I nodded. My father had not allowed for the fact that people were more nervous than ever when I was near, since they knew my power was draining their lifeblood away, but I had to try. I just wished there was something I could do about the situation with Larkhaven.
Then an idea came to me. “What if I invite merchants to the palace to comment on the Great Southern Road and the situation with Larkhaven? I won’t mention what we know, but if they’ve heard anything from their traders, or if they think the project is likely to cause problems, we might get a better idea of what’s happening.”
“That could work,” my father said, smoothing his short beard. “I will put together a list of prominent merchants before I leave.”
“What are your plans, then?” Mother asked. “How soon will you depart?”
“I must clear my personal belongings from this study, so Kalleah can move in, and then I intend to ride for Larkhaven in two days’ time.”
* * *
That evening, while she helped unpin my hair from its complicated knot, I asked Baridya, “What do you know about Tabansville?”
“What do you mean?”
“Quendon managed to capture five of the aggressors from the countryside, and they said the Truthbringers claim they’re from Tabansville.”
“Oh! I always thought they looked Whitish.”
I turned and stared at her; as my hair slid from her hand, pins cascaded to the floor. “No. You really think Whitish men would come to Itrea to spread their beliefs, when their high king doesn’t even acknowledge our existence?”
Baridya shrugged. “Pale skin and light-colored hair are typical Whitish traits. But we have plenty of people who look like that here as well. And the Whitish never seemed to know much about Itrea, whereas the Truthbringers are well-informed.”
“They’ve also been here for years, from the sounds of it. They’ve had time to learn.” If the Truthbringers were Whitish, that changed everything. Whitland was our greatest enemy, the country our ancestors had fled from. The Whitish people hated magic in all forms. “What do you think? Are they Whitish, or are they from Tabansville?”
Baridya knelt to collect the pins from the floor, her eyes distant. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of Whitland sending missionaries to convert foreigners to their religion—they usually take what they want by force. Their military is the strongest in the world. And Tabansville is named after one of the Nine, Tabanus, so its settlers might have been Whitish. There could even be a monastery up there, or whatever they call it.”
I had a feeling she was trying to convince us both that the Truthbringers were from Tabansville. Because if they were Whitish, their aims would likely extend far beyond causing minor unrest in Baylore. They could be aiming for total economic collapse. After all, it was far easier to defeat a country that was already falling apart from within.
Baridya finished unpinning my hair and began brushing it out with gentle strokes. I turned back to face the dressing table mirror, watching her reflection, her tongue between her teeth.
“If the Truthbringers are from Whitland, do you think they’ve come on their own, or has the high king sent them?” I asked eventually.
“I hope they’ve come on their own. If not…”
I took the brush from Baridya. “My father is heading to Larkhaven in two days. He can make enquiries while he’s there. Where is Deance, by the way?”
“At another Truthbringers’ meeting, I think. It’s the first one since you made half the things they’re doing illegal, so she wants to see how they react.”
“I do hope she’s careful.”
“So do I.”
* * *
Late that night, I lay in bed wide awake, my thoughts churning over Baridya’s suspicions and Leoth’s possible betrayal. Worry for Deance tugged at me as well; I hoped she was safe. I had spent too much time around people today, and the energy I had drained from them had no outlet. This palace was too small, too cramped—I needed space to run outside.
Eventually I gave up on sleep. Pulling a long coat over my shift and stepping into my boots, I slipped out of my royal suite. As usual, five guards stood watch outside, and they moved aside hastily when they saw me. Ornan alone stood watch over the Cheltish wing entrance, and he smiled and nodded when he saw me.
“Not planning to murder someone, are you?” one of the guards joked nervously. I didn’t recognize him.
“You can come with me. I just want to visit the rooftop. The stars are especially bright tonight.”
Three of my guards fell in behind me as I started down the hall. They made no effort to walk quietly—I feared the clomping of their boots would rouse half the wing. This was ridiculous. Necessary, but ridiculous.
At the door to the exposed stairway, I paused. “You can stay here.”
“But Your Majesty—”
“One of you can check to make sure the roof is safe first. There’s no way off besides jumping, and as you can see, I don’t have a flying cloak.” I spread my arms wide, the front of the coat opening to show my shift.
The youngest of the guards flushed. “I’ll just run up and have a look around,” he muttered.
“You’re not thinking of jumping off without a cloak, are you?” another guard asked.
“Of course not. If I wanted to kill myself, I have a perfectly good balcony in my royal suite.”
She reddened as well.
The young guard stumped back into the hallway. “No one out there, Your Majesty. It’s safe.”
“Good. Then you three can stay right here until I return.”
“Shout for help if you need us, Your Majesty.”
“Of course.” I refrained from sighing.
