The Time Roads (3 page)

“You are not dead,” he said quietly. “Nor so badly wounded we can put off this interview.”

He was right, of course. I sighed and waved a hand to show my assent.

That, apparently, was not good enough.

“Stop grieving for yourself,” Lord Ó Cadhla said crisply. “You have lost your father. Well, and so have I. Lord Mac Gioll here lost a brother and two sons in the last Anglian Uprising. I understand. But you must postpone your mourning for a more propitious time.”

“When I am nearly dead myself,” I muttered.

“That would be more convenient.”

His words brought a puff of laughter to my lips. “Speak,” I told him. “You will anyway.”

“So I will,” Ó Cadhla said. “First, you must have a more competent bodyguard. Lord Ultach and his staff have vetted all the members of the Queen’s Constabulary deemed fit to protect you. And they are fit. But they are not quite so … thorough as the man I would propose.”

“A bodyguard,” I repeated. “Who…”

“Commander Aidrean Ó Deághaidh,” Ó Cadhla said. “He served as a covert agent in Austria and that region for six years. More recently, at my recommendation, he enlisted in your father’s Constabulary to acquire experience at home. I have always found him reliable.”

“You mean he is one of yours.”

He nodded. “One of mine.”

Someone outside Court, but inside our circle of trust.

Though I disliked the necessity, I understood Lord Ó Cadhla’s reasoning.

“Very well,” I said. “Have him come tomorrow for an interview. Surely the Constabulary can protect me until then?”

They left me with a thick packet of reports, which I set aside for later. My shoulder ached, and I had little appetite for reading reams of bureaucratic paragraphs. It was easier to lie motionless, hoping that the drugs the physicians gave me would send me to sleep.

I spent a restless, fruitless hour in search of that sleep. Finally I abandoned the attempt and stared upward at the patterned ceiling, awash in moonlight. I briefly considered summoning the physicians for another sleeping draught, then abandoned the thought. It was not sleep I needed, but a sense of purpose.

He knew it,
I thought, as I maneuvered myself painfully onto my good shoulder.
He knew I would get bored.

Whatever their faults in predicting the assassination attempt, my Constabulary had worked quickly to discover those at fault. The attempt had been led by members of two key political groups with ties to certain influential members of Congress. With a sense of dread and irritation, I read the name of a cousin who had allowed himself to become the nominal leader of this movement.

You,
I thought,
have made a grave mistake.

More reports listed the names of lesser conspirators and the probable extent of their schemes. My difficulties would not end with one attack. Many in Éire’s government believed me too young to rule. Some wanted a regency. Some worked to shift power from the queen to Congress.

And there were the Anglians. Always the Anglians.

We shall never rid ourselves of the danger,
my father once said,
until we cut their chains and help them build a new nation of their own. Several new nations. They are not a monolith, after all.
He had meant to accomplish that in his own reign.…

The tears burned in my eyes. I swiped them away and read past the further details of plots and political maneuvers, to the details about this man, Ó Deághaidh.

Commander Aidrean Conaill Ó Deághaidh. He had taken an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Awveline University, then begun his graduate studies in Austria. Those same studies were broken off within the year, for reasons unknown. Fluent in German, French, Russian, and Czech, with smatterings of others. He had spent two years wandering through Europe and the Near East, during which time he’d come to the notice of Lord Ó Cadhla’s people, who recruited him for his ability with languages and his understanding of political matters. I saw nothing to suggest he would make a good bodyguard, but I knew Lord Ó Cadhla. My father had trusted him. I began to think I might as well.

*   *   *

“Commander Ó Deághaidh.”

“Your Majesty.”

It was three days after my near assassination. I chose for this meeting the smallest of my parlors, an intimate room with knotted silk rugs and cloth chairs gathering around the fireplace.

Commander Ó Deághaidh, however, remained as formal as if we were met in Cill Cannig’s grandest audience chamber. He stood at attention, his hands clasped behind his back: a tall man, as lean as a shadow and nearly as dark. Warm brown eyes. Dark hair cut short and swept back in the newest fashion. The reports said he was thirty-four. He appeared younger, except for the faint lines around his eyes.

