Queen of the Conquered

by Kacen Callender

  I can feel tendrils of his kraft reach for me, and I know that no false words can now leave my tongue. Yet there’s a truth I can easily speak without revealing all my plans: “I kept no secret,” I tell him. “I would never denounce my mother’s name.”

  “But you can’t be here as a member of the Rose,” Patrika says now, irritation leaking into her voice, her condolences a thing of the past. “Mirjam Rose may have been invited to Hans Lollik Helle before her death, but you were not.”

  “I’m not here as a member of the Rose,” I say. “I’m here as Elskerinde of the Jannik name, wife of Herre Aksel Jannik.”

  Aksel is silent in his seat. His embarrassment, his anger, his hatred for me radiates heat.

  “Do you see how your wife used you, boy?” Olsen Årud says.

  Patrika turns to the king himself. “Surely we cannot allow this. Such devious plans, such a snake among us. At the very least, she must be exiled from Hans Lollik Helle at once,” the woman announces, looking to me once again, “if not executed for her crime of falsehood.”

  Yes, Patrika certainly does want the title of regent for her own family name. More than a few of the kongelig shift in their seats, Jytte Solberg repressing a laugh. Even she finds Patrika ridiculous, her desperation amusing.

  The regent speaks. “And what crimes of falsehood would that be, Elskerinde Årud?”

  “The falsehood of her lineage.”

  “Sigourney Jannik didn’t lie about her lineage,” the king says, “and to imply that I have been deceived by Elskerinde Jannik only suggests that you believe me a fool.”

  Patrika Årud’s face freezes. She leans forward in her seat, shaking her head. “No, my king, I would never—”

  “I knew of Sigourney Jannik’s lineage,” Konge Valdemar interrupts, chin raised, eyes fastened on me. His words, for a moment, distract me from the cold emptiness within him. He smiles. “I’m most careful about whom I invite onto this island of mine. Sigourney Jannik, formerly Sigourney Lund, had been under the patronage of Bernhand Lund for over ten years until his death—but there were no records of you, Elskerinde Jannik, before those years. It was easy enough to see that your appearance coincided with the deaths of Mirjam Rose and her children—obvious that you are actually Sigourney Rose. This did play a role in my invitation to you,” he says. “Though I knew most would be disgusted by your presence here, I see your value. You remind me of your mother. She knew so much about these islands, these people—would know how to placate them before me. She could stop these ridiculous rebellions and unite her people under us so that we could continue our rule without expending so much of our resources. She would’ve been useful here. Perhaps you can be useful, too.”

  And so this is why the regent invited my mother to Hans Lollik Helle—why he considered passing her the crown. He wanted to use her as a symbol, use her to stop the rebellions; he couldn’t have realized the sort of woman my mother was, and that she would’ve taken her power and led a rebellion against the Fjern herself. There’s no way to know if the real regent would’ve thought the same of me had he not been the ghost that stands before me, or the puppet, strings pulled by one of the kongelig in this very room. If Valdemar is being controlled by one of the kongelig, which one would it be? I try to glance at them all, looking for obvious signs, but there are none.

  There’re few thoughts from the kongelig following Konge Valdemar’s words—only a swelling of emotion from each at the table. Frustration, disgust, yes—confusion as well, confusion that Konge Valdemar, of Fjern descent, would suggest that he might turn his title over to someone like me, who should rightfully only be a slave.

  The old fool has lost his mind, Patrika thinks to herself, and I know that more than a few at the table agree. But I’m sure his words aren’t brought on by insanity. I feel the depths of uncertainty. This could be the king—echoes of him, a man who doesn’t yet realize that he’s dead—but why would a ghost play such a game on his advisers? It’s more likely that the king is only a false image, a product of kraft. Whoever holds the king puppet’s strings has made the choice to pretend that Konge Valdemar stands behind me, and it’s clear that by the regent’s words alone, the target on my back has grown.

  Konge Valdemar says that there’s much to discuss, and so we silence ourselves, heads bowing and jaws clenching. Patrika throws a nasty glance my way, as though she’s thinking of using her kraft on me here and now. The hatred she held for my mother—an islander who dared to see herself as a kongelig—has been transferred to me.

  “Since the slave rebellion of Lund Helle, there have been more outbreaks on the sister island of Nørup. Elskerinde Jannik, you helped quell the latest uprising of Lund Helle, did you not?”

