Chapter 49 | The Queen Who Ruled by Herself

It was Harla’s Day; Ilhovin had been dead for eight years, and this time when Macca had gone to check on his body as she had every Harla’s Day, he was nothing but bones. Finally, she thought. It was time to attend to him. She ignored the casket she’d hidden further down the hallway after a furtive glance to see if it had been disturbed, and turned her back on it as the attendants carefully lifted the king’s skeleton and brought it to the preparation hall. “Clean the bones carefully,” she ordered, “then gild them as befits a king. I’ll be back with my son to put him to rest with his ancestors.”

Creith did not want to go when the time came. “I don’t like the Bloody One’s Temple, Mother, it frightens me.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of. It’s important that you do this with me,” she answered. He’d grown so fast; here he was, almost eight years old, a slender, wiry boy with his father’s sandy brown hair and his mother’s gray eyes, and she hardly knew him at all. “He was your father, and he was king, just as you are king now.”

“If I’m king, why can’t I do as I please?” he said sullenly.

“Because you are too young to do as you please. Besides, what is it you’re not allowed to do now?” said his mother impatiently.

“I don’t want to go,” he repeated stubbornly.

But in the end, she marched him down into the depths of the Temple. They performed the rites and spoke the words as Ilhovin’s bones were placed in their niche, beside that of his father, Gethin. “Some day I will lie here with you,” she whispered, then turned back to her son. His face was white with fear and rage and he trembled slightly, but he didn’t slouch and stared straight ahead. That would have to do, she thought.

Creith remembered that day for a very long time. He woke up several times over the next weeks screaming in the night, after dreams in which the bones surrounding him had come to life and chased him through the dark tunnels of the Temple. Nanny cuddled him close as he sobbed himself back to sleep each time. Why did his mother make him go? Why was she his mother, and not Nanny? Some day, he really would be king, he thought, and then she’d have to do what he said.

The years passed, and mother and son grew no closer. Macca endowed the university at Summerford in Creith’s name; the new college was named Peacemaker, after Ilhovin, and was dedicated to the study of diplomacy, negotiation and trade.

With Tremont’s new permanent army, she took back the territory the Northern Tribes had invaded and entered into a defensive pact with the kingdom of Corland on the northwestern border that amounted to its annexation. Creithig was 15, and Macca promised him in marriage to the oldest daughter of the king of Corland, a dowdy little 11-year-old named Katha who arrived at the Keep wide-eyed and shy, so blond and so fair that soon the court secretly called her the “snow princess.”

“I hate her,” said Creithig to his mistress, a little serving maid his same age named Milla who happened to be Nanny’s niece. She wasn’t terribly bright, but she was pretty enough, right there in the Keep, bound to be disliked by his mother when she found out, and very agreeable, he thought as he stroked her naked back.
Milla stopped nibbling on his toes. “I hate her too,” said Milla. “Why do we hate her, though, Creithy?”

Creith thought. “I don’t like people telling me what to do.”

“I don’t either,” said Milla dutifully. “I hate Katha when she tells you what to do.”

“Not Katha,” said Creith irritably, “my mother! Katha’s got milk in her veins. I bet she couldn’t even tell you what to do. In fact, let’s find out! I shall ask the housekeeper to assign you to her! Then you can spy on her for me.”

“Creith,” said Milla, “why don’t you just refuse to marry her?”

“No,” sighed Creith, “I have to. Mother’s right, Uncle Mihall’s right. We have to ally with Corland. They think I’m too stupid to see that, but I understand the need for the alliance. That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

“Does it mean we’ll have to stop? You won’t put me aside, will you?”

“Temporarily, yes,” he answered. “But,” he added as her eyes began to fill, “just for a little while. I’m 16 next year. Then I can do as I please. I’ll put you in your own apartments here and you will be the official Royal Mistress.”

“Really?” squealed Milla. “Can I have a little lap dog?”

“You can have a pack of them!” said Creith indulgently.

