Sleep came fast for the exhausted maiden, but waking came faster. Rowena awoke with no idea where she was, her skin palid and covered in a sheen of sweat. Sheets pulled up about her neck, she finally calmed down enough to reassert her place in the royal suite. The bed was even bigger than the one she’d been reborn to and its colors were many and vibrant, like the feathers of a summer pheasant, fat and ready for the hunting.
She tried to remember her dream, but the struggle only made her head start to ache. There had been something about a cat, perhaps, and two beasts in a struggle for dominance; one obsessed with an ending, and the other fixated on beginnings--
The Deadwood came back to her minds’ eye, scorching her mind with roaring, invisible fire. She shucked back the covers of the big bed and nearly twisted an ankle as she leapt down from its piled mattresses. You are nothing, she remembered Wolf saying. You are moles on the backside of the world. She saw his wicked smile in her mind, as clear as… Well, as clear as just a few days ago.
“If I am nothing… then why am I here?” Rowena whispered to herself, as she wrapped her arms about her shoulders to still her anxious shaking. She managed a smug little smile, imagining what Wolf would sputter once he knew his plan to excise her from the village had ended in her becoming a queen. “It still doesn’t feel real,” she murmured.
She got to her feet and stepped into a pair of wool slippers. After relieving herself in the chamber’s gold gourd, she grabbed a garish, woven-leaf shawl from the chair near the fireplace and cocooned herself in its warmth. She didn’t know what time it was, but looking out any curtained window wouldn’t have aided her. There was no sun to tell the time by. Besides, what could meet her eyes beyond Gaylord’s celestial walls terrified her far more than what was more than likely there, floating in Ether.
She went to the door to her chambers and opened it just enough to address a goatman in green dyed leather armor. “Hello, do you have the time?” she asked him ever so politely, glancing once at the long, hilted mirror hanging on his side, sharpened to a deadly, shining point. Was he posted there to protect her or keep her there?
The goatman blinked at her, but then bleated quietly, “Nocturnalis, Your Unbeastliness.” When she only blinked at him in reply, he amended with a small chuckle, “It is the time that belongs to the night’s things.”
“How long until… the time that belongs to the day's things?”
The goatman huffed, “A meal at least, Frue.”
“Oh… Thank you,” she said.
“Should I send for a meal, Frue?”
She thought about it, then nodded. “What is there?”
“How hungry are you?” he asked sympathetically.
“I am not especially,” she admitted. “Enough to occupy my thoughts.”
He nodded after a brief, thoughtful pause. Then he made a whistling sound and a small sprite flitted into view long enough for the goatman to convey her wishes. The little ball of fairy light seemed to bob in assent before it disappeared around a corner.
Rowena closed her open mouth, pulled her shawl tighter and thanked the goat. “What do they call you?”
“They call me many things. You may call me Cero.”
“Just Cero?” It was strange for her to hear someone in the star didn’t have some extension, title, or position tied to their birth name like her… or, rather, like she had been before being made Bastard Queen.
“Just,” he said cheerily. Then his alien eyes darted about before he asked her very quietly, “What do I call you?”
“Rowena,” she said, smiling.
He shook his head with amusement. “I forget that you are a maiden. It’s strange to hear such a plain name like my own.”
“Oh!” Rowena suddenly declared. “You are… not yet a man?”
Cero laughed, his bleating filled with mirth. “I am no man at all! I am demifolk--a common beast. Do you mean to ask if I have taken a wife?”
Brimming with embarrassment, she nodded, hoping her flushed face wasn’t too obvious.
“I have three. They have given me eighteen kids. I am very proud.”
“Cloves groves!” Rowena expounded. “That must be a loud house!”
