Renegade Queen : A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 3)

by R. J. Vickers

  “I hope not. He has a country estate, so maybe he’s gone there.”

  I paused. Should we even risk venturing into town? Maybe we would be best off approaching the governor’s estate directly. Unless he was dead and the position of had gone to a Whitish soldier.

  “What is it?” Baridya asked.

  “I’m just worried. What if this is like Pelek all over again? This time we won’t have anywhere to run to.”

  “Are you saying we should turn around and give up, after all that?” Mellicante said.

  “No, of course not. I just don’t want to get ourselves trapped.”

  “Then let’s find a tavern where we can talk to a few locals, but spend the night somewhere safer.”

  I nodded—that would have to suffice.

  When we reached the northern end of Larkhaven, we dropped onto a muddy farm track that led down to join up with one of the cobbled city streets. The houses here were less imposing, yet they still mimicked the style of the manors above, giving the city a cohesive look that Baylore lacked. It almost appeared the whole thing had grown up from the rock.

  The street dropped steeply toward the harbor, and as we descended, the nearby buildings blocked our view. This part of town appeared mainly residential, though we did pass a bakery and a shop selling salt and dried seaweed out of deep boxes. We only passed three people on the way down; all quickened their pace and averted their gaze as we walked by.

  “It’s usually friendlier here,” Baridya whispered.

  I glanced around at the empty streets. “At least we haven’t seen any Whitish soldiers.”

  “Yet,” Mellicante said.

  The road flattened out as we neared the beach, finally turning to loop around the final row of buildings. Here the cobblestone road widened and followed the beach as it curved around the harbor. A wall rose to the left of the road, just over knee height, and below lay a short drop down to the smooth stones on the beach. Small waves hissed their way toward shore, stones clacking as they receded.

  On our right lay a tightly-packed row of shops, taverns, and inns. This stretch running along the waterfront appeared to be the town center; the space bustled with activity, from sailors unloading their goods to fishers selling their catch directly off boats. We passed butcheries, taverns, teahouses, and shops selling everything from brightly-dyed skeins of sheep’s wool to sacks overflowing with tiny dried fish. Powerful smells overwhelmed my senses, from the bucketloads of fresh fish to the sour reek of alcohol, all of it underlaid by the briny sea breeze.

  Baridya grinned as she walked, gripping Mellicante’s elbow as she took in what must have been a familiar scene, while Mellicante stalked stiffly down the road, lips drawn in a thin line. Quendon lagged behind, still limping heavily.

  At one point, we stopped and bought four pieces of fried flatbread wrapped around creamy fish. Though the flatbread was large, I was so ravenous I finished it off before we had reached the end of the block.

  When we neared what looked like the main road, Mellicante turned abruptly toward a tavern with a weathered wood sign whose lettering had faded to the point of illegibility.

  “Really?” Baridya said. “That’s not a very nice place.”

  “Yes, and the people here are less likely to report us.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  “Oh, one or two times…”

  Baridya gave Mellicante a curious look, which she ignored.

  Inside, the tavern was packed with people. Sailors with stained shirts argued loudly over games of cards, men with glazed eyes drank from tiny cups of emerald-green liquid, barmen served round after round of drinks in grimy mugs, and pretty young women and men flirted openly with the patrons, the women’s bodices cut so low their breasts seemed in danger of spilling out, the men’s shirts unbuttoned.

  My skin itched with discomfort. In Baylore, these sorts of people confined themselves to Wolfskin Alley, where their illicit pastimes were overlooked by the law. Here, the seedy part of society was on open display. Was this the sort of circle Mellicante had run in before I took her on as my advisor?

  Well, at least no one gave us a second glance.

  We drew up extra chairs around the only empty table, a tiny round table crammed behind the door. Mellicante ordered us a round of ales, and once the barkeeper brought over mugs of the sour-smelling drink, she beckoned to one of the whores with his shirt hanging open.

