The Queen of the Tearling (32 page)

“So is the lottery!” Kelsea snapped back. “I don't suppose any of
your
loved ones have ever been shipped, General?”

Pen grasped her elbow in a gentle squeeze.

“Not mine.” Bermond's eyes flicked toward Hall.

Pen leaned in close to Kelsea and murmured, “Hall's brother, Lady. They were close.”

“I apologize, Colonel Hall.”

Hall waved her away. He didn't seem offended; his eyebrows were lowered in thought, his mind clearly already far away, out on the border. Kelsea couldn't tell whether he believed her about the cannons or not, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he'd said yes.

“Is there anything else?”

Neither of the army men said anything. Bermond looked as though he had swallowed something distasteful. Kelsea wondered briefly whether she should be concerned about Bermond's loyalty, but dismissed the thought from her mind. He didn't seem the type to try to stage a coup, even if he'd been twenty years younger. He simply wasn't imaginative enough.

“We're done then,” Mace announced. Bermond and Hall stood quickly, startling Kelsea.

“Thank you,” she told them. “In a week, I'd like a progress report from each of you.”

“Majesty,” they murmured, and remained standing, staring at her for so long that Kelsea wondered if something was wrong with her appearance. She was on the verge of asking when she finally realized what they were waiting for.

“Dismissed.”

They bowed and left.

Chapter 10

The Fate of Thomas Raleigh

It's difficult to analyze the motivations of a traitor. Some betray their country for money, some for revenge. Some do so in order to satisfy a feeling of true alienation from their country's values. Some betray when they have no choice. Often these reasons will blur; treachery is hardly a one-size-fits-all proposition. Indeed, one of the most famous traitors in Tear history sold his country for the most basic motive of all: because he didn't know why he shouldn't.

—
The Early History of the Tearling
,
AS TOLD BY
M
ERWINIAN

I
should have known
, Javel thought, both at that moment and many more times that day.
I should have known that this is where things would end.

He didn't know why he still listened to Arlen Thorne. In hindsight, he could see what a stupid plan it had been: Thorne had engaged a single Caden to assassinate the Queen, and not even one of the famous ones . . . Lord Graham the younger, who was barely more than a boy. Rumors quickly flooded the city that the new Queen had actually killed the assassin herself, but that was bullshit. The Mace had killed him, then killed his retinue, and burned down his entire household for good measure. Graham had failed spectacularly, and worse, publicly; his body had hung in the center of the city for less than an hour before the crowd tore it from its post and ripped it to pieces. Javel had resolved never to lift a finger for Thorne again. But of course, the summons had inevitably come, and now here he was.

They met in a large warehouse out on the eastern outskirts of New London. Javel knew the place; at one point it had been used to house lumber before sale or transport to Crossing's End. But Thorne had apparently taken it over for his own dark work. One of his innumerable Census thugs met Javel at the door, looked him over for a moment, and then waved him inside. Javel found himself in a small antechamber, lit by a weak fire, surrounded by men who looked just as angry and confused as himself.

Thorne hadn't arrived yet, but looking around the room, Javel began to understand what was driving this entire endeavor: money. He felt a fool for not seeing it before, but of course he had been thinking only of Allie. He hadn't considered the enormous amount of wealth at stake in the shipment, how much some people had to lose.

Lord Tare leaned against the far wall, his ridiculous purple hat taking up more space than the rest of him. The Tares held lands in the east, fields of wheat stretching for miles across the Almont Plain, and they took toll from the Mort Road. In fact, Javel remembered hearing of some contention at one point: Lord Tare liked to charge toll by the head, while the Regent wanted him to charge by the conveyance. But the Regent hadn't been strong enough to force such a change, and if Lord Tare was still charging by the head, then the shipment represented a monthly gold mine.

Two Caden, the Baedencourt brothers, were seated in front of the fire. They were nearly twins, blond-haired and blue-eyed, with flowing beards that reached all the way to their considerable guts. No one would dare plot against the Queen without consulting the Caden, but Javel wasn't even sure that the Baedencourts were empowered to negotiate for the rest. They were simply the easiest Caden to get hold of, since they could usually be found drunk and whoring in the New Globe.

