Beneath the Keep

by Erika Johansen

  And what if she does? her mind asked. If she truly means to strip you, what will you do?

  The last time Elyssa had asked this question of herself, she had found no answer. But now she saw the solution, saw it clearly in the memory of the screaming mass of humanity beneath her in the New London Circus. They had been wild, mad even, but their madness was born not of violence but of trust. They trusted Elyssa to protect them, and once upon a time Elyssa had wondered how far she would go for her kingdom. But now she knew. If her mother installed Thomas as heir, then he could not be allowed to ascend the throne.

  “Elyssa.”

  She bit her lip, all resolve muting as her mother’s form emerged from the enormous dressing room at the far end of the chamber. For a long moment the Queen remained in shadow, and Elyssa had time to think how imposing her mother was, how frightening in her own right. When she came into the light, still clad in her long morning robe, the impression was lessened . . . but only a little.

  “Elyssa. What am I to do with you?”

  Elyssa remained silent, for she knew her mother. Part of the Queen wanted an apology, and part of her did not. On some deep level, her mother was proud of Elyssa’s insolence. She wanted, even expected, Elyssa to rebel. But she took equal enjoyment in crushing rebellion flat.

  The Queen sighed, crossing the room to her vanity table, where an enormous gold-framed looking glass held pride of place. She sat down and began to brush her hair, seeming to ignore her daughter entirely for the moment. This was all of a piece. The sorrowful sighs, the rhetorical questions . . . all of them were only the rise of the curtain, the entr’acte on a murderous play. Soon or late, the knife would present itself; the question was only how sharp it would be.

  “How many times have I told you?” her mother asked. “You are the heir to a kingdom. Your womb does not belong to yourself.”

  “I was careful!” Elyssa snapped. “I have my syrup!”

  But, she realized suddenly, she did not have her syrup. Niya had been unable to find any on her last trip into the city, and Elyssa had taken her last spoonful a month before, or perhaps longer. She hadn’t thought of it, for it had been more than a year since she had shared her bed with anyone. But now—

  Only one night, Elyssa thought, fighting to keep the dismay from her face, for she could not afford for her mother to be right about anything, not now.

  “Syrup is not the issue. You cannot simply bed with anyone you please.”

  “You do!” Elyssa shot back, unable to keep the venom from her voice. She hoped to provoke her mother’s temper, but the Queen’s face remained neutral, and Elyssa’s fright deepened. Her mother had already chosen a course of action. This was not a conversation; it was a dance, carefully choreographed by her mother, a prelude to—what?

  “Your little dalliance is not my primary problem,” Arla continued. “Your defiance has opened a deep breach with the Holy Father.”

  “My heart bleeds.”

  The blow came so quickly that Elyssa barely even felt it, only the fall, the sharp rap of her head against the floor. She tried to sit up and could not.

  “Why do you make me do this?” her mother asked. “Why do you always force my hand?”

  “I force you to do nothing,” Elyssa replied through gritted teeth, pulling herself up with the help of her mother’s desk. “You are what you are, Mother. You cannot dodge responsibility.”

  “And neither can you, child,” the Queen replied, smiling a little . . . but the smile was predatory. “You are twenty-one years old now, old enough to make choices and live with the damage.”

  “Tell that to Thomas. I see how you’ve punished him for his transgressions.”

  To her mother’s credit, she looked almost embarrassed for a moment. Then she shrugged.

  “The situation with Thomas is unfortunate. I have chosen the best way to manage it.”

  “That girl is barely more than a child.”

  “I did not select the girl.”

  “No; you sent Thomas on a shopping expedition in the city.” Thinking of the weeping girl Kibb had pulled from the bed, Elyssa clenched her fists. “I won’t stand for it, Mother.”

  “You will stand for it, Elyssa, and keep your mouth shut. If it makes it easier, think of it as part of your punishment . . . but only part. Culp!”

