The Destined Queen Page 11

  “It all makes sense now.” Rath unfastened the top button of his tunic and leaned back in his chair. “Why that Trochard fellow and some of the others were so unwilling to believe Maura and I could be who we say we are.”

  “Casting unfounded aspersions upon my brother’s integrity as a scholar!” Idrygon glanced at Delyon for the first time since the meal had begun. “Brother! The king and queen of Umbria are our guests. Can you show them the small courtesy of not reading at the table?”

  “Your pardon!” Delyon hastily rolled up the scroll and dropped it beneath his seat. “When I read something that takes my interest, I become blind and deaf to everything around me.”

  Maura chuckled. “I take no offense, Delyon. In fact, it makes me feel quite at home. My guardian was the same. He did not even need a scroll to read—he could just as easily get lost in his own thoughts and never hear a word I said. You remind me of him.”

  For some reason that notion did not sit well with Rath. Perhaps because he could not read the simplest scroll in modern Umbrian, let alone some ancient language. Even if he was able to help liberate the kingdom, how could a man with so little schooling and experience hope to rule it?

  After a despairing look at his brother, Idrygon was quick to turn the discussion back to his favorite subject. “Speaking of your guardian, Highness, it is fortunate he was the brother-in-law of Madame Verise. She is well respected by all factions of the Council. If she endorses you, Trochard will have to go along, or risk being exposed for the cowardly fraud he is.”

  From what he’d seen of her during the Council meeting, Rath had formed a good opinion of Madame Verise. It was clear she held strong opinions from which she would not be easily swayed, but neither was her mind completely closed to new ideas. Rath could imagine Maura maturing into just such a wise old lady.

  “It was canny of Madame Verise to suggest consulting the Oracle,” said Idrygon. “Even Trochard will have to abide by her decision.”

  But so would Idrygon and his faction. Rath sensed a shadow of apprehension in their host.

  Maura set down her goblet after a deep drink of sythwine. “Why did they all start talking so loudly after I told them my name?”

  “Do you not know, Highness?” Whatever it was, the notion seemed to restore Idrygon’s confidence. “The Woodburys of Galene are a family of noble lineage, descendants of Queen Abrielle. They’ve lived quietly since their patriarch Brandel died. He was a strong force on the Council and much respected.”

  Maura lowered her gaze to her lap for a moment and Rath sensed her struggle for composure as she whispered, “Then I do have a family?”

  That would mean a great deal to her, he knew. Enough, perhaps, to keep her here on the Islands if the Oracle determined there had been some mistake and the Council ruled against aiding them? Or was that wickedly selfish for him to hope?

  “Would you like to go to Galene and meet them?” asked Idrygon. “I am not certain what relation they might be to you, but their endorsement could only strengthen our position with the Council.”

  “I should like that very much, thank you,” replied Maura. “Once I have met with the Oracle.”

  “Of course.” Again Idrygon looked unsure. “The Oracle.”

  Rath had sensed a similar hesitation from several of the sages when the Oracle of Margyle had been mentioned. What lay behind that? he wondered.

  Back on the mainland where life was a raw struggle for survival, he’d enjoyed a measure of confidence. Here on the Islands, Rath felt far out of his depth.

  “Follow this lane. It will bring you to the dwelling of the Oracle.” Delyon pointed to a gated trellis between two high banks of hedging. It was so overgrown with twilight vines that it almost blended into the shrubbery walls on either side.

  “Are you not coming with me?” asked Maura. The prospect of meeting this mysterious woman whose memory reached deep into the past and who could also catch glimpses of the future intimidated her.

  “I wish I could.” Delyon sighed. “I have been trying to arrange a meeting with her for the longest time—to talk over my research and find out if I am on the right track. But the Oracle is getting more and more reclusive as time goes on, Madame Verise says. I wonder how the Council persuaded her to see you and His Highness?”

  For a moment Maura wondered who Delyon was talking about. Then it dawned on her that he must mean Rath. She found it difficult to get used to everyone in Idrygon’s household addressing them by title.

