Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dara had seen them coming up the path, and by the time they reached the steps, she was waiting at the front door. When she saw Verna’s bruised cheek and a leather collar mark on her neck, she glared at the four strangers with her.
Verna spoke quickly before Dara could begin. "Tell the cook we have four extra people for breakfast, and fetch a glass of wine for me, please Dara."
The housekeeper, though clearly wanting to know what happened, simply replied, "Of course, My Lady."
When she disappeared down the corridor, Verna led them into the smaller dining room.
It was warm from the fire that had been lit at dawn, and not long after they were seated, the kitchen maids appeared with plates of bread, meat and cheese and a bowl of olives.
A cup of wine appeared at Verna's elbow.
The four strangers were seated on one side of the table while Kalen sat beside Verna, which was not lost on Merle, who glanced between the two of them with interest.
The women ate heartily, clearly having eaten frugally on the journey. Arlie kept her eyes down, obviously feeling awkward for having hit Verna across the face and then accepting her hospitality.
Verna drank half her wine, set the cup down, and finally spoke, "I'll tell you what has happened since Kalen came to this estate." She glanced around the table. "I ask only that you let me finish before you say anything."
Merle nodded once while the three younger women put down their cups.
"Kalen came here in chains," Verna said.
"From the auction hall in Castine where I had bought her, along with three young girls I had also paid for.
I do this because the auction hall is the only legal way to help the young, vulnerable women that would be badly treated as slaves.
Most that age are either sent to the brothels, or sold to men who use them as sex slaves.
" She looked at Merle steadily. "I didn’t buy Kalen because I wanted a slave. I bought her because I watched four strong men fail to make her kneel, and I thought that whoever she was, she shouldn’t be left in that place. "
Merle said nothing. Her expression hadn’t changed, but she was listening.
"She arrived here and I removed her chains after I talked with her," Verna continued. "She has been housed, fed and treated as well as any woman here, with kindness and consideration." She paused. "She agreed to be my champion."
Merle's eyes sharpened. "Champion?"
"The emperor has been taxing the great noble houses of the empire to fund his continuous military campaigns on the eastern borders." She watched Merle carefully. "Kalen said you know of these wars even though you live outside the Empire."
Merle pursed her lips. "We do."
"Borgine wanted my estate," Verna continued. "He had been trying to force me into a marriage with his son, Bain, for two years. I’ve been refusing, so he organised a competition between the nine great houses called the Trials of the Houses. He presumed, since I had only had women on my estate, I’d be the losing house.
The winning house would receive the emperor's favour, while the last one would face consequences.
And I knew perfectly well what that would be.
I would be forced to marry Bain. In the Empire," she added drily, "a woman’s property becomes her husband’s once they are wed. "
"Archaic, stupid law," Merle muttered.
Verna smiled. "I agree. Anyhow, I asked Kalen if she would be my champion for the Trial. I’d never seen anyone fight like her."
Merle looked at her thoughtfully. "How did she go?"
"Wonderfully. She blitzed them in the horse events on the first day and won the hand-to-hand combat on the second." Verna glanced with pride at Kalen. "She was against the champions of the other houses, some professional fighters, and most enormous." She tapped her finger on the table. "But—"
"But?" echoed Merle.
"On the third day the emperor announced that each house must send a blood member of their family into the arena," Verna said bitterly. "It was a bloodbath for the poor young men who had to face pit fighters."
Merle's eyes moved to Verna's face with a new quality of attention. "And what about you?"
"Since I have no husband and no sons, Borgine gave me an alternative. Marry his son or go into the arena."
"What did you do?" Merle asked quietly.
Verna jutted out her chin. "I told him off and went into the arena. The whole Trial was orchestrated to get my estate which is the best in the Empire."
"Yet, you are here to tell the tale."
"He sent a war bear into the arena."
The four women stared at her. "A war bear," gasped one of them.
"It was Dulcie," Verna said. "She was the bear."
"You were in the arena with a war bear," Merle said slowly. "Had you seen Dulcie before then?"
