The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  For a few moments, Ewen had a bad fright, worried about a jailbreak. Da had warned him about jailbreaks, the worst shame that could befall a jailor. Two soldiers were stationed outside the door at the top of the steps, but Ewen was all alone down in the dungeon. He didn’t know what he would do if someone had forced his way in. He grabbed the knife that lay on his desk.

  But the crash of the door was followed by many voices and footsteps, such unexpected sounds that Ewen could only sit at his desk and wait to see what would come down the hallway. After a few moments a woman entered the dungeon, a tall woman with short-cropped brown hair and a silver crown on her head. Two great blue jewels hung on fine, glittering silver chains around her neck, and she was surrounded by five Queen’s Guards. Ewen considered these things for a few seconds, then bolted to his feet: the Queen!

  She went first to stare through the bars of Cell Three. “How have you been, Javel?”

  The man on the cot looked up at her with empty eyes. “Fine, Majesty.”

  “Nothing else to say?”

  “No.”

  The Queen put her hands on her hips and huffed, a sound of disappointment that Ewen recognized from Da, then moved over to Cell One to gaze at the wounded man who lay there.

  “What a miserable-looking creature.”

  The Mace laughed. “He’s endured rough handling, Lady. Rougher, maybe, than even I could have devised. The villagers took him in Devin’s Slope when he tried to barter carpentry for food. They bound him to a wagon for the trip to New London, and when he finally collapsed, they dragged him the rest of the way.”

  “You paid these villagers?”

  “All two hundred, Majesty. It’s a lucky break; we need the loyalty of those border villages, and the money will probably keep Devin’s Slope for a year. They don’t see a lot of coin out there.”

  The Queen nodded. She didn’t look like the queens in Da’s stories, who were always delicate, pretty woman like the Regent’s redhead. This woman looked . . . tough. Maybe it was her short hair, short like a man’s, or maybe just the way she stood, with her feet spread and one hand tapping impatiently on her hip. A favorite phrase of Da’s popped into Ewen’s head: she looked like no one to fiddle with.

  “You! Bannaker!” The Queen snapped her fingers at the man on the cot.

  The prisoner groaned, putting his hands to his head. The welts on his arms had begun to scab over and heal, but he still seemed very weak, and despite Da’s words, Ewen felt a moment’s pity.

  “Give it up, Lady,” the Mace remarked. “You won’t get anything out of him for a while. Men’s minds can break from a journey like that. It’s usually the point.”

  The Queen cast around the dungeon and her deep green eyes found Ewen, who snapped to attention. “Are you my Jailor?”

  “Yes, Majesty. Ewen.”

  “Open this cell.”

  Ewen stepped forward, digging for the keys at his belt, glad that Da had labeled them all so it was easy to find the key with the big 2. He didn’t want to keep this woman waiting. Once a month he oiled the locks, just as Da had advised, and he was grateful to feel the key turn smoothly, with no squealing or hitches. He stepped back as the Queen entered the cell with several guards. She turned to one of them, a huge man with ugly, jagged teeth. “Stand him up.”

  The big guard hauled the prisoner off the cot and grabbed him by the neck, dangling him just above the ground.

  The Queen slapped the prisoner’s face. “Are you Liam Bannaker?”

  “I am,” the prisoner gurgled in a low, thick voice. His nose had begun to trickle blood, and the sight made Ewen wince. Why were they being so unkind?

  “Where is Arlen Thorne?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The Queen said a bad word, one that Da had once spanked Ewen for repeating, and the Mace cut in. “Who helped you build your cages?”

  “No one.”

  The Mace turned to the Queen, and Ewen watched, fascinated, as they locked eyes for a long moment. They were talking to each other . . . talking without even opening their mouths!

  “No,” the Queen finally murmured. “We’re not going to start that now.”

  “Lady—”

  “I didn’t say never, Lazarus. But not for such small chance of reward as this.”

  She came out of the cell, signaling her guards to follow. The big guard dumped the prisoner back on his cot, where he breathed in great wheezes like an accordion. Ewen, feeling the Mace’s eyes on him, assessing, locked the cell immediately behind them.

