She whispered to one of the marshals and he announced, “This day’s session is at an end. The court will disperse.”
The crowd shuffled out of the tent and I started to follow them.
“Not you,” the queen said.
Yeah, I was definitely screwed.
32
Trust and Loyalty
She waited until the tent had cleared out. Martius was one of the last to go, leaving me with a sympathetic look and a brief squeeze of my arm before joining the others in whatever revels await those not about to get their arses handed to them by a child.
I walked over to the throne. Reichis followed behind me. Even he kept his tail down low.
For a moment the queen said nothing, waiting instead until the last stragglers were out of earshot. “I had thought you my friend,” she said.
“Your friend?” Despite myself I was taken aback by her words. I’d expected anger, fury, even threats, but not the distressed plea of a sad and uncertain eleven-year-old girl. “It wasn’t my intention to harm you,” I said at last. It sounded exactly as lame spoken out loud as it had in my head.
“But harm me you have. You’ve weakened me before the court and further divided me from a powerful segment of my armies.”
“Again, that wasn’t my intent.”
“Then you’re a fool who acts without thinking.”
Well, that much is true anyway. “You didn’t leave me much choice, Your Majesty.”
She slammed her little fists on the arms of the throne. “All you had to do was leave it alone!”
“And let Tasia die?”
“Yes! And let her die! People die, Kellen. In fact, as I understand it, sometimes they die because you kill them!”
“She doesn’t deserve it.” I hesitated, unsure whether to say the next part. I really wasn’t trying to hurt the queen, or even coerce her through guilt, but in the end I couldn’t stop myself. “Tasia’s been covering for you. She seems to love you greatly.”
The queen looked heartbroken, but she quickly steeled herself. “And I love her, Kellen. The Countess Mariadne wasn’t always my favourite cousin, you know. When I was young I was terrified of her. You may have noticed that she has something of a temper. It was Tasia who took care of me when my father brought me for visits.”
“Then—”
“The law is the law, Kellen. I don’t get to break it on a whim. In fact, a queen must follow her laws closest of all.”
“Why did you send me there then?”
“I told you—to give her some comfort in her final hours.”
“She’s lying,” Reichis said.
The queen’s eyes flared angrily.
Reichis’s tail twitched. “Give me all the stink-eye you want, kid, I’m a squirrel cat.”
The queen turned back to me. “Are you loyal to me, Kellen?”
“I…” How do you answer that question? With a lie, obviously. Why, yes, Your Majesty, of course. I mean, I barely know you at all and I’m pretty sure you’re using me and will discard me just as quickly as you have Tasia, but let there be no question of my absolute loyalty to your royal person. “No, Your Majesty,” I said. “I’m not loyal to you. You’re queen of the most powerful country in the world and I’m a guy whose only friend is a squirrel cat.”
“Business partner,” Reichis corrected.
“Business partner,” I repeated. “I’ll do my best not to betray you, Your Majesty, but in the end I have to look out for myself and Reichis.”
“And that means we can’t be friends?” It was like being scolded by the loneliest girl in the world. “There’s no one here I can talk to, and no one in my palace in the capital. Not in my entire country. Not really. There’s not a single person I can trust.” Her eyes met mine. “I hoped I could trust you, Kellen.”
One question in my mind had been bothering me since the day I first met the queen and every day since. Martius’s mention of an Argosi consulting with the queen came back to me. “Why? Because some wandering Argosi turned up at court and happened to mention me?”
The queen looked at me wide-eyed for a moment, then chuckled. “I assure you, Kellen, while the Path of Thorns and Roses did, indeed, mention you, it was not to counsel me to take you into my service.”
The Path of Thorns and Roses? Rosie had been to the Daroman court, not Ferius?
“The Argosi meet with any monarch who will give them audience,” the queen went on. “They bring news of the world outside our borders, drop enigmatic hints about plots and machinations that might steer the continent towards war. My father used to heed their counsel. I have tried to as best I can.”
