The Queen of the Tearling (37 page)

Lady Andrews stared at him, her mouth open wide, utterly speechless. Mace went to Mhurn and spoke to him in a low voice. Mhurn nodded and walked quickly behind the throne toward the guard quarters. Kelsea remembered the day, earlier this week, when she had passed Mhurn to go out on the balcony and been overwhelmed by suspicion. She looked around at the other guards stationed on the chamber, nineteen of them now, their faces hard. Did they all have similar stories? She felt suddenly wretched. Even if one of them was guilty, how could she suspect any of them?

“I demand punishment, Majesty!” Lady Andrews had recovered her voice. “Give me that guard!”

Kelsea burst out laughing, true laughter that rang across the audience chamber. It felt wonderful, more so as Lady Andrews's face turned a bright, choleric purple.

“I'll tell you what you do, Lady Andrews. You take your dress and get the hell out of my Keep.”

Lady Andrews opened her mouth, but for a moment nothing came out. In the space of seconds, a thousand tiny lines seemed to have sprung up in the taut skin of her face. Arliss had produced the dress and now offered it to Lady Andrews, though his lowered brows told Kelsea that they'd be discussing it later.

Lady Andrews snatched the dress back and stomped away with her neck hunched into her shoulders, her gait showing her age. As she went up the aisle, many in the crowd gave her disgusted glances, but Kelsea was unimpressed; they'd likely behaved no better during the last invasion. As on the day of her crowning, there were no poor here. She would have to change that. Next week when she held audience, she would tell Mace to throw the doors open to the first few hundred who came.

“Are there any more?” she asked Mace.

“Don't think so, Lady.” Mace raised his eyebrows toward the herald, who shook his head. Mace made a cutting motion, and the herald announced, “This audience is concluded! Please proceed in an orderly fashion through the doors!”

“He's good, that herald,” Kelsea remarked. “Hard to believe that much sound could come from such a slight boy.”

“Thin men always make the best heralds, Lady, don't ask me why. I'll let him know you were pleased.”

Kelsea sank back against the throne, wishing again that it were her armchair. Leaning back in this thing was like reclining against a rock. She decided to pile it with cushions when there was no one around.

Orderly fashion was a bit much to hope for; the crowd had bottlenecked at the door, each of them apparently feeling that he deserved to go through first.

“God, what a scrum,” Pen remarked, chuckling. Kelsea took the opportunity to scratch her nose, which had been itching madly for some time, then beckoned Andalie. “I'm fine for the night, Andalie. You're off duty.”

“Thank you, Lady,” Andalie replied, and left the dais.

When the crowd had finally disappeared and her guard had begun to bolt the doors, Kelsea asked, “So what do you think Lady Andrews was trying to do?”

“Ah, she was set up to it,” Mace replied. “Just making trouble.”

Arliss, who'd been listening from his place at the foot of the dais, nodded. “Scene had Thorne all over it, but he wasn't stupid enough to show up today.”

Kelsea frowned. Thanks to Mace and Arliss, she now understood much more about Thorne's Census Bureau. Although it had originally been created as a tool of the Crown, it had taken on a terrible life of its own, becoming such a power in the Tearling that it rivaled God's Church. The Census was too big to be shut down wholesale; it would need to be dismantled piece by piece, and the biggest piece was Thorne himself. “I won't have Thorne sabotage what we build. He needs to go, with a decent pension.”

“The Census Bureau has most of the educated men in the kingdom, Lady,” Mace cautioned. “If you try to break it up, you'll have to find them all gainful employment.”

“Perhaps they could become teachers. Or tax collectors, I don't know.”

She would have to wait to see what they thought of this idea, for Wellmer's stomach suddenly gurgled quite loudly in the silence, prompting muted laughter from the group of guards. Milla was cooking dinner now, and the scent of garlic permeated the hall. Wellmer turned tomato-red, but Kelsea smiled and said, “We're done. I'll eat in my chamber tonight; you're welcome to the table. Someone bring Mhurn some food and force him to eat.”

