Queen of the Unwanted Page 22

  Jailom smiled grimly. “He’s just spent two weeks traveling through the Wasteland on foot. Even the vainest of men would abandon their pride to get that journey over with in a matter of days.”

  Alys imagined her lord high treasurer was going to have a word or two to say when he learned of this extravagant expenditure. But he would abandon all thoughts of lectures when the council began to discuss the establishment of new trade routes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Norah rubbed her hands nervously on the skirt of her robes, her heart pattering as she stood outside the door of the abbess’s office. There could be no benign reason Mairahsol had summoned her, although Norah had been doing her best not to draw the other woman’s attention and ire. The spirit of rebellion that had fueled her when Mairahsol had first been named abbess had dimmed a great deal thanks to the constant punishments and fasts. She was still resolved to resist the abbess’s attempts—pathetic though they might be—to undo the Blessing, but there was only so much misery she was willing to endure.

  And yet for all her good behavior, she’d been summoned to the abbess’s office yet again. She no longer felt as brave as she once had, and it was an effort of will to force herself to knock.

  “Come in,” Mairahsol called. Just the sound of the hateful woman’s voice was enough to make Norah cringe.

  Reluctantly, Norah pushed the door open and stepped inside. Mairahsol was seated behind her desk, and she watched with a predatory gleam in her eyes as Norah approached. Norah gritted her teeth. She had never thought of herself as the kind of person who would hate another, but the feeling that roiled in her gut just now felt very much like hatred. Even if she did not feel such a huge personal enmity toward Mairahsol, she would still hate the woman for her willingness—no, eagerness—to bow to the will of men and try to undo the Blessing the Mother of All had bestowed upon Her daughters.

  “You wanted to see me, Mother Mairahsol?” Norah asked, though it cost her dearly every time she had to utter that title.

  Mairahsol’s eyes gleamed with an almost lustful expression. “Indeed. Do you know why?”

  Norah racked her brain, trying to think of some way she had displeased the abbess without noticing. But she had avoided Mairahsol to the best of her ability and had barely set eyes on the woman over the course of the last week. She had been as inoffensive as it was possible to be. “No, Mother Mairahsol.”

  Mairahsol’s smile broadened, became something closer to a baring of teeth. “You are aware that worshipping the Mother of All is considered heresy? And that heresy is a crime punishable by death?”

  Norah swayed on her feet and feared for a moment that she might humiliate herself by fainting dead away. She had worshipped the Mother of All for most of her life, always knowing that it was a deadly risk. But somehow, after decades without discovery, she’d allowed herself to believe that she would never be caught. She tried to summon a denial, but there was no reason to think Mairahsol would believe one.

  “A heretic’s death is not an easy one,” Mairahsol continued, making a face that was supposed to convey sympathy, though Norah doubted she’d be very good at it even if she weren’t being intentionally insincere. “But I suspect that death by fire, as agonizing as it must be, is less unpleasant than the hours upon hours a heretic must spend in earnest conversation with the royal inquisitor.” She shuddered theatrically. “I understand that it is necessary to root out all traces of the heresy, but the inquisitor’s methods are most disturbing.”

  Norah couldn’t breathe. She had been foolish and reckless, assuming Mairahsol would not venture forth from her rooms in the night—and that none of her sister abigails would betray her. She did not know of a single abigail who actually liked the woman, but there were certainly those who were all too happy to curry favor. It would be bad enough if Norah herself were the only one who would suffer for her mistake, but she had no illusions about her own physical courage—or about the effectiveness of the inquisitor’s terrible methods. Under torture, she would betray every one of her fellow worshippers, and they, in turn, would face the same fate.

  A hand took firm hold of her upper arm, and with a shock Norah saw that the abbess had risen from her chair and come around her desk. Norah’s head was spinning—she hadn’t even seen the other woman move.

  “Sit down before you fall down,” Mairahsol said, her voice sharp with impatience as she all but shoved Norah into a chair. “If I were planning to turn you in, I would not have bothered meeting with you first.”

