Sovereign

CHAPTER 24

Powl had been seeking an answer to a conundrum, and felt at last a resolution had been found. It was a turning point, he realised, in the way he regarded his faith and his work as primate for the Church of the Righteous God. As a priest he detested turning points—the path to salvation should always be straight—but as a scholar he delighted in the twists and turns that experience and knowledge introduced to life.

He carefully opened the new book he had started, which was filled with the strange letters from the ancient alphabet used in the volumes of Colanus. He reviewed what he had already written on its first few pages, then lifted his pen to continue the work. And hesitated.

He put the pen down.

Was he sure? Was he moving too fast? After all, it had only been a few nights ago that he had gained his first real success—understanding that the symbols on the backs of the volumes, though not ideograms, were still in essence ideogrammatic. Each letter actually represented a sound and each group of letters a word, but the words themselves were not describing precisely the contents of the volumes but their part in the whole. He had been in the church library where he spent most of his time desperately trying to find some clue to the name of God. He was meticulously checking each theological tract on each shelf, when one book stood out—not because of its content, but because it was on the wrong shelf. The small red stamp on its spine indicated it belonged in the section on natural philosophy and not in the section on inductive reasoning. Struck by the idea that this might conceivably be the case with the words on the spines of the ancient volumes, the next day he visited the central library of the theurgia, carefully noting each of the major headings under which they catalogued their books. As with the church library, the headings reflected principle rather than subject, the essence of something rather than the thing itself. Later, he matched all transliterations he could make from the volumes and compared them to the headings. It was with a feeling of wonder and elation that he noticed some either matched perfectly or came too close just to be coincidence. The second group fired the real breakthrough, for it showed Powl what ancient, previously unknown letters he could substitute for letters from the modern alphabet used everywhere in Theare.

From there he was able to decipher most of the words and groups on the spines of the volumes from the tower. Any new word he wrote down carefully and tried to find in the main text of the volumes and guess at its meaning through context. If he found the same word appearing in a similar context he assumed he was close to finding its real meaning. This did not always work, but what it did do was allow Powl to start compiling a simple and primitive dictionary.

By the night after his visit to the library of the theurgia, he knew he had the tools necessary to decipher all the volumes. For two days that is where he stopped.

The ancient magikers themselves had conspired against Colanus to get their hands on the volumes, realising that they may be the source of all of Colanus's power, secular and magikal. Colanus had surprised the conspirators by giving them access to the volumes. Of course they could not read them. And what right did Powl have to read them, or even attempt to decipher them for someone else? The primate was not interested in power as such, he told himself, and was not tempted for the same reasons as the ancient magikers. But he was interested in knowledge. It was his greatest strength and weakness as a priest. Knowledge was both the foundation and enemy of faith; without knowledge there was no possibility of understanding God, but with knowledge God could be questioned.

Even from his earliest days as a novice, Powl had thought knowledge was a tool used by God to bring his people closer to him and he had pursued it with all his ability, and in those days after his breakthrough with the alphabet and language of the volumes he came to believe he was in some way fulfilling God's purpose for him.

And for that there will be a reward, he told himself, wanting to believe it.

The name of God.

He picked up his pen again.

Olio and Edaytor walked together along the harbour front, a group of Royal Guards trailing behind. The naval docks were busy with ships being caulked and tarred, their sails mended, their wood sanded and polished, the sheets checked and stowed. The merchant docks were similarly busy, but with supplies being sorted and loaded. The workers were all grim-faced and serious. No one sang shanties or shouted a joke. There was no laughter. This was preparation for war.

Edaytor wrapped his cloak tighter around him as a cool southerly breeze swept up from the sea.

'Another summer gone,' he said.

Olio stopped suddenly. 'It has been over a year since my mother died.' He turned around slowly to view the docks and foreshore. 'We're not far from where her pyre was lit.' He shook his head. 'Who could ever have imagined so much would change in so little a time?' He absently fingered the Key of the Heart, and when he looked up it was to see the destroyed section of the old city. Some of it had been rebuilt, some was still in various stages of being cleaned out, but the charred skeletons of houses and shops still filled most of the space. On rainy days the smell of burnt wood still wafted across the city, making those with the strongest memories gag over their food.

'Have you decided what you are going to do with that?' Edaytor asked, pointing to the Key.

'Wear it,' Olio answered lightly and tucked it back behind his shirt.

'That's no answer, your Highness.'

Olio laughed. 'Whenever you say "your Highness" like that it's a kind of rebuke.'

Edaytor looked horrified. 'Your Highness!' he burst out before he could stop himself.

'See?'

Edaytor could only harrumph. He put his hands behind his back and bowed his head in embarrassment.

Olio put an arm around the prelate's broad shoulders. 'Your question is one I have been asking myself ever since my recovery,' he told him, resuming their walk.

'Have you come up with an answer?'

'Of a kind. It is my task in life, I think, to work as a healer.' The prince felt Edaytor stiffen under his arm. 'But not by using the Key of the Heart directly,' he added quickly.

'Then it will involve the Key in some part?' Edaytor pushed.

'Do you know why they are called the Keys of Power?'

