Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy (2 page)

She looked at me with surprise, and then a
smile formed. “Well, I see that you have not only grown, but that
your mind has grown, too, Clara.” She looked at Newton and then
back at me. “She is gathering an army of Baldies.”

“What!” I blurted out.

“A vast one,” grandmother continued, while
Newton remained silent. “In five years, and for years before that,
even as she fought Sebastian, she has been forging alliances with
the wild cats and their brethren. It is said that she cut off her
own left arm in front of the four Baldie chieftains, and that they
then pledged their allegiance to her. Even the more untamable
wildcat clans have been brought into the alliance by force, threat,
or assassination. And she has done this away from any prying
eyes.”

“Then let her stay in Solis Planum, and rule
over madmen!” I interjected.

My grandmother looked down at me with faint
disapproval. “Your studies are not complete, Princess. She means to
use this army.”

I could not keep quiet. “Against whom?” My
fear of being in this room was overcome by my self-confidence. I
laughed. “There is nothing in that wasteland for a thousand miles
to any compass point! They will be squabbling amongst themselves
within the week—”

“Princess—” Newton tried to interject, but I
would not be stopped.

“If they come within a day’s march of any
inhabited city, we’ll destroy them from the air!” I continued, my
confidence building. “We have the F’rar to help man our army this
time. She has no hope! And she is one-armed, to boot!”

I looked first at my father, who sat stone
still, and then my silent grandmother, and then Newton, whose faint
look of hope faded as he watched Grandmother Haydn shake her
head.”

“The Science Guild facility at Solis Planum
was attacked this morning. Reports from our gypsy friends are
incomplete, but by all accounts the Baldy army completely overran
it.”

I looked at Newton, who said nothing, and
then at my grandmother, who was silent. It was my father who spoke
now, for the first time. Even though he was a ghost of sorts his
eyes bore into my with a painful close intensity, and I had the
feeling that if he could he would jump from his chair and enfold me
in his arms.

His voice, when he spoke, was precise.

“How is your mother, Clara? How is my wife
Charlotte?”

“She is...the same.”

“I see. To other matters, then. What remains
unsaid, Clara, is that the Science Guild facility at Solis Planum
was the most important weapons staging area on the planet. It was
built there in secret to test, develop and store the most advanced
weapons on Mars, with technology produced from Old One discoveries.
It is by far the most dangerous place on the surface of the
planet.

“And now Frane owns it.”

A
s usual, the
curtains in my mother’s room were closed, giving the room the
quality of perpetual twilight. There was a breeze, bringing in the
sounds and smells of the city of Wells far below this palace room
which, despite its height, I had taken to calling The Dungeon.

“Mother, am I disturbing you?” I asked,
letting my voice show that, while I cared for her, there was
business to discuss and she would have no choice but to speak to
me.

“How are you, daughter?” Her voice was faint
from the divan where she lay curled. As always she sounded as
though she had been awakened from sleep.

“There are things we must speak about,
mother,” I continued.

“I was having the most curious dream,” she
said, raising her head to look at me in the gloom. “In it, you were
a little younger than you are now, yet your father was still
alive.”

“You’ve had this dream thousands of times,
mother. And father is still alive. I’ve just been to see him.”

I could see her visibly shudder. “That thing
is not your father! It never could be...”

“Mother, I must ask you a few things about
our family...”

“We have no family. It is just you and
I.”

“That’s not what I meant. Your father, my
grandfather, Senator Misst, was a traitor to the republic, and sits
in prison to this day. Is it possible he has been in contact with
Frane?”

“Frane is dead...”

“She is not dead, mother.”

I sensed a sudden tension, a sharpening of
interest, in the room. My mother raised her head to look at me with
her still-beautiful eyes.

“What do you mean, Clara?”

“She is alive, and gathering an army of
Baldies in the west. What I need to know from you is if there is
any possibility in the world that our family would betray the
republic again.”

She looked at me blankly.

