“Do you hate her for leading the resistance?”
“How could I?” His free hand was resting on his leg, and he turned it palm upward, exposing his wrist. His veins were a cold blue beneath his tan skin. “Karolje must be overthrown. She couldn’t know from the outside who Tevin and I had grown to become. There are times I have thought myself deserving of death.”
“No,” Anza whispered.
“Not now, don’t worry. I won’t give Karolje that gift. But neither am I fit to be a king.”
Discovering his mother still lived was not supposed to be so painful. She reached across him and placed her palm over his. His skin was sun-warmed. Her thoughts were tangled, but it didn’t matter; they had to look to Karolje’s end before anything else could be decided.
The door opened. The fountain obscured their view, but the descending footsteps were martial, not priestly. They both stood up. Marek came around the fountain.
“Sir,” he said, “your brother’s here.”
Esvar ran. Anza was several steps behind, but she went into the Temple in time to see the princes greet each other with a hard, long embrace. This is it, she thought with a kind of vicious certainty. The beginning of Karolje’s end.
The men separated. “You have good spies,” Esvar said to Tevin. He looked back and beckoned to her. She frowned, thinking their reunion should be private, but he gestured more vigorously. She walked to him.
Tevin looked down at her. He wore plain brown and grey tradesman’s clothes and sandals and held a cap in one hand. His chin was heavily stubbled. He was not as tall as Esvar and had fairer skin and lighter hair, but the resemblance was obvious. Their faces had the same shape, the line of bone and curve of eye and even the scrutinizing expression. Now, knowing the truth about Sparrow, Anza could see the similarity to their mother. And to the portraits of Karolje as well. But while her first impression of Esvar had been one of restrained danger, Tevin quelled her with authority. He was not going to erupt, but he would have little patience with mistakes.
“Who’s this?” he asked. Judgment was held in abeyance but ready to fall like an executioner’s blade.
“I withhold her name,” said Esvar, “though she may choose to give it. She is my messenger to the resistance. If you’re going to act, you need them to move in concert with you.”
“You have been busy,” said Tevin.
“I’ve made some promises on your behalf. An amnesty and a voice in government.”
“You have been busy,” Tevin repeated in a different tone. Anza felt the judgment swing from her to Esvar. “What did you get in exchange?”
“Let’s not talk here in the hall,” Esvar said. “The priests gave me a room.”
It contained a single narrow bed, a chair, and a table. They stood. Anza would have preferred to be outside with Tevin’s guards and Marek, but Esvar wouldn’t let her edge away.
“How did you find me, Tev?” he asked.
“I heard you were gone, and I set people to looking. This seemed one of the likelier places. The chancellor was executed this morning—does that have anything to do with why you left?”
“Yes. I told Karolje that Goran had killed the boy. That was after the king produced your letter to Nasad and offered me the crown. I tried to shift the letter to Doru, but he didn’t believe me. So I left. I didn’t make a secret of it.”
“Why didn’t you accept his offer?”
The expression Esvar turned on his brother was faintly dumbfounded. “You’re the heir, he wanted me to rape one of Goran’s daughters, and he didn’t mean it anyway.”
“That’s why you should have taken it.”
“I told you, I’m not playing his games anymore.”
They glared at each other. Anza wondered if this was how they had expected their reunion to go.
Tevin said, “Do you want to have this argument in front of her? What’s your name, girl?”
“Harpy,” Anza said. She decided not to tell him who her father had been. She might need that information later to convince him of something else.
Esvar said, “She can hear everything.”
“She’ll take it back to the resistance.”
“I’m part of the resistance now.”
“Do they agree that you are?” Tevin asked, his voice cutting. “Why would they trust you?”
Anza said, “He was convincing in negotiations, my lord. He can’t betray them—us—now without betraying himself to Karolje. It’s gone too far for him to retreat.”
The prince stared at her. She stared back. Esvar moved to her side and laid his arm across her shoulders. His voice soft, he said, “They can hold her hostage against me if they want, and they know it. I might fail them, but there will be no betrayal.”
Oh gods, Anza thought, is this true? Did she mean so much? His arm tightened. Gently, she leaned her head against him, accepting his care.
After a long silence, Tevin said, “What have they promised?”
“To support you now in an uprising against him. If you and I die, the resistance will survive us. I’ve given them the means to arm themselves. They’ll start with the watchhouses.”
“Some of the men in the watch are mine. I’ve been sliding them in over the last few years.”
“Then you’d better get them to desert their posts and join you openly.”
Tevin looked darkly at his brother. “How soon can your people move?”
“We’ve been negotiating it. Soon.”
Anza said, “There was to be a raid on an armory last night. If that succeeded, they’re close to ready. There are signals out now.”
“A mob isn’t going to be any more successful at taking down the Citadel than armies have been.” Tevin ran his fingers through his hair, which made him look younger and more worried. “If Goran’s gone, all we need to do is get rid of Kanakili and then the king. We don’t need a mass of people for that.”
“A month ago I would have agreed with you,” said Esvar. “And you’re right that if they try to break down the Citadel gates, they’ll be massacred. But they’re sick of kings. If you and I go in and assassinate Doru and Karolje, you’ll get the crown, but the resistance won’t stop. You don’t want to start your reign using Karolje’s methods.”
