“Come along,” the Caden told her.
“Let me carry my son.”
“No.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but the other man, the shorter one, grabbed her arm and squeezed it gently, warning. She took William’s small hand and followed the Caden down the street toward the outskirts of the village. The horizon was lightening now, and she could see the vague outlines of houses and stables around her. Other groups joined them as they went, more women and children. Allison and her daughters emerged from their house, and Kelsea saw that Allison had a red slash down her arm, that her hands were bound.
She was braver than I was, Kelsea thought unhappily. But most of the women looked like Kelsea herself, dazed, their faces as bewildered as though they’d just awakened from a dream. She stumbled along, dragging William beside her, not understanding where they were going, only knowing that something terrible was happening. Her chest burned, but when she looked down, there was nothing there.
It was only when she rounded the corner of John Taylor’s house, now empty and darkened, that she understood everything, the meaning of all these men, the women and children dragged from their homes. The cage stood high and stark against the lightening horizon, a symmetrical black silhouette with several human shapes moving inside. Another empty cage stood beside it, surrounded by mules. Looking away from the village, Kelsea saw several more of them, lined up perhaps several miles distant, in the direction of the Mort Road.
This is the punishment, Kelsea realized. She could recall two occasions when one of Haven’s villagers had been pulled from the lot. The village treated the allotted as dead, holding a wake and speaking of them in doleful tones of grief. They’d all watched the shipment go by on the Mort Road many times, and each time Kelsea had been secretly thankful in her heart that it wasn’t her, wasn’t her husband or children.
This is the punishment for my relief.
The grey-haired man turned to her. “I must have your son now.”
“No.”
“Please don’t make this difficult. I don’t want them to think you a troublemaker.”
“What will you do with him?”
He pointed to the second cage. “He’ll go in there, with the other children.”
“Can’t I keep him with me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“That’s enough,” a new voice rasped. Out of the darkness came a tall, skeletal man in a blue cloak, his gaunt face pitiless in the grey dawn light. Kelsea knew him, but did not know him, and she recoiled instinctively, trying to shield her son as he approached. “We’re not here to debate with these people, Gate Guard. Time is of the essence. Split them up and put them in.”
The Gate Guard reached out and grasped William’s wrist, and William yelled indignantly. Hearing his brother’s shouts, Jeffrey began to scream as well, beating tiny, angry fists against the Caden’s cloak. Kelsea grabbed William’s arm, trying to keep him close, but the man was too strong for her, and William was screaming in pain; if she didn’t let him go, he would be pulled apart. She forced herself to release his wrist, and now she was screaming herself.
“Lady! Lady, wake up!”
Someone grabbed her shoulders and shook her, but she strained toward William, who was being hustled away toward the cage. It was a cage built for children, she saw now, filled with small, crying forms. The big Caden turned and strode off in that direction as well, taking Jeffrey, and Kelsea screamed without words, helpless to stop. She had a strong, clear voice, often chosen to sing solos at church, and now scream after scream pealed forth, terrible screams that echoed across the Almont Plain.
“Kelsea!”
A slap cracked across her face, and Kelsea blinked, her screams cutting off as sharply as they’d begun. When she looked up, Pen was there, perched on the bed, his hands resting on either side of her, surrounded by the familiar comfort and firelight of her chamber. Pen’s dark hair was rumpled from sleep, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Seeing his chest, muscular and well proportioned, with only the lightest dusting of hair, Kelsea felt a sudden, unaccountable urge to run her fingers across it. Something was burning her.
The cages!
Her eyes widened, and she sat up quickly. “Oh, God.”
Mace bolted into the chamber, his sword in one hand. “What the hell?”
“It’s nothing, sir. She had a nightmare.”
But Kelsea was already shaking her head as he spoke. “Lazarus. Wake everyone up.”
“Why?”
Kelsea shoved Pen to one side, threw off the covers, and hopped out of bed. Her sapphire popped loose from her nightgown, blazing blue light across the room. “Wake them up now. We have to leave within the hour.”
“And go where, pray tell?”
