The Princess in the Tower

by Christopher Nuttall

  None, Emily guessed. She silently credited Randor for the plan. How many people would have expected him to put a woman in such an important post?

  “The king paid for your education,” she guessed. “Correct?”

  “More or less,” Matilda said. “It was an offer my family couldn’t refuse. And it has worked out for us.”

  Not as well as you wanted, I’d bet, Emily thought. The family couldn’t be too prominent or people would ask questions about why their daughter was still unmarried. It was impossible to tell with sorceresses, but she thought Matilda was the same age as Lady Barb. A noblewoman that old would either be married with children or doomed to spend the rest of her life in spinsterhood. I wonder how closely you’re related to Nightingale.

  She eyed Matilda for a long moment, then dismissed the thought. It was impossible to believe that Matilda was related to a professional crawler. He would have certainly tried to make use of her if she was related to him. Besides, she couldn’t see Matilda putting up with Nightingale for a second. She was more fearsome than Alassa, with less to lose through a burst of violent temper...and she had the king’s ear. The nasty part of Emily’s mind couldn’t help wondering if Matilda had her hand on another part of his anatomy. Randor would have liked the idea of siring a child on a sorceress.

  Maybe not, she thought. He doesn’t need more powerful enemies.

  “He’ll use you, then discard you,” Emily told her. “You should...”

  Matilda leaned forward and slapped her, hard. Emily’s head snapped to the side as she gasped in pain. The dwarf snickered, nastily. Emily tasted blood in her mouth and forced herself to swallow, rather than spit it out. Not, she supposed, that it mattered. She was in no position to stop them from taking a blood sample.

  “The king has been good to me,” Matilda said. The naked anger in her voice made Emily flinch. She might not take the concept of noble honor seriously, but Matilda did...at least when giving her word to her superiors and her peers. “And when I swore my oaths, I meant them.”

  Her voice hardened. “And you are a treacherous...”

  The door opened. A young man–he couldn’t be older than fourteen, wearing a messenger’s uniform–stepped into the cell and headed straight for Matilda. Emily felt sick as the messenger spoke briefly to Matilda, then walked back out of the cell in a manner that made it clear he was trying not to run. He didn’t even look at the prisoner. Emily wondered, vaguely, just how many messengers had ended up in the dungeons over the years. Alassa had once complained that far too many messengers concentrated more on spreading rumors than doing their jobs.

  “Well,” Matilda said. She shot the dwarf an unreadable look. “It seems you are to have a visitor.”

  The door opened, again. King Randor stepped into the cell.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “LEAVE US,” RANDOR ORDERED.

  Matilda bowed–Emily noted, to her surprise, that she didn’t curtsey–and withdrew from the cell. The dwarf seemed to hesitate, just for a second, as if he expected the order to be cancelled at any moment. Randor’s eyes hardened and the dwarf practically wet himself as he backed out of the cell, dropping bow after bow in the king’s general direction. He shot Emily a final unpleasant leer as he reached up and took the cell’s handle, pulling the door closed. Emily couldn’t help wondering if he’d accidentally locked the king in the cell with a dangerous prisoner.

  Not that there’s much danger, Emily thought, wryly. She was manacled, weak and powerless, while Randor was strong, wearing a suit of armor and presumably had a handful of defensive spells at the ready. He could break my neck with a blow.

  Randor moved his hand in a complicated pattern, casting a privacy ward. Emily lowered her eyes, taking a moment to gather herself. If Randor was nervous about being spied on here, in the heart of his power, his paranoia would be driving him insane. Randor’s court had always been a snake-pit–Alassa had made that clear–but it would be growing worse as the courtiers tried desperately to maneuver between the king and the rebel barons. She couldn’t help thinking, as Randor finished casting his spells, that the nobility would prefer to be somewhere–anywhere–else. They might be eating Randor’s food and drinking his drink, but even the most powerful of them knew the king could have them hauled away at a moment’s notice and hurled into the Tower.

