Queen of the Conquered

by Kacen Callender

  I hesitate. I don’t know yet if I trust Alida Nørup. I have no proof, besides her seemingly innocent thoughts, that she isn’t the one behind the murders of Hans Lollik Helle. There’s no way to know with certainty that she isn’t somehow linked to the murder of the king. And yet I’m running out of options—and time. The Fjern who means to see us all dead won’t wait until the end of the storm season before taking another kongelig’s life. I can’t guarantee that kongelig won’t be me.

  And so I tell her. I tell her of my suspicions, I tell her of Valdemar Helle, I tell her of the king.

  “There’s a kongelig who means to be rid of us all.” I ignore the prickling in the back of my throat, to tell Alida that there’s another possibility as well: that the king is only a ghost of himself. That this island has been claimed by the spirits and that we’ll all become victims of their vengeance. The thought feels too ridiculous to mention to Alida. She’d find the spirits of the islanders laughable.

  I continue. “The kongelig will see us all dead, until finally the false king declares them to be the rightful heir to these islands. It’s purposeful. The kongelig will not spark any wars if they’re declared by the king to be the next regent, and if they aren’t found guilty of all the murders of this island.”

  Alida sits in silence and watches me as she might watch one of her experiments: calculating, brow pinched in concentration. She’s always been matter-of-fact, and a grand story such as mine must be taken into careful consideration. “Does anyone else know what you’ve told me?”

  “Patrika Årud.”

  Alida hides her surprise well. She doesn’t understand why I would approach Patrika Årud with such concerns. She believes that, even with the murder of Olsen Årud, Patrika is a hateful woman, and that she’d remain a prime suspect. The woman could’ve easily killed her husband, Alida thinks, to take suspicion away. Alida believes I’m foolish to have confided in Patrika Årud with such information. Still, she says nothing on the topic.

  “What do you propose?” she asks me.

  “A questioning,” I tell her. “An interrogation of Jytte Solberg and Lothar Niklasson.”

  Alida watches me plainly. “And you?”

  Her suspicion of me and Aksel Jannik isn’t emotional. It must be considered rationally. What a grand ploy this would be: Aksel and I could honestly have a hatred for each other, but a hatred that in itself could become a tool. A murder of even Aksel’s beloved, for the purpose of inventing his emotional pain and clearing him from the desire for the throne. Aksel, even, could be behind the murders. And how easy would it have been for me to force my false king to declare my accession to the throne? It’d be just as easy to have Konge Valdemar publicly change his mind, once all other kongelig are dead.

  “What else is there to say?” I ask her. “You’ll have to choose whether you can trust me or not.”

  She isn’t sure if she can. There aren’t enough facts presented for her to make the most logical choice possible. Yet if I’m innocent, and also correct in my assumptions, and it’s either Jytte Solberg or Lothar Niklasson who is behind all these deaths, all this bloodshed, then she’d also be wasting time attempting to gather knowledge. The end of the storm season is near. She also knows the danger in this. She’s been worried—not afraid. Alida hasn’t been afraid that she’d be killed, hasn’t been filled with anxiety at the thought. Nightmares haven’t been pursuing her as they do me. She thinks to herself that the kongelig must see how little she and her brother desire the throne. She believes that whoever is behind these murders would let her live. Nonetheless, she’s concerned—nervous, that perhaps she hasn’t been taking this matter seriously enough.

  “We need to form an alliance against Elskerinde Solberg and Herre Niklasson if we’re to succeed. We can’t let them leave the island and have access to their islands’ resources or their guards.”

  “You’d like to take them prisoner?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  This is certainly one way Alida would find herself killed, she thinks. Jytte would cut her neck herself if Alida attempted to capture her. Elskerinde Solberg is terrifying to Alida, which is surprising, because she doesn’t fear much. She tends to answer her fear with logic. Even as a child, if she found no evidence for the monster beneath her bed, then she wasn’t scared. If she sees no proof that there’re spirits on this island, ready to kill us all, then she has nothing to fear. But with Elskerinde Jytte Solberg, there’s little room for rationality. The woman tends to act how she wishes, in the most unpredictable ways.