“Why did you quit your studies?” I asked.

“Let us say I allowed myself to be distracted by the larger world.”

A reply that had a practiced quality, as if he had often had to answer this same question.

“Is that the truth?” I said.

His eyes narrowed with humor. “As I know it, yes, Your Majesty. However, I find in certain cases the truth depends upon perspective.”

I laughed. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh’s mouth quirked into a smile—a brief flicker of shared amusement. It changed his expression entirely. That intrigued me.

“So tell me,” I went on, “how you would protect me better than my own guards.”

At my insistence, he took the chair opposite me. We leaned toward the fire, heads close together, as he described his own impressions of the political situation. A part of me absorbed everything he said, to be reviewed later when I was alone. Another part took in details of the man himself. How his mouth was fuller than I would have expected for someone with such an angular face. How his voice had started off so cool and official, only to drop to a warmer lilting tone. He wore a pleasing scent, too—another surprise. From Lord Ó Cadhla’s initial description, I had expected Ó Deághaidh to be more the automaton. Instead I found myself intently aware of him as a handsome man, clever and so very competent.

“So you believe the conspiracy to be widespread.”

He paused. “I believe the number of opportunists is greater than expected.”

“There is a difference?”

He spread his hands, palms outward. “Given Éire’s history, I would say no, not ordinarily. But with your father’s sudden death, your inexperience, and the uneasiness on the Continent, there are many more these days who will be tempted to grasp power for themselves, while in other times they would refrain. Your father and grandfather often chose to mete out lesser sentences for those who strayed into treason, especially those duped by others. However, my recommendation to you is that we make no difference between the opportunists and the true conspirators. Call it a message to those who watch your reign.”

I nodded and felt a flutter of hope in my chest. “Do you want the position?”

He tilted his head, observed me for a moment—a long assessing look, as though he were measuring me, not as his queen, but as another human being. “Surely the question is yours to decide,” he said at last. “But since you ask, I say, yes, Your Majesty. Yes, I do.”

*   *   *

And so we talked and planned and argued about the coronation and how to keep me alive and whole, while giving the people a spectacle they could remember all their lives. For, as Lords Ó Cadhla and Mac Gioll and others in the Queen’s Council reminded me, this ceremony was meant to imbue me with the authority of history and tradition. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh himself simply shook his head, and took their recommendations into account. He had neatly insinuated himself into the ongoing investigation of the conspiracy. When he found the time, I had no idea. His absences from my side were few.

As for myself, I kept to my private chambers, visited only by my closest advisers and my physicians. The official reports said I needed time to recuperate. I suppose I did. I hated it, nevertheless.
Kings and queens do not hide,
I thought.
They act. Just like my father did. And our ancestors before him.

The physician’s last visit had left me aching and breathless. In between, there were other indignities. Nurses to wash the wounds and apply fresh ointment. Formal inquiries from the Congress about my recovery. Uncharacteristically, Aidrean Ó Deághaidh had vanished a few hours before. He returned just as the Court astrologers departed.

“Where have you been?” I demanded.

He smiled, as though to a fractious child. That only worsened my temper. The astrologers had made long and noisy protests over the new date for my coronation. They had calculated to a fine degree the position and phase of the moon—never mind those of the stars—and wanted another month to assure me of a propitious day. Now I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.

“You are tired, Your Majesty.”

“I know that,” I snapped.

Ó Deághaidh shifted his glance toward the fire. I saw his fleeting grimace.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I … I am impatient. I dislike being caged.” And before he could reply, I hastened to add, “That is hardly an excuse, I know. Merely an explanation.”

He acknowledged the apology and the explanation with a wordless gesture. There were bruises underneath those brown eyes, and a web of lines radiating outward. He must have spent half his nights in ceaseless work on my behalf. I felt a stab of shame.

“I’m sorry, Aidrean.”

A flinch, nothing more, at his given name.

