The Vanished Queen

by Lisbeth Campbell

  He led his guards to the street where Ruslan had been murdered. The horses trotted past shops: milliners, jewelers, chandlers, drapers. Apothecaries, bakers, tailors. No booksellers. The streets bent around squares, widened and narrowed, went up and down. He kept to the paved roads when he could, and the horses’ hooves clopped loudly. There were shrines, some tucked between other buildings and some almost large enough to merit the name of temple, market stalls and market buildings, green squares or circles with empty fountains in the center.

  Everywhere he was watched. Carters edged their donkeys or horses to the side of the road; older children scattered; men and women stood warily on the edge of the street. He was not sure if he was recognized or if it was the presence of the soldiers alone that made people draw back. When he chanced to make eye contact with someone, they ducked their head. Taverns had their doors open because of the heat, and music came out, strangely jolly against the stillness of the watchers.

  He wanted to rouse them, to scream out that they should follow him to the Citadel and bring it down with kitchen knives and rocks and chair legs. They would be slaughtered. He wanted to tell them he was not Karolje. He wanted one of them to throw something at him that would knock him from his horse, so they could see that they had power.

  The impulse toward chaos was one he knew. It ran hand in hand with the desire for violence to be done to him, to destroy him because he was not worth saving.

  Nothing marked where Ruslan had died. The streets were dirt, and dust puffed around the horses’ feet. The tenants were at their work, the children somewhere more crowded. Begging, or stealing, or selling their bodies. The only sign of life was a black cat watching from the sill of an open window.

  Onward then, west to the strait between Citadel Island and Port Island, where boats bobbed at dock. The lake glittered beyond. On Port Island the visible buildings were all warehouses, vigorously patrolled now since the earlier arson. On this side were the business offices: insurers, banks, shippers, traders, buyers, sellers. People moved with more confidence, secure in the knowledge that they were law abiding and the soldiers could not be here to arrest them.

  Esvar looked at his guards. He had handpicked all five of them as loyal to him and not Karolje. But if he ordered them to go grab a man walking blithely along the street and beat him to death, they would. And none of the other people would run to the man’s defense. Nor would they start a riot. What would it take to rouse them?

  If he wanted them to follow him, how would he prove he was unlike the king?

  He understood Miloscz’s point. He had understood it in the negotiation. He could even agree with it in principle. When princes leaped for power that was not theirs, they did it with poisons or with battles. When the people rose to overthrow a tyrant, they chose one of their own to take power instead. A prince leading a revolution of the people was an absurdity.

  He wasn’t a prince. That was his brother. He was a weapon. He had put himself into Sparrow’s hands to be hurtled at Karolje because her aim was a thousand times sharper than his own. If, when it was all over, he took the throne, it would be for her, not for himself.

  He had to get back to the Citadel before his absence aroused any more curiosity than it already had. He kicked his horse.

  * * *

  Upon returning, he threw himself into routine tasks with a passion. He read reports of fruitless interrogations and dictated polite, noncommittal letters to merchants agitating for the Crown to put down the resistance, the Tazekhs, filthy thieves, and interfering priests all at once. Each time the clerk gave him something to sign—By my own hand and seal, over and over—he thought of how he was complicit in Karolje’s tyranny. The historians of the future would elide his name with the king’s. His mother was gone and his brother had fled. He was left to bear the guilt.

  The light was balanced between twilight and full night when Mirovian came to his room with the parcel from Anza. Outside the leaves were dark, dark green, not quite black, and fireflies sparked. The cicadas had started buzzing. He thought he could see mist rising from the lake water.

  The parcel was book-shaped, dirty burlap tied with coarse twine. Esvar took it and laid it on the desk.

  Mirovian said, “She said to tell you it was with the Rukovili, sir. That’s all she said.”

  With the Rukovili. Stolen from the College library? Another one of his mother’s books? Had she been holding on to this for years too? Mirovian seemed twitchy.

