Servant of the Crown (The Crown of Tremontane Book 1)

by Melissa McShane

  The intensity in his voice awed her as much as the Queen’s shouting had. She didn’t know what to say, so she merely nodded, her eyes wide. Anthony opened his mouth to say something else, grimaced, and said, “Sorry. That was more serious than I intended.”

  “I think I needed to hear it. I hadn’t thought of myself in those terms. A figurehead.”

  “Hardly that,” he said, amused. “A rallying point.” There was the old gleam in his eye, and Alison’s heart began beating a little faster. You could just kiss him, her inner voice taunted, and she felt such a rush of anger and humiliation and pain that she wanted to run away and hide where her body wouldn’t betray her anymore. And she’d been doing so well. She had no idea how much of that turmoil showed on her face, but the gleam left Anthony’s eyes, and in an emotionless voice he said, “I apologize if I offended you, Countess.”

  “No, it wasn’t you, I simply had a distressing thought,” she said, feeling ashamed of herself. “Thank you for explaining the situation to me. It will help, the next time Gowan tries something.”

  “You’re not the sort of person who can be easily intimidated. I just think you should know how important that is to other people, not just yourself.” Anthony’s voice was stiff; the moment in which he’d been himself again—that they’d been themselves again—had passed as if it had never been. Alison’s guilt disappeared. She didn’t want him to be so familiar with her. She could be polite, indifferent, she could even be kind, but he didn’t deserve any more than that.

  Anthony began walking again, and Alison hurried to catch up. They went in silence, Alison lost in her own thoughts, Anthony thinking heaven knew what behind that impassive mask. Alison felt daunted. That her resignation could mean so much to Zara was overwhelming and a little intimidating. I’m not giving in, no matter what Gowan tries, she thought. I just hope he doesn’t try something I can’t face. She refused to think about what such a thing might be.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The carriage with the triple-peak insignia of Tremontane embossed on its doors bounced along the cobbled streets. Inside, Alison looked at her new bodyguard. The woman was over six feet tall, had short-cropped hair, arms that looked like she was smuggling melons, and an expression that made her lovely face look forbidding. Even within the carriage, her eyes moved constantly, looking for threats. Her name was Elise, and she intimidated Alison to the point that she could barely speak. Upon assigning her to Alison, Major Casson had said, “It’s probably better you have a female guard, someone who can go everywhere with you. And I imagine you’ll be more comfortable with a woman around.” In the three days since the major had assigned Elise to her, Alison had felt less comfortable and more awkward than she’d ever felt when appearing in public.

  “The stationer’s is in a good part of town,” she offered.

  Elise didn’t stop scanning the street outside. “No guarantee of safety, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly high-pitched. Alison had expected her to have a deep, commanding voice to match her physique.

  “I just thought, if that makes your job easier….” Alison trailed off, feeling foolish. What did she know of what would make this woman’s job easier? Elise didn’t bother with a reply. Alison was afraid Elise didn’t like her very much. She doesn’t have to like you, she thought, she just has to protect you. And Alison had to admit she’d never seen anyone more likely to take on a small army than Elise.

  The carriage pulled to a stop in front of the stationer’s. Alison didn’t move. She’d already learned Elise wouldn’t let her get out until she was satisfied no danger awaited them. Elise stepped out and stood with her back to the carriage, looked around, then went to the stationer’s door, opened it, and beckoned to Alison to join her. Alison moved quickly. Elise’s presence and what it implied made her nervous of open spaces, though she didn’t know what Gowan could do to her in broad daylight, in the midst of the crowd.

  She went directly to the counter, hoping to conclude her business quickly and get back to the safety of the Library. Elise followed her, looming. Alison rang the bell and waited. In a moment, the stationer’s assistant emerged from the back room. He started when he saw Alison and her oversized companion, and looked from Alison to Elise nervously.

  “I just need to pick up my order,” Alison said. “The cards. Alison Quinn?”

  He glanced at her again, then silently went into the back room. After a moment, the stationer himself, a tall, broad man named Tom Jenkins, came to the counter. “What do you need?” he asked, eyeing Elise with suspicion.

  “I placed an order five days ago. It was supposed to be ready today. For the Royal Library?”

  Jenkins said, “Can’t fill it. The supplies haven’t come in.”

  “But you assured me you could do it.”

  “Sorry. It was an unexpected problem with our supplier.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “So when do you expect to have my order ready?” This was going to set them back. They were almost out of cards.

  “I don’t know,” said Jenkins. “I might not be able to fill it at all.”

  Alison frowned in puzzlement. “Not at all?” Then light dawned. “You have a Scholia account, don’t you? I bet they’re one of your biggest customers.”

  He glance sidelong at her and nodded, the tiniest movement of his head.

  Alison ground her teeth. “You’d rather make an enemy of the government than anger the Scholia?”

  He shrugged. “The Scholia has bought from me for ten years. I can’t afford to lose their business.”

  “Then I’ll just have to take my business elsewhere.” She turned to go.

  “You’ll get the same answer wherever you go, milady.”

  “Everyone?”

  The stationer turned red. “We have to eat, milady.”