  He swaggered over with a seductive look, stopped, and stared blank-faced at Mellicante.

  “Tanner’s arse! What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone and died, you’ve been away so long!”

  “I got caught up in business in Baylore.”

  “Holy plagues. You’ve come from Baylore? I thought the road was closed.”

  “Shush!” Mellicante hissed. “Don’t go braying about that around here! We don’t want to attract attention.”

  He snapped his mouth shut.

  “Go on, pull up a seat. We’ll pay you for your time.”

  “Aww, you don’t need to do that, Mells. It’s good to see you again. Makes me wish we could go back to the way things were before.”

  “You could still beg Dellik for your apprenticeship back, you know. Provided you’ve cleaned up.”

  He flushed and turned hurriedly away to fetch a chair.

  “Sorry—I should introduce you,” Mellicante said once he was seated. “This is Viko. We were good friends once, until our lives took…rather different paths.”

  “And who are these?” Viko asked, nodding at us.

  “Oh, just random people I picked up along the way. You know how much I like company.”

  Viko snorted.

  I tried to take a sip of my ale, but the drink tasted foul; I spat it back out and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Seeing Mellicante in this setting, at home surrounded by drunkards and gamblers and addicts, made me uncomfortable. I suddenly felt I didn’t know her at all.

  “We need to know what’s happening around here,” Mellicante said in a low voice. “Why has trade stopped? Where is Lord Jofran? Are there Whitish soldiers in town?”

  “You shouldn’t talk about that,” Viko whispered. He glanced over his shoulder, fastening the lowest buttons of his shirt with unsteady hands.

  “Talk quietly, then,” Mellicante said.

  He grimaced. “Everyone knows there’s Whitish men in town, but no one knows who they are or what they’re doing.” He spoke so softly I could hardly make out the words. “There’ve been brutal murders. People disappearing. Random attacks on stores. No one knows who’s doing it, but whenever anyone speaks out against the Whitish or does something they don’t like, they’ll be next. They’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “And the governor? Is he still alive?”

  “Oh, everyone assumes Lord Jofran’s still out there, but no one’s seen him for spans. Hiding away in his country manor, I’d say. Doesn’t want to deal with the mess here.”

  “Hmm.” Mellicante pursed her lips together. “And Dellik? Is she still around?”

  “I’d imagine she is. I tend to avoid her, though. Don’t want to—you know…” Viko reddened again. For all the seductive act he had put on at first, Viko seemed like a lost child. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, like Mellicante, but with his clean-shaven, pretty face and shoulder-length black hair, he could have passed for much younger.

  “And what about trade with Baylore?” Mellicante prompted. “Why has that stopped? Is the governor pushing to break away from Itrea, or are Whitish soldiers behind that?”

  “I’ve got no idea. I don’t think anyone knows, really. A bunch of merchants who traveled to Baylore never returned, and I guess they stopped risking the trip after that.”

  Mellicante nodded slowly, sipping her ale with a distant expression. I pretended to take another sip of the foul drink just for something to do with my hands.

  After a few minutes, Mellicante said, “Are you happy living like this, Viko? Have you tried to get away from this pl
ace, or…”

  “It’s harder than you’d think,” he mumbled.

  Mellicante sighed.

  Just then, I noticed a hard-faced man near the back of the room watching us with narrowed eyes. He wore no uniform to distinguish him, but his hair was light brown, his eyes pale. I immediately tensed up.

  Trying not to move my lips, I whispered, “I think we should leave soon. Someone has noticed us.”

  “Varse,” Mellicante said. She knocked back the last of her ale, while Baridya did the same; Quendon had hardly touched his. “Listen, you shouldn’t just give up, Viko. You can’t live like this forever. What happens when you get old and ugly? I’d love to see you make something more of your life.” She clambered to her feet and clasped the man’s hand. “We need to go. I’ll get in touch again if I can.”

