Queen of All

by Anya Josephs

  “Bruises heal. Unsatisfied curiosity never does.”

  “I don’t know, I’m still a little sore…” To be honest, my feelings were hurt worse than my backside. Aunt Mae is strict, but she’d never thrash us so hard that bruises dealt out a week prior would still hurt. What stings isn’t the beating, now, as Sisi points out, healed and mostly forgotten. It’s the fact that I’d gotten one, and Sisi hadn’t. As usual, I got stuck taking all of the blame and the pain while Sisi got away scot-free, since she’s too pretty and charming for anyone but me to stay angry with.

  “A half hour, that’s all. Won’t you give your poor dear cousin, near to you as a sister, your closest kin in affection if not in blood, a half-hour’s worth of your rest, when I would wake a thousand night’s watching for you?”

  I roll my eyes, but I must confess—even just to myself—that I do quite want to know what’s going on down in the kitchen. As usual, Sisi is, infuriatingly, right. “Just half an hour?”

  “Thirty minutes, to the instant,” she promises, smiling with all the innocence she can muster.

  “Shake on it, you scoundrel. I can’t trust you.”

  She spits in her hand and offers it to me, and I take it. Sometimes I think Sisi wouldn’t have made a very good Lady of a Numbered House, even if her brother hadn’t left the Numbered for his unsuitable marriage with my cousin Merri. Sisi and I shake, and then she yanks me out of the bed by our joined hands.

  “Come on,” she says, and I sigh. I’m really in for it now, whether I like it or not. I might as well make the best of the night’s adventure, since there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep. Silently, I bid fond farewells to the comfort of my pillow and the joys of sleeping on an unbruised backside.

  As reluctant as I profess to be, I’m the first one out the casement. There’s an opening just wide enough for us to fit through if we’re careful, meant to let light and air into the attic room. Sisi and I are both big girls, and it’s an uncomfortable squeeze as my stomach presses against the wall. Unlike Sisi, though, at least I have no bosom to contend with as of yet.

  For a moment, I’m dangling in the air, kicking into nothing, but then I find the first rung of the ladder perched on the outer wall and begin to climb down. By now the path is familiar after years of such midnight escapades, not to mention all the many more ordinary times we’ve climbed up to our shared attic room. The small size of the farmhouse means this is a fortunately short journey. Soon enough, I’m making my mostly silent landing against the soft earth of Aunt Mae’s precious flowerbeds.

  It’s pitch-black out here, but I know that Sisi is beside me because I can hear the soft thump of her feet landing next to me and feel her warm hand against mine. As we tiptoe along the outside of the house, I see the candlelight leaking out from the single glass window. That window is my father’s pride and joy, the only addition he’d made to the house after his own father died and left both farm and farmhouse to him. A real glass window is a luxury far beyond what we could really afford, even when times were better. Yet it’s an addition that makes my father happy—as little enough does—and right now it certainly serves Sisi and I well. It marks the front of the house clearly and means we can see into the candlelit room, though no one in there can see out into the darkness. I hope.

  All the adults in the family are gathered around the table. Nearest us is the back of my father’s head, recognizable from the way his brown hair is shot through with grey. He worries, my aunt always says, with so many people counting on him. Grey before thirty, dead before fifty, I’ve heard others say in town. I try not to think about that. We’ve never been close, my father and I, but I can’t imagine life without him.

  Next to him is his only sister, my Aunt Mae. Unlike the rest of the family, who are in their nightclothes, my aunt is fully clothed in her light-blue daytime dress, though she has her arms stretched over her head in a yawn. Aunt Mae usually rises early to cook breakfast for the whole family and likes to be in bed by an hour after sundown. I wonder whether she’s up late or rising early.

  My father’s brother, Uncle Willem, and his wife, my Aunt Sarie, are across from them. They face the window, meaning we can clearly see that they stand side by side as always, arms identically crossed over their identically narrow chests, looking down at whatever is on the table with identically sour expressions.

