Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1) (7 page)

Brian kept on eating, slightly annoyed. Who cared? And why did she have to say “No, I did not know that,” when “No, ma'am” by itself worked? Or “didn't.” He looked up at her across the table. Somehow she seemed taller.

“Unfortunately, it does not aid one's common sense,” Ramona added, “if so I would chop it up so fine and fill the stream with it.”

Enda laughed. “That would be a useful plant indeed.” For a few moments there was no sound but the click-clack of pewter against the wooden bowls. “Ramona,” Enda said.

“Yes, dear?” she answered.

“May I ask you something? I mean, oh I don't know, it feels so rude.”

This caught even the men's attention. Kerdae stirred, looking between the two women.

“Not at all, please,” Ramona said. “Perhaps it may not be the most comfortable of subjects, but I am sure with you it will not be rude.”

Enda glanced at her father, who motioned for her to go on. “I've noticed that you seem to know a lot about plants. I mean, an awful lot.” She gulped.

Ramona nodded gently, and a small smile drifted on to her face.

“I mean, half the plants that we call weeds I've seen you mindlessly gather and stow in your bag. I can't remember,” here Enda smiled, “ever eating anything of yours that I didn't know half of what was in it before you told me and—” Enda's racing voice now slowed and she blushed “—you smell different. I mean, nice and beautiful, like a garden when it blooms but softer. Somehow. Like after a rain.” She came to a full stop, guiltily looking at her hands with a few quick glances at Ramona.

Brian's annoyance changed to bewilderment. He would never understand girls.

Ramona's smile broadened on her face like the sun coaxing the rain clouds away. “Enda, that was very sweet of you. Now I must know your question.” The sun smile relaxed from high noon to early sunset and the red from Enda's face cooled.

“Living in the village, you hear things. People tell stories. About how we came here, about the sun and the moon playing tag and hide-and-seek, about each other,” Enda slowly said. “And some stories perhaps shouldn't be told. Or heard.”

By this time Devlin and Kerdae had set down their spoons. Devlin's hand was curled into a fist on the table.

“You heard a story about me?” Ramona asked when Enda didn't continue.

“Yes. I mean, I'm sorry to ask, I know it can't be true.”

Brian's interest surged through his spine and made him feel a little lightheaded. He tingled to think the answer might be mere seconds away... while part of him screamed that he was a coward. That Enda felt the same way he did, that she could even think of simply asking it...

She took a deep breath. “They say you're a witch.”

Brian's jaw hit the floor. Devlin relaxed his grip. Kerdae half rose from his chair, “Daughter mine...”

“It's okay,” Ramona said. Her hands went out and clasped Enda's. “You poor thing,” she stroked the back of Enda's hands. “Thank you for asking, because now you will know the truth. Well, you already knew it for you know me. But maybe you'll know a little more now.”

Witch? Who had said anything about that? No wonder Enda dared speak. Courtesan, he thought. Fear welled up in him—to even say the word aloud? It was torturous, especially where one's mother was concerned. You're a coward compared to Enda, he thought. With an effort Brian shut up his thoughts enough to hear Ramona's answer.

“Just a moment.” She leaned over and whispered into Devlin's ear. His face grew pale. “It may all be known soon enough, so I feel now is the time to tell our friends before they hear-” she laughed “-stories.” No one else laughed.

“Tell what you will,” Devlin said with an effort.

“Remember when we lived in Darach, Enda? Brian? That was before our kardja were quite so numerous. Those were happy years. Stories of the sort you hear were told then too, though they hadn't become their worst yet. Well, Enda, you and Brian couldn't keep up with your fathers nor look after yourselves so you were often with me and the baby.

“I ask if you remember, Enda, because you loved to play with her”—Ramona's voice broke—“her black ringlets. When she was asleep in her crib, you'd curl up in my arms—Oh, I was so blessed: to have two daughters, it seemed, and my son happily playing nearby!”

Brian fought a lump in his throat. He hadn't thought of her for a long time. He felt guilty. The empty chair in the corner flooded his mind.