  “We can have our guards called onto the island,” I tell her, “and hidden in the mangroves. The night of the kongelig meeting, we can have the guards storm the room and take Jytte and Lothar.”

  “And what of Jytte’s kraft?” This, Alida also fears. It isn’t the possibility of death or pain that she thinks about in this proposed battle. She’s more concerned about the irrational fear Jytte can cause in others with just a glance.

  “There’d be too many of us. She can’t use her kraft on everyone in the room at once. There’s only one concern.” I clench my hands together, imagining the battle that would inevitably take place—the guards that line the outside of Herregård Constantjin, who’d be required to fight the guards who attempt to take Jytte and Lothar. Løren, who will be dead and not a part of this fight. “Our heads of guards would be outnumbered by the guards of Hans Lollik Helle. We can’t bring an entire force onto the island. They’d notice. But we need at least ten more to overpower them. Hopefully the sheer number would force them to surrender.”

  Alida wonders whose guards I propose we include in our number—hopes that it isn’t Patrika Årud that I think of, but I can’t think of who else we could ask. Her island is the closest, and she’s the only other of the kongelig families who remain.

  “Patrika could betray us, Elskerinde Jannik,” Alida tells me. “She could easily turn her guards on our own, have them unite with the guards of Hans Lollik Helle.” This isn’t a risk that Alida is willing to take.

  “We need to be in a position to overpower them.”

  Alida hesitates. She wonders if this is a conversation that should involve her brother, but she knows he’s too much of a fool to seriously involve himself in such politics. She’d once been ashamed to have such thoughts on her brother, especially once he knew how she felt about him. But now it’s expected, this feeling inside her. Gods above, how she can’t stand her brother.

  We reach an agreement: Alida will attempt to convince Patrika Årud, where I failed, and at the next kongelig meeting, we’ll have our combined guards storm the room. Jytte Solberg and Lothar Niklasson will be arrested, and we’ll call the king what he is: a fraud, a by-product of kraft. The real king is dead. We’ll have his body exhumed as proof. The interrogation will begin, and the murderer executed for their crimes. Alida thinks, briefly, on how this might mean the deaths of two of my own rivals—how the path to the throne might be made all the clearer for me—but she doesn’t think on this for too long, because it was never a throne that she herself wanted. What does it matter to her if I’m given the title of regent over these islands? She pretends not to notice the prickling under her skin, the slight sneer of disgust that mars her smile at the thought of an islander ruling all of Hans Lollik.

  The sun has reached its height, and our cups of tea have cooled enough to sip. Marieke, I think, might have gone to visit Løren where he’s been locked in the library. She might’ve offered him prayers and words of comfort. Spirits remain, she’ll have reminded him. He won’t be gone, not truly—not from this world, not from our memories.

  The sun begins to fall, and so it’s almost time for the slave Løren to die. The slaves of the Jannik house are gathered in the groves. The trees darken in the lessening light, shadows against the sky, leaves shifting in the breeze. The slaves stand in a silent circle surrounding me and the hanging tree. I think on how easy it would be for them to decide that they won’t execute one of their own. Malthe could put the
noose around my neck instead, and all the slaves gathered would watch me swing. Marieke stands beside me. She doesn’t speak. She’s beginning to believe, finally, that I truly mean to kill Løren. Marieke doesn’t hide her feelings toward me. She wants me to know them. There’s disappointment, disgust, and for the first time, Marieke allows me to feel the full brunt of her hatred. I’ve always felt this hatred in Marieke, hidden beneath the love she tells herself she feels for me. I was eager to believe her when she told me she didn’t hate me. There have never been more comforting words. But I can now see the truth. Just as Marieke hated my mother, she can’t help but hate the kongelig, and there is no mistake now: I am a part of the kongelig.

