The Queen of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  Below the Queen lay the Crown city of Demesne, silent and mostly dark. A glance at the sky told her it was just before the fourth hour; only the bakers would be awake. The castle beneath her was dead silent, for all of them knew that the Queen never rose before the sun.

  Until now.

  The girl, the girl. She was the hidden child, Elyssa’s child, she could be no one else. In the Queen’s dreams she was sturdy and dark-haired, with a strong, determined face and her mother’s green Raleigh eyes. But unlike Elyssa, she was a plain thing, and somehow that seemed the worst detail of all, the one that conveyed the most reality. The rest of the dream was a blur of pursuit, thoughts of nothing but escape while the Queen attempted to outrun the man in grey and what appeared to be a conflagration behind him. But when she woke, it was the girl’s face that remained: round and unremarkable, just as her own had once been.

  The Queen would have had one of her seers interpret the dream, but they were all merely frauds who enjoyed dressing in veils. Liriane had been the only one with any true gift, and now Liriane was dead. There was no need of the sight anyway. In broad stroke if not in detail, the meaning of the dream was plain enough: disaster.

  A thick, guttural sound came from behind her, and the Queen whirled around. But it was only the slave in her bed. She had forgotten about him. He’d performed well, and she’d kept him for the night; a good fuck chased the dreams right away. But she loathed snoring. She watched him with narrowed eyes for a moment, waiting to see if he would do it again. But he only grunted softly and rolled over, and after a moment the Queen turned to stare out the window again, her thoughts already distant.

  The girl. If not dead already, she would be soon. But it rankled, to have been unable to find the jewels all these years. Even Liriane had seen nothing of the girl’s whereabouts, and Liriane had known Elyssa well, better than the Queen herself. It was maddening . . . a girl child of known age, with a singular marking on her arm? Even if the child kept the jewels hidden, it should have been an easy search. The Tearling wasn’t a large kingdom.

  Where did you hide her, you bitch?

  Possibly outside the Tearling, but that would have shown considerable imagination for Elyssa. Besides, any hiding place outside the Tearling would have brought the child under greater dominion of Mortmesne. Elyssa had assumed until the very end that the greatest threat to her child would come from outside the Tearling, and that was another error of judgment. No, the girl was still in the Tearling somewhere; she had to be.

  Another snorting rumble came from the bed.

  The Queen shut her eyes and rubbed her temples. She hated snoring. She looked longingly at her fire, considered lighting it. The dark thing might give her answers, if she was brave enough to ask questions. But it didn’t like to be summoned, except in the gravest need, and it had no use for weakness. To ask it for help would be to admit doubt of her own ability to find the child.

  Not a child anymore. I must stop thinking of her that way. The girl would be nineteen now, and Elyssa hadn’t been a complete fool. Wherever the girl had gone, someone had been training her to survive. To rule.

  And I can’t see the jewels.

  Another disquieting thought. In the dreams, the girl never wore a necklace; there was no sign of either sapphire. What did that mean? Had Elyssa hidden the jewels somewhere else?

  The slave was now snoring steadily, waves that began innocuously enough but built to a crescendo of sound that was probably audible in the bakeries twenty floors below. The Queen had handpicked him for his dark skin and aquiline nose, a clear sign of Mort blood. He was one of the Exiled, a descendant of Mort traitors banished to the western protectorate of Callae. Although she had sent them to Callae herself, the Queen still found the idea of the Exiled strangely exciting. But a slave who snored was no use to anyone.

  On the wall beside the window were two buttons, one black and one red. The Queen considered for a moment and then pushed the black button.

  Four men came through the door, nearly soundless, clad in the black of the palace guard. All of them had swords drawn. Ghislaine, her guard captain, was not among them, but of course he wouldn’t be. He was too old to work nights anymore.

  The Queen pointed to the bed. The guards pounced, laying hold of the snoring man, one to each limb. The slave awoke with a gasp and began to struggle. He kicked a guard with his left leg and rolled over, fighting his way toward the end of the bed.

  “Majesty?” asked the ranking guard, gritting his teeth as he held on to a flailing arm.

