Queen of the Conquered

by Kacen Callender

  Marieke ran. She ran down to the bay, along the path of the saltwater river, feet sinking into the wet dirt and mangrove branches scratching her. She wouldn’t stop running until she found the cave.

  I told Marieke that night at the inn that I hadn’t known she’d had a daughter, and she looked at me with surprise. She hadn’t said a word. She asked me how I’d learned this. I tried to lie. I said Marieke had spoken aloud without her realizing it, but Marieke was hard to fool. Even as she demanded the truth, I could hear the thoughts in her mind, again and again: The child has kraft. Spirits remain, the child has kraft.

  Marieke had been afraid, yes, this she couldn’t keep from me either. Kraft had once been considered a gift of the spirits by islanders, blessings to be nurtured and beloved, but our beliefs were burned away when the Fjern came. With the Fjern and their law to kill any slave with kraft came the fear that islanders who had the power in their veins were cursed. Marieke was afraid of me and of my power. I thought that Marieke would abandon me, or send me back to Lund Helle. But she’d made an oath to my mother, and she stayed by my side. I quickly learned to stay out of Marieke’s head, and she in turn taught me to calm myself when I couldn’t control my kraft.

  I tell all of this to Løren while he sits on the single chair by the window. The wall between us remains, but I can plainly see on his face that he wonders why he should care about such stories.

  Friedrich had loved listening to me speak about my journeys in the north. He’d wanted to see those cities for himself, and thought he one day would, once he finally received his freedom from me. He’d say these things and think these things as he kissed me, pulling my dress over my head.

  When I peel my dress from my skin, Løren doesn’t react. It’s only when I walk toward him that he stands. I raise a hand to his cheek, and it’s easy to pretend that he’s Friedrich for a moment—but he snatches my hand, yanking it away from him, disgust lining his mouth. Shock vibrates through me. No slave has ever dared to touch me like that.

  He meets my eye with an expressionless gaze. He waits for me to try again, and I know that if I do, he’ll only react the same way. He isn’t Friedrich, and he doesn’t pretend to want me. I can’t use him to pretend I’m accepted by our people. I can’t force him to have any love for me. He wants that to be clear, the wall between us gone.

  “I’m your mistress,” I tell him. “The wife of your owner. Elskerinde Jannik.”

  He knows this. I’m not the first Elskerinde who has come to him, expecting him to watch as they pulled their dresses from their bodies, ordering him to touch them as though he loved them, even when he’d been only a child. He’s been used by multiple women over his years of growing up in these islands, beaten whenever he refused, threatened to be hung and drowned. He isn’t unique in this. So many of my people have been used by the Fjern, forced into their beds. Sickness churns through him at the memory of being forced to pleasure women he hated. He’d always known that he was a slave—had understood that he didn’t own his life—but the first moment Elskerinde Freja Jannik passed him along to one of her dear friends, he learned for the first time that he didn’t own his body, either. He’d thought wrongly that at least his skin was his own, his flesh and bones, but even this belonged to the Fjern as much as they owned their furniture, their crops, the islands themselves.

  Løren only feels a coldness at the thought of sharing another’s bed. He’s never been with another woman of his own accord and has experienced little desire in his life. There was a time when being called to the beds of these women, the cruelty of his father and brother, and his long days training to be a guard, beaten again and again in the hot sun, brought him to the rocks that grow from the sea. He stood there, waiting to find the courage to dive into the waves, hoping that the tide would do the work for him—but the courage never came. And so he returned to the life that was not his.

  The fury he has at the thought of sharing my bed sinks into me. It sickens me that I could attempt to do the same to him as so many other women of Hans Lollik Helle have—that I could attempt to take away his choice, make him nothing but a body that I own, that exists for no other reason than to pleasure me. That I could pretend, for even one moment, that he isn’t a human with his own thoughts, his own emotions, his own choices. Hot shame runs through me. I pick up my dress, pulling it back on quickly, smoothing down its wrinkles.