  We left the tavern, Viko and the hard-faced man both staring after us. After the reek of that place, the rotting fish by the docks were a welcome smell.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I think we need to visit an old friend. I didn’t want to drag her into this, but I don’t see any other way.”

  As we started up a side street leading away from the waterfront, Baridya said, “Is that what your life is really like, when you’re not in Baylore? Grimy taverns and dockside whores?”

  “You know I don’t go for that sort of thing. We apprenticed together under a merchant named Dellik, but he fell off the dock halfway through. Got tangled up with drugs, his family kicked him out, Dellik kicked him out, and he ended up here.” Mellicante gave Baridya a pointed look. “And no, this is not the sort of thing I enjoy. But places like that are far more useful than upstanding establishments if you’re after information.” She sighed. “I hate seeing Viko there. He was such a sweet, earnest young man. And now…”

  Baridya took Mellicante’s hand. “Maybe we can help get him out of there someday.”

  “Maybe.”

  As we climbed the steep road, past layer after layer of houses, I kept glancing over my shoulder, unable to shake the feeling that we were being pursued. We attracted a few stares, but everyone I could see appeared to be going about their business, not following us.

  At last we turned onto a flat street running parallel with the harbor. Several houses down, Mellicante knocked on the door of an imposing two-story stone building. The second floor was set back, with a wide balcony sitting atop the lower floor.

  Several minutes passed before footsteps approached and the door swung open. A square-jawed woman towered over us, her brown hair tied back in a tail.

  “Mellicante?” she said.

  “Can we speak inside?” Mellicante asked tightly.

  The woman stepped back and allowed us to shuffle into the hallway, where we tugged off our muddy boots. She closed and locked the door swiftly behind us.

  “I thought you were in Baylore,” she said. “I thought no travelers could get through the woods. Who are your friends?”

  The woman led us up the stairs of her home, where the upper floor revealed expansive windows looking across the balcony and out to sea. Oddly for such a large manor, it seemed she lived alone. She and Mellicante had that in common.

  “Would you mind introducing us?” Baridya asked Mellicante pointedly as we settled into chairs around a dining table. She looked upset, for reasons I could not discern.

  Dellik fetched a pitcher of rum, which she poured generously into five mugs before joining us at the table.

  “Sorry. This is Dellik, a merchant sailor who took me on as an apprentice when I was perhaps fourteen. I had left home, thinking I was old enough to make my own way without the interference of my parents, and Dellik was kind enough to support me. My companions are Baridya, Quendon, and…” Mellicante glanced at me.

  “Do you trust her?” I asked softly.

  “More than anyone. And we need her support if we want to achieve anything.”

  “You can tell her, then.”

  Mellicante nodded. “Dellik, this is Kalleah, the former monarch of Itrea.”

  Dellik set down her mug with a thud. “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  I folded my hands nervously before me. “I don’t know how much news has reached Larkhaven. Most of the capital believes I am dead, but I managed to escape. I am here to find my father and raise an army.”

  Dellik rolled her mug back and forth in her hands, still looking rattled. “Your father—are you referring to King Baltheor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t even know he was in Larkhaven. If he is here, he must be in hiding. I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

  Plagues. Maybe he had been shot down on the road before he even reached Larkhaven. Or maybe he was being held captive by Whitish soldiers, perhaps to use as a bargaining piece. I tried to smooth the fear from my face. We could still make plans without him.

  Couldn’t we?

  I had been counting on his authority—after all, who would listen to a deposed queen who hadn’t even managed to hold the throne for a year?—but maybe my conviction would be enough. Bloody Varse. With the state this town was in, I wasn’t sure it would be possible to raise an army. Keeping out of the Whitish soldiers’ way would be hard enough.

  “Do you think the governor would help us?” I asked at last. “We need a base to start gathering support, and ideally someone with authority who can persuade the residents of Larkhaven to listen to us.”

