The Queen of the Tearling (46 page)

“Extraordinary,” Mace remarked quietly, then raised his voice. “Come no closer!”

Merritt stopped short. His son stared at him in confusion, and Merritt picked him up and set him in the crook of his arm. Kelsea could see the scar on Merritt's forehead now, a truly nasty gash that had apparently seen no stitches. It wasn't the distended wound that a childhood injury would leave; rather, it looked fairly recent, an ugly red line against his pale forehead.

“Is the Queen with you?”

“I am!”

“Pen,” Mace growled, “stay sharp.”

Merritt murmured to his son for a moment and then set him down. He raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender and ventured a few steps closer. Kelsea expected Mace to object, but he merely drew his sword and moved to stand in front of her as Merritt approached.

“I'm Merritt of the Caden, Majesty.”

“Well met. Did you come to kill me?”

“We no longer seek your death, Majesty. There's no profit in it.”

The small boy had crept up behind his father to wrap an arm around his leg, and now Merritt reached down without thinking and picked him up again. “According to Sean, it's you I have to thank for his life.”

“Many lives were saved last night. I'm glad your boy is one of them.”

“Will the Mace allow me to come a bit closer?”

Mace nodded. “You may come within five feet, if you keep your arms around your son at all times.”

“That's a lot of care for someone traveling openly across flat country in daylight.”

Mace bristled, but said nothing. As Merritt came closer, Kelsea saw that the boy was falling asleep, his dark head tucked into the curve of his father's neck. Merritt halted perhaps seven feet away, and Kelsea's gaze was drawn automatically to the scar on his forehead, but when he looked her in the eye, she found that she couldn't look away. Despite his bruiser's build, his eyes were a bright and perceptive grey.

“I'll be gone from New London for a time, Majesty, perhaps a month, to hide my family. But I'm an honorable man, and you've given me my son's life. So you have my word: I will never raise a hand against you, and if it's within my power to do you a similar favor, I will.”

He gestured toward the caravan on the northern horizon. “I apologize also for those of my brothers you found in this business. They were working on their own. I doubt we'd have approved this action if it had come to a vote.”

Kelsea raised her eyebrows, surprised. She wouldn't have thought of the Caden as a democratic body.

“Should you need my assistance, find a baker's boy named Nick down in the Wells,” Merritt continued, speaking to Mace now. “He'll know how to get a message to me, and he'll do it quietly.”

He bowed to Kelsea and turned to walk back to his horse, his gait slow so as not to wake the child. He remounted with the boy still in the crook of one arm (how strong he must be! Kelsea thought; she could barely haul herself and her own armor into a saddle) and began to trot west.

“Well, that was something,” Kelsea remarked.

“More than something, Lady,” Mace replied. “The Caden bow to no one. I think he meant every word.”

They watched Merritt until he was no more than a speck against the tan of the grasslands, and only then did Mace seem to relax. He snapped his fingers, particularly at Kibb, who showed signs of climbing down from his horse. “Back at it!”

They rode west. The shining cerulean line of the Crithe grew closer as they traveled, until it resolved itself into a bright ribbon of water running alongside them. The caravan would need to ford the Crithe, and that would take some effort, yet Kelsea found that she wasn't worried about anything at the moment. She'd checked her sapphires often, but they simply hung there, heavy and cold. For today, at least, they were only jewels.

 

T
hey kept within sight of the caravan until it reached the close-set group of villages along the Crithe. Mace had directed the villagers to cut weight as they went, leaving empty cages behind, and Wellmer assured Kelsea that the caravan was gradually being dismantled from village to village. No one would use Thorne's handiwork again, not for anything but firewood.

But he can always build more
, Kelsea's mind warned. The thought made her jaw clench; if only they'd managed to take Thorne! She couldn't be angry at Elston, but she didn't underestimate the danger of having Thorne out there, on the loose. It might take him some time to regroup, but he wouldn't be idle for long.

