Stranger to the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  Elspeth turned. A tall, slim young man approached her along one aisle. He wore a black robe with a red stole and carried a couple of books under one arm. His skin was as dark as a Veriboldan’s, but his accent was that of northwestern Tremontane. “I’m afraid if you’re not a student, I have to ask you to leave,” he said. “It’s just temporary while we make the transition from the palace to near Knightsbury.”

  “I’m not a student,” Elspeth said. “I—” For a second, she thought about concealing her identity, but that would almost certainly get her kicked out. “I’m Elspeth North. The Queen.”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “Your Majesty,” he said, but without the awe-filled reverence that characterized almost every interaction she’d had in Aurilien. “What brings you to the Library?”

  “Are you a librarian?”

  The man smiled. “Martin Keswick, your Majesty. Master of the Scholia and assistant librarian, for my sins.”

  “Why ‘for your sins’?”

  Keswick juggled the books from one arm to another. “Oh…I came to the Scholia as a student of law, but discovered I cared more for books, and the organization of books, and the acquisition of books, and everything else to do with books, than I did for the law. So here I am. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It is. It looks like you might have every book in the world.”

  “We almost do. At least, the ones written in Tremontanese. We also have a sizable Eskandelic collection, and Master Coll Trapane—she’s the head Librarian—is deeply interested in expanding our Veriboldan holdings.”

  “I’d love to see those. I was raised in Veribold.”

  “Certainly. Though…it really should be some other time. Things are quite busy at the moment.”

  Elspeth looked around at the silent, empty Library. “Are they?”

  “Well, not at this exact moment, but…well, let me show you something.”

  Keswick led the way through the aisles until he came to a shelf near the back tall enough to hold the oversized folios stored there. He carefully removed a book and held it out to her. “Don’t touch it, you’re not wearing gloves. I’ll turn the pages.”

  Elspeth caught her breath. The pages of the folio were alive with color, the pictures exquisitely drawn. “It’s called Wonders of Eskandel,” Keswick said. “We only acquired it a few days ago. It’s hundreds of years old and yet it looks like new—amazing, right?”

  “It’s so beautiful,” Elspeth breathed. “Thank you for showing me.”

  “Well, it’s technically yours,” Keswick said.

  At Elspeth’s astonished look, he said, “This is the Royal Library, your Majesty. The Crown paid for every single one of these books. So if anyone’s the owner, you are.”

  It was the most beautiful thing she’d heard all week. Granted, no one was likely to let her walk out with anything she pleased—or was she wrong about that? “I’m honored,” she said. “You librarians have done amazing work.”

  “Thank you. Now, let me escort you—”

  “No, wait, Master Keswick.” Elspeth remembered why she was here. “You may be ideally suited to help me. I need a book. I understand you’re in turmoil, but this really is urgent or I wouldn’t ask.”

  “If it’s urgent, Master Coll Trapane will have to understand,” Keswick said. “How can I help?”

  “I need something that summarizes the Queen’s duties under law. I’m not a law-speaker, so it needs to be something basic, without a lot of specialized language. You said you were a law student; do you know of anything like that?”

  “Huh.” Keswick gazed into the distance as if he could read Elspeth’s answer on the air. “I think so. Would a beginner’s text on government structure work?”

  “That sounds ideal, yes.”

  “Come with me.”

  The book he found for her was bound in flaking black leather, but it wasn’t huge or heavy and the pages were comfortably thick. Elspeth glanced over the first few pages. “This will be perfect, thank you. Do I need to sign something—I am allowed to take it with me, right? Or do I have to read it here?”

  “Like I said, your Majesty, it’s your book,” Keswick said with a grin, “but we’ll make note that you have it, in case someone else comes looking for it.”

  The stairs were steeper than Elspeth had realized, going down, and she was out of breath when she reached the top. Keswick wasn’t winded at all. “You must get plenty of exercise, going up and down all day,” she said.

  “Oh, I was a post runner when I was young, before I came to the Scholia,” Keswick said, “so those stairs are nothing.” He led her to the back wall, where the woman at the cabinet eyed them, but said nothing.