  Løren had wanted to die, he allowed me to see—but it was because of his desire for death that he knows the worth of his life now. His life isn’t defined by the Fjern. His life holds the strength of the generations of spirits who came before him. All the islanders who line up behind him like an army, giving him the power to continue the fight that they could not. These ancestors aren’t behind me. They’ve abandoned me—we both know this. I can feel just as easily, too, that Løren will kill me if I try to touch him again. He’ll kill me, even knowing that it’d mean the end of his life as well.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hans Lollik Helle is a surprisingly welcome sight after days of traveling with Løren. Any hope I have for an alliance with him, of convincing him to protect me if any of the kongelig try to take my life, is now gone. In fact, I’m sure there’s an even higher chance now that he will kill me himself. I know that I should have him removed as my personal guard; lock him in the library again, or have him executed for attempting to assassinate me so many weeks before, and for putting an arrow through Friedrich’s neck. But still I can’t help but keep Løren close to me, as though I think there’s a chance that I can convince him that I’m worthy of his respect. That I might finally prove to him that I’m a kongelig, yes, but I’m also an islander, and that I deserve the love of my people.

  I escape from the boat the moment it’s close enough to shore, wetting the ends of my dress and hurrying over the hot sand and dirt back to the airless hall of the Jannik house on the cliffs. I walk across the creaking floors feeling as though I’ve become the ghost of the former Elskerinde Jannik—wandering the halls, forever lost, seeking revenge for my betrayal. I return to my chambers and to Marieke’s solace, ridding myself of my clothes and sinking into a tub of lukewarm water, allowing her to scrub my arms, my back, my hair. I don’t tell her about Løren. The shame curls through me, wrapping itself around my throat.

  Marieke lays a fresh dress on my bed and holds up a towel for me as I step out of the tub before she returns to her duties. She’s quiet with me today, when she would normally nag her reminders to stay focused on my goals, my purpose for being here on Hans Lollik Helle. She won’t even meet my eye. I told her once that I respect her too much to invade her mind, so I don’t slip into her to see what might be wrong. I worry that Løren told the other slaves what I’d done as soon as we arrived, and so Marieke can’t stand the sight of me now: me, this woman who is supposed to be an islander, who is supposed to love her people and yet treats them no better than the Fjern treat their slaves.

  Another member of a kongelig family, this time a Nørup, has been found dead. It was an older man, Herre Jens Nørup, and he was known for his love of drink. This is why, they say, his body has been found beneath the cliffs on the rocky shore, his neck snapped, but it’s been known for some time that Herre Jens Nørup openly complained of the king’s favoritism toward the Niklasson family; he suggested, time and again, that Lothar Niklasson might find himself dead by the storm season’s end, and that his nephew, Erik Nørup, would become the new favorite of the king.

  There’s another glittering party in the courtyard of Herregård Constantjin. All of the kongelig are expected to attend. I don’t know if the puppet king will be there, watching us. I don’t want to attend the party, but it could be a chance to observe all the kongelig, to see who among them might control the puppet king’s strings. I leave for the courtyard party with Aksel, who’s disappointed I’m still alive. He doesn’t bother to hide his thoughts from me: the daydreams he’d had of a messenger coming with news of the death of his wife, being able to declare that the
grief was too much to bear and leaving Hans Lollik Helle, before traveling to the north with Beata Larsen. They would go to the Fjern empire of Koninkrijk. Neither had been, and Aksel longed to see the birthplace of his people. He would be free there; free from these responsibilities he doesn’t want, free from the savages and the islands, which, he fears, are turning him into a savage as well. Løren follows behind us without speaking.

  The courtyard has its lights, the sun setting prettily on the horizon, sinking beneath the blue water and painting the sky with its pink and red hues. The frogs make their noise, the night birds sing, and fruit bats swoop in and out of the sky, their black wings fluttering shadows in the corners of my eyes. Gentle music plays. A low hum of chatter greets us. Løren moves to stand with the other slaves who line a wall, and Erik Nørup dances with a younger cousin of the Larsen family. The puppet of Konge Valdemar isn’t here, but Lothar Niklasson greets us the moment we step into the courtyard.

  “What news?” he asks.