Cero laughed. “The louder, the prouder,” he insisted. Then his ears rotated back in surprise as a sprite--maybe the same one from before, though Rowena couldn’t be sure--approached them. Something passed between the demifolk and then Cero said, “It seems your cheese and soup is ready.” Turning to the side, he rifled through a series of vine-covered rope-pulls that had been cleverly disguised behind a glorious tapestry. At the ends of each pull was tied a ring-shaped stone inscribed with a rune. After sorting through the lot, Cero pulled one and Rowena’s stomach heaved slightly as the hallway moved. Rather, her room and the immediate hallway outside of it moved, coasting at a disorienting speed until an open door sat across from hers and the smells of venison and bread assailed her senses and left her mouth watering.
“There we are,” Cero said conversationally and the sprite flitted away as the goatman took a plate piled high with appetizing slices of gold and ochre from what appeared to be a giant toad in a cook’s ensemble. The toad tipped his hat graciously at her and she bowed ever so slightly. Cero passed the plate of cheeses to her before receiving a bowl of something warm and steaming from another froggish demifolk, this one wearing a servas dress and bonnet. The servas croaked at Cero before pushing passed goat and girl to place the bowl of soup on the table before the suite’s fireplace. Then the frog bowed and returned to the kitchen with her toad counterpart. Cero thanked them both and waited for them to be safely ensconced in the kitchen doorway before pulling a cord that slid the kitchen back to wherever it had been before.
“That… is wonderfully convenient,” Rowena remarked. When Cero only grunted, pride evident on his face, she asked, “Are those ropes all for moving the star around?”
“A device of the King’s own making,” Cero explained. “Yet, He is fond of walking. This He devised for His most esteemed guests.”
“I certainly feel esteemed when I’m around the demifolk,” Rowena said quietly.
The goatman’s cheer sobered slightly, but he didn’t press her for her morose tone. Instead he bowed and bleated, “Honored am I to be at your service, Your Unbeastliness. I’ll leave you to your meal. Let me know if there’s anything else, Rowena.”
“Thank you, Cero.”
“By course.”
Rowena retreated, consumed her cheese in silence, but then grew restless as she blew on her lentil soup. The wonderful food reminded her of the rich delicacies she had gotten to enjoy as a sacrifice at the feet of her Chieftain and Chieftess. And this food was considered a paltry snack in the eyes of the demifolk! What wonders yet awaited her? And what lacking had she endured for more than seventeen years?
I will not just accept my fate like that again, Rowena vowed to herself. Then she hissed in pain as the hot soup bit into her tongue.
She was expecting Fionn when the hart arrived to take her on a walk, though the Breith was not expecting her to already be awake. After Cero opened her door, the great elk stomped one of his front hooves and the door to the royal suite grew to accommodate his size. After he stepped into the room, the door did not shrink, but flowering vines draped down to cover the top half of the portal.
Fionn bowed low before her. “Greetings, Rowena. Did you not sleep? Do maidens not sleep?” When he caught her eying the door, he snorted. “The star is ever changing to match our own changes. You will get used to its strangeness in time.”
“Of that, I am not so certain,” she said with a small smile. Then she nodded her head respectfully. “I slept as well as one could. What can I do for you, Breith Fionn?”
“There is work for you in court, but first, I would like to walk with you. There are things you must see to understand.”
Rowena actually felt excited by the prospect and, now that she was full of food, rested, and made alert by the use of a cocoa bean paste, she felt more than prepared to explore more of the palace and meet its denizens. “I will follow you, Fionn,” she said with a bow.
Outside, Cero bid them well and pulled a cord. With a rumble, the royal suite and its entryway slowly sank into the floor. The door that replaced it was a twenty-foot tall archway with high ceilings beyond, peppered with candle chandeliers and more tapestries. “This is your courtroom,” Fionn explained.
“How will he get out of there? How will we manage to get back?” Rowena asked, looking at the crease in the floor where Cero had disappeared.
“There are several stories and floors below this one. Perhaps we will use a gate on the return,” Fionn said dismissively, and he motioned with his great moss-covered antlers for her to make her way through the archway. “Please, Queen. After you.”
“Gaylord is like a giant puzzle box,” she said idly as she walked into the courtroom. It was wide and tall like a chieftain’s longhouse. It held the heady smells of burned sugarcane and cinnamon. Some of the wall sconces carried silver urns smoking with incense and perfumed peat. She asked, “She was once like a spirit, but now she is flesh. Is that because of the King’s return?”