  I suppress the memory of the girl pleading for her life. “Yes,” I say, voice steady under the heated gazes of those around the table—but beneath the anger, I feel the growing curiosity from the twins. Erik and Alida both see me now as a good source of entertainment in these otherwise dull gatherings. “It was a minor slave rebellion, nothing more.”

  “So it would seem,” Konge Valdemar says. “Except there is reason to believe that the slaves had been sent by the family Ludjivik.”

  Patrika sucks her teeth in disgust. “When will they cease this mockery of a rebellion?” She doesn’t appreciate the attention I’ve taken in this rare chance to impress the king, and so will speak whenever she sees a chance.

  The regent slides a cold gaze to her. “It’s nothing to laugh at, Elskerinde Årud—this ‘mockery of a rebellion’ has now altogether cost several hundred lives, and damages to farmland and crop.”

  Beata’s voice emerges, a whisper that’s barely heard. “There isn’t—I mean to say, there couldn’t be any truth to their claims, could there?”

  “That the Ludjivik family should be chosen for regent?” Patrika says, openly laughing now.

  “They take the claim seriously enough,” Lothar Niklasson says now. “As one of the first Fjern settlers, they believe it’s their divine right to be granted status as kongelig and hold a place at this table.” Konge Valdemar leans forward, seeming to listen carefully. I’d heard that Lothar Niklasson is a close adviser to the king, and has been since the two were young boys on these islands—another reason Lothar Niklasson is the king’s clear choice to inherit Hans Lollik Helle.

  Lothar continues. “The Ludjivik family won’t easily stop their attacks, not until we put down a firm hand.”

  Konge Valdemar looks to me. “We did have the chance, but with the destruction of property and loss of life, the Ludjivik see the Lund Helle rebellion as a success.”

  I can see gladness in faces around me; smugness, that I have clearly hurt the Jannik name, and my own chances of taking Hans Lollik Helle. Aksel sits beside me, meeting my gaze with the echo of a smile. Do you hear that, Sigourney? he asks. You have cost us Hans Lollik, and Konge Valdemar. How could he ever give the crown to you now?

  But I see an opportunity: Though this is only a puppet king, I still need to play this game and impress Konge Valdemar. “My lord, please,” I say, “allow me to confront the Ludjivik family myself. I will act as a messenger of Hans Lollik Helle and negotiate the end of the uprising.”

  Surprise raises brows around the table. Konge Valdemar eyes me for only a moment. “And what will you offer them?”

  “Their lives,” I say, simply. “They must know that when they attack one family of Hans Lollik, they threaten all of Hans Lollik. We’ve seven armies to their one. We will crush the Ludjivik name if they don’t end their claim to the throne.”

  Konge Valdemar leans back in his seat, watching me with approval, though there’s no way to know what he actually thinks, what he really feels.

  “With your permission,” I say, “I will leave for Ludjivik Helle at once and face Herre Gustav Ludjivik.”

  “We’ve threatened Herre Ludjivik before. What makes you think you will succeed? No,” he continues before I can speak, “perhaps it’s best that you go to Herre Gustav Lu
djivik, as you suggest, and once you arrive, fulfill what has been previously threatened. You will execute him yourself.”

  Those around the table hold their tongues, but I feel the stunned silence. There’s a spark of gladness from Aksel beside me, as he thinks that he will finally be rid of me—for if I leave for Ludjivik lands and murder Herre Gustav Ludjivik in his own home, this will be an act of war. The Ludjivik guards would never allow me to leave alive. Konge Valdemar waits for my response, a smile playing on his papery lips, and I know that whoever holds control over him must have realized I know the truth: that the regent isn’t alive, doesn’t have emotion and thought and soul as he should. They mean to be rid of both me and Herre Ludjivik. I sense confusion in the other kongelig; Konge Valdemar suggests that I might take the throne one moment, then sends me to my death the next. Jytte thinks this is a test, perhaps, to see if I deserve the crown; Patrika believes it’s another symptom of his madness. I don’t know the goal of whoever holds the puppet king’s strings, but it’s clear they enjoy this game they play.

  Before I can speak, Lothar Niklasson interrupts. “Are you sure that’s wise, my lord?” he asks, and I know that it’s only Lothar Niklasson who can openly question the king. “Executing Herre Gustav Ludjivik will only draw ire from his cousins, who will continue the uprising in full force. Nothing more than a costly pain, to be sure, but they will inevitably find a way to attack again.”