“And what did the Path of Thorns and Roses advise you this time, Your Majesty?”
“She dealt her Argosi cards for me.” The queen’s smile faded. “The suit of shields represents the Daroman civilisation. No matter how she arranged the cards, every hand, every configuration, showed the same path ahead. I would never reach the age of thirteen. I would never truly lead my people.” Her eyes met mine. “Not unless a new card came to my hand. A discordance.”
It made sense. Ferius always said the Argosi weren’t fortune tellers, but, so long as their decks accurately reflected the structures of power within a people, the inevitable ways in which those forces would collide could be discerned. In a culture committed to empire, weakened by stagnation and its own corruption, there was no way for an idealistic eleven-year-old to survive long enough to find a way forward for her troubled nation. She needed something else. Something that could change the game itself. “Why me?” I asked. “All you know about me is that I’m a disgraced Jan’Tep cursed with the shadowblack. I don’t have allies or money or power. My own father once put a spell warrant on my head. I’m as good an example of walking, talking trouble as you could imagine. Any sane monarch would’ve had me executed the day they met me.”
“We’re not as different as you think,” she said.
I wanted to laugh at that. I almost did. But the sorrow in her eyes stopped me. “Why did you send me to Sarrix, Your Majesty?”
“I sent you to Tasia because I thought… I suppose I hoped you might—”
“Break her free?”
She nodded.
Oddly I felt guilty—as if I should somehow have figured that out on my own. Maybe some part of me had, but it had been easier to believe some other, more nefarious plan was at work, one I wasn’t morally compelled to enact. “Breaking someone out of jail isn’t nearly as easy as they make it sound in the stories, Your Majesty. You know the marshals service is relentless in pursuing escapees—especially ones due for the gallows. To say nothing of the fact that Leonidas would probably use his men to hunt her down himself. Tasia wouldn’t last a week without a lot of money and a lot of friends, and I’m pretty sure she has neither.”
“Then you should have left well enough alone.”
“And you should never have sent me to her.”
The queen sighed, a sad sound that made me want to reach out and comfort her. But just as quickly the sorrowful child disappeared and the imperial monarch had returned. “Go then, my tutor of cards, and reap the harvest we two have sown.”
33
The Sister’s Hand
“Well, what now?” Reichis asked as we left the queen’s tent. He was glancing around in that way of his that tells me he’s on the prowl for something to steal or kill. Squirrel cats can only seem to go so long before they have to get themselves—and you—in deep trouble.
The reflection of the midday sun in the expanse of smooth, shale-like rock cast a blue-grey tinge on the thin layer of snow covering the dozens of tents set up for the various contingents of court nobles, their retainers and Leonidas’s troops. None of the other tents were as grand as the queen’s, of course, but from the absurdly rich fabrics and architecturally questionable structures, it didn’t seem to be for lack of trying. There were pennants hanging everywhere, adorned with colours and sigils that no doubt were of great importance to the hundred o
r so people milling about outside. Nobles chatted to soldiers in admiring tones as if they gave a damn about them. Servants carried polished golden platters that mirrored the sunlight from above, forcing them to squint as they smiled and bowed while offering steaming mugs of some kind of hot drink that smelled of cinnamon and yellowberry to the queen’s guests.
The only thing anyone offered me was a dirty look.
“We’ll ride back to Sarrix,” I informed Reichis. “Make sure nothing about the queen’s orders have been lost in translation. Then we’ll ride as fast and far away from this lunatic country as we can.”
Reichis sniffed the air. “I smell Jan’Tep stink,” he said.
“I’ll have a bath when we get back, all right? You’re not exactly a basket of fresh-cut roses yourself, partner.”
He gave a low growl. “It’s not from you. It’s from them.”
Two men approached us. Both had blond hair and pale skin offset by midnight-blue coats with gold inlay and a thick sable trim around the collar. “Brethren,” I greeted them.
“I am Phe’tan,” the older of the two said.