That struck home. A muscle in Tevin’s face jumped. He pulled the chair closer and sat down.
“Stop being a general for a moment, Tev,” Esvar said. He left Anza’s side, squatted, and looked up at his brother. “The king trained you how to win a war. But you have to be a king. You don’t fight your own people. The resistance isn’t like the mob that hanged the Tazekhs. It’s the life of the city. To govern you need the people’s consent, and you need to be worthy of that consent.”
It was Mirantha speaking, Anza thought. And Sparrow. When she gave the journal to Esvar to read, she had been thinking about his missing mother, the woman he had loved. But he had learned something about power from it too.
Tevin said nothing. He had clasped his hands together and was staring at them. His eyelashes were dark crescents against his skin. The room’s sole window overlooked the garden, and Anza heard the distant, gentle splash of the fountain. On the other side of the door, the narrow corridor extended along the building and opened into the central hall of the Temple. Priests walked back and forth, people knelt on prayer mats, incense-scented air moved in dim light.
“All right,” Tevin said. “I agree. How do we do this? And when?”
Esvar rose. “We’re both gone and Goran’s dead. Karolje will do something public to reestablish his power. That’s when we should move.”
“He won’t do it in the city. Or perhaps he will, send out as many soldiers as he can. If he does that, that’s the time to take the Citadel. But I think he’ll be wary of an attack from one or both of us.”
“Do you have loyal men in the Citadel?”
“Some. Enough to get us in without a battle. After that, it will turn bloody,” Tevin said.
“The resistance has people
in the Citadel too.”
“Enough to hold off the Guard? I don’t think so. It would be slaughter.”
“I could go back,” Esvar said. “Give myself up. He would want to make a show of that.”
“No! I need you with me. This has to be about both of us.”
There he was, that was the brother Esvar loved, the son Mirantha had raised. Anza relaxed. It was going to work.
She must have made a sound, because both men looked at her. She thought they had forgotten about her for a while. Esvar said, “Can you go back to Sparrow and tell her Tevin has emerged?”
“She probably has a spy among the priests who will tell her. But I will. I won’t see her until tonight, though.”
“By tonight we might know what the king intends to do. Her plans and ours need to not clash.”
“I think you can trust Sparrow to know how to take advantage of any show the king puts on.” She hoped Esvar heard the second meaning to that, the reminder of what knowledge Mirantha had. She knew Karolje better than any of them.
“So be it,” said Esvar. He plopped onto the bed. “It’s time for specifics.”
* * *
Anza left in midafternoon, her head full of plans and possibilities. The room had become very close with three of them in it for so long, and she was glad to be in more open space. There was hammering somewhere. It got louder as she approached the Temple entrance.
Shielding her eyes from the day’s brightness, she left the building and walked down the steps. Esvar’s guards and the horses were gone. She hoped they were somewhere safe on the Temple grounds with Marek.
She stopped. In the square, several dozen soldiers were building something. Piles of planks and beams were laid to one side. The soldiers hammered boards into place. A platform. A gallows.
WE CAN’T BURN it,” Sparrow said. “He’s got far too many soldiers on guard, and it’s fresh wood. It won’t catch without oil. Even if you shot a few flaming arrows at it, the guards could stomp those fires out before they spread. The solution is going to be to do something at the executions themselves.” The announcement had been made that they would take place at noon the next day. When Anza walked back from the Temple, she had seen the uniformed men distributing the notices. The victims were not named.
“Something that won’t be blamed on the Tazekhs,” Anza said.
“Yes. Although we’re getting to the point where that won’t matter much. Karolje will be dead or we will. But you are right that we need to be seen and credited. This will be the first strike.”
It was night. They sat in the front room of the house Anza was staying in. The furniture was old and worn but of good quality, and the rugs must have been expensive when they were purchased, probably years ago. A single window opened to a narrow street and an elm tree, its limbs sturdy. As a child Anza would have scrambled up it in an instant. She found it comforting now, protective, softening the darkness.
After hearing that Esvar was in the Temple—Tevin had gone to wherever he was hiding—Sparrow had said she would stay with Anza. It was a risk, as everything was, but they needed to be near each other. Anza was to meet Esvar in an hour in another small house not far away.
She picked up her bow from the floor beside her chair and plucked the string. “Can we shoot the guards? There’s no chance of getting onto a balcony, not after last time, but maybe a rooftop?” She tried to remember if there were any flat-topped buildings on the square.
“You’d get caught. They’ll surround and enter the building in no time. And they can hang everyone anyway. All they have to do is shield themselves with the prisoners. What is needed is a way to rescue the prisoners. But we don’t have enough skilled fighters to get through that many guards.” Her fingers tapped on the arm of her chair.
“Tevin might.”
“He’ll need them in the Citadel.”
A moth fluttered in the open window and circled above the lamp. A distant cat yowled. Sparrow’s face, half in shadow, was thoughtful. What had it been like for her to sit at the same table as her son and oppose him? To test him for trustworthiness? To keep her secret? Anza wished Esvar had not told her, although she understood why he had. It was too great a revelation to bear by himself.
