The Demon King Read online

  Raisa sat down next to her mother, and Marianna poured tea from a thick jug on the table.

  “Are you quite all right after that dreadful scare up on Hanalea?” the queen asked. “I had trouble sleeping last night. Shall I ask Lord Vega to come attend you?” Harriman Vega was the court physician.

  “I’m fine, Mother,” Raisa said. “A few bumps and bruises is all.”

  “Thanks to the Bayars,” Marianna said. “We are so fortunate in our High Wizard, and young Micah seems to have inherited Lord Bayar’s talent, don’t you think? And his good looks,” she added, laughing girlishly.

  “They are impressive, those Bayars.” Raisa took a long sip of tea, recalling her encounter with Micah in the corridor, and wondering when and whether to bring it up.

  “How are your studies going?” Marianna asked. “I worried you might have forgotten everything you knew, having been isolated up in the camps so long; but I’ve had good reports from the masters.” She sounded mildly surprised.

  “Well.” Raisa shifted uncomfortably. You married a clansman, Mama, she thought. Do you remember why? When her parents were together, it seemed like she did. But now her mother sounded like a mouthpiece for Gavan Bayar’s continual digs and slanders.

  “I don’t think I suffered for being at Demonai,” Raisa said. “You know the clans are great for reading and storytelling and music and dance,” she said. “Even ciphering. I spent a lot of time working in the markets.”

  “Well, I can’t say I approve of that,” Marianna said, frowning. “The future Queen of the Fells, learning to be a shopkeeper?”

  “Oh, Mama, I learned so much,” Raisa said. “It’s all about learning to read people, and knowing when to give in and when to stick to a price. You have to be able to judge quality on the fly and decide what your high price is. Plus, you learn to walk away from a bad deal, no matter how much you want something.”

  Raisa leaned forward, gripping her skirts, willing her mother to understand how the delicate give and take of trade and negotiation fueled her. How the flicker of an eye or a sheen of sweat on a trader’s upper lip revealed more than he intended. And how letting go of greed and desire allowed her to present an unreadable face in the tough and tumble world of the markets.

  The queen listened, fingering the bracelet on her slender wrist, but Raisa could tell she wasn’t in a buying mood. Raisa forced herself to settle back into her chair. “Anyway, it wasn’t a waste of time,” she said lightly.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Marianna said. She paused as Claire carried in a silver tray, set it on the table, and left again. The queen stood. “Well, then,” she said. “Let’s eat, shall we?”

  Raisa’s mother seemed to find it easier to say what was on her mind with food between them. “Your sixteenth name day is coming,” she said abruptly as Raisa picked apart her puff-pastry fish pie.

  “Is it really? I hadn’t realized,” Raisa said, rolling her eyes. “Magret is going swaybacked carrying in the suitor gifts.”

  Her mother smiled. “We expect your debut to attract considerable interest,” she said, in her element now that the discussion was about marriages and parties. “Given the war in the south, the successions are, shall we say, in question. Many southern princes will see marriage to a northern princess as a means of solidifying their position in the south, and also as a kind of refuge in case the worst happens.” She looked directly at Raisa. “We don’t want to fall into that trap.”

  “What do you mean?” Raisa asked, pausing with a sweet bun halfway to her mouth. She’d never heard her mother say two words together about politics.

  “Well, you won’t know how things will turn out. Depending on how the war goes, you may be marrying a king or a fugitive.”

  Raisa shrugged. “I’ll be queen on my own account. I don’t need to marry a king.”

  “Precisely!” Marianna said, smiling and taking her first bite.

  “I don’t understand,” Raisa said. “Precisely what?”

  “We should avoid a southern alliance,” Marianna said. “Things are just too unsettled. There’s little to gain and much to lose. We could be drawn into their wars.”

  “Well,” Raisa said, thinking of what Amon had said, “the southern wars won’t last forever. Maybe we should wait and see who wins. Then decide what alliance would be most advantageous. A southern marriage may be just what we want. We may need friends when they turn their attention to us.”

