The Queen's Curse (9 page)

‘The camp is perfect, Commander
.’

While they ate, they watched the dark flowing river. It was a very peaceful place.

‘According to the map, the bridge must be here somewhere,’ Artride said quietly after swallowing a bite from the hot vegetable stew. It was dusk now, but because of the campfire, they could see just about enough. The foliage softly rustled, like the constant river, and the fire popped and hissed.

‘Hmm
,’ Tirsa nodded in agreement, the flames dancing in her eyes and after a moment asked in a subdued voice, ‘My Lady, what will happen with Ceartas if you die?’

Artride
, who looked up from the map surprised, saw concerned honesty in her green flickering eyes.

‘If I die … well that would not be a problem for the Law Book. According to the Law, the brother of my father shall inherit the throne. He shall have as much influence as me, being the new king, so the curse continues to have power,’ and she smiled wickedly.

Tirsa
had not heard of him before, but she gathered from the tone in her voice that she was not too pleased about him. ‘But I do not plan on dying just yet,’ she reassured her.

Everybody dies and some of us too soon
…
Tirsa tried to ignore her inner voice.

‘Yes, but I still feel
… You must admit this is rather perilous with just me to protect you.’

‘I feel safe enough with you, Commander.’

‘I feel honoured, but still, with three or four more we could have protected you properly, formed a wall around you.’

She sighed. ‘You be my wall then.’
Her eyelids drooped a bit. Tirsa looked away to avoid her intense staring, almost longing eyes. She stretched her legs, rubbing her knees and sighed again.

‘Oh, I know you disagree and think me foolish, but like I said before I do not trust many people enough for this to
be kept a secret. You know what they say, a secret is hardly a secret if more than one person knows about it anyway, and it puts a terrible burden on the people knowing; a deadly burden.’

‘You could have ma
de them swear on their lives or something; we knights are very loyal, we are not soldiers who fight because we have to. No we have chosen this path and we would die out of … love for our country and you.’

Artride stared for a short moment at Tirsa in wonderment.

‘Hmm. Like I said, I did not want to risk too many good knights.’

Just me then. Will I end up as a
personal bodyguard?

‘And
so as not to raise any suspicion in the sorceress.’

Tirsa nodded, but still had her doubts.

‘So, Tirsa, if you do not mind me asking; why did you become a knight? I mean you are a bright young woman and I have heard you are not even from Ceartas. Surely you could think of other … things to do?’

Artride noticed that she begun to laugh a little nervously.

‘Other things … I guess so, but not as noble as this.’

‘Ah, I knew it, so you have noble reasons? Tell me more.’

Tirsa placed another couple of branches on the hissing fire. If the queen wanted to sit a little longer instead of sleeping, it was fine with her, but why did they have to talk about
her
, why not about their mission? Well, Tirsa thought calmly, what else was there to say about that, which had not already been said? She was tired, but also very calm and at ease sitting together with her queen as if they were on a camping trip. That thought make her smile. Artride saw it.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Us; sitting here. I never sat down beside a cosy campfire with a queen before, have you?’ she joked. Artride laughed showing her perfect white teeth. It was a wonderful laugh.

‘Perhaps you should not consider me a
queen while we are out here, and maybe you shouldn’t even call me that, not before I can be one. Call me Artride, if it doesn’t make you too uncomfortable. And I think it is best to be undercover anyway.’

‘
As you wish.’ Tirsa smiled back at her.

There was a moment of silence; a natural evening silence this time. Artride rested her arms on her knees and relaxed.

‘Will you share your story with me, Tirsa? I would be honoured. We have enough time ahead of us, why not spend it getting to know each other? We are both persons behind our rank; I hope I may see you as one too, like I hope you will consider me.’

There was a short silence and a stir in the air.

Tirsa smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t think you were interested. My reasons for joining the army are very personal, but … I will tell you.’

She smiled pleasantly. ‘Only if you want to, I’m not forcing you.’

‘No one can force me to do anything I don’t want to really!’ and she let out a wheezing laugh. ‘But I reckon if you want to know me, you have to know my story.’ She saw the features of her father before her inner eye and felt a painful sting in her heart.

‘I suppose it all began with my
… dad. He died when I was very young, at age six. He taught me so much and I loved him greatly,’ she said with a tiny clear voice. She could talk about it now; after all those years, sometimes telling her closest friends; always remembering and honouring him, but still missing his kind good-natured spirit terribly, and the father figure in her life.

‘I am sorry to hear that, but if it comforts you
, I know what it is like to lose a parent. I have been there too; but you were so young, young enough to remember him. Was he a knight then?’

‘Yes, he was. He served Ceartas.’

‘Did he die in battle?’

Tirsa dug into her memories and began to tell while she stared straight
-faced distantly into the flames.

‘I was there that day on the moor
; I … I saw everything when they came for him.’ Artride noticed the change in her voice and her trouble speaking at all, but she continued, with a knot building in her throat. ‘Strange men on horses. My parents, older sister and I lived really isolated in the woods. I had never seen other people before in my life until then; so I got truly scared. Especially as never before did I see my father so terrified.’ She tried to remember his face, which was a blur in her mind now; only vaguely was he there before her inner eye.

‘He ordered me to run and hide
, and not to look back. He made me promise that. Of course I couldn’t at first, for I didn’t want to leave him behind. But he shouted at me; something he had never done before.’ She had to pause and Artride glanced, rather upset, at the younger woman who was rubbing her hands nervously.

‘I kept running, until I found some sort of shallow burrow w
here I hid myself. My father ran in another direction and the soldiers chased him on their horses. They carried swords; he had none. I … broke my promise and witnessed everything. They beat him again and again. He fought back, but it was no use, there were too many of them and they finally stabbed him to death.’