  Norah’s chest still felt tight with panic, her pulse stuttering erratically as her mind helpfully conjured images of the torments she would suffer at the inquisitor’s hands. She heard Mairahsol’s words in a distant way, barely able to comprehend them.

  “It’s no secret that I despise you,” Mairahsol said. “You and all your sanctimonious, holier-than-thou friends. You’ve made my life miserable for years, and I have every intention of paying you all back in full. But even I have to admit you haven’t done anything worthy of torture and death.”

  Norah sucked in a deep breath as her rational mind attempted to return from the deep, dark cave in which it had hidden. Clearly, Mairahsol wanted something from her. Norah could not but think it was something she would very much not want to give her, but anything was better than the fate that would be hers should the abbess turn her in.

  “W-what do you want?” she managed to stammer, terror still tightening her throat.

  Mairahsol leaned her hip against her desk, folding her arms over her chest as she regarded Norah with a look of equal parts malice and calculation. “Am I right in suspecting that you and the rest of your fellow heretics have been doing your best to obstruct my research? I would not recommend lying to me.”

  Norah swallowed hard, willing herself to be steady, to think. Her life, and the lives of all her dearest sisters, rested in her ability to stay calm and give the abbess what she wanted. It was certainly her intention—and the intention of her sisters—to obstruct Mairahsol’s research whenever possible, but there had hardly been much need. As far as Norah could tell, the abbess had made no progress whatsoever and didn’t even have a clear idea how to start researching. However, it would obviously not be wise to say so.

  “We believe what you call the Curse is actually the Mother’s Blessing,” Norah said. Her voice came out raspy, as if she’d been screaming. “We feel it is for the benefit of all women and that it would be a betrayal of our faith to try to reverse it.”

  Mairahsol rolled her eyes. “Has your life improved so greatly since it was cast? Has mine?”

  Norah looked up sharply, indignation making her incautious. “It isn’t about you or me! It’s about all women. And yes, I believe that many lives have been improved.”

  Mairahsol shrugged. “In theory, I suppose, though I’ve seen little evidence to support it. And all those who lost their lives in the earthquake the Curse caused would no doubt argue. Not to mention all the newly divorced women who have joined our numbers recently.”

  It was true that the Abbey was overflowing with newly discarded women who’d been divorced for failing to provide their husbands with children. But Norah had talked to more than one of those women and found them still thankful for the effects of the Blessing. Without it, they would have been forever trapped in their abusive marriages. And as hard as life in the Abbey might be, it was better than some alternatives. Norah herself had actually been thankful when her ex-husband had grown tired of her and decided to marry—and no doubt mistreat—a younger woman.

  “But it is only because of the Blessing that abigails are no longer forced to work the pavilion,” Norah argued. Not that Mairahsol could comprehend that particular horror, for Mother Wyebryn had taken one look at her disfigured face and declared her exempt from pavilion duty.

  Mairahsol waved the objection off. “It doesn’t matter. The king has commanded us to do our best
to reverse the Curse, and so that is what we must do. And unless you want me to tell the lord high priest that I have discovered a nest of heretics operating within the walls of this abbey, you—and your cohorts—will from now on put forth your best efforts. Is that understood?”

  Norah very much doubted it was the king’s orders that concerned Mairahsol—it was her provisional status as abbess. Mairahsol had a great many faults, but stupidity wasn’t one of them. She might not be as magically gifted as she’d led the lord high priest to believe, and she certainly wasn’t the gifted seer she made herself out to be, but she knew that if she could not find a way to convince the king she was making progress, she would be back to being just one more abigail in less than three months’ time.

  “Yes, Mother Mairahsol,” she answered, bowing her head.

  “I want your seers making an honest effort to find a solution,” Mairahsol continued. “It was through the efforts of a seer that the Curse was cast, and it only makes sense that it is through the efforts of a seer that it will be reversed.”

