Les Conseillers du Roi
(Les Chroniques de l'Hudres -1)
(Les Chroniques de l'Hudres -1)
Héloïse Côté
(Excerpt from chapter 1, p. 21-33)
Queen Lyntas stood, straight and proud, before her husband, King Magne. She felt all the eyes of the nobility fixed on her back, like a flock of vultures revelling in her humiliation, since she had been harshly put in her place by her husband. Hadn't she, during his absence, presumed to take sides in the name of the crown of Hudres in a quarrel between two lords? Magne, his face red, wagging his finger threateningly under the queen's nose, spat out these words in her face:
"Never confuse the roles of the king's wife and the queen! A queen can reign jointly with the king, can aspire to replace him. You, however, are only my Damasian wife! Your only duties are to give me an heir and to keep my feet warm!"
With these words, the king gave his wife a hard slap, which echoed off under the arches of the chamber. Lyntas took the blow without flinching. She would never show weakness before an assembly she despised, as painful as the blow might be.
When it came to protecting the peace of his threatened kingdom, Magne knew no mercy; that anger that had moved his arm was so strong that Lyntas's ears could still hear the noise of a bellows, which seemed to get constantly stronger, more intense, until what she realized that the hammering was coming not from her head, but from the door of her room.
Lyntas blinked, and let a disoriented gaze wander all around as she absent-mindedly rubbed her cheek. Twelve years separated the queen from the humiliation she had suffered before the court, but her pride still carried scars from the incident. In fact, the entirety of her marriage with Magne was a wound that refused to heal. It was not for lack of trying, though. She had done everything she could wipe away all traces of the unhappy union. Hadn't Lyntas had a new wing built in the royal palace so that she wouldn't be pursued by painful memories? However, even if she woke up in a different setting, the nightmares were always the same.
"My queen! My queen! Come quickly!"
Lyntas recognized, through the wooden door, the terrified voice of a lady-in-waiting. She pushed back her covers, climbed out of the bed and, bare-foot, went to open the door.
"What is it?"
The lady-in-waiting stood petrified for a moment before the queen.
Like all Damasians, Lyntas had olive skin and was not very tall, but she stood so straight and was so imposing that she intimidated all the women - and many of the men - of the Western world with her haughty bearing and her cold beauty. Although the queen was thirty-eight years old, her features possessed the constant purity of marble statues and her skin remained firm and tight over her solid bone structure. Her thin lips made a fine, straight line, which no smile seemed to distort, two high cheekbones on either side of her pointed nose, above which shone deep blue eyes, of such intensity that no one was able to tolerate her gaze for long. Lyntas's whole person conveyed authority, which no doubt explained why her enemies, while they were always plotting as soon as she turned her back, never dare to defy her to her face.
"What is it?" repeated the queen in a voice sharp with a note of irritation.
The lady-in-waiting blushed, gave a clumsy curtsy and said:
"Monsignor Vilsin summons you with all urgency to the ramparts!"
The situation had to be serious for Vilsin, the high priest of Shir, to rouse the queen from her sleep. He usually dealt with his affairs without consulting the crown, knowing that the latter was well-disposed in his regard. Weren't Vilsin and the queen the only two Damasians in Hudres, the only ones capable of bringing this kingdom of heretics back to the straight and narrow path?
The lady-in-waiting helped the queen quickly dress and do her hair. In spite of her age, Lyntas had kept the long black hair of her youth, except for the single white lock, which had appeared following the tragic double loss of Magne, her husband, and Regde, his son.
When she was ready, the queen headed down the corridors of the palace wing she had had constructed after Magne's death, escorted by two members of the royal guard.
On the ramparts overlooking the city of Dafidec stood a silhouette depicting a rearing cobra. Dressed in the long black robe of the high priest of Shir, the tall, thin, bent man did not even bother to take his eyes off the capital when his queen joined him.
"Well, Vilsin?" Lyntas asked.
"Judge for yourself, your majesty."
With a long, bony index finger, the high priest pointed to the horizon. His calm contrasted with the lady-in-waiting's terror, but the queen knew she could trust her high priest's demeanour. A stern man, the priest rarely revealed his emotions; a disaster would not have got him to raise an eyebrow.
In the distance, a long howl rang out, immediately taken up in unison by thousands of voices.
