The Vanished Queen

by Lisbeth Campbell

  His brother said his name. “Yes?”

  “I need to know one thing from you before we go in.”

  It made him nervous. Which of his secrets had Tevin glimpsed? He had said nothing about the journal, about their mother. “Go ahead.”

  “Who can he use to hurt you?”

  No one, he wanted to say. But the question was not a challenge. It was Tevin needing to know his limits. So he gave it honest thought.

  Anza and Sparrow would not be there. Marek was a good companion, but he was also a soldier. If he died, it was a loss but not an injustice. “You, of course,” he said. “And I couldn’t kill a child, or let him do it. There’s a point where victory isn’t worth the cost.”

  “You have to be willing to let me die.”

  “Not for nothing.”

  “Even for nothing. Otherwise he has a hold on you. Don’t let him get the leverage.” Tevin wiped his face. “I intend to win, but you’re right, there are limits to what I will do, which gives him the advantage. If it’s die or follow him in evil, I die. Let me go.”

  “I will,” Esvar said, though death at Karolje’s hand was not the death he feared for Tevin. It was the spear through the heart before they even reached the king, the slow torture with no goal but pain, the hellhound’s bite to demonstrate power. Death without any chance of victory.

  “If we win,” Tevin said, “if he dies, what will you do?”

  The question was too large, too vague, too unthinkable, for him to answer. He ran his fingers through the short bristling crop of his horse’s mane. Last night’s lovemaking with Anza had been a surprise, fragile and lovely; he did not expect it again. Today would change too much, even if they both lived. But that was what he wanted. If he could have anything, it would be her beside him.

  “Live,” he said, which encompassed all possibility.

  A starling curved out of a tree and landed, tapped at the street. Esvar considered, not for the first time, if he should tell his brother about Sparrow, and decided again not to. Part of him wished he had not realized it himself. The knowledge was a distraction, like an aching tooth or a sprained ankle, a pain that could swell to immobilize everything.

  Out of sight on the main road, horses thundered past, not more than fifteen or twenty by the sound. Esvar had hoped for his own sake that the Citadel would be nearly emptied of guards, but at the same time he was glad it was so few. If the king had sent a hundred soldiers, there would be no chance for anyone in the square to escape. Tevin whistled, gathering the men, and heard the lookout’s report. Sixteen, the man said, which still left a formidable force at the Citadel.

  “They can’t all be guarding the king,” Esvar said.

  “No. But as soon as he heard that we weren’t involved in the ambush at the square, he’ll have concluded we are coming to the Citadel. He’ll want to make a show of it, to remind people he still is king. He’ll collect the courtiers and servants. We aren’t going to find him on his sickbed.”

  “The Green Court,” Esvar said, certain. Karolje thrived on fear.

  “Yes. Possibly the throne room, but we’ll try the court first.” Tevin lifted the reins, then looked at Esvar. He said wryly, “I never thought I would have help from the resistance. I should have. When Nihalik was exiled, he left me a letter telling me I could not defeat Karolje by myself. He reminded me of my duty to my people. You have known or remembered those two things better than I have. Thank you.”

  Esvar reached across the space between the horses. They gripped hands briefly. It was an affirmation. He hoped it was not also a farewell.

  They trotted the horses the last quarter mile. At the gates, the two Citadel guards stepped aside as they would for any contingent of returning soldiers. Then one of them exclaimed. He darted into the gatehouse to pull the alarm bell. One of Tevin’s men dismounted and pursued him. The bell rang once, short and broken off. Metal clashed inside the gatehouse.

  Tevin’s soldier reappeared, blood running down his sword. The other guard dropped his sword.

  “Wise man,” Tevin said. He dismounted and strode to the guard. “You can surrender, or you can join me. Which will it be?”

  Esvar imagined the calculations running through the man’s head. If he surrendered and Tevin lost, Karolje might allow him to live. If he joined and lost, he would be killed. If Tevin won, surrender would leave him ashamed and disfavored; joining would make him one of the early heroes.