  “A post runner? That sounds interesting. What route?”

  “Back east, at first. I spent a year in Barony Steepridge before they decided that route was unnecessary, then the road between Magrette and Lionsmark in Barony Silverfield. Then they turned that into a post horse route, and I came to County Cullinan and became a private message runner in Treston. It was interesting. I met all sorts of people.”

  “Really,” Elspeth mused. “Can I ask you another question?”

  “Of course, your Majesty?”

  “If I needed to get a message from Aurilien to Haizea, what would be the best method?”

  “I don’t know,” Keswick said. “What’s the message?”

  Elspeth smiled. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  She signed where he told her, thanked him again, and headed for the door, where she came up short. She hadn’t told the guide to wait, and now she had no idea how to get back to…anywhere, really.

  She almost went back to speak to Keswick. Then she stopped. This was ridiculous. It was her palace, for heaven’s sake, and she needed to face the fact that she was going to live here for the rest of her life. And she couldn’t ever call it home if she was afraid to go anywhere without a minder. She closed the Library door behind her and headed down the long, cold corridor with its dim lights. Past time she took responsibility for herself.

  She got lost.

  Not very lost—she recognized the halls as ones she’d already passed through. She just couldn’t remember how to get from those halls to the north wing. No, that was stupid; she’d told Simkins to send the Magister of the Scholia to meet her in the Library. Easy enough—she’d retrace her steps.

  She got lost again.

  After ten minutes of wandering without seeing another soul, she leaned against the wall in frustration. Going forward made no sense. Going back made even less, given that she’d already tried retracing her steps and failed. She needed to pause and see if she could make anything of her surroundings.

  The halls she currently found herself lost in were wide and painted a dingy white, as was the floor and every door she’d passed. She opened one of those doors out of idle curiosity and peered inside. It wasn’t lit, but in the light from the hallway she saw a bed, a dressing table, and an armchair. All of them were covered in dust. Well, the palace was enormous, so it made sense there were areas no one went. What was the point of keeping those areas clean?

  She continued to walk down the hall, occasionally peering into rooms and seeing the same things. This must have been a guest wing at some point. The occasional window illuminating the hall showed just how long ago that point was, because in addition to the faded paint, the floors were dull as if they hadn’t been polished in forever, and there were faint dark smears across them, like—

  Elspeth froze. Like blood.

  Slowly, she approached one of the smears like a cat sneaking up on a mouse and knelt beside it. It didn’t smell like anything but wood and old paint, and it was so faint she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been searching so hard for a clue that would lead her out of here. But it was clearly a bloodstain. A big one.

  The white walls and unused bedrooms didn’t seem so harmless anymore. Elspeth walked faster, casting about for an exit. She tried a few more rooms; more bedrooms. The bl
oodstains were more frequent now, some of them on the walls at shoulder height, most of them covering the floor. Elspeth bit back a shriek and ran.

  Ahead, she heard noises, and she ran faster, realizing just as she dove into it that she’d found the Rotunda. She threw herself away from the terrible halls and crouched with her hands on her knees, breathing as heavily as if she’d run a mile without stopping. The palace held horrors she had never guessed at. She knew there had been fighting here over the centuries, but that had been—would have looked like an abattoir when the blood was fresh.

  “Your Majesty. Is something wrong?”

  Faraday. Elspeth clenched her teeth, took in one last calming breath, and stood. “What is that place?” she demanded. “All that blood.”

  His eyes widened, and he glanced past her. Then he relaxed. “That was the Ascendants’ academy a hundred years ago,” he said. “Dozens of would-be Ascendants, along with Ascendant prisoners taken in Willow North’s war, were slaughtered there.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.” It was a miracle the place wasn’t haunted—or maybe it was. Elspeth was never going back to find out. “It’s terrible.”

  “It is,” Faraday said. “It’s said Queen Willow ordered the execution of the killers. Strange, considering that she was responsible for the elimination of Ascendants throughout her reign.”

