“How did you get this?”
“Allow me to answer that, Your Highness.” Starey Belft crept out of the corner, darkness hiding half of his scarred face. Dinah recognized him by his face, which she’d seen at various palace events, but also by his commander’s brooch—it was black like all the Spades’ insignias, but a single white diamond sparkled from the middle, denoting a higher rank. Half of his face had been badly slashed during a battle with the Yurkei, but the other half remained ruggedly handsome. He looked tired and worn, with deep plum circles underneath his eyes. Starey Belft was famous for his fierce loyalty to his troops and his love for loose women. He gave Dinah a wink with his good eye.
“You look well, Princess. You’ve lost your round baby cheeks.”
“And you, sir.”
“Eh, I look like I got slashed in the face with a knife.”
There was a painful silence in the tent until Bah-kan burst out laughing. “AYE! You did!” Starey glowered at him.
Dinah motioned for him to sit. Each member of the council took his seat around the massive wooden castle. “Again, I will ask, how did you come across such a masterpiece?”
Starey Belft cleared his throat. “Ah, I took it, Your Highness. When I knew we were leaving the palace and turning our loyalty to you, I broke into the King’s chambers and took his model, piece by small piece.” He demonstrated by breaking off half of the kitchen, folding it flat, and then putting it back into place.
“It’s a puzzle!” exclaimed Dinah.
“It made it a bit easier to transport. Still, I don’t think my Spades relished carrying it through the Darklands.”
Dinah rested her hands on her lap. She didn’t want to appear too pushy, and yet she could already feel the rising tension in the room as the Spades’ demands went unmentioned. The Spade commander was playing a game with her, waiting to see how long she would go before addressing them. She would play her own game then. “How is it, Starey Belft, that you came to be in this tent today bearing the weight of the palace on your shoulders? It must be an incredible load to bear alone.”
“It is, my Lady.” Starey took a long sip of the ale the Spades had brought with them. After all, who went to war without libations? She stared unflinchingly at him until he shrugged sheepishly. “What do you know about the life of a Spade, my Lady?”
“I know that living the life of a Spade is an honor.”
Starey jumped to his feet, his face flushed with anger and inches from hers. Everyone in the tent held their breath until he seemed to think better of his actions and turned away. When Dinah opened her mouth to speak, Starey Belft turned and spit, spraying the ale from his mouth all over Dinah. She coughed and wiped her eyes, willing the churning rage inside of her to dissipate. He should not have done that. Sir Gorrann stepped in front of her, his sword drawn and trembling as he pointed it at his old commander, a man Dinah knew he deeply respected.
“Yeh forget yerself, Commander! Sir, this is the future Queen of Wonderland and yeh will respect her as such.”
Starey Belft laughed. “Sit back down, Gorrann. I could skin you for treason you know, you traitorous letch.”
The men stared at each other as Dinah wiped the ale off of her chest with her sleeve. Finally, Cheshire’s voice boomed out from behind the wooden Black Towers, the height of the spires amplifying his disembodied voice over the tiny palace. “Both of you sit down. There will be no fighting in this tent, no skinning of anyone. Starey, tell us your story. But if you are here, you must respect the Queen. She understands that you’ve had a very long journey and that you weren’t in your right mind when you happened to spill your ale near her feet.”
“Spilled it out of his mouth,” mumbled Wardley.
“It’s fine,” murmured Dinah, patting her hair with her sleeve. “I’ve had much worse.”
Starey Belft’s anger turned quickly to shame. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. It’s just that, if you think the Spades live a life of honor, you are mistaken. I should have expected that the daughter of the King of Hearts would never know the truth of our lives.” Starey collapsed back into his chair. “In between birth and death, the life of a Spade is one of misery and sacrifice. We are considered the lowest ranking of the Cards, and are treated with disdain by the rest.” He gave Wardley an accusatory glance. Spades had no love for Heart Cards. “As you know, Spades are not allowed to marry or bear children. When we take our oaths, we are sworn to live for Wonderland Palace, so why would we have a need for women, love, or comfort? Spades live in the freezing barracks that lie just behind the Black Towers, stacked one on top of the other, so that you never know whose piss you’ll be standing in when you wake up. We have a place to sleep and food to eat, but nothing more. When Hearts, Clubs, or Diamonds go home, what do they return to? A room in the palace? A wife, a son? We return to nothing but the cold and the darkness.” Starey gave a shiver.