“I am Phe’trist,” the younger one followed. “And we are not your ‘brethren’, spellslinger.” He lent that last word a remarkable amount of disgust. And phlegm.
“Gentlemen. Nice to see friendly faces out here among the barbarians.”
Phe’trist snorted. He was a little too refined—and phlegmy—to pull it off.
Reichis snarled in response. The only use he has for any Jan’Tep other than me is as something to clean his teeth with. Phe’trist’s fingers twitched several times, resting on a somatic shape I recognised as an unpleasant iron spell. I popped open my powder holsters. “Ready to find out the secret-of-all-secrets, friend?” I asked.
Phe’tan put a hand on his fellow’s shoulder. “We will all meet in the Grey Passage when the ancestors call our names,” he said to me. “Right now, she wants to see you.”
I glanced around. Hells, I thought. How does she do that? “Where exactly is my sweet sister?” I asked.
“We will take you to her,” Phe’trist said. He looked down at Reichis. “The nekhek will stay here and lie on its belly like the lowly creature it is. If he tries to follow, or disturbs us in any way, I will use iron and ember to skin him and line my boots with his fur.”
There’s a difference between the sort of idle insults that constitute the bulk of Jan’Tep diplomacy and an actual threat. Phe’trist had just crossed that line. I didn’t wait for Reichis to react. Situations like this call for a more calm and civilised approach to resolving the conflict. I drove the palm of my right hand into the side of Phe’trist’s nose hard enough that a satisfying crack filled the air. The spray of blood that painted the rocky ground at our feet was a curved red line that formed a smile, which was pretty impressive, I thought, even if I hadn’t planned it that way.
Phe’tan had his hands forming a steeple shape, a spell on his lips.
My hands were in my holsters. “Say the first syllable and I’ll put a hole in both of you, brethren.”
Phe’trist spat. “You think your child’s tricks and powders have one-tenth the power of our magic, spellslinger?”
I tossed a minuscule pinch of the twin powders, formed the somatic shapes with my fingers and angled my hands down. “Carath,” I said. The narrow blast of red and black flame charred the snow-covered ground, adding a burnt-out eye to the smile.
“Heh,” Reichis chuckled. “That’s cool.”
“No, gentlemen,” I said amiably to Phe’trist and his brother. “I’ve no doubt your magic is vastly greater than mine.” My hands were already back in my powder holsters. “I’m just a little faster, is all.”
“Enough,” Phe’tan said. He nodded towards the crowds of the nobles and soldiers who had begun to take notice of our exchange. “Not in front of the barbarians. Sha’maat will not be pleased.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Phe’trist. Then to me he said, “The diplomat to the Daroman empire, envoy of the mage sovereign of the Jan’Tep, has summoned you. Will you come?”
“Sure,” I said. “I always have time to see my sister.”
He turned to Phe’trist. “You will wait here, in the cold, with the barbarians. Perhaps you will learn manners from them.”
I looked down at Reichis. “You stay here and keep him company.”
Reichis grinned. Phe’trist didn’t.
Sha’maat waited for us in one of the smaller—though no less ostentatious—canvas tents situated about a hundred yards from the queen’s. When I entered, I found her standing by an ornately carved wooden table, filling two long-stemmed glasses with something that might’ve been wine, or perhaps poison. She wore a blue and gold brocade gown which I imagine was intended to be described as “resplendent”.
I was prepared to be civil. This was my sister, after all, but something about her manner, the way she’d shed every last trace of her old self in favour of something more… I couldn’t quite find the word, so I said, “Any particular reason you’re dressed as a low-rent saloon’s least popular comfort artisan, dearest sister?”
Phe’tan’s face went from pale to ashen. Shalla—no, she’s Sha’maat now. Don’t let yourself forget—merely smiled. “Sweet brother, won’t you share some wine with me?”
“I’ll pass, thanks. I’ve got a long ride back to Sarrix and being drugged tends to upset my stomach.”