  “Does anyone besides you know where it came from?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. I brought back a bottle of wine, and put them in the same sack. No one followed either way as far as I could tell.”

  “Good. Thank you. Go enjoy your wine.”

  “Sir, I—” He broke off. His eyes shifted back and forth. Esvar had seen men’s eyes do that too often not to know what it meant. Bad news coming.

  “Has something happened to her?” he asked, holding his voice steady. Thinking of her skin, her eyes.

  “No, sir, nothing! It’s just—” He swallowed. “I know it’s irregular. I want to resign my commission.”

  Esvar hadn’t expected that. “Why? Sit down. How much did you overhear of what was said at the College today?”

  Still standing, Mirovian said, “Only a little, sir. It’s not that. It was being back at the College. I remembered what it was like to be learning. I could see the library. There are thousands of books in there that might never be read again because the king forbids it. I can’t help kill the people who want it to be otherwise.”

  Saying that was an immense act of courage and faith. Esvar was surrounded by people who were braver than he was, braver and more honorable. He didn’t deserve the trust they were putting in him.

  “What will you do instead?”

  “Work with my father.”

  “The despised bills of lading,” Esvar said, which was unkind. He gathered himself. “I need you. I swear I won’t order you to kill anyone in the resistance.”

  “Someone else will.”

  Which was true. Mirovian was technically under the command of a captain under the command of Karolje. If Esvar interfered with that chain of command, it would raise questions.

  “Can you be loyal to me? Or am I too tainted? I need your honesty, Jance, not your appeasement. If you think you can’t trust me, I’ll discharge you.”

  “I trust you, sir. It’s the rest I can’t bear.” He gestured broadly.

  “It’s not going to go on much longer,” Esvar said. “Sit, damn it. I don’t want to shout up at you. What do you know about what happened today?”

  “I’m pretty sure you were meeting with the resistance, sir.”

  “I was. There’s going to be an uprising.”

  The liminal dusk was gone. Full darkness pressed against the walls, hot and thick.

  “When?” asked Mirovian.

  “It’s not set yet. We need to try to find Tevin first. He may have his own plans. But soon. A matter of days, two weeks at the outside. When it happens, I’ll need men I can rely on. And until it happens, I need someone to take my messages to Anza. If you leave, I’ll need to find another person or go myself.”

  He could almost read the thought on Mirovian’s face: And I’m the one who brought her to your attention. Honor was very close to guilt.

  “If I stay…”

  “If you stay, obeying me from here out is treason. If we fail, you’ll be executed or a fugitive. You can take your discharge and go home, or you can stay and risk your life. The only other choice is to turn me in to the king, but if I thought you would do that after hearing me now, I wouldn’t let you leave this room.”

  The silence went on a little longer than Esvar hoped it would, but when Mirovian looked directly at him again, his face was set. “I will stay, sir,” he said. Esvar waited for a But. It didn’t come.

  “Go on, then.”

  Mirovian rose, walked slowly to the door. There’s something else, Esvar thought. Last time Mirovian tried to
hide something, it had been Anza.

  He almost let the man go. Then he considered the cost of being wrong. “Mirovian!”

  “Sir?”

  “What are you not telling me this time?”

  He looked more relieved than affronted to be called on it. “It’s only a feeling, sir.”

  “About what?”

  Mirovian returned and leaned over the desk. Voice lowered, he said, “It’s Lord Doru. I saw him a few hours ago. It was chance, I was coming back from the training yard and he was coming toward me in a cross-corridor. I stopped to let him go past. He looked at me. I swear I have never seen a man holding in so much anger. I would have rather faced a rabid dog. It was only a glance, but I will admit it scared the hell out of me. He’s going to do something hideous.” He swallowed. “I think that is when I realized I couldn’t do this anymore. I don’t want to end up like him.”

  “You won’t,” Esvar said. “But I understand the fear. Stay out of his way. And the next time I send you to see Anza, make arrangements to meet her somewhere else after that. A tavern, a square, a shrine. Continue the pretense that you’re courting her.” He should never have gone to see her that morning.