  Norah bit her tongue to keep from pointing out how faulty the abbess’s logic was. Anyone who had even a basic understanding of women’s magic should know that the Abbess of Aaltah’s power was unheard of. It was sheer folly to believe that Mairahsol—or anyone else now living, really—could reverse such a powerful spell. It was also folly to argue with Mairahsol, but that didn’t stop Norah from trying.

  “But the visions we receive are granted by the Mother,” she protested in what she hoped was a calm and level voice. Even those who believed the Mother was a lesser deity who sprang into being at the Creator’s will generally thought that She was the source of seers’ visions, so she was not speaking heresy. “Clearly the Mother guided the actions of the Abbess of Aaltah—and of her predecessors. Which means the Mother wanted the spell to be cast. Why should we then expect Her to help us undo it?”

  Mairahsol fixed her with an icy glare. “If She cares about you and about your heretical friends, then She’d better help. I don’t want to turn you in, but I’m sure you know I will if I have to. If I am demoted to ordinary abigail, I will destroy you and everyone you care about. You know my history, so you know I am speaking the truth.”

  Norah did, indeed, know Mairahsol’s history. The woman would stop at nothing to get her revenge if she felt she was wronged. In fact, she was so vicious she might even have been willing to proclaim herself a worshipper of the Mother of All if she thought her “confession” the only way to condemn Norah along with her. Fear curdled in Norah’s stomach, for she truly believed that what Mairahsol wanted to do was impossible, just as she also believed Mairahsol would follow through on her threat.

  “I don’t personally care if you call upon the Mother or the Mother of All to help you,” Mairahsol said, “but one way or another, one of your followers had better foresee a path we can take to undo the Curse. If we fail to make progress, I’ll be forced to tell the king you sabotaged my efforts. I hope I have made myself abundantly clear.”

  “Yes, Mother Mairahsol,” Norah gritted, caught between fury and terror.

  “And, Norah,” Mairahsol said, just as Norah thought she would finally be dismissed. “Rest assured that I will make sure your secret comes out should anything mysteriously happen to me. I am not a fool.”

  Unfortunately, that was true. So as much as Norah would like to begin plotting Mairahsol’s gruesome murder, she knew she could not.

  * * *

  —

  The building that would one day be the royal palace of Women’s Well was coming along nicely, Alys thought as the chairman of the building committee guided her through the construction zone. She hadn’t been especially eager to conduct an inspection tour—she trusted the building committee, and she was still ambivalent about moving out of her current house and into a palace. She’d have just as happily done without all the pomp and circumstance that came with being a sovereign, but she was well aware that most of it was not for the sovereign’s benefit. She might feel just as much like a sovereign living in her comfortable little house as she would living in a palace, but the same could not be said of her people—or, even more important, of the other sovereigns in Seven Wells, with whom she needed to trade and negotiate.

  All the other palaces in Seven Wells were built almost entirely of stone, but there was no quarry within easy travel of Women’s Well, and as it was expensive to transport such heavy building materials over long distances, Alys had at first insisted her palace be built entirely of wood. Even that, however, was expensive, for the trees that had sprung up thanks to the influence of the Well were as yet too young for timber. Growth potions were helping them along, and Alys suspected that within a year or two, Women’s Well would produce enough timber on its own to be self-sufficient, but they weren’t there yet.

  At the urging of both the building committee and her royal council, Alys had finally agreed that it was worth the expense of importing stone for the most public areas of the palace, with the residential wing constructed of the less expensive wood.

  “How long until it is habitable?” Alys asked the chairman as he led her through the almost-finished first floor of the residential wing. The public areas—the throne room, the banquet hall, the official audience chambers—were nowhere near as advanced in their construction, but then the need for some degree of ostentation was bound to slow down the progress.

  “It should be ready for you within a month, two at most. If you don’t mind that there will still be work underway on the public areas.” He looked at her anxiously, as if worried she might demand all construction be finished before she move in. She would have liked nothing better than to delay the move, but duty to her principality outweighed her personal preferences.