“Mother!” I snapped. “Act like the Queen you
are!”

She swooned back onto her divan, and I knew
that now the tears would follow.

“I am no Queen, and never was. Your father
was King, and he is dead. You know I have given over my regent
powers, in deed if not in words, to the senate.”

“And it has been bad for Mars. You should
have been...”

Again she raised her head.

“Stronger, Clara?” she said. “When my whole
life ended before it began? I loved your father from our days as
kits together. All my life I planned what it would be like when we
were betrothed. And then my dreams came true, only to be snatched
away by that...horrible thing, Frane.”

“Who is still alive.”

“Yes...”

“Tell me, mother: is there any chance on Mars
that Senator Misst has been a traitor once more?”

“I don’t know. You would have to ask him.
Frane is alive...”

Instead of weeping, which was what I
expected, she swooned down onto the divan and was asleep in a few
moments. I drew near, and saw the ever-present potions nearby that
Newton had provided so that she might be kept out of the sanitarium
and at least nearby. She was whispering under her breath so I drew
close to this mother I had barely known, who had been one step from
mad since my birth.

“Ha...” she was saying, her breath sweet from
the elixir, which smelled faintly of peppermint and more serious
stuff.

I put my ear even closer to her whispering
mouth.

“Happy...” she breathed.

I turned my face to regard her own, more
beautiful than my own severe features would ever be, and kissed her
once on the forehead, above her sleeping eyes, before leaving.

M
y reading that
night (fiction had been totally abandoned for the Short History)
was interrupted by a sound outside my window.

Ever wary of assassins, I slipped from my
bed, dousing the light, and drew the blade which I always kept
(rather melodramatically, as Rebecca chided me) under my pillow,
and drew myself quietly against the wall. The blade was cold
against my side, but I held it tight. It had been Queen Haydn’s
own.

I edged my way toward the window on the far
side of the room. This afternoon’s breeze had increased to a steady
blow, and the curtains were roiling wildly. Outside it was typical
summer, hot and dry, with red dust in the air from the west which
we Wellsian’s were used to as a constant presence. The curtains
parted as one, giving me a view of the nearby beautiful Assembly
Hall which my grandmother had built before her own assassination.
There was only the flapping of the curtains now.

My hand relaxed on the hilt of the blade, and
I was about to crawl back to bed, and needed sleep, when the sound
came again. A scrape, followed by a clang.

I kept edging toward the window.

As I reached it I was startled by a metal
object which flew close by my head and fell into the room.
Instantly it retreated, and then caught at the sill of the window,
digging in. It was a three-sided hook, with a rope attached.

So...

I crept all the way to the window and peered
out.

A figure, dark-cloaked, was climbing the long
rope, which reached to the ground. I need only stand here and wait
for him to reach a suitable height, then cut the rope and watch him
plummet to his death.

I waited, as the cloaked figure scrambled up
the makeshift ladder.

I reached out, blade between wall and rope,
ready to slice the rope with a savage jerk as the figure drew
closer, closer...

I began to cut through when he was six feet
away.

He suddenly looked up –

“Clara, no!”

But the rope was cut, and I threw the blade
aside and grabbed at the rope as it fell, watching in horror as it
dropped below my grasping claws.

“Darwin, I’m sorry!” I shouted.

The rope slid through his fingers and he gave
me a savage look as he tumbled down and away, grabbing fleetly onto
the sill of the window below mine.

A light instantly shone out, and I heard a
scream.

“Darwin, wait!” I shouted down, and by now
there was commotion in the hallway outside my door. I heard a key
rattle in its lock. It was thrown open, showing the night guard,
who stared at me with wild purpose, drawing his sword.

“My princess–!” he began, advancing into the
room, but I waved him off.

“It’s all right! Everything’s fine!”

“But—”

“Get out, Stapleton! Please!”

His oafish features finally relaxed, and he
withdrew. “As you wish, princess.”