  Løren is brought, hands bound. He doesn’t bother to look at me. He instead looks into the eyes of each of the islanders he passes. Some murmur words of comfort. Others whisper their prayers to the spirits. Løren doesn’t hold the wall between us. He never believed for a moment that I wouldn’t kill him, as Marieke had so hoped. He knows that I’m a member of the kongelig—knows that I’m no better than the Fjern. He’s grateful. It’d been a great risk, but he’s lived as long as he needed to on Hans Lollik Helle. Now his death will serve the islanders well. They’ll know, finally, the truth about me: that I’m not one of them, and that I never will be.

  I want him to know that I can’t be to blame. I tell him this silently, sending the thought to his head. I can’t be to blame for his recklessness. Attempting to escape, attacking my guard. What other choice do I have now but to execute him? I remind him that he should’ve been killed months ago for attempting to take my life and for killing Friedrich. I can’t be to blame for this. But he knows the truth: that I hope to punish him, and my people, for not loving me as I claim to love them.

  Malthe guides Løren to the chair. He whispers into Løren’s ear: a prayer to the ancestors—I don’t know which, since I was never taught the prayers as I should have been as a child. I’d seen my mother praying to the spirits many times. She’d walk onto the shoreline before the sun would rise, barefoot and in the salted sea. She’d close her eyes, and her mouth would move in its whispers. She must’ve known I followed her, must’ve known I was watching from the trees, but she never reprimanded me. She’d simply walk back to the manor and pretend I had never seen her on the beach. I was too afraid to ask her why she’d pray to the spirits but never allow her children to do the same.

  Løren steps onto the chair, which wobbles beneath his weight for only a moment. Malthe puts the noose around his neck. It’s a thick rope, strands woven like interlocked fingers wrapping around his throat. I want to look away, as I always have for the executions I’ve ordered, but this is a death I know I must witness. As angry and betrayed as I am by Løren’s choices, his is still a life I respect, and so I must not look away when it ends.

  I step forward and speak the words I must as Elskerinde. “The law of the kongelig is clear,” I say. My voice wavers under the weight of the hatred of the islanders around me. “You’re property of the Jannik household, and yet you attempted to escape as though you own your life.”

  He’s silent. He doesn’t look at me still. He stares at the islanders and at the air above and beside me, as though he can see spirits that I can’t see. I open my mouth to continue my speech, but Malthe wants to spare the boy the mercy of having to hear my speech as he waits to die. There’s nothing worse than waiting. He kicks the chair out from beneath Løren, and he falls.

  Løren’s neck doesn’t break. His neck and face swell, body jerking. Marieke gasps beside me. A long moment passes as we wait, his legs kicking, the air hushing through the leaves of the trees. The branch snaps. Løren falls to the ground with a heavy thud. His hands, still bound, grasp at the rope around his neck to loosen it, and he breathes in a strangled breath. His neck is bruised, bleeding from scratches where the rope dug into his skin. No one moves. Malthe looks only at me, fear building in him—fear that I will order Malthe to behead Løren.

  I can’t think of what to say. What is there to say, when Løren still lives? He coughs on the ground, gasping for air. He looks up at me, the first he’s looked at me since we came to these groves, and the gaze of defiance and hatred sears through me. Even so close to death, he won’t be subdued. I feel as Aksel must have felt once, I think—anger coursing through me, disappointment but also relief.

  “The spirits really won’t let you die, will they?” I ask. “Why won’t they let you die?”

  He doesn’t speak, but his thoughts are clear, even with the pain that wraps around his neck. The spirits need him alive still. They aren’t done with him yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It feels as though the only thing left is to free Løren. He’s too defiant, even toward death, and if I keep him on this island, I think that he’ll kill me as soon as any of the kongelig. But still I can’t bring myself to say the words. To admit defeat between us. And so I let him be. Let him be as I let my people be—I’m undeserving of their love, I know this, and there’s never been anything I can do to force them to accept me. I pretend that Løren’s dead, even as he roams the house’s halls as though he’s become one of the many spirits on this island.