  “I can wait for you here,” Delyon offered, “if you think you will not be able to find your way back afterward. I wish I’d thought to bring a scroll with me to read.”

  “I will not keep you hanging about here when you have work to do.” Maura pointed toward a lower hill. “Besides, I can see your house from here. I’ll have no trouble finding my way back.”

  This was not the mainland, after all, where a young woman had to be careful about walking alone. Perhaps one day that would change. And her dreaded meeting with the Oracle of Margyle might help pave the way.

  That thought gave Maura courage to smile and nod when Delyon said, “You’re sure?”

  She did not wait to watch him go, but squared her shoulders and pushed open the vine-covered gate. Once through, she followed a path that wound through a bit of woodland until it opened near a cottage with white plaster walls, like those of Idrygon’s elegant villa. Its thatched roof made the place look much more homey and inviting to Maura. Perhaps she did not need to be so anxious about meeting a woman who lived in a modest dwelling like this one.

  “Hello.” The sound of a child’s voice startled Maura.

  She spun around to see a young girl with a mane of wild dark curls picking mushrooms by the edge of the wood. She looked no older than Noll Howen back in Windleford, perhaps ten or eleven.

  “H-hello.” Maura pressed her hand to her chest to quiet her pounding heart. “Do you live here?”

  A ward of the Oracle, perhaps, as she had been of Langbard.

  “I do.” The girl rose from the ground, dusting off her skirts. “You’ve come from the mainland, haven’t you…Mistress Woodbury?”

  “That’s right.” Maura wondered how the child knew her name. “To see the Oracle. I have heard people talk about her since I was your age and younger, but never thought I would meet her face-to-face. Is it true she is hundreds of years old?”

  The child laughed so hard she practically doubled over. When she had finally mastered her mirth, she picked up her mushroom basket. “What queer ideas people get! Though I reckon it isn’t so far wrong, in a way.”

  The door of the cottage opened just then and a middle-aged woman bustled out carrying a bundle of washing.

  “Is she the Oracle?” Maura whispered to the child. It was difficult to imagine such a famed personage stooping to a mundane chore like laundry. Then again, people might think the same of her and Rath—the Destined Queen compounding liniment and the Waiting King cutting hay on Blen Maynold’s farm.

  “No, silly!” The child began to laugh again as she shook her head. “I am.”

  Maura almost laughed at that jest until the woman with the laundry called, “Is that the guest you were expecting, mistress? If you want to bring her inside, I can fetch you some cakes and lipma cordial.”

  “Cakes!” squealed the Oracle like any other child her age at the prospect of a treat. “I should have guests more often!”

  While Maura tried to recover from her shock, the servant woman shook her head. “Now, mistress, you know the Council doesn’t approve of you being bothered too often. Madame Verise said this lady is a special case.”

  “Your pardon, great Oracle!” Maura made a deep bow to the child. Her face felt as if she had a bad sunburn.

  “It’s all right.” The child shrugged. “You gave me an excuse to laugh. I don’t get those often enough lately.”

  In her large misty-gray eyes, Maura caught a glimpse of wisdom and sadness far beyond her years.

  “Will you
come in for cakes and a drink?” The Oracle nodded toward the cottage. “The cordial is from a batch the last oracle put down two summers ago. We had a fine harvest of lipma fruit that year.”

  “The…last oracle?” Maura followed the girl into a snug cottage, where she immediately felt at home. “Is a new one chosen when the old one dies?”

  “Oh, no.” The Oracle laid her mushroom basket on the table. “That wouldn’t do at all. Then the memories would be lost.”

  The memories? Maura wanted to ask, but refrained lest the Oracle get tired of hearing herself repeated over and over.

  Perhaps the Oracle divined her question anyway, for she beckoned Maura through the cottage to a large open porch with a spectacular view down to the sea. “Come, sit down and I’ll tell you how it is.”

  Maura sank onto a cushioned chair that looked to be made of many slender branches woven together into a light but sturdy seat. She wondered what other astonishing revelations the young Oracle had in store for her.