  Anger filled her like a river piling up against a dam. She controlled the urge to let it break. “Look, Mister Jenkins,” she said in a calm, polite voice. “I need those ten thousand cards. I know you have my order ready. Suppose you happened to set it down out back in, maybe, half an hour? No one would blame you if the boxes were stolen. And suppose I left you some money right here on the counter, as a little thank-you gift for your service to the Crown, enough to cover the loss of the theft. I wouldn’t want you to lose your account with the Scholia by selling to me.”

  Jenkins looked painfully torn. Finally, he nodded, a curt jerk of the head. “There’s a long alley that opens off Caterlon Street, you know,” he said as if making conversation. “It’s too far from this shop to be useful to me, but I’ve heard other businesses say it’s nice and wide and good for deliveries.”

  “That’s an interesting fact, Mister Jenkins,” Alison said. “I won’t see you again.”

  She summoned up her rage and stormed out of the shop, flung open the carriage door and threw herself into the seat, ignoring Elise’s protests. “That was dangerous, milady,” she said when she climbed in.

  “More dangerous for Mister Jenkins if I’d looked satisfied,” Alison said. She hadn’t been acting. She was genuinely furious. Gowan had found another way to get at her, one less lethal but no less of a blow than attacking Trevers or vandalizing the scriptorium. Blackmailing her suppliers, was he? She really needed to strike back, but how?

  When they reached the palace, Alison stormed up the steps ahead of Elise and off to the Transportation offices. She didn’t bother dismissing Elise even though she was in the safety of the palace; when she’d tried it before, the first day, Elise had simply gone impassive and repeated “I have orders” to every one of Alison’s arguments. Alison arranged for an anonymous cart and driver to be at the alley off Caterlon Street at the appointed time and went back to the Library, still seething.

  “What happened this time?” Henry asked, then took an involuntary step backward as she approached at speed.

  “Gowan got to our supply chain,” she said. “I found a temporary solution, but eventually we’re going
to run out of materials.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I hate taking my problems to the Queen, but she has a devious mind. We just don’t have any hold on Gowan. No leverage. If we confront him, he’ll deny everything and keep on striking at us. The only person who could make him stop is the Magistrix.”

  “And she probably put him up to it,” Henry said. “I still say we should talk to Margaret. He’s gone too far.”

  “You know she only wants one thing, Henry.”

  “She wants control of the Library. Maybe there’s another way.”

  “What way? What else could there possibly be?”

  Henry shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe she’d be satisfied with your compliance. She has to know by now the Queen won’t fire you. Maybe she’s ready for a compromise.”

  Alison was stunned. “Henry, you can’t be serious. You think I should put myself under her orders?”

  “No, I’m saying maybe we should think about some kind of middle ground, and that’s one of the possibilities.”

  “She’d never accept me as Royal Librarian.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought you hated her.”

  “I do. I’m only thinking of what might be best for you.” Henry took both her hands in his. “I don’t have to like Margaret to compromise with her.”

  “But she arranged for you to lose the robe. How can we trust her?”

  “Back then, she had all the power. Now you’re the one with the power and she needs something from you. It’s a stronger negotiating position. And for all I despise her, I’ve never known her to go back on her word.”

  Alison met his dark, intense gaze. “I suppose it’s worth considering,” she said, though doing so opened an aching pit in her stomach. “But I’m still talking to the Queen.”

  “Of course,” he said. He glanced around the room, then quickly kissed her, startling her so much that it was over before she could respond. “I want to make you happy.”

  She smiled at him, but it felt strained, as if it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you for supporting me, Henry.”

  “Of course.” He let go of her hands and stepped away from her. “Oh,” he exclaimed. He picked up a folded note from the shelf below the librarians’ desk. “This came for you. You looked so upset when you came in that I forgot.”

  Alison opened it. “How fortunate. Zara wants to see me in her offices in…oh, no, two minutes from now. I have to run. The cards will be here in about thirty minutes. I hope they’ll last long enough for us to solve this problem.” She ran out the door, causing Elise to make an exasperated noise and trot after her.

  She reached Zara’s office only about five minutes late, knocked on the door and was admitted. “Thank you for joining us, Countess,” Zara said, raising an eyebrow. Anthony sat in a chair in front of the desk. “Your guard may wait outside.” Alison saw Elise take up a watchful stance as the door closed.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. I had a little supply problem.”

  “No matter. Have a seat.” Alison sat next to Anthony and had a momentary recollection of the first time they’d sat like this, all those months ago when Zara had told them they would have to appear in public together. Rather than making her wince, the memory amused her. Who would have thought they would have ended up back here, in such very different circumstances?

  “Anthony’s told you some of the situation with the Council,” Zara said, leaning back in her chair in exactly the same way she had on that fateful day. “I’ve spent the last two weeks meeting with my councilors, trying to make them see reason. We cannot afford an endowment like this, and it’s a mark of how powerful the Scholia has become that the Magistrix has been able to convince some of my councilors that their best interests are served by following her lead. I need more support, and it happens I also need some changes to my Council. Alison, what you told me about the department of Commerce strong-arming new businesses disturbed me. Even if I didn’t have issues with Roger Lestrange, the amount of power concentrated in that department would be a problem. So I’m creating a new department of Communications and I’m putting you, Anthony, at the head of it.