They bowed in unison, and several guards headed off to the kitchen while the rest disappeared down the corridor to their families and the guard quarters. Milla had put her foot down and declared that she wouldn't have twenty guards invade her kitchen every mealtime, so now several of the guards worked as servers for the rest of the families at each meal. They'd created some sort of system very diplomatically among themselves, and Mace hadn't needed to intervene. A minor detail, but Kelsea felt that it was a positive note, a sign of community.

“Lazarus, wait a moment.”

Mace leaned down to her. “Lady?”

“Any progress on locating Barty and Carlin?”

Mace straightened. “Not yet, Lady.”

Kelsea gritted her teeth. She didn't want to hassle him, but she wanted Barty, wanted to see his crinkle-eyed smile more than ever. The urge to see Carlin was even more urgent somehow. “Did you search the village?”

“There has been a lot to do, Majesty. I will move on it shortly.”

Kelsea narrowed her eyes. “Lazarus, you're lying to me.”

Mace stared at her without expression.

“Why are you lying?”

“Lady!” Venner called to her from the hallway. “Your armor is ready!”

Kelsea turned, irritated. “Why are
you
telling me this, Venner?”

“Fell's been down sick.”

Another lie. She imagined that Venner had finally been forced to procure the armor himself. But her appetite for conflict was dwindling apace with her growing desire for whatever Milla was preparing in the kitchen. “We'll take a look at it during tomorrow's shaming exercise.”

Venner's mouth twitched, and he went on to the kitchen. Kelsea turned back to continue with Mace and found him gone, vanished from the audience chamber like smoke.

“Sneaky bastard,” she muttered. What had happened to Barty and Carlin? Had they fallen ill? It was a long journey south for two old people during the winter. Had the Caden found them? No, Barty knew how to cover his tracks. But something was wrong. She could see it on Mace's face.

She descended the dais, Pen in tow. The smell of garlic made her stomach rumble, and Kelsea fought back a giggle of bitter amusement; even anxiety couldn't dull her appetite. She looked for Mace in the hallway, but he'd hidden himself somewhere. Kelsea thought about demanding his whereabouts from Coryn, who was on duty at the balcony room, but that seemed childish, so she went on down the hallway with a heavy tread.

At the door of her chamber, Kelsea heard Andalie speak her name in the next room over and halted automatically, Pen following suit behind.

“I assure you, the Queen is afraid.”

“She doesn't look afraid.” That was Andalie's oldest girl, Aisa, her voice easily recognizable, right on the cusp of deepening and full of discontent.

“But she is, love,” Andalie replied. “She hides her fear in order to lessen ours.”

Kelsea leaned against the wall, knowing that eavesdropping was rude but unable to walk away. Andalie remained a mystery. Even Mace could find nothing of her ancestry or history beyond the fact that she was half Mort, and Andalie had disclosed that fact herself. It was as if she'd dropped from the sky at the age of fifteen and married her worthless husband; all before that was dark.

“This kingdom hasn't seen anything extraordinary, or even particularly good, in a long time,” Andalie continued. “The Tearling needs a queen. A True Queen. And if she lives, Queen Kelsea will be exactly that. Maybe even a queen of legend.”

Kelsea's eyes widened and she turned to Pen, who placed a finger to his lips.

“I'd like to be part of a legend, Maman.”

“That's why we stay.” Andalie's voice shifted, moving closer now. Kelsea crooked a finger at Pen and they slipped into Kelsea's chamber. Pen closed the door behind them, muttering, “I told you she had the sight.”

“And I agreed with you. Still, it's a mistake to put too much stock in visions.”

Here in the antechamber, Pen had set up his own bed, a messy affair of thrown-together sheets and blankets that didn't match. Dirty clothes were strewn across the floor, and Pen did his best to kick them under the bed. A knock came at the door, and he opened it to admit Milla, carrying two trays of what looked like beef stew. Milla had already staked out her right to bring Kelsea's food personally; according to Mace, she also tasted every dish of Kelsea's food before it left the kitchen. This was something of an empty gesture, since so many poisons came with a time delay, but Kelsea had been moved nonetheless.

“Want to eat with me?” she asked Pen.

“All right.” He followed her through the archway into her chamber, where Mace had set up a small table for the nights when Kelsea wanted to eat alone. Milla set the two trays on the table, bowed to Kelsea, and vanished.