Lyntas clenched her teeth. From having heard similar cries in her childhood, while the troops of Hudres were laying waste to her beloved Damasia, the queen knew what the sound meant. A glance beyond the fortifications of Dafidec confirmed her apprehensions: a human tide was advancing toward the city.
Without relaxing her jaw nor taking her eyes off the dark, shifting mass, she ordered her compatriot:
"Convene the council immediately."
***
The royal council had gotten smaller since the death of King Magne; among the nine members that once sat on it, two had left because they hated the queen, two others because she had condemned them to exile. And when Fine, the old High Priest of Shir, had in turn drifted into eternal rest, the queen had hurried to replace him with a Damasian so she would have an ally on the royal council. Thus, for the last eleven years, six individuals - including two Damasians - had met around the massive table, in one of the towers of the palace of Dafidec: the queen, Vilsin, the treasurer of the kingdom, the chancellor and the dukes of Rasg and Sargus.
All had responded promptly to the summons and were watching the queen anxiously. Some time had passed since Lyntas had been awakened urgently and the five men had had plenty of time to realize that an army was rushing toward the fortifications of Dafidec.
"Messires," began the queen, "these are grave times. The Osje have come down from their mountains and are besieging us. I will hear your suggestions."
Upon the death of her husband, Lyntas had attempted to impose her will on the men of the council; the hard-heads who still sat on the council had stirred up the population against her. After that, she had understood the lesson: although her main opponents had left Dafidec and, for all she knew, the kingdom, she let her people make suggestions, then she decided by always ensuring that one party was made happy at the expense of the others. The councillors had the impression that the queen listened to their proposals and decided accordingly, as King Magne had done when he was alive. In this way, they believed they were sharing power and Lyntas avoided disabusing them, even though, in the end, she was doing as she saw fit. Her strategy was so simple it was almost childish: by yielding to the wishes of one of her councillors, never the same one, and displeasing the others at the same time, she divided to reign, killing in the bud any possibility of a coalition against her.
"We could attempt a sortie and take you to your father. You could remain in Damasia until things calmed down," said Antore, the treasurer, in a single breath.
Small, back bent, always twitching even when he should be still, Antore looked like an overexcited toad. This similarity was underscored by his tiny face, his hooked nose and his big protruding eyes, which were a muddy brown colour. Already not very handsome, he made his condition worse by absent-mindedly tearing out the thin brown down that covered his skull.
He had also other motives for tearing out his hair: King Magne's many campaigns had put Hudres in debt. Although those wars ended in victories, they had not brought in enough booty to replenish the royal treasury. If the problems caused by the condition of the treasury were not enough, the treasurer had another reason to be in a constant state of tension: hated by a people weary of heavy taxes and despised by the army, which threatened to abandon Hudres if it was not paid, he lived in perpetual fear of being assassinated.
Hated by some, despised by others, Antore was nevertheless proud of how efficiently he performed his duties. His proficiency was such that the queen had no other choice but to keep him, in spite of his obvious animosity towards her. In fact, the treasurer, the sole descendant of one of the oldest families of Hudres, had inherited both the fiery temperament and the visceral hatred towards Damasia typical of most of the nobility of the kingdom.
"The problem," came the timid remark from Sterne, the Duke of Rasg, a retiring, timorous old man, "is that there are not enough soldiers in the royal guard to effectively protect the queen. It would be disastrous if she were to be taken hostage. We can't take that risk."
"Furthermore," added Vilsin coldly, "you would be all too happy to rid yourselves of the queen in order to usurp her throne, isn't that right, Antore? The queen visiting her father, no heirs to get in your way. That would be nice!"
The treasurer literally leapt from his seat, his face red, panting, his eyes bulging, but he did not dare raise a hand against the high priest.
"What are you waiting for, Antore?" teased Vilsin, his small black reptilian eyes shining with a dangerous gleam. "Do you fear the wrath of Shir if you strike me?"
"Sit down, Antore," Elgire intervenes tersely, the Duke of Sargus, an old man, but still spry, with long white hair and a short snowy beard. "We have no time to waste on this childish behaviour. Sterne is right, there are not enough men in the royal guard to defend us. Moreover, leaving the city is unthinkable. We are surrounded by the Osje. They will massacre us as soon as we stick our noses outside."