  “Yes, sir.” He left, lighter in step.

  When he was gone, Esvar sent for Marek and gave orders for Doru to be constantly watched. Esvar had been more frustrated than serious when he told Anza that perhaps he should just kill the spymaster, but it might be time to act. Tevin would have wanted him to wait, but Tevin wasn’t here.

  There was still the matter of Goran. He remembered Sparrow speaking of Tahari: She could be your ally. Did he dare bring Tahari into this? More, would she dare to come? He couldn’t ask her to murder her husband. And what had she felt about that first son who was killed? Karolje might not have raped her with violence, but she could not have refused him if he wanted to bed her. Had she gone to him out of desire or as submission? Could she have loved a child born from a forced union? Perhaps the boy’s death had been a kind of terrible release.

  He closed his eyes. Everything he knew was slipping away. He wrestled a monster that changed its shape every time he thought he had a grip on it.

  A deep breath. Another.

  He gathered himself, poured a cup of wine, and cut the twine on the parcel Jance had brought. He unwrapped it to reveal a book, green leather. If he had been holding the wine, he would have dropped it. For an instant he was five again, sitting at a table in a chair too tall for him to touch the ground, swinging his feet while he copied letters onto a piece of paper with a shaky hand. The pen nib tore at the paper, ink spattered. He remembered the smell of the ink. And Nihalik, a presence, comforting but not one he could disobey.

  Tevin had used books like this. When Esvar was small, he had aspired to one. Then Nihalik was gone, and Ashevi in his place, and Tevin went south with the king.

  It was with the Rukovili. His mother’s? He opened it, carefully, and saw Tevin’s childish hand. He turned the pages.

  And then writing he did not recognize, an adult’s, the Eridian characters graceful and firm. I know it is dangerous to write this, even in this foreign script.

  His arm swept across the desk, knocking the book, his wine, a few loose papers to the floor. The breaking glass tinkled dully on a cushion of paper. Across the room the wall receded into darkness. His mouth was stopped with rage that had no target, no core. Over the thunder of the blood in his ears he heard pounding, steady and hard, coming from a distance.

  His body saved him, or betrayed him, and he fell. The pounding stopped. Language returned, obscenities and profanities. He beat against the floor with both hands. Pain shot down his arm from the arrow wound, shocking him to stillness.

  He lay, breathing hard. Slowly the edge wore off, and he heaved himself to his feet, righted the chair. The green book had been spared the wine, but the loose papers were ruined. He glanced at them, decided they did not matter, and balled them up and put them in the fireplace. He swept the broken glass into a pile and covered it with a rag.

  Now he was ashamed. Who was he angry at? Anza, for keeping the book from him? For taking it from the library in the first place? His mother, for writing it? For dying?

  At that thought, the anger swelled again. He put the book back on the desk and sat. He had more self-discipline than this. He had to. He had to.

  He breathed.

  Finally he thought he had reclaimed his core. He opened the book.

  The new chancellor cornered me last night after a formal meal. He said nothing of import, but I did not like the way he looked at me. I don’t think he knows my own secrets—he did not act as though he was preparing to blackmail me. Or if he knows, he doesn’t care. It was more as though he were holding back some weapon he intends to surprise me with, for the sake of hurting me. He would be happy if Karolje died, of course, because then he would gain the regency and be one step closer to the throne, but I didn’t think he wanted to be rid of me too.

  I hate this, all this secrecy and slyness and fear. It’s not necessary. It’s inherent in power, some would say, and the gods know I have read enough accounts of kings and their intrigues. But this goes beyond politics. It’s a kind of rot. They serve us spoiled meat and we pretend to enjoy it, and we’re going to die of it.

