Fairest (9 page)

The centaurs started to trot while tossing the rings, their aim still perfect.

King Oscaro stood and shouted something. The trainer signaled with his baton, and the centaurs increased their pace. A stallion slipped in the mud while tossing a ring. He recovered, but his throw went wide. An iron ring hurtled toward Ivi.

King Oscaro moved to block her. Prince Ijori launched himself at her and knocked her over.

The moment is lodged in my memory. If they had done nothing, the ring would have sailed over her shoulder. Instead, it smashed into the side of King Oscaro's head.

T
HE KING TOPPLED
onto Prince Ijori and the queen.

A cry rose from the lists. Everyone clambered down and rushed toward the king. I don't know what we hoped to do.

I thought, The bad luck has arrived. This happened because Ivi didn't sing at her wedding.

She squirmed out from under King Oscaro and Prince Ijori. Then the three of them were hidden by the crowd. The trainer herded the centaurs out. I stood in the arena, on the edge of the throng.

Ivi shrieked, “My lord! Oscaro! Prince, make him answer me. I command you. Make him stand up.”

I heard Prince Ijori's voice. “The king lives!”

I think we all breathed again. Ahead of me the crowd parted. I stood aside as Count Amosa and Prince Ijori came through, carrying King Oscaro. Tears streamed down Prince Ijori's face.

I had my first clear view of the injured king. His head was bloody. His face was as white as mine. His body hung limply between his two bearers.

“Where are you taking him?” Ivi cried.

“To the physician,” Count Amosa said.

They began to carry the king out of the lists. Oochoo loped alongside, her tail down.

Ivi saw me. “Lady Aza! Come to me!”

It didn't matter if she'd forgotten me in the window. I went to her, and she threw herself into my arms, weeping. “What will happen to me if he dies?”

This was what she was thinking? I patted her back and murmured, “Don't cry. It's all right. He won't die.” I was talking as much to myself as to her. “He'll be fine.”

With the queen clinging to me, I followed Prince Ijori and the count.

Ivi wailed, “Don't leave me alone, Oscaro. Who will love me now?”

I heard someone gasp. I was shocked. She wasn't crying because she loved the king, but because he loved her.

The physician's chambers opened onto the same cul-de-sac where I'd been trapped. Those who couldn't fit into the examining room stood on the grass outside.

Since I was with the queen, I was allowed in. The duchess gained entry too. I saw her astonishment when she noticed me.

Sir Enole, the physician, came out of his study. He rushed to help Prince Ijori and the count. They laid King Oscaro on the couch. Prince Ijori straightened up and saw me supporting the queen. For a moment he looked surprised. Then I saw him forget me as Sir Enole felt for a pulse in the king's neck.

Ivi surged away from me. She grasped the physician's robe. “Make him well. Make him talk to me.”

“Your Majesty—” Sir Enole drew his robe out of her hands and bowed. “I will do my best.”

Ivi came back to lean against me. I put my arm around her waist.

Sir Enole examined King Oscaro's wound. The bleeding had stopped, but the area was puffy. “First we must bring that swollen flesh down.” He turned away.

Ivi shrilled, “Where are you going?”

“To my stor—”

“Will he live?”

“His pulse is weak but steady. He will not soon die.”

I found myself smiling and crying at once. The physician's words spread through the room and to those waiting outside. People laughed and hugged one another and repeated, “He will not soon die.”

Ivi said, “When will he speak to me?”

“I do not know.” The physician's voice was choked with tears. “He may speak in a week or never again.” He headed toward a storage cabinet, then stopped. He knelt and swore his loyalty to Ivi.

She was our ruler now! Everyone in the room and those outside knelt and swore their loyalty. I knelt, too, and she swayed against my shoulder.

How could she rule? She didn't know Ayortha. How frightened and grief stricken I'd be in her place.

Sir Enole spread an unguent across the king's wound. Ivi told me she wanted to go to her chambers. She leaned on me as we started for the door. Prince Ijori placed himself on her other side, and she took his arm.

The duchess looked put out.

I bobbed a curtsy to her. As we went by, I whispered, “I'll come to you as soon as I may.” I couldn't suppress a feeling of triumph. The queen wanted her lady-in-waiting.

I hoped I could comfort her.

The songbirds above us trilled as merrily as ever. Oochoo stayed at my side through the corridors. We made slow progress. Ivi moved as haltingly as an invalid.

She moaned, “Ijori, cancel tonight's Sing. No one will want it now.”

No! She mustn't cancel the Sing!

He said, “Your Majesty, we want it more than ever.”

She sank to her knees on the corridor tiles and looked up at us, her eyes enormous.

Oochoo stood nearby, wagging her tail.

“You can sing when my Oscaro's so ill?”

Prince Ijori said, “It will be a Healing Sing. Our songs will help him recover.”

I forced myself to speak. “At Sings we write our own songs. Your song will contrib—”

“I have to write a song?”

“You don't
have
to,” Prince Ijori said, “but everyone will want to hear your words.”