“And I don’t care what the official stance of the Palace is, but there is something that permeates the ground near the Black Towers. The black roots run through our sleeping quarters. It makes men angry, makes men mad. And just when we seem to have unity, the prisoners come. Straight from the Black Towers, released to the Spades to serve the realm. Murderers, thieves, liars, rapists—that’s who the King sends to make up his army. How are we ever to rise above our rank, when our barracks are constantly being filled with the dregs of society? We cannot, which is just how the King likes it.”
He took a breath and sat back on his wooden stool, taking a long sip of the swirling golden ale. “The life of the Spade, my Lady, is not ‘honorable’ as you say; no, it’s filled with fighting and bickering amongst ourselves, for we have nothing to do but the King of Hearts’s dirty work. It is a miserable existence. We are asked to live in this constantly changing darkness, and yet, if the King needs someone assassinated, who does he come to?” Starey beat his breast with a gloved fist. “He comes to me, comes to me to murder his enemies, to seek out Yurkei spies, to dispose of his mistresses when he grows tired of them. I have thrown men in prison that simply looked at the man in a way he did not like. I do these things, and for what? To see my men treated like sewage, discarded like day-old tarts?”
He brought his fist down onto the wooden palace and the stables crumpled beneath his hand. “Tell me, Your Highness, what will my legacy be? A legacy of death and sorrow, a life of cold waste, praying that war will come, just so we may take leave of our sorry quarters? I tell you, no! If it is the last thing I do in this sorry world, I will leave the Spades in a better position than they are in now. My men deserve better than this excuse for an existence, for we are the ones who fight and die for this kingdom.”
Bah-kan spoke up from the corner of the room, where he softly ran a dagger across his giant cheek. “You fight and die for unjust wars. The Yurkei have done nothing to deserve your raids. Your men are brutish and cruel—they are monsters.”
“I will not listen to a coward speak,” replied Starey Belft, his face stoic.
Bah-kan leapt up with a roar and Dinah barely had enough time to fling herself between the two men.
“STOP! As your queen, I order you to STEP BACK!” The men pressed on both sides of her.
“SIT DOWN! Obey your queen!” cried Sir Gorrann. The men, their chests heaving against Dinah, took a single step back, more out of self-preservation than respect, Dinah suspected.
Bah-kan eyed Dinah as he spoke in clipped Yurkei. “You are not my queen; the Yurkei have never submitted to Wonderland domination. But I am sworn to protect you, as Mundoo commanded. Do not forget, little girl, that is why I obey you now.”
Dinah nodded and waited until Starey and Bah-Kan sat back down, her patience gone. “Sir Starey, what can we do for you? What demands have you brought on behalf of the Spades? What price will I pay to have them fight for me?”
Starey handed Wardley a rolled piece of paper, which he then gave to Dinah. “It’s all written there for you, made up of the voices of a thousand Spade warriors, voices t
hat have been oppressed and enslaved for centuries. We have five demands. First, a Spade shall be allowed to marry and bear children. Second, a Spade can choose to live with his family in a private household within the kingdom, as do all of the other Cards.” He paused. Dinah nodded. These seemed reasonable. “Third, we would ask that you move our barracks away from the Black Towers, to the south side of the kingdom, as the first major project once you are crowned Queen. Fourth, we ask that the Queen would meet with a small group of established Spades before declaring war or ordering raids on any group of people. We would like to have a say in the matter before we are asked to sharpen our axes for battle. Our final demand is that the Spades will take new rank just under the Heart Cards, and be paid accordingly. This will allow us to afford more for training and feeding, so that we may build a strong army, inside and out.”
Dinah faced him across the wooden structure. “If this war works, Sir Starey, there will be no need for raids, or battles. We seek peace with the Yurkei.”
