Queen of Springtime Read Online Free Page A

Husathirn Mueri, who was Beng himself on his father’s side, though his mother had been of the Koshmars, that the captain of the guards carried the concept a little too far.
    He wasn’t one to put much stock in high formality. It was a trait he owed, perhaps, to his mother, a gentle and easy-going woman. Nor was he greatly impressed by men like the guardsman, who strutted boisterously through life making a way for themselves by virtue of their size and bluster. He himself was lightly built, with a narrow waist and sloping shoulders. His fur was black and dense, striped a startling white in places and nearly as sleek as a woman’s. But his slightness was deceptive: he was quick and agile, with tricky whiplike strength in his body, and in his soul as well.
    “Nakhaba favor you,” Curabayn Bangkea declared grandly, dipping his head in respect as he approached the throne. For good measure he made the signs of Yissou the Protector and Dawinno the Destroyer. A couple of the Koshmar gods: always useful when dealing with crossbreeds.
    Husathirn Mueri, who privately thought that too much of everyone’s time was taken up by these benedictions and gesticulations, replied with a perfunctory sign of Yissou and said, “What is it, Curabayn Bangkea? I’ve got these angry bean-peddlers to deal with, and I’m not looking for more nuisances this afternoon.”
    “Your pardon, throne-grace. There’s a stranger been taken, just outside the city walls.”
    “A stranger? What kind of stranger?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Curabayn Bangkea, shrugging so broadly he nearly sent his vast helmet clattering to the ground. “A very strange stranger, is what he is. A boy, sixteen, seventeen, skinny as a rail. Looks like he’s been starved all his life. Came riding down out of the north on top of the biggest vermilion you ever saw. Some farmers found him crashing around in their fields, out by Emakkis Valley.”
    “Just now, you say?”
    “Two days ago, or thereabouts. Two and a half, actually.”
    “And he was riding a vermilion? ”
    “A vermilion the size of a house and a half,” Curabayn Bangkea said, stretching his arms wide. “But wait. It gets better. The vermilion’s got a hjjk banner around its neck and hjjk emblems stitched to its ears. And the boy sits up there and makes noises at you just like a hjjk.” Curabayn Bangkea put both his hands to his throat and uttered dry, throttled rattling sounds: “ Khkhkh. Sjsjsjssss. Ggggggggjjjjjk. You know what kind of ghastly sounds they make. We’ve been interrogating him ever since the farmers brought him in, and that’s about all that comes out of him. Now and then he says a word we can more or less understand. Peace, he says. Love, he says. The Queen, he says.”
    Husathirn Mueri frowned. “What about his sash? Any tribe we know?”
    “He doesn’t wear a sash. Or a helmet. Or anything that might indicate he’s from the City of Yissou, either. Of course, he might have come from one of the eastern cities, but I doubt that very much. I think it’s pretty obvious what he is, sir.”
    “And what is that?”
    “A runaway from the hjjks.”
    “A runaway,” Husathirn Mueri said, musing. “An escaped captive? Is that what you’re saying?”
    “Why, it stands to reason, sir! There’s hjjk all over him! Not just the sounds he makes. He’s got a bracelet on that looks like it’s made of polished hjjk-shell—bright yellow, it is, one black stripe—and a breastplate of the same stuff. That’s all he’s wearing, just these pieces of hjjk-shell. What else can he be, your grace, if not a runaway?”
    Husathirn Mueri narrowed his eyes, which were amber, a sign of his mixed ancestry, and very keen.
    Now and then a wandering band of hjjks came upon some child who had strayed into a place where he should not have gone, and ran off with him, no one knew why. It was a parent’s greatest fear, to have a child taken by the hjjks. Most of these children were never seen