  “No, I don’t mind,” she assured him with a token smile.

  “Then you are pleased with how things are going?” he prompted, still looking anxious.

  Alys tried to add some warmth into her smile, despite all her mixed feelings. This palace would not be anything like the one she’d grown up in, which had been centuries old and practically the size of a small city all by itself. That palace had been comfortable, to some extent, because it was familiar. This one would be far less grand, and she could already see that the rooms of the residential wing would be far more homelike. Perhaps because she had had her late husband’s manor house in mind, rather than her father’s palace, when she had described the rooms she wanted in the residence.

  “I’m very pleased,” she assured the chairman, who sighed in relief.

  “Thank you, Your Royal Highness,” he said with a bow.

  Both his anxiety and his relief brought a little genuine humor into Alys’s smile. He was taking a craftsman’s pride in his work, and she was suddenly glad she’d agreed to the inspection.

  Her smile faded quickly when she saw Tynthanal appear at the far end of the hall. There was no reason he would come to the palace-in-progress unless he was looking for her. And there was no reason he’d be looking for her if he didn’t have something urgent—and likely unpleasant—to speak with her about. The look on his face confirmed her suspicion. He nodded at her, clearly willing to wait until she was finished with the chairman, but she doubted she’d be able to give the building plans the attention they deserved with him hovering in the background like that.

  “Please excuse me for a moment,” she said to the chairman while continuing to watch Tynthanal’s face in search of a clue.

  “Of course, Your Royal Highness,” the chairman said with another bow.

  “Wait here,” she instructed her honor guardsmen, then crossed to Tynthanal and gestured him into one of the empty rooms. There was no door, and the emptiness made for echoes, but it was a relatively quiet location to speak with her lord chancellor—she was quite certain he was not here as her brother.

  “What is it?” she asked in a voice just above a whisper.
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br />   “A messenger arrived from Grunirswell,” Tynthanal said. He held up a small wooden box that she hadn’t even noticed him holding. “The messenger was just a hireling, but he said he was hired to bring this to you by the captain of a Khalpari merchant ship.”

  Alys suppressed a shiver as she fought to keep her imagination from running away with her. The box was not big enough to contain anything truly dreadful…Delnamal taking a burlap sack from one of his soldier’s hands…but it was clearly not a message of support and friendship.

  Tynthanal opened the box before she could get too lost in conjecture, and she bent forward slightly to look inside. At first, all she could discern was a pile of wood chips and bent nails. Then she made out the shape of a bird’s beaked head and one clawed foot, still curled around a tightly scrolled piece of paper.

  Her shoulders sagged as she realized what she was looking at. “Our flier to King Khalvin,” she murmured, poking at the scroll and seeing that the wax seal was unbroken. He hadn’t even bothered to read her message.

  “It isn’t quite a declaration of war,” Tynthanal said, shaking his head.

  “But it’s far from a declaration of friendship.” The King of Khalpar could have chosen any number of ways to respond unfavorably to Alys’s overture. With all the time that had passed since she’d sent the flier, she’d assumed he’d taken the easiest route and merely chosen not to respond at all. Or he could have simply sent the flier back intact. To have made such a show of destroying it without having read the message…

  “It was never likely to work,” Tynthanal said quietly. “You know how…traditional the Khalpari are.”

  She nodded. “Religious, you mean.” She was well aware of how much more seriously the people of Khalpar took the teachings of the Devotional, which very firmly placed women in a role subordinate to men. According to the teachings of the Devotional, the Mother had cheated on Her husband, the Creator, with Their son, the Destroyer. The Wasteland was where the Destroyer had landed when His father had cast Him down to earth, and to avoid the same fate, the Mother had promised always to love and obey the Creator for the rest of Her existence. This subservient relationship between Creator and Mother was the model on which people were meant to build their own relationships. Such a model would not look kindly upon a female sovereign—especially one of an upstart principality built around a Well that had appeared in the Wasteland.