  Their grown daughter, Merri, too thin and pale in her nightgown, has her hands on her stomach. She’s been with child for nearly eight months now, her belly growing even as the rest of her seems to fade away. Merri used to be an exceptionally pretty girl, her good spirits and twinkling eyes enlivening the otherwise plain features of our family. That beauty has faded away, though, over the course of her difficult pregnancy.

  And yet, that has not diminished the love that her husband has for her. Jorj, Sisi’s only living blood relative, is next to Merri, one arm around his wife’s frail shoulders. His eyes, however, are glued to the table. He’s a handsome man of thirty, with the same rich dark skin and finely sculpted features as Sisi. Like his sister, he was born into a Numbered family. He was once One Hundred and Twenty-Third in the Kingdom—that is, one hundred and twenty-third in line for the throne. Fourteen years ago, he’d given up that claim, and the fine palace in Easthame-by-the-Sea, after his parents’ untimely deaths. He’d come with nothing but his love for Merri, who had been a serving maid in his parents’ palace, and his four-year-old sister in his arms. Since then, he’s been a doting brother, cousin, husband…and soon, a father.

  The only members of the family missing are Merri’s three little brothers. The boys, as they are universally called in our family, range from a few years younger than me to nearly Sisi’s age, and so perhaps, like us, they weren’t deemed adult enough for this conversation. They pick on us girls regularly, so we don’t feel any need to wake them up and warn them of our plans whenever there’s a mystery afoot. Besides, they sleep in a single shared room just off the kitchen—the logistics would be impossible.

  As I’m feeling momentarily guilty, nonetheless, about leaving the boys out, Sisi nudges me sharply with her elbow, drawing my attention back to the matter at hand.

  Everyone inside is looking down at the table, and as my father shifts to the side to say something to Aunt Mae, I finally see the subject of everyone’s attention: a single piece of paper.

  Sisi was right. This is more interesting than being asleep in bed. Annoyed with myself for having admitted as much, even in the privacy of my mind, I scowl in the darkness. I think I can see Sisi smirk back at me.

  Unfortunately, the thick oak of the door covers the voices of the assembled adults—the conversation, and so the context, are indistinct. I can see letters on the page, but they mean nothing more to me than the indistinguishable murmurs coming through the walls of the house.

  “Can you read that?” I whisper to Sisi. Unlike me, she got a Numbered Lady’s education from her brother, even after they moved to the farm. She can read and write in Common, and even knows some words of the Old Tongue. I can’t even scratch the four letters of my by-name.

  She shakes her head and whispers back, “Too far away.”

  I instead turn my attention towards trying to understand the barely audible noises from within. After a moment, I can make out what Jorj is saying, the task rendered somewhat easier by the fact that he is hollering at the top of his lungs.

  “Absolutely not!” he shouts. “I won’t hear another word about it. I am her only kin, and it is my word that decides!”

  So Sisi was right, and this mystery does revolve around her. How annoying. For once, I’d like to have a fascinating incident center around me. Or at least get the satisfaction of Sisi being wrong about something important.

  I can’t hear what happens next, but from the way his hands move, I can tell that my father is saying something soothing, slow and steady and quiet as ever, and yet as unshakeable as stone.

  Jorj shakes his head, backing away and frowning. Clearly, whatever my father ha
s said, it hasn’t been heard.

  Now Merri jumps in, one hand on Jorj’s arm, as if in support. Uncle Willem cuts her off. He grabs something off the table—a small, black velvet sack, obviously heavy with coin from the way he holds it—and brandishes it at her.

  Sisi nudges me again, as though I need the hint. Whatever’s happening, there’s money involved. Maybe a lot of money. If that’s the case, then we certainly need it. The farm isn’t doing as well as it had when I was younger, though my father works hard to hide it from us children. The only reason I know that is that Sisi helps Aunt Mae with the farm’s accounts, and she relays everything back to me.

  Whatever Uncle Willem says about the purse, it makes Jorj turn to his wife. He looks at her carefully. Though it’s a warm summer evening, she’s shivering and pale in the night air, her face and hands bony. She stays silent and still, not meeting his eyes. Instead, she looks down at her own swollen stomach, at the rise of her dress stretched tight across her middle even as it falls down her shoulders and arms, too big for her increasingly scrawny frame.