“A strong queen needs a strong army.”
“He is right, Your Grace,” spoke Cheshire. “Though you will not war any longer with the Yurkei, you will still need an army to police the city and to protect you. Especially once you have established your rule, there will be parties who seek to harm you.” Like the Diamonds and the Clubs, thought Dinah, who will have just been usurped by the Spades. I will elevate one group to make two others angry.
Perhaps this was the game that Wardley had spoken of. War was, at its most basic, the great reassigning of positions—a king who could become a prisoner, a princess who could become a casualty of war. It occurred to Dinah that her war might not be over once the King was dead. There would be many sacrifices made in order to win, and many of them would make the pillars of Wonderland society very unhappy. Dinah tucked the scroll into her tunic.
“I will think on your demands, Sir Starey. For now I would encourage you to take a much-needed rest and sober up. We have much planning to do. We will meet back here this evening, just after dinner is served.”
The war council rose to its feet and bowed before Dinah exited the tent. Cheshire trailed behind her. Dinah handed the scroll to him. “Please look over these and make sure there are no tricky loopholes. Return it to me so that I may look over it again by tonight.”
Cheshire rested his hand on her shoulder. “You did well in there, my Queen. I am so proud of you, as both your humble servant and your father.”
Dinah felt unsure of how to respond and so she strode away from him, toward Morte, who stood waiting for her beside her long white tent, which someone had haphazardly painted with a red, slashed heart. “I’m going for a short ride to clear my head. Please have it read when I return.”
Cheshire bowed, a feline smile stretching across his thin face. “Nothing would please me more, Your Majesty.”
“Sir Gorrann!”
“Yes?”
“Please join me for a short ride.”
Cheshire’s smile disappeared, but he turned away before Dinah could see it. Sir Gorrann gave her a half salute with his hand. “With pleasure. I need to fetch Cyndy.”
Morte was pawing the ground impatiently and beginning to nip at the tent. His hooves brought ripples up from the grassy surface, where the water underneath sloshed and bubbled. “I’ll meet you at the blighted ponds. He cannot wait.”
Dinah bowed her head with reverence once she reached Morte, and he lifted his leg for her to vault onto his back. Morte ran with abandon for the blighted ponds. Dinah relished the damp wind on her face as they flew across the wet valley. The ponds were not far, which was convenient, for it was where the army drew their water from seemingly endless pools of refreshment. Alongside the clear, delicious pools of perfectly cool water, there were other ponds, the blighted ponds. She had seen them almost every day for the past few weeks, and even now stared at them with amazement. The murky pinkish waters were topped with a foamy froth that looked delicious, but smelled and tasted atrocious. Every now and then a creamy, shimmering bubble would rise up from the fathoms below. Bordering on the edge of the moss, the bubble would creep a few feet over the ground and then begin to float slowly toward the nearest living creature. They were easy to avoid if one watched out for them, for they drifted at a snail’s pace; but if they touched the skin, as one unfortunate Yurkei warrior had found out, they burst open, bathing the unfortunate victim in a warm splash of effervescent pink. Seconds later, skin, blood, and veins would begin to turn white and harden. The warrior was left petrified within minutes, a creamy pink bubble formed over his lips. The Yurkei had been afraid to touch him to give him a proper burial, and so they had left his body behind in the blighted ponds. The next day when they had returned to gather water, the warrior’s body was gone, and in its place was a new rosy pocket of water. It had consumed him, and he had become whatever had eaten him from the inside.
Dinah watched with caution as Morte drank mightily from one of the clear pools. There were no roaming bubbles so far, but she could see the blighted ponds rippling in the distance, a sea of foamy pink bubbles against the green moss.
“I hate this place.” Sir Gorrann rode up beside her, his mare panting with exhaustion. He looked over at Morte. “Gods, he’s fast. Cyndy here was galloping her fastest, and we were still at least a half mile behind you.”
Dinah smiled and rested her hand on Morte’s chest. He shot her an annoyed look and stepped away. “He wasn’t even truly running. When the King chased us, he was running so fast I could barely make out the landscape.”