"No."
"Why didn’t she tear you to pieces? They are bred to fight."
Verna touched the ring briefly. "She just didn’t. She came home with us. One of the women here recognised her. Xania's from the Kathran mountains. The emperor's soldiers killed Xania's brother and caged the bear."
Merle looked at the ring, then at Verna as though she was adding things up.
Verna moved on before the arithmetic could be completed out loud.
"After the Trials, the nine great houses of the Empire united against Borgine.
His campaigns had been funded by house taxes and we withdrew that funding simultaneously.
Without money, his army could not be paid.
Without his army, he had no means of enforcing his authority.
" She looked around the table. "Two weeks ago, the nine house heads went to the palace.
Borgine is dead. His eldest son Olag is also dead.
His second son Bain has been sent into exile and has signed documents relinquishing any claim to the throne. "
The women were very quiet.
"The empire is currently governed by a council of the nine houses," Verna said.
"And the council has agreed that the new ruler of the empire will be Fatima, Borgine's daughter.
She will be the first empress this empire has ever had.
" She looked at Merle steadily. "The eastern campaigns are being wound down as of this week and the soldiers recalled.
The border territories will no longer be subject to imperial military action. "
She picked up her wine and looked across the rim at the four women. All seemed shocked.
Merle turned to Kalen. "All of this since you arrived in Castine?"
"Yes."
Merle studied Verna again with the calculating eyes that were so like Kalen's it was slightly unnerving. "You haven’t told me everything, Lady Verna. The most important thing."
"No, I haven’t," Verna replied. She nudged Kalen. "You tell them."
"She’s a Wending Witch," Kalen replied calmly. "She killed the emperor and you’re all lucky she didn’t kill you."
Merle recoiled, then pulled herself together with a visible effort. Grimacing, she eyed the bruise on Verna's cheek. "We owe you a deep apology."
"You do, but I can understand that you were worried about Kalen.
" She held up her finger. "This ring has been passed down through the women of my family for generations. I read my great-grandmother’s journals and it would seem this is the first time the ring has been activated for six generations.
She called it the Wending. Clearly it has magical powers, because I could calm a war bear and summon the wind.
I also can kill a man with the power in my body.
Kalen told me there is a myth among your people that a Wending Witch will appear when she is needed.
Can you tell me what a Wending Witch is exactly? "
Merle was quiet for a long moment after Verna finished speaking.
She gazed at the ring on Verna's finger with a more serious expression.
"A Wending Witch," she said slowly, "is not simply a woman with magical power. Though they don’t make themselves known, there are some people with magical power in the world.
There have always been." She folded her hands on the table, choosing her words with care.
"A Wending Witch is something specific. The word Wending in our language means the turning of an age.
The pivot point between what was and what must be.
Our Wise Woman has spoken of it since before I was born.
She says that the Wending Witch appears only when the world is at a turning point so significant that without intervention, it will fall into darkness.
" She searched Verna’s face. "She does not appear by accident or because she happens to have an old ring. It’s when something evil is coming that the world needs her. "
The room was very quiet.
"What is she?" Verna asked. "What can she do?"
"I don’t have any fine details," Merle replied.
"Our Wise Woman says she is a bridge between the old power and the present world.
She can speak to animals, which you demonstrated when you spoke to the bear.
She can call the elements, wind and water and fire.
She can feel the wrongness in things, the corruption, and she can cleanse them.
" She looked at the ring again. "And she can fight what ordinary weapons cannot touch. "
"Dark witches," Kalen said quietly, from beside Verna.
Merle nodded once.
Verna looked at her. "Tell me what is coming."
Merle fell silent as she searched for the words.
"Beyond the eastern borders of this Empire," she began, "further than your maps have ever reached, there are lands that your people don’t know exist. We have lived between your empire and those lands for generations and have been a buffer.
" She looked down at her hands. "Three years ago, something began to move in those eastern lands. We didn’t know its name, only that it corrupted nature.
