(Author’s commentary): Okay… I am really liking the crazy, old, almost blind and deaf queen!

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter 18

The Wavebounder led the fleet of twenty one ships into the bay that was the main port of Smilingman. Hildy stood at the bow with captain Reef. As they passed the headlands that sheltered the bay, the masts of many ships came into view. Captain Reef let out a bellow of a laugh. “There must be at least fifty ships her, princess. I was hoping that would be the case, but I was worried that it wouldn’t be.”

Hildy laid a hand on his arm. “Does this let you make a guess as to how many ships have fallen into the hands of the Skulls?”

Far fewer than I feared, my Lady,” the captain said, still grinning from ear to ear. “Between the ships here and those that sail with us, I think the Skulls only managed to commandeer twenty or so. They obviously didn’t set it as a priority to capture the trade ships first when they moved on the other kingdoms, and most of them slipped away while they were landing their troops. We will make them regret their mistake.”

Lawry, Zar and Sanara came up to join them as the fleet began to drop their anchors. Hildy turned to them, anxious to meet with the queen and see how she would react to all the startling news they had to share. “We will all go and pay our respects to queen Shylar. She can’t very well discount such a collection of royalty as this, can she?”

“I will take some boats and start buying hides, and send some more for stones, too,” Sanara said.

“No, you are coming with us,” Hildy contradicted her.

“I’m of more use doing what I know how to do.” Sanara insisted. “Besides, I’m a farm girl. My voice won’t help sway the queen one way or another.”

Lawry reached over and tousled Sanara’s hair. “You are an honorary princess. I hereby decree it. In fact, since Aluff claims, every chance he gets, that he intends to make you his wife some day, you can even be an honorary queen. There, you now outrank us all.”

Zar chimed in. “And you are on the command staff, as Hildy likes to call us. On top of that, I recall that queen Shylar likes straight talk, and isn’t impressed by anything else. She detests fancy clothes and courtly manners.”

“Are you saying I don’t have good manners?” Sanara asked, trying for a serious expression that was completely undermined by her snickering.

“Your manners are better than Aluff’s, that’s for sure,” Lawry added, almost having to double over as a fit of laughter took her.

Hildy hated to break the spell of camaraderie, but time was of the essence. She sent them all off to find the triplets, king Aluff, and prince Nudge, while she and captain Reef went to get a longboat readied and lowered from the deck. A short time, a short row, and a short walk later, they were passing through the last houses and shops of Smilingmantown and climbing the short hill towards the gate of the castle. As they neared them, a tiny little old woman wearing a wrinkled orange cloak came out of the gates to meet them on the road. She carried with her a short staff, with which she felt the ground before her feet.

Her gray hair, which was cut in a straight line above her brow and then dipped down to her shoulders on either side of her face, was noticeably thinning. Her skin was browned by the sun and incredibly wrinkled. Her eyes, which were a foggy gray and smoky with cataracts, were heavily lidded to the point where they almost could not be seen. She was stooped and thin and frail looking, and so short that there was not a person of any age in the group approaching her that had to look up at her, and yet there was a strength, a vitality, that was apparent to each of them.

Queen Shylar Dubins Smilingman stopped in the road in front of her castle gates and leaned on her stick, waiting until the group of visitors had reached her. She gazed directly ahead without looking at any of them. “Hello, Hildread, dear, I must say, when I heard about you kicking that Skull prince in his wineberries rather than marrying him, I had the best laugh I’d had in years. Then, I heard you killed him, and I laughed even harder. You’ve been a busy girl.”

Hildy opened her mouth to speak, but the queen wasn’t finished yet. “Lawrancia, you chose wisely to run off with your friend. Zareena, sorry about your husband, he was a nice young man. Aluff, I will miss your father. I hope you end up being half the man he was, but I’m not placing any wagers on that yet. Miri, Tam Tam, Andita, haven’t seen you since you were babies, but you were all handfuls then, as I recall. Young Sanara, I think I am going to like you, if half of what I have heard is true. And prince Nujeem, well, I’m sorry to say that I have no use for any member of your family that I have ever met so far. I didn’t like or trust your father from the time I first met him. I tried to tell people he was going to bring us all trouble, but nobody listens to an old woman, queen or not. I am, however, willing to reserve judgment on you, boy, but don’t make me regret it.”

