They followed the winding caverns upward until breaking into the wider, cavernous throne room with its wicker chair. Beside it lay the silver axe of her office, and she took it up before sitting.
Six of the Twelve were present, as were a handful of scouts and headmen. “What do we know?”
One of the headmen stepped forward. “We know that birds were spotted racing south and east.” He held a small bird himself, stroking its brown back. “The message invokes Androfrancine and Gypsy kin-clave.”
Winters extended a hand, and the headman slipped a small scrap of paper into it, tied still with white thread. She scanned the note quickly. It spoke of Marsh scouts at the gate and bore markings of a day earlier tied into its carrying thread. She looked up from the note. “Do we have scouts near the Palace?”
Seamus shook his head. “No. None that I’m aware of, Queen.”
Winters bit her lip and read the note again. It had come to her though it was unaddressed. But why? Surely, if they believed the Marshers besieged them, they wouldn’t send birds to her of all people.
“It could be a trap,” she said in a quiet voice.
“If so,” another of the Twelve said as he entered the cavern, “then it’s a convincing one.” All eyes turned to him and he frowned. “There’s smoke to the northwest,” he said. “The Papal Palace is burning.”
Winters felt the blood drain from her face. First, the assassinations. Then the caravans. Now, this. She wished Hanric were here. Or Rudolfo. Or even Neb. Surely one of them would know the best path she could take through this particular turn of the Whymer Maze.
Still, despite the confidence she lacked, the answer spelled itself out clearly. Winters sighed. “Ready my mount,” she said. “We ride at once.”
Seamus leaned close to her, and his hands moved in the dark sign language of House Y’Zir, his body shielding his words from prying eyes. Is my queen certain of the path she takes?
She nodded. I am, Seamus. Then, she said it aloud for the benefit of the others. “I am certain.”
The room emptied quickly as the men set about readying themselves. Winters hefted her axe, barely able to lift it with one hand, and stood. “I will need your aid, Seamus,” she said.
The old man bowed. “Yes, Queen.”
Winters frowned. “I’ve not needed armor before. Nor have I needed blades.”
“I will see to it,” he said.
As he scuttled off, she retreated to her private chambers to toss spare clothing and a sturdy pair of Gypsy boots into a knapsack. She also tossed in a tablet of parchment and a handful of pencils. She paused for a moment before the oak bureau that had been her father’s. There, sitting where she had left it upon her return from the mountain, was the vial of voice magicks.
Perhaps now I preach my first War Sermon.
The bitter taste flooded her mouth as she remembered that day atop the spine. She remembered the cold wind and the way the throne bit into her flesh, the way that her voice echoed across the craggy mountain peaks and how it moved along the hollowed-out, snow-swept canyons and valleys. It had been her first time with the voice magicks.
She took down the vial and tucked it into her knapsack.
There was a knock behind her and she turned. “Yes?”
Seamus entered bearing an armful that he spilled onto her narrow bed. “I’ve raided the armory,” he said. “I’m not sure how much of this will be useful to you.”
She pulled out a worn leather belt with a single long scout knife in an undecorated sheath. When she drew the blade it whispered against the leather sheath. She tested its edge with her thumb, drawing a beaded line of blood. She resheathed it and set it aside. She’d learned to fight at Hanric’s hands, though she’d not found herself very good at it. She’d mastered the sling but had virtually no sword or knife skills to speak of. She’d not taken to it, preferring instead to carefully write out her dreams and add them to the Book, trusting her shadow and the men he commanded.
Only now, I command them, she realized. She thought of Hanric sleeping in the ground and swallowed back the sadness that suddenly ambushed her.
Seamus was pulling bits of leather and chain free from the pile. “Some of these may fit you,” he said, “but they really weren’t intended for battle-more for training children.”
She nodded. He thinks we ride to battle. Winters feared he thought correctly. “What do you think we will find?”
Seamus paused, holding her eyes with his own. “Bodies,” he said.
She lifted up a leather cuirass from the pile and held it up to her chest. Cocking his head to one side, Seamus inspected it, then circled around behind her, cinching in the straps. She felt the hard leather flatten her breasts as he tightened it up. She held her breath until he finished, then let it out slowly. “And the attackers?”
He picked out a helmet-small and round and iron. He lowered it onto her head and frowned when it swallowed half of her face. He traded it out for another, then lifted her long, braided hair up and coiled it around the top of her head. “They are long gone by now, I’ll wager,” he said. “I’m more concerned about the others.”
Yes. Meirov’s rangers had been patrolling much farther north than custom since the assassinations, as had Turam’s border scouts. And with armies forming and marching slowly north these past few weeks, it was only a matter of time. The attack on the Summer Papal Palace could very well be what sparked war between her people and their neighbors to the south.
“I’ll send more birds from the trail,” she said. Winters strapped on the knife and turned; Seamus stepped back to inspect her. She drew the blade and thrust it menacingly. “How do I look?”
He snorted. “No offense, Lady Winteria, but you make for a ragamuffin of a soldier.”
She nodded, glancing to herself in the cracked mirror leaning haphazardly against her wall. “I do indeed,” she said. She turned one last time and sighed again. “But it will do.”
Ten minutes later, Winters rode at the head of a ragged line of soldiers and Marsh scouts. She unstopped the vial and tipped a mouthful of the voice magicks back into her throat. She waited, gently clearing her voice until she heard it catch and the sound of her cough rustled the pine trees.
“I am Winteria bat Mardic, Queen of the Marshfolk, and I ride under arms for the Summer Papal Palace. Who will ride with me and mine?”
The men and women around her roared, and it seemed each time she repeated the call that more and more voices cried out in reply around her.
As they rode, others joined them, bearded men fresh in their mud and ash, weapons tucked in belts or slung over shoulders, still strapping on their ragged bits of armor and in some cases still leading their horses and kissing their children good-bye.
Winters remembered the last time their army had gathered up, recalling vividly the pillar of fire and smoke that had once been Windwir, stark against the sky of Second Summer. She remembered Hanric’s bellowing call to arms, followed by that first War Sermon on the march south and those exhilarating, terrifying moments that marked the first time she’d left the Marshlands.
She remembered the armies-all of them-lined up below their standards at the edge of those blasted lands.
Funny, she thought, that she hadn’t wanted so badly to cry back then and she did not remember once being afraid for her people.
But now, doubt chewed upon her as she worried what waited for her and her people at the end of this road.
And try as she might, Winters found no War Sermon upon her tongue or within her heart to bring courage as they settled into their slow ride north.