“Your Majesty, I bring word from your loyal subject. Queen Charion of Hume. She sends her greetings and devotion.”
“I am much pleased to hear it,” Usharna replied. “Anc much pleased to see you safely returned. Take your place, my son.”
Berayma bowed again and mounted the dais, taking a position on the queen’s right-hand side, above his siblings. His retinue dispersed.
“Court Sergeant, do I have any other visitors?”
“Two applicants, your Majesty, awaiting your pleasure.”
“Then let them come to me.”
For the next hour, the queen and her court listened to the appeals of two applicants, the first a minor nobleman asking for the return of some land taken from his father during the Slaver War for taking sides against the throne. The queen asked what else his father had lost.
“His head, your Majesty,” the son replied.
“And who holds this land?” she asked.
“Yourself, your Majesty.”
The queen asked Harnan the secretary if any wrongs had been recorded against the son, and being told there were none, announced that the nobleman should not inherit the crimes of his father, and returned the land. Harnan officially recorded the decision. The nobleman thanked the queen for her wisdom and generosity, and quickly departed.
The second applicant was a merchant from Aman, who declared in a longwinded speech that some of Ushama’s officials were blocking his trade from reaching the city of Kendra.
“On what grounds?” Usharna asked.
“On the grounds that I am an Amanite, your Majesty,” he replied.
The queen looked sideways at her Amanite chancellor, but Orkid was stonefaced. The queen promised that she would look into the matter, declaring that every member of the kingdom, whether from Kendra or Aman or distant Hume, had equal access to the capital’s markets, and again nodded to Harnan Beresard.
The queen ended the session by rising from the throne. The formalities over, everyone visibly relaxed and started to mingle and talk. The throne room was instantly filled with the low and incessant babble of a hundred, gossiping voices.
Berayma approached the queen and said in a low, urgent voice: “I have been told that you used one of the Keys of Power last night.”
“You are well informed,” Usharna said.
“Everyone is talking about it!” Berayma declared.
“I was being gently sarcastic, my son. I wish to God you would develop a sense of humor.”
“There is nothing funny about what happened, your Majesty. You are old and weak and—”
Usharna glared at him. “Too old and weak to rule, you mean?”
There was a hush among those on the dais. All eyes were on Berayma. His face flushed. “No! That is not what I meant at all, but that if you use the Keys, you will exhaust yourself—”
“Enough, Berayma,” Usharna said harshly. “I am the queen, and the Keys of Power are my instruments, to be used at the right time and in the right place and for the right purpose. If I did not use them thus, I would not deserve to wear my crown.”
“But, mother, to save the life of a drunk cripple!”
It was Usharna’s turn to flush, but in anger. “This man you speak of was captain of the Kendra Spears during the Slaver War. He served me faithfully and paid dearly for it. He was dying from a wound inflicted on him by doing me another great service…”
Berayma turned on Lynan. “By saving him from petty bandits—”
“By saving your brother’s life, and that of my constable.”
Berayma said no more; he recognized the tone in his mother’s voice, that sharp edge of righteous anger that always made nobles, courtiers, soldiers, husbands, and children shut their mouths against any argument with their queen.
Usharna looked around at the others gathered by the dais, including Orkid and Dejanus. “Any one else volunteering to comment on my actions last night?” Some shook their heads, most just dropped their gaze. “Then the day’s business is over.” She beckoned to Harnan. “Meet me in my sitting room. We have correspondence to complete.”
The secretary, a thin reedy man who looked barely strong enough to support his own weight, nodded, packed up his papers and pens, and followed Usharna and her ladies-in-waiting as they left the throne room. Dejanus brought up the rear. All talk stopped as the court, acting as one, bowed out the queen.
When she was gone, Berayma strode to Kumul. “It is your fault, Constable. I have been told that you allowed my brother to leave the palace at night and stroll around taverns and hotels at his own discretion, inviting the very sort of attack visited on him last night!”
Kumul said nothing. He knew better than to answer back to one of the royal family, especially Berayma who was such a stickler for court protocol.
“How can we trust the man in charge of the Royal Guards to protect the palace if he cannot even protect one small, irresponsible youth?” Berayma pressed.
Kumul, impassive, stared straight ahead.
Lynan, who was almost as afraid of Berayma as he was of the queen, wanted to speak up in Kumul’s defense, but his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth.
Berayma, however, had finished his public dressing down of the constable and stalked off to join a group of his friends from the Twenty Houses who were loitering nearby and enjoying the show. Lynan thought they looked ridiculous in their silk tights and decorated codpieces, a fashion only lately come to the court from Haxus in the north.
Lynan was about to move to Kumul, to apologize, when he was confronted by his sister Areava. “Is this true?” she demanded.
“Sister?”
“Don’t feign ignorance, Lynan, I know you far too well.” Almost as tall as Berayma, but with the golden hair their mother had once possessed, Areava made an imposing spectacle, and when her face was pinched in fury as it was now, she reminded Lynan of stories of the beautiful mountain witches who ate the faces of lost travelers.
Before he could answer, Olio joined them and said to his sister: “It is unfair to b—b-blame Lynan for the actions of thieves, Areava. It was not his fault. And as our m-m-mother said, the cripple she helped last night was owed something b—b-by this family for p—p-previous service.”
“I do not question our mother’s actions, but Lynan’s,” she said to Olio, but not harshly, since she loved him above all others. She glared again at Lynan. “Well?” she insisted.
“I did not mean to place anyone in danger, least of all the queen,” he said meekly.
“You are a thoughtless boy, Lynan. One day someone will pay for your self-centeredness.”
“I am sure you are right.” Lynan could not help himself; before he could catch the words, they were out.
Areava acted as if she had been slapped across the face. She looked at her half-brother almost with distaste. “You assume too much from your position,” she said tightly and stormed off.
“What did she mean by that?” Lynan asked Olio.
Olio shrugged. “I had b-b-better follow her and calm her down b-b-before she insults some visiting dignitary.”
Left alone, Lynan felt he had come off badly from the morning’s events, not unusual in his experience of court life. He remembered Kumul and went to him.
“I’m sorry for what Berayma said to you. It was all my fault, not yours or Ager’s or the queen’s.”
“Berayma was only demonstrating his concern for Her Majesty,” Kumul replied, his face as impassive as it had been when he was being publicly berated. He looked around the room. “Do you see them all, Lynan?”
“See all the what?”
“All the newcomers. See, over there, new staff for Aman’s commission in Kendra.” Lynan saw a trio of heavily bearded gentlemen wearing long hide coats. They looked like smaller versions of Orkid. “And over there, old Duke Petra, back from his retirement on the Lurisia coast. Next to him are representatives of Hume’s merchant navy; they came with Berayma.” Kumul pointed to a group of men and women dressed in leather jerkins and breeches. “Mercenary commanders, from all over the kingdom, come to sell then-services as bodyguards, or worse.”