The Queen of the Tearling (35 page)

“No one needs spiritual advice right now.”

Tyler spoke more sharply than he intended. “Those who cease to worry about their souls often find them difficult to reclaim later, Majesty. God doesn't make such distinctions.”

“How do you expect anyone to believe in your God in these times?”

“I believe in my God, Majesty.”

“Then you're a fool.”

Tyler straightened and spoke coldly. “You're welcome to believe what you like, and think what you like of my church, but don't malign my faith. Not in front of me.”

“You don't give the Queen orders!” the Mace snarled.

Tyler cringed; he had forgotten that the Mace was there. But the Mace fell silent as suddenly as he'd begun, and when Tyler turned back to the Queen, he found her wearing an odd smile, both rueful and satisfied.

“You are genuine,” she murmured. “Forgive me, but I had to know. There must be so few of you living over in that golden nightmare.”

“That's unfair, Majesty. I know many good and devout men in the Arvath.”

“Was it a good and devout man who sent you to keep an eye on me, Father?”

Tyler couldn't answer.

“Will you live in here with us?”

Thinking of his books, he shook his head. “I'd prefer to remain in the Arvath.”

“Then I propose an exchange,” the Queen replied briskly. “You take the book in your hand and borrow it for a week. Next Sunday, you'll return it to me, at which time you may borrow another. But you'll also bring me one of your own books, one I don't have.”

“A library system,” Tyler replied with a smile.

“Not exactly, Father. Clerks are already at work copying my own books, several at a time. When you loan me a book, they'll copy it as well.”

“To what purpose?”

“I'll hold master copies here in the Keep, but sooner or later, I'll find someone who can construct a printing press.”

Tyler inhaled sharply. “A press?”

“I see this land flowing with books, Father. Widespread literacy. Books everywhere, as common as they used to be in circulation before the Crossing, affordable even for the poor.”

Tyler stared at her, shocked. The necklace on her chest twinkled; he could have sworn it had winked at him.

“Can't you see it?”

And after another moment, Tyler could. The idea was staggering. Printing presses meant bookshops and libraries. New stories transcribed. New histories.

Later, Tyler would realize that his decision was made then, that there was never any other path for him. But in the moment, he felt only shock. He stumbled away from the bookshelves and came face-to-face with the Mace, whose face had darkened. Tyler hoped the man's anger wasn't directed toward himself, for he found the Mace terrifying. But no, the Mace was looking at the books.

An extraordinary certainty dawned in Tyler's mind. He tried to dismiss it, but the thought persisted: the Mace could not read. Tyler felt a stab of pity, but turned quickly away before it showed on his face. “Well, it's quite a dream, Majesty.”

Her face hardened, the corners of her mouth tucking in. The Mace gave a quiet grunt of satisfaction, which only seemed to irritate the Queen further. Her voice, when she spoke, was businesslike, all passion vanished. “Sunday next, I'll expect you. But you're welcome in my court anytime, Father.”

Tyler bowed, feeling as though someone had grabbed him and shaken him hard.
This is why I never leave my room,
he thought.
So much safer there.

He turned and trudged back toward the audience chamber, clutching the book in his hand, nearly oblivious to the three guards who followed him. The Holy Father would undoubtedly want an immediate report, but Tyler could sneak into the Arvath through the tradesmen's entrance. It was Tuesday, and Brother Emory would be on duty; he was young and lazy, and often forgot to report arrivals. Tyler might read well over a hundred pages before the Holy Father knew he'd returned.

“And Father?”

Tyler turned and found the Queen seated on her throne, her chin propped on one hand. The Mace stood beside her, as forbidding as ever, his hand on his sword.

“Majesty?”

She grinned impishly, looking her true age for the first time since Tyler had seen her. “Don't forget to bring me a book.”

 

O
n Monday Kelsea sat on her throne, biting relentlessly at the inside of her cheek. Technically, she was holding audience, but what she was really doing was allowing various interested parties to have a look at her, and looking at them in turn. After the incident with the assassin, she'd thought that Mace might cancel this event, but now he seemed to consider it even more important that Kelsea show her face. Her first audience went ahead on schedule, although the entire Queen's Guard had been stationed in the audience chamber, even those who usually worked the night and slept during the day.

