Hammer Of God (3 page)

“Tcha,” she said, and tugged her hand free. “Because your truths are soft, they do not please me. I wish to sail!”

“And we will sail, Hekat. When the winds come, we will sail.”

“Why do they not come, Vortka?” she said, pettish. “Are your godspeakers grown weak in their faith?”

He shook his head, smiling again. Smiling though his healed heart pained him. You were so beautiful, Hekat, time has not been kind. “You know they are strong. You know I train them well.”

“Then where are the trade winds? Why are my warships becalmed?”

He sighed. “Hekat, we do not need to know the god's purpose to know its will. There are reasons the winds are slow, I cannot tell you what they are. I am the god's high godspeaker, I am not the god.”

She snorted. “Do I need you to tell me that? I think I do not!”

“Hekat…” For the third time he took her hand in his, folded her fingers to his palm. “You need me to be your friend, I am your friend, I will be your friend no matter what you say or do.”

For a heartbeat her eyes were brilliant, then she killed soft emotion. It was her way. “Vortka, we must have the trade winds. Are you certain you heard the god right?”

He nodded. “I am certain.”

“Aieee, tcha,” she said, and let her head fall back. “Can the god be wrong? I think it cannot. We will wait, high godspeaker. We will wait and pray.”

His relief was so great it was like pain. But beneath relief churned sorrow. She had surrendered too easily, she did not fight him long enough.

She is weary. She is worn out. Send the trade winds soon, god.

Edward, Duke of Morvell, cleared his throat. “I'm sorry, Majesty, but Damwin and Kyrin leave you no choice. You'll have to fight them.”

Rhian stood at her privy council chamber window, back turned to her councillors, and felt her fingers curl into fists. She had such a fondness for her staunch and stalwart supporter, but even so…

Don't tell me what I have to do, Edward. You know such intransigent talk sours my temper.

Instead of answering, she stared down at bustling Kingseat harbour. She had a perfect view from within the castle, so high above the town. Even though it was early, yet before nine of the clock, the harbour's blue waters were clogged with vessels coming and going, loading and unloading their various cargos. As though no danger loomed in the east. As though life in its sweet safety would never change.

But it will. Life as we know it will soon be torn asunder, if the witchmen of Tzhung-tzhungchai can be believed.

She had no reason to doubt them. It was seductive wishful thinking, no more, that enticed her to hope calamity was not come upon them, that war on a scale unimaginable did not hold its foul breath, waiting to exhale and spit death on them all.

As if I needed more proof, with Zandakar locked in a dungeon beneath my feet.

A mistake, to think of Zandakar. Her eyes burned, the distant harbour prismed, as the pain of betrayal seared anew.

He should've told me who he really was. What his people are planning. He should've trusted me. I thought we were friends.

Thrusting pain aside, she turned. Let her gaze first touch upon Alasdair, silent at the table. His expression was sober, serious, most kingly indeed, but her heart beat just a little bit faster as his eyes warmed.

My husband. My husband.

But she kept her own face as well-schooled as his. In this council chamber she was queen, and he was only a councillor. Let one man think Alasdair guided her steps, ruled from the shadows…

Edward was frowning. “Majesty—”

“Yes, Edward,” she snapped. “I heard you.”

“And what I said is not to your liking, I'm well aware of that,” he said, sighing. “But my duty isn't to tell you what you want to hear. My best service lies in telling you what's needful. And so I tell you now, knowing full well you're likely to sharpen your tongue on me for saying it: Damwin and Kyrin must be confronted. It's been nearly two weeks since you were crowned and they have yet to pledge fealty. Their recalcitrant defiance keeps Ethrea in a turmoil.”

“Edward's right,” said Alasdair. “Every one of us here knows it, you best of all.”

“I don't dispute Damwin and Kyrin must be dealt with, and soon,” she said, keeping her voice level and low. “But, Edward…gentlemen…I haven't changed my mind regarding how I shall rule. I will not pit Ethrean against Ethrean in bloody combat. There must be another way.”

Her privy councillors exchanged purse-lipped looks. “If there is, Majesty,” said Rudi, glowering, “we can't think of one. More to the point, neither can you.”

No she couldn't, and not for want of trying. And she'd happily admit it, if only Rudi weren't so bullish in his manner. Her Duke of Arbat could pass comment on the weather and make it sound like a declaration of war.

“At this rate it's going to take a miracle to bring them to heel,” Rudi added. Then he looked at Helfred, expectant.

Ethrea's prolate sighed and examined his bitten fingernails. When Rudi opened his mouth to say something else, Rhian held up a hand and shook her head at him. There was no use prodding her former chaplain; he would answer in his own time and not before. Prodding only produced a tedious lecture, as long ago she'd learned to her chagrin.