  Jorj’s shoulders slump, almost defeated. He shakes his head again, but weakly now, a token protest.

  My father speaks again. Whatever he says makes Jorj look up in surprise, and then there is a great cacophony of noise, like everyone is shouting all at once. The loudest voice—as usual—belongs to Aunt Mae, but I can’t understand a word over the tumult of different sounds.

  Sisi and I look at each other in the intervening chaos. It’s so dark that I can’t read her expression, but nonetheless I know her mind. It’s starting to seem less and less likely that we’ll ever find out precisely what the contents of this mysterious letter are. I can almost hear Sisi’s thoughts at work—I imagine she’s trying to figure out how she might steal the letter out of my father’s possession and find out what secrets it holds. That probably means tomorrow night will be no more restful, nor less perilous, than tonight.

  Suddenly, the blur of noise inside is interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and then, just by the door, a voicespeaks clearly: “Why not settle it now?” The kitchen door flies open. I jump backward out of its path, just in time to miss being clobbered in the face and see Aunt Mae standing in the open doorway, her arms crossed. “Girls? I think you can come in now,” she calls while the other members of the family stare out at us.

  Sisi and I just look back at them. I imagine she’s as terrified as I am. Aunt Mae’s voice is so calm, like the air before a terrible storm.

  “Don’t just stand there staring at me like a couple of startled cats, I heard the both of you coming down the side of the house. You’re just lucky you didn’t break your necks in the dark. Now come on in, your elders want to speak to you.” Her tone is almost cheery. I recognize a trap when I hear one.

  Sisi at least has the decency to lead the way into the house, while I follow a few tentative steps behind. After all, this was her idea, and now it ought to be her problem. With any luck, I can take my trustworthy and familiar tactic of sliding beneath everyone’s notice, though I briefly consider the alternate possibility of running for it. In spite of my size, I’m quick, and as always, it is Sisi who’s the center of attention, not me. Yet, I am, for all my denial, desperately curious to find out what is going on here, and I know my stubborn cousin. She’ll cross her arms and lock her lips and never say a word if I don’t follow her in to face whatever’s coming, for better or for worse.

  So, as always, we stand together now as everyone turns to look at us. Jorj is flushed with anger, his black eyes flashing as he looks at his sister. Sisi stares back at him, unafraid. Of course, it’s easy to never be afraid of trouble if you know you can always get out of it.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” he shouts, and I’ve never heard him talk to Sisi—or anyone—like that before.

  “I wanted to know what was going on,” Sisi mumbles quietly. “I heard voices in the middle of the night, and I knew it must have something to do with the carriage, and I just wanted to know.”

  “Oh, you had to—”

  “Jorj,” my father says calmly. “It doesn’t matter. The girls are here now.”

  I wince at the plural. It seems like my father has noticed me too, not just Sisi. How unusual.

  “They should be safe in bed,” Jorj insists.

  “I’m not sure of that, as I’ve said,” my father replies, his voice as calm as ever. He looks at both Sisi and me. For a brief moment, his warm brown eyes meet mine, but then he turns back to Sisi. “After all, the letter was addressed to Sisi. She’s practically a woman grown now, and clearly she wishes to know its contents. Is there any reason we should keep them from her?”

  “She’s too young,” Jorj grumbles. “Nothing good can come of it.”

  Merri pipes up. “You were younger than she is now when your parents died, and then you had to act the man. You found a home for yourself and your sister, you arranged your own marriage, and you took care of Sisi. Is reading that letter so much worse than all that?” It’s not like her to contradict her beloved husband, but we’re all acting out of our accustomed characters tonight, it seems.

  Defeated, Jorj raises his hands in a posture of surrender. “Fine. Tell her. Let’s see what she has to say.”

  The silence that follows is deafening. Sisi looks expectantly around the room as each of the adults, in turn, shifts uncomfortably. It seems that, although they may have agreed that it’s time to talk, no one is quite certain what to say.

