The Time Roads

* * *

We spoke a while longer, about Cill Cannig and the changes in my cabinet, about his two daughters and his wife. Fifteen years had passed since my father died and I became queen. Aidrean Ó Deághaidh had served as my bodyguard and my friend in those early days, a gift I had not truly comprehended until I lost it. Later I had sent him to Montenegro. He had not only uncovered the treachery in my Court, he had undone a plot that might have plunged Europe into war.

And now? Now we were friends. A gift I deeply treasured.

And yet, I had not told him anything close to everything.

No mention of my need for an heir, that perpetual complaint from my ministers. Nor of the contentious state of Éire’s Congress, which made each law, each debate, a matter for loud speeches and little action. It was this contentious state, I believed, that had led to the attempt to suborn my last favorite, and through him, Lord Cleary. Both had died by private assassination, a signal to others.

Nothing at all about Breandan Ó Cuilinn, my first true favorite, who had vanished one bright autumn day while investigating the subject of time and its fractures.

An hour later, Aidrean took his leave and departed for the suite of rooms assigned to him. Before he left, we arranged another private interview, ten days from now. He would spend the interval reacquainting himself with the Court, and conferring with the Queen’s Constabulary about this new and deadly weapon. I wanted no accidents with my conference this summer.

I waited until I was certain Aidrean had crossed into the visitors’ wing. Only then did I set off on my own nightly excursion, one that had become increasingly necessary over the years. With my guards trailing discreetly behind, I passed from the Royal Enclosure, through the many public rooms in the central quadrant, and into the far reaches of the palace, to a series of empty, dusty rooms, never used since a certain day twelve years before.

I paused outside the set of double doors. Here the electric lamps flickered, as though tossed by winds beyond the natural world. My heart caught in a stitch. An old habit, I told myself. Only the past lingered inside the room before me. And yet, I came here night after night, to visit the dead.

I signaled for my guards to remain in the corridor, and passed inside alone.

No electric lamps burned here. There was only the faint glow from outside. By that uncertain light, I progressed through the empty spaces, which were interrupted here and there by old broken crates, a dust-covered worktable, a few crumbs of the past represented by discarded papers or other detritus left between two opposing time streams.

Once Breandan Ó Cuilinn had demonstrated his time machine to me in this chamber. Months after the time fractures healed, stealing my memories, I had discovered the report of its workings, which he had sent into the future.

I abandoned you.

Not that I had any choice. No, that was not correct. I had the choice—between rescuing my beloved and leaving a dozen others dead. Even if I had undone the past, I had no assurance of mending the future.

As though my thoughts had summoned it, a scrap of mist, like a scrap of white lace, floated downward from the ceiling. A moment passed. Another drifted toward me and joined with the first. And another. One by one, they gathered into a larger mass, which gradually took on the shape of a man, its form writhing in an invisible, intangible wind. Bits of the figure detached themselves and flickered off into nothing, but the shape never diminished in size. Indeed, the longer I watched, the larger it grew until it loomed over me.

I tilted my head back. The figure hovered inches away above me, its face a blank mask.

My ghost.

As with every other encounter, the face changed as I watched. Specks and shadows and gaps whirled around until the blankness was replaced by features—features that I recognized.

Breandan Ó Cuilinn looked down at me. His lips moved rapidly, as though he urgently wished to tell me something. But when I reached upward, the ghost vanished into a whirl of dust.

* * *

The early editions of the Osraighe and Londain newspapers reported in lurid detail about Thomas Austen’s execution, with altogether too many references to blood spattered over freshly fallen snow, and how the queen had fled the courtyard well before the body had been examined and wrapped in its cotton shroud. No mention of the bitter cold, or the wound Austen himself had inflicted on me. No mention of the guards who had died protecting their queen. There was one blurred and grainy photograph of a black-clad figure lying on the snow-covered ground, with soldiers stationed around. Judging by the angle and direction of the image, the photographer had been positioned on one of the surrounding rooftops, which in turn meant bribes offered and taken, and another round of investigations.

And so my mood was already dark and irritable when my secretary admitted Lord Ó Duinn for our private interview. A few steps behind came Lord Ó Cadhla. I eyed them both narrowly. “Did you conspire together, or is your appearance here, at this hour, mere happenstance?”

Lord Ó Duinn protested, but Lord Ó Cadhla merely shrugged. “The fault is mine, Your Majesty,” he said. “I persuaded Lord Ó Duinn to arrange this meeting.”

“Did you persuade him to use trickery as well? Never mind. I know you did. Sit, both of you. You are too old to be so troublesome,” I added to Ó Cadhla.

Ó Cadhla laughed, a soft wheezing laugh that reminded me of Lord Mac Gioll in his later years. “Would you rather I retired from Court and spent my days poking and prodding at my grandchildren?”

“I would,” I said. “They would not thank me, but I hardly care for their thanks.”

He laughed again. “I am old. And I’ve abandoned the diplomatic path for one more direct. So. Let me confess that I provoked and persuaded Lord Ó Duinn to request the interview, then to include me. Let me further state that you must meet with the Anglian delegation, no matter how much you dislike the idea.”

A conspiracy of virtue, I thought bitterly.

We took our seats around the fireplace, which the servants had built fresh. Outside the skies were gray and sleet speckled the windows. My steward served us with coffee and tea and a selection of fresh pastries. I accepted a cup of strong coffee and waited while the others were served. Once we were alone, I nodded at Ó Duinn to speak.

“You knew I had already refused this delegation’s demands. And you knew my reasons for doing so. Now you advise me to ignore my instincts in the matter.”