  “You think she was capable of ordering helpless prisoners murdered?” Elspeth felt unexpectedly defensive of her ancestor.

  Faraday’s eyes met hers. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I suppose I mean people aren’t ever just one thing.”

  For a moment, Elspeth felt in harmony with him. “I agree.”

  Faraday’s gaze dropped to the book in her hand. “Decided to become a law-speaker?” he asked, arching one eyebrow.

  And just like that, the harmony vanished. “I’m in need of understanding,” she snapped, “and since it’s clear you resent providing that understanding, I resorted to the Library.”

  Faraday glared at her. “Believe what you want,” he said. “That’s the long way around from the Library. Did you get lost?”

  It was Elspeth’s turn to glare. “I’m learning.”

  “If you want a guide, I’m sure someone here will assist you.” Faraday turned and walked away toward the front door. Elspeth ground her teeth. And to think for a moment she’d thought well of him.

  “Excuse me,” she said to one of the guards in North blue passing through the Rotunda, “will you escort me to…” Maybe it wasn’t too late to catch Simkins. “To the north wing?”

  “Your business, miss?” the guard said.

  Elspeth almost laughed. “I’m here to see the Queen. I have an appointment,” she said after weighing her options and deciding on the easiest one. For a few minutes, she could be anonymous. But the amount of relief she felt on laying down the burden of the Crown for those few minutes disturbed her peace for the rest of the afternoon.

  9

  That there was an entire hall within the palace solely to celebrate crowning Tremontane’s ruler didn’t surprise Elspeth at all. She had been surprised by the antechamber to the coronation hall, which was as modern as if it had been designed and decorated yesterday. It had been a surprise because the coronation hall, the antechamber, and the long, long hallway leading to them were in the oldest part of the palace. Walking alone down that seemingly endless hall had felt like stepping back in time, though the Device lamps hanging in sconces on the walls had dispelled that illusion. Then she’d stepped through the pair of small doors and found herself in the antechamber, and was brought back through the centuries with a jerk.

  She wandered around the antechamber, whose white plastered walls trimmed with gilt gave the room an open feeling the many mirrors enhanced. The smell of hothouse roses filled the air, sweet and thick and strong and matching her personal scent of cinnamon and roses she’d brought with her from Veribold. The carpet was as white as the walls and as thick as the scent of roses, and she checked to make sure she wasn’t leaving footprints. The soles of her green velvet slippers weren’t hard enough for that, but she looked anyway.

  She stopped to examine her reflection in one of the mirrors. Honey had tamed her hair into several braids she then wove together in a neat knot at the base of Elspeth’s neck. Wisps had already started to escape. Elspeth didn’t bother trying to fix them. She knew from experience that would only make things worse.

  She tugged at the neckline of her gown, the first Tremontanan gown she’d ever worn. The bodice was forest green velvet, her favorite color, fitted snugly through the bust and waist to settle over the green waterfall of silk that was the skirt. Elspeth had seen her mother’s court costume, what she wore to official Veriboldan functions, and that had looked nothing like this—but her mother had said hers was in the style of Willow North’s court, a century-old style, because Veriboldans liked keeping their neighbors off-balance. “And if they restrict themselves to doing it by making us wear old-fashioned clothes, I’m in favor of that,” Fiona North had told her daughter. Elspeth’s gown had a slimmer skirt, without all those petticoats, and it didn’t require her to be stitched into her sleeves, and forest green made her red hair glow…yes, Elspeth could get used to these Tremontanan fashions.

  She ran her fingers over the necklace of silver flowers with diamonds nestled into their centers. The keeper of the royal jewels had imperfectly concealed her horror at learning Elspeth had never worn jewelry in her life if you didn’t count the toan jade, which neither of them did. Then she’d taken pleasure in bringing out all the jewels for Elspeth to gasp and exclaim over. Whoever had put together the collection had had excellent taste—or was it the work of several hands over the centuries? That made more sense, and made the collection even more remarkable. Like the Library, the jewels were Elspeth’s now, though she thought of them more as on permanent loan. And what a loan it was. She touched the flowers once more, then clasped her hands in front of her. Soon, now.

