pose any physical danger in his current state. Not looking back, he called, “Captain Kostas, we’ll be at the bottom of the garden. Please stay there unless I call for you.”

“Aye, your majesty.”

He heard the reluctance in the man’s voice, but nodded to Lukas. “After you.”

****

Danaë sat at the desk in her audience room, puzzling over the preparations Ife was making. The mage bustled around the room, having guards move certain pieces of furniture, pausing now and then to judge the arrangement. Danaë didn’t recognize the arrangement as a magical circle or other surrounding shape, but the mage seemed very intent on arranging the rooms furniture to her satisfaction.

Another oddity had been Ife’s insistence that Luna and Flavia attend. Danaë was scheduled to review a selection of suitable nursemaids that afternoon, but in the interim Flavia had volunteered to continue looking after the child, delegating her ladies’ maid duties to an experienced chambermaid.

Now she walked over to the desk, holding little Luna by the hand as the child toddled alongside her. “What’s the magistra up to, mistress?” she asked in a whisper.

“I’m not sure myself,” Danaë said, resting her chin on a hand. 

Finally satisfied with her work, Ife nodded and told the guards to go.

“That should do,” she said, coming to the desk. “When did your grand magister say he’d be arriving?”

Danaë considered the light outside. Judging by the shortness of the shadows it was going on midday. “Some time after lunch. I still don’t understand how you got him to agree to come to the palace for this.”

“I have my ways,” Ife said serenely, bending over and tickling Luna under the chin. The child chortled. She’d been persuaded to give up Darius’s chain, but it had required the substitution of a thick golden rope chain from Danaë’s jewelry box. “Of course, he’ll be late enough to be rude.”

“Of course,” Danaë agreed.

As it turned out the magistra was correct. It wasn’t until a full hour had passed that a guard appeared at the door. “Your majesty?” he said. “Grand Magister Pelas is here to see you.”

“Send him in,” Danaë said, sitting up straight in her chair.

The grand magister of Hellas swept into the room, head high in triumph. Danaë noted his tailored tunic and chlamys were in muted tones of a blue that teetered on the edge of purple without straying over into the color reserved for royalty. It was a carefully chosen comment on his proximity to the throne.
Dear gods, does he think I’m going to take him to bed right before my wedding? What did Ife say to him, dammit?

“Your majesty,” Pelas said, giving her a brief but polite bow. His gaze swept over her, lingering on her breasts. “You wished to see me?”

She resisted the urge to fling the ink pot in his face. “I did. I have decided that I would like to sit my adept’s test, grand magister,” she said evenly. “How soon can we arrange that?”