The Summer Queen (4 page)

But still she seemed to hear the song of a goddess in the
air high overhead, feel the living breath of the Sea Mother chill her flesh.
The ageless chamber reeked of the Sea; the keening windsong carried Her voice
to Jerusha, and to the small gathering of the faithful who waited with
reverence and awe at the edge of the Pit for their audience with the Queen.

The Sea Herself lay waiting too, at the bottom of the Pit,
three hundred meters below. A single fragile span of bridge crossed the
dizzying well, giving access to the palace on the other side. But high above
them gossamer curtains swelled and billowed with the restless wind, creating
treacherous air currents that could sweep a body from the bridge with
terrifying ease. The Lady gives, they said, and the Lady takes away.

“The Lady.”

“The Lady—”

Hushed voices murmured Her name as the Summer Queen appeared
suddenly at the far end of the span. Jerusha took a deep breath and lowered her
hand to her side, focusing on the Queen, the Goddess Incarnate, as she stepped
carefully onto the bridge. Jerusha watched her come, slowly, regally, her
milk-white hair drifting around her in a shining cloud, her loose, summer-green
robes billowing like grass, like the sea. She wore a crown of flowers and
birdwings shot through with the light of jewels, and the trefoil of a sibyl.
The Lady.

Damn it.’ Jerusha shook her head: a head-clearing, a denial.
She looked at the Queen again, seeing her clearly this time: Not a goddess
incarnate, but an eighteen-year-old girl named Moon. Her lace was drawn with
strain and weariness, her movements were made slow and awkward by the swelling
of an unexpected pregnancy that was now near term, no longer completely
concealed even by her flowing robes. There was no mystery to her, any more than
there was any divine presence in this room.

Jerusha’s eyes still reminded her insistently that the Queen
wore another woman’s face; memory told her that Moon Dawntreader carried
another woman’s ambitions in her mind, in her heart. It was impossible not to
stare at her, not to wonder about the strange motion of a fate whose dance had
trapped them both ....

She listened to the progression of high, piercing notes that
filled the chamber as the Queen touched the tone box she carried in her hand;
the sounds that controlled the movement of the wind curtains high above, to
create a space of quiet air through which she, and the three people who
followed her, could move. The tone box was an artifact of the Old Empire, like
the Hall, the Pit, the palace above them and the ancient, serpentine city at
whose pinnacle it sat. Technology was the real god at work here, and the Queen
knew that as well as Jerusha did. She had come here today to try to reconcile
this crucial gathering of her people to that truth, if she could.

Jerusha felt a sudden twinge of compassion for the fragile
figure crossing the bridge toward her. Moon Dawntreader had defied the
offworlder rule that Jerusha PalaThion had represented, to become the new
Queen. And Jerusha had believed her cause was just, had believed in her;
instead of deporting her, had let her become Queen. In the end she had even
given up her own position as Commander of Police, stopped serving the Hegemony
that had brought nothing but grief to her and to this world. She had chosen to
stay behind on Tiamat at the Final Departure, and serve its new Queen instead.

But when the offworlders had gone away at the Change, they
had gone forever, at least as far as Jerusha PalaThion was concerned. They
would not come back in her lifetime; she had exiled herself, and if ever she
changed her mind, she still could not change that. And had she changed her mind—?
Jerusha’s face pinched. She rubbed her arms, feeling the rough homespun cloth
chafe her skin. Gods, she was so tired, all the time, lately .... She wondered
if she was getting some disease, or simply getting depressed. She dressed like
a Tiamatan even though there were still plenty of offworlder clothes to be had;
trying to do the impossible, to fit in, when her dark curling hair and upslanting
eyes, her cinnamon-colored skin, marked her as alien. She had never felt at
home on this world, in all the time she had served here. She had hated this
ancient, musty, mysterious city the way she had hated its former Queen. But in
the end ... in the end it had worked its will on her. In the end it had still been
the lesser of two evils.

Someone touched her shoulder. She started, caught off guard;
raised her hand in a defense gesture that Police training had programmed into
her reflexes. She stopped herself, chagrined, as she realized that the touch
belonged to her husband. “Miroe,” she whispered, feeling the tension inside her
dissolve.

He made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Who were you expecting?”

