Stranger to the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Mister Faraday, I did everything wrong. I shouldn’t have confronted Lady d’Arden directly. I put myself in danger and it’s entirely good fortune and heaven’s blessing that it all worked out. There are so many things I should have done differently, and because I didn’t, I put you in a terrible position. I am so sorry. Please don’t blame yourself.”

  Faraday took a seat beside her. “I was so slow in following you,” he said. “And to come over that rise just in time to see him shoot you…it felt like he’d hit me instead.”

  “I can imagine. But—look. We could go on blaming ourselves all day, and threatening to resign, which you are forbidden to do, by the way—”

  “You can only go on refusing my resignation for so long, your Majesty.”

  “Mister Faraday, I have just lost my Foreign Affairs head, and it sounds like Commerce is gone, too. Have you found Lady d’Arden?”

  Faraday nodded. “She was captured boarding the overland express to Belenda in Eskandel. She is locked up, as it happens, in the cell I occupied until a few hours ago.” He ran his hands over his scruffy face. “I can’t believe it was only a few hours ago.”

  “I can’t afford to lose you, too. I don’t have any idea what happens next. Please, advise me. And stop making those absurd noises about resignation. I told you how tedious I find it.”

  Faraday scowled, an expression that made her heart feel light. “As your Majesty wishes.”

  “Stop it. I’m not overbearing.”

  “I would never say that.”

  “You just did. Maybe not in so many words, but don’t think I can’t tell what you really meant.”

  Faraday smiled. “Have I no secrets, then?”

  She thought back to sitting next to him in the cell. “Not many. Please, tell me what to do. I have cells full of traitors—when do they go to trial?”

  “The trial is a formality. And it’s just for your noble prisoners. The soldiers who took up arms against their Queen are guilty under military law and are tried at court-martial, also a formality. They have no defense. Though I imagine some of them will try to claim they were only following orders.”

  Elspeth’s heart hardened, remembering those fallen North guards. “They should have known better than to follow orders like those. Surely even soldiers can decide not to choose evil?”

  “Precisely.” Faraday looked away toward the windows. “The sentence is handed down immediately, and carried out three days later, by tradition.”

  Elspeth’s anger drained away, leaving her feeling cold. “You mean executions.”

  Faraday nodded.

  Elspeth rose from her chair and walked toward the fire. “You said the Queen can order any sentence commuted.”

  “But no ruler of Tremontane has ever rescinded a punishment for high treason.”

  “Maybe that should change.”

  “Your Majesty—”

  “I have seen enough death, Mister Faraday!” Elspeth shouted. “I understand executing those who murdered my guards. But Lord Harrington’s plot is over, and he will never have the power to hurt me or mine again. Why can I not exile him, or imprison him for the rest of his life?”

  “Because you are not just Elspeth North,” Faraday said, rising to tower over her. “You are the Queen of Tremontane, and a threat to you is a threat to this country. You cannot allow traitors to live, because that tells the world that you are weak and vulnerable to the same threat again. Do not show mercy, your Majesty. They would have shown you none.”

  Elspeth wiped tears from her eyes. “I know,” she said. “But I hoped—Mister Faraday, I would have devoted my life to peaceful worship. And now I have to send I don’t know how many people to their deaths.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Faraday said. “Don’t take that guilt on yourself.”

  “It’s not about guilt.” Elspeth wiped away more tears. “It’s their fault they have to die. They broke the law, and the punishment is clear. But there is still the reality that I am the one who enforces the law. Their lives are in my hand. And that is something I will have to live with forever.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “When I think of the men and women who died because of their stupid choices, it becomes easier. But I will never not resent them for what they did in making me complicit in their deaths.”

  Faraday lifted his hand, but let it fall without touching her. “I think I understand.”

  “Do you? I’m not sure I ever will.” Elspeth turned away. “How soon can they be tried?”

  “Two days. Execution happens three days after the verdict is rendered.”