  “Take him down to the lab. Have them remove his tongue and uvula. And sever his vocal cords, just in case.”

  The slave screamed and struggled harder as her guard worked to pin him to the bed. One had to admire his strength; he freed his right arm and left leg before one of her guards planted an elbow in the small of his back. The slave gave a shriek of agony and ceased his struggles.

  “And after surgery, Majesty?”

  “Once he’s healed, offer him to Lady Dumont with our compliments. If she doesn’t want him, give him to Lafitte.”

  She turned back to the window as her guard hauled the still-screaming man from the room. Helene Dumont might well want him; being too stupid to hold up a conversation, she liked her men quiet. The shrieks became abruptly muffled as the guards closed the door, and soon they faded altogether.

  The Queen tapped her fingers on the windowsill, considering. The fireplace beckoned her, almost begging her to light it, but she was certain that would be the wrong course. The situation wasn’t that dire. The Regent had hired the Caden, and despite her disdain of all things Tear, even the Queen didn’t underestimate the Caden. Besides, if the girl did somehow manage to reach New London alive, Thorne’s people would take care of her. One way or another, by March, the Queen would have the girl’s head on her wall and both necklaces in hand, and then she would be able to sleep, dreamless. She stretched out both hands, palms up, and snapped her fingers. Far out on the western horizon, near the Tear border, lightning flickered.

  She turned and went back to her bed.

  The third day of the journey began well before sunrise. Kelsea rose when she heard the clink of arms in the darkness outside her tent and began to dress, determined to break down the tent herself before one of the guards tried to do it for her. She was about to light the lamp when she realized that she could already see. Everything in the tent was lit with a thin, sickly glow, and she easily spotted her shirt in the corner. But her shirt looked blue.

  She looked around cautiously, seeking the source of the light. It took two complete turns before she realized that she was casting no shadow on the tent walls, that the light was coming from her. The sapphire around her neck was glowing, giving off its own light, not the cobalt glitter that it always reflected in firelight but a deep aquamarine blaze that seemed to come from within the jewel itself. She clutched the pendant in her palm and made a second discovery: the thing was giving off actual heat. It was at least twenty degrees hotter than her body temperature.

  Uncovering the stone, she watched the blue light dance across the canvas interior of the tent. The sapphire had lain around her neck all of her life, and other than its annoying habit of popping free of her clothing, it had never done anything remarkable. But now it was radiant in the darkness.

  Magic, Kelsea thought wonderingly, staring at the cerulean light. Like something out of one of Carlin’s books.

  Reaching down, she grabbed her cloak and dug into the pocket for the other necklace. She pulled it out eagerly, then sank back in disappointment. The companion jewel looked exactly the same, a large blue sapphire in the palm of her hand. It gave off no light.

  “Galen! Help me saddle!”

  The voice outside, a gruff rumble that Kelsea already recognized as Mace’s, brought her back to herself. There was no time to marvel at the light; rather, she needed to conceal it. She dug in her bags for her thickest, darkest shirt, burgundy wool, put it on and tucked the necklace beneath, then pinn
ed her hair into a tight bun and covered it with a thick knitted hat. The jewel lay like a tiny warm coal between her breasts, radiating a pleasant heat that cut into the bitter cold of early morning. Still, it wouldn’t keep her warm all day; she donned an extra layer of clothing and her gloves before venturing outside.

  The eastern sky showed only a thin line of cornflower against the shadow of the hills. As Kelsea approached, Galen broke from the group packing the horses and brought her several pieces of half-cooked bacon, which she wolfed hungrily. She broke her tent down alone, pleased that no one came to help. Carroll gave her a nod of greeting on his way to the small copse that held the horses, but his face was still shadowed, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept at all.

  Kelsea packed the tent onto Pen’s horse before turning to her own saddlebags. Even May the mare seemed to have softened toward her overnight; Kelsea held out a carrot from a pile that Mace produced, and May seemed content to eat from her hand.

  “Hawk, sir! Two of them on the eastern horizon!”

  Kelsea scanned the lightening sky but saw nothing. The stillness was unnerving. She had grown up in a forest filled with hawks, and their high, savage cries had always chilled her blood. But this silence was worse.

