PART II Chapter 8

When Ashanta woke up some hours later she found Sharra and Lingqui talking quietly together in the sitting area, nibbling on slices of mango and with cups of tea at hand. They looked up when they heard her footsteps, and Sharra said softly, "We should have spoken to you about our plans before, and taken your opinions into account. Quingli was right to  demand that we discuss things with you, though we resisted him."

Ashanta nodded, and took a seat near the low table in the center of the room. "Thank you for listening to him. I will hear what you have to say now, and then I will tell you what I think. I will give full consideration to what you suggest, but I also want to tell you that if I think that your ideas have no merit, or that you are not giving consideration to what I have to say, then I will ask Quingli to give me refuge here until the babe is born, and then travel with her to some distant corner of the land and hide there until she is of age to do something to save the kingdom."

Lingqui began, "Highness, we have given a great deal of thought to the best way to keep you and your baby safe from King Rafe. To begin with, I think that we must be working under the assumption that King Rafe will see your child as a threat to the line of succession of the kings of the Shauvrin, and that he will not rest until he believes the child dead. Though we have tried to convince him that you have been killed by wild animals, leaving your bloodstained clothes to be found by hunters, it is by no means certain that they will be found. The could be destroyed by animals, or simply lie undiscovered until such time as they have disintegrated completely. Even if they are found, and recognized as your clothing, the king may not believe them to be proof of your death. He is a suspicious man, and sly, and this has stood him in good stead many times in his life. Now, however, it is very much to our disadvantage, as we cannot assume that he will be easily persuaded by our trickery."

"So you believe that the king will not believe that I have perished?" demanded Ashanta. "Why then did you bother to set my clothing as a trap?"

"You could not wear your royal clothing anymore without raising suspicion in any who saw you," observed Sharra, "and though the clothing might not convince the King that you had been killed, whoever found the clothing would likely spend valuable time returning the clothing to the castle. With luck, it will get us an extra couple of days lead on them."

"To continue," Lingqui went on, "we cannot assume that the king has decided that you must be dead, and so we must plan for the eventuality that he is still searching for you. It seems then that there are choices that we must make for us, and for the child. I will attempt to set before you the options that Sharra and I considered before reaching our decision, and I hope that Sharra will interrupt me if she can strengthen my position by her words. It seems to me that there are three main possibilities here, with many variations in the details. I speak for now in generalities, and perhaps we can discuss the specifics of the various cases later.

"One possible approach would be for Highness and the child to go into hiding here in the kingdom of the Shauvrin. I believe that this is probably the approach that will seem the most appealing to you, Highness, for it would allow you to remain in familiar surroundings, and to remain in contact with your child. The king will, I believe, continue his search for you, and there will be significant rewards offered for your discovery. What tenant farmer would not leap at the chance to have his own property? Remember that, unlike the average farmer's wife, you have been drawn and painted, and your likeness has been circulated throughout the kingdom. A veritable army of painters will be brought in to copy pictures of you, and every village will have your face hanging throughout. It will be very difficult, under these circumstances to remain hidden.

"A second possibility is to send both of you across the borders and into some other kingdom. While this would likely remove the threat of the king seeking you out, for what power does he have beyond his own borders, you would come under threat from the people of the other kingdom, and your child along with you. They might take you for a spy, for your language will be strange to them. If you come under suspicion of that type, you will certainly be killed, or at the least imprisoned. They may try to use you in a prisoner swap, and then you would fall back into the hands of King Rafe, who will not, let me assure you, be likely to be as forbearing the second time he finds you. Nay, I believe the second option to be as dangerous, though perhaps in a different way, as the first.

"That leaves us with the third option, which Sharra and I believe offers the best hope for security for the child, though it will without doubt prove to be the hardest on you. That is to move the child away from us not geographically, where she might be found, but rather temporally, to a place where she will be out of the reach of the king's will, whether it be for good or for ill —"

"I do not see how this can be the safest route for the child," Ashanta broke in angrily. "I can appreciate that there are risks in the other two choices, but they are known risks, and because they are known we have the ability to ameliorate them, though perhaps not negate them entirely. There are surely risks in this, this, temporal displacement as well, but they are not risks that we can know or understand and so we have no way of preparing to deal with them. And the suggestion that you send a tiny infant off to deal with them alone would be laughable were it not my child we were speaking of."

"The child would not have to deal with the risks along," Sharra said gently. "Of course an infant could not simply be brought into some other time and left there. Perhaps you would be willing to listen while we outline some of the precautions that we would take?"

Ashanta nodded, looking sullen, "I will listen, though I do not promise to agree to the suggestions."

"That is the best that we can expect for now," said Sharra, and then, "Lingqui, would you like to continue, or shall I?"

"I will continue, Lingqui said. "The first concern that we thought needed to be addressed was the issue of who would take care of the infant. Clearly a newborn cannot care for herself, even in a non hostile world, and we can have only limited knowledge of the world into which we are sending her. Our thought was to scout ahead of time, and to place her as a foster child in the home of some family of middle means. Ideally, we would place her with a family that had just had a baby, and so the mother would be able to feed both of the babies."

"Oh, and I suppose you're just going to waltz in, explain to the family what is going on, and they will, naturally, agree to care for my infant as well as their own, and then you can waltz out and reclaim her once she's old enough to do her thing to save the kingdom," Ashanta scoffed. "That seems real likely to work."

Lingqui looked angry, "No, of course not. We could try more than one family if we needed to — "

"How many will you need to try? And they can't all be in the same area, because people talk to each other and a weird looking man, because you will be weird looking if you're going to take the baby to another time, trying to hand off an infant to some other family is going to attract attention. Far more attention than I will attract if we just stay in some inconvenient corner of the kingdom! Honestly, I cannot see how any king could have taken you as an advisor right now. The world in your head is an idealized version of the one we live in, and you're idealizing other times to a ridiculous extent."

