The Born Queen

Her voice only barely quavered, but her face was wet in the moonlight.

"I know," he said.

She sat that way a moment, staring at the bottle. Then she raised it. "To Robert," she said. "He killed my king and lover, he killed my queen and friend. So to him, and his legs severed at the hip, and his arms cut from his shoulders, and all buried in different places-" She choked off into a sob.

He took the bottle. "To Robert," he said, and drank.

The White Lady-Bri

Leoff regarded the strange woman for a moment. He was tired, his head hurt, and what he mostly wanted was to go to bed.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"Yes, he does," Mery said.

He shot the girl a warning glance, but she just smiled at him.

"You don't trust me?" Bri

"Milady, I don't know you. I've been deceived before-often. It's been a very long day, and I'm finding it hard to understand why you're here. We had another visitor, you know, pretending to be a relative of Mery's, and you remind me a lot of her."

"That was one of my sisters," Bri

"How can you help?"

"I don't know, but I felt called here."

"That's not too useful," Leoff said.

Bri

Leoff exhaled and pushed his hand through his hair, wincing as he touched the sore spot. "No," he said. "I don't really understand any of it."

"It will work," Mery insisted.

Leoff nodded. "I compose more with my heart than with my head, and my heart says it would work if it could be performed, which it can't. That's the problem, you see."

"I don't understand," she said.

"You read music, yes?"

"Yes," she said. "I can play the harp and lute. I can sing."

"Then you notice that there are three voices, yes? The low, the middle, and the high."

"Not unusual," she said.

"No. Quite the norm. Except that if you look closely, you'll see that there are two distinct lines in each voice."

"I noticed that, too. But I've seen that before, too, in the Armaio of Roger Hlaivensen, for instance."

"Very good," Leoff said. "But here's the difference. The second lines-the one with the strokes turned down-those have to be sung by…ah, well-by the dead."

When she didn't even blink at that, he went on. "The upturned lines are to be sung by the living, and for the piece to be done properly, all the singers must be able to hear one another. I can't imagine any way for that to happen."

But Mery and Bri

"That's no problem, is it, Mery?" Bri

"No," the girl replied.

"How soon can we perform it?" Bri

"Wait," Leoff said. "What are you two talking about?"

"The dead can hear us through Mery," Bri

"Mery?" Leoff turned his gaze on the girl, who merely nodded.

"Fine," he said, trying to resist the sudden dizzying hope. "If you say so."

"How soon?"

"I can sing the middle part," he said. "Areana can sing the upper. We need someone for the low."

"Edwyn Mylton," Areana said.

"Of course," Leoff said cautiously. "He could do it. If he's still in Haundwarpen and if we could get to him."

"Haundwarpen is under siege," Areana explained.

"No," Bri

"How so?"

"My brother is a prince of Hansa. They won't stop him entering or leaving the city, and they won't ask him questions. Not yet."

"A pri-" He stopped. "Then you're a princess of Hansa?"

She nodded.

"Then I really don't understand," he said.

"My brother and I are here at our peril," she said. "Understand, it doesn't matter who wins the war. If the barrier between life and death deteriorates further, all of our empires will be dust."

"What do you mean," Areana asked, "at your peril?"

"My brother tried to help your queen, and I am run away," she said. "If we're caught, we may well both be executed. That's why we need to move quickly. At the moment, the army here recognizes my brother as their prince. But word from my father will reach here very soon, and we will be found, so all must go quickly."

We'll do the piece, his thoughts rushed. We'll cure Mery.

He clung to that thought and shied from the next: Bri

"Well," he said, "we'd best find Mylton, then, and get on with this."

CHAPTER EIGHT

"WHAT NOW, sir?" Jan asked Cazio.

Cazio stared at the freshly turned earth and took a few deep breaths. The morning smelled clean despite the carnage.

"I don't know," he said. If A

But what else was there to do? Only in Eslen was he likely to find anyone who could help Austra.

"I'm still going on to Eslen," he said. "Nothing's changed about that."

"I reckon we'll be going with you, then," the soldier said. "The empire is a month behind on our salary, and we've worked hard enough for it."

Cazio shook his head. "From what I hear, you'll only walk into slaughter. Go back and keep the duchess safe. I know she'll pay you."

"Can't let you walk into slaughter alone," the soldier replied.

"I won't get in by fighting," Cazio said, "with or without your help. I'll have to use my wits somehow."

"That's a bloody shame," Jan said. "You're bound to come to a bad end that way."

"Thanks for the confidence," Cazio replied. "I think it's for the best. You fellows will just draw a fight we can't win. The two of us might be able to slip in the back way."

Jan held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and stuck out his hand. Cazio took it.

"The Cassro was a good man," the soldier said.

"He was," Cazio agreed.

"He raised a good man, too."

They broke camp a bell later. The soldiers headed back to Glenchest, and Cazio and Austra were alone again.

It was along about midday that Cazio felt a strange, hot wind carrying an acrid scent he had smelled before, deep in the tu

Now he suddenly felt claustrophobic. The last time he'd come this way, it had been with an army, and they hadn't much feared bandits; now he realized this would be a perfect place for them to hide, say, just around one of these bends, and wondered if he hadn't dismissed Jan and the others too quickly.

Of course, that had nothing to do with what he had smelled, which he was begi

He kept Acredo in hand as they went around the curve.

There was someone there, all right. It wasn't a bandit.