Essalieyan Chronicles 04 - The Weapon by Michelle West Page B

of healing.
But he had confounded that expectation. Into the spreading, uncertain silence, he had walked as if he owned the temple. “I am the Baron Breton,” he said, and the exultation in his smile did not quite penetrate the quiet dignity of those words.
The Mother’s Daughter bowed. She rose, but not quickly, and moved to stand by the altar, placing her palms against its surface.
“You have not flourished in the reign of my father, but you held your own. I respect that, Mother’s Daughter. I desire your company; I will tour my city before the waning of the day.” He paused for a moment, and then his gaze crested the bowed heads of the men, women, and
children who were wise enough not to meet it. But Emily Dontal, golden-eyed novice, was not so wise, and she met those dark eyes beneath those singed, bleeding brows, and almost forgot to move.
“Who is the novice who attends you, Mother’s Daughter?”
     
The Mother’s Daughter said nothing; he had expected that, but his lips thinned.
     
No , she thought. Seeing him, understanding now that he desired a death to mark the beginning of his reign, to mark his prominence. She had stepped forward, ignoring the gaze of the Mother’s Daughter to who she owed both service and obedience. The latter she forsook for the former.
“I am Novice Emily Dontal,” she said, bowing. Bowing low. She might have knelt, but she
     

thought if she did she would never rise. “You are golden-eyed,” he replied. “I am the Mother’s.”
“Good. You are the first of your kind—with the exception of the Mother’s Daughter—that I have seen in the temple, and I have had occasion to visit during my youth. You will accompany us as well.”
“Novice.”
     
“Mother’s Daughter.”
“You will stay by my side, and you will not speak.” “Mother’s Daughter.”
     
* * * She had learned much, in traversing those streets.
The new Baron Breton had come to the temple with a small army. He led the men, the Mother’s Daughter by his side, through the streets, proclaiming his rule. He led them to the heart of the high city, and there, he set them free, for in the high city were the men who had gained great fortune in the service of his father.
There, she knew, his sole living brother resided. And he, too, was not without his men. She had read of war. It was something that was fought over distant plains, and distant patches of land. This sudden terrible knowledge: this was the Baron’s gift. To her.
It was a scar she bore still. The soldiers clashed, and this, at least, she could bear in silence. When the first volley of quarrels flew from the distance of buildings, when they pierced armor and men fell with grunts or screams, she flinched, and the Mother’s Daughter gripped her shoulder like a vise. But she could witness this, mute and still.
It was after. It was after the one army had been defeated, and the Baron’s brother beheaded,
     
that the slaughter had started in earnest.
     
* * *
     
“Emily Dontal,” the Baron said quietly, calling her attention back from the bitter recess of memory although her eyes had not left his face. He was older, and he did not come injured and in triumph to these halls.
“Yes,” she replied, “that is what I was called.”
     
“But it is not, now, what you are. Mother’s Daughter, do you understand the gift I gave you
     

when first we met?”
     
She did not, could not, answer. She could still hear the screaming. “I have spoken with the Witherall Seer.”
She kept her face schooled. It was difficult.
     
“And she has told me that my blood-line will rule these lands; they will fashion not a Kingdom, but an Empire, and it will stretch farther than even the lands the Barons now hold.” His smile was slight.
“Why have you come?” she asked, weary now.
     
“Ah, that. I am not the man I was when I took the Baronial throne. I have buried three wives,” he added quietly.
As it was widely rumored that his first wife had attempted to