Merel, however, was less easily satisfied. The plan devised by the little queen of Drasnia had been quite sound, but it suffered from one flaw – they did not have enough men to bring it off. Merel, however, had located an ally with certain resources and had brought him into the queen’s inner circle. A group of men in Cherek had not accompanied Anheg and the fleet to Algaria largely because they were not the sort of men who made good sailors. At Merel’s stern-faced insistence, the Queen of Cherek suddenly developed an overpowering enthusiasm for hunting. It was in the forest, safe from prying ears, that the details of the coup were worked out.
“When you kill a snake, you cut off its head,” Torvik the huntsman had pointed out as he, Merel, and Islena sat in a forest glade while Torvik’s men roved through the woods harvesting enough game to make it appear that Islena had spent her day in a frenzy of slaughter. “You don’t accomplish all that much by snipping pieces off its tail an inch or so at a time,” the broad-shouldered huntsman continued. “The Bear-cult isn’t really that concentrated in one place. With a little luck, we can gather up all the important members presently in Val Alorn in one sweep. That should irritate our snake enough to make him stick his neck out. Then we’ll simply chop off his head.”
Torvik’s use of such terminology had made the queen wince. She had not been entirely sure that the blunt, grizzled forester had been speaking figuratively.
And now it had been done. Torvik and his huntsmen had moved quietly through the dark streets of Val Alorn for the entire night, gathering up the sleeping members of the Bear-cult, marching them in groups to the harbor and then locking them in the holds of waiting ships. Because of their years of experience, the hunters had been very thorough in rounding up their quarry. By morning, the only members of the Bear-cult left in the city were the High Priest of Belar and the dozen or so underpriests lodged in the temple.
Queen Islena sat, pale and trembling, on the throne of Cherek. She wore her purple gown and her gold crown. In her hand she held a scepter. The scepter had a comforting weight to it and could possibly be used as a weapon in an emergency. The queen was positive that an emergency was about to descend on her.
“This is all your fault, Merel,” she bitterly accused her blond friend. “If you’d just left things alone, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“We’d be a worse one,” Merel replied coldly. “Pull yourself together, Islena. It’s done now, and you can’t undo it.”
“Grodeg terrifies me,” Islena blurted.
“He won’t be armed. He won’t be able to hurt you.”
“I’m only a woman,” Islena quailed. “He’ll roar at me in that awful voice of his, and I’ll go absolutely to pieces.”
“Stop being such a coward, Islena,” Merel snapped. “Your timidity’s brought Cherek right to the edge of disaster. Every time Grodeg’s raised his voice to you, you’ve given him anything he wanted just because you’re afraid of harsh talk. Are you a child? Does noise frighten you that much?”
“You forget yourself, Merel,” Islena flared suddenly. “I am queen, after alL”
“Then by all the Gods, be queen! Stop behaving like a silly, frightened serving girl. Sit up straight on your throne as if you had some iron in your backbone – and pinch your cheeks. You’re as pale as a bedsheet.” Merel’s face hardened. “Listen to me, Islena,” she said. “If you give even one hint that you’re starting to weaken, I’ll have Torvik run his spear into Grodeg right here in the throne room.”
“You wouldn’t!” Islena gasped. “You can’t kill a priest.”
“He’s a man just like any other man,” Merel declared harshly. “If you stick a spear in his belly, he’ll die.”
“Not even Anheg would dare to do that.”
“I’m not Anheg.”
“You’ll be cursed!”
“I’m not afraid of curses.”
Torvik came into the throne room, a broad-bladed boarspear held negligently in one big hand. “He’s coming,” he announced laconically.
“Oh, dear,” Islena quavered.
“Stop that!” Merel snapped.
Grodeg was livid with rage as he strode into the throne room. His white robe was rumpled as if he had thrown it on hastily, and his white hair and beard were uncombed. “I will speak with the queen alone!” he thundered as he approached across the rush-strewn floor.