  “Then in six days, we’ll have a Council meeting. I will present the new heads of Foreign Affairs and Commerce, and we’ll go over the Magister of the Scholia’s request for additional funds.”

  “Your Majesty,” Faraday said, then paused. When he finally spoke, Elspeth could tell it wasn’t what he’d originally intended to say. “You will have to preside over the trial.”

  “But I don’t know the law.”

  “Just preside. I will take care of the actual trial. I would spare you that if I could.”

  “I know.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “And the executions?”

  “You don’t have to go to those.”

  She shook her head. “Actually,” she said, “I think I must.”

  The day of the executions dawned cold and rainy. Elspeth didn’t like to see heaven’s hand in everything that ever happened, because she believed heaven cared more about people acting of their own free will than in seeing them sheltered and guided every step of the mortal journey, but she couldn’t help seeing the weather as an omen.

  She dressed for the first time in her formal noble’s coat, worn for coronations, royal funerals, certain official functions—and executions. It had been Willow North’s coat, dark blue and silver, and Elspeth was startled to discover she and Willow had been the same size. The silver thread was only silver colored, not real silver, which was another surprise, and one she couldn’t explain. She buttoned it up to her chin and surveyed herself in the mirror. She didn’t look at all like someone who’d spent the morning crying.

  The gibbet had been erected on the parade grounds. She hadn’t been present earlier for the firing squad that had executed the more than thirty soldiers complicit in Lord Harrington’s treachery. She didn’t think she could have borne that. She was barely sure she could bear to witness a hanging. When Aldous Dane had suggested that a much older tradition allowed noble traitors to die by beheading, she’d run out of the room and vomited. So hanging it would be.

  The parade stand overlooked the parade grounds, which were a vast sweep of packed earth that no amount of rain could churn into mud. Generations of soldiers had drilled there; generations of generals and captains and Kings and Queens had watched them drill. There was a canopy, a heavy fall of canvas, that shielded the parade stand from the light mist that hadn’t yet become true rain. Elspeth’s guards escorted her to its center, where she was flanked by General Beckett on her right and Faraday on her left. Elspeth had been grateful beyond belief to learn Beckett had been as much Lord Harrington’s dupe as she had.

  The rest of the Council stood around them, most of them huddled into cloaks. Lady Wilde, Lady Quinn, and Lord Heath were splendid in their own noble’s coats, though lavender and pale green didn’t suit Lord Heath at all. Elspeth didn’t dare look directly at any of them, for fear she’d see condemnation in their eyes. Knowing she was doing the right thing hadn’t made it easier.

  She made herself look at the gibbet, skeletal and tall over the raised platform with the two trap doors. Two long ropes terminating in nooses dangled loose in the light wind. Her gorge rose again, and she swallowed to quiet her stomach.

  More watchers filled the space between the gibbet and the parade stand. Elspeth had made it clear that she would tolerate no one whose sole purpose was to witness something horrible to tell their horrible friends later. There weren’t many people. Guard officers. Palace functio
naries. The families of the prisoners, which made Elspeth feel sick again. Lady Harrington was not there. She’d screamed threats and accusations at Elspeth when the sentence against her husband was handed down and eventually had fainted and been carried away. Elspeth hadn’t seen her since. The memory of the trick she and James had played on the woman felt sour and terrible now.

  The d’Ardens, on the other hand, had gone out of their way to assure Elspeth of their continued support. Lyle Carruthers, nearly dead with fear, had begged Elspeth to believe his involvement had been innocent, that he’d believed he was simply playing a joke. Elspeth had examined him closely and decided to believe him. She’d also suggested he take a long trip out of the country. He’d left on the next coach south.

  Elspeth still had a hard time facing Serena d’Arden’s parents. They’d sounded so timid, like they’d expected her to hold them responsible for their daughter’s treason. It made her even angrier with the traitors, who hadn’t thought beyond their own selfish needs to the consequences for people they supposedly loved.