Again Hildy opened her mouth to speak, and again the queen beat her to it. “Hildy, I am putting all my forces under your command. And you might be surprised when I tell you what that means, because I have been busy too. I only wish this had all happened when I was your age, so I could fight the Skulls myself. Now stop standing around with your mouths opening and closing like a bunch of fish, and let’s go inside and start making some plans.” Without waiting for an answer, the queen turned and started walking spryly back into her castle, tapping with her stick, leaving the rest of them to scurry after her.

Hildy found herself walking beside Nudge. He looked at her and gave a huge grin. “I like her. I think we came to the right place. I mean, I know there was no place else we could go, but still, I have a good feeling about this.”

Hildy returned the grin. She had been thinking the same thing.

Not long after they were all seated at a table in the great hall, food and drink being set before them. The plates and cups had not even touched the table before the queen was off again. “I’m too smart, that’s the problem. I spent years trying to tell everyone that someday we would all end up fighting the Skulls. I could see it in Nornan’s eyes. There was always something wrong in there, something dark. Oh, they all used to smile, tell me not to worry, that even if it ever came to that, things would be settled in the old way, a few broken bones, some knocked-out teeth, a cracked skull or two, and that would be that. Then nothing happened for so long that they stopped even pretending to listen to me. So I stopped trying to tell them.”

Hildy tried to break in to tell the queen just how right she had been, but once more she was forestalled. “I suppose by now you all know just how bad things are?” the queen half asked, then went on to supply her own answer. “Well, maybe you think you do, but you don’t know. I know. You know why I know? Because, when my trader ships go anywhere, my men go to town, they go to taverns. They meet people, and buy them drinks, and talk to them, and ask cagey questions. My boys walk around and look at things. They take note of things. They spread gold around. And they make nice with the pretty girls, and learn things that way too. And we have been doing this for a long time. And my boys ask questions of the other traders too, just to make sure there isn’t anything we missed.”

Hildy didn’t even try to say anything when the queen paused.

“Well, why don’t you say something?” the queen demanded. “You’re all smarter than fish, so why don’t you act like it?”

“We captured a Skull ship in Flame, and have just learned a little of what life is like under Skull rule,” Hildy ventured.

“Speak up, child, I can’t abide mumbling,” the queen complained.

Hildy had been speaking rather loudly, or so she thought. She repeated herself at a higher volume.

The queen scowled in Hildy’s general direction. Suddenly, she turned and yelled at one of her attendants. “Fetch my ears, Silman, we aren’t getting anywhere like this.” The man ran off and returned with two thin, metal, half-moon-shaped dishes, each with a small wooden handle protruding from one of the pointy ends. The queen grasped one wooden handle in each hand and held the metal bowls up to the sides of her head, positioning them behind her ears. She now had two much larger ears.

Hildy repeated herself once more. The queen wasn’t impressed and let Hildy know it. “I don’t care a loaf of bread what it’s like on Skull. Thanks to my people poking around, I know all too well what it’s like in the captured kingdoms. I had people there, in all the kingdoms, reporting back to me. I had to bring most of them home, though. Too dangerous to stay. But a lot of them are still trapped where they were. I have no way to get in touch with them now.”

Hildy made ready to speak once more, but didn’t get the chance, leaving her wondering why the queen even needed her big ears, if she never gave anyone a chance to say anything.

“So,” the queen said, speaking loudly as many people with poor hearing tend to do, “we know the Skulls are bad. We know they are trying to take over the world. We know we have to stop them.”

Hildy briefly explained about the size of the growing Skull army, and the ship and weapon production.

The queen smiled a conspiratorial smile. “I figured as much, just because of the ease with which they took over all the other kingdoms. While you lot have been skulking around, taking your time coming here, I have been preparing for war. Preparing like all the other kingdoms should have been but weren’t. I’m building more ships. And every man and boy on this big island is either learning how to fight, or soon will be. I’ve been stockpiling staves and slings, and ever since I learned about those nasty blades the Skulls have, I have had every tool maker and metal smith making those, too. We have almost eight hundred, last I heard, and five hundred slings. I have four thousand men training to use them. On top of that, there were fifty four ships in the harbor before yours showed up. What do you think of that?”

Hildy was astounded. She told the queen so, as loudly as she could.

The queen had more to say. “I have training camps set up in the valley behind the castle, and more going up all over the kingdom. More men are coming in all the time, but we can only train, arm and equip them so fast. I’m hoping you can help speed things along.”

Hildy wasn’t even sure that the queen had heard her last comment, but she shouted, “I will do what I can.”