  Marianna blinked at her as if she’d begun speaking Tamric. “But we don’t know when that will be,” she said. “We cannot afford to sit on our hands in the meantime.”

  “We could be preparing for it now,” Raisa said. “A lot of our people have gone as mercenaries in the south, since the money’s good. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to bring them home and use them to build up our own army?”

  The queen wrapped her shawl more firmly about her, as if it were armor. “We have no money for that, Raisa,” she said.

  “We could get rid of the foreign mercenaries we have now,” Raisa said. “That should free up some money.”

  “That’s easier said than done,” the queen said. “They hold positions of command. General Klemath relies on them to—”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy,” Raisa said. “I just think it’s something to consider. It costs more to buy foreign soldiers, and people fight better when they’re defending their own homes and families. And having all these foreigners here might be risky.”

  “Where did this come from?” Marianna asked, frowning.

  “Is this something you heard at Demonai Camp?”

  That was royal code for Is this something you heard from your father? From your grandmother Elena?

  Just between us, Amon had said. And she didn’t want to get him or Captain Byrne into trouble. “No, it’s just something I’ve been thinking for a while.”

  “Right now you should be focusing on your studies,” Marianna said. “I’ll be considering who might be the best match for you and the Fells. We can’t delay your marriage until the southerners stop fighting. That may never happen.”

  “But there’s no hurry,” Raisa said. “You married young, but there’s no reason I should. You’ll rule for a long time yet. I’ll probably be an old crone with my grandchildren around me by the time I come to the throne.”

  Marianna fussed with her shawl. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Sometimes I think I’m not long for this world.”

  It was an old weapon, familiar since Raisa was a little girl. Still effective.

  “Stop that!” Raisa snapped, then added, “Please don’t say those things, Mama. I can’t stand it.”

  When she was little, Raisa used to creep out from the nursery to watch her mother sleep, afraid that she would stop breathing if Raisa wasn’t there to intervene. The fact that there was something ethereal, almost otherworldly about her mother only reinforced Raisa’s fears. Yet she knew Marianna wasn’t beyond using this tactic to get her own way.

  “It would just ease my mind if I knew the question of your marriage was settled,” Marianna said with a sigh.

  Raisa had no intention of seeing anything settled very soon. Marriage was just another kind of prison to put off for as long as possible.

  She’d been looking forward to a long season of flirting and wooing and kissing and clandestine meetings involving desperate declarations of love.

  Negotiation. Give and take. Redirection.

  Ah, redirection. That had always worked well with the queen.

  “I’ve been thinking about my name day party,” Raisa said, though she hadn’t been, really. “I have some ideas about a dress, and I wanted to see what you thought.”

  And so they spent a half hour discussing the pros and cons of satin versus lace and black versus white versus emerald green, flounces versus overskirts, tiaras versus beaded snoods and glitter net. Then moved on to debating a tent in the garden versus a party in the Great Hall.

  “We’ll need to meet with C
ook to discuss the matter of the menu,” Marianna said, when they’d about worn the topic out. “If we make some decisions now, it will save us considerable trouble in the end. Now, some of it will depend on the guest list, of course . . .”

  “Amon’s looking forward to the feast,” Raisa said, thinking to turn the conversation in a direction she favored. “I’m glad he’s back.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Amon Byrne,” the queen said in a tone of voice that never meant good news.

  “What about Amon?” Raisa asked, already defensive.

  “Magret said you and Corporal Byrne had a secret meeting late last night in the glass house,” Marianna said, absently turning a ring on her finger.

  “It was hardly secret,” Raisa said. “We haven’t seen each other in three years. We wanted to catch up, and I didn’t get a chance to talk to him during dinner.”

  “You told Lord Bayar you had a headache,” Marianna said.

  “I did have a headache,” Raisa lied. “What of it?”