Fionn nodded, a lick of lichen falling across one of his dark eyes. “As our King grows in strength, so do we. As He weakens, so do we weaken. And, when He dies…”
“You all die?” Rowena didn’t hide the pain that came to her face.
“We become without form once more. Only Gaylord is exempted from such a fate, being only so tied with our King’s fate.” Fionn, however, was resigned, even apathetic about the revelation. To him, dying and returning was a part of his existence.
“So that’s why they all cheered,” Rowena said quietly.
“You were more than just His salvation, My Frue,” Fionn said. Like a horse would spit at flies, the hart snorted once to flip the lichen back up into his antlers. “The people will not easily forget that… but there are some among the demifolk who would use your power to lord over The Spice King.”
“Blasphemy!” Rowena snapped, but then she considered his words and amended with, “I would have thought that the demifolk, so bound to the life of God, would do everything within their powers to protect Him.”
“The majority do. It is the disgruntled outliers that don’t wish to be so bound that do not. But it is good that they exist.”
“Why? Why not do away with them all?”
“Because they keep the rest of us honest, and remind us that we are wild things,” Fionn said with a deep, muted chuckle. “Mind your feet,” he warned softly as they neared the center of the hall.
The marble and wood of the front of the courtroom suddenly broke off to become a grassy meadow. There were stones cast hither-thither as well, carved and inlaid with silver and gold, their top surfaces blanketed with moss and fungi. Trees replaced the columns at the edges of the hall, the transition looking like a visual gradient from civilization to wilderness. As the trees grew together, as they had above the throne of The Spice King, a stone throne inlaid with lapis lazuli and gold jutted out of the ground as if it had been forced out of the earth into just that shape. A pillow of blue rose petals were scattered about the seat and a crown of blunted thorns sat upon it.
As they made their way across the small field, the great hart set his sights on the throne. “There will be some kind of coronation soon,” Fionn said. “For now… Pick it up. It is yours.”
“It doesn’t feel like mine,” Rowena mumbled, nevertheless reaching to pluck the object from its place. When her fingers brushed against one of the spines, she jerked her hand back, heart racing.
She was falling, feet first, but then a stone smacked against her foot and she went spinning. A bramble of thorns, sticking out of the mountainside, caught her and held her fast. As she struggled, the thorns gouged into her, raking deadly lacerations along her flesh, spilling her life’s blood onto the mound below. As she watched her blood drip, she saw something in the snowy rise below begin to take shape under the light of the full moon. The heat of her blood melted the thin layer of powder. A child’s skull, soaking with her sacrifice, grinned up at her.
“Frue!” Fionn was under one of her arms, forcing her back to her feet. “Are you well?”
She put a hand to her head, an ache starting right behind her eyes.
“Rowena?”
“I’m not sure,” Rowena said, then she looked back at the crown where it still rested on her throne. She shook her head. “Maybe… Maybe it’s best to wait for the coronation after all.” Was that a memory? Or something else? she wondered to herself.
“Of course,” Fionn said, his tone still strained with worry. “But are you well?”
“For now,” she said, frowning. “I just had the strangest vision… if you believe in such things.”
“I only believe what I can see,” Fionn said. “But I can see something about that crown upset you. Should I call for some other material to be used?”
Rowena considered the suggestion seriously, but then she shook her head. “I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”
That satisfied the beast. He snorted amiably and said, “Still, it would be a comfort if you put your hand on me while we walked. We will return here when court is in session. For now, there is still more to see.”
She put her hand out and, only after taking a few steps with his assistance, did she realize that her legs had been shaking, and she was grateful for Fionn’s assistance and his understanding.
They left the courtroom and wandered the Spring-clad halls, nodding and bowing as they encountered demifolk going about their business. There were all manner of creatures going about the palace, some clothed in the red and green livery of service, some wearing marks of another kind of status that Rowena could not name. After receiving a series of bows from a pack of tongue-lolling wolves, Rowena blinked and asked the hart, “The folk wearing lilac and dandelion, are they not in The King’s service? Or is red and green reserved for a queensguard?”
