Return of the Guardian-King (40 page)

Ronesca stood before the study’s open window fanning herself. Her dark hair was coiled in a long braid atop her head, a halo of flyway wisps around it giving her an uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. Her untidiness was accentuated by the unfastened collar of her blue linen gown and the sheen of sweat on her flushed face. Which struck Maddie as odd, for the summer day was mild, if slightly humid. Perhaps Ronesca suffered from yet another of her spore-induced fevers.

Maddie welcomed the heat, actually, for it was better than having the mist overhead. Reports from Peregris said the Shadow mist had rolled in rapidly after Leyton’s capture and now hung thickly about the city, which daily was assaulted by Esurhite forces.

“So I suppose you’ve come to bargain for the release of your man,” Ronesca said abruptly.

Swiftly Maddie gathered her thoughts. “I hadn’t exactly thought to bargain, Your Majesty.”

Ronesca turned from the window. “Oh, come, Madeleine, you are shrewd in the ways of these things. Of course you did. Though I have to admit you haven’t much of a leg to stand on, the way you’ve constantly gone against me, stirring up all your Kiriathan friends with that silly song and now . . . well, now they grow sullen and surly because the promise hasn’t panned out.”

She was right. Two months had passed since she’d presented the song, and Abramm still hadn’t arrived. Every day that passed, her anxiety and agitation increased, and every night she went to bed praying that tomorrow he would come, or if not, that she’d dream of him and find some reassurance that the promise she’d been given at Abby’s birth was true. But neither came. Her friends’ excitement had turned to disappointment. Their confident proclamations of Abramm’s returning to repay Leyton for his treachery had been replaced by bitter recriminations toward Maddie for leading them on with her grief-inspired imaginings.

“So, all that uproar,” Ronesca said, “has been for nothing.”

“He’ll come.”

Ronesca snorted. “If he was in Obla the night of your little performance, shouldn’t he be here by now? It’s been two months, more than enough time to get downriver from Obla. Shouldn’t he have sent word by now? A pigeon? Or if not that, surely we’d have heard of it from others.”

Ronesca seemed tired, and a little . . . off. It was hard for Maddie to put her finger on what was wrong. She was too pale, for one. And she had a strange smell, somewhat acidic. From time to time tremors shook her, and there was something different about her eyes. The way she focused . . . or . . . didn’t, exactly.

“The amber is not time specific. It could have shown me the future.”

“But you didn’t think it was future. You thought it was present. You thought he would be here by now, didn’t you? Or at least that word would have spread.”

Maddie sighed and admitted she had indeed believed that.

Ronesca pursed her small lips and nodded smugly, continuing to fan herself. After a few moments she said, “You know, you have to consider it may well be a result of the spore that was in your father. We were both exposed, and I will confess to you, I’ve had my share of nightmares and strange visions. Often when I’m praying now, Leyton will stand before me. Or one of my sons. Pleading with me to rescue them . . .”

“My visions are not from the spore, ma’am. I had them before I was exposed.”

“Spore, grief, the duress of childbirth . . .”

“It was none of those.”

Ronesca looked round at Maddie, her expression oddly bland. “What
will
it take for you to admit and accept that he’s not coming back? Three years? Five years? Ten? How long, Madeleine, will you wait?”

Maddie said nothing.

Ronesca sighed and apparently decided to get down to business. “So you’ve come to get your man out of prison?”

“Yes.”

“And why should I grant you this boon, when all you’ve been is trouble to me?”

“He is ill, for one, with the spore. And for another . . .”

Maddie frowned, realizing she’d get nowhere trying to trade on how outrageous it was that a close friend of the First Daughter should have been treated as shoddily as Trap Meridon had. Better to appeal to something practical. “Madam, as you, yourself pointed out, the Kiriathans are growing restless. Talk of riots has come up more and more often. And they are not the only discontents in Fannath Rill these days. If they are not placated, they will draw the other foreigners to them, those who have their own gripes. It would be, overall, to your advantage to release him.”

The queen continued to fan herself and stare out the window, where the palm trees waved in the breeze, giving no sign she’d heard anything at all.

