The Vanished Queen

by Lisbeth Campbell

  Jance looked at her windows. The fog obscured the building across the street. “We aren’t supposed to continue to meet here. Esvar is afraid that either you or I or both of us are being spied on. Is there a tavern nearby that would not be too suspicious for us to go to the next time?”

  She planned like that with Sparrow. “There’s one a couple of blocks away that would work,” she said. “Go up to the top of the hill, turn left, and it’s on the next corner. Every time I’ve walked by it’s been crowded.”

  “Is the food edible?”

  “It’s not splendid, but it won’t kill you either. The beer is adequate.”

  “Can you meet me there in two days, an hour before curfew?”

  “I can. I might not have any messages, though.” She was still waiting for Sparrow to tell her where they were going to go next, since Miloscz’s house was no longer an option. She hoped Sparrow had retrieved her bow.

  “That’s all right.” He sighed. “Anza, I tried to resign my commission last night. The prince told me a few things.”

  “You tried to leave? How could you do that? He needs you.” It was a mad thing to say after the self-righteousness she had inflicted on Jance at other times, and it brought home to her how much faith she had come to place in Esvar.

  “I know. It’s just—there’s not a lot of honor in this job right now. I feel dirty. And worse, I have to lead the raids, and the person who tells me where to raid is Doru Kanakili, and he is evil. And cunning. Anything he orders me to do could be a trap. I’m not worried for myself, but for Esvar and for you and for other people. It would be very easy to manipulate me into a situation where Doru gets secrets from me. I tried to explain this to the prince, but he didn’t want to listen.”

  “I think he knows it,” Anza said. “He’s warned me about Doru. If it didn’t seem like he was listening, it’s probably because yesterday was hard. I shouldn’t say anything if he hasn’t, but did he tell you what it was about?”

  “Yes, although I would have had to be an idiot not to have guessed most of it.” The word treason hung unspoken between them. “That’s what convinced me to stay, the chance that things might change. Otherwise I was ready to go home and work for my father. I don’t know how your father did it.”

  “He thought he needed to stay to help pick up the pieces. But he turned too. He—he had a chance to kill Sparrow, and he let her go.” Saying it was a relief. At the end he had been on the right side.

  Spinning his mug, Jance said, “Are you in love with Esvar? I’m not jealous, I just want to know.”

  “I’m not. I could be. I don’t need you to tell me that would be stupid. I won’t see him again, so it doesn’t matter.”

  She knew she was probably lying. She had been trying hard not to think about sleeping with Esvar. Lips on her mouth, her skin, the hard muscles of his arms, the mixed scents of horse and leather and soap. She wanted to do it again, slowly, properly. The shadow in his eyes when they parted yesterday had been enough to tell her there would be no again. He had cut her off, which was the best thing for both of them. They had no future together, even if they survived the uprising.

  That was who they were. Survivors, both of them. Like Sparrow. Love would interfere, so it could not exist.

  Why would it interfere? she asked herself. Why was it a loss and not a gain? Was this another thing to lay at Karolje’s feet, the fear of loving?

  She had no idea whether her parents had loved each other; they had parted when she was small, and she had not been told why. They had not fought with each other, she remembered that much. It was one of the many things she had never asked her father. The past was a country whose boundary they had never crossed.

  “It might matter to him,” Jance said, to which there was no possible response. Anza refilled her own mug. The tea steamed in the chill air of the flat. She would light a fire tonight.

  Jance went on. “He—what was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “I heard something.”

  “It was just one of the neighbors, Jance. No one could have followed you in this fog.”

  He was closer to the door. He got up and shut the bolt. Anza heard the feet: several men, heavy, determined. Fear seized her briefly as it had in Nikovili’s house, then was gone. She rose and looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon.

  “The table,” said Jance. He knocked it over, shattering the teacups and sending the journal flying, and pushed it against the door. “Go, get out the window, you’re small enough.” His sword was in his hand. A dark pool of tea spread across the floor.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She grabbed the sharpest of the kitchen knives. “I’m not a coward.”