  At the name, Elyssa’s stomach clenched. She wondered whether her mother’s anger was so great that they had finally crossed some final line. But then, as Welwyn Culp emerged from the dressing room, Elyssa gasped, the sound harsh and cold on her own ears, like the drawing of a blade.

  He can’t be here! He got away!

  Gareth was bound and gagged, a rope looped around his neck so that Culp could lead him, jerking him forward as one would a wayward steer. Culp’s dead-eyed face was as impassive as ever, but Elyssa sensed a certain amount of pleasure in the interrogator’s movements, silent satisfaction in each little jerk. Gareth would not look at her; his eyes seemed distant, almost lost.

  No, Elyssa thought dully. He got away.

  “He did not get away,” said her mother, and Elyssa realized that she had spoken aloud. “Brenna warned me, long before the act, and Culp was waiting down in the tunnels when your little friend came through.”

  “Brenna?” Elyssa asked stupidly. “How did she know?”

  “She knows everything, Elyssa.” Her mother’s face suddenly lost its cold reserve, became animated, her cheeks flushed. She grasped at the bodice of her dress . . . reaching, Elyssa knew, for the sapphire that lay beneath. “It’s a pity you fight me so hard, for if you would only fall in line, Brenna could show you wonders. So many wonders.”

  “Do you honestly believe that creature acts for your benefit, Mother? Are you so foolish?”

  “Magic is magic. Who cares about motive? These jewels, Elyssa!” She brought out the sapphire, and Elyssa noted that her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, as though she had just taken a hit of morphia. “One could rule the world with these jewels!”

  “And you call me naive.”

  Her mother’s face tightened, and Elyssa realized that she had misread her mother slightly. Though the rest of this scene might have been contrived, the subject of the jewels had been spontaneous. Her mother had been sincere, had tried to share something with her. Elyssa felt a momentary regret, but it was too late.

  “You are naive, Elyssa . . . which brings us back to your little friend here. Culp’s been itching for another go. He would have begun interrogation immediately, but I told him no, we must wait.”

  The Queen smiled wide, and now Elyssa saw the blade before her, naked and shining.

  Great God, they will torture him right here before my eyes, they will make me watch—

  “I would have let him go, you know,” the Queen remarked. “You played a nice hand when you put me on the spot in front of them all, and I would have had no choice. I would have nursed him and let him go. But life is about choices, Elyssa. Making choices and living with them. If you’re to sit the throne after me, you must learn that. You may know it academically, but academics mean fuck-all with a crown on your head. Better, I think, to teach you a practical lesson . . . one you will never forget.”

  The Queen rose from her vanity table, and Elyssa saw, almost numbly, that she held a knife in her hand.

  “I am going to give you a choice now, my little rabble-rouser. At the moment, your friend here is drugged to the gills, probably doesn’t even know where he is. You may kill him quickly, here and now, and retain your claim on the throne. Or, if you refuse, Culp can take him down to the dungeons, wait for the drugs to wear off, and do with him as he pleases, while I strip you of your title and invest Thomas. The choice will be yours.”

  She cannot be serious, Elyssa thought, numb with horror. It’s a trick, a test. She just wants to know that I’m willing to do it, but she won’t really make me, she wou
ldn’t—

  But then Elyssa abandoned even that last, desperate hope, because her mother would. It was plain in her face, which wore the same blank, implacable expression that Elyssa recognized from so many punishments before.

  “He may have information—” she began, but her mother cut her off.

  “Not enough. As you were so kind to point out in front of the crowd, dear daughter, even Culp cannot wring a confession from these Blue Horizon lunatics. The man is of no further use to me.”

  Elyssa’s mind ran back and forth, seeking a way out. The entire city knew that Gareth had escaped; according to Niya, the tale of his daring flight was being told in every pub and market. Culp had taken Gareth in secret, and the guards’ pique had been too real; no one else knew about this. There was nothing to stop her mother from murdering Gareth in any way she liked, not even the wrath of the Blue Horizon. They would never find out, not unless Elyssa told the world.

