He shook her hand; it was small, strong and warm. His was soft, pudgy and cold from walking about without gloves or a coat. As they shook hands, he looked into her eyes, which were startlingly large and brightly blue. They were intelligent, quick eyes that ran over him, picking out tiny details that informed her of his character.
“Yes, they will kneel,” she said, once she was satisfied with her inspection. “But do not worry, your Excellency, your flock will continue to render unto God that which is God’s.”
“As long as they also render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, I suppose,” the Bishop replied, an eyebrow arched. “You are an impressive young lady, that I do not doubt, but your hubris seems boundless. First, you claim to be queen of this and that, and now you have the gall to compare yourself to Caesar? Beyond hubris lies destruction.”
Something like fire brewed in her eyes for just a second and yet the smile that flashed was wickedly cold. “I have already proven greater than Caesar. In truth, what, beyond the forgotten battle of Ilerda, is there to prove myself against? For the most part, he fought against untrained barbarians and the rabble of a strife-torn empire. Had I compared myself to Hannibal, that would have been hubris.”
He had only the vaguest notion of who Hannibal had been. “I accept that your knowledge of ancient warfare is greater than my own,” Wojdan said, with a slight nod. “That being said, I have a wonderful wall, as well as five hundred trained soldiers that say we will only kneel before God.”
Unexpectedly, the Queen threw back her head and laughed. “Please! I hate that wall. I detest it. I will preserve as much of your flock as I can, but that wall will come down. I swear it.”
Chapter 23
For a few moments, the Queen wore a particularly savage look, one that was part feral animal, part pure evil. Inside, she felt both. She swallowed and tried to smile again, but it wasn’t easy. The pills she was popping three or four times a day had her alternating between sleepy and sick. They were working, though sometimes she felt like she was drowning in chemicals.
She passed a hand across her forehead and when she looked up, she saw Bishop Wojdan studying her, much as she had studied him.
“Explosives were mentioned by your little helper.” Wojdan gestured toward Lindy, who was busy eyeing her counterpart Ida Battenburg and wondering what sort of a girl she was. The Bishop went on, “We weren’t told what sort of explosives. If you wish to compel our surrender, perhaps a demonstration is in order. I think I would like to see your big guns, or your tanks, or whatever it is that you will use to tear down our wall, brick by brick.”
It almost seemed as if he were mocking her. Brick by brick…he is…he is mocking you. Kill him…kill him. Build the biggest bomb ever and obliterate him, and all of them. Blow them up, up up, up… This came sifting softly up from deep within Jillybean’s mind. She clenched her hands into fists and gazed up at the grey sky, pretending to consider his words until the scattered voices went away.
“Tanks? Big guns?” she asked, meeting his eyes again. “I would think even a simple priest knows that these could not be carried in the type of boats we possess. Wouldn’t you say that feigned ignorance is on par with actual lying? Or do you feel that adding: ‘or whatever’ allows you to dodge the sin?”
He chortled at this. “Worry not for my sins, young lady. It was an honest question though perhaps spoken glibly. I have no idea what the weight of these weapons are and nor do I know the carrying capacity of your ships.”
Young lady…young, young, young…lady…lady…
There was laughter in her head. The voices knew better than to call her a lady. A lady didn’t feed poison to her friends or set a house on fire when there were people inside screaming…
Jillybean plastered a fake smile in place. “Bishop Wojdan, you will refer to me as your Highness, and though you were never officially consecrated, I will refer to you as your Excellency. Yes, I am young and a lady but calling me such within this setting is your way of asserting dominance, and I won’t stand for it.”
He inclined his head again, never once taking his keen eyes off of her. “Your spies are remarkably well informed if they have dug that far into my past to know my position within the church. I suppose I should be flattered to have received so much attention. I must be quite the threat.”
Jillybean made no answer and did not move so much as a muscle and yet she radiated such coldness that Wojdan inclined his head a third time, adding a late, “Your Highness.”
