The Hidden Queen by Alma Alexander Read Free Book Online

subtle signals of his flashing eyes, saw how much it upset him to see the grief expressed by the people at the sight of that third, smallest casket. Even at her own “funeral,” his half-sister was successfully upstaging him.
    But that was the last time. With the past laid to rest, the next ceremony was wholly Sif’s. He was crowned in the full brilliance of a royal sacrament, every detail meticulously planned. He would stamp his right to rule in the memory of every man and woman who saw him take the crown. And if a heresy had already taken root, a story of another crowning, which should have been put to rest in an irrevocable manner with Anghara’s burial but which only seemed to have been inflamed by it, it would have been a foolhardy man indeed who showed he knew anything about it at Sif’s coronation.
    And the story did flower in Miranei, and spread beyond. There were those who may have bowed to circumstance and accepted Sif as the new king in Miranei who nevertheless flatly refused to believe Anghara was dead, and spoke of her return as if it was preordained. When Sif first heard the tale, he had merely laughed. When it surfaced to taunt him again and again, he ceased to find it funny.
    “I could order the body taken from the vault and exhibited, and put the whole thing to rest,” he said to Fodrun one evening, in a particularly foul mood about the story that wouldn’t die. He was pacing back and forth in front of the stone fireplace in what had been Dynan and Rima’s bedchamber, which he had appropriated for his own use. “I should have thought of that before, however, and provided the body. Finding one now, one that looks sufficiently like her, at the right stage of decomposition—it might prove a little difficult. I laid her in the family vault, Fodrun, and she will not stay. Anghara is a restless ghost.”
    Sif had been king for almost two months, and only Fodrun and Clera knew just how vulnerable he still felt, part of the reason why the stories of Anghara bit so deep. People tended to forget all too easily, given Sif’s considerable abilities and the tenacity and ruthlessness with which he pursued his goals, that the new king was only a few weeks past his twenty-first birthday.
    “I wonder what would happen,” said Sif rather grimly, “if Anghara rode into the bailey and proclaimed herself queen, with that damned declaration in one hand and Dynan’s great seal in the other. I never did find that, Fodrun. If Rima had anything to do with hiding it, she knew Miranei better than any born here. We’ve been over every conceivable place with a fine-toothed comb.” If Anghara should choose to challenge Sif for her heritage, his possession of the throne would count for little, should she convince the people of the truth of her claims. He knew that. Anghara would know it, too.
    Fodrun, who knew he had been summoned that night to deal with his king’s fit of despondency, as he had done before on previous occasions, eyed a half-full decanter of red wine on a nearby table with longing, but the king had not offered. He swallowed, looked away. “I may have found something,” he said diffidently.
    Sif stopped pacing, whirled in mid stride. “Tell me!” he commanded.
    “There was a sudden flurry of departures in the wake of the first rumors of your coming, lord,” said Fodrun. “It’s hard to be sure. But I have heard some of those wagons and carts were heading toward sanctuary.”
    “The priests of Nual?”
    “Yes.”
    Sif rubbed his temples with his hands. “If she is there, the priests will never tell. And I cannot breach sanctuary with a raid. Roisinan may forgive Dynan’s son much, but not that.”
    “But there is another way to find out. Not all who go into sanctuary go there for good. Nual shelters many who go to him for a few weeks, a few days, even; sometimes merely a wife fleeing from her husband’s wrath, or a scoundrel evading the law.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “What if a man