“That night I met you in the Anchor,” Anza said, “you said that Karolje’s sons would be resistance targets unless they actively defied him. If we win, will you support Tevin as king? Esvar promised things without knowing his brother was alive.”
“If we win, Tevin can hold the crown provided he accepts appropriate restraints. If he doesn’t, then we will push him out too. We have to.”
You could do that to him? Anza thought. But Sparrow must have considered the question over and over. Karolje’s replacement had to be different from Karolje. Not just in policies and tactics, but in how he—or she—saw the people. Tevin could lead, but he had to yield sovereignty.
She forced her mind back to the problem at hand. After Ruslan was killed, Karolje had hanged people, but not all at once, like this. There had been one each hour in a different part of the city until all twelve were dead. The horror and fear of it drove home his message. But this, these hangings were not aimed at the resistance. They were like the pyre, intended as a spectacle for the entire city.
“The resistance hasn’t done anything to bring down executions as a warning,” Anza said. “Not like the last times. What is he doing?”
“He won’t have told the truth about why he executed the chancellor. He’ll say it was for treason, and he’ll accuse other people he wants to be rid of, people whose deaths matter to the princes. He’s setting up a trap that benefits him even if it’s not sprung.”
“Esvar hasn’t let himself get close to anyone in the Citadel.”
“Nonetheless, there are people he won’t want to see hurt. Some of the younger lords. The servants. Children. The blameless, whom Karolje will blame.”
You speak of your sons, Anza thought. It must be agonizing to fear for them in silence. To hope in silence. She wished she could find a way to let Sparrow know that Mirantha was loved, missed, honored.
“If he has filled the square with soldiers, who will defend the Citadel against Tevin?”
“That,” Sparrow said, “is a very good question. Don’t think he hasn’t thought of it. So it must be considered that the executions themselves are a feint, a distraction for us. The princes won’t take the bait, but if they move on the Citadel, they’ll get pincered by something else. The best thing to do would be to attack now, tonight. But we aren’t ready. Not quite. We only get one chance. We can’t waste it.” She sighed. “He knows how to win a war. And he trained his sons. They will think like him, and so he can predict what they will do. We need something that will distract him in turn. Surprise him.”
“A lightning bolt,” said Anza, frustrated. She got up and went to the window, leaned out into the night, exposing herself to any spy. She heard the cat again. In other parts of the city parents eased their children to sleep, lovers caressed each other, beggars foraged in garbage piles. Near an empty house on the street where Ruslan had died, a girl extended her palm to receive a coin. In the dark water of the lake, the fish swam, regardless of the starlight that dusted the surface. The world spread outward from this place, out and out and out, life innumerable, ignorant of what happened between the two women.
“I have been thinking of surrendering myself,” said Sparrow.
“You can’t,” Anza said, whirling. “That would—”
“Would what?”
Kill Esvar, she had been going to say, but she had to keep the secret. “Be a waste. My father didn’t spare your life for you to throw it back at Karolje a few months later.”
“Would it? He would gloat. Summon everyone to see his prize. And in the meantime Tevin could invade. I might even get close enough to Karolje to try to kill him. If I was lucky, Tevin would break in in time to save my life. If I wasn’t, I would still be sufficient distraction.”
“No,” said Anz
a. “We need you.”
“If the resistance fails in this, it will be shattered. It will need new leaders. If it succeeds, it will dissolve. Did Tevin tell you how many soldiers he had?”
“A dozen with him, I think, and another thirty or so in the city. Some in the Citadel itself. He’s counting on the men in the Citadel to get him through the gates and into the building.”
“If I came in with them, if Tevin claimed to be delivering me…”
“The king would see through it,” Anza said firmly. “We need to keep thinking about the city. The gallows.”
Sparrow’s fingers drummed again. “If we incite a mob, innocent people will die. It’s no use freeing the prisoners if fifty other people die instead.” She thought a moment, then said soberly, “We might have to stay with the original plan and let the executions go ahead. Our aims are to get control of the docks, the banks, and the watchhouses. If we do that, we’re in a position of strength even if the princes fail. Freeing the prisoners is a distraction.”
“That’s not acceptable,” said Anza.
“None of this is acceptable!” Sparrow snapped. It was the first time Anza had seen the strain break through Sparrow’s composure.
Neither spoke for a moment. Then, in a much calmer voice, Sparrow said, “He’ll have to bring the prisoners in. We’ll set an ambush close to the square. The ambush will draw off soldiers from the square, and as soon as people see that the soldiers are distracted, they can leave. There’s still a risk Karolje’s men will start grabbing them to hang instead, but I think the ambush will be enough of a commotion to prevent that. In the meantime the princes enter the Citadel. Perhaps Tevin proclaims himself earlier. That will be up to him. He can make his own plans for how to do his part.”
Anza remembered the soldiers in the square after the commander was shot, the way they had immediately turned on the people around them. That could happen again. Perhaps Sparrow was right. If ordinary people died in the square instead of Karolje’s selected victims, the resistance would be blamed. Hell. Did Karolje have them trapped? What would her father have done?
The Vanished Queen Page 37