  “No one has seen Lord Jofran in spans,” Dellik said. “But if he’s still alive, he might be willing to help. Bloody coward, though. This town is turning into a right mess, and all he can think of doing is hiding away in his country estate and saving his own hide. We need a leader who can tell us what’s going on. Not long ago, people here were ready to stand up against the Truthbringers. They were ready to break away from Baylore if the oppression of magic races didn’t end.”

  “What changed?” Mellicante asked.

  “No one has a clear answer to that. Somewhere along the way, things started happening to people who spoke out against the Truthbringers. A handful of Whitish men showed up in town at some stage, but there aren’t enough of them to explain everything that’s happened. People whisper that we’ve had Whitish men living among us for years without noticing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. All sorts end up in Larkhaven, and we mostly don’t notice where people come from until they start causing trouble. No one trusts anyone these days. No one’s willing to talk about what’s happening, for fear the wrong person might be listening.”

  “Have you seen violence?” Mellicante asked. “Viko said there have been murders and attacks on stores. If he’s right, it’s worse than the situation in Baylore, which makes me worry the Whitish plan to seize Larkhaven first.”

  Dellik’s eyebrows raised. “You saw Viko, did you? Still down in that piss-hole?”

  “Yes. Poor sod. Could you give him another chance? I hate seeing him there. He’s still a good man, beneath it all.”

  “Oh, I’ve given him dozens of chances,” Dellik said grimly. “He keeps saying he’s cleaned up. Then he won’t show up to work one day, and I’ll find him passed out in an alley with every last coin gone. There’s only so much I can take, you know? I have to run a business.”

  Mellicante sighed. “I know. I just wish there was something we could do. I wish his family hadn’t thrown him out.”

  Dellik nodded and took a deep swig of her rum. I tasted it nervously—though the alcohol was strong enough to burn my throat, it was far less foul than the ale at the tavern.

  I toyed with the mug, worry gnawing at me. We had expected to find a supporters in Larkhaven, people who were willing to speak out against the Whitish and join our cause, and instead we were surrounded by enemies—or at least the shadows of enemies. If we didn’t know who to trust, how could we gather support? And if we had no idea how many enemies we faced, how could we expel them from Larkhaven?

  On top of everything, I was no longer sure how well I knew Mellicante or
how much I could trust her. In Baylore, she had come across as a crisply-dressed, no-nonsense merchant whose success spoke for her despite a shady past. Here, though, that fell away. I wondered if she had once been tangled up with the same crowd as Viko; she had almost seemed more comfortable in that awful tavern than in her manor in Baylore.

  “What are you planning to do now?” Dellik asked. “I’d offer my home as a base if it helped, but your enemies will be watching. You’d do better to gather support at a country estate. If the governor is still around and willing to help you, his estate would work well. And if not—you could probably seize it from whoever has moved in.”

  “I think you’re right,” I said. I didn’t know about seizing an estate from enemies—only two of us had weapons and knew how to use them—but I could see no other way forward. If the governor was alive, it would make everything much easier.

  “Do you mind if we stay the night?” Mellicante asked. “We’ve been walking for hours, and we aren’t exactly ready for an audience with the governor.” She gestured down at her stained traveling clothes.

  “Of course,” Dellik said. “I’ve got spare clothes if you want them, though they might be a bit big on you.”

  * * *

  That evening, after we had all bathed, changed into Dellik’s spare clothes, and eaten a hearty meal of fish and turnips, we settled in to rest on pallets in a ground-floor room that had obviously been designed for servants. Quendon was in the smaller room next door, while I dragged my pallet to the rear of the room, far enough away that my power would not affect my friends.

  Lying on my pallet, staring at the dark ceiling, my thoughts churned over the same worries again and again.

  Where was my father? Was he safe? Was he even alive? And would the governor help us? If he didn’t, I had no idea where to begin. We were dealing with an invisible enemy, one who did not go around speaking religious rhetoric but instead lived an ordinary life, waiting for the right moment to rise up and overtake Larkhaven. How did we fight that? How were we supposed to recruit support when everyone in town feared to even speak of what was happening?