Fionn’s face went serious for a moment and he looked away from her in a guilty sort of way. After clearing his throat, he said, “You are right. Those in yellow and purple are nobles. They represent The Spice King’s own inner circle. They are best avoided outside of court.”
The girl frowned. “But… I am their queen.”
“Yes,” Fionn said, uncomfortable. “Yes, you are.” He huffed something very Elk-y and unintelligible under his breath before he said aloud, “Rowena, before, I mentioned a faction that opposes The King. Many of them are in court and hold sway. It’s not fair for me to try to protect you from their ilk, as you will be responsible for them in the coming days. The King has asked you to manage them for a reason. You hold His power, and so they will try to use you for it. I won’t pretend to do your work for you… and I don’t envy you, but…”
Rowena patted his front haunch and his eyes met hers. She said, “I’ve come to understand why the demifolk respect you so, Breith. You speak plainly and you know many things. You are a good judge… So, don’t spare my feelings. I have a duty to perform, as do you.”
The hart grunted gratefully, then said, “Then, disregarding the maiden’s unmentionables, I know who you would do well to align with, depending on what the queen so desires. But until I know what kind of queen you will be, I can only speak on each noble and their house, but not on your course of action. That judgement, I leave to you.”
The maiden said with a smile, “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” After the hart made another grateful sound, Rowena patted his haunch again. “Thank you, Fionn. I will measure your words in the coming days.”
“You would be wise to, Frue,” Fionn said wryly.
They toured through some more of the common areas of the palace a little before the midday meal. There was an expansive ballroom with a babbling brook running through its center, teaming with leaping fish and small merfolk. Someone was playing music on a wooden harp and, as the two of them came closer, Rowena discovered that the harp was growing out of the ground, played by a pine’s dryad. The demifolk’s delicate, needle-covered fingers danced over the strings as she swayed with the sound of her harp-shaped-tree’s music.
After the ballroom, Fionn led her to the communal salon, called The Bounty by the signage above the imposing double doors. “Lady and gentlefolk rest and mingle here,” her steward explained, “but there are other salons scattered throughout the star that cater to all separate kith and kin. Even you will make your own club with any kindred folk you desire to spend time with personally.”
“I would rather spend it here,” Rowena said, trying not to stare at the small groups gathered around round, stone hearthfires. “Better that people know they can see me.” For the most part, the demifolk continued the conversations even after she entered the room. The maiden got the impression that they weren’t necessarily holding back on her account, but rather upon Fionn’s. The hart looked all business and this place seemed geared towards the application of something more carnal.
Although Rowena did see Cairne Cora across the way, surrounded by a small unkindness of chittering ravens, all of them trying to vy for her attention. The hag managed a small wave of feather and claw when she caught the girl’s eye. The maiden didn’t have time to wave back before Cora’s black eyes returned to a couple of ravens and their rowdy lectures.
Fionn made a disapproving sound, but only said, “As you wish, Frue.”
They stayed long enough at The Bounty for Rowena to get the barest of impressions from the busy, boisterous place. She determined that a salon was a place where someone could get a drink, something to eat, and then mingle across class lines to broker deals and solicit goods. The Bounty was not unlike a meadery in that regard--like the one back in her village--but this salon would remain open outside of special events and holidays, and no demifolk were openly fighting in the center of the spacious room for glory and free pleasures. At least, not that she had seen. Perhaps there was a different salon for such activities.
When they returned to tooling about the corridors, Fionn informed her that they would be making one last stop at another place of future interest to her: the barracks, and its secret escape route for the queen and entourage.
They entered through an entryless archway and a goblin, dressed much like Cero, came to attention and bowed low. His single blue eye regarded Fionn suspiciously, but when he looked toward Rowena, his expression was one of recognition. “Beautiful Bastard Queen, what brings you to my humble outpost? I don’t believe we were properly introduced when you were spit up out of the Deadwood. My name is Larus, Your Unbeastliness. You may address me as you see fit! I am security-in-flesh.”
