On either side of the gates, several circles of wagons formed camps, a few of which looked almost like permanent residences. This must be public land, and I suspected those camped outside the city were farmers and traders bringing their goods to the market, unable to afford the pricey inns within the city walls.
Once I passed beyond these wagons, following the strip of open grassland as it curved around the palace wall, I broke into a run. My braid bounced against my back and the grass whipped my legs as I flew past, running as if I could escape every cruel word thrown my way, as if I could shed the power that had turned my life into a curse.
By the time I stopped, winded and exhilarated, I could see no sign of the city gates or the great road leading away from Baylore. I wanted to amble back the way I had come to prolong my freedom, but the sun was sinking faster than I had realized. Breaking into a light jog, I retraced the line of crumpled grasses I had left in my wake back.
I did not reach the servants’ gate to the palace until the sun had dropped below the city wall. The guard shook his head at me as he let me in, saying, “Won’t your princess be wondering where you’ve gone?”
“I hope not,” I said sheepishly.
More importantly, I hoped my mother had not noticed my absence. Once I slipped into the tunnels beneath the palace, I dashed down the lighted passageway until I found the room where I had left my gown. Folding the servant girl’s dress atop a crate, I hurried back to the Cheltish wing, unbraiding my hair with my fingers as I went. I was sure I looked a fright; with any luck, no one would spot me until I had made it safely back to my tower.
But luck was not on my side. I ran across Mother as I was trying to sneak up the stairs between the lower and upper floors of our wing, and when I stopped before her, she put a hand to my forehead.
“Are you well? You look as though you have a fever.”
“No, I just got too hot wearing this dress,” I said. “I was going to head up and change before dinner.”
“We’ve already eaten. I looked for you, but you were nowhere to be found.”
“I was in the library,” I said. “I was trying to hide from—”
“From whom?” Mother’s eyes narrowed. “Has someone been giving you trouble?”
“Not at all.”
Mother sighed. “I’ll have something sent up for your dinner. And we ought to find a new lady-in-waiting to tend to you. Your hair is a mess.”
* * *
I continued sneaking out daily after that, though I never left the city again—instead I spent as long as possible sitting at various inconspicuous places in the main square, watching the city gates and hoping against hope that I would see something that would justify the time spent out here.
Over a quarter passed before I finally spotted Leoth leaving the palace. I had almost given up hope, and in my carelessness I nearly lost him in the throngs of passersby filling the streets. It was Sullimsday, so the Sullimsday market Mother had described filled the main Market Street with endless stalls selling everything from fruit to enchanted capes.
At least there was little danger Leoth would spot me following him.
Thankfully I was tall enough to see over at least half of the heads in the crowd, so I was able to follow Leoth down two blocks of Market Street before he ducked right down a side street. I tried counting each turn we took from there, but the route we followed wound back and forth so many times I soon lost track. There were fewer people around here, so I ran a greater risk of being seen; I followed as close as I dared, grateful that Leoth never turned to look over his shoulder.
Eventually the small houses with shops and tearooms and taverns beneath gave way to larger brick buildings without windows, towering monoliths that each took up an entire city block. This had to be the Warehouse District—though I had never seen it before, the place was unmistakable.
Leoth rounded a corner soon after we reached the Warehouse District and came across a door that stood open, two men standing at the door as though guarding it. They were the first people I had seen since entering the Warehouse District; evidently most workers in this part of town had Sullimsday off. As soon as it became obvious this was Leoth’s destination, I hung back, waiting for him to disappear inside. I allowed several minutes to pass before striding around the corner as though I belonged there.
As I drew closer, I spotted a sign hanging over the door which read The Coachman’s Bar. The door itself showed signs of decay—one of the boards was rotting through, while another had fallen off altogether.
“Greetings, good lady,” one of the men at the door called out as I approached. “Have you come for today’s meeting?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Do you have your ring?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, I forgot it at home. I have to take it off when I’m cleaning, you see, or it will go funny colors.”
“I’m very sorry to say this, but the Master will not be happy if we allow anyone without the sigil to enter. You can join us for our meeting next Varseday, though, if you remember your ring then.”
“Right,” I said. “Thank you.” Disappointed, I returned the way I had come and hid around the corner so I could watch anyone else who arrived.
Before long, two pale-skinned men in white cloaks appeared from the opposite end of the warehouse; goosebumps prickled down my arms at the sight. They looked peaceful and solemn, from their measured pace to the steady gaze they trained on the street ahead, but something about them felt wrong.
Once the Truthbringers had joined the gathering within, I left my post and hurried around the perimeter of the run-down warehouse, hoping to find some crevice that would allow me to listen in on their meeting. On the opposite side, I came across a narrow window higher than I could see through with a pane of glass missing, and from beneath it I could hear a man’s voice saying, “—too well guarded! We ought to abandon our attempts now, unless you could find some vulnerability…”
Other voices cut over the speaker at this point, but all were murmuring too softly for me to pick up any words. I stood listening in the alley for what felt like an hour, yet I never caught more than a stray word.