  The child seated herself on the chair opposite Maura’s. “Like every other oracle for hundreds of years, I was brought to this house when I was a baby to be raised by the last oracle.”

  “Do you ever see your other family?” Maura thought of the Woodburys of Galene, whom she could hardly wait to meet.

  “I have no other family. That’s how the Council knew I was the one. An orphaned girl child born at the right time.”

  Maura nodded. That made a kind of sense.

  “Have you ever performed the passing ritual?” asked the Oracle.

  “For my guardian, Langbard, this past spring.”

  “Langbard?” The Oracle’s eyes took on a far-off look and her innocent young lips curved in a not-so-innocent smile. “He was a fine-looking fellow. If we’d been twenty years younger…”

  Realizing what she’d said, the Oracle hid her face in her hands. “Your pardon! Please do not think ill of me. That name brought back such vivid memories that, for a moment, I could feel the old oracle within me.”

  Maura wondered what that meant.

  The child hastened to explain. “When an old oracle raises her successor, every day is like a prolonged passing ritual. There would never be time to share all the memories going back so many generations, otherwise. By the time the old oracle is ready to depart this world, the new one has received the accumulated wisdom and experience of all those who have gone before her.”

  “Amazing!” Maura whispered, not aware she’d spoken aloud.

  “It can be.” The Oracle sighed. “When all goes as it should.”

  The child’s wistful words jolted Maura upright in her chair. “But your oracle died too soon, didn’t she, before your training was completed?”

  With a wary nod, the child drew her legs up onto the chair and hugged her bent knees. “Just a few months ago, she got very ill suddenly and the healers could do nothing to help. At the end I was with her all the time while she poured memories into my mind until I was afraid my head would burst.”

  Maura rose from her chair and knelt beside the child. “That must have been a sad and frightening time for you.”

  “It isn’t fair!” The young Oracle struck the side of her chair with her fist. “This never happened to any of the others—why me? These are restless times. So many things will change. So many important decisions will need to be made. People will want my advice. But what can I tell them and how can they trust me? I am not ready, and so much wisdom gathered over the generations has been lost.”

  How long had the poor little creature been brooding about this? Maura wondered. Though she might be the custodian of memories stretching back hundreds of years, she was still only a child. A child who had lost her beloved foster mother too soon. A child with no one to confide in but her servant and perhaps some Council members who might not want to hear their Oracle voice such doubts about her abilities.

  The child rested her forehead against her knees and her delicate frame shuddered with sobs.

  “You’re right.” Maura wrapped her arms around the child. “It isn’t fair. If it helps, I know a little of how you feel.”

  While the child wept, Maura told of Langbard’s surprising announcement on her birthday and of events that had overwhelmed her since then.

  “So you see,” she said at last when the child’s sobs had quieted, “when I started out, I felt unready for such a big task and afraid I would fail and let everyone down.”

  She lowered her voice to bestow a confidence. “I still feel that way sometimes. If I dwell on it too much, it can freeze me worse than a spidersilk spell.”

  The Oracle wiped her eyes with the hem of her gown and sniffled. “How do you keep yourself from thinking about it all the time?”

  Maura pondered the question for a moment. “I remind myself to trust in the Giver’s providence. I try to keep moving ahead and doing what I need to do. Each little bit of success I gain makes me feel more confident, even if it is only a few miles closer to where I’m going.”

  She ran her hand over the child’s hair, wondering if anyone else dared to show the Oracle of Margyle a little affection. At that moment, the most comforting thought settled over her. “Do you suppose the Giver’s will might work better through people like us, who aren’t fully prepared for what we must do?”

  The child gave a final sniff as she regarded Maura thoughtfully. In her soft gray eyes glowed the accumulated wisdom of many generations—fragmented but still sound.

  After a moment she nodded. “There would be more room for the Giver’s power to work.”

  Just then the Oracle’s servant bustled in. “The wash will dry in a trice with that sun and the breeze. Here are the cakes I promised you.”