Edaytor glanced at the prince. 'You are asking questions sidewise,' he said. 'Is this going to be a lecture?'

'No. You may already know the answer. I did not until I gave the subject a great deal of thought.'

'Then to answer as best I can, the obvious reason they are called the Keys of Power is that they contain great magik and are capable of performing great magik.'

'You are speaking like a magiker, as you should. But I think you are wrong. I think they are called the Keys of Power because of what they represent, not what they contain. For most people living in Grenda Lear, the Keys belong to the monarch and her family. The Keys represent sovereignty, majesty, stability. That is their true power.'

Edaytor considered Olio's words, then asked: 'And you derive from that?'

'That we can continue our work to heal the sick and injured, but this time in the open and with the full cooperation of both the Church and the queen.'

'Your part in this?'

'Purely symbolic. I am the possessor of the Key of Healing. It will be enough.'

'Many believe you performed miracles the night of the fire. The common people will be looking for miracles again.'

'By providing proper care for those who need it and cannot afford it for themselves, Edaytor, we will supply a flood of miracles. In time the stories of that terrible night will become like ancient myths; the common people will pretend to believe in them while all the time being the level-headed labourers, cobblers, cooks and sailors they have always been.'

'You underestimate the power of myth,' Edaytor said absently, for they had left the harbour behind and were strolling through the crowded foreshore markets. People bustled out of the way of the royal entourage. Edaytor noticed that some faces were scowling at the party. For getting in their way, he presumed. But then he noticed that those few who scowled were directing their attention towards the prince. That could not be, he told himself. No one disliked Olio.

'I underestimate nothing of the sort,' Olio said. There was a heavy tramping ahead. Even the royal entourage moved aside this time as a company of infantry marched past them on their way to the harbour. They carried backpacks as well as weapons.

'On their way to Chandra,' Olio told Edaytor. 'The Great Army gathers.'

Edaytor repressed a shudder. He could not help thinking that great armies invited great disasters. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with a fierce and burning love for Kendra, for this great city where he had lived all his life, and at the same time he was afraid for it. Everyone assumed that Lynan would never reach this far, that Kendra was protected by armies, the Rosethemes and the Keys of Power. He wanted to shout at them that Lynan had an army and was a Rosetheme and possessed two of the four Keys of Power. He wanted to go back to the harbour again and see once more the sun on the water and the ships' pennants in the breeze and the seabirds catching updrafts. He knew there would be other days when he could do it, but he could not escape the feeling that there would come a day—and sooner rather than later—when it would be the last time.

He trembled with the thought that Kendra might be mortal.

It was a meeting neither man looked forward to, but it was the third such and there would be at least one more. Orkid and Dejanus met in the constable's office, at Dejanus's insistence, sat on opposite sides of a table and passed documents between one another.

'This is the meat requisition order,' Orkid said. 'The committee approved the cost at its last meeting.'

Dejanus scanned it, signed it and passed it back.

'And this is the charcoal requisition order.'

'What do I need charcoal for?' Dejanus demanded.

'Your blacksmiths need it.'

Dejanus should have realised what the charcoal was for, and both men knew it. 'And how much hold space will that take up?' he asked, using anger to cover his embarrassment.

Without any expression Orkid checked a black register that always seemed to be by his left hand. 'One ship. We've assigned the Rutherway, a single-mast skip belonging to merchant Ogday Tyke of Lurisia, to take the charcoal outbound and bring back any sick or wounded—'

'I don't need to know the name of the bloody ship!' Dejanus shouted. He signed the charcoal requisition form and threw it back at Orkid.

'You asked—'

'How many other bloody pieces of paper do I have to

'Some.'

Dejanus leaned across the table. 'And why do you need my signature on them anyway?' he hissed. 'After all, I'm not on the bloody committee.'

'Because you're the commander of the army, of course,' Orkid replied. He breathed in heavily and put his hands down on his papers. 'We've gone over this before. This is what you've always wanted, Dejanus, and now you have it. All the honour and glory that will go with being in charge of the largest army ever created by Grenda Lear. However, with the honour and glory comes all the detail and boredom. That you now have too.'

Dejanus sat back and sneered. 'You enjoy ticking me off, don't you?'

Orkid turned his attention back to his papers. He picked one out and held it up for Dejanus. 'Promotion list for officers from local regiments and one or two from Storia.'

'Don't pretend you didn't hear me, you Amanite leech.'

Orkid held up a second document. 'And its opposite, a charge sheet for an incident down on the dock three days ago which resulted in the injury of two workers and necessitated the payment from the army's budget of—' he turned the document so he could read the figure at the bottom '—quite a considerable sum.'

For a moment their eyes met. Orkid, impassive, did not even blink. Dejanus took the documents, scribbled his signature and gave them back.

'I can't wait to get out of this city,' Dejanus said, his voice filling with self-pity. 'Why am I stuck here when my army's already gathering in south Chandra?'

'Most of the army is yet to arrive in Chandra, and for now there is much that needs your attention here in Kendra.'

Dejanus stood up, the legs of his chair screeching on the stone floor. 'Nothing here needs my attention! It needs my signature. If it needed my attention I would still be on the committee.'