  “I surrender,” said the man. Esvar pressed his lips together with disappointment. Whether it was out of cowardice, loyalty to Karolje, or a practical assessment of the situation made no difference. The man was putting his money on the king. If all of them did that, the prediction would fulfill itself.

  “The rest of you, dismount,” Tevin said. “We go on foot from here. Take him to the stables with the horses, Vanescz, and tie him up, then find me. You, Mirvik, go with him. If a fight starts and you’re outnumbered, forget about stabling the horses.”

  By now the guards at the entrances should have deduced that something was wrong and would be readying for battle. A message would be going to the king.

  Esvar swung down and gave the reins to one of the soldiers. He said in a low voice to Tevin, “Are you going to make that offer to every soldier we meet?”

  “If I can. If they all choose surrender, I’ll have to just disarm them and leave them. We can’t waste men guarding them. My hope is that they’ll see which way the wind is blowing. Come on.” He raised his voice and gave a few brisk commands.

  The ordinary Citadel entrance was thirty yards from the gates across a flat expanse of cobbled ground. The doors were closed, a pair of guards standing in front with drawn swords. Esvar drew his own.

  Tevin’s hand came down on Esvar’s shoulder. “Those two guards are mine, but there will be fighting after that. Say whatever prayers you need to say.”

  They walked to the entrance. The soldiers fanned out around them in two rows. Two of the men had short bows out and arrows at the ready. Tevin led them up the steps to the large wooden doors. One guard saluted. The other pushed the right-hand door open and went inside to hold it. Passing through, Esvar looked at the guard: an older man, experienced, his face lit with satisfaction. He had probably served under Piyr.

  The windowless entrance hall, high-ceilinged, was eighteen feet wide and forty feet long. Three doors, each with a guard in front, opened off each side; at the far end, white marble steps swept upward in twinned curving flights to a landing with a rail. The hall was lined with statues and urns. The gaslights reflected on the marble floor and walls and cast dim shadows of the statuary. Usually there were people crossing the hall, their bodies livening the space. Now it was quiet and cold, funereal.

  One of Karolje’s men in the hall shouted, then drew his sword. Four of the other soldiers joined him and approached the intruders in formation, their feet striking uniformly on the floor. The sixth broke for the steps. He was much too far away to chase. One of Tevin’s archers fired. Over the yelling and the footsteps Esvar could not hear the shot, but he saw the arrow strike the guard’s thigh. The man dropped.

  The odds were better than four to one in Tevin’s favor, and as soon as Karolje’s men engaged with Tevin’s, the fight broke into clumps. The crash of so many blades against each other echoed deafeningly around the room. Surrender, you fools, Esvar thought. It did Karolje’s men no good to fight when they were substantially outnumbered.

  Marek and one of Tevin’s men engaged a soldier who was huge, six inches taller than Esvar and broad. He had a long reach and surprising quickness. He was on the defensive, parrying and blocking effectively without getting any blows in of his own. Esvar watched long enough to get the rhythm of the movements, then lunged in from the side and struck the man’s calf. Not a fatal blow, not even a crippling one, but a distraction.

  Or so it should have been. The soldier’s only reaction was to turn his head for an instant and make eye contact. Esvar fell back, stunned at the contempt in the man
’s eye.

  He had been thinking of the Citadel guards as Karolje’s pawns, obedient, willing to turn on the princes at the king’s orders, too afraid of the king to disobey even with the odds overwhelmingly against them. But this was personal. The man hated him. For lack of cruelty, for pride, for weakness, who knew. The guard had thrived on Karolje’s poisonous words and would never in a hundred years give his loyalty to Tevin. He was the sort of man who had killed Mirantha’s maids.

  He also had a habit of raising his left shoulder when he swung his blade from right to left. The next time he did it, Esvar drove forward with his dagger and stabbed at the exposed armpit. His blade was too wide to penetrate far into the rings, but the sheer unexpectedness of it threw the man off balance, and he missed a parry. Marek slid his sword through the opening and up to the guard’s throat.

  Marek looked as Esvar, who nodded once. A deft movement, and blood sprayed outward, bright and red. More blood spilled out of the man’s mouth. He fell, his legs jerking.

