An Understandable Mistake

by Rachel Parsons

Table of Contents
Part 3 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

I saw my reflection — a pale white form shrived like a dried up prune. My cheeks were sunken; my bosoms were like deflated sacks drooping on my chest.

“It is the Casket, Rhiannon. Go to it and make your request. That all the offworlders’ weapons will rust as soon as they touch them. Go to the Casket, Rhiannon.”

Unsteady on my feet, I walked the swirl I was on, holding my arms out for balance. I did not want to fall, not knowing where I would fall to. No, I take that back. I was terrified I would fall, not knowing where I would fall to.

But my skin was re-inflating, I was becoming rounder, my bosoms larger, my color was returning. What Arianrhod had sucked from me, the vortex was returning.

As I passed Arianrhod, she seized my left arm. “I will be by your side, Rhiannon. Do not fear, just sing your request; remember to sing.”

“I am not a Song Caster, Arianrhod; you are thinking of my namesake, my great-great-great grandmother.”

She looked at me askance. “More ‘greats’ than that, I should think. Relax, you do not have to live up to her and I will help you remember the words.”

“What do you mean, remember? I never knew the words.”

“I will help you remember, Rhiannon.” She licked my wound again, like a cat grooming its kitten.

The fire was hot, yet not blistering. The light was brilliant, but not blinding. I stood at the center and I was freezing. I felt like crying.

“I can’t do this, Arianrhod. I am too cold.” I heard the patter of my dripping blood. Arianrhod’s wound had healed already.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Splash. Splash. Splash.

“I am also cold, Rhiannon. Look at me; am I not naked too? We all are at the center of the whirlpool.”

We embraced each other to keep away the cold. She whispered the words in my ear; words no mortal may know; words I do not remember any more. But then I made my request.

The whirlpool became a red maelstrom. I was falling into its arms, which were whirling around me. Blood poured from my wrist, my mouth, my nose, my ears, my womanhood. I was swimming in a sea of my own blood, singing a song that I did not remember, the words to which I can never recall.

I fell. And was back on the Tor.

Face to face with Ryune. He was holding a Terran blunderbuss, small enough to almost fit into his hand, and was staring wild-eyed at Arianrhod, dressed again, Rosalyn and me.

“I think we are going to see whether the spell worked, Arianrhod. You are Terran, then?”

He nodded, and put the mini-blunderbuss away. The test would have to be later unless I could take it from him.

“I watched you leave and followed you here. And I guess blew my cover in the process.”

“’Blew your cover?’ What means that, sirrah?”

“It means you now know I’m not a merchant of perfumes, your highness. I was sent here by my government to learn all there is to know about you.”

“As prelude to invasion? Give me your weapon, sirrah!”

“No. But I pledge not to use it.” Rosalyn rushed him, and before he could blink, whipped the hand-held blunderbuss from him. Tossed it to me.

“How does this work, sirrah?”

He refused to speak. I glanced at the hand blunderbuss, noticed a small lever on its side. I pressed the lever down. I pointed it at the ground, and pressed my finger against a lever covered by a semi-circular guard. I had seen the offworlders do this during the war. Nothing happened.

“Do not smirk, sirrah. I will figure this out.”

I pulled a slide on the gun back and forth, seeing a flash of metal as I did. “Fingers in your ears, Arianrhod, Rosalyn. This will be loud, if the spell fails.”

My hand shaking, the barrel swinging back and forth, I pulled its lever. Again nothing happened and the offworlder agent snorted.

“No, sirrah, look. Your blunderbuss is no longer good.”

Before my eyes, it had turned a greenish-reddish color, started to crumble and turned to filings that the wind scattered. “We have done it, Arianrhod; if the offworlders return, they will have to meet us on equal ground.” I turned to Ryune. “Your attack has failed.”

Ryune was uncomprehending. You could almost see him have to vent the fog from his mind and start his awareness going again. He then spoke, showing understanding, at least of some things.

“I had nothing to do with the attack on Queen Branwen. That was not my doing or my mission.”

“It was an attack on me, sirrah. Of that I am convinced. No one would attack my sister monarch; there would be no point in it. And your world would have motive to kill me, thinking I stand in their way of conquest.”

“No, no. My government would not do that, your highness. I am here to find out how to approach you as we approached your predecessor.”

“To find out how to seduce me, in other words. Come, we head for the palace. This man has to be placed under arrest as a spy.”

We climbed upon our horses; mine shook his head and his lips flubbered. I patted him and kissed his mane.