  “Fuck it, Anza, run. You’re more important than I am right now. And if you die, I don’t know what will happen to Esvar.”

  The words cut into her. But the roof of the building was an overhang, and she would not be able to pull herself onto it. Someone would be watching on the ground fifteen feet below. She didn’t see how even the fog would protect her from being caught after the drop.

  Weight thudded against the door. Her mouth went dry. Thud. Thud. The frame wasn’t built to withstand such force, and the wood splintered below the bolt.

  “Go!” Jance shouted.

  Another blow, and the frame gave entirely. The door edged open. The table was too light to hold for long. They would push it aside as easily as Jance had pushed it against the door. She slid the knife through her belt and grabbed the kitchen kettle. The table scraped against the floor.

  Jance stared furiously at her. He was going to die, trying to save her. Was she going to waste his life?

  The door opened far enough for a man to shove through and kick the table farther out of the way. Without thinking Anza heaved the kettle at him. The lid and then the kettle itself clanked to the floor as hot tea sloshed out and over the intruder’s face. He screamed. Jance stabbed him in the stomach.

  Blood blossomed from the wound, a crimson flower unfolding and unfolding. It shone on Jance’s sword. For a moment the fragrance of the tea filled the air. Then there was a sudden stench as the man’s bowels released. He fell, still screaming. His body blocked the door more effectively than the table had.

  The next man through had his sword ready, and he brought it down against Jance’s blade as he took a long step over the body of his comrade. The clang of metal made Anza’s teeth hurt. Jance parried, thrust, was blocked. Another man entered. He saw Anza and grinned, took one step toward her.

  She ran for the window. There was nothing else to do. She sat on the sill, feet out, and twisted onto her stomach. She looked up in time to see a fourth man enter and the three of them engage Jance. No, Jance, no, she thought. This couldn’t be happening.

  A low swing from one man caught him in the thigh while he stabbed at another. He stumbled. The third man brought a sword down forcefully on Jance’s shoulder. Blood fountained everywhere as he screamed. The scream was cut off as another blade sliced through his neck. She dropped.

  The impact resonated through her whole body, but she kept her footing and ran. Up the hill, into another courtyard and across it to the wynd, through the next courtyard and down that street, a left turn onto another street. The fog was so thick she couldn’t see the places to turn until she was almost atop them. An alley, a courtyard, a narrow path that turned into a flight of steps descending a steep hill. She had never seen them before. She hurried down, almost slipping twice, and came out onto a street she did not know, which vanished into the fog in each direction.

  She bent over to get her breath. She was panting now, loud and rough. Pain in her side jabbed as sharply as a knife. Her heart beat far too fast. She listened for pursuers but heard nothing over the sounds of her own body.

  As soon as she could, she started walking again, then jogging. Down streets, along alleys, through more tunnels. The streets got wider and she began to see people about, dim shapes that loomed up suddenly. Gold light shone from
windows through the mist.

  They killed him, they killed him. She saw again the blood as his arm was parted from his body, the white knob of bone swallowed up by the spray of blood, brighter than anything else. She bent over and vomited, retching long after her stomach was empty. Bile burned her raw throat.

  * * *

  She let her feet lead her and realized after a while that she had stopped being lost and was headed toward Sparrow’s house on Beggar Island. She stopped, considered as best she could if that was where she should go, and went on. She could have gone to Irini or Rumil or some other friends, but those choices would cut her. They were too close to her memories of Jance. And the only one who could help her anyway was Sparrow.

  Crossing the bridge, she paused in the middle to look back at Citadel Island. The fog obscured it entirely. She could just see the edge of Beggar Island, the soft grey lines of buildings that shifted in and out of focus as the fog moved. The water below the bridge was iron grey. She stood, suspended in a featureless world where the only sound was the light lap of water against the pilings. Her hair was damp, her skin pale and chilled.

