He missed her.
The thought made him laugh. He’d stared down at her from the beams high above the altar, and she’d gazed back at him. She was only days old and so small he wouldn’t dare touch her, even if it was allowed. She hadn’t smiled at him even though he’d grinned down at her. He wasn’t certain babies knew how to smile. If he saw her again he could teach her. He hoped one day to be closer than the beam above the altar.
He’d seen so few babies. There were other children in the village, but he spent so little time outside the temple walls among the people that the day felt like a holiday in more ways than one. A new king had been crowned, a girl child had been born, and Saylok’s citizens had set their labors aside for a day of celebration. Dagmar had warned him to not stray too far from the temple and palace grounds, but Dagmar was walking in the king’s processional and wouldn’t know whether Bayr was as obedient as he’d promised to be.
He’d had a poor view for the king’s descent from Temple Hill, but he’d climbed a tree with wide branches that hung over the thoroughfare, and as the king’s procession turned the corner into the village square, he would have an unobstructed view of the entire parade, all the way to the very end, where the purple robes of the Keepers of Saylok rounded out the procession.
The chieftains, each carrying a standard emblazoned with their clan crest, rode at the front, a sign of support for and fealty to the new king of Saylok. Their hair was bound tightly in plaits that had no length, with ribbons extending down their backs, a symbol of hope that their braids would grow long under the new reign.
Bayr inched out onto the largest limb, his belly to the branch, so close that the gold flag of Leok would pass right below him. Banruud of Berne—of Saylok, for now he was king—rode behind the five chieftains on a horse so big and so black, the people pressed back, not wanting to spook the beast. The king, draped in red, was as intimidating as his horse, but though his progress was marked by the rippling wave of bowing onlookers, it was the girl child the people most wanted to see.
Behind the king, in a carriage not unlike the one that had transported King Ansel’s coffin, Banruud’s wife, Alannah, the new Lady Queen, sat holding the princess, though nothing was visible from Bayr’s branch but a small bundle in a sea of red. Red was the color of Berne and now the color of the throne. Bayr didn’t think the deep blood red suited the new queen or the tiny girl in her arms, and as Bayr watched the procession approach, he felt a tremor of foreboding run down his small back and settle in his hands. The Lady Queen, her face wreathed in smiles, waved to the crowd and tipped the babe toward the people to the left and then to the right so they could see her.
Below Bayr’s perch, the people writhed and pushed, shouting out to their chieftains and raising the name of the new king, and, as was the nature of most crowds, tempers grew short and people were caught in the crush. A figure, cloaked from head to toe in drab brown, the cowl of her hood extending far beyond her bowed head, lost her balance in the swell. She was stooped in such a way that she appeared old, feeble, and the people ignored her as they moved and pushed around her, trying to get a better view of the oncoming parade.
Without a second thought, Bayr swung from his branch and dropped into the fray, shoving people aside in order to help the old woman to her feet before she was trampled. She felt frail to him beneath her cloak, but she rose with an agility that belied her age. She clutched at her hood, her hands covered in fingerless wool mittens, though the day was too warm for such attire. Bayr was shorter than she, and though she tried to shield her face, he had only to look up to see what she tried to keep hidden.
She was human—eyes, nose, mouth, smooth cheeks, and an unlined brow—but otherworldly, and Bayr was too young to know he shouldn’t stare and too innocent to ignore her strangeness. She was not old, and her oddity was not in the formulation of her features, but in the complete absence of pigmentation from her eyes, skin, and hair. She was whiter than goat’s milk. Whiter than the clouds that hovered over the peaks between Joran and Leok, whiter than the snow in winter, whiter even than the death that had settled on King Ansel’s face in the sanctum.
The woman touched Bayr’s shoulder, and her lips—the only color in her face—murmured her thanks. Bayr understood the word, but he could not place her accent. The clans all had their own variations of tone and speech that made a man from Adyar in the north sound slightly different from a man from Ebba in the south, but the woman didn’t sound like she’d been raised in any of the clans.
Then he saw the tears on her face, the agony that twisted her otherwise regular features into grief’s grimace.
“A-are y-you h-hurt?” he stammered.
“No,” she said with a brief shake of her head, but her silver eyes had risen to the passing king. The crowd genuflected, clearing the view in rippling waves, and the woman began to tremble so violently, Bayr thought she might fall once more. The hair rose on his neck, and the people around them began to fidget and turn, sensing her distress. Unease rippled around her like a gathering storm, a disturbance in the air, felt but not seen.
The black horse carrying King Banruud suddenly shrieked and reared, and the crowd echoed the sound, collectively pulling back and cowering before the pawing hooves of the wild-eyed destrier. The king kept his seat, clinging to the flying mane, gripping the horse between powerful thighs, but he was not the only one in danger of being thrown. The once-docile white horse draped in red, pulling the carriage of the queen, suddenly rose on his hind legs, bucking and twisting in crazed contortions. The crowd gasped as the driver was tossed from his seat, hurtling into the screaming crowd.
The queen sat in the rear of the carriage, and though she was thrown to the floor, she managed to cling to her child and the side of the carriage. Beside Bayr, the white woman groaned, her agony becoming horror, and her distress was echoed throughout the crush. The white horse reared again, the carriage teetered wildly, and the crowd cried out once more. Bayr pushed his way through the flinching onlookers and rushed into the street, planting his legs and waiting for the white horse to thunder past him.
He heard Dagmar shout his name from somewhere in the distance, but his focus was centered on the careening carriage. He threw himself at the bolting horse, curling his hands into its mane and swinging himself onto the creature’s back. Digging his small knees into the horse’s withers, he gritted his teeth and bore down on the mane. The horse shrieked again, pawing the air in pain and desperation, his head folded back into Bayr’s chest.
“Whoa,” Bayr demanded. “Shh,” he soothed, and the horse, quaking and chuffing, his eyes rolling back in his head, came to a complete halt. The crowd cheered, and the horse trembled, but he didn’t lurch or bolt.
The parade came to a standstill, the keepers holding their formation in pious dismay, the crowd frozen in fear and fascination. The chieftains, still bearing the flags of the clans, looked on with incredulous grins, though their smirks faded when they saw the Lady Queen. Blood seeped from a gash at her hairline, but she rose under her own power, her wailing infant daughter clutched in her arms, and was helped from the carriage by the king’s shamefaced guard. There would surely be a reckoning, though none of them were to blame. It was the white woman’s fault, he was certain, though he could not say why.