  “Emily,” Randor said. His voice was steady, but there was an uneasy edge to it. “Look at me.”

  Emily looked up, her eyes going wide. It had been two years, more or less, since she’d last set eyes on Alassa’s father and the change was striking. His hair was starting to thin, his beard was streaked with grey and his hands were shaking no matter how tightly he clasped them together. She couldn’t help thinking, as she took in the suit of golden armor, that he’d actually lost weight. Randor had always been a big, barrel-chested man, but he’d never been fat. Now...he looked as though his armor had been designed for a larger man. She wondered, as she met his dark eyes, why he hadn’t had it resized.

  Too many protections worked into the armor, she thought. Randor wouldn’t have settled for a standard set of charmed armor. He could have afforded an entire team of enchanters to forge him an impregnable suit, or at least as close to impregnable as possible. He can’t have the suit altered without running the risk of weakening the protective spells.

  “Tell me something,” Randor said, his eyes boring into hers. “Do you have the slightest idea what you’ve done?”

  Emily forced herself to meet his gaze. “I saved my best friend from her father.”

  “Not that,” Randor said. He sat down on his haunches, staring at her. “When you started introducing your innovations”–the word was practically a curse–“and destabilizing my kingdom.”

  “Your kingdom was destabilizing before I came along,” Emily reminded him. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to bait him, but she was close to giving up. “Your nobles were plotting to overthrow you long before anyone had ever heard of me.”

  “It’s their hobby,” Randor growled. His fists clenched. She was suddenly all too aware of just how solid they were, of just how much harm they’d do if he lost control and started to pound her. “You, on the other hand, turned everything upside down. No one knows their place any longer.”

  He cracked his knuckles. “You changed the world,” he hissed. “And my kingdom is falling apart. The peasants are revolting, the commoners are building barricades in the street, the nobles are waiting for a chance to attack me...and it’s all your fault.”

  “They wouldn’t be revolting if they weren’t unhappy with their lot,” Emily pointed out. She might have given the lower classes the tools they needed to communicate with each other, but she hadn’t been the one who’d tied peasants to farms or ensured that most commoners didn’t have a hope of rising in the world. “You and your noblemen weren’t good rulers.”

  Randor growled. “You’ve twisted the social order out of existence,” he snapped. “Is this what it’s like on your world? Every little person having a say?”

  “More or less,” Emily said, remembering how the internet had made it easy for everyone to have a say. It had been a mixed blessing–the internet spread rumors and lies as much as it spread truth–but it had allowed far more people to become informed. “People want to have a say in their lives, Your Majesty. And why should you rule them?”

  “I’m king,” Randor snapped. “My ancestors built this kingdom when the Empire collapsed, then my linage held it together in the face of noble traitors and peasant revolts. I rule because it is my birthright!”

  “And yet you were prepared to strip Alassa of that birthright,” Emily said. “I...”

  “Damn you,” Randor said. Spittle flew from his mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me about Paren’s treachery?”

  Emily looked up at him. “What would you have done if I had?”

  “You had a duty to bring the information to me,” Randor said, ignoring the question. “I ennobled you. I made you Baroness Cockatrice. Y
ou had a duty to me, a duty you chose to ignore.”

  “Because you would have killed a great many innocent people, none of whom knew their family patriarch was a traitor,” Emily said, tartly. Neither Imaiqah nor Tam had known the truth. “And because you would have killed my friend. My first real friend.”

  “The family of a traitor has to die,” Randor snapped. “That’s the law!”

  “You didn’t kill Alicia,” Emily pointed out. “And she was an adult by the time her father was beheaded.”

  “That would have plunged her inheritance into the hands of a very distant cousin,” Randor snapped. “And she was not a confirmed adult.”

  “A legal technicality,” Emily countered. “Alicia would have been twenty when her father died.”

  “But an important one,” Randor said. “And Paren betrayed me, personally.”

  “Only because you betrayed him first,” Emily said. “You made promises, didn’t you? And you didn’t keep those promises.”