“Thank you, your Excellency,” she replied, nodding just as he had. “I’m sure you agree that titles have their importance even among enemies, though I believe that situation will be short-lived. And I don’t have any spies. The ring you wear is not a normal bishop’s ring. I’m no expert in these matters, however, you’d be surprised how one thing just leads to another. Somehow researching lead poisoning got me onto Gutenberg and his printing press which in turn led me to Pope Pius, this got me on the amazing story of the Cadaver Synod in which the dead body of Pope Formosus was dug up out of its grave and put on trial. I just had to know if he was wearing The Ring of the Fisherman during the trial, and this led to other inquiries of that nature.”
“Someone dug up the body of a pope and put it on trial?” Leney asked, laughter in his voice. “Was he the first zombie or something? Did they find him guilty? What happened?”
“They did find him guilty, actually,” the Bishop answered when Jillybean glanced his way, a sparkle in her eyes. She was testing him, which he found very interesting. “They cut off three fingers of his right hand. He was buried again, but soon after, his body was dug up a second time and tossed in a river.” Jillybean nodded exactly like one of Wojdan’s elementary school teachers had fifty years before. The Bishop had no idea what to make of the girl. All he could wonder was how many people left alive knew about the Synod or that the Pope wore the Ring of the Fisherman? Or he used to. Wojdan didn’t hold out much hope for the Pope.
As these thoughts crossed his mind, Commander Walker stumped forward and cleared his throat. “Can we get back on track, your Excellency? We have an army threatening us. I for one would like to know about these explosives. Are we talking mortars? AT4s? We will not be frightened into surrender as easily as you might think…your Highness.”
He looked as though saying “your Highness” had left him sickened. After clearing his throat a second time, he went on, “To destroy the wall would take a good deal of ordinance, which I doubt you have.”
Jillybean’s smile became knowing and tinged with evil. “I won’t be using explosives to destroy the wall. I have bombs and torpedoes and all of that, of course. I don’t think I want to use them this time. They’ve become too easy. There’s no challenge. I don’t want to get lazy, right?”
Walker glanced at Leney, who was trying not to react to the crap that Jillybean had just spewed. Leney wanted it easy. When it came to warfare, he thought the easier the better.
Walker saw the flick of Leney’s eyes and the slight raising of his eyebrows and practically read his mind. Walker grinned. “You will find that we are a far superior foe compared to these Corsairs.” He fairly spat the word out. “We have five-hundred soldiers who have trained to defend this wall. We know every inch of these fields and we have them dialed in. We will destroy anything that moves on them, day or night.”
“Perhaps it won’t need to come to this,” Jillybean replied. “My goal is the eradication of the Corsair threat and the joining of the disparate people along the western coast under a single leader. I can’t imagine that you’d balk at that or find the goal anything but noble. Though I do understand there may be trust issues. What may I offer as an inducement for you to become my subjects willingly?”
Walker stood straight and tall, his lips pursed and his eyes flinty. He answered, speaking shortly, “For starters, you should remove your army from our land. Then perhaps, we can begin negotiations.”
“And there’s the fact that we are a religious societ
y,” Wojdan added. “For now, you may look upon us as a theocracy. I do not rule per se, I simply follow the word of God and my flock follows me. It seems to work well enough for us that a queen is not needed.” He added a belated, “Your Highness. The Knights of the Cross are soldiers of God and will not kneel.”
“And if I were a manifestation of God’s will?” Jillybean asked. She was staring past the Bishop and Faith, who stood just behind him, and past the wall and the town. Her eyes were unfocused seeing only the grey of the Pacific, mixing with the dull, iron sky.
The Bishop’s dimples showed deeper as he smiled and asked, “Are you? I don’t discount the idea, mind you, I would just like to know your mind.”