"And the Shiranians?" mumbled Moebes, the grand chancellor. "They are still stationed at their mother house."
In the council, the grand chancellor expressed himself rarely. The only plebeian among the nobility, Moebes had inherited the title precisely because he was silent and secretive by nature, a quality essential for someone who had the job of guarding the royal seals. However, by maintaining his silence all the time, Moebes had ended up totally isolated in a dreamy fog from which he rarely emerged. Whenever he did emerge from his thoughts, he returned to them immediately, so the others on the council had come to consider him a negligible quantity.
As usual, as soon as he had made his proposal, the pale grey gaze of the grand chancellor was lost again in emptiness.
What was not usual, on the other hand, was the reaction of his colleagues. They all looked at him with astonishment, but realizing that Moebes had again sunk back into his usual torpor, they debated his suggestion without him.
"Appealing to those woman worshippers is out of the question," Vilsin snapped. "The queen has publicly condemned the Order for heresy. To go back on that decision would undermine royal authority and encourage the Cult of Shirana to re-emerge."
"A critical situation requires such adjustments," Elgire declared. "To combat the Osje threat, the queen must be prepared to do anything."
"You should say rather that you are prepared to do anything to see the Order vindicated," replied Vilsin slyly.
"And so what if that were true?" answered Elgire, in a provocative tone.
To keep the exchange from getting any more heated between the high priest and the duke, Antore interjected:
"The knights can be vindicated by the queen, but that doesn't mean they will agree to serve her. Don't forget that they recognize only Magne as the legitimate sovereign and that, in this matter, they are more stubborn than a Damasian ox... with all due respect, your majesty."
Lyntas just nodded gravely, though she was fuming inside. One day, all these Hudresians will pay for their cruel insolence towards the main source of revenue for her people! One day, that impertinent little treasurer would rue all the poison darts he had thrown at her!
One day, but not today. The barbarians had to be stopped. Who would prevent them, once they had razed Dafidec and Hudres, from turning against Damasia? The possibility of Osje wearing animal skull helmets and dressed in furs ravaging her native land chilled Lyntas's blood. She had to stop them no matter what the cost, even if it meant swallowing her pride and re-establishing relations with the heretical Order of Shirana.
"Imposing on them a grand master who practises only the Cult of Shir was not the wisest decision," suggested Elgire.
Vilsin remained impassive, though he knew the remark was intended for him. It was he, in fact, who had suggested to the queen that she choose a grand master to replace Léonte. He had even suggested a candidate. The latter, however, a religious man who, while not having much acquaintance with the handling of weapons, knew everything about the Cult of Shir and cursed the Cult of Shirana, had disappeared mysteriously shortly after he was installed in the mother house of the Order. Since then, the Shiranians, for lack of a grand master recognized by the crown, were not represented on the royal council.
"What are you proposing, Elgire?" asked Vilsin mockingly. "You are the oldest, and therefore the wisest. You must have the solution to our problems."
Elgire shot a withering look at the High Priest of Shir. The Duke of Sargus was rather proud of having preserved, in spite of the passage of time, a respectable musculature and a straight spine. In fact, whenever he had the opportunity, he would never fail to mention that the fire of youth still flowed in his veins and flex his muscles to corroborate his words. Therefore any allusion to his actual age was very poorly received.
For a brief instant, Elgire entertained a plan to jump at Vilsin's throat and strangle him. However, whether he liked it or not, wisdom usually came with age and so Elgire relaxed his fists before replying in a muted voice:
"The Shiranians are not numerous, but they still know how to handle a sword and a bow. And while the Osje have the advantage of numbers, they are poor fighters. Therefore we need the Order. But they will listen only to one leader: their legitimate grand master."
Moebes and Antore winced, while the corners of Vilsin's thin lips curled with a nasty snarl. They had all understood what the Duke of Sargus was getting at, and they all knew how the queen would react: she would categorically reject any proposal in keeping with Elgire's scheme. For eleven long years, Lyntas had struggled to purge Hudres of the heresy of the Cult of Shirana, and the followers of her deceased husband. Little by little, she had succeeded in crushing all the uprisings fomented in the name of Magne or Shirana. She was certainly not going to ruin those eleven years of toil by repatriating the most loyal servant of the former king and of the goddess!