"But Highness," Sharra said gently, "we have thought about the possibilities—"

"You may have thought about them, but you've completely trivialized everything that could go wrong!" Ashanta was dimly aware that she was shouting now, but she could not find the control to lower her voice. She was so angry that she was shaking.

Vaguely, she became aware of footsteps, and then Quingli entered the room, together with the child and the monk who had helped to row them across the river. He quickly assessed the situation. "I see that the three of you are not able to have a discussion about this right now. Ashanta, I ask that you come with me. Sharra and Lingqui, please remain here with Brother Bradosh. He will speak with you, and bring you out to dinner when it is served."

Ashanta opened her mouth as though to protest, but Quingli held up his hand as though to shush
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and said gently, "It is better that you come with me now. They need to be shaken from their confidence in what they have decided for you, rather than with you, and you must rest, for it is clear to me that you are not in the right frame of mind to discuss anything rationally." He led her into a small room in the main building of the monastery. It was simply furnished, containing little besides a bed and a writing desk, but a large window looked out on the gardens of the monastery, and the breeze blew through the room, giving it a faint smell of flowers. "Rest now," said Quingli to Ashanta, "and I will come to visit with you when you have had some time alone. We will leave Brother Bardosh to deal with the others, for he is very wise in his ability to help others to see through the lenses of another's glasses." He left then, closing the door gently behind him.

Ashanta lay down on the bed, and tried to sleep, but worries and fears kept overwhelming her. Again and again she would be nearly asleep, and would bolt upright when she remembered what Sharra and Lingqui wanted to do with her child. Finally she got out of bed and walked over to the window. She stood for some time surveying the gardens of the monastery, which she could see was just beginning to come into flower. Over by the outer walls of the compound she saw the regimental rows of a vegetable garden, the plants still too small to be identifiable from this distance. To the other side, she could just glimpse the edge of the mountain range that was away to the southwest. Was that where they were headed, she wondered? Was the Mount of the Dragon there? She wished that girls at the castle had been taught geography as the boys were, instead of useless things like how to embroider pillowcases and curtsey. Of course, the men had to use the geography to plan wars and battles, but surely that was something that the women could help with as well?

If they were indeed going to those mountains, how long would it take them to get there? They seemed so close, and yet also so far away. How could that be, that they could be both? And would they truly find the dragon at the Mount of the Dragon, or had he left for good now. Ashanta yawned. She was beginning to feel sleepy again, and turned to go back to the bed, but before she could do so, she slumped to the floor, asleep.

As she slept a vision came to her. A dragon, the same dragon, she was sure, as had visited her in her dreams at the castle, flew into the monastery garden, and climbed through the window into her room, which somehow expanded to such size as to allow him entry. He breathed on the sleeping queen, and she woke, and saw him face to face. He seemed to smile down at her, and he spoke to her, saying, "The plan that has been made for your child is a good one, if they will allow me to lead it. If they, mortal as they be, try to achieve such things on their own, then only disaster can come of it, but with my help it will succeed, and the child will flourish. Trust in me, for is she not the fruit of my loins? And have I not powers of which you had never dreamed? Nay, she will travel into the future, and the knowledge that she gains there will be the key that allows her to save the kingdom of the Shauvrin."

But Ashanta replied to him, saying "How can I trust that she will be safe, for she is the child of my womb, as she is the fruit of my loins. You spoke with me and said that you might not reappear for you could only come three times, and those three times had been exhausted."

And the dragon replied, "My physical body I can no longer possess, yet I have a link with your mind that I can access through your dreams, and perhaps, if you are willing to work at it, even when you are awake. My spirit can advise them through you, and you will aid me in keeping our child safe." And he shrank again and flew out through the window and the room returned to its normal size. And Ashanta slept on, dreaming of a great mountain, all along on a plain with the grasses stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. The mountain was of clearest glass, and the sides of it were as straight and hard as diamond. Atop the mountain was a small house, though Ashanta could not imagine how anyone could ever reach it, unless perhaps they could fly. From the house emerged a child of perhaps seven years, and the child was of such likeness to Ashanta herself that she cried out in her sleep, for it seemed that she saw a vision of her past, and yet the child was not Ashanta. And the child waved at someone yet inside the house, and then she sat down at the top of the mountain and slid down to where Ashanta stood at the bottom, and it was then that Ashanta recognized that this must be her daughter. Then the dream shifted and she saw the child again at the door of the house, but now the house was in a field, with corn and wheat planted all around, and other children ran and played in the yard. Another shift and the child was but a toddler, and a woman was walking with the child, and another of much the same age, through the corn field, a basket of ears of corn on her arm and a giant hat on her head. It seemed to Ashanta that the woman must be mother to the children, and she was satisfied.

When Quingli opened the door to the chamber some hours later it was fully dark outside, but Ashanta stood before the window, gazing out in the direction of the mountains the she could no longer see. She turned  to him, "I would speak with the others now if you will permit it, for I have come to some decision during my time of rest."

"That is indeed good news," said Quingli, "but I believe that it is best that you eat first. Decisions are better made with full bellies and rested minds. The others ate some time ago and they are now back in their apartment. I fear that Brother Bardosh has not made many inroads in convincing them to listen to you. I hope that they will, but unfortunately I cannot know for sure. Know this however, that you will always be welcome at this place, and that we will sacrifice whatever is necessary for the ultimate protection of our beloved kingdom."