But now the mist that arose from the camps walled in the city like a fog, and even from the highest towers it was impossible to look beyond the suburbs of Torunn.
O DELIA, the Queen Dowager, sighed and rubbed her hands together. Slim fingers, impeccable nails—the hands of a young woman but for the liver spots which dotted them and reminded her of her age. The cold seemed to have settled in her very marrow this winter—this endless winter. She had fought against time for so very long now that it was with instant resentment she noted every fresh signal of her body’s decay, every new ache and pain, every subtle lessening of her strength. She would repair the waning theurgy of her maintenance spells tonight—but oh how she so wanted that young man in her bed again, to feed on his vitality, to feel his strength. To feel like a woman, damn it. Not a queen slipping into the twilight of old age.
No one knew for sure how old she was. She had been married to Lofantyr’s father King Vanatyr at the age of fifteen, but the first three children they had conceived together in their joyless fashion had died before they could talk. Lofantyr had survived, and her womb was barren now. And Vanatyr was dead these fifteen years, having choked on something he ate. She smiled at the memory.
There had been three lovers in her life in the decade and a half since her husband’s death. The first had been Duke Errigal, the regent appointed to advise, guide and educate the thirteen-year-old King Lofantyr upon his coronation. Errigal had been her creature, body and soul. She had ruled through him and her son for five years, until Lofantyr attained his majority, and then she had ruled through Lofantyr. But her son the King was rising thirty now, and more and more often he brushed her advice aside and made decisions without consulting her. In short, he was learning to rule in his own right.
Odelia hated that.
Her second lover had been John Mogen, the general who had been Aekir’s military commander, one of the greatest leaders the west had ever seen. And she had truly loved him. Because he had been a man. A great man, devoid of manners, culture or breeding, but with a roaring humour and an art of remembering everything he was ever told, everyone he ever met. His men had loved him too: that was why they had died for him in their tens of thousands. She had helped along his career, and it was she who had procured for him the military governorship of the Holy City. She had never dreamed it could fall with him in command. And she had grieved for him, weeping her tears into her pillow at night, furious with her lack of self-control. It had been six years since she had last exchanged so much as a word with him.
And now there was this new lover, this embittered young man who had served under her beloved Mogen, who had seen him die. She knew full well that in advancing him she was indulging in a form of nostalgia, perhaps trying to recapture the magic of those years when she had ruled Torunna in all but name, and Mogen had been her knight, her champion. But she would allow sentiment to take her only so far, and the darkness of these times was something different, something new. She believed she could smell out greatness as surely as a hound scenting a hare. Mogen had possessed it, and so did this Corfe Cear-Inaf. In her own son, the King, there was no vestige of it at all.
As if summoned by her musings, her maid entered the chamber behind her and curtsied. “Lady, His Majesty—”
“Let him in,” she snapped, and she closed the balcony screens on the rawness of the day, the reek of the refugee camps and the roaring bustle of the city below.
“A little short of late, aren’t you, mother?” Lofantyr said as he came in. He had a heavy fur-lined cloak about him; he hated the cold as much as she did.
“The old are permitted impatience,” she retorted. “They have less time to waste than the young.”
The King seated himself comfortably on one of the divans that sat around the walls and warmed his hands at the saffron glow of a brazier. He looked around.
“Where’s your playmate?”
“Asleep. He caught a kitten, and he is so decrepit now he needs to gather his strength before tackling it.” She nodded towards the ceiling.
Lofantyr followed her eyes and saw up in the shadowed rafters a spiderweb fully twelve feet across. At its centre his mother’s familiar crouched, and twitching in a corner was a small web-wrapped bundle that uttered a faint, pathetic mewing. Lofantyr shuddered.
“To what do I owe the honour of this visit?” the Queen Dowager asked, gliding across the floor to her embroidery stand and seating herself before it. She began selecting a needle and a bright silken spool of thread.
“I have some news—more of a rumour, actually—that I thought might interest you. It is from the south.”
She threaded the needle, frowning with concentration. “Well?”
“The rumours have it that our rebellious subjects in the south have been subdued with unwonted speed and ease.”
“Your Colonel Aras made good time then,” she said, baiting him.
“The rumours say that the rebels were beaten by a motley group of strangely armoured savages under a Torunnan officer.”
She kept her face impassive, though her heart leapt within her. The needle stabbed through the embroidery board and into her finger, drawing a globule of blood, but she gave no sign.
“How very intriguing.”
“Isn’t it? And I will tell you something else intriguing. As well as the refugees from Aekir, we have encamped at our gates almost a thousand tribesmen from the mountains with their mounts and weapons. Cimbriani. Felimbri, Feldari. A veritable melting-pot of savages. They have sent a delegation to the garrison authorities saying that they wish to enlist under the command of one Colonel Corfe, as they call him, and that they will not leave the vicinity of the city until they have seen him.”
“How very curious,” she said. “And how have you dealt with them?”
“I do not want a horde of armed barbarians at my gates. I sent a few tercios to disarm them.”
“You did what?” Odelia asked, very softly.
“There was an unfortunate incident, and blood was shed. Finally I surrounded their camp with artillery and forced them to give up their arms. They are now in chains awaiting transfer to the Royal galleys to serve as oarsmen.” Lofantyr smiled.
Odelia looked at her son. “Why?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you mean, mother.”
“Don’t seek to play games with me, Lofantyr.”
“What has irked you? That I made a decision without first running to your chambers to consult? I am King. I do not have to answer to you, whether you be my mother or not,” the King said, his pale face flushing pink.
“You are a damned fool,” the Queen Dowager told her son, her voice still soft. “Like a child who destroys something precious in a fit of pique and cannot have it mended afterwards. Look beyond your own injured pride for a moment, Lofantyr, and consider the good of the kingdom.”
“I never consider anything else,” the King said, at once angry and sullen.
“This man I have sponsored, this young officer—he has ability beyond any of your court favourites and you know it. We need men like him, Lofantyr. Why do you seek to destroy him?”
“I will promote my own war leaders. I will not have them chosen for me!” the King exclaimed, and he stood up, his fur cloak billowing around him.
“Perhaps you will be allowed to choose your own when you have learned to choose wisely,” Odelia told him. Her skin seemed almost to glow and her eyes were alight, like emeralds with the sun refracted through them.