The Vanished Queen

by Lisbeth Campbell

  They have their codes and signals, the yellow cloth and the spiral symbol and the innocuous-seeming words. They begin to choose their targets, to chisel at the weak places in the king’s authority, to plan more daring and more violent acts. They wait for whispers to become a roar.

  She takes a new name. She considers and rejects calling herself Harpy; this is about more than her own hurt. She settles instead on Sparrow. The plain brown bird that is seen everywhere and thus never noticed. She must be not a person but a symbol.

  SPARROW AGREED TO meet with Esvar more readily than Anza had expected, insisting only on a mask. Anza thought the hangings had shaken her too. It took four days and several visits from Jance for Anza to arrange. The third time he came to her flat he brought flowers, saying that otherwise the neighbors would be suspicious. Sparrow and Esvar settled finally on the College as a meeting place. It was between terms, and there would be few people on the grounds.

  Anza was to record any agreement made. She had intended to walk, but she heard hoofbeats and looked outside in time to see Jance and Esvar pull up outside the building. Damn it, this was hardly inconspicuous, even if the other guards were up the block. Reluctantly, she went to the door and opened it to wait.

  Esvar came up, his step lighter than she would have thought. They greeted each other, and she shut the door. The room was already getting hot. At one end of the table, the flowers drooped in a vase, petals darkening at the edges. Anza had not given them the care she would have if they had actually been brought by a lover. Duplicity exposed by death.

  “Why did you come?” she asked. The journal burned through the chest as it had when he had visited before. She did not know how much longer she could keep it from him. “Did you think I might not show?”

  “No. I wanted to see you. I’ll leave if you ask it.”

  “You can stay. But it’s too early for wine, and I don’t have water heating. It’s well water or nothing.”

  “Well water is fine,” he said.

  Suddenly she was glad he was there. She filled two cups with water and sat across from him. His clothing was good but plain with nothing to mark any rank.

  “What happened?” she asked, looking at his bandaged arm.

  “Did you hear about the mob?”

  “The one that killed two Tazekhs? Were you there?”

  “Yes. I was shot. It isn’t bad, as arrow wounds go. And it’s not my sword arm. The archer got away without being questioned. I’ve been hoping it wasn’t one of your friends.”

  “Sparrow wouldn’t have you shot now that you’ve entered negotiations,” Anza said. She was not so sure about some of the other members of the resistance.

  “You shot me once, you know.”

  “I did? You were at the raid?”

  “Yes. You got me right in the back. I had mail on underneath, fortunately. It was my own fault. I should have stayed where I belonged, out of range.”

  “I was scared,” she said. “The explosive wasn’t part of the plan. Everyone panicked.”

  “It was a hell of a thing you accomplished, getting out and over the roofs in that storm. Where did you learn to climb like that?”

  “I grew up in the country. I was wild as a girl. I climbed everything. We had a donkey, an old slow one, and I used to stand on its back as it walked. I was a great trial to my aunt.”

  He grinned. It made him look about fourteen. “I’m sure you were. Do you ever want to go back?”

  The question was an unexpected intimacy. It reminded her that they barely knew each other. Their conversations had all been negotiations, exercises in seeing how much they could withhold. I can’t keep the journal from him, she thought. It wasn’t fair. Mirantha could have destroyed it, but instead she had sent it away. Who could it have been meant for but her sons?

  “I like the city,” she said. “If I went back, there would be nothing to do except farm. Farming is—it’s exhausting, and it’s all-encompassing. My aunt could never see beyond the edge of her fields. Sometimes I think she didn’t even know there had been a war.”

  “Why did you live with your aunt?”

  “My mother died when I was eight. My father was here.” It threw a shadow between them.

  He slid his glass from side to side. When his eyes met hers again, they had darkened. He said, “I granted Lady Thali Kanakili a divorce from Doru. Has she come to see you at all?”

  “No. There’s no reason she would. We aren’t friends any longer.”

  “He was furious when I told him. She told me she was prepared and that she had a way out. But I’m worried.”

  “If Thali told you she had a way out, she did. She knows how to make plans. She wouldn’t have asked you if she wasn’t certain she could get away. You aren’t the only person who makes choices in things.”

  “I feel like I should just kill him. I’m not afraid for my own life, but he won’t hurt me directly, he’ll find someone else to hurt me through. It might be you.”

  “It’s been several days, hasn’t it?”

  He nodded, drank. His upper lip was compressed and angry on the edge of the cup. She wished she knew a way to take that anger from him.

  “Doru knows how to wait,” Esvar said, putting the cup down. He tilted it on its base and spun it with the palm of his hand. “Several days mean nothing to him. The blow might not come for weeks. He will enjoy watching me worry.”

  “Esvar,” she said. Then she did not know what to add. The quick embrace he had given her the last time he had been here, when she had raged at him, was not enough for her to feel sure she could touch him.