'If you were still on the committee,' Orkid said levelly, 'the whole Kingdom would now be in revolt against the queen and you would be commanding nothing larger than a burial detail.'

The chancellor watched with fascination as the constable's face went white as snow and his eyebrows bristled like wire brushes.

'I should kill you for that,' Dejanus said, his usual bellow now barely more than a strangled whisper.

'You always assume that I am against you, that when I tell you things I am trying to insult you. Because of our shared… past… you should know I cannot afford to do that. Why you insist on believing I would cut my own throat to hinder your career is beyond me.'

'You didn't want me to be army commander. You didn't even want me to be constable.'

'Yes and no. I did not want you to be army commander because I do not think it is a task you have the ability to perform. I did want you to be constable after Areava's ascension to the throne because I believed it was a task you did have the ability to perform.'

Dejanus blinked, stumped by the chancellor's candour. It did not bleed away much of his anger, but he found himself without any cause for it other than his indignation at Orkid's opinion of his ability to command the Great Army, that and the suddenly terrifying thought Orkid might be right.

I will not be afraid again! he told himself fiercely. I will not be afraid again!

'I'll leave these papers here, will I?' Orkid asked, patting the pile. 'You can study them at your leisure and get them back to me after you've signed them.'

'You know I won't read them.'

'Yes, I know. But for the sake of the Kingdom, Dejanus, at least pretend you know how to be a commander. That way I can pretend along with you.'

Before Dejanus could think of an answer, Orkid was gone.

Areava found the loneliness hardest at night, and now that the weather was getting colder it seemed to hover over her like a ghost. She bastioned herself with cushions and quilts, and still the bed felt as empty as if she was a leaf on a wide sea. Some nights it would be hours before she fell asleep, and she would wake at first light in a shock as if surprised she had found sleep at all. During the day she could hold off the loneliness through sheer hard work, but when she was alone, when she was too tired to read Harnan's notes or Orkid's reports or the royal correspondence, it would rise again and surround her. In a way the loneliness was worse than the terrible grief she had experienced right after the deaths of Sendarus and her baby; the grief had been swamped by the magnitude of the disasters she and her Kingdom had suffered, and in suffering together Areava found strength she had not expected.

But now Grenda Lear was getting on with its existence and Areava must at last face the solitary truth of her own life. As queen she was separated already from the mainstream, but as a widow her isolation was complete. At her worst she easily imagined she was unloved, unwanted, cast away, but it was against her nature to feel sorry for herself for long, and she would remember the love and support of Olio, and the devotion of Orkid Gravespear and Harnan Beresard. Ironically, she understood how it was possible to be alone because she was queen, and yet as queen she had more companionship than she did as a woman.

On top of all of that, her head was filled with the details of the war against Lynan. She knew by heart the size of each detachment of troops going to the Great Army and where it came from; she knew the number of ships, naval and merchant, involved in transporting and supplying that army, and she knew how much the whole affair was going to cost her Kingdom. It would take a decade for the economy to recover. The crown itself would be in debt for most of her reign.

But Grenda Lear will survive, she told herself. Indeed, it would be stronger and more united because of Lynan's rebellion. In a way he had done her a favour by reducing Haxus—Grenda Lear's oldest enemy—to nothing more than a province ready for annexation once hostilities were over. The whole continent of Theare would come under the sway of her House. The Rosetheme kestrel would fly above every city, every port, every ship that plied the continent's seas.

She was slowly aware of a heavy weight growing between her breasts. For a moment she thought with dread it might be her heart, but realised almost right away it was the Key of the Sceptre. In wonder she lifted the quilt over her. The Key looked no different. She touched it gingerly and gasped when a spark flew between the Key and her finger. This had happened before, when she had first touched it after Berayma's murder.

What was happening?

Incredibly, even as her breathing and heartbeat increased in excitement and fear, she felt unconsciousness, heavy and dark, slip over her mind.

'No!' she cried out, but her voice was small and weak.

The Key was now so heavy it pressed down on her like a great stone weight.

And then she was no longer in Kendra.

A face flashed across her mind's eye, female, ancient and beautiful at the same time, alluring and terrible. Then a Chett's face, not a girl but not much older, strong, powerful and determined. Like me, Areava thought. Then Ager Parmer, one-eyed and serious. Another woman's face, also young, but unmistakably Kendran, and around her a great aura of power. The magiker who escaped with Lynan, but a student no longer.

And then Lynan's face, but changed dramatically, cruelly; pale and scarred, his eyes too old for his eighteen years. He was naked, aroused, fevered, muttering obscenities.

Areava tried to look away.

Lynan still, and then another presence over him, speaking to him but in no tongue Areava understood. A glimpse of a face, the first one Areava had seen, with deep yellow eyes and irises without striation. Terrible eyes. The face turned away and dark wings wrapped around Lynan.

Areava felt an overwhelming need to flee. Again, she tried to look away, to send herself somewhere else, but whatever power had brought her here would not let her escape.

The thing with a woman's face smiled at her brother. Her lips parted and blood seeped from the corners of her mouth.

Areava screamed, and everything went dark.