“To the Almont Plain. A village called Haven. Maybe all the way to the Mort border, I don’t know. But there’s no time to lose.”
“What the hell are you talking about? It’s four in the morning.”
“Thorne. He’s made a deal behind my back, and he’s on the way to Mortmesne with a shipment of Tear.”
“How do you know?”
One of the switches on Kelsea’s temper went, just like that. It didn’t feel as though there were many more to flip. “Dammit, Lazarus, I know!”
“Lady, you had a nightmare,” Pen insisted. “Maybe you should get back into bed and—”
Kelsea took off her nightgown, and had the small, spiteful satisfaction of seeing Pen’s cheeks redden before he whirled around to face the wall. She turned to her chest of drawers and found Andalie already standing there, holding out a pair of black trousers.
“Lady,” Mace said, in the slow, logical voice one would use with a child, “it’s the middle of the night. You can’t go anywhere now.”
Another switch flipped. “Don’t even think about trying to stop me, Lazarus.”
“It was a dream.”
Andalie spoke up in a quiet, firm tone. “The Queen has to go.”
“Have you both gone mad? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“She has to go. I see it. There’s no other way.”
Kelsea finished dressing herself and found that her sapphire had already sprung free again, its light glaring across the room. Mace and Pen hissed and raised hands to shield their eyes, but Kelsea didn’t even need to blink. Holding the sapphire up, she realized suddenly that she could see a face within its depths: a beautiful woman with dark hair and sharp, cold eyes. Her cheekbones were high and curving, the angles of her face cruel. She smiled at Kelsea and then vanished, leaving the jewel a bright, blank gleam of aquamarine in the torchlight.
For a moment, Kelsea wondered if she really was mad. But that seemed too easy a solution; if she’d gone mad, the real world wouldn’t seem nearly so important. That day in front of the Keep had been her entire foothold, and if a shipment managed to make it to Mortmesne in spite of her decree, she was finished. She would be a paper ruler, and anything else that she tried to accomplish would be doomed to fail.
“Andalie’s right, Lazarus. I have to go.”
Mace swung back to Andalie, his tone disgusted. “Well done.”
“You’re welcome.” Kelsea was surprised to hear the faint trace of a Mort accent, something she’d never heard before in Andalie’s voice. “You make no allowance for gifts beyond your own.”
“Your sort of gift has never been consistent. Not even the Red Queen’s seer could foretell everything.”
“Foretell this, Captain.”
“Shut up!” Kelsea shouted. “We’re all going to go. Pick a couple of guards to stay here with the women and children.”
“No one’s going anywhere,” Mace growled. He took her arm, roughly. “You had a bad dream, Majesty.”
“He’s right, Lady,” Pen told her. “Why don’t you just go back to sleep? By morning you’ll have forgotten all about it.”
Mace was nodding agreement, his face arranged in a solicitous expression that made Kelsea want to
smack him. She bared her teeth. “Lazarus, this is a direct order from your Queen. We’re leaving.”
She went for the door again, and this time they both grabbed her, Mace by the arm and Pen around her waist. Kelsea’s temper gave, pulling wide open, a seamless implosion inside her head, and she shoved out at both of them with her anger, feeling it depart her body like a current. Both men flew backward, Pen landing in a huddle at the foot of the bed and Mace bouncing off the far wall to crash on the floor. She hadn’t shoved them very hard, and they recovered easily, each sitting up to stare at her, their faces bathed in blue light. Andalie had backed up to press against the vanity table.
“No one has to come with me,” Kelsea told them, relieved to find that her voice was steady. “But don’t try to stop me. I don’t want to hurt either of you, but I will.”
Mace and Pen looked at each other for a moment, their faces blank. What would they have done if she hadn’t had her sapphire? Locked her in her chamber, she supposed, and allowed her to cry herself out, just as Carlin had always done when Kelsea was a child. She searched for that reserve of anger inside herself and found it, banked but still full. Had she ever been ashamed of her anger? Now it was a gift, somehow reflected through the jewel. It had the potential to be dangerous, certainly . . . if she’d been even a little angrier, Pen and Mace could have been seriously hurt.