As we rode past the savanna to the palace, we were approached by Laetrile. He was on a black steed, had on a military jerkin and trousers, and held one hand on his sword, and the other on the reins of his horse.

“You were sorely missed by the Prime Minister, your highness.” His tone was nasty.

“I had pressing business, not that my business is any of yours.”

“It is when there could be an assassin afoot. You need a guard.” The way he said it made me think he really thought a babysitter.

“As you see, I have my own guards, and they have captured the would-be assassin.”

“Very good, I am sure, madam. But I am under orders to deliver you to the joint Senate/Tribunal meeting.”

“You? Give me orders? Who do you think you are dealing with?”

“A runaway slave, from the looks of things. I am perfectly in my rights to arrest anyone in your condition. Oh, the matter will be straightened out, as I intend to march you to the jail by way of the Council chambers. There, your true status will be revealed, and you will be released, just in time for your audience with the Councils. Thus, the good of all will be achieved.”

“Oh, very well, sirrah. I will ride to the chambers, if you will take this varlet away. Rosalyn, come with me?”

“Of course.”

“And Arianrhod, track down Zusanna. There is no more need of her infiltrating the slaves now. Whoever this one’s accomplice is, he is the mastermind.”

The Council meeting was long, hard and left me shaking and smelling to high heaven, this time from nervousness, and the stench of men whose breath could kill. I staggered out of the chambers only to run into Eurybia.

“You look a wreck, Rhiannon.”

“Oh, thanks ever so much.”

“No, I mean it. You could use a drink. I knew this charming little saloon down Main Street. Come on, I’ll take you to it.”

“No, thank you!”

She looked at me quizzically. And then you could see the ‘Ah, hah’. “You think I’ll tell everyone you’re a slave, don’t you? Do something deliciously humiliating to you? Would I do that, Rhiannon?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, of course I wouldn’t. You were right; we shouldn’t have made fun of you at tea. Please, let me buy you a drink as an apology.”

She took my arm. Against my better judgment I accompanied her. It must have been the fatigue, but I actually began looking forward to it, as we left the front of the palace, past its pillars, its marble wall, and headed down the street. No one stared at me, something I commented on.

“Why should they, Rhiannon? You were right about one thing; people will think you’re a slave, out for an afternoon with her mistress. Ah, here we are.”

We came in to the smoky establishment, to the noisy sounds of men and women enjoying themselves. Eurybia found us a room, off to the side of the main lobby; made an order.

“One for her too,” she said of me.

The waitress, a girl in an off pink cotton dress over linen undergarments that showed through her sleeves and hems clucked at that, but returned with another glass. Eurybia poured the whiskey. I downed a glass; quickly drank another.

“I get you drunk enough and you might sign any trade agreement.” She poured me a third shot.

“It’ll take more than that.”

“Yes, I imagine it will.” She smiled. “You look almost whole, Rhiannon.”

“I feel almost whole.”

“Good, you will need all your strength. You see, Rhiannon, you were right the first time.”

She put her hand arrestingly under her chin and smiled. “But you never learn to trust your instincts. Chloe, Branwen and I were always getting you with pranks but you just never learned. I am going to tell people you are a slave. And then have you sold. Someplace far, far away.”

Her head was exploding into sparklers and I could barely keep up with what she was saying as she had developed an echo.

“It must be the drug, Eurybia. I could have sworn you said you are an arms merchant and are going to sell me into slavery.”

“I did say that, Rhiannon. I needed a new source of income — everything became just so expensive after the war — and Terran weapons are just so attractive on the black market.”

“So you tried to kill me?” I was feeling a little stupid, but that could have been because of the pink worms coming out of the walls. Pink worms always make me stupid.

“Well, it’s not like I wanted to, Rhiannon. But you were standing in my way with your refusal to let the Terrans come back with all their nice weapons.”

“How did you get past the guards? And I could have sworn the assassin was a man.”

“The assassin was a man, Rhiannon. Goddesses, to think they made you high queen.” She rolled her eyes and looked away.

“But how did you get him past the guards?”

“I bribed the guards, of course.” She made a disgusted noise.

“I knew it!” I banged my fist on the table. “Oh, Rosalyn is going to be so mad. She didn’t think it could be bribery. So never likes to be wrong.”

“Time for you to become a real slave, Rhiannon. I just wish you could be my slave, to play with. But that would just be too risky. People might notice. I am really a coward when you get right down to it.”

“You’ll never get away with it.”