  “And you,” the Queen remarked, moving over to gaze at the woman in Cell Two. “You’re the real prize, aren’t you?”

  The ghost-woman giggled, a sound like metal on glass. Ewen wanted to clap his hands over his ears. The woman grinned at the Queen, showing rotten lower teeth. “When my master comes, he’ll punish you for keeping us apart.”

  “Why is he your master?” the Queen asked. “What has he ever done for you?”

  “He saved me.”

  “You’re a fool. He abandoned you to save his own skin. You’re nothing but chattel to a slave trader.”

  The woman flew at the bars, her arms flailing like the wings of a bird gone wild inside its cage. Even the Mace took a step back. But the Queen moved forward until she was only a few inches from the bars, so close that Ewen wanted to shout a warning.

  “Look at me, Brenna.”

  The ghost-woman looked up, her face wrenching, as though she wanted to look away but could not.

  “You’re right,” the Queen murmured. “Your master will come. And when he does, I will take him.”

  “My magic will protect him from harm.”

  “I have my own magic, dear heart. Can’t you feel it?”

  Brenna’s face twisted in sudden pain.

  “I will hang your master’s corpse from the walls of my Keep. Do you see?”

  “You can’t do that!” the ghost-woman howled. “You can’t!”

  “Sport for vultures,” the Queen continued smoothly. “You can’t protect him. You’re nothing but bait.”

  The ghost-woman screamed in fury, a high and unbearable sound like the screech of a hunting bird. Ewen covered his ears and saw several Queen’s Guards do the same.

  “Be quiet,” the Queen ordered, and the woman’s screams cut off as suddenly as they had begun. She stared at the Queen, her pink eyes wide and frightened as she huddled on her cot.

  The Queen turned back to Ewen. “You will treat all three of these prisoners humanely.”

  Ewen bit his lip. “I don’t know that word, Majesty.”

  “Humanely,” the Queen replied impatiently. “Enough food and water and clothing, no harassment. Make sure they can sleep.”

  “Well, Majesty, it’s hard to make sure someone can sleep.”

  The Queen looked very hard at him, her brow furrowing, and Ewen realized he’d said something wrong. It had been easier when Da was the Jailor and Ewen only an apprentice. Da could always step in when Ewen didn’t understand. He was about to apologize—for it was always better to do that before someone got angry—when the Queen’s forehead suddenly smoothed.

  “You’re down here alone, Ewen?”

  “Yes, Majesty, since my Da retired. His arthritis got too bad.”

  “Your dungeon looks very clean.”

  “Thank you, Majesty,” he replied, smiling, for she was the first person besides Da who had ever noticed. “I clean it every other day.”

  “Do you miss your Da?”

  Ewen blinked, wondering if she was winding him up. The Regent had liked to do that, and his guards had liked to even more. Ewen had learned to spot the telltale sign in their faces: a sly meanness that might crouch hidden but never went away. The Queen’s face was hard, but not mean, and so Ewen answered truthfully. “Yes. There’s lots of things I don’t understand, and Da always explained them.”

  “But you like your job.”

  Ewen looked down at the ground, thinking of the other guard, the one who
had called him an idiot. “Yes.”

  The Queen beckoned him to stand in front of Cell Two. “This woman may not seem dangerous, but she is. She’s also very valuable. Can you watch her every day and not let her trick you?”

  Ewen stared at the ghost-woman. Certainly bigger and tougher prisoners had been housed in the dungeon. Several of them had tried to trick Ewen, everything from pretending to be sick, to offering Ewen money, to begging the loan of his sword. The ghost-woman stared at the Queen, her eyes gleaming with hatred, and Ewen knew that the Queen was right: this woman would be a tough prisoner, smart and quick.

  But I can be smart too.

  “I’m sure you can,” the Queen replied, and Ewen jumped, for he hadn’t said anything. He turned and saw something that made his jaw drop in astonishment: the blue jewels that dangled around the Queen’s neck were sparkling, glittering brightly in the torchlight.

  “Once a week,” the Queen continued, “you’ll come upstairs and give me a report on all three of your prisoners. If you need to, take notes.”