  But I can’t do that either, she realized, suddenly seeing the true nature of her mother’s move here. They thought Elyssa the True Queen; they believed in her. What would happen to that belief if they found out that she had murdered a member of the Blue Horizon in cold blood?

  “Make a decision, Elyssa,” her mother commanded. “You will be queen someday, and the kingdom will not wait while you vacillate between your cunt and your better judgment.”

  For a long moment, Elyssa meant to tell her mother no. She even opened her mouth to do it. But the memory of that night was upon her—Gareth smiling lazily up at her—and she couldn’t do it, couldn’t say the words that would see him handed over to Culp, sent down to face the manacles. The board.

  “Here, Elyssa,” her mother said, holding out the dagger, a hint of pity in her voice. That, too, was part of the dance; her mother was always sorry, but only after the damage was done. “Take it.”

  Elyssa lurched forward and took the dagger. The hilt was smooth and cold, inset with rubies. The dagger had been a gift to her mother from the Cadarese king, and like all Cadarese weapons, it had a slightly curving blade. Staring at the gleaming surface, Elyssa could see her own eyes reflected: bright green eyes, wide and hunted, full of tears.

  In that moment, she came within an ace of killing her mother.

  She could see herself doing it, burying the dagger in her mother’s stomach and jerking sharply upward, gutting the Queen as a kitchen boy would do a trout. Elyssa could even see the way the blood would flow: gouting from the wound, soaking her mother’s dressing gown, spilling onto her feet. The Guard would come, the medics . . . but it would be too late. Arla the Just would bleed to death.

  Do it, and you’ll never take the throne.

  Elyssa started, brought back suddenly by the steel in that voice—Lady Glynn’s—and even more by the memory of the crowd in the Circus, their wild jubilation. The True Queen, they called her, but no regicide would ever mount the throne, and when Elyssa went to the axe, the kingdom would go to Thomas. Besides, Gareth was behind her, still chained, and if Elyssa killed her mother now, one way or another, Culp would have him. She blocked out that murderous vision—though it did not go willingly—and turned to confront Gareth.

  He was not looking at her. His eyes rolled without direction, gazing toward the ceiling and then the far wall. The Queen had said he was drugged, and Elyssa believed it. Spittle bubbled between his lips and ran in a thin line from the side of his mouth. The drugs had dulled his wits, certainly, but would they dull his pain?

  “Morphia,” her mother said, sensing Elyssa’s hesitation. “High-grade, the best in the city, from our own infirmary. He will feel nothing.”

  Elyssa stared at Gareth’s slack face. Her knife hand was shaking slightly; she waited for a moment, willing it to be still, and then stepped forward. Culp backed away—was it mild disappointment she sensed in his dead eyes, or only a trick of the light?—giving her clearance.

  Elyssa did not know how to kill a man. Thomas had been given lessons in arms when he was younger—though the gossip of the Queen’s Wing said that Thomas was so terrible a fighter that the lessons might have served Elyssa better—but as a princess, she was not supposed to carry steel, or even know how to use it. She could try to cut Gareth’s throat, but what if she botched it?

  You caused all of this, her mind whispered. You couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  Elyssa drew a long, shaking breath. She closed her eyes and found Gareth there, standing before her mother’s throne, bruised and bleeding, staring up at the Queen with blazing eyes . . . but even Gareth was overborne by the other images. The Circus. The starving children she had seen in the Gut, all swollen bellies and wide eyes. The broad sweep of the Almont beyond the city walls. She loved Gareth, yes, but that did not outweigh the fate of the kingdom, the millions of people outside this room. It did not even come close.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and in a single sharp movement she jerked her hand sinister, burying the point of the blade in Gareth’s neck. The drugs were strong, but not strong enough; Gareth’s eyes opened wide, and for a long, nearly endless moment, Elyssa saw a terrible awareness there. She cried out, reaching for the knife as though to take it back . . . but it was too late. A hideous rattling sound emitted from Gareth’s throat, and a moment later he fell to the floor. Elyssa wanted to turn away, to flee, but she knew that if she did, she would never forgive herself that cowardice. Too many unforgivable things had already happened in this room, and so she remained where she was, watching Gareth die. Only when the light had faded from his eyes did she kneel down beside him, placing her hand on his.

