Landscape Magic Read online

  “Technically Aren didn’t hop into bed with Av,” Jer said. “Av threw her into bed, and she just neglected to voice consent. We know she didn’t have a problem with it because he’s still alive, and Telm…um…Telm did that thing she does.”

  “Starts eyeing the young men as if she’s going to bite them,” Ervam said, filling in for Er. “After so long with her, I think that’s her sex-face.”

  Er grimaced. Jer made a face as well at the thought.

  “Given her history with men, it wouldn’t be a wonder that she looks like that,” Jer muttered.

  “Have you ever heard of the warrior tossing the queen and not the other way around?” Ervam asked his brother.

  “You and Mirmae?” Er asked in response. “Let’s face it, you were trying to run in the other direction, and that woman had her eye on you despite every other warrior trying to get in her way. We tell our boys she did the tossing, not you, as a lesson that with the rise of the queen rank amongst our people, they will not always choose warriors and the rest of us must learn to stand back and let them.”

  “Warrior tossing a queen, you just gave an example of a queen tossing an entirely different rank!” Ervam bellowed.

  “Oh, right,” Er said with a frown.

  “Why do you want to talk about Mother?” Jer asked his uncle.

  “Must have been Gamen’s comment,” Er said.

  “He compared Aren to Olea,” Jer said pointedly.

  Ervam sighed loudly. “He didn’t.” The trainer made a disapproving sound as the two warriors turned to him. “Av. He must have compared their relationship to mine and Mirmae’s. Er’s always been a little more sensitive to a queen’s moods.”

  “Olea says that’s why we have such a good relationship,” Er grumbled defensively.

  Av walked into the room without knocking. “Good, you’re all here. We’ve agreed to head north. She has concerns about Anue and Danya. She seemed to say that she wanted to bring Danya with us.”

  “What happened?” Ervam demanded.

  “We argued and all of a sudden she started saying she was going to die alone.”

  “Everyone dies alone,” Er said.

  “I didn’t tell her that, that’s madness,” Av said with a snarl. “I told her that there were people who loved her. The problem was that she started weeping over this idea, which I didn’t tell her, that she said herself. When I asked her why, she repeated it and started crying again. By the spirits, what did I mate?”

  “A half-broken queen,” Jer said.

  “Who is learning to feel again,” Ervam said. “She’s shut out her emotions for so long that there are bound to be explosions as she does feel.”

  “Olea cries if she thinks you meant anything about her not being good enough,” Er said cautiously. “Doesn’t matter that you didn’t. Just bursts into tears.”

  “It got better over time, didn’t it?” Ervam asked his brother.

  “Certainly, it doesn’t happen as often, but she decided to deal with the emotion by getting angry,” Er said. “Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s a bad thing. I can definitely handle an angry woman better than a weeping one, but still. Why do they cry at the drop of a word?”

  “Women!” Av said loudly.

  “Women from disturbing pasts,” Ervam said pointedly.

  “Please,” Av said. “You had a disturbing past. Jer had a disturbing past. I don’t see him weeping any time someone mentions that he’s sad and alone without Em.”

  “I’m not alone,” Jer said in his defence.

  To which, three sets of identical eyes focused on him. He should have known better than to leave off the sad portion of his words. Ranks picked up on that sort of thing, and while it was usually queens who would pick apart the words, warriors sometimes caught on when their loved ones were involved.

  “What?” he said, deciding to play stupid.

  “Please tell me that you don’t cry because Em is gone,” Av demanded.

  “She was a large part of my life, Av. Despite everything, we had a child together. We spent most of our days together. There is a great deal of history there that cannot simply be forgotten.”

  “You have Laeder!”

  “Whom I love dearly, but my mate has been dead only a season. Mother died more than ten years ago. I don’t see you getting upset with Father.”

  “I did,” Av said.

  “He did, and then he broke a rib,” Ervam said with a growl.

  “That was not because you were still grieving, that was because you were stupid,” Av said sternly.

  “He broke your rib?” Er demanded. “A warrior broke the rib of a trainer? Ervam, have you been to see a healer yet? A proper healer?”

  “I’m fine, Nae saw to me,” Ervam responded.

  They were all silent for a long moment.

  “No, Danya cannot come north with us, at least not until she is better situated with using her magic to see,” Er said quietly, changing the topic. “Anue should stay here. Stability is key for a young queen, especially one who has been removed from a home. We’ve done rescues before. Moving them about, even for visits, can lay the foundation for a life of believing they belong nowhere.”

  “There’s no question about Anue staying here,” Av said. “She’ll be safer here. I think Aren’s concern is raising her sister. I also think that she doesn’t believe that she and I raising Anue is acceptable.”

  “Aren is going through a lot right now, and burdening her with an impressionable child is not going to help her or the child,” Ervam said quietly.

  “Well, the only ones we trust that much would be yourself and Telm,” Av said in response.

  “That’s fine. I can care for Anue at least until the pair of you get back from the North, and then we can revisit the issue.”

