Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  Power politics, Elyssa thought, staring up at the Queen. You wanted me to learn, Mother, and I am learning.

  “Our daughter’s tender heart is well known,” the Queen announced. Her knuckles were white points against the gleaming silver arms of the Tear throne. “We have heard her plea for clemency and been moved. Our own medics will tend to this young man’s wounds, and he will be released as soon as he is well. Culp, take him to the Queen’s Wing, and see that no further harm befalls him.”

  Elyssa finally dared a glance behind her. Welwyn Culp nodded, his face expressionless, and signaled for two members of the army to help him support Gareth. As they took him up the aisle, Gareth’s feet dragged; he had fainted. Elyssa thought she might faint herself; the moment her mother broke eye contact, she stood and moved quickly back to her corner of the dais. Her legs were trembling. Standing up to her mother in private was one thing; doing it in public was another matter entirely. Father Timpany had begun to mutter in the Queen’s ear, but the Queen waved him to silence. The crowd murmured uncertainly, and Elyssa wondered if they could feel it as well, the odd power around these Blue Horizon people. William Tear was long dead, and yet—

  “Majesty,” Gullys, the chamberlain, announced. “Lord March.”

  “March,” the Queen greeted him warmly; in a world of courtiers and panderers, Lord March was a rare genuine friend. The Queen’s voice was so casual and pleased that only Elyssa knew what lay beneath.

  I am in trouble, she thought. Quite a bit of it.

  And what of that? a caustic voice spoke up in her mind. This kingdom is in trouble, Elyssa. Grow up.

  “What can we do for you, Lord March?”

  “Majesty, I come on behalf of the Almont Coalition.”

  The Queen’s pleased smile melted away. Elyssa bit back a smile of her own. The Almont Coalition was a loose union of some three hundred nobles whose acres covered the Almont Plain. Lord March was a friend, yes, but first and foremost, he was a noble. This would be about the drought, for certain.

  “And what would the Coalition have of us?” the Queen asked, her voice cold.

  “The drought, Majesty. The situation in the Almont has become critical.”

  That was an understatement, Elyssa thought. She read the Crown harvest reports, probably more carefully than her mother did. After two straight dry years, there had been almost no snow over the past winter, not even in the mountains, and it had not rained once since February. The vast farming plain of the Almont was utterly dependent on the two rivers, Caddell and Crithe, but at last report, both rivers had been down several feet, and the tributaries were almost dry. The Tear’s natural irrigation systems were crippled. If it didn’t rain soon, there would be no harvest to speak of.

  “There is no water, Majesty,” Lord March continued. “The top of the Crithe is already drying up. There are barely any early crops.”

  “Surely you have hoarded water?” the Queen asked. “My intelligence says you have a cistern on your acreage.”

  “Your Majesty is well informed,” Lord March replied, and Elyssa could hear the displeasure in his voice. “But the cistern is barely enough to carry me and mine through the winter. If the rivers run dry, we will need all of our stored water to drink.”

  “Well? Do you think I can compel the rain?”

  “Perhaps, Majesty,” Lord March replied, executing a polite bow. Chuckles echoed through the hall. “But our concern is food. What little crop has sprouted so far is wilted. I will not have enough to feed my household, let alone my tenants. I have given them license to hunt game on my lands, to ward off starvation through the harvest. But that will not last once winter comes. I have twelve hundred tenants on my acreage, Majesty. Even with a tight belt, my hoarded stores won’t be enough to feed a tenth of them through the winter. Every landowner in the Almont faces the same problem.”

  “And again I ask, March: what do you want me to do about it?”

  “The Crown storehouses, Majesty. We seek an assurance that if the drought continues and worse comes to worst, Your Majesty will open her stores to us, for distribution to our tenants.”

  “The weather will turn, March.”

  “Yes, Majesty, but if it doesn’t—”

  “It will,” the Queen replied, in a tone that cut off all discussion. “This is the only assurance I give you.”