However, the queen remained quiet. Faithful to her tactic, she listened, observed.
And thought intensely.
The silence dragged on. Ill at ease, Sterne coughed and asked Elgire, his old companion:
"You're proposing that we bring back Léonte, is that it? And perhaps Dansec too?"
Elgire nodded, a mischievous glimmer flickering deep in his blue eyes.
"The Shiranians will obey Léonte," he said, "but to go into combat, the novices will need their preceptor. In addition, all the members of the Order will want a blessing before facing the Osje. Léane will also have to come back. And not to forget Nantor, of course. An astute military strategist is always useful when the time comes to wage battle!"
He had barely closed his lips again when Vilsin stood up brusquely, like a snake ready to strike.
"That's out of the question!" he exclaimed, looking at the councillors one by one, searching for approval.
Since his eyes found only intense astonishment, the high priest understood that his reaction had been much stronger than necessary. He rubbed his skull, which was closely shaved and covered with ritual tattoos, and sat down again, saying in a voice trembling with repressed indignation:
"I meant to say that Dansec and Léonte can come back, if need be. But the two heretics will remain where they are: in exile!"
"And what if we bribed the Shiranians?" Moebes proposed feebly. "Since the crown cut off their supplies, they must have trouble surviving."
Antore rolled his huge eyes then stared at the grand chancellor as if he was having a fit of madness.
"With what money would you like to buy them? We're having trouble paying our loyal soldiers, so imagine finding money for the heretics!"
The comment came too late: Moebes had already returned to his usual torpor.
"We should let the queen decide," Sterne said.
"In her heart of hearts," Lyntas smiled. Inevitably, her councillors would finally remember who held the reins of power. All she had to do was bide her time.
Knowing that everyone was hanging on her every word, she made her decision:
"A desperate situation requires drastic decisions. I therefore summon the former military advisors of my husband, in order to obtain the help of the Shiranians. In the interests of the kingdom, however, I will not limit myself to one solution. I will also appeal to upon my father's army. This afternoon, I will send a carrier pigeon with a message to the king of Damasia.
"Damasians on Hudres soil?" Elgire cried indignantly. "Never!"
"It's for the good of the kingdom, Elgire," continued the queen indulgently, as if she were reasoning with a child. "If this idea repels you, you need only hurry to bring back your friends. Because I am entrusting you with the mission of finding them, since this is your idea."
"Dansec and Léonte, is that right, my queen?" insisted the Duke of Sargus, his intonations wavering among anger, joy and frustration. "Maybe they won't want to come back."
Lyntas looked intensely into Elgire's pale blue eyes. Elgire did not flinch.
By proposing to bring back King Magne's old military advisors, the Duke of Sargus thought he would make himself an enemy. After all, he has never found a place in the queen's heart. Wasn't Elgire one of the last of Magne's loyal servants still sitting on the royal council?
Lyntas's intense gaze was still impenetrable. The duke, like all the other men who had dared to stand up to that stare, finally lowered his eyes.
The corners of Lyntas's thin, straight lips turned up slightly, but when she answered the old man, her voice betrayed no emotion:
"It's up to you to convince them."
With that, the queen rose, walked past her councillors, who stood up hastily to bow to her, and went out the door. Before disappearing down the stairway, she paused, put a pensive finger to her lips, then added for Elgire's benefit:
"You will also bring back Léane. I don't want the Shiranians to use her absence as a pretext for refusing to assist the crown. But the Namarre remains where he is: as far as possible from Hudres."
With those words, she withdrew.
As soon as the echo of her footsteps died away, Elgire glanced triumphantly at Vilsin. The latter was seething behind his impassive mask, and since violence was hardly fitting for a High Priest of Shir, Vilsin chose to retreat before he threw himself on the insolent Duke of Sargus.
Moebes and Antore did likewise, the former still lost in his thoughts, and the latter rolling his big terrified eyes. Although both had also sat on King Magne's council, neither had held any particular affection for him. It mattered little who their leader was as long as they kept their posts.
Divide and rule. Such was the strategy Lyntas used to achieve her goals, and, this time, she had been particularly successful...
© 2004 Éditions Alire & Héloïse Côté
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