  I tell him that Herre Gustav Ludjivik is dead, executed by my hand as commanded, and Lothar knows that I speak the truth, and so doesn’t ask for any proof. He had no other business with me; he leaves, ready to discuss another important matter with a Solberg cousin who waits near the gardens. Beata Larsen stands beside a low stone wall, looking at the sunset; her back is to us, but I can feel how intensely aware she is of me and Aksel, and how much Aksel wishes he could take her into his arms. I can see the love that had begun between them years before, when both were brought onto the island for the storm season. Beata Larsen had always been a sniveling little thing. He was four years older than the girl, and she followed him and Erik Nørup everywhere they went. Finally, one day he got tired of her, and asked her to play a game. He and Erik led her into the woods and told her to close her eyes and count as high as she could. The young Beata Larsen did as she was told, and Aksel and Erik escaped the groves, laughing all the while. The two were free of Beata, and so ran along the beach’s shore and drank guavaberry rum they’d swiped from the kitchens. They returned to their homes for their dinner when the sun began to set. It was only when a messenger came with news that the Larsen child had gone missing that Aksel’s blood ran cold.

  He was a coward, even then, so he said nothing of the game he and Erik had earlier played; but the moment his parents had gone to bed, Aksel snuck from his room and returned to the groves in the dead of night. He could hardly see a thing. The moon’s silver shine was all he could rely on as he stepped through the trees, roots snagging his feet. He called Beata Larsen’s name. He called and called and called again, but there was no reply. He was afraid the girl had fallen off a cliff to her death.

  Just as he was about to give up, his voice hoarse and his feet sore, he saw a glimmer of pale skin in the moonlight: Beata sat against a tree, knees huddled to her chest, waiting to be found. Aksel ran to her and snatched her arm, dragging her to her feet. He demanded to know why she hadn’t said anything when she heard him calling her name, and Beata’s only response was that she hadn’t wanted to lose the game.

  Aksel stopped ignoring Beata after that. He thought of himself as her knight, her rescuer; he doted on her, bringing her flowers and chocolates. He began to look forward to seeing her with every year that passed, began to look forward to spending his days on Hans Lollik Helle. Theirs is what the Fjern would consider a fairy tale romance. I look to the slaves lining the walls, and I realize I’ve never heard such a story of love between two islanders. It makes me believe that love wasn’t made for us. Along with the freedom of my people, the Fjern have taken joy and love as well, declared this a thing that belongs to them alone. Løren watches me, though his eyes are supposed to be fastened to the dirt beneath his feet. He watches me, and he wants me to know that he hates me—hates me for forcing him to come here again, among the kongelig, even knowing the pain they’ve caused him.

  I leave the estate to walk through the breeze, winds blowing the clouds, their shadows moving over the blue of the darkening sea. I walk across the white sand, burning the bottoms of my feet until I stand in the cold waves, the ends of my white dress becoming dark and heavy with salted water. I stand there looking over the ocean until the sun sets completely and the white stars begin to dot the sky. The music of Herregård Constantjin reaches me even here, along with the faint laughter. I can sense the presence that appears behind me, so I’m not frightened when Beata Larsen calls my name.

  “Elskerinde Jannik,” she says again. She looks startled when I turn around. I turn back to face the sea. “I—I apologize, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “You didn’t,” I tell her.

  She’s afraid to speak, scared to tell me her thoughts. She wishes I would simply look into her and know them. She speaks to my back, frustrated that I won’t turn to face her. “I’ve come to tell you that I’m leaving Hans Lollik.”

  At this I turn around. She looks to the sand. “I’ve found that I can’t stay here. Not any longer.”

  There’s a rush of emotion that isn’t easy to untangle, but still I find the string—unweave it, to make sense of the feeling that she can no longer stand to be on this island while the love of her life is married to someone else. It’s the greatest tragedy she’s ever endured, but she hopes that once she leaves Hans Lollik, she can learn to love another as deeply as she does Aksel Jannik. She can marry, have a family. These politics, this crown—she wants none of it.

  “From what Aksel tells me, I know that you’re ambitious,” she says. She forces a smile, even as it trembles with emotion she tries and fails to hold. “You won’t stop until Konge Valdemar chooses the Jannik name to inherit the title of regent. I wish you success,” she says, and it enrages me, that even after hurting her—even after taking the love of her life—she genuinely means this. “But I also wish you happiness. What is life if you can’t find joy?”