Outside, the wind swept beneath the stone archways on the exposed stairway. My guess about the stars had been wrong—the moon was nearly full, so bright I didn’t need a lamp. When I reached the rooftop, I quickened my pace until I was nearly running. The wind tossed my unbound hair around me, spurring me on. In the moonlight, I could make out the fields and Elygian River beyond Baylore, the endless plains leading toward the Icebraid Peaks and the Wandering Woods. How I wished I could leap from the rooftop and clear the city walls, set off running into the empty plains until nothing else mattered but the rhythm of my feet and the pulse of adrenaline in my veins. I was not suited for life in Baylore Palace. Even if I were surrounded by allies, the walls of this prison would still stifle me.
Soon I broke into a run, circling the rooftop courtyard, my coat flapping open. Twelve steps down one side, eight across, and twelve back down the opposite side. As I ran, my thoughts fell into order.
Twelve strides down one wall.
Those anonymous notes the Truthbringers had distributed around the palace before my election—they had threatened war. Did the Truthbringers have the support of the Whitish king? Did they really have the power to bring an army to our shores?
Eight strides down the end.
Did Leoth know this? Was his family somehow connected to the Whitish high king? If they were willingly aiding our greatest enemy, that amounted to treason. Which was punishable by death. But even now, I was not willing to kill Leoth. Some traitorous part of me still cared for him. Olleack, though…he was a spider, manipulating the whole royal court with his snide smile and his greasy ways.
Twelve strides down the opposite side.
Maybe the Truthbringers weren’t Whitish. Maybe I was overreacting. Why would Whitland send missionaries to a country they didn’t even acknowledge? Unless converting us was not their end goal. What more did they want?
Eight strides back.
If the Truthbringers were Whitish, our people would turn against them immediately. Would they not? Whitland was our sworn enemy, the antithesis of everything Itrea stood for.
Twelve strides down the first wall.
But it wasn’t the Truthbringers who were starting to discriminate against the magic races, to brutalize the forbidden races outside the city walls and to turn against their ne
ighbors within Baylore. It was my citizens. They had taken the Truthbringers’ words and internalized them. If they learned the Truthbringers were Whitish, my people might beg the high king to seize our capital and enforce his laws. Anything to rid their land of the magic races they were beginning to fear.
I slowed and came to a stop near the top of the stairs.
I had to find out who the Truthbringers really were. If they were Whitish, and they were here under orders from the high king, we could have a war on our hands before long.
9
Mellicante Almershain
T wo days later, my father left without ceremony. He had spoken to Olleack before he went, but it seemed his stepbrother knew nothing of the situation in Larkhaven. Perhaps Leoth had orchestrated the whole scheme behind his father’s back.
My father promised to ask around Larkhaven, to see if anyone knew whether the Truthbringers were from Tabansville or Whitland, but he doubted they were Whitish.
“When they arrived, they were already well informed of customs and politics in Baylore. Unless someone from Itrea instructed them, I don’t see how they would have learned enough to pass as Itreans. We neither trade nor correspond with Whitland, so they would have had nothing to go off.”
As soon as he left, I began moving stacks of documents and writing supplies from my private office into the king’s study—no, the queen’s study. I would still use the private office when I worked alone, but if I wanted to receive visitors or advisors, the queen’s study would prove much more suitable.
Many of the shelves lining the walls now stood empty, and a smell of dust lingered in the air. I had assumed most of the room’s contents were property of the current monarch, but it seemed I was mistaken. Well, my father had used that office for the past thirty years now. It was not surprising he had used it for more than just official business.
The desk itself was cleaner than I had ever seen it, and far too large without its usual mounds of clutter. A blown-glass cup still nestled in an indent near the back, but most of the pens it had once held were gone, the used wax replaced with a new stick. And beside it sat a stamp that looked as though it had never been used. I picked it up and turned it over to see an inverted KR, embellished with an ornate border. My official seal. The polished wood was smooth in my hand, and I felt a sudden urge to stamp my seal on something. Then I laughed softly.
Deance let herself into my study while I was still rearranging the bookshelves, trying to familiarize myself with the reference books my father had left behind. The shelves were still far too empty—perhaps I should raid a few volumes from the library to fill them for now.
“Your mother said I would find you here.” For some reason, Deance sounded nervous. She had been missing since two nights ago, and I had begun to worry she had fled my service. Or worse, that the Truthbringers had taken her captive.
“Deance! I wondered where you were.”
She gave me a tight smile. “Sorry to worry you. I tried to follow the Master when he left, but he had guards trailing him, and they caught me. I had to make up an elaborate story about how I had information on you that I wanted to share in private. The Master got a bit suspicious, so he came back to the palace with me to speak with my father, who of course was happy to corroborate my story.”
“The Master has been here? In the palace?”
Deance nodded grimly. “Anyway, my father then wanted to introduce me to a few people, so I had to stay the night in the Dellgrain wing and spend the whole next day pretending I was delighted to meet the most despicable sorts of people. Dennoric hates me, of course—he doesn’t like sharing his father’s attention, least of all with a bastard. I only just managed to escape.”
“What information did you tell the Master?” I asked. “Nothing dangerous?”
“I hope not.” Deance grimaced. “I told him you secretly wanted to give the forbidden races free rein in Baylore. I said you treated them like ordinary citizens, and you weren’t willing to throw them out of the city, so it was only a matter of time before you pushed for a law to grant them full rights.”