  Of the remaining king’s men, two were down, one was on his knees with his hands held open in surrender, and one was under attack by four men. Blood was splashed across the floor and the base of one statue.

  The last man went down. Tevin walked to the kneeling man and looked down at him. “Do we tie you up or will you support me?”

  “I’ll fight for you, m’lord.”

  “On your oath?”

  “Before the gods.”

  “Get up, then.” He made a hand sign to one of the other soldiers. Watch him.

  The wounded soldier on the steps had pulled himself up and out of sight. Two men went after him. Tevin waited until one of those men appeared at the railing and waved to lead the rest of them to the steps. Without discussion, Esvar separated from him. They should not be too close to each other now.

  Then Tevin’s man on the landing fell, and arrows started flying at them.

  Esvar flung his free arm up to protect his face and dashed to the side, where he sheltered behind a large statue of Kazdjan wrestling with a wolf. Tevin’s two bowmen fired back, but the archers on the landing had the advantages of height and cover. Arrows whined in the air, and the arrowheads that missed clinked against the marble.

  One of Tevin’s remaining soldiers went down, an arrow through the throat. Esvar looked at the landing, and as soon as he saw the next arrows launch, he raced forward. An arrow bounced off a statue as he crouched behind it. Another one of Tevin’s men fell, his mail ringing on the floor. Esvar vividly remembered the night of the raid, Anza’s arrows striking his back. The fire casting shadows on the street. He wished she were with him. He was caught for a moment, held by memory and loss.

  The nearest gaslight was five feet away. He timed his run again and shut the valve, dived behind a large black urn patterned with cherry blossoms. Across the hall, someone followed his example. The room became much darker. Other men did the same, and in a very short time the arrows were falling blindly and soldiers were clustered near the bottom of each staircase. Tevin’s archers had forsaken their bows and rejoined the others. Only two of the lights by the side doors still shone.

  Charging up the steps would be the most dangerous thing they had done so far. They had no idea how many bowmen were at the top—at least three. At such short range an arrow might have force to break the rings in the chain mail. They had no choice.

  The two groups positioned themselves and, at a nod from Tevin, ran upward. Esvar was packed in the middle. One of the men in front of him fell, and he stumbled over the body. It saved his life; an arrow whirred where his head had been. As he righted himself, he heard the first clang of metal.

  The fight on the landing was short and fierce. In the tight space, Karolje’s soldiers, four of them, were surrounded. With no room to swing a blade, it was knife work, and the numbers told. Esvar did not even bloody his dagger.

  Breathing hard, they paused to take stock. Tevin had lost four men in all, two fatally and two with wounds too serious to continue. All of the king’s guards who had opposed them were dead.

  Tevin said, “They’ll have heard us by now. We need to go straight to the court. If he’s not there, it’s mine.”

  Esvar said, “I’ll bring up the rear.” It was the more vulnerable position; anyone running to the commotion would come from that direction.

  “All right. But don’t fall behind. I need you.” Tevin’s face was exultant. He had been waiting for this. For years.

  They had another level to go up, and several turns to make before they reached the Green Court. It required passing through three more guard posts, and there would be more guards at the entrance to the court if Karolje was there. The riskiest part would be the crossing of a large atrium where several passages converged.

  Esvar said, “Can we expect any more of your men to help?”

  “There are others on duty, but gods know where. There might be skirmishes all over the Citadel that we never even see. We can’t rely on them. But you and I are both worth more captured than dead, and there will be some more men who change sides. It’s by no means hopeless.”

  The guards at the base of the steps to the next level surrendered immediately. Tevin left two men to gag and tie them, and they went on. They were only a few feet along the passage at the top when a bell rang. The sound was muffled, but Esvar knew what it was: the bell atop the Citadel itself, tolling the alarm. It would bring every soldier on the grounds.

  Tevin started running.

