Neveryona Read Free Page B

it is either you or I – for even if I
do
kill you, the wicked priests plan to dispense with me as soon as I stab you. They cannot suffer the murderer of a queen to live, even the murderer of a queen they hate as much as they hate you. If you do what I say, you will have the gold coin as well as your life, whereas I shall lose
my
life in any case.”
    ‘And so, after more along the same lines, the queen took the coin, and the knife – which she thrust into her old nurse’s heart.
    ‘Not so many days later, a second servant came to Queen Olin. “Here are two gold coins and a rope with which I am to garrote you. Take the coins and hide them; then take the rope and strangle me – if you yourself would live. For
my
life is over in any case.” Again the queen protested, but again the servant prevailed. So the young queen took the rope and strangled him. A few days later a third servant came with four gold pieces and a great rock to smash in the queen’s head. After that a fourth came with eight gold pieces and a draught of corrosive poison. The fifth had sixteen gold pieces. The sixth had thirty-two coins. The next –’
    Pryn suddenly laughed. ‘But I’ve heard this story before! Or one just like it – only it was about grains ofsand piled on the squares of a gaming board. I don’t remember how many squares there were, but by the end, I remember, all the sand in the world was used up. Am I right about the ending? At the end of the twenty-three servants, she had all the money in the world …?’
    Norema smiled. ‘She certainly had all the money in the monastery. And at that particular time, all the money in the monastery was pretty much all the money in Nevèrÿon.
    ‘That
is
an old story. I know, because I’ve heard it before. The version about the sand grains, that is.’
    ‘That part of the story is old. But there are some new parts too. For example, after she had killed all her servants, the beautiful young queen felt very differently about herself.’
    Pryn frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Well’, Norema said, ‘for one thing, in less than a year she had stabbed, strangled, bashed out the brains, poisoned, beheaded, and done even worse to twenty-two of her most faithful bondsmen and bondswomen, who were also the closest things she’d had to friends. After that she began to act very strangely and behave quite oddly. On and off, she behaved oddly the rest of her life – even for a queen. And in those days queens were expected to be eccentric. Often, after that, she was known as Mad Olin’.
    ‘I thought you said there were twenty-
three
servants.’
    ‘There were. But the last survived. He was not only a servant, but also her maternal uncle – though, alas, I can’t remember his family name. And there’re reasons to remember it, too, but for the life of me I can’t recall what they are. Anyway. Years before, he had fallen on bad times and had indentured himself to the queen’s mother, which was why he was with Olin in the first place. But he had always set himself apart. Along about the queen’s murderings of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-firstservants – all particularly gruesome – the evil priests were, financially speaking, in rather bad shape. Olin was by then quite well off – though mentally she was a bit shaky. Her maternal uncle, who, like the first servant, was also something of a magician, had, with the help of the rest of the family, managed to engineer an escape for the queen. It took a good deal of the money; and Olin took the rest – to hide lest the wicked priests manage to trick it back, even as her first wise and faithful servant had tricked it from the priests.’ Norema sighed. ‘Raven and I once visited that monastery – it’s still there today. And there are still priests – at least there were when we went. Now, I’m not sure. Anyway, you could certainly tell that the place had seen better times. Clearly they hadn’t gotten their money back.’
    ‘Are