“You didn’t mention Ornan, did you?”
“Of course not. But they were very interested to hear you were sympathetic to the other forbidden races. It confirmed something they’d already suspected.”
“Did you tell them anything else?”
“Not exactly. They were very interested to know who you considered your closest friends, so I told them you trusted me completely. Cal and Baridya too. I didn’t think that would cause too much harm.”
I nodded slowly. It was a dangerous game, feeding the Truthbringers just enough information to make them feel as though they had the upper hand without revealing anything crucial. “You’ve done well. Next time, we’ll come up with information you can feed them in advance, so you don’t get caught out.”
Deance nodded.
“But Deance, do you realize how valuable this could be? Those connections of your father’s—they might be funding the Truthbringers. They likely have considerable influence.”
“I had thought of that,” Deance said grudgingly.
“If we could only figure out how to manipulate them, maybe we could use them to get the Truthbringers under control.”
“Maybe. I’ll see what else I can find out. My father invited me to join the Dellgrain family for a weekly feast, so perhaps I should accept.”
“That would be good. As long as you won’t be endangering yourself.”
“No.”
“And what about the meeting? Did they change the way they spoke about the magic races?”
“They did.” Deance’s lip curled. “They said all the same things, but they made it metaphorical so no one could accuse them of breaking the new law. They described the magic races as worms eating away the inside of an apple, and talked about denying the worms food, keeping them out of their shops and schools, and keeping track of their movements so they didn’t breed out of hand and start gnawing through doors and walls. The audience loved it.”
“Lovely.”
“I know.”
It certainly was an effective metaphor. I could just imagine the army of worms wriggling through the city, ransacking every food supply and burrowing through doors. Before, the Truthbringers had called us demons, but that was a term borrowed from Whitish religion. It sounded evil and threatening, but we didn’t know the full context of what the Truthbringers meant by it. Worms, though—everyone could understand that.
Would every law I passed backfire on me this way?
* * *
The next day, I sent out a quiet summons to the city’s most influential merchants. Magical goods were our largest export, so I hoped the merchants would be willing to listen to me. They stood to lose a great deal if the Truthbringers took control of Baylore.
I also sent around invitations for my first small gathering within the palace. I hoped to replicate the atmosphere of the Midwinter tea, where everyone had spoken civilly with me for the first and possibly the last time, so I arranged it in a spacious though cozy sitting-room in the historic wing.
The very first gathering would comprise mainly my supporters. I wanted to see how many continued to stand with me.
In the handful of days before the merchants reported to the palace, I failed to enact two more laws. No word had come back from the investigation into the recent murder, though Olleack was always ready with a snide comment about it when I encountered him in passing.
As Baridya and Deance helped me dress on the morning I would speak with the city’s most prominent merchants, I found myself surprisingly nervous, my hands sweating. I had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t sure what worried me more—the thought that these merchants would be like any other townspeople, eager to throw rotten fruit and eggs at me, or the possibility that they were willing to listen to me if I approached them in the exact right way.
Mother offered to accompany me, but I declined. I didn’t want to spend the time worrying what she thought of m
y decisions.
“Necklace?” Baridya asked, holding up a gold chain strung with a heavy, jewel-encrusted pendant.
“No.” I did not want to come across as greedy.
“Earrings?”
“Just those small ones.” I pointed to a pair of emerald teardrops. Deance was still lacing the stays of my emerald-green gown while I stood like a doll before my dressing table.
“And your crown?”
“The ceremonial one, please.”
Baridya nestled the crown atop the elegant cluster of braids she had just finished securing. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” she said, holding a pin in her teeth as she fixed an escaping strand of hair. “Merchants are sensible. At least, all the ones I’ve met. They don’t care who sits the throne as long as you aren’t threatening their trade.”
“Which I am doing if Larkhaven has used the Great Southern Road as an excuse to break away from Itrea.”
Baridya shrugged. “They don’t know that yet, do they?”
“Baridya is right,” Deance said. “Just present the facts as we’ve discussed, ask for their take on the matter, and see what comes of it.”
This time, twenty guards accompanied me as I left the Cheltish wing, my slippered feet silent on the stairs. Quendon was among them, and Ornan—it was reassuring to have two firm allies by my side.
Though it was sunny outside, hardly any of the sun's light reached the historic wing, which was chilly despite the enchanted tapestries radiating heat. The sweat on my palms turned cold, and I wiped them discreetly on my skirt before we reached the audience chamber.
When my guards opened the door, twenty heads turned to look at me. The merchants were already seated in chairs ringing the room, while a throne waited for me at the front. Silence hung in the air.
“Thank you for joining me today.” My voice echoed through the chamber as I strode to my throne. Four guards flanked me, while the rest stood watch outside the door.
I settled onto my throne, stiff-backed, every eye following me. At least they had answered my summons. I had feared none would come.
Innocent Queen: A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 2) Page 9
