Queenslayer

by Sebastien de Castell

  I figured they were going to kill me no matter what I said. The deed is done right there, in front of the queen (because of course the Daroman sense of justice requires that the eleven-year-old should have to witness the act when she has someone killed). I didn’t have any weapons on me, and, of course they’d taken away my powder holsters. They’d been thorough in checking me over again once we arrived—too thorough for such a supposedly decent people, in my opinion. But apart from confirming I hadn’t managed to sneak in a weapon, they hadn’t checked my fingers, or under my nails. I’d spent the last three days in captivity, making sure I never touched anything with those fingers. Eating, drinking, defecating—these things are all a lot more complicated when you can’t use your hands, trust me.

  So now I reckoned there was a fifty–fifty chance I had enough powder left on my fingers and under my nails to get one shot in. When they asked me if I had any last requests I was going to request that my cuffs be removed so I could face death with some semblance of freedom. Again, not a given by any means, but they wouldn’t be too worried; it’s not like they’d let me get within two feet of the queen. But even with just a trace amount of the powders on my fingers I can fire the spell a good five yards. So the idea was to get them to take the cuffs off and then blast that lovely, delicate eleven-year-old child to a quick reunion with her ancestors. What possible good could that do, you may ask? Probably nothing. Probably some would-be hero would just kill me right there to make a name for themselves.

  Here’s the thing though: every ruler has enemies. There’s always some Count of This or Baron of That who thinks they should be ruler instead of a snot-nosed little girl with pretensions of some mystical reincarnated lineage. So there was a chance—a small one, granted, but a chance nonetheless—that the Zhuban Elite hadn’t been lying, and that if I killed the queen, some faction of the court would seize power before the two marshals behind me stuck a blade through the back of my head. After all, I might be the paid assassin of the next guy who was going to sit in that chair.

  So, best-case scenario, someone comes along who feels just a little bit grateful that I knocked off the competition. Worst case, I’d have murdered a young girl who’d done nothing wrong. Well, nothing except condemn me to death.

  Harrex hit me again—not hard, just enough to remind me he was still there. “Her Majesty asked you a question, outlaw. Answer.”

  I shook my head, trying to remember what she’d said. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, my mind was elsewhere.”

  There was laughter in the room again.

  “I asked why you did what you did, Mister Kellen,” the queen said.

  “Wiping blood on the flag?” I glanced down at the travel-stained ruins of my clothes. “Didn’t want to soil my best shirt. They’re expensive, you know.”

  “I’m talking about the man you killed.”

  The tall chestnut-haired tutor stepped out from behind the throne. “Your Majesty has many lessons this afternoon and should conclude this business quickly.” By all conventional standards she was a beautiful woman, until you caught the expression she made when looking at me. Then she got real ugly, real fast.

  “I still have questions for Mister Kellen,” the queen replied, somewhat tentatively.

  The taller man, thinning grey hair belying a soldier’s physique, put his hand on the back of the throne. “Your Majesty knows that if we must start later the lessons are prone to being more…arduous.” He had a genial smile on his face.

  The queen’s eyes flashed to mine. It was an odd, reflexive action, as if she was hoping for support. Hey, don’t look at me, kid. I don’t care how hard they make you study arithmetic.

  She steeled herself. “Nevertheless, Tutor Koresh, it is my royal duty and prerogative to ensure that the sentence of death meets the necessity of the defendant’s crimes.”

  The man took his hand off the throne and stepped back. He was still smiling, but he wasn’t really smiling, if you know what I mean.

  I coughed. “To answer your question, Your Majesty, I did what I did because I believed it was the appropriate response.”

  The queen stared at me now, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You ended a man’s life over a game of cards, Mister Kellen. I hardly think that an appropriate response to a game!”

  “Ah,” I said simply.

  “What?”

  “Am I correct in assuming that, although you seem ably supplied with tutors, you have no tutor in cards?”

  “You are correct, Mister Kellen. I do not have a tutor in cards. Is there a reason why I should have?”

  “Only because cards aren’t a game.”

  “And what are they, if not a game?”

  “They are a map of the world, Your Majesty. An augury of the future. A negotiation between warring states. And we all have to play the cards we’re dealt.”

  “Well, that does sound like important knowledge for a queen.”

  Again that unsettled dance in her eyes, but only briefly. What I saw next was something else—something that I wouldn’t expect to be in the expression of a young girl: the look of someone who’s about to bluff the other player. She turned to Koresh and the two women behind the throne. “Learned tutors, is there one among you who teaches cards?”

  Chestnut lady replied this time. “Your Majesty, we are tutors of the royal house. We do not play with dolls, we do not recite fairy tales and we do not amuse ourselves with cards.”

  “Your Majesty should consider her lessons,” the blonde tutor said. She was a little younger than the others and, unlike her colleagues, spoke as if she was genuinely concerned for the queen.

  “Your tutors speak boldly,” I said. “I’m surprised you don’t have them whipped, Your Majesty.”

  “They are not half so bold as you, it seems, master card player.”