  “The throne will bring me joy,” I say.

  “Will it?” she asks. She steps to me, and there’s no measure to my distrust—I look at her hands, expecting a hidden knife, but instead she reaches her palms toward me. “May I, Elskerinde Jannik?”

  I want to take her by the shoulders (or better yet, the neck) and shake her—tell her to fight for Aksel if she loves him so much. Tell her to accept Aksel’s pleas—escape Hans Lollik with him so that they may become a Fjern fairy tale for the pale-skinned children of these islands. But the Jannik name would become nothing if Aksel were to leave. I’m lucky that he’s stayed, grappling with his sense of duty to his family name and his mother’s memory, even if he doesn’t want the throne himself. If Aksel left, I would become the greatest laughingstock in all of Hans Lollik: a slave attempting to become a queen, abandoned by her husband for another woman. I still need him. So I say nothing, and I take Beata Larsen’s waiting hands.

  The joy that spreads through me begins at the fingertips—warm, stretching through my hands, over my skin, tingling with comfort. I feel as I do in my bath, listening to Marieke’s reassuring words; sitting in the sunlight, heat upon my cheeks; the peace I feel rolling through the hills of Lund Helle, seeing the green fields outstretched before me. I feel as I did when I was a child wrapped in my mother’s arms, listening to Inga’s songs, Ellinor’s laughter, Claus’s stories. Safety. Love. Yes, that’s the secret to Beata Larsen, I realize—she’s filled with so much love. Beata Larsen believes me beneath her, in the way that a human might think the goat is beneath them, incapable of true thought and feeling. But still, she tells herself that she loves me, in the way that a child might begin to love and care for that goat, playing games with each other, until finally the goat is slaughtered. She sees the pain of my people, and she wonders if it can be right for the Fjern to treat us the way they do. She prays for all of our souls, islanders and Fjern together, and hopes that the gods may forgive the sins of her people. But still, this is all that she will do.

  I open my eyes, and Beata is watching me. She tells me she’ll leave for Larsen Helle in the morning, and that by
month’s end, she will travel to the north. This will be the last time either I or Aksel will see or hear from her. She curtsies with respect, and walks the path from the beach, leaving me in the sand, the waves crashing around my ankles, foaming onto the shore.

  I dream when I sleep. The maze of the Rose manor twists, flowing green in the moonlight, stark against the black sky and its smear of silver stars; the maze begins to close in on me, roots attempting to trip me, wrapping around my ankles, branches reaching as I turn left, then right, then right again—and in the center of the maze stands not my mother but Freja Jannik. She waits in her white dress, and when she opens her mouth, she screams, but no sound fills my ears. I struggle against the roots that tighten around my ankles, the branches that tear at my hair, and I reach out for Freja Jannik’s neck—wrap my hands around her cold skin. She begins to rot in death. Her skin peels away at the corners of her lips, and maggots crawl from her nose, her eyes. The maze swallows me.

  I jump from my bed, sweating, afraid that I’m still tangled in the brush of the maze—but instead I find myself in my room, tangled in my sheets. Dawn begins to peek over the hills with rays of pink streaking through the dark-purple sky. There’s a shout in the morning’s quiet.

  I hurry to my wardrobe, pull on a thin dress, and race out of my room, down the stairs and to the entryway. Aksel turns the corner sharply, knocking into me, but doesn’t stop to apologize or to acknowledge me. In his flurry of emotion, he hasn’t even seen me—there’s no thought, only pain. He disappears down the hall, toward the gardens. I slow down. The slave girl named Agatha speaks to Malthe in the entrance. My eyes automatically search for Marieke, but she isn’t there.

  “What is it?” I say. My heart hammers at the thought that Marieke is hurt, or worse—but Malthe steps forward, and I force myself into his mind. A messenger came to the barracks in the dead of night, leading Malthe down the dirt path that cuts through the groves, alongside each of the heads of the kongelig guards. He’s returned now. He has already told Aksel. Even though I can see the image he’s witnessed with his own eyes, it’s difficult to believe.