yourself.”
The joke drew a forced smile from the normally jovial priest. “With all those guards out there? I think not.” He glanced toward the anteroom door, then shook his head and told her, “The truth is, I have no way of knowing. I could ask the royal healers if there have been any signs, but they’d know at once my reason for asking.”
Tanalasta considered this, then shook her head. “Let’s avoid that. We need no rumors sweeping the realm, at least not until the nobles have accepted that I am married.”
“And to whom,” Owden added pointedly.
Tanalasta flashed him a frown of irritation, one of those rare glowers she reserved for the few people who would not interpret them as some subtle message by which whole families were made and unmade.
“Would knowing the signs make any difference to the child?”
Owden thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Either you are still with child or you aren’t,” he said simply. “If you are, all we can do is keep pouring Chauntea’s blessings into your womb and pray they are enough to counter the corrupting influences of your association with the ghazneth.”
“Would you please call it a fight?” Tanalasta asked dryly. “‘Association’ makes it sound like we were… trysting.”
Owden winced at her objection, but the anteroom door banged open before he could apologize. Jerking her bed gown down over her breasts, Tanalasta looked over with an angry rebuke on her tongue and found her mother striding into the room.
Queen Filfaeril was, as always, strikingly beautiful. Tresses of honey blonde hair streamed behind her, and blue eyes glared at Owden’s hand, which continued to rest over Tanalasta’s womb. If the harvestmaster felt any embarrassment, his face did not betray it.
“Mother,” Tanalasta mumbled, so surprised that she strained her aching jaw. “You might have had someone announce you.”
Filfaeril continued toward the bed, her stride growing more assertive and forceful. “I came as soon as I heard you had awakened.” She stopped at the base of the bed and continued to glare at Owden’s hand. “I’m glad to see you feeling so well.”
Tanalasta felt the heat rising to her cheeks, but took her cue from Owden and refused to take the bait. “To be truthful, I’m not quite sure how I feel.” She waved at Owden and said, “You remember Harvestmaster Foley?”
“How could I forget?”
The expression in Filfaeril’s eyes would have wilted a lesser man, but Owden merely stood and bowed without removing his hand from Tanalasta’s abdomen. “As radiant as ever, your majesty.”
Having failed to intimidate Owden, Filfaeril turned to Tanalasta and said, “A bit old for you, don’t you think?”
“That is hardly to the point, Mother,” said Tanalasta. “Harvestmaster Foley is tending to my health-as I am sure you know.”
Filfaeril’s expression remained icy. “The royal healers are not to your satisfaction?”
“I prefer Owden.” Though her feelings were fast growing as icy as her mother’s glare, Tanalasta forced herself to smile. “Surely, even a princess may choose who lays hands on her own body without the matter becoming the latest political crisis?”
A hint of shame flashed through Filfaeril’s eyes, but she quickly regained control of her expression. In a slightly warmer voice, she said, “I suppose that is hardly too much to ask, and I really did not come here to discuss the matter of your royal temple anyway.” She turned to Owden and graced him with a queenly smile. “So, how does our patient fare? I wasn’t aware that she had suffered any injuries so far… south.”
“She is a hale woman, majesty.” Owden raised a querying eyebrow at Tanalasta-ever so slightly-and received the merest shake of a head in response, then continued without missing a beat. “She had some pain in her intestines, but I’m sure it is merely a matter of lying in bed too long… nothing a long walk won’t cure.”
As subtle as the signals between Tanalasta and Owden had been, they did not escape Filfaeril’s notice. Her queenly smile grew cold enough to freeze a bonfire. “A walk, you say?” the queen asked. “Your Chauntean remedies are certainly more forward than those of our royal healers. They have warned me not to let her leave bed for the next tenday.”
“A tenday!” Tanalasta pushed herself up. “Not on their-“
Owden motioned her back down and said, “The royal healers have not had occasion to observe the princess as closely as I over the past year. Trust me, the exercise will do her more good.”
“I trust you,” said Tanalasta. “That’s all that matters.”
Thankfully, Owden’s healing hand finally cooled against her skin. He withdrew it, allowing her to lower her bed gown the rest of the way.
Filfaeril continued to glare at the priest so icily that even he began to grow uncomfortable.
He turned to Tanalasta and said, “If you are feeling well enough, perhaps I will withdraw and see to my own wounds.”
“Of course, Owden, and thank you-for everything.”
Owden bowed to her and the queen, then left. As soon as the anteroom door closed, the queen’s attitude softened. She took the priest’s place on the edge of the bed.
“I really didn’t mean to intrude, my dear.” She took Tanalasta’s hand. “It’s just that when I heard you were awake, I couldn’t wait a moment longer to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Tanalasta regarded her mother warily, as surprised now as at their parting less than two months earlier, when the queen had berated her so ferociously for wanting to establish the Royal Temple of Chauntea. “Truly?”
Tanalasta’s astonishment seemed to take Filfaeril aback. The queen looked confused for a moment, then let slip an uncharacteristic snort of laughter.
“Not about the temple, my dear! You’re still going to have to forget that idea before your father will feel comfortable dying and leaving the throne to you.” Filfaeril tried a diplomatic smile and saw it fail, but continued unabashed. “What I am sorry about is the way I handled you.”
“Handled me, Mother?”
“Yes, Tanalasta, handled you.” Filfaeril’s voice had grown stern. “We are both women of the palace, and the time has come to acknowledge that. It doesn’t mean that we don’t love each other, or Azoun and Alusair-“
“Or even Vangey,” Tanalasta added.
The queen’s eyes darkened noticeably, but she nodded. “Even Vangerdahast-and he is the worst handler of any of us. We all have our own aims that inevitably set us against each other, and the only way to stay a family is to acknowledge the fact.”
Tanalasta regarded her mother as though meeting her for the first time. “All right…”
“So what I am sorry about is misjudging you. I was frightened by the change in you after Huthduth, and I thought you weren’t ready to be queen.” Filfaeril paused to blink away the tears welling in her eyes, then continued, “I thought you never would be, and I told your father to name Alusair in your place. I did everything I could to persuade him, but Vangerdahast wouldn’t have it.”
“Vangerdahast?” Tanalasta began to wonder what her mother was playing at. Vangerdahast had made a living hell of her life over the last year, constantly trying to bully her into becoming the kind of queen he expected to sit on the throne of Cormyr. Finally, the situation had grown so bad that Tanalasta had rebelled and told him to take what she was or start bullying Alusair into shape. “You aren’t saying that just because he’s gone, are you?”
“No,” Filfaeril said. She shook her head vehemently, and now the tears did begin to spill out of her eyes. “It’s the truth. He never doubted you, but I did. I apologize.”
“Don’t,” Tanalasta said. “There’s no need to apologize. There was at least one time when you were right. When Gaspar and Aunadar tried to poison Father, I couldn’t have been less ready. I’m far from sure if I am now, but that hardly matters at the moment. With the ghazneths running loose, Cormyr is on the verge of disaster.”
“It is no longer on the verge, I fear.” Filfaeril wiped her eyes dry, then rose to her feet, assuming her familiar regal air. “The blight has destroyed every crop in the north, and it’s working its way south by the day. There are wildfires everywhere, whole villages are going mad, and others are dying of the plague, the orcs have massed in the north and…”
“And the Seven Scourges are upon us,” said Tanalasta. “Blight, Madness, War, Pestilence, Fire,
