She blinked at the news. The Marsher army was feared throughout the Named Lands. They did not surrender, certainly not to their own. How was this possible? Suddenly, his words sank in. She asked the question, but she knew what he meant and it chilled her. “Take the mark?”

Sobbing, he pushed aside his shirt and showed her the fresh cutting. “Oh my queen,” Seamus said, “I have failed you and the memory of your father.”

The sight of the broken old man and his tears crushed her, and she felt the water in her own eyes. She willed her lower lip not to quiver. “How did this happen, Seamus?”

He hung his head, and when he spoke, his voice was garbled. “We divided the army to search the villages. Each of the Twelve took a contingent. I took my men east to Valkry’s Rest to search the villages there. We found a hidden mountain shrine. Gaerrik and his contingent found another near Aensil’s Hope. We started searching our people for the mark.” He looked up, his eyes red. “Not everyone takes it by the knife. Some merely paint it on. Particularly those in positions that might require a more secret discipleship.”

She released her held breath. “How many?”

“Too many. There has been betrayal within the Council of Twelve. My men and I were ambushed in the night, both from within and without. Several of the council members were captured and given the option of taking the mark or laying down our lives. I do not know which were working against us, but I know our birds were intercepted and tampered with.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Where are the others, Seamus?”

Seamus hung his head again and said nothing. She watched the mucous and tears trail down into his beard.

Finally, the Scout Captain spoke up. “The others refused the mark and were executed.” There was bitterness in his voice, Winters realized, but it was not the bitterness of judgment.

I’m losing my people. She felt the weight of that truth and wrestled with tears that threatened to shame her. She looked to Jin Li Tam. “I am needed at home. I cannot go with you to Windwir.”

“Certainly you must do what you feel is best,” the Gypsy Queen said carefully, but Jin Li Tam’s hands moved even as her mouth did. Reconsider this choice; you could petition for kin-clave. The Marshlands are in other hands than yours, and you will need help to take them back.

Winters nodded, but a part of her wondered if her lands could be taken back. “I will consider it.” She looked to the captain herself now. “What else can you tell me?”

“There is an old man who fancies himself a prophet. He is preaching a new gospel openly now, and people are listening.” She saw distaste on the officer’s face. “He points to scriptures that predicted the fall of Windwir-to the very day-and claims it heralds the establishment of an empress.”

Yes, she remembered Ezra’s words from her bathing cavern. The Crimson Empress. A new gospel. The memory of it ran cold fingers over her skin. The Marshfolk had no gospel but the Book of Dreaming Kings with its promise of Home and restitution for the wrongs done them in the land of sojourn, but he’d told her a new one arose. “What scriptures did he reference?”

The captain shook his head. “I don’t know what they were called. The old man recited from memory, but it’s nothing I’ve heard before. Judging from your people’s response, they’d not heard it before, either.” His brow furrowed as he pulled words from memory. “ ‘And it shall come to pass at the end of days that a wind of blood shall rise for cleansing and cold iron blades shall rise for pruning.. ’ ”

As his words trailed off, Winters was surprised by the voice that picked up the recitation. “ ‘Thus shall the sins of P’Andro Whym be visited upon his children,’ ” Jin Li Tam said quietly.

Yes. She met Jin’s eyes and saw something there that disturbed her. Swallowing, she took a breath and finished the recitation. “ ‘Thus shall the throne of the Crimson Empress be established.’ ”

There was silence in the room, and Winters saw how pale Jin Li Tam had become. The Gypsy Queen regarded her with concerned eyes. I must be pale as well. It would not surprise her-these recent events staggered her. Somehow this weed had grown up in her own garden, beneath her very gaze. Beneath Hanric’s gaze, too, and perhaps even that of her father. She could imagine it now though it boggled her: Secret meetings in the forest and in the caves. Quietly recited gospels by candle. Cuttings for those who could take them, painted marks that could be easily washed away for those whose faith must remain hidden. All the while, building a secret army of blood skirmishers to bring terror and bloodshed into the Named Lands on a winter’s night, and to prune the last of the Androfrancines from the New World.

A thought struck her, but she put it aside. It simply could not be possible. Still, it remained: Could this resurgence within her people have anything to do with Windwir’s fall?

“I will go to Windwir,” she finally said in a low voice. “I will ask the Council of Kin-clave there to hear my petition and help my people.”

Jin Li Tam nodded. “A prudent decision.” Her hands moved. I know these words from a dream; and old Ezra quoted them to me when we arrived. He said more. Stay after the others have gone and we will speak of these things.

Winters inclined her head. “Yes, Lady.”

The old man snuffled, and she turned her attention back to him. “You will accompany me, Seamus, and tell what you have seen.”

When he did not answer, she put a hand on his shoulder. She felt it shake beneath her touch. “Look to me,” she said.

He shook his head. “I cannot bear to, Queen.”

She knelt then, and using her hands, she gently raised his face to hers. Bending forward, she kissed his filthy forehead. “Sometimes there is no good path, Seamus, and we make the best of the one we choose. Sometimes others make the choice for us but let us believe we’ve done the choosing.”

His sobs shook him, and she encircled the wiry old man with her arms, pulling his face to her chest as if he were a wounded child. Perhaps we’re all wounded children, she thought before continuing. “This mark is only in your flesh; it is not in your soul. And I need you alive for what is coming-so I will choose to be grateful for the choice you made.”

She did not look around the room for anyone’s reaction and did not need to. The silence that filled that moment spoke more volumes than the Book of Dreaming Kings ever could.

All eyes were upon her; she felt them boring into her, but she did not care. She gathered the old man unto herself and held him as he wept, whispering comfort to his ear. And he clung to her as if she were his mother, begging her forgiveness and sobbing his guilt into her breast.

Already, her mind spun the words she would bring before the leaders of the Named Lands to plea for her people. Already, she cast strategies and questions at this newest turn in the Whymer Maze and categorized each by order of priority, all the while whispering comfort to the man in her arms.

In that moment, Winters found an unexplainable calm settling over her and realized then that she no longer felt the urge to weep. Instead, her full attention went to soothing and gentling Seamus in his shame as her own sorrow waited quietly for a later, private time.

Perhaps, she thought, mothers and queens were not so very different after all.

Petronus

The air grew warmer on the Delta, and Petronus took to strolling Erlund’s meditation garden by afternoon. Though nothing bloomed now, he could paint it in his mind’s eye and it calmed him. The Entrolusians had, at one time, followed the teachings of T’Erys Whym when they were in fashion, and some forgotten Overseer had even commissioned a Whymer Maze to be grown and set with the various markers of that darker meditation.