Birds in the forests grew silent. Rivers began to run the wrong way, and animals fled before it. "
"Dark witches," Verna said again.
"We think they only serve it," Merle said. "To be frank, we are not entirely certain where one ends and the other begins. What we know is that they are powerful in a way that our warriors cannot match with steel alone. We have fought them on the borders for two years and we have slowed them but we haven’t stopped them. Your emperor’s constant wars on the borders allowed them to enter in the chaos. "
"That’s why you sent Kalen to kill Borgine?" Verna said.
"Yes. The empire's campaigns on our eastern borders have been cutting through the territories that form the outer barrier," Merle said.
"Every settlement the emperor destroyed, every community he displaced, every village his soldiers burned, was a piece of that barrier gone. He was weakening the boundary between this world and what is pushing against it. He didn't know it existed, and we couldn’t tell him because we couldn’t let the empire know we were there.
We thought if we removed Borgine, the campaigns would stop. The boundary could be maintained."
"And now he is dead."
"Yes," Merle agreed. "You said the campaigns will be wound down, but that mayn’t be enough now.
" She looked at Verna with an urgency that was different from anything she had shown since they had sat down.
"Lady Verna, some of the Imperial soldiers on the eastern borders must stay to defend the boundary. "
Verna frowned. "The council intends to bring them home. The campaigns are ended."
Merle leaned forward. "Some soldiers must stay. We need trained fighters who can hold a position. Our warriors are exceptional, but there aren’t enough of us.
We have survived this long because the barrier has held, but the barrier is weakening and what is behind it is beginning to find the gaps.
" She looked at Verna. "We do not need an imperial army to fight for us. We need it to stand beside us."
Verna turned to Kalen. "You knew all of this before you came?"
"Yes," Kalen said.
"And the assassination was always about stopping what was coming on the other side of the boundary?"
"Yes."
Verna looked back at Merle. "How long do we have before the boundary collapses entirely, do you think?"
Merle pursed her lips. "Our wise woman thinks we can hold them off six months, maybe seven. Now the fighting has stopped, perhaps a little longer."
"And the Wending Witch?" Verna said. "Why her specifically?"
"The dark witches don’t use power the way you do," Merle replied.
"Your power comes from the earth, from the blood, from what is living in the world.
Their power comes from the dead, from chaos.
" She looked at the ring. "Ordinary weapons can’t hold them. Steel can wound a body, but it can’t touch what lives inside a dark witch.
But your power can. Yours is the direct opposite of their power. "
Verna sat, listening to the fire crackling in the hearth, as she thought about the ring waking in the arena and about what her great-grandmother had written.
The ring was only a door to something in her blood.
She thought about her mother, who had been beginning to understand this when Borgine had made sure she never got the chance.
She knew now what a Wending Witch was, and it was her bad luck after six generations it had awakened.
"I will write to the council and Fatima about what you said," she said with resignation. "I’ll ask them to leave a portion of the garrisons on the frontier to defend it. Then I will address my people on the estate."
"And say what?" asked Kalen with a frown.
Verna held her gaze steadily. "That I will be going away for an indefinite period. Patrice will be in charge, and I hope everyone will keep my grapevines well-tended while I’m away."
Kalen blinked at her. "You’re coming with us?"
"Yes."
"Without an argument?"
"Would it do me any good to protest? You need me because I am the Wending Witch. And I have no intention of you unceremoniously dragging me there. I have some dignity left."
Kalen burst out laughing. "That’s why I love you, Lady Verna."
Verna raised an eyebrow. "You love me, Kalen?"
Kalen opened then closed her mouth, blushing as she caught her aunt gaping at her. "I meant to wait to tell you in private," she muttered. "But yes, Verna, I love you."
Verna smiled at her. "I love you too, Kalen. I have for quite a while now. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to keep you here, but as it turns out, it’s me that has to go."
Verna drank the rest of her wine, set the cup down and looked at the four women across the table.
"Finish your breakfast," she said. "We have a great deal of work to do."