Chapter Two Elvine #2
She saw Thera’s features tighten, grim resignation creasing her brow and a sigh escaping her lips. “Your mother was of similar mind. I should fetch her, and your brother.”
“Did she wake me?” Elvine asked, halting the queen’s progress to the door. “Your Tielwald. Is that why you brought her here?”
“The Spear Maiden sees much.” Thera leaned down to tease a wayward lock of wheat-gold hair from Elvine’s brow. “I did have hopes Lynnea’s… abilities might help rouse you from this seemingly endless sleep. You were starting to worry us. But, she assures me you woke up all on your own.”
She went to the door, pausing to cast her gaze at the spear once more. “I will have to insist on your complicated stories,” she said. “Regarding that… thing. And much else, I suspect.”
“And I would hope my queen is equally forthcoming,” Elvine replied, voice stronger now as she met Thera’s gaze.
This was the Spear Maiden’s voice, the one Elvine had acquired during those fraught days when Olversahl teetered on the brink of ruin.
“For I suspect we both know much that would benefit our cause. But, before you go, I must know, is she dead?”
“She?”
“Lore. Did she perish in the battle?”
Thera shook her head. “Fled in one of those giant hulks beloved of our enemy, leaving her fleet to our mercy, not that we gave them any. I sent my swiftest ships in pursuit. But they’ve yet to return.”
“They won’t.” Elvine felt weariness creep over her, suffused with bitter realisation. “She got away.”
“For now. Rest assured, she’ll meet with justice soon enough. You’d best prepare yourself for some irksome coddling,” she added, hauling the door open. “While you slept, your mother and brother did not. I fear it’s made them somewhat frantic.”
After she left, Elvine pushed her rising fatigue aside and struggled free of the bed. Tottering to the spear, she took hold of the iron head with both hands, gripping it tight. “Lore!” she demanded of the spirit within the metal. “Where is she?”
Two days later, Elvine Jurest, Spear Maiden of Olversahl, knelt before Thera Speldrenda, the just crowned Queen of All Ascarlia, and laid the Spear of the Altvar at her feet.
The coronation had been convened atop the defensive harbour wall overlooking a wharf crammed from end to end with onlookers.
It was a mixed audience of warriors, townsfolk, freed slaves, both Nihlvarian and Morvek, and recently arrived emissaries from the few gelds so far untouched by war.
When Queen Thera rose from her recently constructed throne to place a hand upon Elvine’s lowered head, all present erupted in an exuberant roar of affirmation.
Listening to the ongoing cheers and discordant chanting, her title enjoying equal volume with Thera’s, Elvine reflected that loyalty may be a product of relief as much as adulation.
The war had heralded a time of desperate uncertainty.
A new queen, one blessed by the Spear Maiden herself, engendered a sense of recovered confidence in a realm so viciously shorn of power.
Elvine was no lawyer, for the profession didn’t exist in Ascarlia, but knew that Thera’s elevation was both unprecedented and devoid of any legal process.
Nevertheless, only a fool would now contest her authority.
The Sister Queens were dead, but the Queen was not, and Ascarlia lived on.
For now, Elvine whispered inwardly, pasting a smile on her lips when Thera took her elbow to raise her up so they might face the crowd side by side.
At the queen’s muttered instruction, Elvine raised the spear above her head, heralding an upsurge in exuberant acclaim.
Lore still lives, she thought, her jaw beginning to ache.
They celebrate a victory not yet secured.
The notion of how many of these folk would be alive to cheer when this war was finally done threatened to dim her smile.
However, by sheer effort of will, she kept it in place for as long as it took the queen’s menda to escort them from the wall to waiting horses and then on to the Elderman’s House where Thera had established her court.
Awaiting them were the principal captains of the queen’s fleet and what remained of Olversahl’s civic leadership, led by the welcome sight of a sturdy man with a patch over his right eye.
Across his chest he wore the silver chain of the city’s First Elderman.
With Elvine firmly refusing any further titles, including leadership of this port, a figure of suitable stature had to be found to assume the mantle.
Bahn’s leadership, not to mention displays of suicidal courage during the defence of the harbour, had earned him great renown among the townsfolk.
This, coupled with the Spear Maiden’s favour, and the fact that most other contenders were dead or in self-imposed exile, made him a fine choice.
