The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)
The Priory of the Orange Tree: Part 4 – Chapter 49

Part 4 – Thine is the Queendom

Why do you not inhale

essences of moon and stars,

Con your spirit texts of gold?

—Lu Qingzi

Loth stood on the deck of the Bird of Truth. His heart was leaden as he watched Inys draw closer.

Melancholy. That was the first word that came to mind when he beheld its dowly coast. It looked as if it had never seen the touch of the sun, or heard a joyful song. They were sailing toward Albatross Roost, the westernmost settlement in Inys, which had once been the heart of trade with Yscalin. If they rode hard, rested as little as possible, and met with no brigands, they might make it from here to Ascalon in a week.

Ead kept watch beside him. Already she looked a little less alive than she had in Lasia.

The Bird of Truth had sailed past Quarl Bay on its way to Inys. Anchored ships guarded it but, through a spyglass, they glimpsed the fledgling naval arm of the Draconic Army.

King Sigoso would soon be ready to invade. And Inys would need to be ready to repel him.

Ead had said nothing at the sight. Only turned an open hand toward the five ships at anchor—and fire, born of nothing, had roared up their masts. She had watched it devour them all with no expression, orange light flickering in her eyes.

Loth was shaken back to the present as a bitter gust of wind made him huddle deeper into his cloak.

“Inys.” His breath steamed white and thick. “I never thought to see it again.”

Ead laid a hand on his arm. “Meg never gave up on you,” she said. “Neither did Sabran.”

After a moment, he covered her hand with his.

A wall had stood between them at the start of their journey. Loth had been ill at ease around her, and Ead had left him to brood. Slowly, though, their old warmth had crept back. In their miserable cabin on the Bird of Truth, they had shared their stories of the past few months.

They had avoided any more conversation about religion. Likely they would never agree on the matter. For now, however, they had the same desire to see Virtudom survive.

Loth scratched at his chin with his free hand. He misliked his beard, but Ead had said they ought to disguise themselves when they reached Ascalon, since they were both barred from court.

“Would that I could have burned every one of those ships.” Ead folded her arms. “I must be cautious with my siden. It might be years before I taste of the tree again.”

“You burned five,” Loth said. “Five fewer for Sigoso.”

“You look less afraid of me now than you did then.”

The blossom ring glinted on her finger. He had seen other sisters of the Priory wearing one.

“All of us have shadows in us,” he said. “I accept yours.” He placed a hand over her ring. “And I hope you will also accept mine.”

With a tired smile, she threaded her fingers between his. “Gladly.”

The smell of fish and rotting seaweed soon rode on the wind. The Bird of Truth docked with some trouble in the harbor, and its tired passengers decanted on to the quay. Loth held out an arm to help Ead. She had sported a limp for only a few days, even though the arrow had gone clean through her thigh. Loth had seen knights-errant weep for lesser hurts.

Aralaq would leave the ship once everyone had departed. Ead would call for him when the time was right.

They walked down the jetty toward the houses. When Loth saw the sweet-bags swaying in their doorways, he stopped. Ead was looking at them, too.

“What do you suppose is in those?” she asked.

“Dried hawthorn flowers and berries. A tradition from long before the Foundation of Ascalon. To ward away any evil that might taint the house.” Loth wet his lips. “I have never seen them hanging in my lifetime.”

Clag stuck to their boots as they pressed on. Soon every dwelling they passed had a sweet-bag outside.

“You said these were ancient ways,” Ead mused. “What was the religion of Inys before the Six Virtues?”

“There was no official religion, but from what little the records tell us, the commons saw the hawthorn as a sacred tree.”

Ead withdrew into a brooding silence. They clambered over a drystone wall, on to the cobblestones of the main street.

The only stable in the settlement yielded two sickly horses. They rode side by side. Rain battered their backs as they passed half-frozen fields and sodden flocks of sheep. While they were still in the province of the Marshes, where brigands were rare, they made the decision to keep riding through the night. By dawn, Loth was saddle-sore, but awake.

Ahead of him, Ead held her horse at a canter. Her body seemed wrought with impatience.

Loth wondered if she was right. If Igrain Crest had been manipulating the Inysh court from behind the throne. Whittling Sabran down to her last nerve. Making her afraid to sleep in the dark. Taking a loved one for each of her sins. The thought stoked a fire in his belly. Sabran had always looked to Crest first during her minority, and trusted her.

He spurred his horse to catch up with Ead. They passed a village razed by fire, where a sanctuary coughed gouts of smoke. The poor fools had built their houses with thatched roofs.

“Wyrms,” Loth murmured.

Ead brushed at her wind-torn hair. “Doubtless the High Westerns are commanding their servants to intimidate Sabran. They must be waiting for their master before they attack in earnest. This time, the Nameless One will lead his armies himself.”