Pen recovered first. “If you mean to do it, Lady, we shouldn’t go as the Queen’s Guard. We should dress as army. You’ll want the outfit of a low-ranking officer.”
Mace nodded slowly. “You’ll also have to cut your hair, Majesty. All of it, right down to the nape.”
Kelsea breathed a hidden sigh of relief; she needed Mace’s support, at least. She didn’t even know where her horse was kept, where to find supplies. Andalie crossed the room and went out the door.
“Without your hair,” Mace continued, his tone tinged with malice, “you should have no trouble passing as a man.”
“Of course,” Kelsea replied. A test, she remembered, with a touch of nostalgia. It’s all a test. “Anything else?”
“No, Lady.” He left the room, closing the door behind him, and began firing orders left and right. Kelsea could hear his deep, angry voice even through the thick walls of the chamber.
Pen settled himself in the corner, ignoring her glare. She could see their perspective, and yet . . . they didn’t trust her to know the difference between a nightmare and what she had seen, which had been a vision far more real than any dream. She’d even felt the prickle of goose bumps on her arms in the morning air. Was it a real woman, out there on the Almont Plain? A real bird flying over the Mort army? Kelsea had no proof, but she trusted the visions implicitly; she felt as though she had no choice. She supposed she could see Pen’s side, but she didn’t want to.
You should have believed me, she thought, staring at him from beneath lowered brows. My word should have been enough for you.
Andalie returned with a small towel and a pair of sewing shears. Kelsea reached for the tiara on the vanity table, then drew her hand back. Fake crown or not, she felt real attachment to the thing. But she would have to leave it here.
“Sit, Lady.”
Kelsea sat, and Andalie began shearing the top of Kelsea’s head in great chunks. “I’ve been cutting my children’s hair for years. We couldn’t afford a dresser.”
“Why’d you marry him, Andalie?”
“We don’t always make these choices ourselves.”
“Did someone force you?”
Andalie shook her head, chuckling mirthlessly, then leaned down and murmured in Kelsea’s ear. “Who’s the man, Majesty? I’ve seen his face in your mind many times. The dark-haired man with the snake-charmer’s smile.”
Kelsea blushed. “No one.”
“Not no one.” Andalie grabbed a hank of hair over Kelsea’s left ear and sheared straight through it. “He means very much to you, this man, and I see shame covering all of those feelings.”
“So?”
“Did you choose to feel this way for this man?”
“No,” Kelsea admitted.
“One of the worst choices you could have made, no?”
Kelsea nodded, defeated.
“We don’t always choose, Majesty. We simply make the best choices we can once the deed is done.”
Rather than being comforting, this statement made Kelsea feel utterly hopeless. She sat in silence while Andalie finished, staring bleakly at the growing pile of dark hair on the floor. She meant nothing to the Fetch, she knew, but remote possibility had kept her going. The act of cutting her hair seemed to cross a final bridge into a land where there was no possibility at all.
A guard knocked at the door and, at Pen’s summons, brought in a black Tearling army uniform, dumping it on the bed. His eyes widened at the sight of Kelsea, but when she glared back, he ducked out, closing the door behind him. Pen returned to his armchair, apparently determined not to meet Kelsea’s eye. Andalie finished and motioned for Kelsea to lean over, then quickly combed out the last of her long hair and cut. Levering Kelsea back upright, Andalie surveyed her work. “It’ll do, Lady. A professional dresser can clean it up later.”
Kelsea’s head felt light, almost buoyant. Gathering her courage, she looked in the mirror. Andalie had given her a good haircut, almost the duplicate of Coryn’s, a tight cap of hair around her head. Another woman, one with a perfect elfin face, might even have looked good with such hair, but Kelsea felt like crying. A boy stared back at her from the mirror, a boy with full lips and fine green eyes, but a boy all the same.
“Shit,” she muttered. She’d heard the word from her guard many times, but only now did she understand the real use of profanity. That one word said exactly what she was feeling, said it better than a hundred other words could have done.
“Come, Lady. Clothes next.” Andalie’s blank gaze held a trace of pity.
