Haydn of Mars (5 page)

I started to protest in a louder voice, but Jamie gently but firmly forced me to lower the vintner's head back into the thick nest of his waiting paws.

Xarr snorted once, and then settled into a rough sleep suffused with loud snores.

“As I said, it is what he would want,” Jamie said, walking away.

I caught up with him, and the two of us proceeded to the edge of the bluff.
 
Something dark stirred nearby, and my breath caught in my throat until I realized that it was a figure, a guard stationed nearby wrapped in a cloak against the night's chill.
 
Jamie gave greeting, and was answered by a grunt, and we moved farther away.
 
I could see another guard huddled like a rock not far away on the other side.

The new night was clear and cold, the pink of twilight fading like gauze on the western horizon into purple and then, higher, harsh black.
 
Stars dappled the sky, pale above the pink sunset and then sharp as knife points overhead.
 
With a pang I remembered such nights, and standing thus with my husband, at my home at Wells.
 
If such times had not been filled with love, they had at least been suffused with warm affection.

“I am missing Kaylan at this moment,” I said.

“Not Kerl?” Jamie said, almost slyly.
 
His transformation from young, waiting page to something more had become complete.
 
I wondered what other secrets he harbored...

“I will not speak of that,” I said.
 
“What I will do is ask you if my presence here is a danger.”

He laughed without humor.
 
“A danger?
 
We are in mortal danger each second we spend in this place.
 
Those hills out there, the rim of that crater” – he stretched his paw out and swept it broadly from left to right – “is suffused with our troops and those loyal to you.
 
There will be a great battle here within the week that will transform our planet and perhaps seal its fate.”
 
He turned and looked grimly at me.
 
“Danger?
 
I would say it is complete.”

“What have I done to bring this on?”

“Nothing,” he said.
 
“It was inevitable.
 
But, when it is over, you will be a great Queen.”
 
His tone was almost obescient.

“Apparently for the moment I am to be a figurehead, nothing more.”
               

His gaze was on the distant hills, the invisible army.
 
“You are astute, and so is Xarr, in his own way.
 
This is the how it must be.
 
You are much too valuable to lead an army–”

“Enough!”

He shook his head.
 
“It has already been decided.”

“A figurehead...”

“Yes.”

I sighed.
 
“Then I must change their minds.”

Another humorless laugh.
 
“Tomorrow morning at dawn you will be back in Xarr's wine cask on wheels and heading farther north, toward the equator.
 
We have safe stops all along the way.
 
If Xarr doesn't drink his own supply dry before we get there, you will be out of harm's way.
 
And, if all goes well, soon you will be on the throne.”

“What if I refuse to go?”

His laugh was even drier.
 
“You have no choice.”

“Did you lose anyone in Wells, Jamie?”

He turned to look at me, his eyes widening slightly.
 
“You
are
astute.
 
Much more so than I ever saw you on the floor of the assembly.”

“Who?”

“My sister, my mother.
 
Frane made sure I knew about it, only because of my closeness to you.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Yes.”
 
He turned to stare at the horizon again.

“If I had only known...”

He was silent.

“Do you know why my husband, Kaylan, was killed, Jamie?”

“Because he was your husband.”

“No.
 
Because he was Frane's true love.”

I watched Jamie's mouth open in astonishment.
 
“This explains why Frane allowed you to go home.
 
She wanted you to see with your own eyes what she had done.”

“Yes.
 
My husband loved me, Jamie, but I did not love him.
 
I'm sure this was common knowledge.
 
But how many knew of Frane's love for him?
 
She had loved him ever since they were kits.
 
She loved him to the point that she would slaughter him, when given the chance, rather than let another have him.
 
What does that tell you about her, Jamie?
 
About the depths of her ruthlessness?
 
Do you think there's a lesson there?”

“Then it's also true that she let emotion overrule reason.
 
She should have had you killed in the Hall of Assembly.
 
Instead, we were able to smuggle you out of Wells.”

I turned to him in the darkness and let my voice harden.
 
“Perhaps if I had not been treated as such a kit, a tool, by your secret movement, I might have been of more use to you.
 
Can you imagine what might have happened if Frane had been allowed to marry Kaylan, instead of me?
 
We might not be in the position we are now.
 
Or at least would have been able to buy more time.”
 
My anger rose to my lips.
 
“But I was
used
, instead of consulted, and here we are.
 

“But I will not be used any longer.
 
From this moment on, Jamie, I am not a figurehead.”

He had not taken his eyes from the horizon, but then he nodded.
 
He began to say something, but then stopped.
 
Finally he said simply, “Be ready to travel at dawn.”

He walked away, leaving me to the night, and the hard cold stars, and the morass of confused thoughts that filled my head.

