Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) Read online

  The emissaries smiled and nodded. Two bald men, and another pair with short, snow-white curls. The sweet perfume they wore threatened to gag her. She went on.

  “The man who held the position of reeve before—a raping bastard by the name of Mitros, whose fat head I took great pleasure in liberating from his equally plump body—never carried such a fine rod as this.”

  Seemingly put out by her response, the emissaries quietly conferred with harsh whispers and sharp gestures. When they turned back, they were all oily smiles again.

  “This man, Mitros, was not appointed by our good and generous liege,” they informed her gravely, one picking up where the other left off so smoothly that she had a hard time following the conversation. “Should you accept the king’s offer, you’ll be more than a mere reeve, you’ll also be Lady Erryn,” they finished as one, speaking as if lady sounded so much finer than queen.

  To Erryn’s mind, they were fools. Anyone could name herself a lady. Look at Nesaea, who had been her mentor for a brief time, if never her friend. She was no more a born noblewoman than Erryn was a born queen. Names and titles meant nothing, unless you could make others believe they were true. At worst, Erryn was halfway to being a queen already—she had named herself, it was true, but held no illusions that she would not have to fight to keep her claim. As such, becoming Lady Erryn was akin to going backward. Still, she decided to hear these men out, because as Nesaea had told her, “Listening to your enemies leads to understanding them, and understanding them will help you defeat them.”

  “Should I accept,” Erryn said, voice neutral, “what recompense will your ‘good and generous liege’ offer me?” She had never been to any court save her own—the common room of the Cracked Flagon, with its ale- and wine-stained wooden floor, and slipshod plank walls covered in hides, antlers, and ten lifetimes of soot—but she felt sure her question had a courtly ring to it.

  A question instead of immediate agreement distressed the emissaries anew. They pushed their heads together yet again, faces twisted into scowls. They recovered quickly and pressed closer to her, their tongues all but wagging in her direction. Erryn decided Breyon was right about highborn arse-licking, and couldn’t help but clench her buttocks under her snug leather leggings.

  One of the bald emissaries, the tallest and most spindly of the lot, swept back his ermine-lined cloak of scarlet wool and stepped forward. “Should you accept, milady, you’ll be expected to resume delivering shipments of gold-ore to the King’s City of Onareth. In return, King Nabar will provide you with enough soldiers to ensure that Valdar is protected from ravening plainsmen, as well as the bandits known to frequent these lands.” His eyes failed to conceal his opinion that Erryn herself was little more than a common brigand. “Assuming your willingness, King Nabar has granted you lands and, of course, a true title.” From the depths of his cloak, he produced a scroll with a blob of blue wax sealing it closed. A moment later, out came a leather sack that clinked when he bounced on his palm.

  “Truly?” Erryn asked, feigning interest. They offered her more every time she showed the barest reluctance, suggesting that they were conniving and untrustworthy—not that she had expected anything less. These fools were the picture of all she hoped to avoid in her own rule.

  “Indeed, milady. King Nabar has even agreed to provide funds necessary to pay for the construction of a fine manse hereabout, one suitable to your station….” Just short of cringing, the emissary’s words trailed off as he looked around at the wide fields beyond the palisade, with their dying grass and wildflowers, the stubble of recently harvested crops gone a dirty yellow within fieldstone hedges, and finally to the dark forests of pine, fir and birch ringing it all about. He cleared his throat, shivered. “Enough gold, I daresay, for you to build a woodland palace, if you wish.”

  “Oh my, a woodland palace?”

  General Aedran leaned in close to Erryn. “If you poke your dagger into his gob, I’ll give you ten woodland palaces.”

  A giggle escaped Erryn. The bald emissary scowled. Before he could waste anymore time, Erryn eased back her wolfskin cloak to caress the hilt of the short sword gifted to her by Nesaea. It was a pretty thing, fitted to her stature, the pommel set with a large oval sapphire, the crossguards fashioned of engraved silver, and the blade sharp as a midwinter wind. She barely knew how to use long steel—concealable knives suited orphaned village girls better than swords—but the way she touched it widened the eyes of her audience. The tall bald emissary retreated a few dainty steps, his fine slippers squelching in the mud.