  Randor snorted. “The Merchants Guild couldn’t organize a dance without spending weeks arguing and agonizing over every last detail. They couldn’t make a decision in a hurry if the lives of their wives and children depended on it. And I was supposed to give them a say in running the kingdom?”

  “You made a promise,” Emily said.

  “I ennobled Paren,” Randor hissed. He stood up and started to pace the room, swinging his fists as if he was looking for someone to hit. “I made him a man of title as well as wealth and power. I ensured his sons would have a fair chance at heiresses and that his daughters would have suitable marriages to men of good quality. I even put him on the Privy Council and listened to him! And he betrayed me.”

  He rounded on Emily. “I expect to be betrayed by the noblemen. They’re cockroaches. You don’t blame vermin for doing what vermin does. But the men I ennoble personally? You’d damn well better believe that I expect complete loyalty from them. I made him great!”

  “You betrayed him,” Emily said, quietly.

  “You betrayed me,” Randor snapped. “You utter filthy...I should never have let you anywhere near this kingdom! I should have banned your ideas right from the start! I should have burned the printing press, smashed the spinning jenny, exploded the gunpowder and executed anyone who knew how to make them. The kingdom would have been just fine.”

  Emily shook her head, wordlessly. Randor was wrong. The New Learning had spread at terrifying speed. The kingdoms that refused to adopt it would rapidly find themselves outmatched by the kingdoms–and city-states–that did. It was easy to imagine Beneficence, ten or twenty years down the line, being armed with repeating rifles and cannon while Zangaria would have nothing more advanced than a bow and arrow. The war would be a walkover, particularly if Zangaria had learned nothing in the intervening time. A valiant cavalry charge at an enemy position would end in total disaster, the horsemen slaughtered to the last man. She could...

  Randor slammed his fist into his palm. “Do you know what they’re doing, out there? Do you know?”

  “No,” Emily said. “I’ve been locked in your cell...”

  “They’re muttering your name,” Randor told her, coldly. “Not my name, not my daughter’s...yours. Your name is on everyone’s lips as the heroine, the savior, the one who gave them everything. The commoners are threatening to rise in your name. They’ll fight and die for you.”

  “I’d rather they lived for me,” Emily said, lightly.

  Randor backhanded her. She barely had a moment to gasp in pain before he was in front of her, one hand clutching her neck. His grip tightened slowly, threatening to choke the life out of her. She tried to pull back, but she couldn’t move. She was at his mercy.

  “Do you know what I could do to you?” Randor’s voice was almost a scream. “Do you know what I could do? Anything! Anything at all! I could make you suffer for hours, then have you healed so you could suffer again. I could break you.”

  He lowered his voice. “And no one is coming to rescue you. Your friends don’t even know where you are. And your...father...isn’t your real father. He’s certainly not going to bother coming to the rescue when you failed so spectacularly.”

  Emily choked, her vision starting to dim. Was this the end? She felt oddly peaceful, if only because there was no way to resist. She’d die in a squalid dungeon, dimensions away from her homeworld...but she’d had a good run, hadn’t she? Jade and Cat could use what she’d taught them to overthrow Randor and put Alassa on the throne, then turn the batteries against the necromancers. And the New Learning would spread...Randor could kill her, if he wished, but he couldn’t kill an idea. It was already too late.

  Randor loosened his grip. “No,” he hissed. “You won’t die today.”

  It was a struggle to breathe. Emily was half-convinced that Randor had crushed part of her throat, even though she thought that would have proven fatal. Her throat hurt, badly. Her entire body hurt and there was blood in her mouth and...her thoughts started to swim out of control. Perhaps he had killed her after all.

  “You taught people that they could seek their own place, instead of staying where the gods put them,” Randor said. “And they think they can rise up against me, that they can upset the natural order and take my throne. And all they will do is throw the country to the noblest dogs!”

