The Queen of the Tearling (30 page)

“I'd agree.”

“Arliss!” Mace shouted toward the corridor. “We're ready for you now!”

Arliss had clearly been eavesdropping; he emerged from the hallway almost immediately, walking with his familiar crablike gait, one leg dragging the other along behind it. Kelsea made a face at his approach. She'd been planning to go and spend several hours, or perhaps a year, looking over Carlin's books before dinner, though it would mean skipping her usual lesson with Venner. But the military men would be here in a few days' time, and her first audience would take place on Saturday; she was supposed to spend several hours in conference with Arliss to prepare for both. All of the information that Carlin had never given her now needed to be crammed into the space of one week, and the schedule was exhausting.

“Nice collection you've got in there, Queenie,” Arliss remarked as he approached the table. “There's a few odd duck book collectors salted around the Tearling. I could probably get you a damn good price.”

“What collectors?”

“I don't reveal my clients. Want to sell?”

“Not a chance. I'd give up my crown first.”

“Could probably get you a good price on that as well.” Arliss sat down, grabbing the fabric of his trousers to drag his lame leg onto the chair. “But then, the market can always change.”

 

K
elsea wasn't the only one pleased with her library. Queen's Guards had to be able to read and write, and whenever Kelsea wandered in, she found off-duty guards lying on sofas or curled up in armchairs with one of her books. There seemed to be something for everyone.

Almost everyone. Mace avoided the library entirely. There were so many books there that he would have loved, but he clearly felt that reading was only good for messages and bills and pronouncements, nothing that wasn't of the moment. Kelsea found his disinterest maddening.

Milla's son and Carlotta's baby were too young for books, but all of Andalie's children—except Glee, the toddler—knew how to read, and they seemed to live in the library while their mother was on duty. Kelsea didn't mind having them there as long as they were quiet. And they were quiet. They had found the seven volumes of Rowling with no help at all, but there was no squabbling. To Kelsea's private amusement, the oldest boy, Wen, sat the other three down, and they drew straws, very diplomatically, with four twigs broken from the library's firewood. Matthew, who was thirteen, won the right to the first book, and the other three were left to look over the shelves for alternatives. Wen found a book on anatomy and opened it unerringly to the drawings that had caused such trouble for Leonardo da Vinci. Morryn, who was eight and a girl's girl, seemed entirely disgusted with the choices. All of the romances were too old for her, and Carlin had never collected what she called “women's literature.” Finally, Kelsea reached up to a high shelf and produced a book of Grimm's fairy tales. Although the stories weren't particularly feminine, Kelsea hoped the princesses might placate the girl. Morryn stalked off to a chair, staring at the cover with deep distrust.

But it was the eleven-year-old girl, Aisa, whom Kelsea watched most closely. Aisa picked up and put down many of the reading staples of Kelsea's childhood, but none of them seemed to meet with her approval. Watching the girl, Kelsea realized that her sullen expression was partly a result of the construction of her face: masculine, snub-nosed, and heavy-browed. The mouth went down, the eyebrows went up, and the result conveyed belligerence.

Summoning her courage (for some reason, she found this girl nearly as intimidating as Andalie herself), Kelsea moved closer and ventured, “I might be able to recommend something, if you can tell me what you're looking for.”

Aisa turned. Her black eyes were her father's, but the expression in them belonged entirely to Andalie. “I want something with adventure.”

Kelsea nodded, reading much from this statement. She scanned the bookshelves, but deep down she knew that she had no real adventure stories with a female hero. She ran a finger down a lower shelf until she found a green leather-bound volume with gold filigree on the spine. She pulled out the book and handed it to Aisa. “There's no girl in this one. But if you like it, the sequel has a heroine.”

“Why can't I simply read the sequel?” Aisa asked, her expression retreating into sullen anger again. Kelsea found herself fascinated by the change in the girl's face; it was like watching a trap snap shut. Kelsea's first instinct was to answer sharply, but winning over Andalie's children seemed nearly as important as winning over Andalie herself. Instead, Kelsea modulated her voice to be as gentle as possible. “No. You have to read this first, or the sequel won't mean as much to you. Treat it well; it's one of my favorites.”