Even though I was disappointed to miss the actual meeting, I left feeling triumphant. I knew Leoth was a member of whatever cult these Truthbringers led, and might have a hand in everything from the attacks against those with magical blood to the thwarted assassination attempt. We just had to prove the Truthbringers were behind the attacks.
I mulled over this new information on my way back to the palace. Since I had no hope of retracing my steps through the back alleys of the Market District, I instead headed east, following the sun’s angle, until I ran across Market Street. It was an easier route than I had expected—whether Leoth had taken such a winding path to avoid the crowds of the Sullimsday market or to prevent anyone from following him, I could not guess.
The part I could not understand was why Leoth was willing to listen to these extremists in the first place. If they had come from a remote village, their ideas were likely as backward as those of the people in Ambervale who thought the stone ring we had laid outside our house was the mark of a curse. Furthermore, religion had been more or less absent in Baylore itself for hundreds of years.
What did Leoth see in these strange men dressed in white? Or were they using religious teachings as a cover for something much more sinister?
14
The Visitor
N ow that I knew the date of the next meeting Leoth would attend, I no longer needed to slip out of the palace each day to keep vigil on the main square. Though I missed the freedom of roaming the city streets, I knew it was wise to stay safely within the palace for a couple of quarters; the guard at the servants’ entrance was beginning to grow suspicious, and I had a few close calls with members of our household as I crept up the stairs from the servants’ wing.
Rather than hiding in my tower, I spent more time in the library and the sitting-room in our wing,
listening in on any conversations I could and hoping to catch Leoth in the midst of something suspicious. My long afternoons outside the palace walls had rejuvenated me, and I was able to smile blandly at Leoth and the other courtiers when they sneered. Even so, I did not dare return to the dance lessons after that first fateful day.
I did invite Darya, the timid Dellgrain girl, to assist me with dance steps one day, and she seemed overwhelmed to be in my presence.
“I’ve heard so much about you, Your Highness,” she said, blushing. “Not that I listen to gossip, of course, but—”
“One can hardly set foot in this palace without hearing a cartload of rumors,” I said wryly. “Now, what dances do I need to know if I am to keep from making a fool of myself at the first royal ball?”
“Well, there’s the Bashard…”
Darya quickly gained confidence as she walked me through the steps. She was evidently a skilled dancer, and a natural teacher.
When we parted ways at last, she said, “I do hope you win the palace vote. I don’t trust Prince Leoth.”
I fought back my triumphant smile—if I wasn’t mistaken, I had gained myself another ally.
* * *
Mother began seeking me out to share her responsibilities, saying she had no more experience ruling than I did, and moreover, I would need the practice. We had advisers, but Mother did not trust them, so she read every parchment put before her in detail and researched every possible outcome for any decisions we made. I was not allowed in the chamber of law, where the five rulers of this cycle voted on each new law, but I accompanied Mother everywhere else.
The city council oversaw most of the day-to-day running of Baylore, from criminal trials to building codes and farmland disputes, but we were called in whenever a new law needed to be enacted. We were also responsible for deciding the taxes for each span. The council gave us a list of existing and propose expenses, to which we added any larger infrastructure projects and the general upkeep of Baylore Palace. Most of the nobility and courtiers paid their own way through the harvest grown on their country estates, but every current and past ruler, along with their heirs, received a salary of one thousand varlins each span.
“What am I supposed to do with so much money?” I asked Mother when I learned of this.
“Do you have any idea how much a single gown costs? Besides, you and Leoth will be splitting the Reycoran heir’s salary until you take the throne.”
Our taxes were collected both in coins—from Baylore residents—and a portion of each region’s harvest bounty. It was a careful balance to order enough to feed the palace through the winter and maintain an emergency stockpile for the rest of Baylore without angering the farmers who needed their harvest just as much; thankfully this had been a plentiful summer, with just the right mix of sun and rain, so Mother did not anticipate too many complaints. In meager years, everyone would suffer.
The royal duties occupied my thoughts enough that I did not worry about the fear and dislike I faced at every turn. We only left our own wing occasionally—to access royal records stored elsewhere in the palace and to convene with the city council—and at least in the Cheltish wing, it seemed that attitudes toward me had grown less hateful and more cautious since the assassination attempt. Meanwhile, the rest of the palace seemed to believe the story the guard at the servants’ gate had told me—that the assassination story had been a cover to hide the fact that I had killed Jallera myself. That the assassin had died before anyone else had a chance to see or question him further stoked these rumors.
Unfortunately, this also meant I did not have time for much reading at night, not that it mattered. My research into the Truthbringers had led me nowhere.
After a quarter and a half of this, our routine was disrupted by the announcement that an emissary from King’s Port had arrived and sought an audience with the queen. The fact that he knew King Baltheor was away and directly requested Mother’s attendance was concerning, and Mother delayed the meeting until the following day so she had time to prepare.
“Where is King’s Port?” I asked. “I don’t recognize that name. Is it in the Kinship Thrones?”
