Chapter Fifteen Thera #2
“I will confess I am surprised by King Tomas’s choice of ambassador,” Thera said.
“Previous emissaries from his court have been of lower station than yourself.” She saw the duchess’s brows quirk a little at the mention of her monarch.
They both knew her mission here had not been orchestrated by the King of Albermaine, a figure famed principally for overindulgence and leaving matters of governance in the hands of his mother.
“The Cordwain is the closest duchy to Ascarlia,” Ayin explained. “And His Majesty was especially keen that a personage of suitable rank be dispatched to greet its new queen. I’m afraid I have a rather long letter of introduction to present. I can read it now if you would prefer.”
“Best save it for the feast I have ordained in your honour tonight. But I am curious as to the principal topics of discussion your king wishes us to address.”
“What else?” The duchess’s smile broadened. “Money, of course. Particularly the portion of it that flows through the port of Olversahl.”
“I trust His Majesty is not intent on reopening old wounds. I will state here and now that if you have come to parley over the sovereignty of Olversahl, you will leave empty-handed.”
“Not sovereignty, Majesty, merely commerce. Please know that the king, and his mother, remember well the assistance provided unto them by the Sister Queens during the Martyr’s War.
In the spirit of that time, I come not to take advantage of your difficulties, but instead to offer new opportunities.
An agreement on tariffs and taxes regarding the goods that flow between our realms would benefit us both. ”
“I see. I assume you come armed with a suitably detailed proposal?”
“I do. Drawn up by cleverer minds than mine, of course.”
Thera contained a sigh as they reached the Verungyr’s gate.
However mutually beneficial the duchess’s proposal might be, Thera had little doubt which realm would benefit the most. Sister Silver had received several such approaches from the Dowager Princess over the years and dismissed them all in short order.
But that had been a time of peace when merchant ships sailed untroubled seas and so much of Ascarlia lay un-ravaged by a heartless foe.
Thera didn’t have the luxury of outright refusal.
She began to voice a suitably non-committal answer when another observation from Lynnea slipped into her mind.
There’s more. This woman has no interest in tariffs and taxes. Regardless of what her princess sent her here to do, she came for something else.
What something?
I can’t read minds, as you know. Only intent.
“Be so good as to have your servants provide the document to mine,” Thera told Ayin. “And we shall discuss it on the morrow.” She gestured to the inner precincts of the Verungyr. “As for tonight, we feast.”
“Forgive my presumption, Majesty,” Ayin said as she followed Thera into the courtyard. “But will there, perchance, be music? I do so like music.”
It transpired that musicians were in short supply in the Verungyr.
A hasty scouring of the town produced a clutch of fiddlers and pipers, mostly Albermaine-ish sailors from the crew of the merchantman Northern Star.
After some faltering practise they succeeded in filling the Verungyr’s feasting hall with tunes that were at least pleasing if not accomplished.
Duchess Ayin appeared to regard their playing with indulgent amusement rather than disdain, or was at least polite enough to conceal it.
She and Thera exchanged the expected empty pleasantries for a time until one of the fiddlers began to play a particular tune.
It was a simple melody, pleasing if sorrowful in tone.
Thera didn’t recognise it but it was evident that her guest did.
Trailing off during an answer to Thera’s enquiry regarding the health of Queen Ducinda, the duchess’s gaze took on a distant cast as it lingered upon the fiddler.
“You know the song, my lady?” Thera asked.
“I should,” Ayin said, getting to her feet. “I wrote it. If you will excuse me a moment, Majesty.”
A surprised hush settled over the hall as she departed the head table and made her way to the cluster of musicians.
The Albermaine-ish among them, including the fiddler, all promptly got to their feet and bowed.
The uniform expressions of reverence on their faces made it clear to Thera that Duchess Ayin was highly thought of in her own country.
Smiling, she bade them all resume their seats before addressing the fiddler.
“Finely done, but your key is a little high.” She had him play a few notes before nodding in approval, whereupon Duchess Ayin Lambertain of the Cordwain straightened her back and began to sing.
