Queen of All

by Anya Josephs

  Then again, maybe she’d care a lot more if she had to be the ugly one, I think, though I know it’s unkind.

  “Ia was already pregnant with you on her wedding day. And your father was as doting a husband as anyone has ever seen. It was as if a part of him always knew how little time they were to have together, as if he felt he must fit a lifetime’s worth of love into barely a year. His love for her shone like a candle in the dead of a winter’s night.

  “I’ve never seen him so happy as he was with her. When she arrived, he was already nearly five and thirty, old to be single even for a man, and I’d begun to assume that he was like me, that he was going to spend the rest of his life alone. It gave me such joy to realize I was wrong, that he was going to be able to settle down and find real happiness, that there would be something in his life other than the farm his father left him. The day you were born… I’ve never seen him so happy.”

  “Really?” I ask. It’s hard for me to imagine my father holding me as an infant and looking down on my baby self with the kind of tenderness Jorj shows for his infant daughter. He pays so little mind to me now, has barely noticed me for as long as I can remember. I suppose that Aunt Mae might be wrong—or letting her prejudice toward her baby brother shift her recollections away from the truth.

  “It was a very hard birth. Ia wouldn’t let any of the rest of us in the room with her, just Kariana. It was days they were in there, and we were all afraid she wouldn’t make it. Or that she was gone already, for it was silent as the grave in the birthing room. When Kariana came to speak to your father, though, she didn’t seem worried at all. And we didn’t hear any screaming, not like with an ordinary birth. Still, it must have been very hard, for Ia seemed so young, and you were a big baby—chubby, like your mother, like you are now—but she didn’t make any noise for all that time she was in the birthing room. Well, when she handed you to Prinn, his eyes just lit up. I thought I noticed Ia looking at the two of you peculiarly, something… I don’t know, almost like a relief, in her expression. But she must have been exhausted from the birth, and anyway, I always found her a hard woman to read. What’s that word…?

  “Inscrutable, she was. It made her a good match for your father, except that it always seems to me—and I’ve known him longer than anyone—like he’s just quiet by nature. Ia wasn’t, I don’t think. She always had this air about her, not like she was naturally keeping to herself the way Prinn does, more like she was hiding something. I dismissed it at the time, though. I came to regret that, later. When she left.”

  I’ve never dared to outright ask my father where my mother went. All the other children I know who are missing a parent, usually a mother, lost them to death. Childbed losses, of children too, but especially of mothers, are very common in the town and the surrounding farms, particularly since we no longer have Kariana. I always knew that wasn’t what happened to my mother, though. She’s out there somewhere, just gone. She’s just chosen not to be with her family, with her child…with me.

  I have always imagined that everything would be different if only my mother were around. Whenever I was particularly lonely or felt sorry for myself, I indulged in thoughts about how she would love me the way my father couldn’t. She would think of me as being more than just one more mouth to feed, another face in a pack of cousins, a girl less useful to the farm than boys, a disappointingly homely and chubby and sullen child. She would know me for who I am.

  It’s always been an easy fantasy because she is such a mystery to me. I have never known why she’s been gone for the last fourteen years, don’t know whether it was her to blame, or my father, or myself.

  Maybe, I think in breathless excitement, I’m about to find out.

  “You were still a baby. It was Midwinter again, so you were nearly a year old. Even your father hasn’t heard this part of the story. He never wanted to—I’d have told him, but he bade me never speak of her again. I was the only one awake that night, and he could never bear to hear tell of anything Ia had done, not after she’d left. Wouldn’t even let me speak her name. Perhaps you’ve noticed,” she says, almost jokingly.

  “I may have,” I admit.

  “So, he doesn’t know what I saw. That night See, I’d been sleeping poorly again. I was troubled by strange dreams, and by your crying in the night, every night. You weren’t fussy at all when you were first born—indeed, you were as quiet and good-tempered a babe as anyone could wish for. But that week before Midwinter, you cried every single night, from dusk till dawn. Not shrieking, as babes do, but almost sobbing. It wasn’t a natural sound. Ia was up with you every night; she wouldn’t let even Prinn hush you, so of course I couldn’t go near, but all the same, the noise kept me from sleeping.