I had forgotten—just for the moment—that we were queen and servant, not two friends. There was no possibility of apologizing. That would only exacerbate my offense.

But truly, I did not mean to offend. I meant only …

Better not to think what I meant.

“Can we manage it?” I asked hurriedly. “The coronation, I mean. In just two weeks.”

He nodded. “Most of the guests have remained in the city. The others could arrive by airship. What about the astrologers?”

“Let them determine the hour. Within reason,” I added.

His smile, edged by firelight, caused the last of my bad temper to leach away. “It shall be exactly as you wish, Your Majesty.”

It was.

Telegraphs went out the next morning to all the nations of Europe and beyond. Within a day the first balloons arrived—scarlet, silver, the royal blue and purple of the Austrian Empire, the golden lilies of Frankonia, the red lion of Alba, and pale blue dragons of Denmark. More and more filled the skies over the next ten days, from as far away as the Mexica States and the Japanese Empire, as though my guests had anticipated my plans and only awaited a word to set off for our shores.

My coronation was set for the second Monday in February—a cold bleak day, the skies mottled with cinder-black clouds that spat snow and frozen rain over the bare fields. Once more I rose at dawn and gave myself over to the maids and ladies of the Court. Once more I donned the layers of silk and cloth-of-gold—all new stitched because the old gown was burnt and stained. My shoulder ached in memory of that other day, but then Aidrean Ó Deághaidh appeared at my side to escort me to the waiting carriage.

I rode alone in my carriage through the gates, my guards on horseback at points ahead and behind. It was like an echo of that previous journey—the same and yet so different. My nerves felt raw and exposed. The ticking of sleet against the cobblestones sounded loud. And my heart, my heart danced fast and light. I thought I could feel an answering pulse from Aidrean Ó Deághaidh’s hand as he assisted me from the carriage, even through all the layers of cloth. I paused, just as before, and listened to Lord Mac Gioll’s studied speech. I gazed over the crowds of onlookers. I felt so removed from my surroundings, from the event itself, that it was not until I stepped into the cathedral’s shadowed entryway it struck me fully I was to be queen.

I paused a moment to recover myself. Then, with a signal to my guards, I continued forward into the pale yellow light of the cathedral’s vast body. Step, step, step, my guards keeping time with me. Then they too fell away and I walked alone the last distance, there to kneel before the archbishop.

She stood upon the steps leading up to the nave of the church. Her silver crown flared like a circle of flames around her seamed face, reminding me of ancient portraits of the saints.

“May the blood of our mothers and fathers bless you,” she said.

“May the flesh of our Lord and our ancestors guard us,” I replied.

So we continued, giving challenge and response. Behind me, I heard the low chant of the priests, smelled the rich rank scent of blood in the air. When the acolytes approached, one bearing a bowl and one a silver flagon, the archbishop dipped her fingers into the bowl and smeared the lamb’s blood over my brow.

“Let this symbolize our dedication to the mother and the father, to oak and stream and the Lamb of God.”

She offered me the silver flagon, also filled with blood. I drank it all.

Thereafter, memories scattered into fragments. I remembered the clouds of incense, impossibly thick, rising toward the ceiling with its portraits of saints and gods. The archbishop’s fingers brushing my temples as she set the crown upon my head. The warmth and weight of gold pressing against my forehead, like the weight of centuries. The ritual words intoned in Latin and old Éireann and the chants from the choir. Then a bell rang out, and I felt a pang within my heart.

I was Queen of Éire.

The archbishop offered me a flagon of cold water to wash the taste of blood from my mouth. More rituals and rites followed, first in the cathedral and then upon my return to Cill Cannig. A stream of festivities crowded every moment through the rest of the morning and into evening. My maids kept busy, helping me from one formal gown to the next. That night I dined with visiting kings and queens and ambassadors.

On and on and on. Until at last I sat in my rooms, swathed in a warm robe and drinking a soothing infusion of tea. It was past midnight. Outside, I heard the crackle and boom of fireworks. The skies were clear and spangled with stars. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh lingered by the windows, though both of us knew he had no official reason to be here.