  Time was imaginary in the unchanging fog, but she supposed it had been about an hour when she came to Sparrow’s house. She recognized it by the peeling blue paint on the door. She knocked three times. If Sparrow wasn’t here, she would sit against the door and wait. The killers would have left her flat by now, but she was never going back to it. The letter from Esvar would never be read.

  The door opened, and Sparrow stepped aside for Anza to enter. “What’s happened?”

  “Jance is dead,” Anza said. The words were heavy as ingots. She felt desolate, yet at the same time, none of it seemed real. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “My poor girl. I’ll bring you something to sit on.”

  Sparrow went up the narrow staircase and returned a moment later with a large stained red pillow. The fabric was coarse. She threw it on the floor next to the wall and said, “You’ll be more comfortable on that. Do you want tea? Raki?”

  “Tea,” Anza said. Her throat ached from grief. Wearily, she sat. Her feet and shoulders hurt. Her palms and forearms were scraped from the scramble out the window. Gods. Jance was dead. She shivered and jerked.

  Sparrow brought her a chipped mug full of tea and sat down facing her. “Tell me,” she said, as softly as Anza had ever heard her. The room was dim and grey. Moisture trickled down the glass of the two small windows, the fog colorless against them.

  “He came to see me. Then men broke in. He actually killed one of them first. I was a coward. I ran. I couldn’t think of anything. So I came here.”

  She could not help sounding desperate. She felt desperate. The sword, the blur as it moved through the air, the explosion of red from Jance’s neck. Her shoulders drew in and her body tightened.

  This was worse than when her father had died. There had been grief and anger and fear then, but not this terrible sense of urgency. She had been alone, very carefully alone, and now she was wound round with threads tied to too many other people. She couldn’t move without tugging at things that perhaps should not be tugged at. There was no untying of the knots, no return to the past.

  When Jance didn’t return, Esvar would know that something had happened and would send men to look. He would know who had done it. What would he do?

  “Shh,” said Sparrow, leaning forward to touch Anza on the arm. “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know. They weren’t in uniform, but they knew what they were doing. Jance couldn’t possibly win. He was trying to fight three of them.”

  “Were they after him or you?”

  Anza had not considered the question. She did now, sluggishly. “I think him. They didn’t try to stop me from escaping. But it was very fast. I’m not sure.”

  “Why would he be killed?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Sparrow said, “Yes. You have to be strong, Anza. Harpy. You can mourn, but you can’t give up. Think. I don’t know Jance at all. Who are his enemies?”

  Anza sipped the tea. She could not imagine Jance having any enemies. That caution required by a hot drink, the slowness, the smallness of the gulp, the careful movement of the lips to avoid being scalded, struck her as important. It slowed time, cushioned awareness of things that would be an onslaught otherwise.

  “They did it to hurt Esvar,” she said, the knowledge clear and certain. To make him feel vulnerable, to shame him, to immobilize him with fear of what his actions might bring down. Tears of loss and injustice swarmed her eyes, and she furiously blinked them back.

  “That probably means it wasn’t Karolje. He has other ways to do that. He doesn’t need to bother with indirect threats.”

  “Esvar told me yesterday he had granted a divorce to Lord Doru’s wife. So it could be Doru. And also…” She hesitated. “Would Miloscz do something like that?”

  “No. If he wanted to strike at the prince, he would fight directly. Doru is much more likely. This kind of murder is personal.”

  Jance. Radd. Her father. Her dead were accumulating. Was this what it meant to keep living? Did more and more people die around you as you went on? Or was that unique to Karegg?

  “I want my bow,” she said.

  “And then what?”

  Kill them all, she thought. Hide on the old walls and ambush lords when they rode out from the Old City. Climb on rooftops and shoot the watch when they walked by.

  “I want to kill him. Doru.”

  “He rarely leaves the Citadel.”