  “My lords,” Erryn said, putting on a winning smile, “I prefer to keep my current title and my gold, which is far more than King Nabar could ever give me. As for manses and palaces … as you can see, I already possess an entire fortress full of soldiers. And, as you surely know from the map I sent your good king, I’ve claimed the lands between the Shadow Road and the Gyntor Mountains east to Pryth, and west to Qairennor. Anything less from your liege is simply unacceptable.”

  The emissaries looked at her with bulging stares and purpling faces, as if she had ordered their manhoods seared with hot irons. She took their silence as an invitation to proceed.

  “Be that as it may, I’m open to trading with your king, and I’m willing to pay the highest price for all southern goods.” Feeling generous, she dropped a saucy wink. “Perhaps even better than top price … say, as much as a third better over the next five years?” That seemed more than generous.

  Purpled faces gave way to bewildered blinks and slack lips all around. Before they gave her an answer, she slapped them with her conditions.

  “Of course, King Nabar and his court must openly acknowledge that I am Queen of the North, and yield up the lands that I’ve claimed for myself and my people.”

  That snapped them out of their shock. “Your people!” they said as one.

  The spindly one stepped forward again, his bald head gone to an alarming shade of plum. “You filthy, dog-rutting whore,” he hissed. “If you jest, it is best to say so now, for I can assure you, the very serious game that will commence upon our departure is nothing you and this pack of inbred, lack-witted rabble can hope to win.”

  Erryn’s Queensguard shifted. A few even chuckled. One thing a Prythian admired more than sharp steel was a sharp tongue. Of course, they also had a penchant for cutting out such tongues, and few were averse to wearing those bloodied bits of meat on leather strings around their necks.

  It was a close thing for Erryn to resist drawing her sword and teaching the bald bastard some respect, but insults didn’t bother her overmuch. While he had lived, that bastard Mitros and his men had taken turns raping her when she dared speak against his harsh dealings with the village folk. So, in a way, suggesting she had lain with dogs was not far from the truth. As much as she ever would, she had overcome the shame and disgust of that abuse. So what was it to have this whining abuser of boys soil her good name?

  “I wouldn’t stand for that,” Aedran whispered in her ear. Of all her men, he seemed the most troubled by the insult.

  “What would you have me do?” Erryn whispered back.

  Aedran’s gaze flickered to her sword in answer.

  Still resistant, Erryn thought about Aedran’s words. She decided that the most galling thing was the emissary naming her a whore. Other than those who had ravished her, she had never been with a man for coin or for love. Naming her a whore belittled her suffering and more to the point, was an affront to her her station. What king or queen would ever tolerate such flagrant insults? Not a one of them would, Erryn was certain.

  In a blink and a slash, her sword ended the emissary’s insults. Almost. Her steel sank deep, but halted when it met the bones of the emissary’s neck. He loosed a gurgling squawk and wrapped his hands around the blade. The razor edges cut deeply into his fingers, adding to the blood pumping like a wellspring from the side of his neck.

  With their faces now freckled in crimson, the rest of the emissaries gaped at each o
ther, at her, at their dying but still standing leader. By the sudden ripe stench, at least one of them had filled his silken smallclothes.

  Erryn jerked her sword loose, and the emissary’s bones seemed to melt. He hit the ground with a wet slap, his stunned features slathered in a mess of blood and dripping muck. His mouth worked like a landed perch, but no sound came. As her soldiers and those of the Kingsguard began moving, Erryn had time to think that murdering the emissary was not only a heinous breach of etiquette, but an open declaration of war.

  “Hold!” she cried, once and again, before her men obeyed. The three remaining emissaries didn’t heed her in the least. They stumbled in the mud and wet grass, making for their gaudy carriages. The Kingsguard, far outnumbered by Erryn’s arrayed forces, lowered their lances and prepared to charge. One of the curly headed emissaries warned them off with a string of desperate shouts, which grew muffled when he hurled himself into the pillowed gloom of his carriage.