  “And then you slipped away to meet Corporal Byrne,” the queen said. “How does that look?”

  “I sat with him in a public place with my nurse along,” Raisa said, her voice rising. “You tell me. How does that look?”

  “Magret says the two of you left her in the maze and slipped off on your own,” Queen Marianna said.

  “Magret fell asleep on the bench, and we chose not to disturb her,” Raisa said. “You know how she gets when you wake her up. I had to go back to get her this morning.”

  That was gratitude for you. Magret had been rather testy, complaining about aches and pains in her old bones from sleeping on the stone bench all night. Which maybe explained why she’d run to Queen Marianna to tell tales. Raisa had counted on her to stay quiet to cover up falling asleep on the job. You never could tell what people would do.

  Marianna cleared her throat. “And then Corporal Byrne was seen leaving your room later that night.”

  Raisa shoved back her chair, which made a loud scraping sound. “Who said that? Did you get a report on me this morning or what? Were you having people follow me around?”

  “I was not having you followed,” Marianna said in her very reasonable voice. “But the High Wizard came to me this morning. He said that Micah went to look in on you because you’d not been feeling well, and he saw you and Corporal Byrne outside your room . . .”

  And this merited a visit from the High Wizard? What business was it of his? “So it’s all right if Micah Bayar comes creeping around my room, but Amon—”

  “Micah was concerned about you, darling. It was understandable that—”

  “Micah practically attacked me in the hallway, Mother! He’d been drinking, and he grabbed my arm, and Amon had to escort him back to his room.”

  “Don’t be overdramatic, Raisa,” Marianna snapped. “Micah was surprised, that’s all, to find that you and Corporal Byrne had . . . arranged a tryst.”

  The irony was, Raisa and Micah had been meeting on the sly. And a marriage between them was expressly forbidden by the Naéming. This whole conversation made no sense.

  Raisa stood, her napkin falling to the floor. She should have known better than to think her mother would support her against the Bayars. She was on her own, as usual.

  “We’re talking about Amon,” Raisa said. “He’s eaten at our table hundreds of times. Why do you keep calling him Corporal Byrne? And as for Micah, ask around. He’s cut quite a swath among the ladies-in-waiting and the serving girls. In fact, there are stories that—”

  “Micah Bayar comes from Aerie House, a well-respected, noble family,” the queen said. “They’ve been on the council for over a thousand years. On the other hand, the Byrnes—”

  “Don’t say it!” Raisa interrupted. “Don’t you dare. Edon Byrne is captain of your Guard. Are you saying Amon doesn’t come from a respected family?”

  “Of course he does, Raisa,” Marianna said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “But he’s a soldier, and his father’s a soldier, and his father, back generations. They’re good at what they do. But that’s all they’ll ever be.”

  Marianna paused to allow this to sink in. “I know Amon has been your friend. But now that you’re older, you need to appreciate the differences between you, and how impossible this all is.”

  “How impossible what is?” Raisa quivered with indignation. “I’m not planning to marry him. I know all about my duty to the line. But Amon’s my friend, and even if it turned into more than that, it’s nobody’s business but my own, as long as it doesn’t affect the succession. Which it won’t.”

  “But it might,” her mother went on. “Do you have any idea how this looks, at a time when we’re planning your marriage?”

  Raisa opened her mouth and the words came pouring out as if they’d been dammed up in there for years. “If you’re worried about how things look, you should worry about you and the High Wizard.”

  Marianna surged to her feet, the shawl spilling to the floor. “Raisa ana’Marianna! What do you mean?”The reasonable voice had disappeared.

  “I’m just saying that people are talking about you and Lord Bayar,” Raisa said. “They’re saying he has too much influence. People say . . . people say it’s time my father came home.” She swallowed hard, tears welling up in her eyes. “I wish he would too.” She got off a curtsy. “By your leave, Your Majesty.”