  “Er just said she needs stability, you’re already raising her,” Av said.

  “I never wanted a daughter,” Ervam countered. “They’re mean, manipulative, violent, and the queens tend to make things even more uncomfortable when they start using magic. And then I have to deal with the boys trying to get her into bed and the men trying to mate her when they’ve no damned place doing anything of the sort.”

  “Mm, well, you’ll be looking after Anue, so get used to the idea,” Av grumbled.

  Av sighed and dropped into an available chair. He stared off at nothing as Jer watched him struggle with something.

  “She thinks I act like a child,” Av said finally.

  “You do,” Er responded.

  “She thinks it’s because I grew up on palace grounds and have never seen the outside world,” Av responded, turning to the baron. “That I’ve never done anything difficult in my life and so never grew up.”

  “It’s very possible,” Er said quietly. “When I get together with my childhood friends, we still cause havoc, and Olea has, more than once, said that we’re worse than my children. Did you also get a lecture about being a leader?”

  “She called me a follower and then questioned what sort of children I might produce,” Av said through gritted teeth.

  “Why?” Ervam asked. “Your blood is excellent, producing strong warriors generation after generation. The few queens who have been born were also good, strong queens. I was considered the runt of the family, and I produced two strong warriors.”

  “One that’s stupid and the other was cowed by a woman and then the court,” Er grumbled.

  “I’m not stupid,” Av snapped.

  “You were cowed by a woman and then the court!” Er shouted back.

  “Did you just call me stupid?” Jer demanded, not believing what he was hearing, not understanding how he had somehow been dragged back into the conversation.

  “And Aren hasn’t cowed me,” Av protested.

  “Em cowed you, then the court did once she died,” Er responded sternly.

  Av was quiet a moment, then he nodded. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  “I’m still not stupid,” Jer shouted.


  “You are, you’re a moron,” Er said dismissively before he focused on Av. “What did you say to her to start this?”

  “She said I had to know how an army worked and I said I just wanted to stab people,” Av said.

  Er flinched and sucked a breath in through clenched teeth. “She’s right, you do need to learn that. No doubt you said no because of the numbers involved.”

  “And the reports and reading,” Av said, looking frustrated. “I can read, I can do numbers, but not that well.”

  “That’s why queens and warriors are supposed to work in tandem,” Er said. “I’m not all that great with numbers, but Olea is. However, if I didn’t know that I needed wheat to feed the army, she’d tell me the same thing. We can work on that while you visit. It will settle her mind if she sees you learning from someone who has seen battle, even if it was more skirmishes than an actual war.”

  “I don’t need to know how many bundles of wheat I need, do I?” Av asked.

  “It would be helpful to at least have a rough idea,” Er said. “If your second comes to you and says you need to raid a village because you only have so much food left, you need to know whether you truly need to raid that village. And if it’s an enemy village, you need to know when to unleash the bleeders and when to trade.”

  “What’s a bleeder?” Av asked, frowning at Er, then looking around the baron to Jer, who could only shake his head in response.

  “Palace warriors may call them something else, but they are the warriors who haven’t quenched their bloodlust. There are always bleeders in a group, and you need to be able to pick them out and know when to let them loose in a village, even if it means a few commoners will die. Don’t let them off and they’ll go home and murder their own families, ravage their village, and start civil uprising before they can be put down. It’s a balance.”

  “Jer didn’t know what a bleeder was either,” Av said, motioning to Jer.

  “I am steward, not mate to the throne,” Jer growled through gritted teeth. “I know about how much wheat we need and how long it should last, as well as how to transport it so that you can make it to the other side and be able to stab people.”

  “Bad food means sick men, means a weak army,” Er said to Av sternly.

  “Who doesn’t know that bad food means sick men?” Av asked.

  “The concern isn’t knowing that, it’s knowing how to prevent that. Just as you know getting stabbed is a bad thing for your health, but you need to know how to stop it from happening.”

  Av mulled over Er’s words. The room was quiet as Av focused on the floor, a frown creasing his brow. Finally, Av looked back up at Er.

  “This seems unnecessarily complicated.”

  “When you’re fighting against a commoner army which will, without a doubt, be larger than your own, you need to think before you strike. They count on you striking blindly and plan accordingly.”

  “So we make it look like we’re striking blindly but instead sweep in behind them. Destroy the hammer and then attack the anvil.”

  “Only works if a queen goes into battle,” Er said. “And there are not enough queens to risk such a manoeuvre. Van may supply us with a few, but none of them would be strong enough.”

  “The hammer is made up of men on horses,” Jer filled in for Av because his brother was looking confused again. “A queen, if she knows what to do, can cause widespread panic amongst horses and cause them to buck their riders, then stampede.”

  Av blinked at Jer, wide-eyed. “A queen can do what now?”

  “You need to learn about military history,” Er said sternly. “If you do, you will learn a great many uses for a queen. Especially in battle.”