“That is the queen’s decision to make, not yours, my Lord High Priest,” Merel advised him in a flinty voice.
“Does the wife of the Earl of Trellheim speak for the throne?” Grodeg demanded of Islena.
Islena faltered, then saw Torvik standing directly behind the tall priest. The boarspear in his hand was no longer so negligently grasped. “Calm yourself, revered Grodeg,” the queen said, quite suddenly convinced that the life of the infuriated priest hinged not only on her words but even on her tone of voice. At the tiniest quaver, Merel would give the signal, and Torvik would sink that broad, sharp blade into Grodeg’s back with about as much emotion as he showed about swatting a fly.
“I want to see you alone,” Grodeg repeated stubbornly. ”
“No.”
“No?” he roared incredulously.
“You heard me, Grodeg,” she told him. “And stop shouting at me. My hearing is quite good.”
He gaped at her, then quickly recovered. “Why have all my friends been arrested?” he demanded.
“They were not arrested, my Lord High Priest,” the queen replied. “They have all volunteered to join my husband’s fleet.”
“Ridiculous!” he snorted.
“I think you’d better choose your words a bit more carefully, Grodeg,” Merel told him. “The queen’s patience with your impertinence is wearing thin.”
“Impertinence?” he exclaimed. “How dare you speak that way to me?” He drew himself up and fixed a stern eye on the queen. “I insist upon a private audience,” he told her in a thunderous voice.
The voice which had always cowed her before quite suddenly irritated Islena. She was trying to save this idiot’s life, and he kept shouting at her. “My Lord Grodeg,” she said with an unaccustomed hint of steel in her voice, “if you bellow at me one more time, I’ll have you muzzled.”
His eyes widened in amazement.
“We have nothing to discuss in private, my Lord,” the queen continued. “All that remains is for you to receive your instructions – which you will follow to the letter. It is our decree that you will proceed directly to the harbor, where you will board the ship which is waiting to transport you to Algaria. There you will join the forces of Cherek in the campaign against the Angaraks.”
“I refuse!” Grodeg retorted.
“Think carefully, my Lord Grodeg,” Merel purred. “The queen has given you a royal command. Refusal could be considered treason.”
“I am the High Priest of Belar,” Grodeg ground out between clenched teeth, obviously having great difficulty in modulating his voice. “You wouldn’t dare ship me off like some peasant conscript.”
“I wonder if the High Priest of Belar might like to make a small wager on that,” Torvik said with deceptive mildness. He set the butt of his spear on the floor, took a stone from the pouch at his belt and began to hone the already razor-sharp blade. The steely sound had an obviously chilling effect on Grodeg.
“You will go to the harbor now, Grodeg,” Islena told him, “and you will get on that ship. If you do not, you will go to the dungeon, where you will keep the rats company until my husband returns. Those are your choices; join Anheg or join the rats. Decide quickly. You’re starting to bore me, and quite frankly, I’m sick of the sight of you.”
Queen Porenn of Drasnia was in the nursery, ostensibly feeding her infant son. Out of respect for the queen’s person, she was unspied upon while she was nursing. Porenn, however, was not alone. Javelin, the bone-thin chief of Drasnian intelligence, was with her. For the sake of appearance, Javelin was dressed in a serving maid’s gown and cap, and he looked surprisingly feminine in the disguise he wore with no apparent trace of self consciousness.
“Are there really that many cultists in the intelligence service?” the queen asked, a little dismayed.
Javelin sat with his back politely turned. “I’m afraid so, your Highness. We should have been more alert, but we had other things on our minds.”
Porenn thought about it for a moment, unconsciously rocking her suckling baby. “Islena’s moving already, isn’t she?” she asked.
“That’s the word I received this morning,” Javelin replied. “Grodeg’s on his way to the mouth of the Aldur River already, and the queen’s men are moving out into the countryside, rounding up every member of the cult as they go.”
“Will it in any way hamper our operations to jerk that many people out of Boktor?”