  Motion below shook Elspeth out of her reverie. Lord Harrington and Lady d’Arden were being led around the crowd to the steps leading up to the platform. They wore plain trousers and shirts and had neither coats nor hats, and the mist beaded on their hair like fine droplets threaded on silk.

  Someone touched her left hand, and Elspeth turned her head to see Faraday, who stood next to her, watching the proceedings intently. Though his attention was on the scene below, his hand had reached for hers and now clasped it tightly. The reassuring touch warmed her in a way Willow North’s coat couldn’t, momentarily easing her pain. Elspeth clung to him, grateful for the reminder that she wasn’t evil, that someone believed she’d done the right thing.

  She saw the rest of the terrible ceremony in a daze, her eyes unfocused so the traitors were just a couple of white blurs. Lord Harrington shouted something her ears refused to make sense of and was silenced. Someone sobbed, a muffled sound that broke Elspeth’s heart. Then there was a snap, a flurry of motion, and the blurs below her were still—far too still.

  Elspeth wiped her eyes with her free hand, and Faraday let her other hand go. “Thus perish all who threaten this country,” she said as loudly as she could manage. The ritual words released them all to go back to their lives, grateful not to be those still, grotesque bundles that had once been living people.

  She let her guards form up around her and escort her back to the east wing, not the north wing, which would be empty today; she’d declared the day, not a holiday, which implied celebration, but a day of reflection and prayer. She spent it in her room, clinging to her new toan jade Mihn had given her and trying not to see dangling, twisting dead bodies when she closed her eyes.

  27

  Faraday came for her that evening while she was sitting in the drawing room, staring blindly into the fire. “Up,” he said. “Don’t make me carry you.”

  “I’m fine where I am.”

  “No, you’re not. No more moping. You’re coming with me.”

  Elspeth felt enough curiosity to go along with his demands, though when he told her to bring her cloak, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” Faraday said, and refused to speak further.

  She had thought they were going to the stables, perhaps for a late ride—not in the Park, that was closed after sunset—but he took her through the halls of the palace and into old stone corridors that looked like the one leading to the Royal Library. He stopped at an ancient wooden door and gestured her through. The chilly room beyond was pitch dark and smelled of wet stone and melted wax. Faraday lit a lamp and lifted it off the wall. “Up,” he said.

  The room turned out to be narrow, and looked narrower for being very tall. A steep, rickety staircase constrained only by a slim rail filled most of the space. In the lamplight, the black stone walls glittered with specks like gold. Elspeth tilted her head to look up. The staircase spiraled around the shaft’s interior and extended well beyond the reach of the lamplight. “What is this place?”

  “Start climbing, and you’ll see,” Faraday said.

  “I hate climbing.”

  “It’s worth it, I promise you.”

  She scowled, but began the ascent.

  After about a hundred steps, her legs ached, her chest hurt from breathing so hard, and she didn’t know why she’d ever thought the stairs in the Irantzen Temple were a hardship. She stopped, forcing Faraday to stop as well. “This is insane,” she gasped. “Why are you torturing me?”

  “It’s only torture because you don’t get enough exercise.” Faraday wasn’t even a little out of breath. “Does your Majesty need to be carried?”

  “Mister Faraday, have we established that I am your sovereign lord and can command you to take a flying leap off this staircase?”

  He chuckled. “Just…trust me.”

  Elspeth drew in another deep breath and pressed on.

  She didn’t realize the staircase opened to the outdoors until she emerged onto the tower’s top to find the sky spread out around her. The morning’s storm had passed quickly, and the skies were now clear and spattered with stars. Elspeth took a few more steps out of Faraday’s way and turned in a slow circle. All of Aurilien lay before her, from the lights of Lower Town to the hill where the wealthy and noble had their estates. “It’s so beautiful,” she breathed.