The Caden had their own problems now. It was common knowledge in the Gut that the Regent had offered them an exorbitant bonus to find and kill the princess, and they had committed the bulk of their resources to that endeavor, ignoring the everyday jobs—guarding nobles under threat, collecting bounties, and escorting valuable deliveries—that were their bread and butter. For the past few months the Caden had bled money, expending an enormous amount of manpower for nothing, and at any rate the royal treasury was now closed to them. Their failure to find the princess had also cost them a considerable amount of prestige, which further cut into business. It had always been standard practice for nine or ten Caden to join each shipment when it left New London; there was no better deterrent to would-be vigilantes. Escorting the shipment was understood to be fairly soft duty for Caden, but it still constituted a significant piece of their collective income each month. Now that was gone as well.

In the past month, Javel had heard rumors of Caden taking freelance jobs to make ends meet: manual labor, highway robbery, teaching swordsmanship or archery to nobles' sons. One handsome Caden named Ennis had even been hired as the escort to a noble's homely daughter, taking her to dances and reading her poetry and God knew what else. Even to Javel, who had no great love for the assassins, this was a sorry state of affairs. He wondered how the Caden themselves must feel, after being steeped for so long in arrogance and exclusivity, and couldn't quite imagine. Either way, it seemed more than likely that the Baedencourts were freelancing here, and so Javel didn't trust them, didn't trust their commitment to the enterprise.

Four more men, none of whom Javel knew, were seated near the fire. One of them was a young, weaselly looking priest, which gave Javel pause; he wouldn't guess that God's Church would involve itself directly in something like this. The priest's shaved head and thin white hands marked him as an ascetic, and given his youth, Javel thought he was probably one of the Holy Father's stable of personal aides. Beside the priest was a scruffy blond creature who looked as though he'd crawled from the gutter. A thief, or even a simple pickpocket, probably looking for a quick pound.

Money
, Javel thought.
It's all about money for all of them. For everyone but me.

And what
is
it about for you?
a voice, thin and cold, hissed deep inside him. Thorne's voice, Javel realized, horrified, as though he'd somehow allowed Thorne to worm his way even into the darkest corner of his own mind.

It's about getting Allie back
, he replied angrily.
That's all it's ever been about.

No answer. Thorne was gone. But the question had been asked, and Javel sensed that real damage had been done. He was working to free a slave, surely a noble endeavor if there ever was one. But Allie was only one slave . . . one of tens of thousands who had gone the same way. Javel had no thought of the rest; he was only trying to get his own. And did that make him any better than these men?

I am better
, he insisted to himself.
I know I am.

But now, peering into the darkest corner of the room, he saw the worst development of all: Keller, his fellow Gate Guard, lounging against the wall with crossed arms and a satisfied expression. Javel remembered a night, several years ago, when Vil had quietly sent several of them off the gate and down to the Cat's Paw to fetch Keller, who had gotten himself into real trouble this time. There had been problems before; Keller had once flung a woman through a wall, and there had been several rape accusations, one of which had required a direct appeal to the Regent before it disappeared. But even Javel had been unprepared for what met them at the Cat's Paw, where they found Keller drunk off his ass, one blood-covered hand still clutching a straight razor. He'd beaten the whore within an inch of her life before slicing up her face and tits. Javel could still see the girl weeping in the corner, blood pouring from the razor slashes that crisscrossed her upper body. She couldn't have been more than fourteen. Javel had gone home at dawn and drunk himself to blackout, thanking God that he was alone, that Allie couldn't see him. Now here he was again, tangled in bad business, staring at Keller across a shadowy room.

Thorne came in, clad in a deep blue cloak that swirled around his insectile body. Javel was relieved to see that Brenna was not with him this time; there were still two hours of daylight left outside. Thorne's bright blue eyes marked each of them in turn before he turned to take off his cloak, and Javel watched him curiously, wondering what Thorne's real game was here. He ran the Census, but that was a day job at government pay. By night, Thorne was a king on the black market, and even if the shipment disappeared forever, his income wouldn't suffer that much. Of course Overseer of the Census was a useful post, one that allowed him to lean on many people, but someone as slick as Thorne always had other ways of applying leverage.

What are you really after, Arlen?
Javel wondered, staring at him.
What drives a creature like you?

The answer came easily: clout. Thorne was not greedy; it was well known that he lived modestly. He had no taste for gold or gambling or whores, no vices at all beyond his fixation on the albino. What Thorne valued was the freedom to continue doing whatever he wished, without restraint. With the official slave trade gone, it seemed a likely bet that the Queen would turn her attention to the black market next. Traffic in weapons, narcotics, children . . . the new Queen was not the Regent, she'd proved that already; she cared about the low as well as the great. That was why Thorne had decreed that she had to go.