She gazed at him for a long moment. His offworlder’s face
looked as out of place here as her own. And yet he belonged here, had lived
here all of his life. It was not impossible to learn to love a new world ....
She only shook her head, and put her hand over his as she glanced away at the
Queen. “How is she?” she asked, looking again at the swell of the Queen’s
belly. Miroe had offworlder medical training, and Moon had chosen him, trusted
him over any local physician or healer to attend her; as she had chosen Jerusha
to watch her back.

“I think I picked up two heartbeats today. I think she’s
carrying twins.”

“Gods,” Jerusha murmured. She shifted from foot to foot,
wondering why her hands and feet went to sleep on her so easily lately.

He nodded, with a heavy sigh. “She shouldn’t be doing this.
I told her that—she ought to let go of it, let the Summers treat her like a
goddess. That’s all they expect—or want—of her.”

Jerusha looked back at him. feeling unexpected irritation
rise inside her. “She doesn’t want to be a puppet, Miroe. She wants to be a
queen. Just because women are the ones who get pregnant—” The sudden thought
filled her head like strange perfume: Am I pregnant—?

He looked back at her, frowning. “Goddammit, you know that’s
not what I meant.”

She looked down. Am I—? Feeling wonder fall through her like
rain.

“She’s pushing too hard, that’s all. She wants it all to
change now. She should let it go until she delivers. That’s all.” The frown was
still on his face; concern now, instead of annoyance. “Carrying twins causes complications
in a pregnancy; you know that.”

Jerusha forced her attention back to his words, saying
nothing about what she had just felt, thought, imagined. She wasn’t even sure;
there was no reason to mention it now, She looked at Moon again, at the swelling
curve of her stomach. “If she waits that long, the Summers will smother her in ‘worship,’”
she said sourly. The Goodventure clan, whose ancestors had been the Summer
Queens during the last cycle, had gotten a taste for power, and nursed their
hunger for it through a hundred and fifty years, through Tiamat’s near-endless
Winter. They still believed in the old ways of Summer’s conservative outback,
and they still believed they held their Goddess’s favor, over this heretic
upstart who was trying to unnaturally force the Winters’ offworlder,
technophile ways on them. “She’s made enemies of the Goodventures already, by
pushing them too hard. But if she doesn’t push they’ll drown her. She’s damned
either way.”

“The sibyl net is behind her—”

“Who knows what it’s really telling her? Nobody understands
how it acts, Miroe, or half of what it says.” She shook her head. “Who knows if
she really even hears it at all ... or only the ghost of the Snow Queen
whispering in her ear.”

Miroe was silent for a long moment. “She hears it,” he said
at last.

She looked away, shifting the projectile rifle’s strap
against her shoulder; feeling the distance open between them, reminded by the
words that he shared a history, a bond of faith that did not include her, with
this world’s Queen.

She focused on Moon Dawntreader again, as the Queen began to
speak. The small crowd of islanders, almost all of them sibyls, shuffled and
bowed their heads as the Queen greeted them. They were obviously awed by the
trefoil she wore and by her surroundings, even though her soft, uncertain voice
barely carried above the sighing of the wind. Sparks Dawntreader. the
red-haired youth who was Moon’s husband, stood close beside her. His arm went
around her protectively as he looked out at the crowd.

Behind them stood a middle-aged woman with dark, gray-shot
hair hanging in a thick plait over her shoulder. She wore the same trefoil sign
the Queen wore. She gazed aimlessly over the crowd with eyes that were like shuttered
windows, as the fourth person, a plain, stocky woman, murmured something in her
ear—describing the scene, probably.

“Thank you for coming,” Moon murmured, her pale hands
clutching restlessly at her robes. The words sounded banal, but gratitude shone
in her eyes, a tribute to the people standing before her, whose quiet reverence
belied the long and difficult journey they had made to this meeting.

“I ...” She hesitated, as if she were trying to remember
words, and Jerusha sensed her fleeting panic. “I—asked all the sibyls of Summer
to come to the City when I became Queen because ...” She glanced down, up
again, and suddenly there was a painful knowledge in her eyes that only the two
offworlders understood. “Because the Lady has spoken to me, and shown me a
truth that I must share with all of you. The Sea has blessed our people with
Her bounty and Her wisdom, and we have ... we have always believed that She
spoke Her will through those of us who wear the sibyl sign.” Her hand touched
the trefoil again, self-consciously. “But now at last She has chosen to show us
a greater truth.” Moon bit her lip, pushed back a strand of hair.

