Changer of Days by Alma Alexander Read Free Book Online

his mind.
    But Senena, his child-queen, had frequently found herself in need of a quiet, private place where she could hide from an intrusive and inquisitive court and the pretense that was her life.
    Few in Sif’s court had frequented his father’s Miranei—some had discreetly retired into the country, and others Sif himself had removed for reasons of his own. What remained was a court with more than its fair share of sycophants who tried to cultivate Senena in hopes of obtaining Sif’s ear, and who had done exactly the same thing to Colwen, his first queen. Given this company, Senena chose instead to befriend the chamberlain, who had also served Dynan—a kind and gentle man with no expectations from her. He had daughters her age, and was not fooled by the act she put on for Sif’s nobles. It was he who offered her the sanctuary of the minstrel’s gallery, and armed her with the key to its door.
    In recent months, as she grew large with child, Senena came to greatly appreciate this refuge. Colwen, who had left the court after her repudiation to accept a convenient marriage proposal from a border Duke, had returned to Miranei, apparently for no other reason than to flaunt her own swelling belly. It seemed her Duke had succeeded where Sif had failed, and had got her with child; and although Senena would deliver her child before Colwen, the spurned queen wanted to be in attendance when Senena went into labor—just in case Senena offered Sif a girl. Colwen did not omit to tell anyone the midwives had said that her own child was bound to be a boy. Sif ignored both the gibes and the woman; Senena was possessed of a thinner hide. Her gallery was a lifesaver.
    She had been there when Sif had brought Fodrun in. She had not meant to eavesdrop; but she had fallen asleep in the comfortable armchair her friend the chamberlain had procured for her, and by the time she’d woken the conversation below was in full swing. Moving would mean the risk of an inadvertent sound, putting both her own head and the chamberlain’s into the noose; she sat in silence, hoping they would finish their business soon and leave. But she could not help hearing what they spoke about. When she finally grasped that Anghara Kir Hama had not lain buried in the family vault these eight years as everyone had blithely supposed, but was instead a living prisoner in the Miranei dungeons, the shock was so great that even the baby within her turned and kicked violently.
    Anghara…alive…that meant Sif’s claim to the throne could only have been treachery…
    The next morning had been pandemonium, with the arrival of the messenger from Torial and Sif’s almost instant departure. Senena welcomed the distance between them, at least until she had a chance to come to terms with her new knowledge. But once Sif had left and Fodrun, whom he had left to be his lieutenant and her shadow, had been detained elsewhere, she donned a voluminous cloak and made her way to the great doors in the bowels of the keep. They stood banded and barred with iron, and blackened with centuries of smoke from the torches which always burned in two sconces, one on either side of the gate. Two soldiers stood guard before the gate to this underworld, their swords naked in their hands.
    “Hold,” one of them said, his voice low and somehow fittingly sepulchral in this place. “Who comes?”
    Senena had counted on surprise, and was amply rewarded by the sight of their faces as she pushed back the cowl of her cloak. “The queen,” she said. Her voice rang with confidence and authority she had never had, never even felt, as Sif’s wife; but these men weren’t to know. “Let me pass.”
    “Lady,” began one, dropping creakily on one knee, “it is not meet for a woman that you go down there…”
    “It is for a woman that I go,” said Senena. “I will not need to descend to her if you have her brought here to me. I wish to speak with her. Is there a place where I could do so in