He sneered, “And what does a fool know of negotiations?”
“Nothing, my lord. I only repeat what I was told. They are discussing the army.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Lord Robert was, supposedly, the head of the queen’s army. In three strides he was at the door and yanking on the handle. The door was barred from within.
Lord Robert’s hand flashed to his sword. But a sword is no good against heavy oak. He kicked the door and bellowed, “Caroline!”
I said in a low voice to the five women, “Get out. Quickly. She will never forgive you for witnessing this, if she knows.”
Lady Margaret, oldest and quickest-witted, said, “Yes! Come
now
.” She had to pull Cecilia to her feet, but the last of their green skirts disappeared through the door to the presence chamber, with Lady Margaret closing it behind them, a scant moment before the queen flung open the door on the opposite side of the room.
Her gaze swept quickly around the room, found only me, and rasped, “Go.”
I did not have to be told twice. I scampered from the room, hunched over, trying to look as much as possible like some small animal, harmless and mute. In the presence chamber, the queen’s ladies huddled against the far door, too afraid of the savages to risk the open courtyard beyond. As I approached, Lady Margaret said sharply, “Well? ”
What to say? “She . . . sent me away.”
Lady Jane said, “Was Lord Solek there?”
“Of course he was there,” Lady Sarah said. “We already knew that. Only—why didn’t Lord Robert challenge him? No, wait—Lord Solek must have already left the queen.”
“We would have seen him go,” Lady Jane argued. “Unless . . . Oh! There must be a secret passage from the queen’s bedchamber! ”
“
Enough
,” Lady Margaret said, and not even those two dared disobey her tone. Lady Margaret looked at me with new, reluctant respect. “You did well, fool.”
Lady Sarah said, “But did you
see
him? Will the savage and Lord Robert fight over her . . . later, I mean?”
I said, “Lord Solek and the queen had matters of The Queendom to discuss.”
Lady Jane snorted with delicate lewdness.
Lady Margaret said, “The fool is right. Lord Solek had to discuss the army with the queen, and that is what we will say to anyone who asks. Do you all understand that?
Do you
?”
One by one they agreed. Lord Solek was there on affairs of state. It was a meeting of negotiation, to which Lord Robert arrived late because he had been pursuing the retreating enemy. The three of them had discussed matters of The Queendom, such as the princess’s betrothal to Lord Solek’s son. The meeting among the three was about important affairs of The Queendom. Lady Margaret rehearsed them over and over.
But it was Cecilia who knew what really to ask. As the ladies finally dispersed, under heavy guard, to their chambers until next sent for, Cecilia caught my arm. “Roger—what was the queen wearing when she opened the door?”
“Go to your chamber, my lady,” I said. She pouted and flounced off, escorted by two Greens.
The queen, barefoot, had been wearing nothing but a short shift, and her dark hair had tumbled loose around her bare shoulders.
The next day Lord Robert rode from the palace on his magnificent black charger, gone to his estate in the country, and did not return. He had gone, Queen Caroline announced to her court, at her behest, on an important mission of state.
21
“ROGER, I HAVE
work for you,” the queen said.
That could mean only one thing. My spine froze.
Weeks had passed since the battle. Spring flowed into early summer, with roses budding in courtyards and crops pale green in fields. Lord Solek’s savage soldiers were everywhere—how could so few of them seem like so many? They directed the Green guards, they marched through the spider-net of villages around the palace and secured them for the queen, they supervised the barges arriving at the palace, they controlled everything that happened in Glory. A few had learned some words of our language, but most managed with gestures and demonstrations of what they wanted. They were tireless, superbly disciplined, courteous in their rough way. They were—always, everyplace—
there
.
The queen kept me close by her, except when she was in her privy chamber with Lord Solek. She never mentioned what I had seen the night of the battle. She didn’t have to mention it; we both knew it was worth my life to stay silent about the scene between her and Lord Robert. Much of the time, as Lord Solek received reports from his captains and directed his growing power over the capital, the queen sat with her ladies as they sewed or sang or gambled or danced. She said little, and did not join them in their forced revels. They had to be cheerful and amusing, for her sake; she did not have to cheer or amuse them, and she didn’t. She sat quiet, thoughtful. Sometimes she didn’t hear when Lady Margaret spoke to her.
Queen Caroline’s beautiful face showed nothing, but I could sense her growing fear. This had not been part of her plan. Lord Solek was swiftly, surely, securing power over The Queendom. The queen had defeated her mother’s forces only to fall before those of her lover.
“Will she marry him?” Cecilia whispered to me as she sat in a window embrasure, supposedly sewing. Her cushion cover was a tangled mess; I could have set neater stitches myself.
“Marry him?”
She giggled. “Well, they bed together, don’t they?”
“I am never in the queen’s bedchamber. Hush, my lady.” Quickly I glanced around. Cecilia had no discretion, and sometimes I thought she had no memory. Both Lady Margaret and I had warned her again not to speak of the queen and Lord Solek. But she was like a kitten: curious, wide-eyed, playful, completely adorable. The scent of her made my head float and my eyes blur.
“Maybe she
should
marry him,” Cecilia said. “He’s very handsome. Those blue eyes.”
“Lady Cecilia . . .
please
!”
“Well, he is. And Princess Stephanie is not strong. The queen is old but not that old—he could maybe give her another daughter in case—oh, all right, Roger. You cautious old thing.” She patted my shoulder. Her touch was like wine. “It’s all right now, don’t you see? We’re at peace again and everything’s all right. The queen—oh, she wants us now!”
“Stay, she wants me,” I said, and rose to follow the queen to the high roof where we had watched the battle. Three or four times a day we did this, climbing the steep stone steps through the bell tower, just she and I and two Green guards, the same two I often saw drinking ale in the guardroom with one of Lord Solek’s captains. That savage captain had a good ear for words; he was among the best with our language.