  Konge Valdemar turns an icy gaze to Lothar, who shifts in discomfort—Konge Valdemar has been different since the start of the storm season; he hasn’t taken Lothar’s advice as readily, has turned to him in anger more and more—

  The regent speaks. “Yet we cannot allow these actions to go unpunished. They’ll continue to attack whether Herre Gustav Ludjivik lives or not. We must send a message—not only to the Ludjivik, but to all the islands.”

  Lothar bows his head in understanding.

  There’s silence, and everyone at the table waits for me to speak. “My lord,” I say, “I would be honored to execute Herre Gustav Ludjivik and fulfill my duty.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  My husband should be with me when I confront Gustav Ludjivik, but the coward is nowhere to be found the next morning. I can’t completely blame him, I suppose; I’m not sure how I’ll manage to execute Herre Ludjivik and leave the island alive, when I’m sure his guards will be waiting to take their revenge. The Ludjivik aren’t particularly powerful; last I heard, Gustav has ten personal guards in training at his manor. I know that I should plan for another battle, at the very least. Marieke has a carriage prepared; Malthe arranges my usual personal guardsmen of twelve as well as an additional twenty of the Lund guards to follow as we take a two-day boat ride to Ludjivik Helle, far from all the other islands of Hans Lollik. We arrive and ride into roads that cut through lands I haven’t seen before. The island is rocky, barren, with no farmland and no trade. There are no villages, no plantations, no crops—only the rare crumbling house, enslaved islanders stopping in their duties of chopping wood and washing to watch us pass, children running alongside the carriage for as long as their legs permit. That the Ludjivik have managed to stretch their reach across the islands with their rebellions humbles me. I’ve underestimated them, just as Friedrich warned me not to nearly a month before.

  My new guardsman Løren takes Friedrich’s place across from me in my carriage. He pretends to ignore me, staring out at the passing island, but I can feel his intense focus on me, this constant wall he must carry between us. It’s exhausting for him, keeping this barrier of his. I can see it in the furrowing of his brow, the heaviness of his breath. He won’t look at me—won’t even glance at me—and I wonder if it’s easier for him to keep me outside his thoughts if he pretends he doesn’t sit across from me. I don’t pretend. I watch his every move openly, watch the curl of his brown hair and the blinking of his dark eyes. His eyes are so much like Aksel’s—so much like his father’s, Engel Jannik’s, staring down at me from the painting above Freja Jannik’s bedframe. Is his portrait still there, or did they bury it at sea with his wife? I suddenly want to know.

  Løren tries hard not to let his mind wander from me. If he loses focus, I’ll have access to all of his thoughts, and I’d even be able to control him. This is the worst thing I could do to him. But his eyes glaze, and finally after a few hours of silence, I feel a question slip from him.

  I begin to speak, the first words I’ve said to him all day, and I describe to him the maze my mother kept on Rose Helle, its green leaves and thorny branches that would prick my skin if I ever got too close. “My sister Ellinor and I would play in that maze until the sun went down. I dreamed of the maze,” I tell him. “I dreamed I was back between its walls, lost, searching for my mother, who always waited in the center for me. And when I woke up and opened my eyes, I had nearly walked over the edge of the cliff of Hans Lollik Helle.”

  Surprise now—Løren can’t hide that from me, though he tries. He glances at me, only for a second, before he goes back to staring at the passing Ludjivik Helle. He’s never been on this island before. He’s been on others, yes, when he’d been sent on errands and when he lived on Jannik Helle and when he attempted to escape to the north, but he’s never come to this island before. He’s had no reason to.

  “I wondered for a while if it was the sickness that nearly killed me, or the stress of being on the royal island. But nothing is an accident on Hans Lollik Helle, is it? You hold the power to stop the kraft of others,” I say. “The kongelig want me dead. You can protect me from them.”

  Why would I? This he wants me to hear.

  There’s such hatred in his tone and in his eyes as he stares at the passing rocks and browning grass. He would rather see me dead. I ask him why. “Why would you want me dead? You say I’ve betrayed my people, but I’ve sacrificed myself for these islands.” He lets out a laugh of disbelief, but I continue. “I could have taken my freedom and left, but I’m here. I could have gone to the northern empires with my cousin Bernhand Lund’s coin and built a new life for myself, one where I wouldn’t be seen as a slave everywhere I go, but I returned.”

  “Returned to your manor of comfort while your people bleed around you.”

  “I’ll be able to change that if I live long enough to take power from the kongelig. If you help me live.”