  Anthony’s mouth fell open. “Zara, you can’t be serious. I have no idea how to run a department and I certainly don’t know anything about communications. The Council will realize this is a ploy to artificially build your support.”

  “Anthony, I’m tired of your constant protestations of incompetence,” Zara snapped. “I do not play games with my government. Yes, this move will benefit me, but I don’t want Lestrange in a position to mandate regulations on this new telecoder Devisery. You know as much about it as anyone. You’ve been watching Unwin for months now and she tells me you are more than capable of taking charge of this department.” Zara unexpectedly smiled. “What she actually said was you’d probably make a lot of mistakes, but you have the humility to ask for help when you need it. And you have my trust—no, you’ve earned my trust.”

  Anthony was the color of a brick wall and as inarticulate. “Then I suppose I should shut up and be gracious,” he finally said.

  “Yes. You should.” Zara turned to Alison. “The theater problem is more difficult. I’ve learned the problems Davis Doyle faces at the Waxwold are just as bad in Kingsport and elsewhere. Theaters are being told to comply with regulations that do nothing to benefit them—regulations, I might add, that I feel benefit no one in any business. I am more disturbed by Commerce’s requirement that actors be licensed. The policy has already encouraged mutual protection societies to spring up, which mandate for whom their members can work, and extort fees from theaters to allow them to hire from among their members.” Alison let out a hiss of anger. “Precisely. What you may not be aware of is that others in the, let us say, artistic fields are facing the same type of interference with much the same results. I propose to strip these businesses out of the Commerce department and create a department of Arts to regulate and oversee the needs of our artistic community.”

  Alison’s heart had begun to sink the moment Zara began to talk about the other arts. “Please don’t say you want me to head up that department,” she said. “Anthony is certainly qualified for his position, but I’m not, and there’s no way you can justify putting the Royal Librarian over a bunch of theater people.”

  “You forget writing is also an art,” Zara said. “I don’t know what your father has told you, but publishing is almost certainly Lestrange’s next target. Imagine publishers having to meet a list of criteria in order to be licensed—a list Lestrange would certainly tailor to benefit those publishers allied with the Scholia. Those who didn’t comply could well be hounded out of business. As to your qualifications, you have charge of Tremontane’s oldest archive of history and literature. The Library is supposed to collect and preserve our artistic endeavors. It is only a few short steps from there to justifying the Royal Librarian’s natural right to protect those institutions creating such art.”

  It was Alison’s turn to sit with her mouth open. “I—” she began, then couldn’t think where else to go.

  Anthony muttered, “Shut up and be gracious.”

  It was so unexpected she burst out laughing, and after a moment so did he. Zara smiled indulgently at both of them.

  “It’s true you’re inexperienced,” she said, when the laughter had died down, “and I will make sure you have an excellent support staff and well-qualified seconds. In fact, Anthony, I’d like you to see to that. Talk to the departments you’ve worked in and get some recommendations. I know Clara at least has some people she’d like to promote but doesn’t have positions for. Your primary responsibility will always be the Library, Alison, but I think in the course of expanding the Library you’ll naturally come into contact with those organizations under your care.”

  “You’re taking an awful risk,” Anthony said. “If the Magistrix succeeds, she may be able to force Gowan into the position, and he would abuse that power beyo
nd recognition.”

  “You let me worry about that,” Zara said. “Don’t resign,” she told Alison. “Start thinking of what you’d need to do to fulfill this new responsibility. I’ll announce this to the Council today—you won’t be present. I don’t think either of you need to witness the reactions of my oh-so-reasonable councilors. You will be formally introduced to the Council tomorrow morning. Anthony, you have an office now; I suggest you use it to give Alison some idea of what to expect come the morning. Congratulations, both of you, though I think condolences might be more in order. Good day.”

  Alison found herself outside the office without really knowing how she got there. She looked at Anthony, whose lips twitched in amusement. Alison covered her mouth to hold in a laugh. “I can’t believe anyone can stand up to her,” she said. “How does the Magistrix do it?”

  Anthony bent over until his breath tickled her ear. “Zara believes she is fueled by pure evil, but you didn’t hear that from me,” he whispered. Alison tried not to stiffen at his unexpected nearness. I won’t be ungracious, she told herself, remembering his face when she’d refused to share a carriage with him. They were going to work together on the Council now; she couldn’t be actively rude to him, and she felt a little guilty at the idea that she might.

  “Where is your office?” she said.

  “I have no idea. Maybe James knows.” He spoke to the receptionist, who pointed down one of the halls. Anthony beckoned to her. “I’m glad to see you took Zara seriously about the bodyguard,” he said, nodding at Alison’s tall shadow.

  “Elise goes everywhere with me. I can’t say I’m exactly glad for her company, but I admit I feel safer.”

  “That’s the idea. Well. That you actually are safer, not just that you feel safer.” He opened a door for her and they both stopped short inside.

  “This has to be someone else’s office,” Anthony said with dismay. The room was filled with stacks of paperwork. Alison turned over a couple of sheets.