  He said, “You know how to be careful. I know that. I want you to be more than careful. I’ll tell Sparrow today that she needs to find another intermediary. We shouldn’t see each other anymore, Anza. It’s my fault. I dragged you in.”

  This wasn’t a conversation either. It was a confession, an expurgation. She left the table. His head shot up, wary.

  “Don’t find another intermediary,” she said over her shoulder as she bent to open the chest. “Did I tell you that my father spared Sparrow’s life? She said he could have killed her, and he let her go. He told her he already knew he would be executed for having failed in the raid. That dragged me in as much as anything you’ve done. More.”

  Silence. She took her bag out of the chest and slipped paper, pens, and ink into it. She tightened the strap and turned around. He was looking at his hands. They were well-formed and beautiful.

  “My lord,” she said, which got his attention. His lips moved in a soundless No. “What do you want from this meeting?”

  “An alliance.”

  “An alliance to do what? Think about it. You don’t want to push for the wrong thing.” The statement could be an insult, implying as it did that he was not prepared, but she needed to get him out of his own head. “Radd told me the contracts his clients were most dissatisfied with were the ones where they failed to ask for what they really wanted. If they asked and didn’t get it, they moved on. If they never asked, it ate at them long after the contract was signed.” And underneath that, the thought she would never dare speak aloud: You’re a prince, and your life has been hell, but you can ask for help. You’re only twenty-one.

  He stood and poured what was left of his water into the vase. “Those poor flowers,” he said. “Come here, please.”

  Anza did, placed her hands in his extended ones. As sudden as flame she wanted him, and she reached up and touched his chin. His throat moved as he swallowed. His free hand slipped through her hair to the base of her skull and cupped it. His mouth came down on hers, hard, and her lips opened to invite him in.

  Her arms circled his waist, his fingers stroked her hair. The kiss went on for a hundred years.

  At last, reluctant, she turned her mouth away. “We haven’t time.” She had to force her hands to stay planted on his lower back instead of caressing him.

  “I know,” he said.

  He didn’t move either. She was aware of his s
cent, leather, the bite of fine wool, a hint of metal. It further aroused her, and she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again. His hand found its way under the hem of her shirt.

  “Your guards,” she said, one last protest in the hope that he had more strength to resist the pull of their bodies than she did.

  “They all think this is what we’re doing anyway.” The tip of his tongue circled on the roof of her mouth.

  The leather of his belt was soft and smooth against her palm. She pulled him, navigating around the chest, to the pallet. Their legs tangled as they lowered themselves, and he reached out to catch her. They laughed. Then her shirt was off, and his mouth was on her breast and her hands were unbuttoning his waistband.

  * * *

  They were quick despite themselves. As they dressed afterward, Anza saw the lines of new skin on his back. They crossed each other repeatedly, as though his torso had been shattered and glued back together. She stilled. So much pain.

  After a long pause, Esvar put his shirt on and said, not looking at her, “That was done at Karolje’s orders. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  “When did he do it?” She thought she knew. Her voice was pitched higher than normal with emotion.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We need to go. Will you ride with me or with Mirovian?”

  “With Jance.” Then she would not be tempted. And while she did not think Jance wanted to sleep with her, there was no point in making him jealous if he did.

  She washed her face and carried the bag down the steps. The horses were very large. Jance helped her up and, when she had settled herself, swung up in front of her. They had ridden this way before, when he took her to her father’s house to meet Esvar. It felt familiar, safe.

  At the College, they left the horses and all the guards but Jance outside and went into the classroom building. Master Tinas showed them into a classroom on the second floor. Anza’s feet fit comfortably into the depressions on the stairs made by years of passage. The smell of wood and scholarship had not changed in two years, and she tried to imagine she was a student again, with nothing more to concern her than a question of rhetoric or a mathematical proof.

  Jance stood guard outside the room. He looked preoccupied, and Anza almost delayed entering to ask him what was on his mind, but she decided he would not answer honestly in Esvar’s presence.

  Inside the classroom, door shut, Anza brought out her writing materials and set them on the table, not too close to Esvar. He looked preoccupied too. She was reminded of their first meeting, when she sat trying to keep all her fear hidden while he read a report and they waited for Marek to return. She had known by then he wasn’t going to hurt her, but he had still been dangerous. When had she learned to overlook that danger?

  The windows faced east, and she saw the sun falling brightly on the tiles of the library roof. Red and blue and orange and green and brown, they were laid in geometric patterns, predictable and even, far older than the reign of Karolje. Two harpies perched on the ridgepole. The building’s shadow was still substantial on the square, but it would begin shrinking rapidly within the next hour. Half the table lay in golden light.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway and looked at Esvar. He was watching her. “I won’t ask for another intermediary,” he said.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said as the door opened.

  The arrival was Sparrow, alone, dressed in black trousers and a dark green men’s tunic. Her face was half-masked and her silvered hair newly cropped, barely an inch in length. The downturned edges of her mouth were pronounced. She took a seat at one end of the table and said nothing.