  He’s refused to look at me all the while, but he looks at me now. “Convenient that your sacrifice will end with you on top of a throne.” His eyes are narrowed, but the holes in his wall grow wider, and I can see his incredulity, his pity for me. “Do you really believe the Fjern would ever let an islander become their regent? They would rather burn the throne to the ground than let you sit on it.”

  “Then I’ll sit on its ashes.”

  He laughs, but there’s anger in his eyes. “Those ashes will hold the skin and bones of our people. These islands can burn, and the Fjern can leave, but the islanders—our flesh, our blood—will have nowhere else to go.”

  “We can rebuild the islands.”

  “With you as regent,” he says. The anger is gone now, and the stiff emptiness isn’t filled with judgment, only fact.

  “Would that be so wrong?” I ask him. “Am I really so hated that I couldn’t free my people and be considered their queen?” My mother would’ve been welcomed with open arms. She would free our people, return the islands to what they’d once been, the stories she’d told me as I sat on her lap in the center of the maze. Our people don’t see me with the same hope. Perhaps they see the selfishness, the greed, better than even I can see it. I want the love of my people as well as the power of the Fjern. It’s difficult to admit, but I know that I can’t have both.

  “You would only replace the kongelig,” Løren tells me, “but nothing would really change.”

  “It would be a victory for our people, to see an islander rule.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumps and he turns his head back to the window and the countryside. “You want to see,” he tells me. He doesn’t
give me any time to respond before the wall between us crumbles.

  I’m in a different place, a path cutting through the groves and the salted waves foaming onto shore, the mango and plantain picked in bushels, Herregård Mønsted with its pale-blue paint glowing beneath the yellow sun. The boy named Løren slept on the dirt floor of the house meant for slaves, alongside the ten other boys who were being trained as guards. He heard their whispers in the night—how easy it would be, to take the machetes they were given and cut the masters’ necks—and he saw, too, how they stared at him, knowing that his brow looked so much like that of the master and the master’s son. They hated him for it. Løren was beaten and whipped and bled by the masters more than any of the other boys, but he had the blood of a Fjernman in his veins. Don’t tell him your secrets, they said, or he’ll betray you.

  There was something else in his veins, too—he knew this ever since the afternoon he served the Elskerinde Jannik one afternoon, pouring her lemongrass tea, and accidentally spilled a scalding drop on her hand. She stood and slapped him across his face hard enough that his lip bled. The sting was with him for days, but all he could think of was how he could hear the whispers that afflicted the Elskerinde. He heard them as though the thoughts were his own. Thoughts of how she’d never be able to forgive herself or her husband for the mistakes they’d made. Whispers that she’d die alone, with no one to love her, not even herself. Her son would come to hold nothing but bitterness for his mother, that he would feel tied to these islands by his mother’s wishes. He would wish his own mother dead, and Elskerinde Jannik would attempt to fix this bitterness by doting on her son, but nothing would change. Løren could also feel, just as easily, how he could reach out with his being and silence the whispers in her head, like a hand covering her ears. Løren knew this was kraft, and that if anyone learned of his kraft, he would be killed.

  Aksel knew. His kraft emerged within days after Løren realized his own, for Aksel could look to anyone and see the power in them. Kraft wasn’t always guaranteed, even if one or both parents had kraft, and so a large celebration was thrown, and the other kongelig of the islands were invited so that Aksel’s kraft could be known. Aksel had discovered his kraft when he passed through the plantation days before. He looked to an older man, nearly one hundred years old with his dark skin lined with wrinkles, who sat and shelled peas and peeled potatoes for the kitchen every day, from morning until night. Aksel said that this man had the kraft to see others’ dreams as they slept at night, so the man was hung by his neck that same day. Aksel looked to one of the boys who’d whispered about cutting the masters’ necks while everyone else slept, one of the same boys who looked at Løren with hatred for having the master’s blood. This boy had beaten Aksel in training, as he’d been ordered to do by Engel Jannik, roaring at Aksel to not let himself be bested by a slave. Aksel hadn’t been pleased that he’d lost and that his father had hit him in the face and called him a disgrace. Aksel came to the plantation shed and said that the boy had the kraft to weaken his opponents. The boy had no such kraft, Løren knew, but this didn’t matter. The child was hung from his neck beside the old man, who’d already been dead a full day. The slaves were all forced to gather and watch and were told they couldn’t leave, even after the boy’s body stopped twitching, even as it swung like a wind chime in the breeze. Their bodies still hung as the Fjern arrived to join in the garden party’s celebrations.