Oh gods, Jerusha thought. Here we go. Now there’s no turning
back.

“We are not the only sibyls,” the Queen said, her voice suddenly
strong with belief. “Sibyls are everywhere—on all the worlds of the Hegemony. I
have been offworld, I have seen them.”

The rapt silence of her audience broke like a wave; their
astonishment flowed over her. “I have seen them!” She lifted her hands; they
fell silent again. “I have been to another world, called Kharemough, where they
wear the same sign, they speak the same words to go into Transfer, they have
the same wisdom. They also say—” she glanced at her husband, with a brief,
private smile, and pressed her hands to her stomach, “that it is ‘Death to kill
a sibyl, death to love a sibyl, death to be a sibyl.’ ... But they also showed
me that it doesn’t have to be true.” She turned back again, this time to touch
the arm of the blind woman, drawing her forward. “Fate Ravenglass is a sibyl,
just as you are and I am. But she is a Winter.”

“How—?”

“Impossible—” The astonished murmurs broke over her again;
she waited for them to die down, her hands pressing her swollen stomach.

“It’s true,” Fate said slowly, as the voices faded. “‘Ask,
and I will answer.’” She spoke the ritual words, her voice filled with emotion.
“For more than half of my life I hid my secret from the offworlders and my own
people. The offworlders lied to us all about the true nature of what we do.”

“We are a part of something much greater than we ever
dreamed,” Moon said, moving forward, all her hesitation gone now. “A part of a
network created by our ancestors, before we even came to this world.”

The sibyls in the crowd pulled their homespun clothes and
kleeskin slickers closer about them, staring at her with every face among them
showing a different emotion. “But, Lady—” someone began, broke off. “But how
can the Lady ...” He looked down, speechless, shaking his head.

“The Sea Mother is still with you, in you, all around you,”
the Queen said, forcing into the words a conviction that Jerusha knew she no
longer felt. Her time offworld had taught her more than one truth; and it had
taught her that no truth was a simple one. “She has blessed your ways, because
you serve Her selflessly, as sibyls everywhere do—”

“Stop this blasphemy!”

All heads turned at once, as the voice echoed down the entry
hall toward them.

Jerusha stiffened as she saw Capella Goodventure stride into
the Hall of the Winds. “How the hell did she get in here’.’” Jerusha muttered.
The Queen had ordered all the Goodventures, and particularly their elder, out
of the palace after their last bitter theological argument. Jerusha had
directed the palace security guards to make certain it was done; but some of
the palace guards were Summers, and the gods—or their Goddess—only knew where
their loyalties really lay. Someone had let her pass.

Jerusha took a step forward, her face hardening over, and
pulled the rifle strap from her shoulder. Miroe caught her arm, stopping her. “Wait.”
He looked toward the crowd, as Capella Goodventure showed herself to them. Jerusha
nodded, lowering the gun. She moved forward more slowly, only watching now.

“This woman who claims that she speaks as one of you is telling
you lies!” The Goodventure elder’s voice shook with anger. “She is not a true
sibyl; not even a true Summer! She wears Winter’s face, and Winter’s ways. She
has tried to keep me from speaking the truth—but I will speak it!” She turned
to face the Queen. “Do you still deny me my right to be heard? Or will you
order your offworlders to drag me from the hall? Because that is what they will
have to do—”

Jerusha stopped moving, looking toward the Queen.

The Queen glanced her way, looked back at Capella Goodventure.
“No,” Moon said softly. “Say what you must.”

Capella Goodventure deflated slightly, her defiance
punctured by the Queen’s easy capitulation. She took a deep breath. “You all
know of me. I am head woman of the clan that gave Summer its last line of
queens. I have come to tell you that this woman who calls herself Moon
Dawntreader Summer has brought you here to fill your minds with doubt—about
yourselves, about the Lady’s place in your lives. She would strip away the
beliefs, the traditions, that make us Summers. She wants us to become like the
Winters—miserable lackeys of the offworlders who despise our ways and butcher
the sacred mers.”