  “That’s why I was up, sitting at the kitchen table, as usual, doing a spot of sewing. Looking back, it seems almost too normal. Fixing those holes my brother Willem always gets in the toes of his socks, I think I was. Is there anything less interesting than that…Ia must not have heard me, for even though I’d never seen her surprised by anything, she jumped when she walked into the room and saw me there, darning those socks. She was wearing only the lovely shift she’d been married in, no shoes or anything.

  “I asked her where you were and she said, ‘With her father, asleep,’ and then I asked where she was going. I almost didn’t. Somehow, the words felt forbidden, like I ought not ask, like it was a great secret. I’ve never been one who had much to do with great secrets, but I’ve also never been one to mind my own business, so I did go ahead and ask.

  “She just looked at me, so sad. I’d never seen an expression like that on her pretty face before. I’ll always be able to picture just how she looked when she answered, her face shadowed in the darkness, her eyes glowing. ‘Jena’—she always called you that, never by an ordinary by-name—‘Jena is going to grow up without a mother. Prinn is a good man, a kind man, but he cannot play both roles to her. And I won’t be here. Promise me you’ll keep an eye on my little one.’

  “I promised because she seemed so strange, so fierce, but when I tried to question her further—ask where she was going, and why—she held up her hands. ‘Maera’—she always called me, and all the women, by our True Names, for some reason. It was more common in those days, but I always preferred my by-name, since I was a girl— ‘I can’t tell you, can’t tell anyone. Although I wish more than anything I could stay here and be a sister to you, and a wife to Prinn, and a mother to my little Jena, I cannot. You may not believe me, but that cannot change the way things are. Just… make sure they know I love them, and that I carry them with me in my heart, no matter how far away I go.’ And before I could stop her, or ask anything else of her, she had disappeared out into the night, and none of us have seen her since.”

  By the time my aunt finishes speaking, my mouth is hanging open. “She just left?”

  “Aye. She disappeared without so much as a word to your father, in the middle of the night. And oh, he was in a rage at first. I’ve never seen him so furious before—he’s not usually a man hot in anger. Cold, maybe, and withdrawn, but no one can charge him with having too much of a temper.”

  “That’s true enough,” I admit.

  “Well, that day was different. He was shouting and hollering, knocking things down in the kitchen, and anytime anyone tried to speak to him about it, he would just scream louder. He was in such a fury. Offended, I think. It hurt his pride. He always believed he and Ia had a special sort of love—I still think they did—and that it couldn’t be broken apart.

  “And of course, it broke his heart. It was hard enough for him to open himself up and let her in, to begin with. Doing so made him very vulnerable. And once he’d done it, and suffered for it, taken such a difficult chance and been, as he felt, betrayed… well, there was no going back for him. His rage passed, but not into acceptance or contentment or even a normal sadness that faded over time. When the anger left, it turned him into a shadow of himself. No matter how I urged him, he never took the kin
d of interest in you he should have—that I know Ia would have wanted him to. I think he was just too heartbroken over losing her.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I just stare off into the distance, watching the dust of the High Road disappear behind our cart’s wheels. I don’t know how to say what’s on my mind: that I don’t think heartbreak is a fair excuse for following in my mother’s footsteps and abandoning me to a lonely childhood; that I think Aunt Mae ought to have paid a bit more attention to me herself if she wants to congratulate herself so heartily on how she handled everything; that whatever sent my mother running couldn’t have been worth it. There’s no kind way to say any of it, and I don’t want to say it cruelly, so I stay silent and just watch the road go by.

  After a few moments, Aunt Mae clears her throat, like she means to say something else— but it’s clear she doesn’t know quite what that is, and the silence goes on and on, carrying us away from the painful secrets of our home and toward our unknown future.