  “We kill them all now, it will save us the effort of killing them later,” Aedran said. “Kill them now, and we can send their heads back to Onareth in baskets.”

  “Why would I do that?” Erryn asked, genuinely curious.

  “To let King Nabar know you’re serious about laying claim to these lands. It will also get an army worth fighting up here before winter sets in. If my brothers don’t get a little blood on their hands before long, they’re like to start killing each other.”

  “What’s starting a war before winter have to do with anything? Fighting is fighting, cold or warm.”

  Aedran gently tapped the tip of her nose with a forefinger, like a father instructing a daughter. The gesture peeved her, but at the same time made her blush. “That’s where you’re wrong, Queen Erryn,” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice when he spoke her title. “And that’s at the heart of the reason you hired me and my men. You need proper guidance in winning this war you’ve now started.” He glanced at the emissary at her feet, who was good and truly dead. “And what a beginning!”

  By now, the drivers of the carriages had turned them off the road and into the field, where they bounced and rattled over rough ground. From inside, Erryn could hear the remaining emissaries shrieking like little girls. After getting turned around, the carriage drivers whipped the horses into a gallop back the way they had come, taking their screeching loads out of earshot. At a word from the commander of the Kingsguard, the soldiers raised their lances in preparation to ride away. Their eyes showed no fear but plenty of hate.

  “You see,” Aedran said urgently, “wise kings don’t make war in winter, especially these thin-blooded, southern wretches. Trust me on this, I have many brothers who’ve sold their swords to the kings of Cerrikoth. Now is the time to strike, before they flee.”

  “Would it not be better to take the time to build up the fortress?”

  “Perhaps,” Aedran admitted. “But what would be the fun in that? Come, you’ve already gone and killed one of these pompous fools, why not kill them all?”

  Erryn looked at the dead emissary. She had laid claim to her title and to Valdar after killing Mitros, and here was yet another dead man. With his death, war was sure to follow. She decided enough blood had been spilled for now. And Despite what Aedran advised, she felt certain that building up Valdar’s fortifications was the highest priority.

  “Let them go,” she ordered, as Nabar’s Kingsguard broke into two columns and wheeled to follow after the fleeing emissaries.

  Aedran shrugged. “I suppose that’ll save us the waste of good baskets.”

  Erryn glanced at the sky, gray and cold as usual. Snow could fall at any time of year north of the Shadow Road, but true winter was still a ways off. She guessed they had a month at most before King Nabar reacted to the news that she had murdered one of his men. “Trust that we’ll have plenty of war before long.”

  “I suggest you triple your army.”

  “A lot of gold,” she said warily.

  Aedran spread his hands. “The barest pittance to keep Valdar and your crown, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t have a crown, save in name.” That was true enough. The folk of Valdar were miners, not goldsmiths.

  “Be that as it may, what are your orders?”

  Erryn raised herself up, assuring herself that she had acted rightly against the emissary, if not properly. “Dispatch a rider to Pryth, at once….”

  ~ ~ ~

  King Nabar, it turned out, had reacted slowly and without enough force to crush Valdar, suggesting he either knew little of war, or was a weak sovereign, as rumored. Erryn’s Prythian reinforcements had arrived long before Nabar’s forces, and were able to use their skills and backs to quickly fortify the fortress.

  Thinking on the day she had killed the emissary, and all the battles that had followed, Erryn rested a gloved hand on the raw logs of a turret she had taken shelter beside. Woodcutters had stripped most of the bark off the new logs, but reddish strings remained. Winter would gray them, but for now they fluttered in the breeze like bits of withered skin attached to yellowed bone. She shivered. Is it getting colder?

  “Erryn,” Aedran called, his heavy boots thumping near.

  When he halted, the smell of him engulfed her. Sweat, horse, steel, blood. The same scents cloaked all the Prythians, but on Aedran it seemed … sweeter. She frowned at the thought, as much as at his lack of courtesy. Come to think of it, he had stopped calling her queen some time ago. She thought to correct him, but when she looked into his eyes, her breath froze in her chest.