“Leyton would not have held him this long, you know,” Maddie added. “He only wanted him restrained long enough to get away with the regalia. Now that the plan has fallen to ruin there is no reason to keep Trap locked up.”

And still the woman sat, fanning herself and staring. Finally she sighed. “Very well. I’ll release him, but he is not to leave the city, and you will have legal responsibility to see he abides by that. I can put you in a prison too, you know. And would have every right to do so should you disobey my command.”

She went on. “Because of these limitations, he cannot be your finance secretary. You will have to find something else for him to do.”

“I’ll put him in charge of my guardsmen,” Maddie said.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of your having your own special guard.”

“The Kiriathans demand it. So does my station. I am queen of that land, despite your constant attempts to ignore that.”

“Queen of a land and people who despise you. Well, whatever you wish. You will have no more than six men in your guard.”

She stood there staring out the window and fanning herself. Then she sighed and collapsed into the chair. “I am so tired. It never ends. All the decisions. All the advice. All the terrible problems. No one agreeing. How am I to know what’s right?” She looked around at Maddie. “My generals want to launch another offensive. Want to try to break Leyton free. They’ve received some information. . . . I don’t know if it’s trustworthy. But . . .”

Maddie frowned. “Are you asking me, madam?”

“Yes.”

“I say do it. Don’t wait for the emissaries to come with their ultimatums. As they will, you know. Most likely within the month.”

“But if it means I might receive back my sons . . .”

“You will not receive back your sons from them. Nor Leyton. They have never once done it; they will not do it with you. They will only toy with you, woo you with honeyed words, then do whatever it is they’ve planned all along. No matter what you agree to, you’re not going to get anything back but bitter sorrow.”

Ronesca met her gaze steadily, and for a moment Maddie thought she glimpsed the beginnings of a ridge of sarotis in her left iris. But then the queen turned her gaze to her lap, and when next she looked up her eyes were normal and filled with tears.

“But if I don’t, they will grow angry.”

“They already want to destroy us, madam. Why should we care if we anger them? They intend to destroy the Kirikhal. Treat with them and ultimately they will forbid you from offering prayers to Eidon and demand you give your allegiance to Khrell. Is that what you want?”

Ronesca blanched but said no more, and not long after that Maddie was dismissed.

She returned to her quarters, feeling uneasy and confused. Ronesca was not at all herself. Was it the spore?

“Ma’am?” Jeyanne’s voice broke into her thoughts and she looked around. “Draek Tiris has sent you another present. I put it in on your desk.”

A rectangular box wrapped in white velvet and gold ribbon sat beside her notes from Terstmeet, and with it a sealed card written by Tiris himself offering his apologies for having abandoned her.
In fact, I’ve been out of town—an
unexpected difficulty has arisen at my estate in Ropolis. . . . That is no excuse,
however. Please accept my apologies for my failure to stand by you, and this treasure
as a token of my respect. Perhaps it will give you comfort and strength when
you need it most
.

She set the card aside and pulled off ribbon and velvet to find a leatherbound chest within. Lifting the lid, she gasped at the sight of the oblong lump of amber she had first seen sitting on a pillar in Tiris’s Great Sand Sea gallery. The amber that allowed one to see the future. Or the past.

Eagerness welled in her. This could show her where he was, why no one had heard anything, how long it would be before he got here. Fear and aversion offered other grimmer possibilities: What if she found him dead? What if she found nothing?

It was not a thing of Eidon’s. She knew that for sure. What it was, she hadn’t quite figured out. More than that, she wasn’t sure Eidon would be pleased with her turning to something from the hand of a man whom she wasn’t even sure wore the shield of Light. Besides, how did she know what she saw there was even true? Or, if true, that it had any real relevance? With no place in time to fix the visions, what good were they? And didn’t she have enough troubles with her imagination running wild as it was?

No. She would put it back in its box and trust Eidon to bring Abramm when the time was right. And only Eidon would know when that was.

And for a wonder, she did exactly as she intended, setting the chest back into its silken nest, replacing lid and wrapping as they were. For a moment she seriously considered sending it back altogether. But in the end she pushed it to the back of her wardrobe and vowed to forget about it.