  Anza felt she had been forgotten as the other two looked at each other. In profile they were curiously alike, jaws set with determination. Neither intended to yield anything.

  “Shall we begin?” Esvar asked.

  “I have someone else coming.”

  “This was to be just us.”

  “I need a witness. If I am to bring orders from you back to my people, they need to know I’m not lying. Some of them won’t be convinced on my word alone.”

  “Very well,” Esvar said. It turned Sparrow’s assertion into a request for a boon. He was claiming the room for himself. He was the default. Sparrow would not accept that.

  She didn’t respond. The three sat in a stiff silence for several minutes until more footsteps sounded in the corridor. They were too heavy to be a woman’s.

  Again the door opened and shut. Miloscz. Anza looked at her fingernails. She wished it had been anyone else. He would be arrogant and contentious. Why had Sparrow picked him, of all people?

  Because people in the resistance who would not believe her would believe him.

  He seated himself on the same side of the table as Sparrow, with an empty seat between them. His gaze slid across Anza to rest contemptuously on the prince.

  Esvar spoke to Sparrow. “Now that Miloscz is here, are you ready?” Even said politely, his words were an attack. I know who your companion is. You don’t have secrets from me. Or, Your own people don’t trust you, and you shouldn’t trust them. They would strike whichever part of her was soft.

  Sparrow grinned. Anza realized she was looking forward to this. Perhaps there were no parts of her that were soft. She said, “Why are we here? Your initial message was that all you wanted was for us to keep doing as we were doing. That’s all we’ve done. Was Ruslan to be spared?”

  “Things changed. If I were giving you names of people to kill, Lord Ruslan would have been on the list. But that strategy is no longer viable. It’s too easy to blame murder on the Tazekhs, even when explosives aren’t involved. Even when you leave notes. You have to stop. Korikos could decide to start a war. He’s no less bloodthirsty than Karolje.”

  Once Anza had seen a practice sword fight, the combatants circling each other with blades extended, not touching. Watching feet, hands, deftness of movement. They knew what would come next and were strategizing. Sparrow and Esvar were evaluating each other the same way.

  Sparrow said, “We’re already in a war. The king against the rest of us.”

  “I know that’s how you see it. But you’re struggling. Do you want people to join your resistance, or do you want them to march in mobs and break windows and hang Tazekhs?”

  “You have the power to call out those lies. You can make speeches and tell the watch. We won’t be believed.”

  Karolje would kill him, Anza thought. He carried the proof of that on his back.

  Esvar said, “To do that, I have to name the king as responsible for what he’s done. I’m willing. But I’ll only get one opportunity. He’ll have me killed.”

  “Horse shit,” said Miloscz.

  “I thought he was here as a witness, Sparrow. I didn’t invite him to participate.”

  “I don’t tyrannize my people. He speaks for them as much as I do. If you don’t listen to him as well, there’s nothing to negotiate.”

  “Oh, I’ll listen,” said Esvar. A first lunge. He looked at Miloscz. “To argument, not to insult. And I tell you now that if you think for one moment that I am protected by virtue of my birth, you are naive. For all I know, Karolje’s already disposed of my brother.”

  Sparrow interrupted. “He’s really missing? Not locked away or killed?”

  “He’s really missing. I have ideas about what he’s doing, but that’s all they are, ideas. His body may be in the lake. I’ve sent a message to the Temple, and he’s not taking refuge there.”

  “The king would tell you if he’d killed him,” said Miloscz.

  Esvar shook his head. “No. That’s not how he thinks. He likes having secrets. If he killed Tevin and I succeed, I spend the rest of my life wondering if I am really the king.”

  “If your brother went into hiding, that’s different,” said Sparrow.

  “If he went into hiding, he’ll reappear. But he didn’t tell me he was going into hiding. He sent me back to the Citadel because I was injured, and I haven’t seen him since.
We can’t count on him to still be in the picture.” The tip of his left index finger pressed the table.

  Hell, Anza thought. He really didn’t know. She had heard of Tevin’s disappearance before Jance told her—the whole city had—but she had assumed it was part of a plan made by the brothers. Jance had seemed unconcerned. It had never occurred to her that Karolje might have Disappeared him.

  “You wanted to meet with us before he vanished.”

  “Yes. My aim remains unchanged. Karolje has to be overthrown.”

  “You could kill him yourself.”

  “I don’t have the backing,” said Esvar. His skin reddened slightly. Anza thought the admission had been harder for him than he had expected it to be. “Killing him now sends me to the gallows as a regicide and, with Tevin missing, puts the chancellor on the throne. You don’t want him to be the king either.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s ruthless. He murdered his wife’s son. My brother watched it.”

  “Your brother, your brother,” said Miloscz.

  Sparrow said, “His wife’s son? That would be his own son.”

  “She was pregnant when they married. He smothered the boy during an illness.”

  “You’re certain?” Sparrow’s jaw was clenched. Anza was sure the anger was not directed at Esvar. Sparrow could almost be a superior officer receiving a report. Something in the balance had changed.