  Carroll had been tightening saddlebags onto his horse. Now he stopped and stared at the sky overhead, mulling something over. After a moment he called, “All of you! Over here now! Pen, finish getting that fire out!”

  The men gathered around, most of them carrying supplies. Pen came last, his face smudged with ash. They began to distribute the supplies among the various saddlebags, but Carroll barked, “Leave them!”

  He rubbed his bleary eyes. “We’re being hunted, lads. And my heart tells me they’re drawing close.”

  Several of the guards nodded.

  “Pen, you’re the smallest. Give the Queen your cloak and armor.”

  Pen’s face tightened, but he nodded, unclasped his cloak, and began to shed his armor. Kelsea reached into her pocket and grabbed the second necklace, burying it in her fist, before drawing off her own cloak. They began to buckle Pen’s armor onto her body, one piece at a time. The iron was incredibly heavy; several times Kelsea had to stifle a grunt as each new piece settled upon her frame.

  “We’ll split up,” Carroll announced. “They won’t be a large company, and we have to hope they can’t track us all in force. Go in any direction you please, so long as you don’t go together. We regroup on the Keep Lawn.”

  He turned to Pen. “Pen, you’ll trade horses with the Queen as well. If we’re fortunate, they’ll put all their energy into tracking the mare.”

  Kelsea swayed slightly as Mhurn settled a breastplate against her shoulders. It was flat, made for a man, and her breasts throbbed painfully as he began to buckle it in the back.

  “Who goes with the Queen?” asked Dyer, looking as though he prayed it was anyone else.

  “Lazarus does.”

  Kelsea looked up at Mace, who stood behind Carroll at the edge of the group. His expression was as disinterested as ever; Carroll might as well have instructed him to guard a particularly important tree. Some of Kelsea’s doubt must have shown in her face, for Mace raised his eyebrows, clearly daring her to argue.

  She didn’t.

  Carroll smiled bravely at the group of men, but his face was haunted; Kelsea felt death on him, could almost see it as a black shadow that waited over his shoulder. “This errand is our last together, but the most important. The Queen must reach the Keep, even if we fall seeing it done.”

  He made a sign of dismissal, and the men turned to leave. Kelsea summoned as much force as she could. “Hold!”

  “Lady?” Carroll turned back, and the rest stopped on their way to their horses. Kelsea looked around at them all, their faces hard and resolved in the ashlight of morning, some of them hating her, she knew, deep down where their honor wouldn’t allow them to admit it.

  “I know that none of you chose this errand, but I thank you for it. I would welcome any of you in my guard, but either way, your families will be taken care of. I swear . . . for what it’s worth.”

  She turned back to Carroll, who was watching her with an expression she couldn’t read. “We can go now, Captain.”

  “Lady.” He nodded, and the men began to mount their horses. “Lazarus, a word!”

  Mace stomped up to the two of them. “You’ll not take my horse, Captain.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” A small smile creased Carroll’s face. “Stay with the Queen, Lazarus, but distant enough that you’ll not be tracked as a pair. I would make for the Caddell and then follow it to the city. The tide will cover your tracks.”

  Mace nodded, but Kelsea had an odd flash of intuition: he’d already evaluated and rejected Carroll’s advice in a heartbeat, choosing his own direction instead.

  “You’ve no time for stories, Lady, but our Lazarus is a renowned escape artist. If we’re lucky, he may perform his greatest trick.”

  Kelsea’s armory was complete. Pen shrugged her green cloak over his shoulders, where it sat tightly. “Godspeed, Lady,” he murmured, then was gone.

  “Captain.” Kelsea thought of Carlin and Barty standing in the doorway of the cottage, their dreadful false optimism. “I’ll see you shortly in front of my throne.”

  “No, Lady, you won’t. I’ve seen my own death on this journey. Enough for me that you sit there.” Carroll mounted his horse, his face drawn with a terrible and hopeless purpose. Mace reached up a hand, and he grasped it. “See her safe, Lazarus.”

  He spurred his horse into a trot and vanished into the forest.