  She stopped in her tracks, staring at Maura and the child. “Is everything all right, pet? Is this too much for you? Should I send this lady away?”

  “No, Orna!” The Oracle clasped Maura’s hand. “We were having a fine talk. I hope she will come and visit me often while she is on the Islands.”

  “Orna?” Maura smiled at the woman as she returned to her chair. “That is a very dear name to me. The mother of my dearest friend was named Orna, too. You remind me of her.”

  Clearly the woman was much more than a servant in the Oracle’s household—a warm, protective caregiver who did not forget that this special, troubled little girl was a child first.

  “Orna’s a real common name over Norest way.” The woman beamed at Maura, clearly reassured by her young charge’s words. “My folks came to the Islands from there when the war started. Now I’ll fetch that cordial.”

  “What does this lipma cordial taste like?” asked Maura. “Anything like sythwine?”

  The child wrinkled her nose. “It will make your mouth pucker but it’s very refreshing. Now tell me about this friend of yours from Norest. What kinds of things did the two of you do when you were my age?”

  For the next little while they talked like any two new friends getting better acquainted. Orna’s cakes proved delicious with their glaze of fruit and honey. At first Maura wasn’t sure she liked the sour lipma cordial, but each time she took a sip, she found the flavor improved from the time before.

  As the Oracle plied her with questions about her friend Sorsha and the town of Windleford where they’d grown up, Maura wondered if she felt embarrassed over betraying her uncertainty to a stranger she should have been trying to awe.

  Gently she steered their talk back to the task they had been set. “Do you know why Madame Verise sent me here?”

  The child drained her glass of cordial with an air of resignation that their pleasant social time had come to an end. “I’m supposed to talk to you and to that man. Then I must tell the Council if you are truly the Destined Queen and the Waiting King.”

  Why had Idrygon’s rivals on the Council agreed to these interviews? Maura wondered. Did they hope the young Oracle would be too uncertain of her own judgment to give a decisive answer? If she endorsed Rath and Maura, would Trochard’s faction
try to discredit her because of her age and unfinished training?

  Maura did not envy her young friend the task. “Are there any questions you need to ask me?”

  The Oracle tapped her forefinger against her chin and her clear brow wrinkled with concentration. “You said Langbard was your guardian. Did he have any other children?”

  “None.” Maura plundered her memory for everything Langbard had told her on the fateful afternoon of her birthday. “He said the Oracle had told him he would be father to the Destined Queen.”

  “She did.” The child squeezed her eyes shut. “I can picture it as clear as anything. I wish you could have seen the look on his face!”

  “I can imagine it.” Maura chuckled. Delyon would probably look the same—eyes wide with horror at the prospect of a destructive little creature getting muddy hands on one of his precious scrolls! “I wish the Oracle had told Langbard I might not be his daughter by blood. He went through a terrible time after his wife died without bearing a child.”

  “Poor man!” The girl winced as if she knew something of such pain. “The way oracles are fostered, we know it is love and care that make a family bond, not blood alone. She would never have thought to remark upon the difference.”

  Rising from her chair, the young Oracle approached Maura with a solemn gait and laid a hand on her head in the manner of a benediction. “You are Langbard’s daughter and you come from the line of Abrielle. I may not be certain of many things, but I know you are the latest Destined Queen.”

  “Latest?” The word trickled down Maura’s spine like a drop of water from a cold, black well. “That is something I do not understand. The sages spoke of sending out messenger birds every year and of King Elzaban’s spirit having dwelt in other men before Rath. Does that mean what I fear it might? Have there been other Destined Kings and Waiting Queens before us who failed?”

  The young Oracle nodded with an air of regret. “Those were some of the most important memories Namma passed on to me. We spoke of it, too, though I am not sure I understood it all. You see, before the Han came, there were troubled times, but not the very darkest hour. Some Destined Queens laughed off the whole notion of what they were meant to do. Others were too frightened to stir from their own doorsteps.”