Aisa walked away with
The Hobbit
under her arm. Kelsea stood looking after her, torn between wanting to watch the children and wanting to read
The Lord of the Rings
all over again. She didn't really have time for either. In ten minutes she would need to be dressed and ready for Venner's torment. She nodded to Pen, grabbed her own books and papers from her desk, and headed for the door.

On her way out, she took a last look at the four children, each curled up very comfortably. Galen, too, was sprawled out on a couch against the wall, one leg dangling over the armrest, reading a book covered in blue leather. Kelsea thought of how much Carlin would like to see this: her library in use by a community of readers, an oasis in an entire nation starved for books.

No, not even starved
, Kelsea thought grimly. The Tearling was like a man who hadn't eaten in so long that he didn't even remember what it was like to be hungry anymore. The spark of an idea ignited in her mind, then danced away.

Pen was waiting for her to clear the doorway; Kelsea gave him an apologetic smile and headed down the hall. On impulse, she stopped in the balcony room, as everyone now called it. Mhurn was on the door today, and he bowed as Kelsea approached. He was the only one besides Pen who bowed regularly, though Kelsea didn't really worry about formalities. Bowing would have seemed unnatural from most of the others, especially Dyer, who was just as likely to offer a sarcastic remark. Mhurn still didn't look like he was getting any sleep; by now Kelsea wondered if he had chronic insomnia, if he was one of those unfortunate souls who simply couldn't sleep no matter what the circumstance. She felt a twinge of pity, and smiled at him as she passed. But then she remembered that night in her chamber—the man who had pulled her from the bathtub, the overturned flagstone in the floor—and the memory made the smile freeze on her face. Mace thought it could be any one of them.

The balcony ran the length of the room, perhaps thirty feet from edge to edge, bordered by a waist-high parapet. It was a crisp March afternoon, just beginning to darken to night; beneath the deep blue sky, an icy wind blew across the front of the Keep, moaning hollowly as it passed beneath the eaves and through the many battlements. Kelsea leaned against the parapet and looked out, beyond the cluttered half-lit mosaic of New London, to where the Almont Plain rolled toward the horizon in mottled shades of brown and yellow green, its expanse only broken by the twin curves of the Caddell and Crithe Rivers stretching into the distance. Her kingdom was beautiful, but daunting. So much land, so many people, and all of their lives now balanced on the edge of a blade. The army men were coming tomorrow, and it was a conference that Kelsea dreaded. From what Arliss and Mace had told her, she wasn't going to like General Bermond one bit. She stared out over her kingdom, worrying. She wished that she could see all the way to Mortmesne, that she could know exactly what was coming.

Darkness descended over her vision, instantly, like a curtain dropping. Kelsea stumbled, clutching the parapet for balance, only dimly aware of herself as a physical creature still standing on the balcony. The rest of her was rushing through a high, cold night sky, freezing wind screaming in her ears.

Looking down, she saw a vast land covered in deep pine forest. This land was crisscrossed with roads: not dust roads like those of the Tearling, but real roads that had been paved with some sort of stone, roads made for moving large quantities of goods in wagons and caravans. On the northern horizon she saw high hills, almost mountains, dotted with pits: mining facilities. There were no farms here; rather, there were factories, piles of brick emitting great gouts of smoke and ash into the air. Was it day? Night? Kelsea couldn't tell. The entire world was painted in a blue twilight.

“Lady?” From a great distance away, Kelsea heard Pen's voice. She shook her head, silently begging him not to intrude. She was frightened, she hated heights, but oh . . . she wanted so badly to
see
.

Ahead was an enormous city, far larger than New London, built on a stone plateau that rose above the level of the pines. A palace thrust upward from the center of the city, dwarfing the buildings around it, not so tall as the Keep but elegant, symmetrical in a way the Keep was not. At the very top of the tallest tower, a blood-red flag snapped in the wind. Kelsea's vision lingered on this for a moment before dropping again to the ground. A tall wooden wall encircled the city, and a wide road emerged from the front gate, its edges dotted with tall sticks. Streetlamps? No, for as Kelsea's vision swooped closer, she saw that each stick had a small, oblong object at its top—human heads, some weathered away to skulls, some still in the freshest stages of decay, their features still visible, caked with mold.

