She dictated quickly and fluently, pausing while her secretary filled in titles and appropriate courtesies with equal fluency. It was the habit of kings and queens to employ scholars of repute as secretaries, as most of the nobility couldn’t be bothered to learn the task and employed others to do any actual writing. But Rebecca Almspend managed to write fine poetry and research the works of the troubadours of the last two centuries, and still found time to do her job thoroughly.
‘To his Alban Majesty, from your devoted, loving wife-’
Lady Almspend gave her an arch look.
‘Oh, say what I mean, not what I say,’ Desiderata pouted.
‘You Grace will forgive me if I suggest that sometimes your performance as a wilful beauty overshadows your obvious intelligence,’ Lady Almspend said.
Desiderata let the nails of her right hand pass lightly down the back of her secretary’s arm. ‘Let my letter be coy, and let him gather how very brilliant I am by looking at the design of his new war carts,’ she said. ‘Telling him how very clever I am will only cause him distress. Men, my dear Becca, are like that, and you will never attract a lover, not even a bespectacled merchant prince who adores your head for long columns of figures, if you wear wimples that hide your face and seek to prove to every lover that you are the smarter of the pair.’ The Queen knew perfectly well that her intellectual secretary had attracted the devotion of the strongest and most virile of the King’s Guardsmen – it had been something of a wonder at the court. Even the Queen was curious how it had happened.
Lady Almspend was perfectly still, and the Queen knew she was biting back a hot remark.
The Queen kissed her. ‘Be at peace, Becca. In some ways, I am far more learned than you.’ She laughed. ‘And I am the Queen.’
Even the staid Lady Almspend had to laugh at the truth of this. ‘You are the Queen.’
Later, when giving justice, the Queen summoned two of the king’s squires, and sent them with the letters – one was delighted to go to the army, if only for a day or two, and the other, rather more dejected, riding to a merchant town to deliver a letter to a retired knight.
The Queen allowed them both to kiss her hand.
North of Harndon – Harmodius
Harmodius was on his second night without sleep. He tried not to think about how easily he’d done such things forty years before. Tonight, riding very slowly down the road on an exhausted horse, he could only hope to keep his hands on the saddle, hope that the horse didn’t stumble, throw a shoe, or simply collapse beneath him.
He’d drained every reserve of energy. He’d set wards, thrown bolts, and built phantasmal dissuasions with the abandon of a much younger man. All his carefully hoarded powers were gone.
In a way, it had been marvellous.
Young magi have energy and old ones have skill. Somewhere in the continuum between young and old lies a practitioner’s greatest moment. Harmodius had assumed his had been twenty years ago, and yet last night he’d thrown a curtain of fire five furlongs long – and swept it ahead of his galloping horse like a daemonic plough blade.
‘Heh,’ he said aloud.
An hour after he’d extinguished the fiery blade, he’d met a foreigner on an exhausted horse, who had watched him with wary eyes.
Harmodius had reined in. ‘What news?’ he asked.
‘Albinkirk,’ the man breathed. He had a Morean accent. ‘Only the castle holds. I must tell the king. The Wild has struck.’
Harmodius had stroked his beard. ‘Dismount a moment, and allow me to send the king a message as well?’ he said. ‘I’m the King’s Magus,’ he added.
‘Ser Alcaeus Comnena,’ the dark-visaged man replied. He swung his leg over the horse’s rump.
Harmodius had given him some sweet wine. He was pleased to see the foreign knight attend his horse – rubbing the gelding down, checking his legs.
‘How’s the road?’ asked the knight.
Harmodius permitted himself a moment of glowing satisfaction. ‘I think you’ll find it clear,’ he said. ‘Alcaeus? You’re the Emperor’s cousin.’
‘I am,’ said the man.
‘Strange meeting you here,’ Harmodius said. ‘I’ve read some of your letters.’
‘I’m blushing, and you can’t see it. You must be Lord Harmodius, and I’ve read everything you written about birds.’ He laughed, a little wildly. ‘You’re the only barba- only foreigner whose High Archaic is ever read aloud at court.’
Harmodius had a werelight going, and was writing furiously. ‘Yes?’ he asked absently.
‘Although you haven’t written a thing in five years, now? Ten?’ The younger knight had shaken his head. ‘I am sorry, my lord. I had thought you dead.’
‘You weren’t far wrong. Here – deliver this to the king. I’m going north. Tell me – did you see any Hermetics fighting against Albinkirk?’
Ser Alcaeus had nodded. ‘Something enormous came against the walls. It pulled the very stars from the sky, and threw them at the castle.’
They had clasped hands.
‘I long to meet you under more auspicious circumstances,’ Ser Alcaeus had said.
‘And I you, ser.’