  “What’s happened?”

  His answering grin was huge and a touch wild. “Nothing,” he drawled, “unless you’re of the mind to gain an entire realm, instead of holding this tiny patch of frozen ground.” He thrust a worn bit of parchment into her hand.

  She opened the missive and scanned words written in a blocky script. Her own hand might have penned the words, except that she avoided writing almost as vigorously as she avoided reading. Nesaea had taken it upon herself to teach Erryn to read and write during their short time together. She had been a quick study, but was still far from proficient.

  As Erryn carefully reread the message, Aedran waited in silence. When she began again, the toe of his boot drummed impatiently. Erryn looked up. “What does this mean?”

  He raised his finger toward the tip of her nose, as was his wont. Instead of letting him touch her, she flinched back. “Tell me, you fool.”

  “It means,” he said slowly, unperturbed by her reaction, “that the gods have favored you with a rare chance to crush your greatest foe. Most never get an opportunity such as this. Most never dream of one.”

  She thought again about the message, put that with what Aedran had said, and in their mingling she began to see. “But what of Valdar? If it falls to my enemies,” she said, pointing at the brooding forest, now half lost behind swirling curtains of snow, “all the gold of the north falls back into Nabar’s hands.”

  Aedran laughed. “Those cowards have had all they can bear of the cold, snow, and Prythian steel tearing out their guts. My scouts informed me an hour ago that Nabar’s men have decamped and are riding back to Onareth. This time on the morrow, they’ll be south of the Shadow Road.”

  Erryn hesitated. “Still, there are bandits and worse. If we leave, Valdar will be defenseless.”

  When Aedran shrugged, a clump of snow rolled off the shoulder of his wolfskin cloak. “Leave most of the army here to defend the village—believe me, two thousand of my brothers are more than enough for any band of brigands. With winter upon us, Nabar won’t bother sending any more soldiers, as I promised. And if we succeed, why, you’ll never have to worry over Nabar again.”

  And if we fail?

  The missive shivered in her grip, but she didn’t know if it was from the wind or the tremor in her fingers. She had a thousand questions and misgivings, but only one held sway. “Can I trust this report?”

  “With your life,” Aedran said at once. “And remember, that
goes for the both of us, and all those who follow you.”

  Erryn turned toward the Gyntors, but saw only a depthless wall of shifting clouds. She glanced out at the fields, the snow gradually covering the signs of battle. Last, she faced Aedran. He waited expectantly. Her eyes narrowed in concentration, and her mouth grew bitter with the fear of losing what little she had gained. What have I really gained, save a patch of frozen ground, as Aedran said? And when springtime comes, Nabar will send enough men to lay siege to Valdar. Yet here was chance to act in a way that no one expected, especially King Nabar and his advisors.

  With good reason, spoke a small voice of warning. To do this is to risk everything. And, as you’re reacting to Nabar, it might be that you are charging headlong into a trap. Erryn silently agreed with that reasoning, but if Nabar was setting a trap, it was the most foolish of ploys. All that aside, she still had one prominent concern.

  “You told me wise kings don’t make war in winter, but now that winter is nearly upon us, you’d have me make war.”

  “You are right on both counts,” Aedran admitted. “But wise kings are not always the best kings. They’re rarely bold, and almost never remembered. Besides, you’re a queen, young and brash. What better way to extend your rule than by slashing a wide and deep mark across the minds of all who stand against you now, and all those who will oppose you in the future?”

  Erryn began folding the parchment. There was no time to plan, but as Aedran said, now was the time to act boldly, even recklessly, for what sovereign of renown had ever stood idle? There’s never been a one, she thought. The greatest rulers spoken of in legends always pressed forward, seeking, taking all that lay in their path. In the stories, those mighty men didn’t stop until old age crippled them or death took them.

  Her fingers had reduced the parchment into a tiny square before she met Aedran’s eyes again. It seemed her decision warranted a fanfare of trumpet blasts and rousing cheers, but all she had was her voice. “Make ready to march.”