“Can I have the queen’s apartments next to yours?” she said. “They’re so very lovely!”

“You may have whatever you’d like. When my mother’s regency ends, we can do whatever we’d like, Milla!” He kissed her to seal the bargain.

Macca found out about her son’s dalliance and quickly put an end to it. She sent both Nanny and Milla off to Valmouth Town, where Nowa had set up housekeeping in the house she was raised in and had a brood of redheaded children of her own to care for. Nowa kept Nanny busy and an eye on Milla, who was shortly discovered to be pregnant. Milla and Creith managed to smuggle pitiful, tear-drenched letters back and forth, but when Milla gave birth to their first son, Creith was kept away. “But I should be there!” cried Creith. “My father wasn’t there when I was born!”

“Your father was murdered! You have sired a bastard on a serving maid, foolish child,” snarled Macca. “It’s nothing to be proud of!”

“I will have who I please in my bed!” shouted Creith. “You cannot keep me from her forever!”

But when the time came, he stood before the Little Father with Katha and dutifully led her down the aisle by the marriage cord. The little queen was still too young; their wedding wouldn’t be consummated for another two years, and so there was no marriage bed. She would go to her new rooms next to his, and he would go to bed alone. Katha dutifully raised her pale face to his to be kissed. “Goodnight to thee, mine dear husband,” she said in her still-halting Tremontine. But instead of a kiss, he gave her a hard slap that nearly dropped her to her knees.

“You are my wife but I will never love you, you lifeless, colorless, little Corrish bitch,” he said. Katha looked up at him in astonishment and fright, a red hand print blooming on her cheek. “See, there’s some color in that doughy face for you!”

Katha began to sob. “I understand not! I have done what wrong to thee, husband? Are we not married?”

“Not really, not until our consummation day. Oh, on the day itself I’ll bed you, all right, and often enough for children after, because you have to do what I say now, Katha, even if we’re not completely married until we show the silk!” He pulled her close by her fine, nearly white hair. “But I promise you this,” he hissed. “I will never spend the night in your bed. I will never love you. And I will make sure our children despise you as much as I do right now. Get out of my sight.” Katha scrambled away from him in terror, and fled to her rooms. “And don’t get too comfortable in there, Queen Katha,” he called after her. “You won’t be in those apartments long!”

When it finally became clear to Macca that her son really was set firmly against her, she called Mihall to her from Valmouth Town. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice breaking. “My only child hates me. How has this happened?”

“He is a willfull boy in need of more guidance than you were able to give him. I have told you, more than once, that he needs a father.”

“I will never remarry,” she said dismissively.

“Oh, it’s too late for that anyway, ma’am,” said Mihall. “There is one who could help you, if you’d let him,” he added significantly.

Macca glanced at him, then back at the fire. “That crow in the tower? Perhaps he’s dead by now. Or mad.”

“We both know that’s not the case. Lady--Macca,” he said gently, taking his old friend’s hand, “He will be coming out of that tower the moment Creith turns 16. Have you told Creith anything of the magic?”

“No,” said Macca. “How could I? I have done everything I can to discourage talk of magic, especially around him. The histories are being rewritten to cast doubt on it. Already the younger generation is beginning to think of magic as superstitious nonsense.”

“He must understand the legacy that Teacher represents. Teacher could have been that balancing influence on him, ma’am. I wish I had been more forceful with you on the subject.”

“No one can make me do anything, Mihall, including you,” she said sharply.

“No, ma’am,” he said with a short bow before taking his leave. “And I’m afraid it runs in the family.”

Macca thought long and hard all that night about what her old friend had said. The next morning, she called Creith to her. “You will be 16 in five spokes,” she began.

“Not a spoke too soon,” he muttered.

“And,” she continued, ignoring him, “it is time I make known to you the greatest power you will wield as king. It’s a power I have chosen not to use in all this time, but when the time comes, you will need it. It’s a power your father held himself, but through treachery it is elsewhere now.”

“Mother, you sound like a bad riddle,” said Creith in irritation.