  Ewen nodded, pleased that she assumed he could read and write. Most people thought he couldn’t, but Da had taught him, so that he could keep the book.

  “Do you know what suffering is, Ewen?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Behind your three prisoners there is another man, a tall starving-thin man with bright blue eyes. This man is an agent of suffering, and I want him alive. Should you ever see him, you send word to Lazarus immediately. Do you understand?”

  Ewen nodded again, his mind already full of the picture she had put there. He could see the man now: a looming scarecrow figure with eyes like great blue lamps. He longed to try to paint him.

  The Queen reached out, and after a moment Ewen realized that she wanted to shake his hand. Her guards tensed, several of them placing hands on their swords, so Ewen offered his hand, very carefully, and allowed her to shake it. The Queen didn’t wear any rings, and Ewen wondered at this. He wondered what Da would say when Ewen told him that he’d met the Queen, that she wasn’t at all how Ewen had thought she would be. He stood by his cells, keeping an eye on all of the prisoners, but also peeking at the Queen as the five guards surrounded her and seemed to carry her in a wave, down the hallway and up the stairs, out of his dungeon.

  Kelsea Glynn had a temper.

  She was not proud of this fact. Kelsea hated herself when she was angry, for even with her heart thumping and a thick veil of fury obscuring her vision, she could still see, clearly, the straight path from unchecked anger to self-destruction. Anger clouded judgment, precipitated bad decisions. Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen. Carlin had impressed these facts upon her, many times, and Kelsea had listened. But even Carlin’s words had no weight when fury washed over Kelsea; it was a tide that cleared all obstacles. And Kelsea knew that although her anger was destructive, it was also pure, the closest she would ever get to the girl she really was deep down, beneath all of the controls that had been instilled in her since birth. She had been born angry, and she often wondered what it would be like to release her rage, to drop all pretense and let her true self out.

  Kelsea was working very hard to contain her anger now, but every word from the man across the table made the dark wave behind the dam swell a bit further. Mace and Pen were beside her, Arliss and Father Tyler in seats farther down the table. But Kelsea saw nothing but General Bermond, seated down at the other end. On the table before him lay an iron helmet topped with a ridiculous blue plume. Bermond was dressed in full armor, for he had just ridden in from the front.

  “We don’t want to stretch the army too thin, Majesty. It’s a poor use of resources, this plan.”

  “Must everything be a fight with you, General?”

  He shook his head, clinging doggedly to his point. “You can defend your kingdom, or you can defend your people, Majesty. You don’t have the manpower to do both at once.”

  “People are more important than land.”

  “An admirable statement, Majesty, but poor military strategy.”

  “You know what these people suffered in the last invasion.”

  “Better than you do, Majesty, for you weren’t even born yet. The Caddell ran red. It was wholesale murder.”

  “And mass rape.”

  “Rape’s a weapon of war. The women got over it.”

  “Oh Christ,” Mace breathed, and put a restraining hand on Kelsea’s arm. She started guiltily, for Mace had caught her. General Bermond might be old and lame, but she had still been thinking of dragging him from his chair and giving him several good, hard kicks. She took a deep breath and spoke carefully. “Men were raped along with the women, General.”

  Bermond frowned, annoyed. “That is apocryphal, Majesty.”

  Kelsea met Father Tyler’s eye, saw him give a slight shake of the head. No one wanted to talk about this facet of the last invasion, not even twenty years later, but the Arvath had received many consistent reports from local parish priests, the only observers to really chronicle the invasion. Rape was a weapon of war, and the Mort did not discriminate by gender.

  Kelsea suddenly wished that Colonel Hall could have attended this council. He didn’t always agree with her, but he was at least willing to look at all sides of a thing, unlike the General, whose mind had hardened long ago. But the Mort army had reached the border several days ago, and Hall could not be spared.

  “We’re wandering from the subject, Majesty,” Arliss remarked.

  “Agreed.” Kelsea turned back to Bermond. “We have to protect these people.”

  “By all means, Majesty, build a refugee camp and take in every stray. But don’t sidetrack my soldiers from more important business. Those who want your protection can find a way to the city by themselves.”