“I like to gaze at my queendom at peace,
” the queen said to explain her frequent trips to the tower. I knew better.
Now she leaned on the stone parapet and called me to her. Her Green guard stood by the trapdoor to the staircase, a respectful distance away and out of earshot of whispers. She knew as well as I that her guards were Lord Solek’s spies. The queen’s hands gripped the stone hard. Wind pulled at her hair, her gown. She had lost weight, and there was a fierce desperation in her dark eyes. She said, “Roger, I have work for you.”
“Y-yes, Your Grace.”
“You will cross over and see if the country of the Dead contains a new arrival, a messenger from my brother’s bride.”
“Your Grace—I have tried to tell you . . . the country of the Dead is such a big place, to find one person—”
“Nonetheless, you will find him. He will be small, in order to ride fast, and he will be wearing yellow, the color of Isabelle’s court. You will ask him when her army will arrive here.”
“Your Grace . . . you are presuming that such a messenger was not only sent but also is now dead. ...”
“He must be dead, or he would be here. Or Isabelle’s army would.”
And she needed them. Her need was in every line of her taut figure, her tense face. Only an army that she commanded could counterbalance the one led by Lord Solek, the bedmate who was usurping her queendom. Queen Isabelle’s army, bound to Queen Caroline through Prince Rupert’s marriage, would not have the
guns
of Lord Solek’s men, but the Yellows had a reputation as the best soldiers in the world. If Queen Isabelle bore a daughter, that princess would be second in line for the Crown of Glory, after the sickly Princess Stephanie. Queen Caroline had a strong claim on her sister-in-law’s army, in addition to the affection of her brother. And she had sent for the Yellow army much earlier, had carefully timed their probable arrival as part of her grand design. So where were they?
Her situation was clear to me. Mine, as always, was not to her. To find one messenger in the country of the Dead—if he was even there!—would be impossible. I had lied to the queen before and gotten away with it—but what if another lie caught me out?
“You will cross over now, right here,” the queen said to me. “Not in my privy chamber—right here on the tower. I have already told my lord Solek that my fool is given to fits.”
Fits? And she did not trust her own privy chamber—were there spy holes? In her bedchamber, as well? Things were even worse for her than I had guessed.
As if to confirm my fear, the queen said in a low voice that seemed torn from her against her will, “He seeks to send Princess Stephanie to his barbaric country until her marriage. Roger—
men
rule there!”
My eyes grew so wide that the wind on the tower made them water. Men did not rule; they could not create life, only defend it. I—everyone at court—had assumed that Lord Solek acted on behalf of some unknown barbarian queen. But if
men
ruled . . . And for a future queen to be sent away—unthinkable! A princess or queen left her queendom only once, on her marriage journey, to inspect in person the dowry her husband brought her. After that, her place was in her own palace, always. Princess Stephanie was only three; she would grow up not even knowing The Queendom that she must one day rule. Her loyalty would be to the savage realm, not her own. She might even forget her mother tongue.
“I cannot make Lord Solek understand,” the queen said, still in that same low voice, although we both knew that Lord Solek understood only too well. “Go now, Roger, and find Isabelle’s messenger. Have a fit right here, right now.”
Have a fit! How did one have a fit? I had never even seen a fit. The queen’s hand brushed mine; her fingers left me with a piece of gold. What good was gold to bring on a fit? All at once I was angry, furious, at the way I was used. I was a tool, no more than her spoon or her goblet. A tool—just as she was to the savage who shared her bed and wanted her queendom.
There was no choice but to do as I was told.
I screamed and jumped up on the stone railing. The Green guards rushed forward, swords drawn, and pulled the queen away from me. I tossed the gold coin in the air, cried, “I buy the sky! Why why why!” and jumped back down from the parapet to writhe on the stone floor. My hand felt in my pocket to work my little shaving blade free of its sheath, and viciously I cut my palm. Blood filmed my hand, and I crossed over.
I did not know where I was.
I stood among huge boulders, an outcrop such as I had never seen anywhere near Glory. Among the boulders grew scrub bushes, leafless and misshapen things that sent out twisted twigs from twisted stems. I blundered into one. Its sharp thorns pricked my already bloody palm. The ground shook under my feet and the dark sky raced with clouds. My gut twisted. I had caused this devastation.
Noise came from my left. Careful to avoid the thorny bushes, I picked my way among the boulders until I emerged onto the plain beside the river, but a plain changed and misshapen as the bushes. Rocks were strewn everywhere, some small enough to kick, some as big as I was. More of the scrub bushes spiked the ground, which rumbled under my feet. Amid this chaos the Dead sat or lay in their usual oblivion—but not all of them.
The noise came from two sources. The river ran more swiftly now, breaking and swirling against new rocks, sending up spray and sound. But most of the noise came from across the river. Blue soldiers, hundreds of them, dead in the recent battle with the savage warriors. The Blues were being drilled by their captains. They marched, shouted, brandished swords, stamped their boots. None of them acted even remotely as if he was Dead. One of them caught sight of me across the water. He cupped his hand to shout across the river.
“Witched fool! What news, boy?”
I could not have answered to save my life. When I stood, dumb as one of the inexplicable boulders, he yelled even louder. “
What news
?”
When I still did not answer, the soldier and the man next to him stepped onto the river and walked across its surface to the other side.
Dizziness took me and everything swirled and swooped. When I could see again, one of them had hold of my arm.
“His wits are returning, Lucius,” his friend said. “Boy, ye be all right?”
“Of course he not be all right, he’s witched, you idiot!”