  Aunt Mae finally begins, cautiously. “Sisi, we received—that is to say, you received—a letter today. Earlier.”

  “I gathered as much,” Sisi replies. There is just enough sarcasm in her tone that Aunt Mae gives her a sharp look for her disrespect, but not enough so that she doesn’t continue. Sisi is always so much better at managing such things than I am.

  “It was from His Highness, Lord Ricard, Second in the Kingdom.”

  “The crown prince sent me a letter,” Sisi says blankly. It seems even Sisi can't summon up a joke in response to that news. Her tone is flat, revealing none of the surprise that she must be feeling—that I certainly am. It seems like something out of one of Aunt Mae’s tales more than from my real life: A letter all the way from the City! From the Prince himself! And for our own Sisi! I always knew, in some distant part of my mind, that she was one of the Numbered and therefore not like us, but this seems too strange to be true. Even if she had stayed a fine lady, she certainly couldn’t have expected to hear from the Prince, the King’s own brother, Second in the Kingdom!

  “Yes, he…well, he—oh, just read the letter,” says Aunt Mae, finally thrusting it into Sisi’s hands.

  I sink down a little where I stand as Sisi takes the paper. I’d been hoping Aunt Mae would reveal the details aloud; if she doesn’t, there’s no way I can read the letter myself. I’ll have to get the story out of Sisi later, if I can persuade her to share it.

  Sisi scans the letter quickly, her beautiful dark eyes darting across the page. From where I stand at her side, I can see the thick black lines on the white parchment. I try to decipher Sisi’s expression, but for once I can no more read her face than I can read the words on the page.

  She stares at the letter for several minutes, though it is only a single page long, and then looks up, meeting my father’s gaze. I hold my breath, waiting for her words. The anxiety in the room is so intense I can feel it around me, as though I’m soaking up everyone else’s fear.

  “You said it was up to me, Uncle Prinn?”

  “Yes,” my father says, firmly, although I can practically see a denial on the tip of Jorj’s tongue.

  “I choose whether or not to go?”

  “Up to you.”

  “And everyone will accept my choice?”

  My father looks around the room. Aunt Mae is the first to nod her agreement, then Uncle Willem and Aunt Sarie, then Merri, and then finally, reluctantly, Jorj.

  Sisi holds the letter up and rips the paper cleanly and deliberately in half
. Then she throws the two halves back down on the table. “Then I won’t. I won’t,” she says. She closes her eyes, shakes her head slightly, and falls silent. Everyone stares at the discarded letter, at Sisi’s trembling hands, waiting for her to say more. But when she speaks again, all she says is, “May we be excused to bed?”

  “Of course,” Aunt Mae says, before anyone else can answer, and Sisi turns on her heel and walks back outside to the ladder leading up to our loft. She climbs up first, without another word or a backward glance. I follow her, in her shadow as always. I can’t help sneaking a look back at the main room, and at the shaken adults who are gathered around the fallen scraps of paper, still staring at them in silence.

  When we’re back in our quiet little room, Sisi turns away from me wordlessly, nestling into her half of the bed and hiding her face beneath the covers.

  “Sisi?” I ask.

  There’s no answer.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what’s going on? Sisi?”

  Still, she says nothing. I sigh and sit at the corner of the bed beside her, gently laying a hand on her hip to try and get her attention. She turns away again.

  “You know I can’t read. I don’t know what it said—”

  “Jena, please,” she says heavily. “Let me sleep.”

  “But Sisi…”

  She only sighs. It’s not like her to keep secrets from me unless she’s angry with me, which she doesn’t seem to be. It’s even less like her not to be sympathetic to something I’ve missed out on because I didn’t get the same education she did as a Numbered lady. But she seems as unmovable, and as distant, as my father was tonight.

  “Sisi, please. Tell me tomorrow, then, but don’t keep this from me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. It’s late. We should go to sleep.”

  “So, I’ve said from the start.”

  She doesn’t even laugh at that, or lean over to ruffle my hair and call me a silly little bird. She doesn’t say anything at all.

  Chapter Two