The concussion of a bomb woke me from my sleep.

There had been the brief beginnings of a dream: my father and I in the throne room, and he was lifting me onto the throne which I saw had no bottom as he dropped me onto to it.
 
And I watched him recede, staring down at me calmly above as I fell and fell into a bottomless hole–

And then I woke up.

As I uncurled from sleep, still feeling as thought I was falling, Jamie burst into the tent.

“We're being attacked!” he said.
 
“We must get you away immediately–”

“I'm staying,” I said simply.
 
“I will fight with the rest.”

He was looking from me to outside.
 
In the cut of the tent opening I saw a plume of bright smoke shoot straight up in the near distance followed by a thudding
boom
.
 
The ground beneath me shook.

“This is not what we thought,” he said cryptically.
 
“Again they move too soon!”

“Jamie,” I explained, “I'm not leaving.
 
I let you spirit me out of Wells, but not this time.
 
I'm going to be more than just a figurehead.”

He looked at me and then nodded.
 
He advanced toward me with his paw out.
 
I thought he was going to take my arm in friendship but at the last moment I saw the needle he held and then it was too late.

“This is for your own good, my Queen,” he whispered, and then, amid the sound of thunder and shouting, I went away.

I awoke in the horrid, hollowed out cask with the nauseating smell of red wine in my nostrils.
 
There were sounds outside, raucous laughter, but the wine cart wasn't moving.

I banged on the side of the cask as before, and the laughter immediately ceased.

There came no answering
thwack
from Xarr.

Hands were moving over the outside of the cask.
 
I realized that whoever was out there hadn't known I was inside.

The panel in front of me moved partway open, stuck, and then was yanked inside.

A strange face outlined by darkness peered in.

“So?” it said.

Rough hands reached in and pulled me out.

I was dropped onto the ground like so much baggage.
 
I counted three dimly seen figures around me.
 
The closest, who had pulled me from my hiding spot, was staring down at me with his head cocked at an angle.

“What is this?” he said in a strangely inflected voice.
 
The accent was rough, northern, I thought.

One of the others kicked at me and said, “Yes, what?”

“Is it wine?” the third said, and the other two laughed.
 
“Perhaps we should drink it?”

The three figures stiffened as a fourth appeared, throwing two of them aside.

“What do you find?”

The figure who had pulled me from the cask pointed to me but said nothing.

“This, O mighty!”

“What are you?” the one who had been called ‘mighty' said to me.

Slowly, I got up.

When he saw my swollen belly, the Mighty's demeanor changed in an instant.

“She is with kith!” he roared at the others.
 
“And you treat her like this, you maggots?”
 
He swatted at the nearest of the three, catching him on the head with a great blow.

“We didn't know–!” a second said as a similar blow struck him, sending him to the ground.

“I apologize for my fools,” the Mighty said to me.
 
And then he bowed.

“You are of the Yern clan,” I ventured, tentatively.

He stood straight and proud.
 
“Yes!”

“Nomads from the north?”

“We take no council from other clans, and give none ourselves.
 
We are vagabonds, and proud to be so!”

“You were never represented at Assembly...”

Again his demeanor changed.
 
He looked at the opening in the cask, strode over to it and poked his head inside.

He came back and stared me in the face, first with one eye, then the other.
 
His breath smelled of fish and Xarr's wine.

I suddenly thought of Xarr.

“What happened to the driver of the cart?” I asked.

The Mighty's companions laughed.
 
One of them made a slitting motion across his throat.

A chill went through me, until the Mighty said, “He was nothing.
 
A F'rar, and a scrawny one at that.
 
He mewled for his mother.
 
So we sent him to her.”
 
He paused and grinned at his companions.
 
“Assuming his mother's dead, of course!”

They laughed, as much out of fear for their leader as at what he said.

“F'rar...” I said.

The Mighty stood tall again.
 
“Yes!
 
There was a great battle near the crater called Galle.
 
We watched it from the far rim.
 
And when it was over we came down and helped ourselves.

“Scavengers,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Vultures!” he roared.
 
“Who drop down upon their prey like death itself?” The other three stepped back.
 
For a moment he drew his hand back but then regained his composure as his eyes focused once more on my belly.

“A man who strikes a woman with kith should die, and quickly,” he said.
 
“But you try my patience.
 
Tell me who you are.
 
Or have you spent your whole life inside a wine cask?”

The others laughed weakly at the joke.

I considered telling him my real name, though I doubted it would mean anything to him.
 
These were nomads, who had never been yoked to any Martian law, monarchy or republic.
 
When we were children our parents used to scare us with them.
 
They were vapors in the night, which appeared, plundered, and disappeared in a breath of wind.

“I am an important person,” I said simply.