And that was her mistake. She should’ve known better than to believe she would be strong enough to resist its temptation. Even knowing how unreliable its information was, even knowing it was not a thing of Eidon, still its very presence ate at her. All day long, the thought niggled at her that the knowledge she most yearned to have could well lie in the amber’s depths. And what would it hurt to look once more, anyway?

She fought it off, and even that night as she sat on the edge of her big bed, staring at the wardrobe in which the thing was hidden, she withstood temptation. She went to sleep happy with herself, determined to place the gift in the royal treasure house tomorrow so it would be out of her immediate reach.

She hadn’t counted on waking in the night, pierced with the desperate, overwhelming need to know what had become of her husband. He should have returned to her long ago. Garival had told her just the other day that when Trap had learned of her original vision in the amber he’d arranged from his prison cell to send a man to Trakas with a cage of pigeons. That had been two months ago. If Abramm had come through Trakas, the man would have sent word.

I have to know, Father . . . I
have
to
.

She tore open the wardrobe and pulled out the box. In minutes she was lifting the chest’s lid with a trembling hand, the amber’s golden depths glimmering in the light of the night star on the bed table. Aware of her frantically pounding heart and jittering knees, she sat on the bedside, rested the chest on her knees, and looked into the golden resin—

Choking, blinding dust filled the air, as the wind drove sharp, stinging grains of it into her face. It tore at her clothing and hair, and she could see almost nothing. She struggled forward and stumbled over something in the shifting sand at her feet. Looking down she saw a wind-whipped corner of fabric flapping at the end of the robed form of a man. He lay face down in the sand, rapidly being buried by it. She gasped with horror and choked again as sand burned her throat and chest.

The vision vanished and her bedchamber returned, her skin tingling from the onslaught of sand, ears ringing from the wind’s howling. Even the scent of the dust lingered as she reeled with nausea and denial. He’d been on the river. How had he come to be lost in a sandstorm?

But of course, she’d long guessed he must have left the river, and the vision in the amber indicated only one logical conclusion: Slavers traded out of Obla, Tiris had said. They followed the Road of the Unchained through the Great Sand Sea. . . . They must have caught him and taken him into the desert. That’s why he hadn’t come to her yet.

A low moan escaped her as the room wavered. Why had she done this? Instead of comfort and reassurance, she’d only let more horrible possibilities into her soul. Again she saw the robed form, prostrate in the sand, long blond hair streaming in the wind. . . . Anguish tore at her heart.

Her gaze dropped to the amber still resting on her lap, and sudden hatred seized her. She slammed the lid shut, jammed the chest back into its box, tied it up tightly with its ribbon, and called for Jeyanne. When the girl didn’t immediately appear, Maddie stalked around the bed and called again.

The girl sat up groggily on her pallet, rubbing her eyes.

“Jeyanne, wake up!” Maddie cried. And when the girl struggled confusedly to her feet, Maddie thrust the box into her arms and told her to throw it in the river.

Jeyanne’s blue eyes widened in astonishment. “Now, my lady?”

“Yes. Take Lieutenant Pipping with you and do precisely as I’ve said.” The girl still looked so befuddled, for a moment Maddie considered throwing the thing into the river herself. But no. She knew she couldn’t trust herself to carry through. “Go now,” she said, picking up her own heavy night cloak from the chair and draping it over the girl’s shoulders. “Return here immediately when you’ve done what I’ve asked.”

Jeyanne left without another word, and Maddie returned to her bed, struggling still to get the scent of dust out of her nostrils. And to erase the image of Abramm’s dead body from her mind.

CHAPTER

22

Abramm awoke to the terrifying certainty he’d been buried beneath the sand after all. A monstrous weight pressed upon his back, and he could barely expand his chest enough to draw breath. A uniform pressure held his head and limbs, and all he could think of was how the sands had constantly shifted beneath his feet as he’d climbed and climbed one endless dune, trying desperately to stay atop it. With the wind whipping at his robes and filling his mouth and eyes with sand, he could hardly breathe, much less see where he was going, and could only walk at all when the wind was at his back. He didn’t recall stopping, though obviously he had.