“No, you don’t, your Excellency.” She shook her head, sadly, her eyes coming back into focus and settling with unnerving sharpness on his. “You don’t want to know what’s going on up there, it’s generally…never mind. My thoughts are between me and God. And, as for kneeling. I will tear down your walls and leave your people vulnerable without having fired a shot or having used an ounce of explosives. Your people will kneel before me and accept me as their rightful ruler.”
The two groups separated a minute later. There really wasn’t much more that needed to be said between them.
“Can she do it?” Wojdan asked, as soon as they were out of earshot. Walker immediately started shaking his head. Wojdan put a soft hand on his arm. “Don’t dismiss her. She commands Corsairs, which means she had beaten them in battle. How? With what force? Certainly not with those Bay People. The Hill People and the Islanders are too few in numbers. The Sacramentans have always been weak-willed and too tribe-minded to unite. And the Santas would have joined with the Corsairs rather than fight them.”
“Maybe she scared them into surrender with her torpedoes,” Walker suggested. “But sixty-five ships all at once? How does someone get a hold of that many torpedoes?”
Faith hurried ahead of the men so she could face them as she said, “She said she wouldn’t use bombs or bullets on us. What does that leave? Wouldn’t a rocket be the same thing as a bomb or an explosive? And if she doesn’t use one of those, what will she use?”
Walker stopped and truly looked at the wall as it stretched in a gentle arc back from the reinforced steel door. A few stupid ideas came to him: parachutes, hang-gliders and hot air balloons; he discarded them. Sheer logistics would make any attack with them impossible. He turned, his ballistic armor creaking. The open area sloped gently upwards. “She has the high ground, she could set up a catapult or some sort of modern equivalent. It would be dangerous and probably wouldn’t work. She would need a huge store of stones or ammo. And even if it did work, she would be vulnerable to counter attacks. I can’t imagine her being able to build one with a range of more than a few hundred yards.”
“What about a tunnel?” Ryanne asked. “She might could build one and then pop up right in the middle of church.” She liked going to church so the idea of bad guys like the Corsairs breaking out in the middle of it was dismaying. Though she did like the queen-lady. She had cool hair and cool clothes and she seemed very fearless about the Corsairs.
“A tunnel wouldn’t work, bugs,” her father told her, using his gentle dad-voice and not the gruff one he used for everyone else. “A tunnel would need to be started beyond one of those hills. It would take weeks to build. Besides, the soil around here is a touch too soft. There’d be cave-ins anytime anyone even sneezed.”
Having dismissed the possibility of the Queen getting over, under or through the wall, Walker considered the possibility of going around. They were vulnerable from the sea, but only barely. There was only a single landing spot along the entire shoreline and only a fool would attempt to attack from that direction. Twenty men could wipe out a thousand as they struggled ashore.
“The one thing we can’t do is accept what she says at face value,” Walker said. “If she has explosives, she will use them. I have no doubt about that. Why wouldn’t she? I imagine her Corsairs would dig their heels in if she tried to get them to make some sort of suicidal attack when they could use bombs instead. No, she’ll use them, alright. Never in the history of warfare has an aggressor failed to use a decisive weapon.”
As logical as that was, Bishop Wojdan didn’t know if he believed it. Why would she lie so blatantly? And why lie to a religious community like this if her end goal was to incorporate them into her domain? It didn’t make sense.
Just like Walker, the Bishop planted his soft hands on his rounded hips and looked around, trying to fathom what the Queen was up to. He gave up after only a minute. Sighing, he said, “Warfare is just not my thing. Luckily, the Lord had provided the community with you, Commander. Take all precautions necessary.”
Walker frowned at the word “luck” but Wojdan was already heading back to the church. He needed time to think and pray. He needed time to absorb all he had heard and seen. The Queen had been perfectly engaging, amazingly informed, and strangely confident. Whether she could destroy the wall remained to be seen. She certainly believed she could. There was no lie in that.
He was so taken up picturing the Queen that he was oblivious to the dozens of foxholes being dug behind the wall. In something of a fog, he passed through the immense construction zone followed by Faith Checkamian, who had the same questions hissed at her over and over.