  Kelsea and Mace were left standing alone. Their horses’ breath steamed the air, and Kelsea realized anew how cold it was. She picked up Pen’s grey cloak, found a pocket inside the breast, and shoved the second necklace deep inside before putting the cloak on. The camp around them seemed very empty, nothing but a pile of dead leaves, the wisps of smoke from the fire, and the skeletal branches of trees above their heads.

  “Where do I go?” she asked.

  “Through that treebreak to your left.” Mace helped her mount Pen’s horse, a deep brown stallion a good hand taller than her mare. Even with Mace’s help, Kelsea groaned at the effort to haul both her body and Pen’s armor into the saddle. “You’ll ride north for only a few hundred feet, Lady, and then circle back east until you ride due south. You won’t see me, but I’ll be near at hand.”

  Feeling the great size of the horse beneath her, Kelsea admitted, “I don’t ride very well, Lazarus. And I’ve never really ridden fast at all.”

  “I’ve noticed, Lady. But Rake is one of our gentlest stallions. Ride him with a slack rein and he won’t attempt to throw you, though you’re unfamiliar to him.” Mace’s head whipped up sharply, his gaze fixed above Kelsea. “Go now, Lady. They’re coming.”

  Kelsea hesitated.

  “Christ!” Mace slapped the horse’s rump and Rake leaped forward, the reins nearly jerked from Kelsea’s hands. Behind her, she heard him call out, “Dolls and dresses, Lady! You’ll need to be tougher than this!”

  Then she was off into the woods.

  It was a terrible ride. She took the stallion in the wide circle Mace had described, her whole body itching for the moment when she could go straight and pick up speed. When she judged the circle wide enough, she checked the moss on the rocks and began to ride south, Pen’s grey cloak flying behind her. For a few minutes the armor weighed heavily, seeming to rattle her whole body each time Rake landed on his front hooves. But after a bit she found that she could no longer feel the weight of the metal at all. There was nothing but speed, a pure, clean speed that she had never achieved with Barty’s aging stallion. The forest flew by her, trees sometimes far off and sometimes so close that the tips of branches whipped against her mailed body. A freezing wind screamed in her ears, and she tasted the bitterness of adrenaline in the back of her throat.

  There was no sign of Mace, but she knew he was there, and his last comment
recurred to her every few minutes while she rode, making her face flush with warmth even beneath the numbness imparted by the wind. She had thought that she’d been very strong and very brave during this journey; she had let herself believe that she had impressed them. Carlin had always told Kelsea that her face was an open book; what if they had all seen her pride? Would she ever be able to face them again?

  Stop that nonsense right now!

  Carlin’s voice thundered inside her head, stronger than any humiliation, stronger than doubt. Kelsea clamped her thighs more tightly against Rake’s sides and urged him to go faster, and when her cheeks threatened to turn warm again, she reached up and slapped herself across the face.

  After perhaps an hour of hard riding, the woods cleared for good and Kelsea was suddenly down into pure farmland, the Almont Plain. Carefully tilled rows of green stretched out as far as she could see, and she mourned inside at the very flatness of the land, its sameness. There were a few trees, but they were only thin leafless trunks that twisted upward toward the sky, none of them sturdy enough to provide any cover. Kelsea rode on, finding lanes between the rows of crops, cutting across fields only when there was no other way through. The farming acres were dotted with low homesteads made of wood and hay-thatched roofs, most of them little more than huts. In the distance Kelsea could also see several taller, stronger wooden dwellings, probably the houses of overseers, if not nobles.

  She saw many farmers; some of them straightened to get a look at her, or waved as she flew by. But most, more concerned with their crops, simply ignored her. The Tear economy ran on farming; farmers worked the fields in exchange for the right to occupy the noble’s land, but the noble took all of the profits, except for taxes paid to the Crown. Kelsea could hear Carlin’s voice in the library now, her tone of deep disapproval echoing against the wall of books: “Serfdom, Kelsea, that’s all it is. Worse, it’s serfdom condoned by the state. These people are forced to work themselves to the bone for a noble’s comfortable lifestyle, and if they’re lucky, they’re rewarded with survival. William Tear came to the New World with a dream of pure socialism, and this is where we ended up.”