“Mind your manners, Leagh Larus,” Fionn said tiredly. “The queen wished to gaze upon her emergent salvation, should such a time come.”
“Oh, is that so?” Larus stated slowly, then his face broke out into a dazzling, pearly-white smile and he motioned for Rowena to follow him. “Leave your ego at the door, will you, Judge? This is my domain, after all.”
“If only I could be parted with it so easily,” Fionn grumbled.
“This way, Maiden Majesty,” Larus beckoned to Rowena. “Allow me to take you on the grandest of tours!” He put a hand to the small of her back and ushered her through a curtain of flowering ivy.
Monsters of all shapes and sizes carried on after their entry, but several beasts looked toward them curiously (or furiously, if their gaze rested on Fionn first) while sharpening weapons or carrying armor to a community wrack. There was a quartermaster outfitting demifolk, and a commissar making an aside with a purple-and-yellow-coated noble. There were so many moving and doing that Rowena struggled to make sense of their mobilization.
“Welcome to the beating heart of the star, Queen,” Larus said after a moment, grinning at her stunned expression. “You’ll want to see The North herself, won’t you?”
“Gaylord is here?” Rowena asked, suddenly overwhelmed.
“It’s her halls we protect, but it’s she who directs our efforts,” Larus said with an impish blink.
“What is Jarl Toor doing here?” Fionn asked quietly.
Leagh Larus clicked his tongue as he noticed The King’s livery amongst all the red and green. “Oh, Fi-Fi, don’t tell me you’ve still got a venison chop with the fairy. He’s just here to get some personal guards.”
“For what purpose, Larus?” Fionn demanded harshly.
“Probably to protect himself from territorial stags like you,” the goblin laughed goodnaturedly. “Don’t worry. I hear Lady Witching Hour isn’t paying half a squad’s attention to him.”
“Nevermind that he turned the last half-squad given to him into the beginnings of a personal army,” Fionn grunted. “Why must we continue to make the same mistakes when we’re given chance and chance again to do things over right?”
“Not all of us are perfect judges, Fionn” Leagh Larus snapped, suddenly serious and aggrieved. “And for another thing, you’re responsible for the aftermath. You have no say in how we get there--”
“Actually,” Rowena began and both beasts snapped to look at her, clearly remembering their places even as she continued to say, “I am ultimately responsible for the aftermath of all actions beyond the paradigm of my god, or aren’t I? Tell me about the jarl, venerable Breith.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you addressed the jarl himself,” Fionn said almost morosely as he rose up to his normal stature and addressed the willowy figure that approached them at a leisurely pace. “Ho, Jarl. You come before a beast-yet-made.”
“Enough theatrics, Breith,” Jarl Toor said, flashing tombstone teeth at the great elk. “I know before whom I stand.” He was a tall being with arms and hands that seemed too long and stretched out for his otherwise normally proportioned body. There was a feminine beauty about his other features, yet everything from the delicate points of his ears down to the seashell paint of his taloned toes betrayed that he was as far from the nature of Man as much as Rowena’s antlered steward. The jarl’s eyes were probably his strangest feature. It looked as though his irises had burst, as there was no white to be seen. His gray pupils swam in twin seas of gold, separated by a ring of amethyst that pierced the boney bridge of his thin nose.
One of the jarl’s long arms pressed across his breast as he bowed low enough to be almost rude. When he righted himself, he said just loud enough that the maiden could hear him, “Hello Queen Rowena of Spice Village. I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Rowena saw Larus look pointedly at Fionn, but the hart’s eyes were fixed on Jarl Toor and his nostrils flared wide and shrank to slits in rapid succession. Larus, in his domain, decided to take the lead, but before he could get a presumably tactful address out, Rowena asked Jarl Toor, “Why are you pleased, Jarl? I am only curious.”