  “I told you it was worth it,” Faraday said. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

  She turned to look at him. He’d set the lantern down by the top of the steps and it cast odd shadows up his legs and across his face. “Come over here,” he said, walking away from the edge of the tower where they stood. Curious, Elspeth followed him.

  In the center of the tower was a large humped shape on a stone slab that turned out to be an enormous brazier, with a signal fire laid ready in it. Faraday withdrew a matchlighter from within his cloak and clicked it a few times.

  “Willow North climbed the outside of this tower to light the fire that brought the troops into Aurilien,” he said. “After that, they lit the fire as a symbol of her victory, and now lighting it every night is tradition. Something I know you’re fond of,” he said with a smile. “They usually light it at sundown, but I told them I knew someone who needed to do it herself tonight.” He handed Elspeth the matchlighter. “There’s kindling in place already.”

  Breathless, Elspeth took the matchlighter and stepped up to where she could reach the kindling. The fire caught right away, consuming the wood shavings and twisted papers and licking along the split logs making a pyramid around them. She took a few steps back and admired how the light and smoke rose into the air, like many thin arms reaching to heaven.

  Faraday came up behind her, prompting her to turn around. “You did something today no Queen or King should ever be forced to do,” he said, his voice nearly lost in the crackle of the flames, “and I know it’s eating you up, whatever you might say about knowing it’s not your guilt. I wanted to remind you that this, too, is part of who you are. This heritage. And I wish I could tell you this is the last hard thing you’ll have to do as Queen, or that it will all be joy and happiness for the rest of your life. All I can tell you is that I have absolute faith that whatever comes, you will face it with strength and honor.”

  Elspeth’s breath caught in her chest. “That’s…I don’t know if I’m worthy of that.”

  He smiled, a wry half-smile that made her smile in return. “We all get things we don’t deserve. I still say you should let me resign.”

  “Not a chance. You’re my councilor, you should counsel me.” She turned away and walked around to the far side of the brazier. “In fact, Mister Faraday, I am in need of your advice as a law-speaker.”

  “I am yours to command, your Majesty.”

  She looked up into the starry sky. “I need to know what laws there are concerning my choice of Consort.”

  He was silent for a moment. “There aren’t many laws about that,” he
said finally. “The ruler of Tremontane is free to marry anyone she chooses and elevate her spouse to the rank of Consort. You could marry a road-sweeper if you wanted. The idea is that anyone capable of ruling a country is assumed capable of choosing an appropriate spouse.”

  “So it could be anyone? A foreigner?”

  “Anyone. Though from what you’ve said, I imagine it wouldn’t be a Veriboldan landholder.”

  “No, not that.” Elspeth turned to face him. He was partially hidden by the growing blaze, only the top of his dark head and the outline of his shoulders visible. “So the only law,” she said, “is the one that says I have to be the one to make the proposal.”

  “That is correct.”

  She took a few steps toward him, back around the corner of the brazier. “That’s a big responsibility. I’m not sure I’m equal to it.”

  “You don’t have to decide immediately, no matter what Aldous Dane says.” His smile had vanished, and his expression was completely impassive.

  Elspeth controlled her smile. “Tell me something, Mister Faraday,” she said, running her fingers along the stone slab. “What qualities should I look for in a Consort?”

  He looked in the direction of the fire. “I’m not qualified to make that assessment.”

  She took a few more steps and stood in front of him, looking up at him through her lashes. “You must have some opinion. Please. I need your perspective.”

  Faraday pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, in my opinion, a good Consort should be someone you can trust. Someone who will never betray you.”

  Elspeth nodded. “And?”

  “Ideally, he should be someone who understands what it means that you are Queen, and who understands the decisions you have to make. Someone who knows at least a little about our government. It would be even better if he had experience with the law.”

  “I suppose you would know, being a law-speaker yourself,” Elspeth said. “Those are good qualities. Anything else?”

  Faraday made a show of looking into the distance beyond her, searching the stars for wisdom. “He should have a strong personality, be able to stand up to you for your own good, and back down when he’s wrong.”