  When Piyr was alive, he and his chancellor used to summon the merchants to hear their complaints. They told him what roads needed to be repaired or how other merchants were underselling them or what Milayan tariffs were too high. Goran has not held any such meetings, and a few merchants who have come to see him have not left the Citadel. Their homes and goods have been confiscated. It’s as though any complaint is seen as blame, any request as accusation.

  So they aren’t coming anymore. They aren’t fools. But they aren’t buying, which means they aren’t selling. The Hierarch sent a message saying that more people are asking for alms. The chancellor ignored it. I sent a little of my own money, but it won’t be enough.

  Gods. There had been so much more to her than he ever saw, ever heard. Had Tevin known this aspect of their mother? He must have. Those early years Karolje was at war, she had had the chance to shape him. That was where Tevin’s rigid determination not to follow the king had come from.

  A new order has come from the king. He has required all Citadel servants and guards with Tazekh blood, no matter how distant, to be dismissed. They are to go to the Tazekh part of the city to live, and the king’s soldiers are sent there to build a wall around it. Tazekhs, even wealthy ones, who live in other parts of Karegg are ordered to the Tazekh section too. They are to be penned like animals, not allowed to work, not allowed to leave. They will starve. Most of the lords and ladies in the Citadel approve of this order. Korikos and his Asps are evil, I have no doubt of that, but I remember the Tazekhs and half-Tazekhs in Timor, who were no more warlike or hateful than ordinary Vetians.

  Goran wants to marry Tahari, and I have encouraged it, though I fear she will be hurt. He is terrible. He takes bribes and steals from the treasury and uses the money to buy property and power from weakened lords and merchants, who sell at great losses to keep their families safe. There are fines for the most minor infractions, and fees and taxes for every act of commerce. My heart aches for the ordinary people he has impoverished and frightened, for the poor who must give up the few things they have to pay his taxes, for the women who sell their bodies to keep their families out of jail.

  But I let him do it without any protest. Every bit of power that Goran gains hurts Karolje. This is weak of me, and cowardly, but I have come to a point where I will let others suffer because that is a tool to break his hold.

  People are starving in the city. There was a bread riot, which Karolje’s soldiers put down bloodily. I do not know the details, but at least a hundred people died. Vetians, all of them. The bodies were sent off-island to be burned, and soldiers left the Citadel with hellhounds to patrol the streets.

  Somehow, and what a fool he was, he had not thought of his mother as politic
al. She had only been his mother, with golden hair and a soft voice and the scent of lavender. But of course she had been political. She had been a queen. Her infidelity itself had been political, a renunciation of the marriage she had been forced into for state reasons. Had she hated her own father for giving her to Karolje?

  A letter has come from Tevin. It is in his hand and his voice, and I think it may not have been seen by the king. He writes very little of the war, which is to be expected; he has to be wary of Tazekh spies. Instead he tells of things he has seen, southern things such as olive groves and the peddlers with the bright blue carts. He sounds well and satisfied. He says that he is a participant in the strategy meetings, and that Karolje has praised him. I think this is true. He has studied war since he was small. I fear that when he comes back there will not be much boy left to him.

  I go to the chapel daily to pray. Usually I am alone, but sometimes he comes. He is getting careless. I am afraid we are going to be discovered. I am afraid he wants to be discovered. There is no reason he would, but I cannot shake the thought.

  He has not touched me in weeks. We quarreled. Soon the king returns.

  He was intruding into a place no one should be allowed to go. If Tevin read it, it would rip him apart.

  Tahari and Goran’s child, a son, was stillborn. I am sorry for her. She has become much admired, but sometimes when she is not careful, her face betrays a bleakness. She is unhappy, and there is nothing I can do to ease her unhappiness. If both my sons died, she would be queen.

  Today Tevin turned fourteen. I was given time alone with him. We watched the snow falling, the year’s first, and drank tea and ate sweet cakes. He will make a good king if he gets the chance.

  Last night I dreamed. The details are not worth recording, and by now I remember hardly anything anyway, except that I was being chased in moonlight, and I woke frightened and sick to my stomach. The feeling has not lifted all day.