  Lord March clearly longed to argue, but after another moment he bowed again and said, “I have apprised you of our concerns. Thank you, Majesty.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Lord March retreated into the crowd. Elyssa stared after him, biting her lip. She rarely ventured out into the city; security concerns were too great. But she read her mother’s intelligence reports. The city had already begun to feel the bite of the failing harvest; even now, in May, prices for produce were rocketing upward. If the drought went on, things would only grow worse. Water was not a concern in the city, at least not to drink; unlike the Almont, which was dependent on the two rivers, New London got its drinking water from a deep-buried aquifer that ran down from the Clayton Mountains to join the Caddell south of the city. But the aquifer would not provide food for the city, and nothing would help the million tenants in the Almont. Men could live for some time without food, but no one could survive for more than a few days without water.

  “Majesty,” someone said below her, interrupting Elyssa’s thoughts. Lord Tennant stood at the base of the throne, a heavily cloaked figure on his arm.

  “What can we do for you, Tennant?” the Queen asked. She had begun to drink her tea again, giving the impression that she had dismissed Lord March’s dire warnings entirely from her mind, but Elyssa didn’t know whether she truly had; her mother was an enigma when she chose to be.

  “Why, nothing, Majesty,” Lord Tennant replied smoothly. He was a fixture around the throne, one of the most unctuous of the Queen’s courtiers, and today he was garbed in bright purple velvet from head to toe. Long, bell-like sleeves revealed the flicker of a tattoo on one hand. “On the contrary, I come to bring you a gift.”

  “What gift?”

  Turning to the figure beside him, Lord Tennant reached up, slowly and gently, and pushed back the cloak’s hood. Gasps filled the audience chamber; Elyssa jerked in surprise, and even Niya made a small involuntary movement beside her.

  The woman was pure white. Her hair, her skin, her lips . . . all of her was white as milk, even her dress. Her eyes were blue, Elyssa was almost certain, but of a shade so icy that they might as well have been two pools frozen in winter. She was not old, but Elyssa could not say for sure that she was young either. When Lord Tennant pulled the cloak from her shoulders, Elyssa saw that the woman’s hands, too, were white, no sign of blood even in the nails.

  “God save us,” one of the guards muttered.

  “What is the nature of this gift, Tennant?” the Queen asked, and Elyssa saw that she, too, was unnerved, her jaw tight.

  “This is Brenna, Majesty,” Lord Tennant announced. “A tenant on my lands. I have brought her to serve Your Majesty. She is a seer.”

  Mutters echoed through the crowd . . . most of them skeptical, Elyssa thought. True seers were as rare as two-headed cats; the only one Elyssa had ever heard of lived at the Red Queen’s court in Mortmesne, and it had long been a sore spot with her mother,that the Red Queen had a genuine seer while she did not. The Keep was always filled with palmists and tarot readers, but though her mother found them amusing, Elyssa was certain that she knew they were charlatans. A real seer would be a gift indeed . . . but despite the woman’s extraordinary appearance, Elyssa found herself skeptical. Lord Tennant was a fop, but not an utter fool. He would never give away something so valuable without good reason. Her mother must have been thinking along the same lines, for after a few moments of studying the woman, the Queen repeated, “We ask again, Tennant: what can we do for you?”

  “Nothing at all,
Majesty. Consider this a simple sign of the continuing loyalty of House Tennant. If the seer does not please Your Majesty, by all means return her to me. I could always use a jump on next month’s weather.”

  The audience laughed, but the Queen only gazed narrowly at Tennant. Elyssa felt a dart of unwilling admiration. Vain, her mother was, and autocratic, and often blind . . . but not stupid. Elyssa herself felt sorry for the albino, for she could well imagine the life the woman led, the treatment she must have endured. But deep in her mind, Lady Glynn’s voice echoed in warning: a lesson from many centuries before, its message not faded with time.

  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

  “We accept your gracious gift, Lord Tennant,” her mother finally replied. “Should the seer prove genuine, we shall not forget your generosity to us.”

  Tennant bowed, his velvet cape swirling around him.

  “Gullys!” the Queen called. “Is there anything more?”

  “No, Majesty!” the chamberlain called, after a last look around the room.

  “Then we’re done.”