  Emily tried to speak, to tell him that the social hierarchy looked very different to someone at the bottom. But the pain in her throat was too great. Her breathing came in ragged gulps, each breath hurting her more than she cared to admit. Randor might have decided not to kill her with his bare hands, but...she doubted that was a good thing. The only reason she was alive was because he thought he still had a use for her.

  “Tomorrow, you will be taken from this cell and marched to a place of public execution,” Randor said. His lips twitched, humorlessly. “As a noblewoman of Zangaria, you would normally be immune from the death penalty, but you did rule Cockatrice in your own right and so you will be treated like a man. I trust you will appreciate the honor of dying like a man, Lady Emily. Unless, of course, you would like to be married off to someone of my choice...?”

  “Go to hell,” Emily managed. It still hurt to talk. “I...”

  She shook her head, firmly. She doubted it was a serious offer. If Randor was telling the truth, nothing short of her death would dismay the crowds...although there was no guarantee she wouldn’t become a martyr. The crowds might get angrier if they watched her die on the block. And if it was a serious offer, she was sure that Randor would choose someone guaranteed to keep her under control. She’d spend the rest of her life, if she was lucky, drinking potions every day to keep her magic suppressed. And once she gave birth to an heir, she’d probably have her throat slit.

  “Very well,” Randor said. He stepped back, rising to his feet. His voice was suspiciously affable. “Where is my daughter?”

  Emily shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Randor met her eyes. “You must know where the portal terminated.”

  “They won’t have stayed there,” Emily said. Randor must know where the portal had originated now too. Unless...no, Jade would have made sure to destroy everything before they fled the city. “They would have gone somewhere else to stay away from you.”

  “I will find them,” Randor told her. “And when I do...”

  “You betrayed your daughter,” Emily said, cutting him off. It was getting easier to talk. “Alassa is your heir, not a newborn baby.”

  “I will pass a strong and stable country down to my heir, whoever he may be,” Randor said, coolly. “And if my daughter does not come back to me, she will be disinherited and my son will take her place.”

  “Your bastard son,” Emily said.

  “He is my son,” Randor shouted, so loudly that it echoed from the walls. The sudden switch from affability to anger was terrifying. “His mother does not matter. He is my son!”

  Emily stared at him. “He has fifteen years to go before he can take the throne
...”

  “I will teach him how to be a king,” Randor said. His voice rang with utter conviction, although Emily wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. Her...or himself. “I will make sure he knows how to wield power, how to lead men in battle, how to keep the nobles and merchants and commoners and peasants in their place. He will be a great king!”

  “But not a good one,” Emily said.

  Randor spat in disgust. “My grandfather tried to be everyone’s friend. He tried to give everyone what they wanted. And what happened? They took advantage of him! The nobles built armies, the commoners demanded power...by the time my father took the throne, the kingdom was on the verge of utter collapse. My father might not have been a good king, or a nice king, but he saved the kingdom and taught the nobles to mind their place.”

  Not well enough, Emily thought. The nobles hadn’t waited for Alexis III’s body to cool in the grave before starting to plot against his son. They’d been plotting long before they’d realized how the New Learning weakened their positions as well as the king’s. And endless cycles of repression cannot be good for the country.

  “You have a day to live, Lady Emily,” Randor told her. “And I suggest you spend it contemplating just how much damage you have done to my country–and how your death will fix it.”

  It won’t, Emily thought. It will only make it worse.

  She tried to meet Randor’s eyes. “Give up. The world has changed, Your Majesty. You cannot put the dragon back in the egg. Abdicate the throne, pass the crown to Alassa...end this civil war while you can and let...”

  Randor spun around and slapped her, again. “I swore an oath that I would serve my kingdom faithfully,” he told her, as Emily reeled from the blow. “I can no more walk away from my throne than you can walk away from your magic. I will serve as monarch until the gods see fit to end my life. And if Alassa is an unsuitable heir, I cannot let her take the throne.”

  Emily tried to say something, but he spoke over her. “You brought this nightmare to my country,” he said. “And your death will end it. Everyone will watch you die.”