  “I’ll offer to turn myself in to him, tell him I know where Thali is.”

  “That won’t draw him out. He has people everywhere who could abduct you. You might have to leave this vengeance to the prince.”

  “No.”

  “You’re angry,” said Sparrow. “As you should be. But anger will only carry you so far. A resistance that is only about revenge fails when it has achieved that revenge. When your anger fades, what will you have left?”

  She remembered watching River kill Lord Ruslan, the pit at the center of her being when she imagined doing murder herself. Esvar had said, Those of us who can kill like breathing need to be countered by the people who hate it. He had softened as he spoke, almost as though it was a revelation to him too. That was the moment she had entirely stopped seeing him as the enemy. The moment she had begun to see him as someone she might love.

  We are marked by what we do, she thought. And by what we don’t do.

  She could not bring Jance back to life. Jance, who had once told her it was stupid to risk her life for a ghost. What had she said to him? I need to be her witness. Her voice. He needed a voice now too.

  Slowly, stumbling over the words as she thought it through, she said, “Terror of Karolje keeps people silent. Not just about him and his laws. About everything. Vengeance is only another kind of silencing. But justice is about speech. About hearing and being heard. That’s what I want.”

  “To be heard?”

  “To make a space for everyone to be heard.”

  Sparrow’s face was very hard to read, as usual. She said, “Can you give up Doru?”

  “It appears I have to.” She took a breath. “I can’t kill someone like River does, Sparrow. Not in darkness and cold blood. But I can still fight. I will still fight. And help build afterward.”

  “You don’t need to fight. You’ve done so much already. We owe you.”

  “Because of Esvar?”

  “Yes. I don’t for a moment think it was easy for you to be a go-between. It took courage. Regardless of how much you trust him or think he’s unlike the king. We have the keys we’ve needed, and that wouldn’t have happened without you.”

  “I can fight,” Anza repeated. “I’m not done.”

  Sparrow looked at her for a long moment. Anza looked steadily back.

  “All right,” said Sparrow. “Tomorrow we spread the signal. The next day, or the day after, we will rouse. But we have to be ready. River�
�s armory raid is tonight.”

  In the negotiations, Sparrow had finally admitted the resistance had stolen uniforms. Once he heard that, Esvar had provided a complicated sequence of passwords that would get a few men posing as Citadel soldiers with orders from the king admitted to an armory. He had put the royal seal on blank paper for Sparrow.

  “I’m glad River didn’t go with Miloscz.” It was a justice of sorts. The world still had some balance.

  “Most of them didn’t. Moth didn’t. You don’t need to worry over what Miloscz might do. He won’t betray us, and he won’t sabotage us, and that’s what matters. I have your bow and a few other things that were at his house.”

  “Does that mean this is the only place you have to live now?”

  Sparrow grinned. “You’re thinking how dreadful it is that the leader of the resistance lives in a rat-infested hovel on Beggar Island with no furniture. It is good not to be dependent on things, but I have a flat on Citadel Island. You’re lucky you found me here. I’ll be going back there tonight. It’s important not to stay in any one place too long.”

  “Where do I go?”

  “I’ll take you to River. He’ll take you somewhere safe before they raid.”

  “With Jance dead, I don’t have a way to reach the prince. He can’t find me if I’m hiding.”

  Sparrow said, “There are ways to get him a message. They are extremely risky, which is why I haven’t done it, but it’s getting on time to take those risks.” She stood. “Now, you need to rest and I have things to prepare. When we go out, you’ll have to be alert. With luck the fog won’t lift until tomorrow.”

  Anza drank down the last half of the tea and got up. Her legs were shaky. She said, “If you send him a message, tell him Jance died bravely.”

  “And for yourself?”

  Everything was much too intimate to pass through another person. “Nothing,” she said.

  Sparrow looked at her thoughtfully. “Have you slept with him?”

  That’s not your affair! Anza thought, but of course it was. Sparrow needed to know where there were weaknesses.