Chapter IV #2
Fia wanted to ask the page who the lordling had been, but the boy forged on ahead, and she was hard-pressed to keep him in sight until suddenly, they entered a cul-de-sac terminating in a pair of tall, iron-studded doors. The page pounded his fist against them and gestured to Fia to dismount.
“She’ll have to come with me,” the boy said, pointing to the mule. “No animals allowed inside the castle proper. But I’ll find her a nice place down in the foothills while she waits for you. My cousin runs a stable there.”
Fia took the single burlap bag slung over the mule’s back and patted the creature affectionately.
“Look after her well,” she told the page. “Matria Dolenza lent her to me. And she’s goddess-marked, same as I am. See?”
The page’s eyes went wide as Fia pointed to a place on the mule’s withers where white hair swirled into a sunburst. But he shook his head when Fia began lifting her own fair hair to show the boy her mark.
“No, don’t,” the page stammered. “You can’t be showing that to people up here.
And don’t speak so freely of the plains witches, not if you want the castle folk to take to you.
The Invers may have let Raea’s cloister carry on, but it’s only because they fear upsetting the flatlanders.
The king knows better than to bite the hands that feed him. ”
Fia nodded solemnly and fished in her bag, pulling out a fistful of small coins. The page’s eyes were saucers now, and she couldn’t help but smile in spite of her discomfort.
“For the advice, and for looking after the mule,” she said. “I’ll collect her as soon as I can.”
“I don’t think you’re witches, whatever anyone else says,” the page blurted out, and then he was gone, leading the mule away down the precipitous castle lanes.
Inside the summit, the number of royal guards doubled.
They’d been everywhere you looked in the lower levels, but here there was an absolute crowd of them.
They milled about in a courtyard that might be peaceful under different circumstances.
Within a sheltering stone wall, huge earthenware pots held fruit trees and almond trees, and a fountain sprang from the courtyard’s center, golden fish swimming lazily in the clear water at its base.
The doorways here were not small and close like in the city, but wide arches that reminded Fia of the breezeways at home—no, at the cloister.
Nothing was certain except death, Fia reminded herself, and she’d be better off both thinking and speaking of the cloister dispassionately until her fidelity oath had been said.
As she attempted to shoulder her way through the press of assembling guards, a stolid, sensible-looking woman with a lined white face and faded ginger hair appeared under one of the arches.
“Are you the cloister wench I was warned about?” the woman called out bluntly.
A few bawdy shouts rose up from guards in response, which Fia chose to ignore, though her mouth thinned and her shoulders tensed. She approached the woman, holding out her letter, but it was waved aside.
“They sent me word you were coming up, but your Matria’s got terribly bad timing—it’s chaos today, between the council and Her Majesty. I’m Glora, and I oversee all of this.” The woman gestured vaguely, as if to encompass the castle, the mountain, the Inver dynasty itself. “Follow me, and keep up.”
Fia did so meekly, not because she was meek by nature but because she’d begun learning to appear so when it seemed wise.
Glora led her through an endless procession of stone chambers lit by sun drifting through long south windows, where courtiers and servants were packed nearly as thick as the guards in the courtyard.
At last, they came to a winding staircase, which seemed quieter than the rest of the castle.
It was so tight on the stair that Glora had to call out before they began their climb, to ensure no one was coming down, for if you were to meet someone, one of you would have to turn back.
There were ropes on either side of the stair, and Fia followed, still meekly, as Glora half climbed, half pulled her way up, puffing mightily by the time they reached the top.
“It’s just—through there—” Glora gasped, pointing to the first shut door Fia had seen since reaching the castle’s upper level. “Why don’t you—get on, then—”
Fia looked down at her feet, acutely embarrassed to be forced into intimacy with a stranger. “I’ll need a bowl and some privacy first, ma’am.”
Glora rolled her eyes. “We have privies, girl; this isn’t some plains backwater.”
“It’s not a privy I need,” Fia said. “It’s for my milk. I’ve left a baby behind, and she’s six months old. There’s too much unsucked and it’s paining me.”
Glora’s stern face flamed. “A bowl. Let me find an attendant, and an empty room.”