  Chapter Nine

  There are no further disasters—or revelations—for the rest of our journey. The lack of excitement, though, doesn’t prevent the mood from growing steadily more and more tense for the remaining two weeks as we continue to travel to the Capital.

  I would not have thought it possible any of us could be even less pleasant to be around, but we discover new depths of crankiness as the days stretch into weeks.

  I’m short-tempered myself, rocked by the truth about my mother, grateful to my aunt for finally telling me what became of her, and furious that, for fourteen years, no one had. Aunt Mae, in turn, seems to be suffering from mounting guilt over betraying the promise she’d made to my father not to breathe a word of the story to me. And Sisi, never the easiest person to get along with, has been growing steadily more and more irritable as we approach the dreaded meeting with Lord Ricard, especially after her encounter with his drunken soldier.

  Spending all day being jostled around in a tiny cart being pulled by an increasingly exhausted donkey, eating stale bread and moldy cheese, and sleeping either on the ground or three to a single bed in cheap, dirty inns hasn’t exactly improved anyone’s temper.

  As is our new habit, we’re staunchly ignoring one another, counting the passing seconds and the steady rhythm of the donkey’s hooves, when the Capital appears on the horizon. Sisi is the first one to spot it. To me, everything looks at first like more indistinguishable brownish, dusty haze, but Sisi points, and when I follow the line of her finger, I can just see a tiny dot blurring the bluish horizon, directly ahead.

  By high noon, when the early winter sun is beating down on us from overhead, we’ve drawn close enough that I can make out some details. That dot Sisi saw was the outer wall of the City, an enormous structure of dark red-brown brick that barely forms the shape of a curve so vast I can only imagine what it encircles. It’s the tallest object I’ve ever seen, ten times higher than the oldest treetops of our orchard, and from up close, it stretches as far as I can see in any direction. I imagine it could take a full day’s ride to get around it.

  The High Road leads us directly up to a small gate, which seems to be the only break in the wall. It’s a simple set of sturdy iron bars, no taller than I am, and looks most absurd against the splendor of the City’s fortifications. This lone entrance is guarded by two men in the royal livery, their hands on the hilts of enormous broadswords they wear at their belts. One is tall and dark-haired, the other short, stocky, and blond.

  “Passport,” one of them says tersely, and Aunt Mae smiles tentatively. I can tell the men’s weapons—not to mention their lack of manners—are making her nervous, but she tries not to react.

  “We have an invitation from His Highness, here.” She takes out the piece of parchment from the pocket she keeps tied under her skirt. Though crumpled from its long journey, the letter clearly shows the royal seal: the Sign of the Three Powers, with Sword, Crown, and Circle representing Body, Mind, and Spirit.

  The men’s faces change in unison. At once, they’re both scraping low bows. They look like a pair of frightened little boys. “Forgive us, milady. We were not advised of your arrival. I shall call the captain at once to escort you to the palace, unless you have a servant awaiting you.”

  “We don’t. We’d be very glad of the escort.”

  The blond man speaks again, with another bow. It’s as if he can’t allow himself to meet our eyes. “Unfortunately, no vehicles except royal ones are permitted within City walls. I am sure when the captain arrives, we will be able to fit you with horses to ride, or perhaps a litter if you are not experienced on horseback.”

  “We can walk,” Aunt Mae says. “Unless it’s terribly far?”

  “It’ll take two hours to get to the center of the City walking. However, pardon me for saying so, in the City, ladies of stature generally don’t walk about.”

  “Pardon me for saying so,” Sisi interrupts, “but we are no ladies of stature. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but His Highness has taken a sudden fancy to summoning farm girls and their aunties to the Capital, and there’s no reason I ought to be carried on someone else’s back because of it. I’ve walked on my own two feet every day of my life everywhere I’ve gone. Today is no different just because I’m walking on new ground.”

  The first guard falls silent at that. My dear cousin is causing a stir already, and we haven’t even set foot in the City yet. I wonder if she’s set some kind of record for making a nuisance of herself.

