I was looking at a picture in a book, not something real, and I was so tired that I was nothing but my body: the steady dull throb in my thighs, the tremor all along my arms, the thick grime of dust muffling my skin.
A company of soldiers waited for us below at the crossroads, arrayed in ranks around a large platform that had been raised over the center. Half a dozen priests and monks stood upon it, flanking a man in the most astonishing priest’s robes I had ever seen, deep purple embroidered all over with gold. His face was long and severe, made longer by his tall, double-coned hat.
Marek pulled up, looking down at them, and I had time to catch my plodding horse up to him and the Falcon. “Well, my father’s trotted out the old prosy,” Marek said. “He’ll put the relics on her. Is this going to cause difficulties?”
“I wouldn’t imagine so,” the Falcon said. “Our dear archbishop can be a little tedious, I’ll grant you, but his stiff neck is all to the good at the moment. He’d never permit anyone to substitute in a false relic, and the real ones won’t show anything that’s not there.”
Caught in indignation at their impiety—calling the archbishop old prosy!—I missed the chance to ask for an explanation: why would anyone want to show corruption if it wasn’t there? Marek was already spurring his horse onward. The queen’s wagon rattled down the hill behind him, and even though their faces were avid and bright with curiosity, the crowd of onlookers drew back from it like a wave washing back out from the shore, keeping well clear of the wheels. I saw many of them wearing cheap little charms against evil and crossing themselves as we passed.
The queen sat without looking to either side or fidgeting, only rocking back and forth with the wagon’s roll. Kasia had drawn close to her side, darting a look back at me that I returned, equally wide-eyed. We’d never seen so many people in our life. People were pressing in close enough around me to brush against my legs, despite my horse’s big iron-shod hooves.
When we drew up to the platform, the soldiers let us through their ranks and then circled round, leveling their pikes at us. I realized in alarm that there was a tall thick stake raised up in the middle of the platform, and beneath it a heap of straw and tinder. I reached forward and caught a corner of the Falcon’s sleeve in alarm.
“Stop looking like a frightened rabbit, sit up straight, and smile,” he hissed at me. “The last thing we need to do right now is give them any excuse to imagine something’s wrong.”
Marek behaved as though he didn’t even see the sharp steel points not two feet from his head. He dismounted with a flourish of the cape he’d bought, a few towns back, and went to lift the queen down from the wagon. Kasia had to help her along from the other side, and then at Marek’s impatient beckoning, she climbed down after her.
I’d never known it before, but a crowd so large had a steady running noise to it like a river, a murmuring that rose and ebbed without turning into separate voices. But now a complete hush descended. Marek led the queen up the steps onto the platform, the golden yoke still on her, and drew her before the priest in the tall hat.
“My Lord Archbishop,” Marek said, his voice rolling out clear and loud. “At great peril, my companions and I have freed the queen of Polnya from the evil grasp of the Wood. I charge you now to examine her to the utmost, to prove her with all your relics and the power of your great office: be sure that she bears no sign of corruption, which might spread and infect other innocent souls.”
Of course that was exactly what the archbishop was here for, but I don’t think he liked Marek making it seem as though it was all his idea. His mouth pressed down to a thin line. “Be sure that I will, Your Highness,” he said coldly, and turned and beckoned. One of the monks stepped up beside him: a short, anxious-looking man in plain brown linen, with brown hair cut in a round cap around his head. His eyes were enormous and blinking behind large gold-rimmed spectacles. He held a long wooden casket in his hands. He opened