  They came to the atrium. Esvar slowed just in time to avoid crashing into the men in front of him. Two dozen of Karolje’s soldiers waited for them, led by the king’s senior captain. Next to him was Doru. Dust showed in the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  In the silence while the two groups stared at each other, the bell rang again. When its sound faded, Doru said, “Welcome back, my lords. You don’t think this plan went undetected, do you? The king is waiting. Will you come peacefully?” Though he had no weapon drawn, the menace of him was unmistakable. The captain edged away.

  You’re unprotected, Esvar thought viciously. It took all the discipline he had not to break ranks and rush at the spymaster. He wanted to cut the man to pieces for Jance’s murder.

  “If you knew, you could have saved the lives of the men we’ve killed on our way here,” said Tevin. His gaze swept the assembled soldiers. “You men are sworn to protect the king, but he will throw away your lives for his own fun. You’re worth more than that.”

  “Save the lives of your own men and surrender,” said the spymaster.

  Esvar estimated the distance and concluded he could not reach Doru without the captain or other soldiers engaging him first. He raised his sword anyway.

  “Not yet,” Tevin said to him.

  Doru said, “We have your lover, Esvar.”

  “You don’t,” Esvar said. He felt speared from groin to throat.

  “She’s been my spy for months. She came to me at dawn and told me everything you plan.”

  That was a wrong step. Esvar laughed. He said, “The problem with lying all the time, Doru, is that you lose all measure of the truth. I still know what it looks like. You will never convince me of anything.”

  “Keep your words for the lord of death,” said Doru. He signaled to the captain.

  The groups met in the center of the room, stone under their feet. There was no chance for thinking, for observing, for watching the movements of the opponents. It was a straight battle, blades crashing without respite. Esvar’s body reacted as it had been trained to.

  He fought two men. Arms and armor and skill were more or less equal among the three, and Esvar was in the position of the man he had killed earlier, able to defend without much else. He had a slightly longer reach. He kept his feet moving, slid his sword against one blade and curved it back to fend off the other. Jabbing at knees and slashing at wrists, he drew blood, and the floor around them was soon flecked with red.

  The edge of a blade stung him on the forearm. Th
ey were at close quarters, no room for backing away without running into another fight. His eyes burned from sweat. He could see the pores on the face of one of the men he fought. Somewhere a man screamed in pain, but Esvar barely heard it. He realized, more slowly than he should have, that his opponents were not trying to kill him. He was to be captured, brought to Karolje and thrown onto the floor. He pressed harder.

  His sword arm was grabbed brutally from behind. He drew his knife with his other hand and stabbed backward, to no avail. He kicked, making contact with the shin of the man behind him. It was not enough to break the man’s grip. He was losing feeling in his arm while pain shot down his back from his shoulder. And now something sharp pricked his neck.

  He stopped moving. His sword and knife were taken from him, and then the grip on his arm loosened. His arm and hand tingled painfully as blood returned to them.

  The fight was over. He had been taken, and Tevin had been taken, and so had three of the men who came with him. The others were dead or injured. Marek lay nearby, eyes open and empty. The older man who had been on duty at the entrance had a knife stroke through his throat that nearly severed his spine. That had been punishment, not an ordinary battle death.

  Their armor was stripped from them. The captain grinned as he bound Esvar’s hands behind his back with fire-twine, then spat on him. You shouldn’t have done that, Esvar thought. He kept his mouth shut.

  Surrounded by soldiers, he and Tevin were separated from Tevin’s men and taken through the corridors. Soon Esvar knew they were going to the Green Court. He could not prevent dread growing in him as they approached the doors. The courtiers would not have the strength or the will to oppose Karolje. His death waited for him inside. They had tried, but it had not been enough.

  The doors opened, giving a clear view down the aisle of the king seated on the dais chair. Doru stood beside him, leaning slightly on the chair arm, and there were two soldiers on either side. The room was crowded, all courtiers and officials in their finest clothing. It needed only musicians to be a dance floor. Karolje’s eyes locked on them. He lifted in the chair, then dropped back. His right hand waved someone away. The people nearest the door turned to look, their faces blank with fear. A woman brought her hand to her mouth to cover a gasp.