She bustled off, muttering something about those ungodly plains witches. But before long, an attendant was found. A bowl was brought.
“The queen’s behind that door, when you’ve finished,” Glora said brusquely.
“I’ve got to be getting back. Leave that bowl on the floor next to the bed—the maids’ll know to empty it like they would a chamber pot, then.
And don’t wait on me once you’re ready, just let yourself into Her Majesty’s chambers.
It should all be over by then; she was nearly there when I last left. ”
Without any further explanation, Glora hurried through the adjacent doorway, shutting it firmly behind her.
Fia wandered into an empty guest chamber and settled herself by a window that caught the cooler mountain air.
Not one to waste time, she spent only a moment relishing the solitude and fresh breeze before setting herself to the task at hand, emptying her breasts as best she could with only her supple fingers.
They were still half-full and bound to start aching again in an hour or two, but the journey home would be downhill, and shorter.
Then she’d be back with Miriel, where she belonged.
When she’d finished, Fia set the bowl down on the floor, though she did it with reluctance.
At the cloister, that bowl would have been considered a sacred women’s offering, fit for standing on the altar and mixing with honey, before being scattered on the fields to bless them with fertility.
Were the altars full, at the very least it would have gone to feed some hungry animal.
What’s good for the goddesses is good for the goats, or so Matria Dolenza often said.
Tired, ill-smelling, and annoyed, Fia followed in Glora’s footsteps, walking briskly down the hall to her journey’s end.
A dim hum of voices sounded through the thick wood paneling of the queen’s door, and hot, dry air drifted out through the gap between the door’s bottom and the flagstones.
Frowning a little at that, Fia set her hand on the latch and let herself into the room beyond.
A wall of unbearable heat hit her, along with a glow of crimson and orange flame. Vaguely, Fia recognized that there were several other people in the chamber. But she stood rooted to the spot because before her, on the enormous four-poster bed, sat Orden Inver’s queen.
“Ari?” Fia whispered, the word barely audible, and a pair of desperate dark eyes fixed on her.
Even in the mountains, they’d had news of what was happening in Corrin.
Fia’s range was northerly and lay far closer to Corrin’s green fields than Honoria’s sun-soaked southern plains, or its legendary capital.
She and her brother Ander watched from a distance as Honorian troops snaked through Helvar Pass on their way to the meadowland beyond.
“That’ll be me someday,” Ander said with mingled distaste and defiance in his voice, as watery spring sun glinted off the armor and artillery below them.
He and Fia were on their bellies, watching from a rocky outcropping where they often lay waiting for passing hares.
“In a year or two, the pressers will take me when they come, and I’ll be one of those down there, fighting for the king. ”
“You won’t,” Fia told him, perfect assurance behind the words. “They didn’t take me when they came last autumn, and they won’t take you when you’re of age at fourteen, either. I’ll make sure of it.”
Ander cast her a sidelong look. “Not everyone wants to hide like a coward. It’ll be different for me.”
“It’s not hiding,” Fia said, with the worn patience of someone rehashing an old argument. “It’s just… being somewhere else at the right time. To keep yourself alive.”
Ander rolled his eyes, infinitely self-assured as only a boy of twelve could be. “I don’t care much for living if it means having to spend my life afraid. Just wait. I’ll be in armor before you ever get closer to the king’s troops than we are now.”
He had been so certain. But the Beloved Three made a mockery of Ander’s words, as they so often did.
By late summer, Fia had all but forgotten the sight of the soldiers.
There was too much else to think of—the consuming business of attempting to keep her own belly and Ander’s full; trying to avoid their mother Nira’s notice, lest her constant ire be directed at them; rebuffing the village’s men with their leers and their rough attentions.
Simply to stay alive and unmolested was vastly hard work.
And then, in the dead of night, Fia woke with her hands dripping blood.
She knew at once that it wasn’t the result of an injury, but the byproduct of a dream still clinging to her.
Fia had seen the smoke-shrouded fields of Corrin with perfect clarity, had heard the screams and artillery fire and clamor of war.
More than that, she saw the row of white hospital tents shining at the edge of the sprawling battleground.
Raea’s emblem was emblazoned on them, proud and golden, and sun shone on those tents while the rest of the field was in shadow.