“Anyways, you would weave your hands through my hair as you babbled or sang. You loved my black hair. You would touch it and stroke it for hours. I had come to hate my black hair. It set me apart. Made me look like an outcast. Each market day or when walking through town I would draw a hood over it so as to avoid the stares. But with you I didn't have to hide.

“I have grown older and hopefully wiser. Or maybe I don't care anymore, and I no longer hide who I am. Like a child, who doesn't know that little things mean big things, like the color of my hair marking me as Her.

“Her—who was this her? The black-haired woman. She no one knew until she showed up, full grown, in love with a young man.” She smiled at Devlin. “She who spoke strangely. In short, the foreigner. For it is true—I was born far away in the city of Avallonë. One of the foolish Lowlanders.”

Most of this Brian expected. Avallonë itself her home—interesting, but not surprising, considering how much she knew of it. Enda got the look on her face a girl will get when she first sees a squirming puppy.

“In that city, the knowledge of herblore is highly esteemed. Many of our wisest are remembered, not for their mighty deeds of war nor words in flowing script, but for new uses found or new plants discovered. It is many years since that time: the more the seasons pass and the longer one walks from Avallonë the less honor is given it. I was taught some of the ancient art and once or twice a rapid recovery has drawn attention. But really, all my stumblings in the art are but the decayed leaves of a past century's full flower.”

“Save one,” Devlin said. He took her hand and slowly pressed his lips to it. Brian had never felt so embarrassed in his life, right there at the table with Enda's eyes glowing right at them.

Ramona returned Devlin's gaze for a moment. Then she continued, “That is why I am not surprised to hear 'witch' once more, Enda. A habit of scurrying about with odd bits of bric-a-brac and an insatiable desire to cook things explains most in this stolid village.”

Enda laughed.

Brian wondered why she'd never spoken this plain before. Why now? And with Kerdae and Enda in audience, too?

The evening soon passed. The next day's work on their mind, a short twilight, and full stomachs conspired to make it so. Kerdae again offered them shelter which Devlin again refused, stating that it was not very wet and they could continue their work that much sooner by sleeping at the camp.

Wet indeed it was not. Brian wondered at what the work was his father had in mind. The three of them walked towards their current home of sorts, the dilapidated cabin Devlin had grown up in. Brian remembered using it for a night or two in years past: perhaps now with a longer stay they would be fixing it.

Brian's parents had fallen behind, speaking in hushed tones. Brian, part of him regretting the roof left behind, looked up at the stars. He knew them all, and it comforted him to know that they were still there. Some things don't change. Or so he hoped.

“Brian,” Ramona said as they caught up with him, “did it please you tonight? What I said, I mean?” He started. “You seemed a bit tense. Is anything wrong?”

“No, I'm fine,” he answered without thinking.

Ramona just stood there. Brian couldn't see her face, just her shadow self.

“Have you heard stories too?” Ramona asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Why'd you tell Enda?” he blurted out. “You never speak of your life from long ago, never tell me about Avallonë or growing up or who you were.”

“Brian, I tell you lots of stories. Remember Selene, and Apollo, and all the others?”

“Yes, stories. Of what happened to some random person hundreds of years ago. It's—” here Brian had to search for the right word “-school, like you wanting me to speak nice or have good manners. But they're not your stories.” He wondered if she would say “speak nicely” or “speak well” or whatever it was in correction. Try it, he thought.

Ramona laid a hand on Devlin, keeping him from speaking. She stood there for what felt like a long time, making no answer. Brian felt exposed, like his back was bare in a mountain breeze.

“You're right,” she said, at length. “I am sorry. Let me tell you my story, then, or at least part tonight. The reason I told Enda and Kerdae is because they need to know. It is an invaluable benefit to falling so precipitately in the world: you find out who your true friends are. And we all need friends, Brian.”

She sighed. “Especially now. I hid my past because I wanted to protect you. Some knowledge is not for the faint of heart.”

“But I want to know,” Brian said, then regretted speaking. Did he? Could he face the truth?