I looked down, and Darwin was nowhere to be
seen. For a moment my heart caught in my chest, and I peered at the
ground below, fearing to see Darwin’s white, battered body lying in
a heap.

“Boo,” came a soft whisper over my head, and
I looked up with a start to see Darwin hanging above me,
upside-down like a cave bat.

“Dar–!” I began to shout, but he had already
pounced, landing lightly on my window sill and jumping past me into
the room.

“Thought you had me that time, did you?” he
laughed.

“Not bad for an old coot,” I countered.

“Who’s old!” He made a mock show of looking
around the room, under the bed, behind the curtains. “Where’s your
wet nurse, kit?”

Anger flared up in me. “I’m not a kit
anymore!”

“Then prove it!” he laughed, and drew two
wooden swords from his belt, tossing one nimbly to me.

“Be on guard!” he shouted.

I went into position, but he had cheated,
thrusting forward at me before I had my footing and knocking me
down with a blunt point blow to the belly.

“Cheater!”

“In battle, everyone cheats!” he laughed, and
in the next ten minutes he sprang from every piece of furniture at
me, even swinging from the overhead lamp at one point.

Finally, he sat down on the floor, breathing
heavily, and dropped his wooden sword beside him.

“You’re right,” he said, shaking his head as
I curled on the floor beside him. “I’m not as young as I was.”

“None of us are,” I replied.

His eyes darkened. “My, you’re serious
tonight, princess.”

“There has been much news.”

“I’ve heard.” His eyes sparkled, and he
smiled. “But there’s always bad news – and always will be!”

“I wish I could be as sanguine as you.”

He shrugged. “You have a more serious nature
than me. Too serious. In fact, without me to lighten your moods,
you would look like this all the time—”

He pulled his mouth corners downward with his
paws, and shook his head mournfully.

“I wish I could be like you, Darwin,” I said,
and I’m afraid my face must have looked much like his own
exaggerated version of it. “But I’m afraid I have just too much to
worry about.”

“Bah!” he said, brightening. “We all have too
much to worry about. It just depends on how one deals with it. You
brood. Me, I find something to divert me. In the end, we both have
to deal with our troubles – but I’ll bet I have more fun in the
meantime!”

He threw back his head and laughed.

Retaining my dour demeanor, I shook my head
and said, “You’re the older brother I never had, Darwin. Thank you
for being such a good friend these last years. Without you I would
have had no one to cheer me up.”

He put his paw on my own, and his face grew
serious. “I will be with you in that Assembly Hall meeting
tomorrow, and I’ll be with you whenever you need me after that. I
watched you grow up from a skinny little sprite, into what you are
now.”

“And what am I, Darwin? Sometimes I feel like
a skinny little sprite stuck in a slightly larger body.”

“You’re growing up, is all.”

“And awkwardly, at that. I feel all out of
proportion. My paws and feet are too big and my body is getting too
long and my nose is too small and my eyes are too wide apart
and...”

He drew back, looking at me curiously for a
moment.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” he said, and for the first time
since I had known this jovial young man, this all white-furred
fellow save for one roguish black striped on his crown (which
contrasted nicely with my own black fur save for a thin white
stripe on my own crown), this inventive, constantly moving clown,
who never spoke about his own unhappy past but was always eager to
share my own woes, he was at a loss for words.

“Are you blushing, Darwin?” I asked in
astonishment.

“No, it’s...just a skin rash.”

I furrowed my brow, and held a paw out to
touch his face. “It doesn’t look like a rash...”

He shrank back as if I had a disease, and
warded off my touch.

“It’s nothing, princess!”

“But—” I said, uncomprehending, taking a
further step toward him.

“Please let it be!” he shouted, nearly
backing to the wall.

“Very well.” I shrugged, and lowered my
paw.

This was puzzling, because he had never acted
this way around me before. But I carried it no further because he
deliberately changed the subject.

“As to the Assembly Hall tomorrow, they
will want you to be silent, but of course you must not be...”