  I shrugged. “The dead need no manners. But if Your Majesty so desires, I would be happy to administer a whipping to any of your subjects who you deem deserving. Why, I could even recommend that we start with my friend Marshal Harrex here. Of course, if you’d rather I whip your tutors first, then that would be fine as well.”

  “Kill this fool,” the grey-haired tutor, Koresh, shouted at the marshals behind me.

  “Ah,” the queen said, a soft and calm counterpoint to the tutor’s anger, “I see that you do not fully know our ways, Mister Kellen.”

  “That I don’t, Your Majesty. Why, to an uneducated outlaw like me it sounds like your tutor there just tried to countermand his monarch. That would be treason most places I’ve been.”

  “Yes, I do understand your confusion,” the queen said. “You are unaware that the royal tutors are not subject to any punishment from our imperial person.”

  I looked at her to see if she was joking. My former Argosi mentor, Ferius Parfax, had told me something about this before, back when she was teaching me the ways of the world, but I’d always assumed this was just the same kind of Daroman crap about justice and good governance that masks the fact that rulers generally do whatever they want.

  “I see you are suspicious, Mister Kellen. But I assure you, it is true. After all, how can the royal tutors educate a young monarch if they must fear retribution over assigning lessons or criticising poor work?”

  “So those three behind you are beyond the law?”

  The queen shook her head. “No, no citizen is beyond the law. Once I reach the age of thirteen, or if a four-fifths majority of the nobles in my court so rule, a tutor may be dismissed. At which point they lose their special protections.”

  I looked at the three tutors standing behind the queen. They didn’t appear particularly worried about that possibility. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I have a hard time imagining four-fifths of any group of people can agree on whether the sun is shining.”

  Koresh stepped forward, his hand once again on the back of the throne like he owned it. “It is to ensure the proper education of a young monarch, you ignorant borderlands fool. Can you imagine a nation governed by an ill-i
nformed and undisciplined child?”

  “I thought Her Majesty was over two thousand years old.”

  The queen spoke before anyone else could. “My soul is that of the first Daroman kings and queens, it is true,” she said. “But my body, and—some would argue—my mind, are yet those of a young girl. For this reason I must have tutors, and they must have certain… discretionary powers.”

  She rubbed briefly at the edge of her sleeve. For an instant, a small fraction of her left arm was exposed. Beneath the rose-coloured lace I saw what looked a lot like a mark. A burn mark. “We must all—how did you put it?—‘play the cards we are dealt’?”

  I nodded casually, as if I hadn’t seen anything amiss. “I understand, and I appreciate Your Majesty’s gracious time considering my case and therefore delaying her lessons. Might I ask only that the marshals remove my handcuffs prior to removing my head?”

  She gave a quizzical smile. “You seem eager to have your life ended, Mister Kellen. Am I keeping you from something important?”

  Laughter again in the court, followed by a sort of collective sigh of frustration. This must have been a record for one of these royal interviews and we were, after all, keeping them from their lunch. I was about to reply when the queen suddenly asked, “Will you play a game of cards with me, Mister Kellen?”

  “Your Majesty…” the chestnut-haired tutor warned.

  “Be silent, Tutor Arrasia,” the queen snapped. “Am I yet queen of Darome?”

  No reply.

  “I asked you a question, Tutor Arrasia—am I yet queen of this nation?”

  Arrasia waited the longest possible time before finally acquiescing. “Of course. No one questions that Your Majesty is our monarch.”

  “Then I shall investigate every possible means to be the best ruler I can be,” the queen said. “Now, Mister Kellen, you have made card playing out to be something significantly more important than I had assumed. Apparently worth a man’s life and perhaps more than that if you are to be believed. Therefore I wish to understand this phenomenon. So I ask again, Mister Kellen, will you play cards with me?”

  My mind was racing as I tried to figure out what she was up to. Was this some kind of trick? How could it be? Among the most important lessons I learned from Ferius was arta precis, the Argosi talent for perception. Right now that particular talent was telling me to play along. Thing is, I’ve always been better at arta valar—or what Ferius calls “swagger”—so I decided to press my luck a little.

  “Your Majesty, I fear I cannot in good faith accede to your request.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because one cannot play cards without a stake.”

  “And what is a ‘stake’?”

  “A bet, Your Majesty. Each of us must have something to win, or to lose. Otherwise the cards become meaningless.”

  The queen nodded thoughtfully. “Ah, I see. What would be an appropriate bet in this case, Mister Kellen?”

  “Well, I suppose if I win you could grant me my life,” I said.

  Arrasia scoffed. Koresh’s expression was more than a little concerned. The blonde tutor just looked confused.

  “I see,” said the queen again. “And if I win, what do I get?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I fear I have nothing to offer, since my life is already in your hands.”

  The queen thought about that for a moment. “It is true,” she said. “I do have the power to determine whether you live or if you die, but I am content to have your life as my stake. If you win, you live; if you lose, your life is mine.”

  I shook my head sadly. “Alas, Your Majesty, that doesn’t really work. You see, since losing doesn’t make me any more dead than refusing the game, I will be prone to playing recklessly. If I had something genuinely at stake, it would affect my choices.”