Hemund, Chief Dockmaster and the only other city official of any rank, had reacted to the suggestion he might accept the role with an amused snort: “Why, in the name of Ulthnir’s divine arse, would I ever do that? ”
When Elvine made careful allusion to Bahn’s continuing adherence to the Covenant of Martyrs, Thera had shrugged.
“I’ve decided that, henceforth, the beliefs of my subjects are secondary to loyalty and competence,” she said.
“Consider the previous strictures against Covenant observance abolished as of this moment.”
There was a feast to endure that evening, one Elvine would attend for the briefest time propriety allowed, but first came the more pressing matter of the queen’s first council of war.
Elvine was afforded a seat at Thera’s right hand at the head of the table while the various Veilwalds and captains made their reports.
Elvine had expected Lynnea to sit at Thera’s left, but the maiden was absent from this meeting.
Either she considered it of scant import or had more pressing business elsewhere.
Given the varied roles of a Tielwald, Elvine didn’t like to ponder what that business might be.
Kahlvik Vahrimdorr, a famed seafarer from the Outer Isles now made Vellihr of the Sword, opened proceedings with a report on his recent scouting of the approaches to Aeric’s Fjord. The sea was free of ships but he had espied a storm front of ominous appearance sweeping in from the west.
“Some winters the Styrnspeld contrives to breathe its worst towards us, my queen,” Bahn informed Thera, confirming Kahlvik’s judgement. “If Ulfmaer looks kindly upon us, we may be snowed in for mere days. But some storms have been known to last a week or more.”
“Order all ships to close up to the harbour wall,” Thera told Ossgrym Styrntorc, the Ironbones.
Although still Veilwald of the Kast Geld in the upper Outer Isles, he was now principally occupied as commander of the queen’s fleet.
“Ensure all vessels are lashed together and the hulls buttressed. If the fjord freezes, they could crack like an egg.”
“It will be done, my queen,” Ossgrym assured her.
“Would it be possible to get ahead of the storm?” Elvine asked Kahlvik. “Your ship is famously swift, is it not?”
The seafarer glanced at Thera before responding. During the reign of the Sister Queens, to speak at a gathering like this without leave would have been a grave transgression. But, as Spear Maiden, Elvine was afforded privileges denied others.
“No ship is so swift,” Kahlvik replied upon receiving a nod from Thera. “Nor would I chance the Ohlnir and its crew on such waters.”
“Lore is the corruption at the heart of our wounds. She must be cut out as soon as possible.” Hearing the heated pitch of her voice, Elvine clenched her teeth against further invective, trying to cage her frustration.
The answer she had received from the spirit in the spear had lacked precision but not meaning.
She flies across the waves, child. I can sense her fear, even across the miles, but also her intent.
As ever, she plots. But her object remains vague.
“The Spear Maiden is keen to see the traitor queen Lore brought to justice,” Thera explained to the gathering.
“As, I’m sure, are we all. It may be that Ulfmaer, sometimes a generous god, will accomplish the task for us, if this storm is all it portends to be.
If not, be sure that our first order of business once it calms will be hunting down the traitor to whatever benighted refuge she has chosen.
Now.” She turned to Bahn. “First Elderman, please be so good as to report on the provision of supplies in this port…”
Elvine allowed barely an hour to pass before she departed the feast, complaining of a headache that had plagued her since waking.
It was only a partial lie, because she found the constant stares of those present oppressive to the point of nausea.
Only weeks before, most of these people had never heard her name.
Those that had would most likely remember some minor city functionary caught in the midst of Covenant heresy and dragged off to Skar Magnol.
Now she was the Spear Maiden, Altvar Blessed saviour of Olversahl.
Not a person, but a story, and a figure of worship, like one of those statues in the Vaults.
Except she was alive. Living, breathing proof of the Altvar’s providence. It made her feel a fraud.
Colvyn insisted on accompanying her as she donned a cloak and made her way from the hall.
Halkyr and her other guards had also attempted to join them but Elvine insisted they stay and enjoy the merriment.
Outside, the streets were blanketed in a thick, chilly fog that would leave the city covered in sparkling frost come the dawn.
Though it would make for a pleasant spectacle, she knew it an omen of the fury to come when the storm arrived.