Unlike his late and unlamented uncle Marlan, Prolate Helfred dressed like a plain venerable in a dark blue woollen robe and open leather sandals. The only concession he made to his exalted status was the newly-made heavy gold ring of office on the second finger of his left hand, containing a splinter of one of the arrows that had slain Rollin. Even his prayer beads were the same battered old wooden ones he'd prayed and complained over on their circuitous journey from the clerica at Todding to duchy Linfoi and home at last to Kingseat.

He has no vanity. No ambition beyond serving God to the best of his ability. He is that rare thing, a good man…and still he drives me to distraction.

Helfred's silence dragged on. And since they couldn't sit here forever, waiting for him to pronounce, she decided to risk a lecture. “Helfred? Has our age of miracles passed? Or can God intervene in the matter of Damwin and Kyrin?”

Helfred stirred and lifted his gaze. “I was never privy to miracles, Majesty, as you well know. For an answer to that question you must seek out your toymaker.”

Dexterity. Again, that searing stab of betrayal. He should've told me about Zandakar, he had no business holding his tongue. “I think not,” she said shortly. “I think I will exhaust all other possibilities first. Unless you tell me I must?”

“No,” said Helfred, after another, shorter silence. “I am not moved to instruct you so. Majesty, you are the queen. God has placed you upon Ethrea's throne for his purpose, and the welfare of all who dwell here. The matters of men must be dealt with by men.” He smiled briefly. “And women. The dukes Damwin and Kyrin are your disobedient subjects. It is your business to chastise them as you see fit.”

“And chastise them you must,” said Adric, seated beside his father Rudi and just as bullish. “They make a mockery of crown and council every minute they draw breath in defiance of your rule.”

She exchanged a glance with Alasdair then turned back to the window so she could battle her temper without councillor witness. More and more she regretted elevating Rudi to the dukedom of Kingseat. He was headstrong, he was prickly, he refused to guard his tongue. I made a mistake…

“Adric makes a good point,” said Alasdair, mildly. He almost never lost his temper. “Intemperately, but…it is a good point. A pinprick turns to a festering wound without physicking. And the people of Hartshorn and Meercheq duchies deserve better than these disobedient lords.”

“I do know that,” Rhian said, again staring down at the harbour. Emperor Han's swift, sleek peacock-blue hulled imperial vessel still rode at anchor along one of the ambassadorial piers, its two gold-painted sails furled and its crimson pennants becalmed. When he intended to leave Ethrea for Tzhung-tzhungchai she had no idea. She hadn't seen him since her hastily arranged coronation, when he had smiled and bowed and terrified the minor ambassadors to stuttering incoherence. Nor had she laid eyes on his witchmen. They kept to themselves within the walls of the ambassadorial residence.

And if I never see them again I'll die thrilled beyond words.

“Knowledge without action is folly,” said Rudi. “Your Majesty.”

She turned on them. “And what action would you have me take, Rudi? Would you have me gather every last man and boy in duchy Kingseat's garrison, thrust a sword into their right hands and a pikestaff in their left and send them into Hartshorn and Meercheq with orders to maim and kill as their fancy takes them? Is that what you would have me do nine days after Helfred anointed me queen?”

Rudi's swarthy face reddened. “I'd have you be less tender of your womanly scruples and more manly in your care for the crown. Like a woman you cling to the thought that a smile will solve a multitude of sorrows. But these feisty dukes aren't little boys with scraped knees, Majesty. They're men and you have gouged gaping wounds in their pride. There aren't smiles enough beneath the sun to heal the hurts you've lately dealt them. If they refuse to kneel and pledge you their fealty then their lives must be made forfeit…and the lives of any man, woman or child who is foolish enough to follow their treasonous example.”

Rhian felt her heart thud, her head swim. “Children, Your Grace? You would have me slaughter children to retain power? My God, you'd make of me another Marlan. No, a ruler worse than Marlan. At least he never stooped to killing babies!” She glared at Edward. “Is this your remedy also? If so, I am shocked. I took you for a kindlier man.”

“No,” said Edward, distressed. “I did not mean—”

“Didn't you?” she retorted. “You said I had to fight them, Edward. What else did you mean but that I must seal my coronation with a kiss of blood?”

“Blood does not necessarily follow,” Edward replied. “If you but threaten to bring steel against these stubborn dukes should they refuse to yield, then—”

“Oh, Edward. Whatever I threaten I must be prepared to carry out!”

“Yes, you must,” said Adric. “Without the tempering of mercy.”