At sunfall, they came upon a dank little inn beside the River Catkin. By now Loth was so tired, he could scarce keep upright in the saddle. They stabled the horses and made their way into the hall, shivering and drenched to the bone.

Ead kept her hood up and went to see the innkeeper. Loth was tempted to stay in the hall by the crackling fire, but there was too great a risk that they would be recognized.

When Ead had secured a candle and a key, Loth took them and went upstairs. The room they were assigned was cramped and drafty, but it was better than the squalid cabin on the Bird of Truth.

Ead entered with their supper. Her brow was pinched.

“What is it?” Loth asked.

“I listened to some conversations downstairs. Sabran has not been seen since her public appearance with Lievelyn,” she said. “As far as the people know, she is still with child . . . but the dearth of news, coupled with the Draconic incursions, has left her subjects uneasy.”

“You said she was some way into her pregnancy when she miscarried. Were she still with child, she might have taken her chamber for the lying-in by now,” Loth pointed out. “A perfect excuse for her absence.”

“Yes. Perhaps she even colluded with it—but I do not think the traitors within the Dukes Spiritual intend to let her continue to rule.” Ead set down their supper and hung her cloak to dry over a chair. “Sabran foresaw this. She is in mortal danger, Loth.”

“She is still the living descendant of the Saint. The people will not rally behind any of the Dukes Spiritual while she lives.”

“Oh, I think they would. If they knew she cannot give them an heir, the commons would believe that Sabran is responsible for the coming of the Nameless One.” Ead sat at the table. “That scar on her belly, and what it represents, would strip her of legitimacy in many of their eyes.”

“She is still a Berethnet.”

“And the last of her line.”

The innkeeper had provided them with two bowls of gristly pottage and a hunk of stale bread. Loth forced down his share and chased it with the ale.

“I’m going to wash,” Ead said.

While she was gone, Loth lay down on his pallet and listened to the rain.

Igrain Crest was a tick on his thoughts. In his childhood, he had seen her as a comforting figure. Stern but kind, she had radiated a sense that everything would be well.

Yet he knew she had burdened Sabran in the four years of her minority. Even before that, when she was a young princess, Crest had hammered into her a need for temperance, for perfection, for devotion to duty. During those years, Sabran had not been permitted to speak with any children but Roslain and Loth, and Crest had always been near at hand, watching her. Though Prince Wilstan had been Protector of the Realm, he had been too deep in mourning to raise his daughter. Crest had taken charge of that.

And there had been one incident. Before the Queen Mother had died.

He recalled a freezing afternoon. Twelve-year-old Sabran on the edge of Chesten Forest, folding a snowball in her gloved hands, her cheeks pink. Both of them laughing until it hurt. After, they had clambered up one of the snow-clad oaks and huddled together on a knotted branch, much to the consternation of the Knights of the Body.

They had climbed almost to the top of that tree. So high they had been able to see into Briar House. And there had been Queen Rosarian in a window, visibly furious, a letter in her fist.

With her had been Igrain Crest, hands behind her back. Rosarian had stormed away. The only reason Loth remembered it so clearly was because Sabran had fallen from that tree a moment later.

It was some time before Ead returned, her hair damp from the river. She removed her boots and settled on the other pallet.

“Ead,” Loth said, “do you regret leaving the Priory?”

Her gaze was on the ceiling.

“I have not left,” she said. “All I do, I do for the Mother. To glorify her name.” She closed her eyes. “But I hope—I pray—that my path will bend southward again someday.”

Hating the pain in her voice, Loth reached for her. A careful brush of his thumb along her cheekbone.

“I am glad,” he said, “that it bends westward this day.”

She returned his smile.

“Loth,” she said, “I did miss you.”

They were riding again before the sun rose in the morning, and on they rode for days. A snowstorm had blown in, slowing their horses, and one night brigands set upon them, demanding all their coin. Alone, Loth would have been overwhelmed, but Ead put up such a spirited fight that they retreated.

There was no more time for sleep. Ead was in her saddle again before the brigands were out of sight; it was all Loth could do to keep up with her. They turned northeast at Crow Coppice and galloped up the South Pass, keeping their heads down as they joined the wagons, packhorses, and coaches moving toward Ascalon. And finally, by owl light, they arrived.

Loth slowed his horse. The spires of Ascalon were black against the evening sky. Even in the rain, this city was the beacon of his heart.

They rode on to Berethnet Mile. Fresh snow was a bordcloth on it, as yet untrampled. At its end, far away, loomed the wrought-iron gates of Ascalon Palace. Even in the gloaming, Loth could see the damage to the Dearn Tower. He had almost not believed that Fýredel had been upon it.