“Will we succeed, Andalie?”
“I can’t know, Lady. But you have to go, all the same.”
Book III
Chapter 12
The Shipment
QUESTION: What is an exiled girl with a false crown?
ANSWER: A True Queen.
—The Tear Book of Riddles
They left the Queen’s Wing at dawn by one of Mace’s tunnels, through a passage in darkness and then down a square staircase that seemed to descend forever. Kelsea moved along half in a dream, for the jewel wouldn’t let her think clearly. She saw many faces in her mind now: Arlen Thorne; the Fetch; the cold-eyed woman with the high cheekbones. By the time they crossed the drawbridge, Kelsea was certain that this woman was the Red Queen of Mortmesne. She couldn’t say how she knew.
She had expected to be overjoyed at being outside again, but the jewel wouldn’t let her enjoy the outdoors either. Once they cleared New London, apparently free of pursuit, the sapphire began to pull Kelsea along. There was no other way to describe it; the thing exerted physical force, as though a string were tied beneath her rib cage. She was being hauled in a nearly straight line east, and if she tried to go in a different direction, the jewel flared into unbearable heat and Kelsea’s stomach was racked with nausea, so much so that she could barely stay on her mount.
She couldn’t keep this state of affairs secret from Pen for long, and Pen insisted on telling Mace. The troop had stopped to water the horses on the shores of the Crithe, on a low knoll that sloped down to the edge of the river. Except for Galen and Cae, whom Mace had left behind to guard the Queen’s Wing, Kelsea’s entire Guard was here, standing or crouching on the riverbank. She didn’t know what Mace had told them, but it couldn’t have been good; she’d caught several skeptical glances throughout the journey, and Dyer in particular looked as though he’d swallowed a lemon. As Pen, Mace, and Kelsea moved off to have a private conference on the other side of the knoll, she heard Dyer mutter, “Fucking waste of time.”
When Kelsea produced the jewel, it was once again glowing so brightly that the two men needed t
o cover their eyes.
“Where’s it taking you?” Pen asked.
“East.”
“Why don’t you just take it off?” Mace demanded.
Kelsea, feeling strangely reluctant, reached up and unclasped the necklace. But when she pulled the chain from her neck, she felt diminished. It was a dreadful feeling, like being drained.
“Jesus, she’s turning white.”
Pen shook his head. “She can’t take it off, sir.” He took the necklace from Kelsea and clasped it around her neck. Relief flooded her body, the sensation almost narcotic.
What is happening to me?
“Christ’s sake, Pen,” Mace muttered disgustedly. “What the hell do we do with these magic things?”
“We could follow the Queen, sir. No one needs to know where she’s getting her directions from.”
“I’ve got nothing better,” Mace muttered, shooting Kelsea an irritated glance. “But it’ll cause trouble. The rest are already pissed off about being out here at all.”
Kelsea shook her head. “You know, Lazarus, at this moment I don’t really care whether you believe me or not. But later on I will remember that you did not.”
“Do, Lady. Do that.”
They walked back toward the top of the knoll, and Kelsea tucked the sapphire beneath the shirt of her uniform, shielding her eyes from the sun. The blue thread of the Crithe wound its way east; they could barely see the Caddell, miles to the south. The two rivers ran nearly parallel courses, but their beds were dissimilar; the Crithe twisted and turned where the Caddell merely meandered. There was no sign of Thorne along either river, and yet Kelsea wasn’t discouraged. The sapphire pulled at her, drawing her toward what she sought.
Mace took the bridle of his stallion from Wellmer, announcing casually, “From now on, the Queen will lead. We follow her.”
There was some grumbling from the group, and Dyer pursed his lips and let out a loud, expressive sigh. But it appeared that would be the extent of argument. They mounted up, and Kibb and Coryn resumed the good-natured argument about the quality of their horses that had sustained them for much of the journey. Save for Mace and Dyer, the troop seemed to have resigned themselves to a silly errand, just as if Kelsea had taken it into her head to go pleasure boating on the Crithe.
The Queen of the Tearling Page 34