When the caravan reached the final village, Kelsea and her Guard finally turned away and headed for New London, rejoining the Mort Road. Their travel was uneventful. The guards talked quietly among themselves during the journey. Coryn, who'd had the presence of mind to gather all the water he could carry in the Argive, periodically passed around bottles. A couple of times they were treated to the truly horrible sound of Kibb singing riding songs, until Kelsea finally threatened to throw him out of her Guard if he didn't shut up.

She spent much of the journey talking to Wellmer, with whom she'd had little conversation before. He told her that he'd been fifteen, living on the streets of New London and earning his bread by hustling games of darts, when Mace had found him. “He taught me to shoot, Lady. He said there wasn't that much difference between archery and darts, and there isn't. It's in the eye.”

Kelsea looked up ahead, to where Mace led the company. “What if you failed to make the switch? Would he have thrown you back to the streets?”

“Probably. Dyer always says there's no room for deadweight in the Queen's Guard.”

That sounded like Dyer, fair but hard, probably true. Looking around her, Kelsea saw no signs of grief over Mhurn; indeed, her guards didn't discuss him at all, and Kelsea wondered if he meant nothing to them now, if Queen's Guards were able to cut their deadweight as easily as the caravan. She couldn't forget about Mhurn so easily; the image of his empty, drug-hazed eyes recurred to her constantly as they traversed the Mort Road. She looked at the land around her, the deep amber of the wheat cut by the yellow line of the road, and wished that she could make it a softer world.

On the final night of the journey, they camped within sight of New London, atop a shallow rise on the banks of the Caddell. Her guards fell gratefully to their bedrolls, but Kelsea, who had slept soundly each night since they'd left the Argive, found herself wakeful. She tossed and fidgeted for perhaps an hour, then finally got up, wrapped herself in her cloak, and crept away from Pen, proud when he failed to wake.

She found Mace sitting some twenty feet down the side of the hill, looking out across the Caddell and the Almont Plain beyond, a pale blue shadow in the darkness. He didn't even turn around as she approached.

“Can't sleep, Lady?”

Feeling around on the ground, Kelsea found a broad, flat rock that would hold her comfortably and sat down beside him. “I never know what I'll see when I sleep these days, Lazarus.”

“Where's Pen?”

“Sleeping.”

“Ah.” He looped his arms around his legs. “We'll undoubtedly discuss that at some point, but for now, I'm glad you found me alone, Lady. It's time for me to offer my resignation.”

“Why?”

Mace chuckled bitterly. “You know, Lady, all those years I watched Carroll do this job, I envied him. I was better than him at so many things, you see. . . . I could read people better, I was a better fighter, I had better discipline. Each time the Regent tried to disband us, to cut off our salaries, I was the one who made sure it didn't happen. I always assumed that when my turn came, I would be a better captain than Carroll. But pride has done me in.”

Kelsea bit her lip. Despite the events of the past week, she had never even considered asking Mace to resign. Who else could possibly do his job? She opened her mouth to tell him so, and then closed it. Maudlin sentiment would cut no ice here. “You've had several spectacular failures in security lately, Lazarus.”

“Indeed, Lady.”

“Disappointing, and yet I forgive you those failures.”

“You shouldn't have to.”

Kelsea thought for a moment, then continued, “That day in my chamber, when you and Pen grabbed hold of me, I could have killed you. Did you know that?”

“Not at the time, Majesty. But now I don't doubt that it's so.”

“I could kill you now, Lazarus, for all your vaunted prowess with sword and mace. And before I asked you to resign, I
would
kill you. I'm safest with you here beside me, not out there beside someone else.”

“I'm sworn to you, Lady. That doesn't end when I resign.”

“So you say now. But even you can't predict what circumstance may do. I won't take the chance, and I don't accept your resignation.”

She grabbed his arm, not hard, but not too gently either. “But make no mistake: if you ever refuse to obey a direct order of mine again, I will kill you. Anger almost made me do it once, and could easily make me do it again. I'm not a child any longer, Lazarus, nor am I a fool. I'm either the Queen or I'm not . . . there can be no grey.”