  “This audience is concluded!” Gullys announced. “The Queen thanks you for your attendance! Please leave in as orderly fashion as you came in!”

  The crowd began to break up. Many of them tried to linger, staring at the white woman who waited at the foot of the throne, but the soldiers stationed on the walls moved forward, shepherding them out. Elyssa was relieved to see that her mother’s attention, too, was on the albino; she crooked her finger, signaling Brenna to come forward. As Brenna climbed the stairs, the Queen’s Guard drew together without speaking, forming a block in front of the throne.

  “Let her through,” the Queen ordered.

  “Majesty,” Givens, the Captain, protested. “We haven’t even searched her. The Mort—”

  “The Mort are too devious to send such a conspicuous creature as an assassin.”

  “And Tennant is not a man to give gifts from the warmth of his heart, Lady.” Givens was digging in now, a bulldog expression on his face. “He’s ambitious, yes, but even a weasel doesn’t give away a bag of gold. There is danger here.”

  The Queen considered him for a moment, then turned to the white woman.

  “Are you a danger, seer?”

  “Seers are always dangerous, Majesty,” the albino announced in a low, warm voice, startling for its contrast with her icy appearance.

  “Always dangerous? How so?”

  “The term seer itself is misleading, Majesty. The sight is incidental to what we do. In reality, we are vessels of time, and nothing is more dangerous than time.”

  This answer clearly intrigued Elyssa’s mother. Queen Arla was an easy mark for anything dealing with the unseen world.

  “Let us at least search her for weapons,” Givens pleaded hopelessly; he too had seen the gleam in the Queen’s eye.

  “I am unarmed,” the albino replied. “But you may search if you wish.”

  “Not necessary,” the Queen decreed, waving Givens away and beckoning Brenna closer. The Captain gave way, but reluctantly, his hand on his knife as the seer ascended the last few steps and knelt before the throne. She was not as old as Elyssa had first thought; her face was still unlined, and might even have been beautiful . . . if only the rest of the package was not so grotesque.

  “What can you offer us, Brenna?” the Queen asked.

  “What do you wish, Majesty? Knowledge of infidelities, of pregnancies, of intended marriages?”

  “I can get gossip from my servants,” the Queen replied dryly. “What else do you sell?”

  “The road to greatness, Majesty.”

  The Queen’s eyes sharpened with interest. “Meaning what?”

  Brenna reached out, heedless of the guards who drew swords around her, and picked up the blue jewel that lay on the Queen’s chest. Almost automatically, Elyssa grasped her own sapphire. They were identical, the Queen’s Jewel and the Heir’s Jewel, heirlooms that supposedly went all the way back to William Tear. Like all Tear relics, the sapphires were supposed to be magical, but Elyssa had worn the Heir’s Jewel since her eighth birthday, when she was officially declared the heir to the throne, and she had never seen any magic in it. When she ascended the throne, she would remove the Heir’s Jewel and put on the Queen’s, and the second jewel would be put away for her firstborn; it had been so since the time of Matthew Raleigh. As far as Elyssa knew, no one had ever dared to touch her mother’s sapphire, but the seer was now examining it closely. After a single stunned moment, the Queen snatched the jewel back.

  “Men have died for less, palmist,” Givens snarled. “Step away.”

  But the Queen checked him with a gesture. She was looking at Brenna oddly, and Elyssa sensed an unspoken conversation taking place.

  “Leave us,” the Queen said abruptly.

  “Absolutely not,” Givens replied. Elyssa waited for her mother’s explosion, but the Queen turned a surprisingly benevolent eye upon Givens. She had a soft spot for him . . . for all the men who had fallen into her bed over the course of her reign, Elyssa thought sourly. Lady Glynn had often said that the basis of a good Crown was fairness, but her mother played a merciless game of favoritism.

  “Givens, you may stay. Clear the rest of the room.”

  Givens frowned; he didn’t like it, but the Queen’s latitude only went so far. He signaled the rest of the Guard to leave, and Elyssa too tried to melt away . . . then froze, as her mother’s voice rang out.