“Mmmm. He’s an incredible monster, isn’t he?” They both glanced over at Morte as he happily stomped a toad to death.
Dinah trained her eyes on the ever-shifting ponds. “Tell me, Sir Gorrann, what do you think of the Spades’ demands? This is why you agreed to find me, right? Why you said you would work with Cheshire? This was your agenda. You wanted to make sure that I survived and made it to the right people so that I could advance the cause of the Spades. Is that correct?”
He looked out into the distance. “Yeh would be correct. I never hid that I had an agenda, not from yeh. If I can’t bring back Ioney and my Amabel, at least I can better the lives of those men that I would call brothers. But I will fight for yeh, Dinah. I believe that yeh will be a great queen, and I will fight even if yeh don’t agree to the Spades’ demands. They are fair demands. There was nothing that seemed… in excess.” He paused and took a sip of water from one of the clear ponds. “Of course,” he continued as he wiped his mouth, “If yeh don’t accept the Spades’ demands, yeh will not have an army. Yeh will have a thousand Yurkei warriors, three hundred Rogue Cards—who are useless if yeh ask me—and the King will wipe all of yeh from Wonderland like the dirt under his feet.”
“Can we win?” Dinah asked.
Sir Gorrann watched with a wary eye as two champagne bubbles began drifting toward them, so light and friendly on the wind. “Perhaps. But we will surely not win without the Spades. Mundoo was counting on them joining us when he marched north. Without them, we haven’t a prayer. The Cards don’t fear the Yurkei near as much as they should, but they will fear a line of Spades.”
“Then it is done.” Dinah watched a pretty pink bubble burst across a low rock. Within seconds, the moss covering its surface shriveled and turned white. “And when you are allowed to marry, will you marry again, Sir Gorrann?”
He looked out at the low valley, now filled with several hundred floating pink bubbles, all very slowly making their way toward them. “For many of us, there is only one person who can fill the spaces of our heart.”
Dinah thought of Wardley, the way his breath had washed across her face, the way the scar on his shoulder had stretched when he raised his arms to wash his body. She loved every part of him. For her, there was no other. “Yes.”
His gold eyes rested on her face, the crinkles in his eyes showing the first signs of a smile. She snapped her fingers for Morte, who didn’t come, so she began walking quickly toward him
.
“Thank you for your input, Sir Gorrann. I think we should head back to camp.”
He watched a shimmering bubble that rolled slowly toward his feet. “Couldn’t agree more. I hate this wretched place.”
Dinah looked out over the landscape, so enchanting, a world of soft pink bubbles and warm light. She shrugged. “It feels like love.”
“And that’s why it’ll kill yeh,” replied Sir Gorrann, nudging her toward Morte.
Chapter Sixteen
When she wasn’t meeting with the council, Dinah continued to train with Bah-kan and Sir Gorrann, but now Wardley brought his own special expertise into the bouts. Crowds of Spades and Yurkei swarmed their training circle to watch the epic battles of sword and strength, blatantly ignoring Starey Belft’s shouted orders that they should return to their own sparring circles. Dinah was usually the first one out of the ring, followed by Sir Gorrann, and then Wardley. Bah-kan was unstoppable, with the exception of one warm afternoon when his sword swung a little too close to Dinah’s neck. Silver flashed in the sunlight, followed by a loud metallic thump and Bah-kan looked down in amazement at the dagger lodged deeply in his breastplate, just above his heart. He leveled his furious gaze upon Cheshire, who was perched calmly on a horse a hundred yards away, his purple cloak billowing out behind him.
“Bah-kan.” He shook his head sadly. “Remember who you spar with, sir, and slow your blade.” Then he turned and rode calmly away, leaving the crowd stunned and impressed.
Bah-kan yanked the blade out of his chest with a scowl. “He’s overly protective of you,” he snapped in Yurkei. Dinah allowed herself to boast, if even for just a minute.
Queen of Hearts: Volume Two: The Wonder Page 18