What happened? Were they really Corsairs? Who was the woman?
“I’ll tell you later,” she repeated, though what she was going to tell them was something of a mystery.
The mystery only deepened as the Queen’s entire army marched away, heading up into the hills. Their fleet disappeared as well, heading back north. It was seen briefly in the late evening skirting around to the south again. By then the foxholes were dug, the ammo was distributed, water from the town well was collected in buckets and jugs, and every sort of wild rumor had been spread.
Watches were set and, other than the Knights guarding the walls, the entire community attended the evening mass, hoping that the Bishop would explain what was going on. He spoke in his usual gentle voice as if he were utterly unconcerned with the day’s events. This wasn’t a brave face he was putting on. The Bishop was completely unafraid.
The same was true of his congregation. They were anxious, that was true. They weren’t afraid, however.
When Mass ended, Wojdan explained the situation as he saw it and when he was done, what sounded like a sighing wind went around the church as the entire twelve-hundred person congregation began to whisper to their neighbors. These went on even as Faith took her place at the piano and hammered out the notes to Onward Christian Soldiers.
More hymns followed this one in a steady stream. Most people expected the attack would happen at any moment.
It did not occur that night or the next day, though there was a scare as the Queen’s fleet hove into view just after the noon meal. The hundred ships found safe anchorage half a mile away and, as the Guardians watched through rifle scopes, binoculars and even three telescopes, six hundred men were off-loaded and made their way to shore on a variety of smaller boats and rafts.
The men were grouped into two companies: one armed, the other unarmed. The unarmed group carried Corsair flags, which they burned before forming a single line. This line proceeded, man by man to the Queen, who sat on a high-backed chair. Each man came and knelt before her, kissed her hand and was then sent up into the hills.
After this, the ships disgorged crates and boxes by the ton and then left again, disappearing over the horizon.
“That’s not going to be me,” Keith Treadwell announced for all to hear. “I’d rather die first.” Everyone cheered this pronouncement.
Commander Walker put a damper on the enthusiasm by saying, “She’s trying to get it into your head that surrender is an option. Remember, she is just putting on a show. Nothing more.”
The show was done for the day and on the third day it did not recommence. The open land around the walls remained empty and the silen
ce that hung around the hills became cloying. Some of the men urged Walker to send out a recon force. He refused, worried that the Queen was delaying an attack, simply to draw him out. It’s what he would have done. Once outside the walls, his men would lose a great deal of their advantage.
He decided to wait.
His wait was not long. An hour after sunset, when a grey twilight turned into a dour, cold night, a horn sounded up in the hills. It was followed a moment later by a second horn, this one much further away.
“To the walls!” Walker bellowed. “To the walls!” The church bell rang, two deep, solemn notes. The three hundred Knights ran to their stations while the two hundred men and women of the reserve force formed up behind the wall.
Minutes passed and at first, there was nothing and Walker was just wondering if the Queen was playing mind games when there came a rumbling sound from up in the hills that grew louder with every passing second, until, with a roar, Walker saw what the Queen had unleashed.
A grey wall of water, ten feet in height rushed down the old road that led straight to the single door in the wall. She had destroyed the Robinson Dam and had somehow redirected its rain-swollen waters for three miles until now it came blasting into the wall.
Men who would never hesitate in attacking an eight-foot-tall zombie backed away from the edge of the wall. “Steady!” Treadwell barked. “It’s just water!” He turned to Walker. “We’re safe, right? I mean it is just water.”
Walker shook his head. “Back before when you were little, did you ever take a garden hose, turn it on high and point it at the ground. Do you remember how quickly you could dig a hole with a hose?” Walker could remember using water to make “gopher holes.” It took half a minute to make a hole a foot deep. This was the same concept except the water was a million times greater in volume and strength.
“We have to get off the wall.”
Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned Page 23