  She didn’t wait for leave, but turned and fled from the room. But before she got out of earshot, the queen called after her, her voice high and shrill, “I’m going to speak to Captain Byrne about this.”

  Like everything else in Raisa’s life, her time in temple was prescribed by the Naéming. Four days a month, the Naéming said, the queen and princess heir would go to temple. That could mean one day in a week, or four days in a row.

  At Demonai Camp, time in temple was a privilege and not an obligation. Four days in the Matriarch Lodge, in the company of others, or four days in the temple of the forest, meditating on the Maker and all of the works in the natural world. Raisa always ended those days feeling more powerful, more hopeful, somehow more centered in herself and certain of what she needed to do.

  But in Fellsmarch Court there were many distractions. Raisa’s mother came to temple as required, but she made it into a sort of party, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, musicians, entertainers, and servants bearing food and drink. After all, Marianna said, music and food and drink and gossip were the works of the Maker, weren’t they, and worth celebrating. About the only difference from a typical day at court was the conspicuous absence of wizards and the presence of the speakers, who might look on disapprovingly, but had little to say. Marianna and her ladies made fun of them behind their backs.

  Sometimes it seemed to Raisa that life at court was designed to keep a person from thinking too much about anything in particular.

  But there were some things that needed thinking about.

  After the argument with her mother, Raisa was in no mood to talk to anyone, so she took refuge in the small temple in the glass house maze on the roof. The sun poured down through the roof, and she slid open the glass panels, which allowed the spring air to pour into the garden.

  For a time after she settled herself on the stone bench, her mind raced madly, chasing images of Micah Bayar and Amon Byrne, her mother and Gavan Bayar. Gradually her mind slowed and picked over thoughts more carefully.

  Take charge of the horse you’re riding before you try to rein in someone else’s, Elena Demonai always said. And make sure you have a good seat before you do.

  In the space of a day, she’d kissed two different boys— Amon and Micah. Both were intensely appealing, in different ways. Both were forbidden to her.

  Was that why they drew her—because they were forbidden? Because she didn’t have to confront the ugly matrimonial issue? Because she was tired of doing as she was told?

  In a way, she was being true to her heritage. The Gray Wolf queens were famous fo
r their dalliances. The most famous of all, of course, was Hanalea. There was even a book about Hanalea’s conquests. She’d caught Magret reading it.

  Raisa’s mind drifted from romance to policy. Eyes and ears, Amon had said. She needed eyes and ears of her own.

  Future possibilities rolled toward her. Straight before her lay a wide road that extended into the distance—what might happen if she followed the plan laid out for her. She saw a marriage to someone of her mother’s choosing, and sooner rather than later. She could not see the end of it. It was lost in shadow.

  To either side lay diverging passages, as narrow and overgrown as the ways in the maze, some difficult to find, each with its own risks and unknowns. So there were other possibilities, but never easy ones.

  As she sat, eyes half closed, someone settled next to her on the bench. She knew without opening her eyes who it was, and she released her breath in a long sigh.

  “Good afternoon, Raisa,” Elena Demonai said. “May I join you?”

  “Good afternoon, Elena Cennestre. Welcome,” Raisa said, using the clan word for Mother. She opened her eyes. “How did you find me?”

  “This is a very old place, lytling,” Elena said, her caramel face crinkling into a smile that framed the green eyes of the seer. “It is one of the few places in the Vale with power. You will have need of it.”

  Raisa considered this. At Demonai she’d learned not to ask every question that came to mind, knowing some things would be understood in their own time.

  “I’m worried, Grandmother,” Raisa said. “The way ahead seems clear enough, but I’m not sure it’s the right way.”

  “In the Spirits, we find our way by sun and stars and other landmarks,” Elena said. “They tell us if we are on the right road, and keep us out of trouble. How do you avoid danger in the flatlands?”

  Raisa thought a moment. “The same as in the markets. I look for a mismatch—when someone tells me one thing and their eyes and hands and bodies tell me something else.”