Thera had only a basic appreciation for music.
Songs and odes, sometimes set to tunes, were often heard in the halls of an Ascarlian noble, and she was not averse to joining her menda’s discordant bawling when the ale flowed freely.
But never in all her years had she heard anything to match the sound produced by this diminutive Albermaine-ish noblewoman.
Her voice, pure and commanding, filled the hall effortlessly.
The lyrics were Alberic, a tongue spoken by many here, but even those who couldn’t understand the words, surely comprehended the meaning.
“From Olversahl to Walvern Keep
I walked the bloody road
On cold bare earth did I sleep
Beside the bloody road…”
It was clearly a warrior’s song, a catalogue of battles, some won, some lost. Watching Ayin as she sang, Thera discerned a rawness of emotion that she at first thought must be part of the performance.
But, as the song continued and the duchess’s voice took on a faint quaver, Thera knew this was a tale Ayin had lived.
A pulse of wordless sorrow drew Thera’s gaze to Lynnea, seated in a shadowed corner of the hall.
Pain, Lynnea explained. So much pain… And madness too.
The woman you see before you was not always whole in her mind.
Nor was she innocent. I sense the scars upon her soul that only come from killing.
“Friends I had and friends I lost
Upon the bloody road
And never will I count the cost
Of that bloody road.”
Ayin’s song faded in harmony with the fiddler’s final note.
There followed an instant of utter silence before the entire hall burst out in applause.
Feet stamped and fists thumped tables, the air thickened with demands for more.
Ayin made a show of modest refusal until Thera rose and stated she would consider it an insult if the duchess did not bless them with more music.
So, for the rest of the evening, Ayin sang and those who heard her that night would speak of it for many years to come.
“You fought at Olversahl the night it fell to the Sister Queens,” Thera said. “Unless there was falsehood in your song, and I know there wasn’t.”
When Ayin’s final tune had faded the revels in the feasting hall took on a customary raucousness.
Thera would once have happily joined in the rowdy outpouring of far less melodious voices and unstinting drink, but even an Ascarlian queen was obliged to maintain a modicum of dignity.
Instead, she bade Ayin accompany her on a tour of the Verungyr’s battlements on the pretext of showing her the view of Linsker Fjord in moonlight.
The duchess offered no immediate response to Thera’s question.
Coming to a halt where the wall took on a sharp angle, she rested her hands on the edge and cast her gaze across the town and the fjord beyond.
“Then we have something in common, do we not, Majesty?” she said.
“For you fought there too, so I’m told.”
“I did. I watched the Blackheart’s villains kill a very brave man. Mayhap you wielded one of the blades that took his life.”
Ayin appeared unperturbed by the edge to Thera’s voice, still preoccupied with the view. “In truth, I don’t think I killed anyone that night. Not all my memories of those days are complete. I’m afraid I was of… a disordered mind then.”
“Is that why you served the Blackheart? Were all of her followers mad?”
“Blackheart,” the duchess repeated softly.
“A fitting name, I suppose. I’ve certainly heard her called worse.
As for why I served her, I didn’t like the place I lived in at the time.
” She paused to frown in recollection, letting out a faint laugh.
“And I thought she was pretty. Also, she had a strange knack of capturing the hearts of those who made the mistake of listening to her speeches. If it will calm any discord between us, please know that I, and several others once sworn to her service, turned our coats before her final bout of madness and murder.”
Thera crossed her arms and leant against the wall. “I know the tale well enough, though I didn’t know you were part of it.”
“It’s no secret. I am mentioned in many a storyteller’s account of the Martyr’s War, though rarely with much accuracy and often with exaggerated importance.
Some cast me as the bastard daughter to a noble knight, though if my mother had ever even met a lord I should be very surprised.
Those who still follow the Risen Martyr’s teachings tell a darker story of a Malecite spirit who took the form of a beguiling songstress so that she might seduce the heir to the Cordwain duchy.
In that, at least, there is a grain of truth.
” The duchess’s lips formed a fond smile.
“My husband still likes to relate how he fell in love upon first hearing my voice.”