The Pike Hill
, Kelsea realized.
Demesne, it must be.
Looking down to the left of the city, she saw a huge black mass dotted with firelights. She needed to move closer, and did so, swooping downward, the way a bird might when it dropped from the sky to attack.

“Lady?”

An army lay beneath her, a massive army that covered the ground for several square miles: tents and campfires, men and horses and wagons filled with extra ordnance, knives and swords, bows and arrows and pikes. At the rear were several pieces of massive wooden equipment that Kelsea recognized from descriptions in books: siege towers, each of them at least twenty yards long, laid flat on their sides for transport. She splayed her arms in desperation, feeling wings flap around her, her feathers ruffling in icy air.

Wheeling around, she swooped back for another pass, soaring over the camped battalions. Dawn was far away; the soldiers were preparing to sleep. She heard snatches of song, smelled roasting cow meat, even the tang of ale. She could see every detail on the ground, infinitely clearer than her vision had ever been in her life, and longing lanced her, some part of her knowing even now that she would have to return to her human eyes, that this clarity couldn't last.

Passing over the east side of the encampment, Kelsea saw something unfamiliar: the sheen of a sizable piece of metal, gleaming in the firelight. She tucked her wings and dove closer until she was right over the camp. The repugnant stench of many people crowded together filled her head, but she continued, even lower now. Soaring right over the eastern edge of the encampment, she saw a row of squat metal objects, each in its own wagon, neatly lined up like soldiers for march. It took several passes to understand what she was seeing, and when she did, her desperation turned to despair.

Cannons.

Impossible! There's no gunpowder, not even in Mortmesne!

The cannons gleamed beneath her, silently mocking. There were ten of them, built of steel, and all looked new. She couldn't even smell rust.

The Tearling!

She wheeled around, determined to return, to warn someone. There was no hope here, no victory, only a metal smell of carnage and death.

Her chest exploded. Below her, she heard a man's roar of triumph. Something pierced deep into her right breast, a flaming spear that crushed her heart.

“Mhurn! Medic!” Pen shouted, his voice dull to Kelsea, as if heard through water. “Get Coryn now!”

Kelsea fought desperately to stay aloft, but her wings no longer worked. She was screaming, she realized, though she could barely hear her own voice. She fell gracelessly, dropping like a rock through the blue world, and didn't even feel it when her body hit the ground.

 

Y
ou don't understand,” Kelsea repeated, for perhaps the seventh time that day. “The Mort army is already mobilized.”

General Bermond smiled at her from his end of the table. “I'm sure you believe that, Majesty. But it doesn't mean we can't still make peace.”

Kelsea glared at him. The meeting had been a contentious one so far, and she was developing a low headache. General Bermond was probably no more than fifty years old, but to Kelsea he seemed more ancient than the hills, his head as bald as a pin and face wrinkled from long exposure to the sun. He had sewn his uniform sleeve to cover his lame arm.

Beside Bermond sat his second-in-command, Colonel Hall, who was perhaps fifteen years younger, thick and heavyset with a square jaw. Hall didn't say much, but his grey eyes missed nothing. Both men had presented themselves in full army uniform, probably to intimidate Kelsea, and she was annoyed to find that it was working.

Pen sat beside her, quiet as a statue. Kelsea liked having him there. Being followed around by guards was irritating, but Pen was different somehow; he knew how to keep himself from being intrusive. Although it was an unkind comparison, Kelsea thought of a faithful dog, one with a light tread. Pen was vigilant, but he would never wear her out with his constant presence, as Mace undoubtedly would have. Mace himself sat on her right, and every few minutes Kelsea would look over at him, trying to make a decision. News had arrived at the Keep yesterday: a stronghold of the Graham house, some fifty miles south of the Keep, had been gutted by fire.