The rest of the party arrived in time to watch the creature thrash around one last time and then fall still.
Orkid saw Areava and gasped in horror. He rushed to her, but she fended him off gently. “I am all right. It is not my blood.”
“My God, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of saving the guards!” she replied angrily, but then her eyes dimmed. “We were too slow for some.” Shock was setting in; her limbs were trembling.
Amemun appeared, saw what must be done, and tore a strip of cloth from his cloak. He wet it in the stream and started cleaning Areava’s face and hands. The guard whose life she had saved knelt down before her and thanked her.
Areava put her hand on his shoulder. “You tried to save mine. How could I do less for you?”
“This one is still alive!” Sendarus cried. He was bending over the body of one of the men left behind with the horses. “The head wound is horrendous, but he still breathes.”
While some of the guards left to recover the surviving horses and Orkid directed the others to making a stretcher from tree limbs and his own coat, Areava went to the stream to clean off the rest of the blood.
“If I don’t get this off before I return to the palace, I’ll give my mother a terrible fright,” Areava told Sendarus. He sat on the edge of the stream and watched her. “We killed a male, you realize. Maybe one of the biggest ever taken. Would you like a new prize for your father’s meeting hall?”
Sendarus shook his head. “It is your kill, Your Highness. Besides, it would put my other trophies to shame. Our bears are kept small by the harsh terrain, but here they seem to flourish. You were magnificent, by the way.”
Areava stopped her washing and looked up, surprised. Compliments were common enough from members of the court who thought they could curry favor through flattery, but Sendarus sounded so genuine she was embarrassed and did not know what to say.
Some guards returned with the horses they had managed to catch, including Areava’s. She retrieved a long coat from one of the saddle packs and pulled it over her. “There, that should stop the queen from thinking I’ve been disemboweled.”
Sendarus cupped his hands to help her mount, but she shook her head. “We’ve only recovered four horses, and we’ll need two of them to pull the stretchers for our wounded. One can carry the bodies of the two we lost, and the last can carry the head of our bear.”
“You are very generous toward your guards,” Sendarus remarked.
“I am a princess of Grenda Lear, Prince Sendarus,” she said. “My duty lies with serving my people.”
Amemun and Orkid were close enough to hear her. “She takes her responsibilities that seriously?” Orkid nodded in reply. “And I thought Sendarus was an idealist.”
“She is generous to all but her half-brother.”
“Berayma?”
“Oh, no. She loves Berayma dearly. It’s Lynan she has little time for.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of the accidents of prejudice and history. Her father, Usharna’s second husband, betrayed Kendra—”
“I know all that,” Amemun said impatiently.
“Leaving Usharna free to marry Elynd Chisal. The queen was over forty years old. No one expected her to fall pregnant a fourth time.”
Orkid fell silent a moment, reliving the past.
“Go on,” Amemun urged. “What has this to do with Areava’s dislike for Lynan?”
“Areava discovered what her father had done. I was there when she confronted Usharna over the matter. Not only was she distressed that her father had betrayed the kingdom, but also that the fact of it had been kept secret from her. Areava felt that meant no one trusted her because of her father’s sins. It was a terrible time between the queen and her daughter, and it took many years for the two to become reconciled.”
Amemun shook his head in frustration. “What has all of this to do with Lynan?”
“Don’t you see? Her father had destroyed the natural order by betraying his queen, his wife, the mother of their two children. He had betrayed his own country and his own nobility. Then Usharna compounded the act by marrying a commoner, by raising to royal status someone who was basely born. The product of all these tumultuous events was Lynan. He exists only because the natural order was destroyed by her own father, and while Lynan lives, that natural order can never be restored. Tafe Amptra and Lynan Rosetheme give lie to the universe she believes in.”
“Which explains her hatred of the Twenty Houses,” Amemun said, almost to himself. He looked at Orkid. “But does she actually hate Lynan?”
Orkid shrugged. “She claims not to, and probably believes that is true, but it is hard to credit when you hear her mention his name.”
Amemun asked no more questions. It seemed ironic to him that Usharna’s family was the kingdom’s greatest strength and at the same time its greatest weakness, a weakness his own people would soon exploit. The knowledge gave him a grim satisfaction, but no joy.
The sun had been down for two hours and Queen Usharna’s maids-in-waiting had finished dressing her for bed. She was exhausted, and the pain in her chest was worse than it had been this morning. She stood before her bedroom’s single large window, which gave her a view out over great Kendra and the placid expanse of Kestrel Bay, wondering if she would see another dawn. She angrily closed off the thought. In her reign of nearly a quarter of a century she had worked diligently on behalf of her kingdom and its people, allowing herself no time for self-pity or the enjoyment of those luxuries that were hers by right, and she would not start indulging in them now.
But still, I could do with more time. There is so much left to be done. Usharna laughed softly at herself. There will never be enough time, you old fool. Kendra is far too harsh and demanding a mistress.
She told herself that no one was indispensable, and even a ruler could be replaced as easily as an old gown. Then the truth awoke in her again that she was being dangerously immodest. After a quarter century of stable, prosperous and, with the exception of the Slaver War, relatively peaceful rule, she did not know if Grenda Lear was ready for her successor. For that matter, she wondered if he was ready for Grenda Lear.
Perhaps, she told herself, Berayma would never be ready.
Thinking of him filled Usharna with sadness. Nearly thirty years of age, a large and powerful man with a generous heart and a disciplined mind, he was a hard-working king-in-waiting; but also he was stern, too slow to make up his mind, too inflexible once his mind was made up and, worst of all, he was an ally of the Twenty Houses. The nobility had been the queen’s most steadfast foe in all the years of her reign, and it had taken her more than half of that to build up the support she needed to keep their demands and strictures at bay, to keep the Twenty Houses under her control. Usharna loved Berayma dearly, but she was afraid he would never rule with the decisiveness and agility Grenda Lear required. Her greatest fear was that he would allow the Twenty Houses to destroy the kingdom, unless the kingdom destroyed him first.
A sharp pain stabbed into her heart and her breathing stopped. “Not now!” she cried. “Not now!” She clutched the four Keys of Power that hung around her neck, and felt new strength surge through her. With immense relief she felt the pain disappear as quickly as it had come, and her lungs sucked in air.
Tonight, she thought. It must be done tonight.
Usharna raised her head slowly and again looked out the bedroom window. South of the bay, in the distance, she could just make out the coastline of the subject kingdom of Lurisia, the empire’s wealthiest and most economically important domain, and the first conquered by the armies and navies of Kendra all those centuries ago. Keeping Lurisia’s merchant captains happy was one of her most arduous tasks, and one example of how the Twenty Houses could trip up her son with their stupid prejudices and petty hatreds.