  “That’s a dangerous journey to make alone, particularly with small children. The first wave of refugees is barely out of the hills, and we’ve already had reports of harassment and violence along the way. If that’s the only option we offer, many of them will choose to stay in their villages, even when the Mort draw near.”

  “Then that’s their choice, Majesty.”

  The dam in Kelsea’s mind shuddered, its foundations weakening. “Do you honestly not know the right thing to do, General, or do you just pretend not to know because it’s easier that way?”

  Bermond’s cheeks reddened. “There’s more than one right here.”

  “I don’t think there is. Here we have men, women, and children who have never done anything but farm. Their weapons are wood, if they have weapons at all. Invasion will be a bloodbath.”

  “Precisely, and the best way to protect them is to make sure that the Mort never invade this kingdom.”

  “Do you really believe that the Tear army can hold the border?”

  “Of course I do, Majesty. To believe otherwise is treasonous.”

  Kelsea clamped her teeth down on the inside of her cheek, unable to believe the cognitive dissonance implied in such a statement. Hall’s reports came from the border, regular as clockwork and grim as doom, but Kelsea didn’t need Hall to tell her the true state of affairs. The Tear army would never hold against what was coming. In the past week, a vision had begun to grow on Kelsea: the western Almont, covered over with a sea of black tents and soldiers. The girl who had been raised by Carlin Glynn would never have trusted in visions, but Kelsea’s world had broadened well beyond the width of Carlin’s library. The Mort would come, and the Tear army wouldn’t be able to stop them. All they could hope to do was slow them down.

  Arliss spoke up again. “The Tear infantry are out of training, Majesty. We already have reports of tin weapons breaking under impact due to improper storage. And there is a serious morale problem.”

  Bermond turned to him, furious. “You have spies in my army?”

  “I have no need of spies,” Arliss replied coolly. “These problems are common knowledge.”

  Bermond swallowed his anger with poor grace. “Then all the more reason,
Majesty, for us to spend the limited time we have in training and supply.”

  “No, General.” Kelsea came to a decision suddenly, as she so often did: because it seemed the only thing that would allow her to sleep at night. “We’re going to use resources where they’ll do the most good: in evacuation.”

  “I refuse, Majesty.”

  “Indeed?” Kelsea’s anger crested, breaking like a wave. It was a wonderful feeling, but as always, damnable reason intruded. She could not lose Bermond; too many of the old guard in her army had a misplaced faith in his leadership. She forced a pleasant smile. “Then I will remove you from command.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Of course I can. You have a colonel who’s ready to lead. He’s more than capable, and certainly more of a realist than you.”

  “My army will not follow Hall. Not yet.”

  “But they will follow me.”

  “Nonsense.” But Bermond’s eyes edged away from hers. He had heard the rumors too, then. Less than a month had elapsed since Kelsea and her Guard had returned from the Argive Pass, but prevailing wisdom now held that Kelsea had unleashed a titanic flood on Arlen Thorne’s traitors and washed them all away. It was a favorite tale, demanded constantly from storytellers in New London’s pubs and markets, and it had done wonders for security. No one even tried to sneak into the Keep anymore, Mace had informed Kelsea, in a tone of near-regret. The incident in the Argive had drastically altered the political landscape, and Bermond knew it. Kelsea leaned forward, scenting blood.

  “Do you really believe that your army will defy me, Bermond? For your sake?”

  “Of course they will. My men are loyal.”

  “It would be a pity to test that loyalty and come up short. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply help with my evacuation?”

  Bermond’s glare was furious, but Kelsea was pleased to see that it was also weakening, and for the first time since the meeting had begun, she felt her anger beginning to recede a bit.

  “The camp’s one thing, Majesty, but what will you do when the Mort come? This city is crowded as it is. There certainly isn’t room for half a million extra people.”

  Kelsea wished she had a ready answer, but this problem had no easy solution. New London was already overpopulated, creating issues with plumbing and sanitation. Historically, when disease had broken out in the more crowded sections of the city, it was almost impossible to control. Double the population, and these problems would multiply exponentially. Kelsea planned to open the Keep to families, but even with its great size, the Keep would only absorb perhaps a quarter of the influx. Where would she put the rest?