True to his word, Mace had moved the great silver throne, along with its dais, into the Queen's Wing. After perhaps an hour perched on the throne, Kelsea discovered that silver was hard, and worse, it was
cold
. She longed for the comfort of her old, worn armchair. She couldn't even slouch; there were too many eyes on her. A crowd of nobles thronged the room, many of them the same people who had attended her crowning. She saw the same clothing, the same hairstyles, and the same excess.

Kelsea had spent long hours preparing for this audience with Mace and Arliss, as well as with Marguerite, who had a surprising amount of information to share about the Regent's allies in the nobility. The Regent had kept her nearby at all times, even while doing business. This further evidence of her uncle's poor judgment came as no surprise to Kelsea, but it made her feel despondent all the same.

“Are you happy here?” Kelsea had asked Marguerite, when they finished talking for the night.

“Yes,” replied Marguerite, so quickly that Kelsea didn't think she understood the question. Marguerite knew a fair amount of Tear, but she'd been delighted to find that Kelsea spoke good Mort, so they spoke in that language. Kelsea tried her question again, making sure she was using the correct words.

“I understand that you were delivered here, against your will, from Mortmesne. Don't you want to go home?”

“No. I like taking care of the children, and there's nothing for me in Mortmesne.”

“Why?” Kelsea asked, confused. She found Marguerite to be both educated and intelligent, and when it came to human nature the woman was smart as a whip. Kelsea had been pondering what to do about the rest of the Regent's women; she had no urge to have them all invade the Queen's Wing, nor could she offer them any sort of gainful employment. But she thought they deserved
something
from the Crown, since their lives couldn't have been easy.

Marguerite had assured Kelsea that the other women would be snapped up quickly as paid companions by nobles, most of whom had cast a jealous eye on the Regent's women for years. This was useful information, if an extremely unwelcome insight into the male psyche, and Marguerite had been right; when Coryn went to make sure that the Regent had cleared out, the women and their belongings were gone as well.

“Because of this,” Marguerite replied, running an explanatory hand up her body and circling it around her face. “This determines what I am.”

“Being beautiful?”

“Yes.”

Kelsea stared at her, bewildered. She would give anything to look like Marguerite. The Fetch's voice echoed in her head, always within cutting reach:
Far too plain for my taste.
She had already noticed how, on those rare occasions when Marguerite emerged from the nursery, the guards' eyes followed her across the room. There was no overtly boorish behavior, nothing for which Kelsea could take them to task, but sometimes she wanted to reach out and slap them, scream in their faces:
Look at me! I'm valuable too!
Eyes followed Kelsea across the room as well, but it wasn't the same at all.

If I looked like Marguerite, the Fetch would worship at my feet
.

Some of this must have shown on Kelsea's face, for Marguerite smiled sadly. “You think of beauty only as a blessing, Majesty, but it brings its own punishments. Believe me.”

Kelsea nodded, trying to look sympathetic, but in truth she was skeptical. Beauty was currency. For every man who valued Marguerite less because of her beauty, there would be a hundred men, and many women as well, who automatically valued her more. But Kelsea liked Marguerite's grave intelligence, so she tried to curb her resentment, though something inside told her that it would be a constant struggle, to look at this woman every day without jealousy.

“What's Mortmesne like?”

“Different from the Tearling, Majesty. At first glance, better. Not so many poor and hungry. Order in the streets. But look long enough, and you will notice that all eyes are afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of her.”

“They're afraid here, too, but not of me. Of the lottery.”

“Once, perhaps, Majesty.”