“Curiosity should always be rewarded with discovery, no matter how unseemly that discovery may be,” Jarl Toor said smoothly. There was a slight smile tugging at one corner of his full lips. “I am pleased because our King deserves distraction. And I deserve a distracted King. You serve your purpose in the bed of our god, and you will serve mine.” His smile widened as Rowena felt heat rise into her cheeks. He made a verbal addendum to his statement by concluding with, “Of course, that’s the sort of treachery your keepers would like to hear, Bastard Queen.”
“Watch yourself, Jarl,” Larus snapped before Rowena could say something regretful. “The Northern Star is our queen’s Lucky Star. You cross the maiden, and you can forget about seeding your little mob.”
The jarl raised an unimpressed eyebrow and swept a dismissive hand before them. The gesture reminded Rowena of a spider pulling silk from its anus. “You needn’t concern yourselves. The comet-struck bitch refused me. It seems her time as some lonesome spector has affected her cognition, as it sometimes does with immortals.” At this last statement, the jarl all but glowered at the red haired maiden, as if she had been the one to strike the star dumb.
Rowena’s back went rigid, but she simply glowered back.
Larus waved his own hand, miming the willowy fairy with mock sophistication. “As it sometimes does with immortals,” the goblin hissed in reply, mimicking the jarl’s condescending tone at a higher octave. Then he spit on the fairy’s painted toes. “Leave, Toor… before I ask Monty to show you out the Ether gate.” Even as he spoke, a manbeast with a boar’s head, got up from a pedal-spun whetstone, and trudged over to their position, looming behind the thin fairy with a look that bordered on lust.
Jarl Toor maintained eye contact with Leagh Larus as he said, “I need nothing from you or your kith. I will find the seeds of my protection in another’s garden.” At that, he gave a mocking bow to Rowena and made his way by them.
“Don’t let the vines whip ya on the way out!” Larus called after him. Then he turned to the wereboar and said, “Get a detail on him, Montague. But make sure they’re fairy. I don’t want any of our number falling in with him because of errant mind spores.” The boar, drooling from his tusks, made a stark nod before making off to collect a group of pixies and sprites to attention. Finally, Larus turned to Fionn who was still frozen with fury. “What are you? Breathing taxidermy?! You are Steward, Breith! What in Spice’s name happened?”
Fionn blinked slowly, his breathing slowing in careful increments. Then the great beast looked down at Rowena and said, “I ask your dismissal, Frue. I am not fit for duty.”
“You can’t just chicken out like that!” Larus criticized, drawing an irrous look from a giant rooster dragging a cart full of soiled weapons.
“Fionn, please don’t go,” Rowena begged quietly. “We have court! I still don’t know what to do.”
The hart forced air through his teeth. “Cairne Cora can instruct you on proper protocol. I am not fit right now.”
Larus was as incredulous as the maiden. “You’d really delegate to the pyremistress? Has your sense gone straight to your wrack?”
“You don’t know protocol, otherwise I’d leave the task with you,” the elk snapped at the goblin. “Now, allow me my dignity… please.”
“You’re dismissed, Steward,” Rowena said after a long pause and the white stag slunk from their presence like a pale omen, dragging some of the ivy from its place as he made a hasty egress.
Larus regarded her seriously as he asked, “You’ll really seek out Cairne?”
“I don’t know,” Rowena said. “I don’t know how to get back to The Bounty. Honestly, I don’t even know how to get back to my suite.” She shook her head suddenly, feeling worried for her steward and wondering if Fionn was really the best fit for the job, considering his sudden want to leave. “What is between Fionn and Toor? Would you tell me, Larus?”
“I’m a goblin, Your Bastardliness. We are, by nature, shameless gossips.” His rueful grin evaporated almost as quickly as it appeared, however, as he said, “I’ll have some of my men escort you to the salon. As for Breith and Jarl, Toor killed Fionn’s hind seventeen cycles ago. She wasn’t with a fawn. Now, Fionn is alone.”
“Why wasn’t Toor held accountable for the killing?” Rowena asked.
Larus gave the innocent maiden a genuinely surprised expression. He said matter-of-factly, “Toor is a hunter, Frue. Gwenn was winter game.”
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