Artride came to sit closer as if to ease her. She never expected to hear such an answer when she had asked that question.
She had turned pale, from distress, like a full moon.

‘I am sorry for your loss, Tirsa
,’ she said, and after a couple of silent minutes asked, ‘Who were those men and why did they do such a horrid thing?’

‘Soldiers.’ Her shoulders sa
gged and she dropped her head, beginning to tug uneasily at the branch in her hands she used to poke the fire with. ‘I found a cloak brooch near the body of my father. It showed a curved mythical creature with the head and body of a wolf, wings of an eagle interlaced with one sword and one arrow.’

‘Razoras,’ Artride said hatefully. ‘Of course, no other country breeds such cruel uncivilised men.’ She quickly glanced from the fire back at Tirsa. ‘Did your mother report the murder?’

‘It didn’t happen in Ceartas.’

‘Oh yes, of course. Where did it happen?’

‘In Zoria.’

Artride nodded and remembered her guard Barkor telling her where Tirsa was born. Zoria was a small country with a thin population widely spread about. It was a neighbouring country of Ceartas; so that explained why her father served that army, as Zoria was well protected by Ceartas who had none. She pictured a young man
, full of enthusiasm and awaiting adventure before the real revelation of war and destruction began.

‘My mother was devastated. She never fully recovered.’

‘And what about you?’ Tirsa did not return her gaze.

What do you expect?
However, she answered calmly, ‘I couldn’t wait until I grew up to have my revenge. I did not know the name of those brutal men, but I remembered their faces and their laughs. And I had that brooch so I knew where to go to.’ She resolved to see if there were any stars in the sky, but it was still clouded; only the brightest cast their distant lights on them once in a while between the clouds.

‘I didn’t tell my mother I was going to avenge him. I was only going to tell her when I got even. But the only things I knew about weapons w
ere from my dad, and we buried his sword with him. My mother wanted it that way.’

‘No one could help you? I mean justice does not have to involve death does it? Punishment yes, but
…’

‘Justice is the result of doing the right thing
,’ Tirsa interrupted, ‘To make things right, and only the heart knows best, and that’s different for everyone. I just could not rest until I had killed that man. For my father, my mother, sister and myself; for the years taken away from us. True, we would not get my father back by killing his killers. But at least a murderer like that – going around hurting and destroying people’s lives – would not kill anyone else anymore, ever. My father would surely have agreed. I am sure my father’s army friends might have helped me, but my mother wanted to bury him at home and did not want to have contact with the outside world at all. And nobody knew where we lived exactly; my parents wanted it that way.’ Artride wondered why this was so, but did not ask; remembering it was Tirsa’s story she wanted to hear first.

‘So you went to Ceartas on your own?’

‘It was my destiny. When I was sixteen, knights spotted our location, well … they spotted me, to be specific. I happened to swim in the lake near our house when I heard horses and people. You can imagine how frightened I was. I still had a clear image of that terrible day printed on my brain, ten years earlier.’

Artride wanted to ask who they were, but contained herself
, and let Tirsa tell the story uninterrupted.

‘I tried to escape by swimming underwater and climb
ing out at the other side to flee, but they were already there. I was surrounded. I jumped back in the water and dove again to hide myself. The water was my only safety, but obviously I couldn’t hold my breath forever and had to come up again. Then I heard them yell and beg me to come out. I wasn’t stupid; I did not trust other humans. While catching my breath I got a good look at them and saw five men and three women looking worried and somewhat fragile. I followed my intuition and decided not to fear them. A woman wrapped me up in her cloak.’

That woman was Shades. When Tirsa thought back about those ex
citing days, she felt herself glowing with happiness. She always considered them to be angels, coming to bring her to another stage of her life. And a completely new life it was.

‘They were knights of Ceartas
,’ Tirsa explained to an astonished-looking queen.

‘Oh, now I see.’

‘They were very kind to me. I learned that they were lost in our woods and needed my help to find a way back. Can you imagine: me completely naked and vulnerable surrounded by big frightened warriors lost in the woods!’ Artride flushed at the thought and chuckled.

‘They didn’t even think I was human at first, but some sort of water fairy about to fly away!’

It was indeed the beginning of a whole new life for Tirsa, and she told the queen how the knights stayed a few days at their house and that even her mother, who wasn’t pleased in the beginning, slowly melted and enjoyed the company for a change. One of them even kept coming back several times to her mother until he finely stole her heart and they fell in love.

‘Nalis, a very kind man,’ Tirsa told her. ‘They live happy together in our house in Zoria. He even raised Elimar as his own.’

She saw Artride looking rather doubtful. ‘But, when I make a quick adding up, Elimar is twelve right? So he cannot be your father’s child, because he is deceased for more than twelve years and he can’t be Nalis’ as they met ten years ago.’

‘That’s very perceptive. My father
has been dead for sixteen years this year, to be precise. Yes, Elimar is my half-brother.’

‘But you said your mother did not socialise with other people all those years before Ceartas
’ knights came?’

Tirsa sighed. ‘She didn’t. She was raped four years after my father died.’

‘O, Great Spirits, no.’
Is there anything this girl and her family isn’t spared from?

‘When I was older she told me where my baby brother came from. I remember the day my sister got very ill, running a high fever and hallucinating and she needed the help of a local medicine man as our herbs were not curing her. I was only ten and too young to go, so I nursed my sister. It was a two-day trip for Mom to get there. When she got back, she brought a medicine. It cured my sister all right
, as the medicine man had promised. He also gave my mother a full belly.’