Phe’tan’s mouth made contorted shapes that didn’t flatter his features. His fingers were twitching. “You would dare accuse—”
“Oh, don’t be discomposed, loyal Phe’tan,” Sha’maat said. “This is simply my darling brother’s way.”
The oddly sensuous way she spoke to him, this new royal bearing she’d adopted, made it hard for me to be in her presence. Ancestors. She’s turned into some kind of perverse version of our father.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re all—”
She interrupted me. “You see, this is how Kellen survives a world that is so set against him; he makes his opponents lose their composure in the desperate hope that from this he can glean some advantage.” She reached out a hand and placed it against the side of my face. One of her fingertips touched lightly behind my ear near the top of my jaw. The softness and unexpected intimacy made me shiver uncomfortably. “He’s quite predictable really.”
Phe’tan nodded. “I shall take my leave then, carreva.” He turned and left us alone in the tent.
“Carreva?” I said.
Sha’maat took her hand away and smiled. “Isn’t it wonderful? Father sent me word yesterday.”
“I suppose. But what good is becoming heir to the Jan’Tep throne when there isn’t a proper Jan’Tep throne to inherit?”
“Oh, pooh. Don’t try to take away my fun, brother. One day our people will be strong again, and when that day comes I will have a palace and be surrounded by servants to take care of my every desire.” She picked up a glass of wine from the small table in the centre of the tent and took a sip. “Can’t you be happy for me?”
“Well, you’ve already got a tent at the edge of the tundra and two morons ready to take a knife for you, so you’ve made a start anyway.”
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “See? Now was that so hard?” She made a show of looking around. “And where is your pet? I hope nothing untoward has happened to him?”
“Reichis is busy pondering something.”
“And what would a filthy nekhek be pondering?”
“Whether you can make do with just one moron serving your every whim.”
She laughed. I wondered what Phe’trist would’ve thought about her level of concern for his well-being.
“And what are you pondering, sweet brother?”
“Me? I’m wondering what the hell you’ve allowed Ke’heops to turn you into, Shalla.” This time I intentionally used her old name. Maybe it would break through this new shiny shell she’d cocooned herself in. “What are you doing out here?”
> She put down her glass and motioned with her hand to where the sun’s rays were casting a long shadow against the flap of her tent. “Like everyone else who spins in orbit around the little queen, I am keeping close watch on the time and guessing how long until darkness falls on her reign.”
“Is that why you summoned me, Sha’maat? To tell me what time it is?”
“No,” she said, taking my hand and kissing it. “I summoned you to congratulate you. Father will be very pleased with your progress.”
I pulled my hand away. “For what? I haven’t done anything you asked, and I don’t intend to either.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ve done a wonderful job of weakening the little queen. Through that odd and awkward charm of yours, you’ve wormed your way into her trust. If she counts on you a few more times I dare say you’ll be able to bring down the Daroman empire all by yourself.”
“Don’t play head games with me, sister. All I’m trying to do is help the maid who’s been caught in the middle of a political game.”
She clapped her hands excitedly—an affectation far more childish than anything she would’ve done the last time I saw her. “But of course you are, brother! You’re playing the tragic hero, which you do so very well these days. You know, it used to annoy me, but now I think it’s what I love most about you.” She tapped a finger against my chest. “Underneath all this anger and belligerence, you… how would that vulgar Argosi you used to follow around have said it?” My sister’s voice took on a preposterous drawl. “Ya jest wanna dew the raat thang.”
She laughed uproariously at her own joke and at my expense. Two years my junior and she still managed to act as if I’m her little brother. But Sha’maat was carreva to the throne now. I took small solace in the fact that Father would likely marry her off to whichever fat, toad-faced man had the strongest bloodline and the most power to offer the House of Ke.
Sha’maat caught my expression. “Oh, don’t be so serious, brother. Keep on doing what you’re doing. Try to save the maid. Save all the maids in Darome if you like. I approve.”
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