  “Very well. If I lose, you will be free to go. If I win, your life is forfeit and there will be no last request for you. It is a small thing, I know, to be deprived of a sip of wine or a last statement, but perhaps it is enough to keep you from playing too recklessly.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. This was a problem. If I lost now—as hard as that was to imagine, given that my opponent was an eleven-year-old girl who didn’t even know what a stake was—I wouldn’t be able to request that they take the handcuffs off before my execution. If I won, would the queen really set me free? She’d lose the respect of the whole court.

  The queen discretely scratched at the lace near her neck, revealing a trace of yellowish skin around a darker patch. There was a bruise there, I was sure of it. What was she up to? What was her endgame? And why, ancestors, hadn’t I been paying more attention when Ferius had tried to teach me arta precis?

  I kept hoping the shadowblack rings around my eye would begin to turn like the dials on a lock and reveal the truth to me through a vision. Back at the Ebony Abbey, the other shadowblacks had called this ability enigmatism. An awfully impressive name for something that mostly gave me headaches and never granted me answers unless I happened upon the exact right question. What is she up to? I asked tentatively.

  Nothing. No tell-tale pinching of the skin around my eye, no mystical insights into secret motivations. I was going to have to play this hand on my own. I’d become a pretty damned good card player over the last couple of years, so if I couldn’t beat an eleven-year-old girl on her first game, she might as well have my head. “I agree to your terms,” I said.

  “Enough!” Koresh shouted, apparently no longer able to contain his disdain for me or the queen. “Magistrate Chapreck, will you please advise Her Majesty on decorum? Or must I do it myself?”

  The magistrate who’d accompanied us into the court—the same old man who’d passed sentence on me earlier that day—stepped forward. Rarely have I ever seen a man so much in want of an obscurement spell to make himself disappear.

  “Your Majesty,” he said a little warily, “it is your prerogative to interview the defendant as you see fit, and to render judgement, be it life, or be it death, by whatever means you see fit.”

  Koresh was giving Chapreck a dangerous look.

  “However,” the magistrate went on, “think of the consequences of this action. If you should lose to this man, this gambler, it would… embarrass the court insofar as—”

  “I see,” said the queen, her voice as soft as ever but somehow making the room a little colder. “Do you mean to say, honoured magistrate, that you believe that the two-thousand-year-old monarch of the Daroman dynasty will be beaten in a test of wits by an inveterate card sharp?”

  Odd…Most people didn’t know what a card sharp was—especially those who never gambled themselves. The queen knew more about my profession than she’d previously let on. For his part, Magistrate Chapreck looked like a man who’d just discovered he was waist deep in quicksand. “I… No, of course not, but—”

  “Or would you rather say to this court that—as I am nothing but a foolish eleven-year-old child—I will certainly lose a simple game of cards?”

  “I… Your Majesty, this is—”

  “Kindly answer the question put before you by your queen, honoured magistrate.”

  Chapreck found himself boxed into an unpleasant dilemma. If he truly believed the queen was a two-thousand-year-old soul, he had no basis to doubt her ability to win a hand of cards. If he pressed the possibility of her defeat, he was as much as declaring that Darome’s monarch was nothing more than an eleven-year-old girl. You had to give Her Majesty this much: she knew how to bluff.

  The magistrate shuffled backwards into the crowd. “Of course, Your Majesty, forgive my insolence.”

  “Good then. Mister Kellen and I will play a hand and we shall see whose wits are the sharpest. Now, does anyone actually have a deck of cards?”

  There was silence in the room as the nobles shuffled around and looked at each other. After a minute or so there was a cough from behind me.

  “I, uh, I might have a deck right here, Your Majesty,” the gruff voice said.<
br />
  The queen raised an eyebrow. “Marshal Harrex, am I to understand that you keep a deck of cards upon your person?”

  “Oh no, Your Majesty. I mean, yes, I do have… I mean, I must have confiscated them from someone and forgotten to dispose of them.”

  Ignoring the minor scandal, the queen said, “Then that’s good fortune for us. Someone bring us a table, and a chair for Mister Kellen. And for goodness sake, someone remove his handcuffs. It’s not as if he is likely to try to assassinate me with all of you here to protect me, is he?”

  Murmurs and grumbling rose from the audience, but a servant nonetheless brought out a small, simple table and chair while Harrex undid my cuffs. I sat in the chair and looked down at the deck of cards sitting between myself and the queen and wondered what to do next. The problem was the cards. If I started shuffling them, the powder would come off my hands and all my efforts to preserve enough grains on my fingers to fuel my spell would have been wasted.

  Games of chance turn on probabilities. Unfortunately for both the queen and me, statistically my best move now was to fry her and hope someone liked me for it. But the prospect of outwitting the supposedly two-thousand-year-old ruler of the Daroman—to walk out of here as a free man and thumb my nose at the most powerful empire in the world—that was more than a little tempting. I’d always been on the losing side of power. Always. The only thing that had kept me alive this long was taking a gamble now and then.

  “What game are we playing, Your Majesty?” I asked casually.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What game? County Roundup? Straights and Aces? Royal Court? Uneven Steps?”

  “Wait,” the queen said. “That one, what was it? ‘Royal Court’? Tell me about that one.”