  “What of the body?” she asked her mother. “Can I bury him?”

  “No. The corpse will go to the Holy Father. We have made an arrangement.”

  Elyssa nodded numbly, realizing that she should have known. Culp was coming to clear away the body, but Elyssa remained where she was, holding Gareth’s hand, staring at the stream of blood that had pooled on the stone floor. She needed something to look at. She needed to keep her eyes from her mother’s face.

  One day, she thought, you will have no hold, no leverage over anyone I love. On that day, I will kill you . . . and believe me, Mother, there will be no morphia to ease your passage. I will watch you die, and I will smile when you scream.

  These thoughts came quite naturally; they were not theoretical but practical, her mother’s life merely a problem to be solved. All emotion seemed to have drained from Elyssa, like the life from Gareth’s corpse. Behind her, Culp began to drag the corpse away; Gareth’s bare feet rasped against the stone, a sound that Elyssa knew would haunt her later. Only when the corpse was gone did her mother signal that she should go.

  Outside the door, Barty and Galen waited, Niya beside them. Barty’s brow furrowed in concern as he saw Elyssa’s dishevelment, the tear tracks on her face.

  “Highness?” Niya asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Elyssa returned mechanically. Niya put her arms around her, but Elyssa stood unmoving, unable to take comfort, and at length Niya let her go and simply offered a cloth. Elyssa took it and wiped her face. Galen looked away, uncomfortable; he was one of those men who didn’t know what to do with tears, and he clearly thought that it was only a matter of seconds until the next storm of weeping descended.

  But Elyssa’s tears were done. Now she could think only of murder. Murder sent her walking steadily back to her chamber, murder allowed her to eat a hearty dinner . . . and later that night, when the entire Queen’s Wing was asleep, murder lightened Elyssa’s feet as she danced down the hidden tunnel behind her chambers, heading for the witch’s room.

  Chapter 18

  TOPSIDE

  In the often tumultuous history of the Queen’s Guard, no figure has been so misunderstood or overly interpreted as that of the Mace. Despite the determined effort to make the Mace into a complicated man, shadowy and enigmatic, there is no basis for such convolutio
n of simple facts. The Mace’s background was well known and unremarkable: he was a farm boy out of the northern Almont, brought to the attention of the Guard for his skill at boxing. His rise in the Guard was exceptional, almost meteoric, but that is not surprising, considering his singular skills. He went on to be a superlative guard, one of the finest in Tear history, yet that same history has decreed that there must be something odd, almost sinister, about this particular character. My esteemed colleagues have even gone so far as to suggest that the Mace may have been a victim of childhood abuse, but this is laughable. Abuse does not vanish with the onset of adulthood; it follows the victim, creating fault lines—alienation and violence—that grow deeper over the years. But from his earliest appearance in the Queen’s Guard, the Mace showed none of these faults. He projected nothing but strength and an almost steely resolve.

  —Lecture by Dr. Thomas Kerwin, Professor of History, University of New London (later condemned and sacked)

  You want what?” Carroll asked.

  You heard me, Christian thought of saying, but did not. He was guarding his tongue carefully in this conversation, for everything was different now. He was no longer in his domain, and the boy he had saved in the Creche was no longer a tiny, naked pigeon but a member of the Queen’s Guard. Carroll was still shorter than Christian by at least half a foot, but height didn’t come into it, for the power differential had shifted. Carroll belonged here, while Christian was an interloper, a Creche baby trying to climb . . . not merely topside, but higher than any Creche baby ever dared to dream.