“Well, we're all here,” Thorne announced. “Let's get down to it.”

“Yes, let's,” Lord Tare snarled. “You fucked up, you miserable bureaucrat. It's only God's luck the Mace didn't take the boy alive; he could've implicated us all.”

Thorne tipped his head at Lord Tare, then looked around the room, as though for confirmation.

“I agree,” announced the priest, though his tone was more conciliatory. “I convey the Holy Father's disappointment at the amateur nature of the attempt as well as its failure.”

“I promised eventual success,” Thorne replied mildly. “Not success on the first try.”

“Pretty words, ferret,” Arne Baedencourt sneered. He sounded as though he was fighting with his own tongue.

Why, he's drunk!
Javel realized, appalled.
Even I knew enough to sober up for business this black.

“Why didn't you engage one of the real Caden?” Lord Tare asked angrily. “Dwyne, or Merritt? A professional killer wouldn't have failed.”

“Every Caden is a real Caden!” Hugo Baedencourt barked. Compared to his brother, he sounded mercifully sober. “The Graham boy was tested just as the rest of us were. Do not sully his memory by implying otherwise.”

Lord Tare splayed his hands outward in apology, though his glare never wavered from Thorne.

Thorne shrugged. “I do not concede that the plan was doomed to fail. The boy got very close; my source tells me that he had a knife to the Queen's throat. However, I do admit to underestimating the Queen's Guard, and the Mace in particular. My man got through so easily at the crowning . . . I assumed the Mace had grown soft over the years.”

“Only a fool would ever underestimate the Mace,” Hugo Baedencourt remarked gloomily. “We think he slew four of ours on the banks of the Crithe.”

“Well, rest assured, it's not a mistake I'll make again,” Thorne replied, in a tone that precluded further discussion. “At any rate, it's pointless to hash over the past. What matters is the future.”

“The past
is
the future, Thorne,” the priest disagreed quietly. “What guarantee does my master have that you won't fumble the next attempt as well?”

Javel was impressed. Few men, nobles aside, would dare to speak so to Thorne, even with the might of the Arvath behind them. And the priest had expressed Javel's own doubts precisely. Looking forward, he could see an endless corridor of failed attempts on the Queen's life. He couldn't face that, not even for Allie; his own courage didn't stretch so far. He wanted to be out of this, his life no longer beholden to secret plots and the constant fear that each fist hammering on the door would be the Mace, come to take him for interrogation.

“I guarantee nothing,” Thorne replied coldly. “I never have. And while killing the Queen would solve many problems, I concede that it may simply be beyond our capacity at the moment.”

“What of your Queen's Guard?” Lord Tare asked. “Can't he simply do the job?”

“What Queen's Guard?” the scruffy blond man asked.

Thorne shook his head. “He's unwilling to risk his neck so far. The Mace is already aware of a traitor; he's tightened security around the Queen and installed Pen Alcott as her close guard. My man is frightened, and I can't say I blame him. Even if he succeeded, there's no corner of the New World in which the Mace wouldn't find him.”

Or us
, Javel murmured to himself.

“You've turned a Queen's Guard?” the blond man asked again.

“Not your concern, little one,” Thorne replied. “Remember your place here.”

The pickpocket shrank back into his chair, and Javel shook his head. How had Thorne managed to suborn a Queen's Guard? They were unflinchingly loyal, even more steeped in their pride and traditions than the Caden were. So far as Javel knew, no royal guard had ever gone traitor.

But if anyone could do it,
he thought in disgust,
it would be Thorne.

“Pen Alcott is a gifted swordsman,” Hugo Baedencourt remarked, staring thoughtfully into the fire. “Few of us would dare to challenge him. Merritt perhaps, but you'll never get him to come in on this business.”

“No matter,” Thorne said. “I've had a better idea, one that serves all of our purposes. Alain, here”—he gestured toward the pickpocket—“has given me information vital to its success.”

The scruffy pickpocket smiled wide, happy as a dog that had pleased its master. Javel began to wonder if he was right in the head.

“I would say that we can't fail,” Thorne continued, “but such arrogance would be unproductive.”

“Fail at what?” Hugo asked.

“In one form or another, you all need money.”