  The doors creaked. Elspeth hurried to put herself where Aldous Dane had told her to stand so she would be perfectly silhouetted in the center of the doorway. It was funny to imagine someone working at the door hinges to make them creak and give the monarch-to-be a little warning to get into position. Elspeth controlled a smile and let her hands fall to her side. All that preparation for this moment.

  A rustle went up as several hundred people dressed in the finery of four nations turned to look at her. Elspeth held her head high. Being stared at by people had never bothered her, though she avoided looking at the crowd, in case being stared at by hundreds of people made a difference. She paused, counting silently: …three, four, five, and on six she took a step onto the carpet unrolling straight as a furrow toward the dais at the far end of the room. Its heavy red velvet was as soft underfoot as the antechamber carpet, and it served as a perfect guide to keep her walking a straight line. Not that she needed it, because the Crown lay on its pedestal up the three steps of the dais, and she felt drawn to it like water flowing downhill.

  She kept her eyes fixed on that distant spot. So small, to be the symbol of a nation. She’d tried it on the day before at Dane’s request, to make sure it fit and didn’t need to be padded. It had slipped down a little over her left ear, so she’d been grateful for Dane’s insight. How it would feel when it fit properly, she had no idea.

  The room was so still she could almost imagine she and her Aunt Veronica, standing behind the Crown, were the only two people there. Maybe she was more nervous about being stared at than she thought. Tremontanans, Eskandelics, Veriboldans, Ruskalder, all of them come to witness this moment. She should have felt the burden of the Crown more than ever, but instead she felt peaceful, drifting along as if she were watching her body move from the outside. It was an odd feeling, but a pleasant one.

  She realized she was at the dais in time to keep from tripping over it. Slowly she ascended the three steps and looked down at the Crown. It was amazingly gaudy and beautiful at the same time, with the hug
e smooth emeralds the keeper of the jewels had said were cabochon-cut encircling the silver band, the six points tipped with diamonds rising at even intervals around the crown, and tiny diamonds the size of the ones in her necklace ringing the emeralds and sparkling even in the low light of the coronation hall.

  People refer to you when they’re talking about me, she thought. The judgment of the Crown, for example. Or the Crown paying for all those books in the Library. They mean my judgment, the Treasury’s money, but it’s you that’s the symbol. And now it’s the two of us together. I hope we don’t make a mess of this.

  She knelt gracefully before the pedestal and heard the rush of wind that was everyone in the room doing the same. What was that like for the non-Tremontanans? Dane had explained kneeling was a mark of respect, not fealty, and probably all those people knew that, but it still felt strange.

  Veronica, the only one in the room still standing, grasped the Crown in her thin fingers and raised it to chest height. “Elspeth North,” she said, her pale voice amplified by the exquisite acoustics of the ancient room, “by the grace of heaven, Queen of Tremontane. May your reign be long and just.”

  She lowered the Crown to rest on Elspeth’s head. For a moment, it floated there, feather-light and still supported by Veronica’s hands. Then it settled firmly on her head, not slipping at all. It didn’t weigh much, and the velvet lining kept the silver from cutting into her scalp, but Elspeth had a feeling it would grow uncomfortable with time. She’d be glad to return it to Dane. For now, though—

  She stood and turned around, facing the crowd. Now she was intimidated. She hadn’t realized just how many people they could pack into the coronation hall. Everyone was still kneeling, and most of them, the Tremontanans anyway, had their heads bowed. Her gaze fell on Dane, who was looking at her with a smile that said everything was perfect. “Three cheers for the Queen,” he shouted in that resonant voice. “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  The room echoed with shouts. A smile, unexpected and bright, touched Elspeth’s lips. “Rise,” she said. The wind went ragged as people rose, some with the help of their neighbors. “I never expected to be Queen,” she said when the noise died down. “It will be the greatest challenge of my life. But I swear to fulfil my duties as Queen of Tremontane to the best of my abilities, and serve my people with justice and honor.”