  “Elyssa?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Later, at a time of our leisure, we will discuss what happened here today.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Elyssa replied, feeling her stomach drop. She waited, but her mother said nothing else, and after a moment Elyssa darted to the back of the dais and scrambled off, heading for the hidden door at the back of the throne room, guards re-forming around her as she went. Barty, the Captain of Elyssa’s Guard, grunted in disapproval—he had remonstrated with her many times about simply running off without a word—but said nothing. Two of her guards, Elston and Coryn, opened the cleverly concealed door behind the throne, and Elyssa hurried out, toward the staircase that led up to the Queen’s Wing.

  “Well, you’re in for it now, Highness,” Niya remarked beside her. Elyssa hadn’t even noticed the maid following, but she was rarely far away. That gift for unobtrusive closeness had promoted Niya to Elyssa’s Dame of Chamber, though she was far newer to the Keep than any of Elyssa’s other servants.

  “I am in for it,” Elyssa agreed bleakly, then turned to Barty. “Barty, send someone to look after that man from the Blue Horizon.”

  Barty frowned. “Your mother’s medics will take care of him.”

  “I don’t trust my mother’s medics. For that matter, I don’t trust my mother. I want you to keep an eye on him.”

  “If you insist, Highness. Coryn!” Barty barked.

  “Sir?” Coryn asked from behind them.

  “Your duty. Check on the boy when we get back, and then at least twice a day.”

  “Sir.”

  Barty turned back to Elyssa. “Satisfied?”

  Elyssa nodded. Coryn was in training to be a medic himself; he would know whether Gareth was getting proper care.

  “Niya is right, Highness,” Barty remarked, after several more flights. “You shouldn’t poke at your mother. She will jab back.”

  “I didn’t do it to poke at her.”

  “Then why?” Barty asked, eying her suspiciously. “Because he’s a handsome young man?”

  “Was he handsome? I couldn’t tell beneath all the bruises.”

  “Ah, this is about Culp, is it?” Barty shook his head. “I like that reptile no more than you do, child, but this is the world. You, too, will need an interrogator one day . . . Culp or some other.”

  “I will not,” Elyssa replied, but she knew Barty
didn’t believe her. He had captained Elyssa’s Guard since she was still in nappies, and Elyssa loved him like family, but sometimes he understood her well and sometimes not at all. Wishing to change the subject, Elyssa turned back to Niya.

  “The seer. Do you think she’s genuine?”

  “Perhaps, Highness.”

  But Niya’s voice was tight with disapproval.

  “You think she’s a fraud?”

  “I don’t know, Highness.”

  “Then what?”

  “Let’s just say I dislike gifts, and particularly from men who whip tenants when they come up short on their quotas.”

  Elyssa frowned at this news, but she did not doubt it, for Niya seemed to know everything. That was part of her value.

  “When did this happen?” she asked Niya.

  “On the last harvest. One of Lord Tennant’s farmers came up short, and so Tennant offered him a choice: he could either take it out of his family’s subsistence allowance, or take a whipping. The tenant had four children, so it wasn’t truly a choice.”

  “Why whip the tenant? Wouldn’t the injuries only decrease his output further?”

  “Yes, Highness. But some men simply like to whip.”

  Elyssa grimaced. This was precisely the sort of victimization of the poor that her mother’s Crown was content to tolerate.

  Arla the Just, Elyssa thought bitterly, climbing stair after stair. One day—

  “I didn’t like the seer,” Carroll remarked behind her. “She made me feel cold. Hopefully the Queen will tire of her quickly, like all the others.”

  “Ah, but the others were fakes,” Coryn pointed out. “What if this one’s the genuine article? She certainly looks the part.”

  “Enough about the seer,” Barty growled. “What was that they were yelling out in the crowd? Something about the True Queen?”

  The question was general, but Elyssa thought that Barty, too, was asking Niya. Niya understood much more of the world outside of the Keep than even the Guard did; she had been born on the streets of New London, and knew them as well as Elyssa knew the stones of the Queen’s Wing. But this time Niya said nothing, and so it was Kibb, one of the younger guards, who finally answered.