“Follow me,” she said. The two of them walked to the oldest, deepest part of the Keep, where hardly anyone went any more, and began to climb the tower stairs to the old library.

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to show me the view from the Old Tower,” he said disdainfully. “I already know the size of what I’m inheriting.”

“No,” said his mother, “no, Creith, you really don’t.” When they came to the library door, still barred, she wondered for a brief moment if perhaps the room’s occupant weren’t dead. She removed the key from her pocket. “Unbar the door, please, Creith, it’s too heavy for me.” Curious by now, Creith lifted the heavy bar and set it aside.

Macca put the key in the lock; it turned effortlessly, as if the lock had been oiled and ready all these years. The door swung open, and there stood a figure in black robes, iron-colored hair spilling down around a pale face with silver eyes. “Your majesties,” said the Teacher, bowing deeply.

“Who is this?” said Creith, more than a little afraid.

“This is the Teacher,” said his mother. “He should have been your teacher, but I made--I made a mistake. I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

“We shall see,” said the Teacher.

“And what is it about a skinny academic that constitutes an inheritance?” said Creith skeptically.

The Teacher looked enquiringly at Macca, who nodded. “Come in, your majesty.” Creith entered the strange round room, stuffed with books and scrolls and little else but an enormous double-sided mirror in a frame in the center of the room. “Is there anything you’d like to see?” Teacher asked. “Anything or anyone, anywhere within the kingdom. Name it.”

Creith looked at his mother, and his face grew hard. “Milla. I want to see Milla and my son.”

“Very well,” said the Teacher. “If the king’s child is anywhere within sight of a reflection, show him to me.” To Creith’s astonishment, the mirror flickered and then rippled; an image of a room formed. It must be wherever that bastard Valmouth is keeping my family, thought Creith. He looked closer. An older woman rocked a little squirming bundle. She looked as if she were singing to it.

“My son,” he whispered, “that must be my son. Where is Milla?”

“Show me the king’s mistress, Milla,” said the Teacher. The mirror once again flickered and rippled, but it settled on the reflection of the library. “She is not near a reflection, your majesty.”

Creith looked the Teacher up and down. “What are you?”

“Your chief counselor, sir, as I was to your father, your grandfather, and all of your great-grandfathers back to the founding of the kingdom.”

“The Teacher? That Teacher?” said Creith. “I have heard of a counselor called Teacher, but I assumed it was a title.”

“Oh, it is,” said Teacher, “but I’m the only one to have held it.”

“You expect me to believe you’re that old.”

“Believe what you want,” said the Teacher.

Creith leaned against a bookcase. “Why haven’t you been advising my mother?”

“I wanted to, very much,” said the Teacher quietly. “Instead, I have been watching in the mirror for fifteen years.”

“Teacher was involved in your father’s murder,” said Macca. “Do you deny it, thing?”

“I deny that I ever wished for Ilhovin’s death,” said the Teacher. “To the contrary. My magic was used against my will.”

“Magic?” snorted Creith. “Mother, when will you stop this nonsense? Send your friend here back to the Travelers or whatever wandering band of entertainers you got him from. I’m tired of this performance.”

“So cynical for such a young one,” said Teacher with a clack of the tongue. “I would love to show you, but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to leave the room.”

Macca sighed. “You have the run of the Keep, Teacher. Show him what he needs to know.”

“The Keep only?”

“Very well, the kingdom!” she said irritably. “I have little choice but to trust you. My regency is ending, and there’s nothing more you can take from us. Show him what he needs to know to master you!”

The Teacher nodded. “Master who? Show me what?” said Creith in confusion.

“Many wonders, your majesty,” said the Teacher. “Let us begin in your study.” The image in the mirror wavered and reformed; Creith saw his own rooms appear, and before he knew what had happened, the Teacher had taken him by the hand and pulled him through.

Macca watched the mirror reform into her reflection. Her face was drawn; she looked old and she felt older. “I won, didn’t I, Lady?” she whispered. “I thought I won.”