Rhian swept her council with a cold look. “My lords, if you feel so inclined you may indeed blame ‘womanly scruples’ for my reluctance to plunge Ethrea into civil war. For myself, I prefer to think of it as statecraft. I very much doubt if the late king would've rushed to send soldiers into Hartshorn and Meercheq. I also doubt you'd have called him womanly for preferring to find a less violent solution to this problem.”

And that observation struck home, as well it might.

“There is nothing wrong with being a woman, gentlemen,” she continued, still cold. “Being female doesn't make me weak. If it did, would God have seen fit to put me on the throne? Helfred?”

Helfred looked up. “Majesty, you are where God intends you to be.”

“But not yet doing what God intends you to do,” said Rudi, stubborn to the last. “If you won't send soldiers against Kyrin and Damwin, what will you do to end their defiance?”

“That's a fair question,” said Alasdair. “And we must have an answer.”

Rhian bit her lip. Was she the only one who could hear the tension in his voice? They'd not discussed this. Some things – like planning for the coronation, or the day-to-day grindstone of the kingdom's business – she happily talked over with him at night, in bed, pillowed on his chest. But not this. It was too important. Touched too closely on her fragile sovereignty. It hurt him, she knew that, but it couldn't be helped.

As she stared them down, the dukes of her council and her prolate and her husband the king, words she'd tried hard to forget echoed loudly in her mind. The words Zandakar had spoken to her as she stood over dead Ven'Martin, the knife that killed him in her hand.

You want be queen? This is queen. To kill bad men and be wei yatzhay.

She had rejected his assertion then. She rejected it now. She would not be a queen of blood and steel.

Not unless Damwin and Kyrin back me hard against a wall.

“I'll give them a final chance to come to their senses,” she said. “If this must end in violence I won't let history show I refused these foolish men every hope possible of averting disaster. Helfred…”

“Majesty?”

“Will you and the Court Ecclesiastica act as my emissaries? Will you travel with all solemn ceremony to the duchies of Hartshorn and Meercheq and use every persuasion in your power so their dukes might see reason?”

Helfred smoothed his prayer beads through his fingers. “Of course.”

Bless you. “I'll have letters drawn up for you to present to the dukes in person.”

“Letters saying what?” demanded Adric. “And promising what retribution should they fail to recognise Ethrea's lawful queen and council?”

Rhian looked at him in silence for a moment, then nodded at the venerable whom Helfred had granted her as secretary for both private and council matters. Middle-aged, pedantic and a swift scribe, he was faithfully recording every comment in a secretive church notation that later was translated into legible Ethrean.

“You would have me dictate to you my royal correspondence, Adric? Perhaps you tire already of ducal duties. Do you wish to take Ven'Cedwin's place? It can be arranged.”

She spoke sweetly enough but her threat was plain. Adric darted a glance at his father, temper mottling his high, sharp cheekbones. Rudi said nothing but his eyebrows lowered in a warning frown.

Yes indeed, Adric, do have a care. My patience is rubbed precarious thin.

“Majesty,” said Helfred, releasing his prayer beads. “The Church stands behind you without reservation. Defiance of you is tantamount to defiance of God. It won't be tolerated.”

He reminded her of Marlan when he spoke like that. The others heard it, too. Spines straightened, jaws tightened. Knuckles whitened in suddenly clenched fists.

“I think we've had enough of interdict for the time being, Helfred,” she said quietly.

Helfred's eyebrows rose. Despite their recent hardships he remained a soft man in his body, but something in his eyes had changed. He was tempered now. His soul was steel. “Majesty, it's not the Crown's place to stand between a man and his soul. That is the Church's domain. God has put us there, and there shall we be until God decrees otherwise.”

She wasn't about to engage in a theosophical debate with him. Not with the rest of the council listening. And especially not when she needed him to act as go-between with the dukes. “Prolate, I don't mean to usurp your proper authority. Of course your province is the spiritual well being of every Ethrean, no matter how high or low his station. I merely seek to remind you that this kingdom is newly healed. Scratching open those wounds can't serve any good purpose.”

“This kingdom isn't healed at all,” said Edward. “And won't be until these laggard duchies are shepherded to obedience.”

She could have shouted. Banged a fist on the council table. Reprimanded Edward for his tone of voice. But she was tired, and worried, and she wanted this meeting done with. Needed some small time in solitude, in fresh air, so she could think clearly about what must come next without their burdensome gazes and warlike expectations. Because when the matter of the dukes was dealt with, there was Mijak…

She felt herself shiver, felt the nape of her neck crawl. I'm not ready. I can't do this. God, why did you choose me? I think you've made a mistake.

“Edward,” said Alasdair, looking at her. Knowing her fear. “Her Majesty needs no instruction. She was tutored by a king.”

Edward nodded, saying nothing. But she thought she could hear his thoughts, and those of Rudi and Adric.