To encourage her to participate, I said, “My songs are simple and not very good.”

Prince Ijori said, “Canceling the Sing will make the king sicker.”

I nodded. It was what we believed.

She wet her lips. “I must rest. I need my rest. And I must grieve. Now help me up. I'll decide about the Sing while I rest.”

At the door to her chambers, she said, “Ijori … Prince … I will count on you in the coming days.” She reached out and touched his cheek.

He drew back. I doubted my eyes. It had been such an intimate gesture.

“Aza, bring me a cup of ostumo in an hour.” She smiled bravely. “Your good Ayorthaian ostumo will fortify me for what lies ahead.”

When I left the queen, I hurried to the duchess. In her room I apologized for seeming to desert her, and I explained that the queen was making me her lady-in-waiting.

“How can she make you a lady-in-waiting when you're not a lady to begin with?”

I blushed. “She is making me a lady as well, Your Grace.”

“Why not make you a countess and have done with it?” She strode to her wardrobe and selected a gown. She held it out to me. No,
at
me. It was a challenge. She wanted to see if I'd dress her, now that I was on the threshold of nobility.

I did, and I was docile as could be.

The queen called out that I might enter.

I opened her door and stopped on the threshold, dazzled. The floor of her chamber was spread with rugs, so many that they overlapped. The walls were hung with tapestries of hunting scenes, garden scenes, mountain landscapes. The brocade curtains were patterned with an autumnal forest. The ceiling was adorned with a pastoral fresco. The curtains were drawn. The room was dim, lit by oil lamps in golden sconces.

Ivi sat in an easy chair at the fireplace, her feet on a tufted ottoman. A few yards away was another door, which, I later learned, led to the king's bedchamber.

She stretched and rolled her shoulders, reminding me of Imilli. “I would do anything to save my lord.” She took the ostumo. “You may have your Healing Sing, provided …” She drank.

Provided what?

“… provided that you illuse for me.”

Gladly! I made the silver pitcher on her washstand sing in a metallic voice. “I will illuse for you day and night.” I made the pottery Three Tree on the mantel sing,

She smiled. “No. I want you to illuse for me tonight.”

My hands felt icy. I wondered if I was understanding her.

“Illuse a voice that seems to come from my lips. Give me the kind of voice people here love, a beautiful Ayorthaian voice.”

I couldn't! She didn't know what she was asking.

“I've wished for such a voice. I've longed for it ever since Oscaro asked me to be his bride. I've tried spells, but—”

“I can't! I'd be deceiving everyone.”

She rose and carried the ostumo to her dressing table. In addition to the usual mirror above the table, a hand mirror lay on its surface, amid a myriad of creams and powders and rouges and, of all things, a golden flute. She put the mirror in the table drawer. “I want the choirmaster to know I have a beautiful voice. I want everyone to hear my voice.”

But it would be my voice. “I can't. I mustn't.” I should have lied and said I wasn't capable of it, my illusing wasn't good enough.

But the lie never occurred to me, and I was certainly capable of doing what she wanted.

“Everyone else has a beautiful voice.” She sat at the dressing table. A stool had been placed close by. “Sit by me. Lady Aza, I want my subjects to love my voice. Oh, please, illuse for me.”

I sat. “If I illuse for you, your song won't help the king, and the deception may harm him.” It might be better not to have the Sing at all.

“There will be many more songs than mine and many other singers.” She wet her lips. “My Oscaro will surely be healed by all of them. If my voice wasn't pretty—for an Ayorthaian—mightn't it harm him?”

Did she really believe in the power of singing? I wondered if she wet her lips before a lie.

“You're his wife,” I said. “Your song will be the most important one. It won't help him unless you sing it.”

She shrugged. “We have no Healing Sings in Kyrria, yet people recover from their injuries. Aza, sing for me. It won't harm my lord. It will harm no one. It will only help your queen, your benefactress.”

“I can't, Your Majesty. I'm sorry. I mustn't.”

“You must!” She leaned closer to me until her face was only an inch away. I smelled the ostumo on her breath. “Aza, Aza, Aza. Don't you see? If you won't illuse for me, then you're not my friend.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “Your friendship isn't worth a pin. And if you're not my friend, then I don't want you to be my lady-in-waiting.”

I'd return home, where they cared about me.

But there would be no generous wage.

And no prince.

“If you're not my friend, you're my enemy and an enemy of the kingdom. The proper place for an enemy of the kingdom is a prison cell.”

The room seemed to tilt.

“I don't think your inn should flourish, either. I think its license should be revoked.”

I gripped the sides of my stool—I was sure I'd fall if I didn't.

She took my face in her hands. Her Kyrrian accent was heavier now. “But I want you for a friend. I don't want to do those dire things.”

She didn't let go. I belonged to her. She could throw me in prison. She could harm everyone I loved.

I didn't want to be imprisoned. I couldn't let her hurt my family and the Featherbed.

“I'll illuse for you.”