“Oh, I will. By the time anyone knows you are missing, you will be hundreds of miles away. Oh, I’m sure they will search and search, but by the time they find you, you will have adapted to your new status in life. The people to whom I’m selling you take an ice pick and mallet to every new slave. They hit you here and here.” She pointed to the parts of her forehead where her horns would be, if she had horns. “Even if you are found, you will never, ever be high queen again.

I’m sorry, but you brought it on yourself, escaping my hired help’s shot. You will be fit for only one thing, Rhiannon. And you know what that is. You did do it so well in New Dyved.”

“What I will be fit for is to dispose of the likes of you,” I got up to grab her, put her over my knee to spank her, and take her to the police commissioner. I keeled over, knocking the doctored whisky off the table. Eurybia snapped her fingers; a couple of men took me out and into their carriage. There, Ryune was waiting for me.

“You escaped,” I said, or at least I thought I did. I may have just quacked instead.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he took out a knife and very neatly plunged it into Eurybia’s chest, gutting her from stem to stern. He then crawled over me, climbed to the driver’s seat. I couldn’t tell what he did but I did hear the screaming.

Chapter 5

Rosalyn found me lying in a ditch. She pulled me up and helped me stagger back to the palace. It was hours before I was coherent enough to give a statement.

Eurybia’s body was never found; Ryune was among the missing. Hirel had been seen stripping one of the ladies of the court, who had been sprawled in an undignified position after having been cudgeled, and taking off with her clothes. Whether she was a real slave, or another Terran like Ryune, disguised to look like one of us, will wait until she is found. If she ever is.

Chloe was as clueless as to what her friend was up to as she was about life in general. She had a motive to be in rebellion, but not the brains.

Laetrile started a house to house search and found caches of offworlder weapons. All strangely rusted, he stated. None of the people who had the caches would explain where they got them — whether they had acquired them from the offworlders recently or had found them abandoned on the battlefields.

Unless we find Ryune we will probably not know the Terran intention until their ships emerge from the portal. I want to be there that day, to see their gleaming vessels crash — as gunboats, after all, are weapons too. Spellminders, remember, are very literal and very stupid. I can’t lie on my stomach in another’s presence, and I’m sure the Terrans will not be able to ignite the engines of their mighty machines or prevent them from turning to rust.

I will never now why Ryune saved me from slavery, but I have decreed that there will be no resumption of trade with the offworlders, even if they find a way to do so peacefully and work around my curse on them, until the trafficking in sapient beings stops. That has hushed the Senate, at least, but the Tribunals are still calling me names that aren’t very nice.

Blackwaithe is calling me ‘that despicable bitch’, ‘that naked whore’, ‘that naughty girl’, to thunderous applause, has impugned my morals, has stated that I am nothing more than a barbarian and has introduced a bill to strip me of my extraterritorial protection. Without that, my nudity will not make me resemble a slave; I will be one. Without clothes in New Prydain, you have no rights, except the right to one appeal. His bill will make that conditional on having been born a slave in New Prydain, which would strip me of that defense as well.

Cornell has said he would ask for a vote of no confidence, whatever that is, if the bill is passed. Branwen has said she will not sign it, which would precipitate something the Prydainians call a constitutional crisis. The monarch must sign a bill to make it law, and monarchs always do as they are told here in New Prydain. But Branwen was never one to do as she was told, and in spite of her occasional complicity in my humiliation, will always stand up for me.

Arianrhod has been avoiding me. So much so that I confronted her over it.

With a haunted look, she told me, simply, “We have shared an intimacy beyond intimacy, Rhiannon. It scares me. It should scare you. Our bond is so deep that, if it were not for your feelings for another, you would be in thrall to me. You have the other, but I do not. I will have to avoid you for a while until I get my blood lust for you under control.”

She had confined herself to her room, until we must journey home. She has never told me who ‘the other’ is that I have feelings for. I have feelings for many, but not in the profound sense she was implying.

I look at the stars at night, and spot the one the offworlders call their sun. I hear that someday their sun will engulf their world. I wonder sometimes whether there is a magic that can accelerate that. It would not only make me sleep better at night, and not spend my time playing with forces from beyond that can threaten the ancient harmonies, but it would put them out of their misery as well.

I sip my whisky; hug Rosalyn, who hugs me back. I rest my head on her shoulder even though she is shorter than I, and caress her hair. She is in her nightgown, open to let breezes cool her. She wears no undergarments. I do adore her and know it is more than her skills at being a bodyguard that allows me to be who I am.

I scratch Zusanna behind the ears, and think of consulting Arianrhod on the matter of accelerating the offworlders’ fate once she is speaking to me again.

If I am wrong to want death to the offworlders, it will be an understandable mistake.