He could smell the River Limber. The bells of the Sanctuary of Our Lady were ringing.

“I want to ride past the palace,” Ead said. “To see if there are increased defenses.” Loth nodded.

Each ward of the city began at its gatehouse. Queenside, the closest to the palace, had the most impressive, tall and gilded, carved with likenesses of past queens. As they neared it, the street, usually busy at dusk as people flocked to orisons, was quiet.

The snow beneath the gatehouse was stained dark. When Loth looked up, the feeling left his face. High above them, two severed heads were mounted on pikes.

One was unrecognizable. Little more than a skull. The other had been tarred and parboiled, but the features slumped with decay. Ears and nose leaking rot. Flies on pallid skin.

He might not have recognized her if not for the hair. Long and red, streaming like blood.

“Truyde,” Ead breathed.

Loth could not tear his gaze from the head. From that swaying hair, grotesquely animate.

Once, he and Sabran and Roslain had all gathered by the fire in the Privy Chamber and listened to Arbella Glenn tell them about Sabran the Fifth, the only tyrant of the House of Berethnet, who had adorned every finial on the palace gates with the heads of those who had displeased her. No queen had dared to raise her ghost by doing it again.

“Quickly.” Ead turned her horse. “Follow me.”

They rode to the ward of Southerly Wharf, where silk merchants and clothiers reigned. They soon reached the Rose and Candle, one of the finest inns in the city, where they handed their horses to an ostler. Loth stopped to retch. Vomit seethed in his belly.

“Loth.” Ead ushered him indoors. “Hurry. I know the innkeeper here. We will be safe.”

Loth no longer remembered what it was to be safe. The stench of rot was etched into his throat.

An attendant led them inside and knocked on a door. A ruddy-faced woman in a boxy doublet answered it. When she saw Ead, her eyebrows shot up.

“Well,” she said, recovering, “you ought to come in.”

She ushered them into her quarters. As soon as the door was closed, she embraced Ead.

“Dear girl. It’s been a very long time,” she said, her voice hushed. “What in damsam are you doing on the streets?”

“We had no choice.” Ead drew back. “Our common friend told me you would give me shelter if I should ever need it.”

“The promise stands.” The woman inclined her head to Loth. “Lord Arteloth. Welcome to the Rose and Candle.”

Loth wiped his mouth. “We thank you for your hospitality, goodwife.”

“We need a room,” Ead said. “Can you help?”

“I can. But have you only just arrived in Ascalon?” When they nodded, she took a roll of parchment from the table. “Look.”

Ead unraveled it. Loth read over her shoulder.

In the name of QUEEN SABRAN, Her Grace, the DUCHESS OF JUSTICE, offers a reward of eighteen thousand crowns for the capture of Ead Duryan, a low-born Southerner in the guise of a lady, wanted alive for Sorcery, Heresy, and High Treason against HER MAJESTY. Curling black hair, dark brown eyes. Report any sighting at once to a city guard.

“The heralds have read your name and description every day,” the innkeeper said. “I trust those you met in the yard, but you must speak to no one else. And be gone from this city as soon as you can.” She shivered. “Something is not right in the palace. They said that child was a traitor, but I cannot think Queen Sabran would execute one so young.”

Ead handed the notice back. “There were two heads,” she said. “Whose was the other?”

“Bess Weald. Wicked Bess, they call her now.”

The name meant nothing to Loth, but Ead nodded. “We cannot leave the city,” she stated. “We are about most important business.”

The innkeeper blew out a breath. “Well,” she said, “if you want to risk staying, I vowed to the ambassador that I would help you on your way.” She picked up a candle. “Come.”

She led them up a staircase. Music and laughter echoed from the hall. The innkeeper opened one of the doors and handed Ead the key.

“I shall have your belongings brought up.”

“Thank you. I will not forget this, and neither will His Excellency,” Ead told her. “We will also need clothes. And weapons, if you can manage it.”

“Of course.”

Loth took the candle from the innkeeper before he joined Ead, who bolted the door. The chamber boasted one bed, a roaring fire, and a copper bath, full and steaming.

“Bess Weald was the merchant who shot Lievelyn.” Ead swallowed. “This is Crest.”

“Why would she have murdered Lady Truyde?”

“To silence her. Only Truyde, Sabran, and myself knew that Bess Weald worked for someone called the Cupbearer. And Combe,” she added, after a moment. “Crest is covering her spoor. My head would have been up there, too, sooner or later, if I had not left court.” She paced the room. “Crest could not have executed Truyde without Sabran knowing. Surely death warrants must have a royal signature.”

“No. The signature of whomsoever holds the Duchy of Justice is also valid on a death warrant,” Loth said, “but only if the sovereign is unable to sign with her own hand.”