“I know, and I will tell you. You are old enough to deal with it in your own way. But come, the night grows chilly. Few tales are hurt by having a fireside nearby, true?” They arrived at their camp. Devlin made the rounds of the kardja while Brian built up the fire from last night's coals. Soon the exiled family was in place. With thick blankets around him, Kerry to lean against, and a fire burning brightly in front, the chilliness of the night was quickly forgotten.

Ramona, likewise situated except that Devlin sat right next to her, twirled her ring around her finger. “My father gave this to me. It is as dear to me, perhaps, as Myra is to your father. Priceless, yet not to be compared with how we value you, the son of our love.”

“I lived in Avallonë, yes; perhaps it is better said that I lived
with
Avallonë. I grew up in the palace and was never far from the shadow cast by those stories. Yes, they are history and taught in all Arcadian schools: but for us, for me, it was also tales of our predecessors, my kin. Avallonë was almost her own person, the pulsing harmony of the Tree and Avgerini in the heart of the land.”

Brian was spellbound. Predecessors? “So—you're a princess?” he asked. Devlin smiled for the first time that night.

“Yes, a princess of the court. Not like the princesses you read about, though, for my father was no king. Avallonë has no king—we are led by the Queen and Master. My cousin Sophia, daughter to the Queen, was the princess, the princess royal. She was my best friend.

“So there I was, Astra, a daughter of the most beautiful city—”

“Astra?” Brian asked.

“Yes,” Ramona or Astra, his mother at the least, said. “That was my name. I left it behind when I left Avallonë.”

“Why did you leave?”

“The King required my hand in marriage for his son, the crown prince. It did not feel right so—”

“King? What king? You just told me there was no king.”

Devlin laughed. “No king in Avallonë, all the rulers are women there. But there's another city, farther away, called Kyriopolis where a real army-leading, queen-marrying old drone still rules.”

“Devlin, respect your elders,” Astra smiled. “I decided then to run away.”

“And the king just let you?” Brian asked. He knew that much about kings from the stories.

“No.” Astra's voice rasped out like rocks scraping on tree bark. “Neither his honor nor office would not brook such an insult. I swore on point,” she teared up, “that I would never marry any save him, the Heir of Westernesse—for such is the crown prince called—and Kyriopolis relented. I did not have to marry.

“But Avallonë lost its taste for me, and I for it. I was an outcast, a widow yet without a corpse, a faithless wife without a paramour. I had disobeyed the King and disgraced my house.”

Devlin's arms encircled Astra. “Shh, shh,” he murmured.

“I fled east, seeking Selene's tower. I knew of nowhere else to go. A long time ago it was a refuge for women like me, distressed. I could not find it.”

Brian stared at his mother. This Astra whom he was beginning to know was so like and yet unlike his Ramona. He delved into every corner of her face, reading the old familiar lines anew. “What happened then?”

“She found me. And that is the best thing that has ever happened,” Devlin said.

Brian thought it strange how he said it—as if he were speaking to her and not to him.

“I thought so, at the time. It seemed a gift. But now I know the truth.” Her voice, if rocky before, now became as hard as steel. “I am accursed.”

“Do not say so!” Devlin said. “Who of the accursed could live as you do? Love as you do?”

“What other path is there? How else can it go? Is he one to forget? If the King of Westernesse cannot brook insult, why should he ignore false faith?

“I fear the end. Who am I? Ungrateful. Cowardly. Trusting my own feelings over the wisdom of my family. The death of my daughter,” her voice rose like waves breaking upon the shore.

“Oathbreaker! I swore on point, Devlin, on point!” She buried her face in his chest and sobbed.

Devlin held her and stroked her back. The fire burned low and still father and son sat opposite, watching the red embers on the edge fade to black.

“Father,” Brian braved the silence, “what is 'on point'?”

“It is the oath sworn on the Unicorn's horn. One who breaks such a vow calls upon him or herself all the curses of the cup.”

“Unicorn?” Brian wondered. They still exist? Or was there only one? “Mother swore on a unicorn's horn?”

“Well, he—the unicorn I mean—has not been seen since the time of Apollo. But the Spear of the Kyrian is also called the Horn, for it is from it that the first Kyrian, Apollo, was granted kingship. It is one of the great treasures of Westernesse.”