Mother shook her head. “It’s at the far southern end of Itrea, in Smuggler’s Cove. It is a pirate town.” These last words were filled with disdain. “What they want with us, I have no idea. The pirate settlements have usually kept to themselves, as they are uninterested in following Itrean laws.”
“What does it mean, that they’re here?”
“I have no idea.”
* * *
Mother arranged for the King’s Port emissary to meet us in the throne room, which I assumed was a means of intimidating him. Ordinarily we would host solitary guests in the audience chamber of the main historic wing, but this way Mother was able to station twenty guards—ten of our family guards and ten palace guards—at the perimeter of the throne room, and invite Olleack, Nashella, and Leoth to join us in receiving the guest, under strict orders not to speak unless she or the emissary asked them a direct question.
The emissary strode into the chamber exactly on time, boot heels clicking across the floor as he approached. He looked exactly the way I would have imagined a pirate lord to appear—he wore a velvet coat of black and red set off with copious amounts of gold jewelry, including far too many gold rings and chains hanging at his throat, and his long brown hair was tied back in a tail.
“Your Majesty,” he said smoothly, bowing. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”
“I must admit myself surprised,” Mother said. “I was under the impression your city did not have much use for Baylore or its laws. What has prompted you to travel such a great distance to meet with us today?”
“We may not have reason to visit Baylore very often, but we keep in close communication with Larkhaven, as many of our shipping routes intersect with theirs. We had word that the governor of Larkhaven is considering seceding from Itrea, and in the off chance that happens, we would like to tighten our ties with Baylore.”
Mother narrowed her eyes. “When did Larkhaven first speak of secession? It must have been spans ago, if there was time for word to reach King’s Port and for your governor to send an ambassador all the way here. We will not let them go without a fight—and moreover, do they intend to take the entire coast with them, or just the city itself?”
“As I said, we keep in close touch with Larkhaven. I was dispatched as soon as word reached King’s Port.” The emissary bowed his head. “It would be in our best interest for Larkhaven to remain a part of Itrea, but we ought to prepare for all circumstances.”
“Just what are you proposing, then?” Mother asked. “As a pirate town, I doubt you would have need for honest trade partners.”
“We are hardly a pirate town these days, Your Majesty,” the emissary said with a sly smile. “Our founders were pirates, to be sure, and there are certainly a few ships that still fly the red flag, but most of our commerce is related to magical goods—enchanted objects, healing potions, and the like. The sort of goods Whitland has banned but cannot enforce in the far-flung corners of the Kinship Thrones.”
“So you are smugglers rather than pirates,” Mother said. “I hardly see the distinction.”
The emissary chuckled. “You may not be aware, but a large share of your country’s profit comes from the export of magical goods. Most of these are Weavers’ wares, which are in high demand in places like Ruunas, Varrival, and Cashabree, and are even making inroads in Chelt. Larkhaven taxes all goods exported or imported from their port, and you receive fifty percent of their shipping tax, so I think it’s safe to say you would notice if we were no longer able to sell your enchanted goods overseas.”
“And how do you expect us to trade with you, without involving Larkhaven?”
“Our governor proposes building a road south from Baylore to King’s Port. The Elygian River is too turbulent for shipping—we have scouted it before, and found it would cause far more problems than it would solve�
��but we could build a road through the plains following the river. It would be simple compared to the great roads that cross Whitland and the rest of the Kinship Thrones, and easy enough to set in place with no trees to clear. I think we could finish it by next winter, if we had the funding and manpower to devote to it.”
“A project like that could bankrupt Itrea,” Mother said, though her expression was contemplative.
“Not if we pay for half of it.” The emissary smiled. “I can return tomorrow, if you need time to think over our proposal.”
“Thank you,” Mother said. “You may leave now, and return at the same time tomorrow. I hope you are satisfied with your quarters?”
“Entirely.” The emissary bowed yet again, this time with a flourish, and spun on his heel. All five of us watched in silence until the great double doors swung close behind him.
“That was unexpected,” Olleack said, letting out a long breath. “What do you think he means by it?”
Mother stood and took my arm. The emissary had not spared even a glance in my direction; it was refreshing to be invisible. I wondered if he knew what I was. “We should return to our quarters to discuss this further. I don’t want word spreading until we have decided what to make of it.”
Back in the Cheltish wing, Mother led us to the great study on the lower floor. Once we had joined her inside, she slid the bolt into place.
“What do you make of this?” Olleack said quietly as we took our seats around the great table.
“Either his offer is genuine,” Mother said, “or he seeks to sow further discord between Baylore and Larkhaven. He is right in saying that we would be crippled if we lost Larkhaven, but the amount of time it would take to transport goods south to Smuggler’s Cove would make trade through the pirate town far more expensive.”
“Who would monitor trade if it passed through King’s Port?” Nashella asked. “If they are outside the bounds of our law, we have no way to regulate it. They could steal most of the profits without us knowing.”
Forbidden Queen: A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 1) Page 11