  “If the queen knows how to use her magic to do such a thing,” Ervam said loudly. “You all forget that this all is begun with the word ‘if’ which is much like saying, ‘if the sky turns purple then it will rain ale.’ Even if we had a queen we were willing to risk in battle, there isn’t one capable of doing such things. Not on palace lands and certainly not in the North, where the expertise of their magic is focused on keeping you warm and the lights going, on melting sidewalks and roads of snow and ice to allow the city to function.

  “The way of the queen is, and will continue to be, one focused on improving the comfort of the commoners and ranks alike. One hasn’t gone to battle in centuries, if not thousands of years, and we will not press one into battle now. We’d be better off taking a damned lapdog into war, at least those buggers have sharp teeth to nip at the heels of our enemies.”

  Chapter Four

  “You’re beginning to become aware of what was done to you in the past, and that can cause a lot of tears,” Danya said as she and Aren walked through the gardens. “I used to cry a great deal, but I usually managed to hold them back until I was alone. Then again, I did spend a great deal of time alone. Rewel liked to go off and talk to the Others, even though they couldn’t talk back to him.”

  “Does that mean I’m just going to start crying every time we get into a debate?” Aren asked, stopping at a rose bush.

  The small buds had hardly begun to grow, but she knew the bush was a rose bush. So many in the front gardens were rose bushes, especially white ones. The bushes had been a favourite of Em’s, and she couldn’t bring herself to command they all be dug up and replaced.

  She had simply told the gardeners that if a rose bush died, it was to be replaced with something they found appropriate for the area, something with colour if at all possible.

  “That’s a very good possibility, but you have to remember to keep talking,” Danya murmured, fingering the leaves of the rose bush. “In my experience, when men see a woman cry, they believe they have won. They don’t understand that there is an entirely different thing going on, or that the tears might even mean that she wishes to crush their skull in her hands.”

  “Now you sound like a queen,” Aren said with a chuckle.

  “I like to think that’s simply the response of any woman when a man believes he has won because she begins to cry.” Danya hesitated, head cocking to the side slightly. “Telm is looking for you. She will be headed this way shortly.”

  “Hopefully our time away will give you both time to recover a little more. Or for you to get your feet under you.”

  “It’s also a good idea for you to visit the North,” Danya said pointedly, moving away from the bush.

  Aren followed Danya, not certain why they were moving on when Telm was looking for her. Danya led her deeper into the garden, away from the palace.

  “Yes, I’m told I should meet the people of the North and show them the type of queen that I am,” Aren grumbled, more to herself than to Danya. “But the North believes their queens a rank apart from those on palace lands. They run the water on purpose, not just linked in like I am here.”

  “Queens across palace lands do the same thing for their homes here, but the magic is used in a small home and normally only for water, at least from what the healers have told me of the other queens they have met.”

  “Only the oldest homes still have pipes though, few recall how to make them, and those few are booked up for decades, nearly their entire lives,” Aren grumbled again.

  Danya stopped and turned to Aren, lifting an eyebrow in question.

  “I went to ask about building a home before I came to see you. I was told I’d have better luck purchasing an estate than I would at getting the pipes necessary to build a home to my comfort level.”

  “So build one without pipes.”

  “That’s what I said!”

  “But he balked at the idea?”

  “He asked if Telm was aware that I was asking such stupid questions.”

  “Asking what questions?” Telm asked, coming around the corner as if her name caused the woman to appear.

  “Asked about building a house without pipes,” Aren said with all the annoyance she could muster.

  “Pipes are expensive, and those who can lay them mainly replace pipes, no
t lay new ones. You would still have to choose an area where there were already pipes in the land for them to replace because how they work on the other end is something that is lost to us.”

  Aren made a face at Telm. The older queen could only shrug in response.

  “If you mean to find yourself someplace to live, there are a few estates which have fallen under the palace’s care because they were abandoned by the lords who were to maintain them, or sold to those owed debt who then died without an heir. Surely there is one that the court would agree to sell to you.”

  “I don’t think I could afford their price. It’s not like I get paid to sit the throne.”

  Telm cleared her throat awkwardly, causing Aren to sigh loudly.

  “It’s not that you don’t get paid, dear, it’s that when there is a surplus in the treasury, you have free use of it,” Telm said soothingly. “Lady Em drove us deeper into debt. With the North rejoining, we might see some small increase in taxes, which will allow us to pay off a debt or two, but you will be an old woman before there is coin for you to spend. Unless you can somehow unburden the palace of one of the three great loans, which total over a million coin each.”

  “A million is bigger than a thousand?” Aren asked.

  “It is greater than a hundred thousand,” Telm responded quietly.

  “How did that happen? How are those houses not broken themselves?” Aren demanded.

  “There were small amounts loaned over time by the three great lines. The Praisiers live on the southern border and dealt water to the South for centuries, amassing a huge fortune. The Liffers to the south-west deal in wine, which can only be grown in that climate, one which lords and ladies purchase because it is rare. They also deal in teas, again, which lords and ladies can afford.”

  “I had Liffer wine,” Danya said. “It tasted like piss.”

  “How do you know what piss tastes like?” Telm asked.