  The other guard shoots a look at his companion and takes over. “We meant no offense, miss. I am sure my companion would be all too happy to go and fetch the captain” —the other fellow is at least clever enough to take the hint and scurry off at those words—“so that he may show you the readiest way to the palace, on foot or any other way you prefer.”

  Sisi looks like she has another clever comment on the tip of her tongue, but Aunt Mae manages to head her off, a sharp tone in her voice. “You are very kind. My niece must be very weary from the road, as normally she would never speak in such a way. We will be glad of any assistance you can offer.”

  The man bows again. Aunt Mae turns and glares at Sisi, who only shrugs.

  This should be a fun trip into the City, I think to myself. I wonder how much trouble Aunt Mae will be in if she strangles the Prince’s guest of honor before the ball.

  Sisi reluctantly agrees to the litter, which, though it may have some faults, is a much nicer way to travel than the back of the market cart. We sit in a small, enclosed space, laden with silk pillows and covered with soft, gauzy curtains, while several more of the uniformed guardsmen carry us down the streets and another follows behind, laden with our bags. Still, I might have preferred traveling on foot. It would be nice to be allowed to see the City, after coming so far, and I can’t help but feel a little uneasy that we don’t know where we’re going and can’t leave if we want to. Also, we smell pretty rank from weeks in the carriage, and the enclosed space leaves something to be desired in olfactory terms.

  I suppose ladies in the City are used to it. I’d rather like to be a lady, even if I don’t know much about what that means.

  Sisi is the only Numbered lady I’ve ever known, and she hardly counts. She’s no different from the rest of us, except for her looks, which she tells me have nothing to do with it. She hasn’t been wealthy nor lived in a great house since before I ever knew her, a time she cannot remember. Certainly, she’s nothing like what I picture when I imagine the characters in Aunt Mae’s stories, not like the First Queen ruling over all the peoples of the Earth nor the beautiful Numbered ladies who travel from afar to meet and marry handsome princes.

  Though she is a beautiful Numbered lady, and though she has traveled from afar to meet a prince, Sisi just doesn’t fit the part. The lady in a story would never spend the whole time we’re traveling through the City sitting stock-still with her arms crisscrossed over her chest, glowering vaguely at both her companions. Nor do we suit our roles as Sisi’s loyal
retainers. Aunt Mae is fidgeting with her fingers like she’s desperate for knitting or anything else useful to do with her hands. I just sit there, staring through the thin, pink veil that separates us from the Earth outside and wondering what is out there, what is waiting for us at the palace. I can only see shadows moving on the other side of the fabric, light and dark in turn.

  The two hours it takes for us to be carried to the palace seem much longer. Still, it’s sudden when the guards stop short, and we’re jostled forward a little bit. Then, they slowly set the litter down so we can climb out, which is a disorienting experience, to say the least. It doesn’t seem so ladylike a way to travel when I’m trying to clamber out without blinking like an owl in the bright and sudden sunlight, or to avoid showing a crowd of strange men my underthings as I move awkwardly from seated to standing.

  Yet, all the fears fly out of my mind when I look up and get my first glimpse of the castle.

  I had thought, earlier, that the City’s wall was enormous. That word does not even begin to describe what I am looking at now.

  The outer wall of the castle is made of gleaming black stone, so smooth and seamless it appears to be carved out of a single piece of rock. I look up, and up, and up, and my neck is straining painfully before I can see a hint of blue sky above the tip of the tallest tower.

  The only interruption in the unbroken wall is a golden gate, guarded by more soldiers in their purple-and-gold uniforms. They salute the men who carried us here, and one of the new guards takes our luggage. Another bows low to us in greeting.

  “Ladies. Allow me the great honor of welcoming you to the palace of His Royal Majesty, the High King Balion, First in the Kingdom. I am Padrig, lieutenant in His Majesty’s royal guard, Number Eighty-Eight Thousand and Thirteenth in the Kingdom, and it would be my particular pleasure to escort you to His Highness.”

  At a snap of his fingers to the other guards, the gate is lifted for us, the mist disappears, and we follow Padrig into the palace itself.