The people in the audience chamber certainly weren't afraid of Kelsea. Some of them looked at her wistfully, some with suspicion. Mace, not liking the pockets of shadow created by the crowd, had ordered the walls hung with extra torches for the audience, and he had also produced a herald from somewhere, a thin, harmless boy-man named Jordan with an extraordinarily deep, clear voice, who announced each personage before the throne. Those who wanted to have private speech with Kelsea came forward only after being searched for weapons and cleared by Mhurn. Some had come simply to swear fealty, perhaps in the hope of gaining access to the treasury or putting Kelsea off her guard. Many of them tried to kiss her hand; one noble, Lord Perkins, even succeeded in planting a moist, sticky patch on her knuckle before Kelsea could yank free. She tucked both hands inside the black folds of her skirt to keep them safe.

Andalie sat on a chair to Kelsea's right, the seat several inches lower so that she appeared shorter than Kelsea. Kelsea had argued against this arrangement, but Andalie and Mace had overruled her. As Lord Perkins and his retinue left the dais, Andalie offered a cup of water, which Kelsea accepted gratefully. Her wound was healing well, and she could sit up for longer periods now, but she had been exchanging pleasantries more or less nonstop for two hours and her voice was becoming unwieldy.

A noble named Killian came forward with his wife. Kelsea searched through the files in her mind and placed the man: Marguerite had told her that Lord Killian liked to gamble at cards and that he had once knifed another noble over a disputed hand of poker. None of his four children had ever run afoul of the lottery. The Killians looked more like twins than husband and wife; both had round, well-fed faces, and both eyed her with the same expression Kelsea had seen on the faces of many nobles over the course of the day: smiles on top and craft underneath. She exchanged pleasantries with the pair and accepted a beautiful tapestry that the wife assured her had been woven by her own hands. Kelsea very much doubted this; the era in which noblewomen actually had to do their own handwork was long gone, and the tapestry bespoke considerable skill.

When the Killians' audience was over, Kelsea watched the pair retreat. She hadn't liked most of the nobles she'd met today. They were dangerously complacent. Even the inadequate old concept of noblesse oblige had fallen by the wayside in this kingdom, and the privileged refused to look beyond their own walls and gardens. It was a problem that had contributed greatly to the Crossing; Kelsea could almost feel Carlin hovering somewhere close by, her face pinched in its old disapproval as she spoke of the ruling classes of times long gone.

Mace was peering toward the end of the hall, and as the Killians disappeared and Kelsea's guard began to relax, he called a sharp command to remain at attention. A solitary man was trudging toward the throne, his face nearly hidden under a thick black beard. At the edge of Kelsea's vision, Andalie made an involuntary movement, her hands stiffening.

Kelsea tapped her fingers on the silver arm of her throne, debating, while the man was searched. She looked to Andalie, who was staring at her husband with deep, dark eyes, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.

Mace had descended to the foot of the dais and taken up what Kelsea thought of as his ready pose, a stance so casual that one who didn't know Mace might think him lounging. But if Andalie's husband should move a muscle in the wrong direction, Mace would have him down. The husband seemed to know as well; his eyes twitched toward Mace and he halted of his own volition, announcing, “I am Borwen! I come to demand the return of my wife and children!”

“You demand nothing here,” Kelsea replied.

He glowered at her for a moment. “Ask, then.”

“You'll address the Queen properly,” Mace growled, “or you'll be removed from this hall.”

Borwen took several deep breaths, his right hand creeping to his left bicep and feeling it gently, as though for comfort. “I ask Your Majesty for the return of my wife and children.”

“Your wife is free to leave, of her own volition, at any time,” Kelsea replied. “But if you wish to ask her anything here, you'll first account for the marks on her skin.”

Borwen hesitated, and Kelsea could see countless excuses tumbling through his head. He mumbled a reply.

“Repeat!”

“Majesty, she wasn't an obedient wife.”

Andalie snickered softly. Kelsea shrank from the sound, which held murder. “Borwen, are you a believer in God's Church?”

“I go every Sunday, Majesty.”

“A wife is to be obedient to the husband, yes?”

“Such is the word of God.”

“I see.” Kelsea leaned back, studying him. How on earth had Andalie ended up wed to this creature? It would have taken a braver woman than Kelsea to ask her. “And did your manner of correction make her obedient?”