The Born Queen Read Free

and he felt himself dragged along as if by a swift river, and screamed…
    He came back to the sunlight gasping, watching the distant corpses swinging from their branches. His breeches were wet.
    He looked up at the queen, and her smile broadened into a terrible thing.
    “Now about your surrender,” she said.
    Harriot summoned a dogged reserve of will. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” He gasped. “The full wrath of the Church will fall on you now. There will be holy war.”
    “Let z’Irbina come,” she replied. “I have seen enough of their work. Let them come and receive the justice they deserve.”
    Harriot steadied his breath and felt his fever fade. “That’s bold talk,” he said. “How is the Hansan fleet?”
    “Encamped along our coast, as you must know,” Anne replied.
    “And you truly believe you can fight Hansa and the holy Church?”
    Her gaze intensified, and he flinched. It took all he had in him not to cower.
    “What do you think?” she asked softly.
    I think you are mad,
he silently opined, but he could not say it.
    She nodded, as if she had heard him, anyway. “I’ve a mind to let you return to z’Irbina,” she said. “So you can tell them what was done and said here. And let me add this: From this moment, all servants of the Church in z’Irbina shall either renounce their allegiance to that corrupt institution or leave our borders within the nineday. Beyond that time, any churchman, regardless of rank, will be arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the empire. Is this clear enough for you to repeat, Sir Roger?”
    “Very clear, Majesty,” he husked.
    “Very well. Go. As you’ve pointed out, I’ve other things to attend to now.”
    They let him keep his horse and arms. He went to the camp and found the bodies where they had fallen, most still in their blankets. The field was thick with ravens, and the clouds threatened rain.
    Roger sat there for a few moments as the earth seemed to tilt. He didn’t know if Anne really understood what would happen now; even he couldn’t imagine the full scope of the slaughter that was now inevitable. The five hundred who had died here weren’t even a start.
    H ESPERO
    His footsteps rang on the red marble, drifted up into the great dark hollow of the Caillo Vaillaimo, and came back to him like whispers from death.
    I am come,
they seemed to say.
    Death walked with him, but fear came creeping behind.
    Be still,
he told himself.
Be still. You are Marché Hespero, praifec of Crotheny. You are the son of Ispure of the Curnaxii. You are worthy.
    “The holiest of holies,” the man a step behind him and to his left breathed.
    Hespero glanced at him and saw that his gaze was wandering around the arching buttresses, the thousands of niches with their gilded saints.
    “That?” Hespero waved at the architecture. “Are you talking about the building, Brother Helm?”
    “The Caillo Vaillaimo,” Helm replied. “Our most perfect temple.”
    Hespero felt his brow pinch in a frown. He heard Sir Eldon, on his right, sigh, but the other six men in his entourage remained silent.
    “You’ve learned nothing,” he told Helm.
    “Your grace?” the brother asked, his voice sounding chastised but puzzled.
    “Hush now. Be silent as we approach his eminence.”
    “Yes, your grace.”
    Hespero waved him off. Brother Helm’s mistake was a common one. The building had been built to impress, and it did, but in the end the structure was only a symbol. The real holy of holies was underneath the red marble and ancient foundations. He could feel it as he never had before with each touch of his foot against the stone: aching, awful power that made his bones feel burnt and his flesh rotten. His mouth tasted of soot and decay.
    But Helm couldn’t feel that, could he? Death wasn’t with Helm.
    On down the sacristy hall they went, but before they reached the grand nave, their guide led them to a side passage and up a staircase into the prayer halls