Kelsea dug into the stew. It was as good as everything Milla cooked, but tonight Kelsea ate automatically, her mind on Andalie's oldest girl. If she understood right, some or all of Andalie's children had been subjected to abuse, and such treatment always left scars. The girl was also entering adolescence, and Kelsea remembered
that
transition well enough: the feeling of helplessness, and most of all the quick anger at adults' failure to understand what was important. One day, when Kelsea was perhaps twelve or thirteen, she had found herself screaming at Barty for moving something on her desk.

She looked up and found Pen watching her, his gaze speculative. “What?”

“I enjoy watching you think. It's like watching two dogs fight in a pen.”

“You watch dogfighting?”

“Not by choice. It's a vile sport. But my father ran dogpen fights when I was growing up. That's how I got my name.”

“Where was this?”

Pen shook his head. “When we join the Queen's Guard, we earn the right to leave our past behind. Besides, you're just crusader enough to imprison my father.”

“Maybe I should. He sounds like a butcher.”

Kelsea regretted the statement as soon as it came out of her mouth. But Pen only considered her words for a moment before replying mildly, “Perhaps he was once. But now he's only a blind old man, unable to harm anyone. There's danger in a system of justice that makes no allowance for circumstance.”

“I agree.”

Pen went back to his stew, and Kelsea to hers. But after another moment, she put down her spoon. “I'm worried about that girl.”

“Andalie's oldest?”

“Yes.”

“She's troubled, Lady. We found no information on Andalie before her marriage, and believe me, Mace and I looked hard. But their family life was a different matter.”

“Different how?”

Pen paused for a moment, and Kelsea could see him framing his answer. “Lady, it was common knowledge in their neighborhood that Andalie's husband had a taste for young girls. His daughters were the worst case, but not the only ones.”

Kelsea swallowed her revulsion, striving for a businesslike tone. “Carlin told me that with no real courts, communities typically take care of these problems themselves. Why didn't they deal with him?”

“Because Andalie forbade it.”

“That makes no sense. I would expect Andalie to kill her husband herself, before anyone else had a chance.”

“Me as well, Lady, but for that riddle I could find no answer. The neighbors were happy enough to talk about Borwen, but not about Andalie. They thought her a witch.”

“Why?”

“No one would say. Perhaps it's just her way of looking through you.
I
fear Andalie, Lady, for all that I fear no man with a sword.”

“I do too.”

Pen took another spoonful of his stew, and his lack of curiosity allowed Kelsea to bring out the heart of her fear. “Andalie should have been the Queen, Pen. Not me. She looks like a queen and talks like a queen, and she inspires dread.”

Pen thought for a minute before answering. This quality of pensiveness was something Kelsea liked about him, that he didn't seek to fill empty silence with meaningless words. He swallowed two more mouthfuls of stew before replying. “What you've just given, Lady, is a perfect description of the Queen of Mortmesne. Andalie may be part Tear, but the essential core of her is Mort. She'd make an ideal queen in that kingdom. But you seek to create another type of queenship entirely, one not built on fear.”

“What's mine built on?”

“Justice, Lady. Listening. Whether it'll succeed, none of us know; it's certainly easier to hold power through fear. But there's something hard in Andalie, something without mercy, and while it might create a certain advantage, I don't know that I'd call it strength.”

Kelsea smiled as she turned back to her stew. Justice and listening. Even Carlin would have to be pleased with that.

 

K
elsea sat up in the dark. She'd heard a child scream in pain, somewhere beyond her own walls. She looked automatically to the left, searching for her fire, but there was nothing, not even the glowing hint of ashes. It must be almost dawn.

She reached to her bedside table for the candle that always stood there, but her fingers closed on nothing. Fear broke over her in a wave, sharp fear with no clear source. She groped, frantically now, and found that even the bedside table was gone.

A woman shrieked outside, her voice escalating until it cut off in a short, choked grunt.

Kelsea threw off her covers and jumped to the ground. Her feet landed not on the cold stone floor of her room but on what felt like hard-packed dirt. She rushed toward the door, not left across her own chamber, but ten feet to the right, through the kitchen area, steps she knew as well as her own name.