Mace swallowed; she heard it clearly in the dark. “You're the Queen, Lady.”

“I'm sorry to threaten you, Lazarus. It's not what I want.”

“I don't fear death, Lady.”

She nodded. Mace didn't fear anything; she already knew that.

“But I don't want to die at your hands.”

Kelsea's lips parted, and she stared at the twinkling line of the Caddell, unable to respond.

“What now, Lady?”

“Now we continue, Lazarus. We prepare for the war that we both know is coming. We figure out how to feed and educate and doctor all of these people. But even more than that . . .” She turned back to him. “I've been thinking for a long time about the shipment, about all those Tear in Mortmesne.”

You have?
her mind asked, bewildered.
When?
And it came to Kelsea: while she'd slept. Something from that dark period strained to break the surface, but then it faded without a ripple, and the pool in her head lay still. She
had
dreamed; she'd dreamed of so many things that her mind had wiped itself clean.

“Many of the allotted are dead now, Lady. Worked to death or killed for their organs.”

“I know that. But organs can't be the primary use for Mort slaves; Arliss says the transplant surgery hasn't been perfected. There's no money in it yet. No, it'll be the two old standbys: labor and sex. I'm sure many of them
are
dead, but humanity always finds a way to survive this ordeal. I think more must still be alive.”

“So?”

“I don't know yet. But something, Lazarus. Something.”

Mace shook his head. “I have several spies in Demesne, Lady, but none where you're talking about, which is the Auctioneer's Office. The Mort are a population under the boot; it's difficult to turn them.”

“Carlin always used to tell me that people under tyranny needed only a swift kick to awaken them.”

Mace remained silent for a long moment.

“What?”

“Lady, your foster parents are dead.”

The words hit Kelsea like a punch to the stomach. She turned to him, opening her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Dyer found them there, Lady, when he went for the books. Both of them, some weeks dead.”

“How?”

“They were sitting in their parlor, mugs of tea in front of them, a bottle of cyanide on the table. Dyer's no detective, but it was an easy scene to read. They waited until you left, poured their tea, and laced it. They would've been dead by the time the Caden reached the cottage.”

Kelsea stared at the river, feeling the warmth of tears on her cheeks. She should have known. She remembered Barty and Carlin in the weeks before her departure, the haphazard way they'd packed, the lack of urgency. The awful whiteness of their faces that morning in front of the cottage. All of their talk of Petaluma had been a show for Kelsea's benefit. They had never planned to leave.

“Did you know this when you came to the cottage?”

“No.”

“Why wouldn't they tell me?”

“For the same reason I haven't told you, Lady: to save you anguish. Believe me, theirs was an honorable act. No matter where they went or how well they hid themselves, Barty and the Lady Glynn would always have been a danger to you.”

“Why?”

“They raised you, Lady. They had the sort of information no one else could discover: your likes and dislikes, what moves you, your weaknesses, who you really are.”

“What could anyone do with that?”

“Ah, Lady, that's the sort of information that enemies value most. I use such intelligence myself, to suborn spies and create havoc. Pressure points are incredibly valuable. Moreover, Lady, what if someone had captured your foster parents, offered them to you for ransom, threatened them with harm? What would you have been willing to give?”

Kelsea had no answer. She couldn't seem to get beyond the fact that she would never see Barty again. She thought of her chair, of Kelsea's Patch, which sat right in the sunlight through the cottage window. More tears came now, burning like acid behind her eyelids.

“The Lady Glynn was a historian of the pre-Crossing, Lady, and Barty was a Queen's Guard. They knew what they were getting into eighteen years ago, when I delivered you to their door.”

“You said you didn't know!”

“I didn't, Lady, but they did. Listen closely, for I will only tell this tale once.” Mace considered for a moment, then continued. “Eighteen years ago, I rode up to that cottage in the Reddick with you strapped to my chest. It was raining hard; we'd been on the road for three straight days, and it had rained the entire time. We rigged up a waterproof sling for me to carry you in, but even so, by the end of the journey, you were nearly wet through.”