The implication settled over them both, heavy with portent.

“We need to get into the palace. Tonight,” Ead said, frustration mounting in her voice. “I must speak with someone. In another ward.”

“Ead, no. This entire city is looking for—”

“I know how to evade discovery.” Ead put her hood back up. “Lock the door behind me. When I get back, we will make a plan.” She paused to kiss his cheek on the way out. “Fear not for me, my friend.”

And she was gone.

Loth undressed and sank into the copper bath. All he could think about was the heads staked on the gatehouse. The promise of an Inys he could not recognize. An Inys without his queen.

He battled sleep for as long as he could, but days of riding in the cold had taken their toll. When he tumbled into bed, he dreamed not of severed heads, but of the Donmata Marosa. She came to him naked, with eyes full of ash, and her kiss tasted of wormwood. You left me, she breathed. You left me to die. Just like you left your friend.

When a knock finally came, he jerked awake.

“Loth.”

He groped for the bolt. Ead was outside. He stood aside to let her into the chamber.

“I have our way in,” she said. “We will go with the waterfolk.”

They crewed the barges and wherries that crossed the River Limber every day, taking people and goods from one side to the other. “I assume you have more friends among them.”

“One,” she confirmed. “A shipment of wine is being taken to the Privy Stair for the Feast of High Winter. He has agreed that we can join the waterfolk. That will get us inside.”

“And when we are?”

“I mean to replace Sabran.” Ead looked at him. “If you would prefer to stay here, I will go in alone.”

“No,” Loth said. “We go together.”

They set out dressed like merchants, armed to the chin under their cloaks. Soon they entered the ward of Fiswich-by-Bridge and slipped down the wherry stairs on Delphin Street. The stairs were squeezed alongside a tavern, the Gray Grimalkin, where the waterfolk drank after a long day on the Limber.

The tavern faced the east wall of Ascalon Palace. Loth followed Ead. Their riding boots crunched through the shells on the riverbank.

He had never set foot in this part of the city. Fiswich-by-Bridge had a reputation for knavery.

Ead approached one of the men outside the tavern.

“My friend,” she said. “Well met.”

“Mistress.” The man was grubby as a rat, but sharp-eyed. “Do you still wish to join us?”

“If you’ll have us.”

“I said I would.” He glanced at the tavern. “Wait by the barge. Need to fish some of the others from their cups.”

Nearby, the barge in question was being loaded with barrels of wine. Loth walked to the edge of the river and watched candles flicker to life in the windows of the Alabastrine Tower. He could only just see the top of the Queen Tower. The royal apartments, benighted.

“Tell me,” he muttered to Ead, “what does Ambassador uq-Ispad do to make your friends so agreeable?”

“He pays the innkeeper a pension. As for this man, Chassar covered his gambling debts,” she said. “He calls them the Friends of the Priory.”

The waterfellow shepherded his associates from the tavern. When the last of the wine was loaded into the barge, Loth and Ead got in and found themselves a place on a bench.

Ead pulled on a flat cap and tucked every curl inside. Each waterfellow grasped an oar and rowed.

The Limber was wide and swift-flowing. It took them some time to reach the landing.

The Privy Stair led up to a postern in the palace wall, designed to be a discreet way for the royal family to leave. Sabran never used her pleasure barge, but her mother had always been out on the river, waving at the people, skimming her fingers through the water. Loth found himself wondering if Queen Rosarian had ever used the stair to escape for trysts with Gian Harlowe.

He was no longer sure if he should give credence to that rumor. His every belief had been bruised and battered. Perhaps nothing he had thought about this court had been true.

Or perhaps this was a test of faith.

They followed the waterfolk up the steps. On the other side of the wall, Loth caught his first glimpse of the three knights-errant who blocked their way. Ead pulled Loth into an alcove to the left, and they crouched behind the well.

“Good evening to you all,” one of the knights-errant said. “You have the wine?”

“Aye, sirs.” The head waterfellow doffed his cap. “Sixty barrels.”

“Take them to the Great Kitchen. But first, your fellows will need to show us their faces. All of you, lower your hoods and remove your caps.”

The waterfolk did as they were told.

“Good. Be on your way,” the knight-errant said.

The barrels were duly carried up the stairs. Ead crept toward the mouth of the alcove—only to withdraw.

One of the knights-errant was coming down the steps. When he thrust his torch into their hiding place, a voice said, “What’s this?” The flame came closer. “Are we defying the Knight of Fellowship in here?”

Then the knight-errant saw Loth, and he saw Ead, and under the shadow cast by his helm, Loth saw his mouth open wide to raise the alarm.

That was when a knife sliced across his throat. As blood sprayed, Ead threw him into the well.

Three heartbeats, and he hit the bottom.