Free The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

consent. She is the queen.'
    "The mudlick shrugged. 'As you please,' he said. 'I only thought to do you a kindness. I suppose he really is too old for my mistress's liking....'
    " 'I shall do it in secret,' Dirna said. 'I shall tell her the thirst fever took him and he went to the lake and fell in.'
    " 'Tell her the water witch took him,' said the mudlick. 'Then she will think you have the fever, too, and no one will blame you.'
    "Then the mudlick swam off and Dirna returned to camp. She slipped into the prince's tent where the boy lay sleeping. There she roused him from his cushions and told him to come out to the lake, that there was something great and wonderful to see, but they must make no noise, so as not to wake the others. The young prince went with her willingly enough, for though she had never been very kind to him, she had never given him reason to distrust her. So, while the distant jackals cried and keened, the two stole out of camp and down to the lake where the mudlick waited.
    " 'See?' said Dirna, pointing. 'There it is.'
    " 'There is what?' said the prince. 'I see nothing.'
    " 'Lean closer,' Dirna urged him. 'Now do you see?'
    " 'No,' said the prince. 'What must I look for?'
    " 'You must lean closer still, then,' Dirna told him. 'You will know it when you see it.'
    " 'But I see nothing,' said the prince, leaning so far forward his face almost touched the water.
    " 'Closer,' said Dirna, and this time when he leaned craning to see what she was pointing at, the nurse shoved him hard, so that he fell from the bank and into the lake without so much as a cry. The jackals called. Dirna stood watching to see if he would come to the surface, but the water closed over him with hardly a ripple.
    "Then Dirna ran back to camp as quickly as she could and burst into the queen's tent staring wildly and clutching her throat as though she could not breathe. They were a long time getting any sound from her, and for a while that was only shrieks and wails, but finally between much tearing of the hair and tearing her cheeks with her nails, she began to babble and rave.
    "And half the time she told them the prince had slipped at the lake's edge and the other half she swore a water witch had caught him by the hair and pulled him in. Finally, she fell into a faint at the queen's feet and could not be roused.
    "Whether the queen believed one or the other of the tales, I do not know, but most of the people believed the one of the witch. Many said that the witch had claimed her tribute and would let them go now. Camp was hurriedly struck and the camels loaded for travel.
    But the queen saw none of this, for she had gone to the lakeshore to weep for her son.
    "Then when she returned and saw the caravan ready awaiting, she said, 'Let us depart; this is an evil place.'
    "And this time they found their way out of the canyons, and into the desert once more.
    They soon came upon clear water, and eventually found their way home. Great was the grief of the king when he found his son was dead. The pilgrimage proved fruitless, for the queen was still barren, and at last her husband was obliged to put her aside, and she removed across the Sea-of-Dust to Ester-nesse.
    "The chieftain twice remarried, young daughters of neighboring rulers, but both died very soon, and neither conceived. Blight came to the land, killing the cattle and crops. People began to say the house of the king was accursed, and drifted away. The king grew old before his time, and at last died without heir in a plague year that struck down most of the remaining people.
    "Those who were left fled. There was no one to succeed the king, and no one left to rule over. The servants took what goods they might from the palace and departed. The palace guard rounded up those who were left to sell for slaves. Dirna was one of these. She had begun to go blind. Ever since she had drunk the chill waters of that still, dark lake, her sight had worsened, until now both eyes were covered with a