  I distract myself with other matters, which I tell myself are more pressing. Alida and I prepare for our attacks on Jytte Solberg and Lothar Niklasson. She tells me that she’s approached Patrika Årud, but that the woman declined to join in our mission. She doesn’t care for these politics, and if the battle doesn’t go as we hope, she doesn’t want to be imprisoned and beheaded beside us. The one favor the woman will do for us now is to not warn the others of our plans. She’ll allow us to attack, watching from the sidelines. Patrika’s refusal gives Alida pause, I can tell; she wrings her hands together as she stands in my sitting room, pacing from one end to the next, her thoughts a flurry of confusion. The kongelig meeting is this very night, and our guards are waiting on the shores behind the mangrove trees.

  “And if we fail?” Alida asks me.

  “We won’t fail.”

  “You wanted Elskerinde Årud’s guards to join us for a reason,” she says. “You believe there’s a possibility we’ll fail.”

  There’s a strong possibility this won’t go as we hope, of course, but I don’t wish to tell Alida and add to her anxiety. I need her as much as I need the guards who will take Jytte and Lothar prisoner. If she crumbles beneath the pressure, and calls off her guards—or worse yet, betrays me when we arrive at the meeting room—Jytte and Lothar will have me executed without hesitation.

  “This will work,” I tell her. “Remember the consequences if we don’t find the murderer now: We’ll be killed by the end of the storm season.”

  She hesitates. Isn’t it better, then, to simply leave while we still have our lives?

  “It’s duty that keeps you here,” I remind her. “Duty to the Nørup name—to your brother.”

  Alida doesn’t appreciate that I’ve seen into her thoughts, that I know her feelings—but she also knows I’m right. This overwhelming sense of Alida’s duty has always been what’s made her different from her brother. Her parents, while they still lived, had allowed Erik all the freedoms they wouldn’t allow their daughter. She held a bitterness. While Erik was able to live a life of freedom, Alida’s parents had tried to force her into a marriage. If they’d still been alive—if their ship had returned from Koninkrijk as expected and hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor—Alida would’ve been married into another of the kongelig families. She wouldn’t have gone to university. It took her parents’ deaths for her to find her freedom, but even so, she can’t be free from their memories, nor from her responsibility: to take care of the family name, and to protect her brother, too. At least if our guards do lose the battle, only she will be arrested. Lothar will be able to question her and see plainly that her brother had nothing to do with this plot. As it is now, neither one of them will survive the murderer among the kongelig. This is a chance she must be willing to take.

  Alid
a leaves me in my sitting room to return to her own manor. I remain seated as the sun begins to set and the night breeze becomes cooler. There’s a creaking footstep, but I feel no one’s presence pass me by.

  Malthe waits outside for me in the gardens. I’d requested that he send for the guards of Lund Helle. They wait in the mangroves, alongside the Nørup guards. Malthe knows that he’s helping me commit a crime against the kongelig, which is punishable by death—for me and for all of the guards under my command, Malthe included—but he also can’t disobey a direct order from his Elskerinde, especially when I claim that it’s for the good of Hans Lollik Helle. We walk the path together in quiet, Malthe’s mind still in its silence. I can only feel from him how easy it would be to run his knife along my neck and be done with it.

  The guards hidden in the mangroves come forth from the water and join us on the shore. The sky becomes a dark green. We move toward the manor, Alida and her head guard joining us at the center of the path, her ten guards following as well. The guards that line Herregård Constantjin see us coming. The head guard steps forward and opens his mouth to speak, but I sink myself into his blood, and he silences himself, pushed back and out of the way. We pass through the doors, down the halls, and into the meeting room.

  The room becomes cramped with so many bodies filling the space around the mahogany table. Patrika, Jytte, and Lothar are already in attendance. Patrika doesn’t bother to pretend that she’s surprised. She watches as Jytte immediately stands to her feet.

  “What is this?” Elskerinde Solberg demands. She begins to call for the guards. Lothar watches in confusion, but he’s alert. He assesses the situation quickly and sees Alida standing beside me.