by Anna Kendall
The queen kept me close by her, except when she was in her privy chamber with Lord Solek. She never mentioned what I had seen the night of the battle. She didn’t have to mention it; we both knew it was worth my life to stay silent about the scene between her and Lord Robert. Much of the time, as Lord Solek received reports from his captains and directed his growing power over the capital, the queen sat with her ladies as they sewed or sang or gambled or danced. She said little, and did not join them in their forced revels. They had to be cheerful and amusing, for her sake; she did not have to cheer or amuse them, and she didn’t. She sat quiet, thoughtful. Sometimes she didn’t hear when Lady Margaret spoke to her.
Queen Caroline’s beautiful face showed nothing, but I could sense her growing fear. This had not been part of her plan. Lord Solek was swiftly, surely, securing power over The Queendom. The queen had defeated her mother’s forces only to fall before those of her lover.
“Will she marry him?” Cecilia whispered to me as she sat in a window embrasure, supposedly sewing. Her cushion cover was a tangled mess; I could have set neater stitches myself.
“Marry him?”
She giggled. “Well, they bed together, don’t they?”
“I am never in the queen’s bedchamber. Hush, my lady.” Quickly I glanced around. Cecilia had no discretion, and sometimes I thought she had no memory. Both Lady Margaret and I had warned her again not to speak of the queen and Lord Solek. But she was like a kitten: curious, wide-eyed, playful, completely adorable. The scent of her made my head float and my eyes blur.
“Maybe she should marry him,” Cecilia said. “He’s very handsome. Those blue eyes.”
“Lady Cecilia . . . please!”
“Well, he is. And Princess Stephanie is not strong. The queen is old but not that old—he could maybe give her another daughter in case—oh, all right, Roger. You cautious old thing.” She patted my shoulder. Her touch was like wine. “It’s all right now, don’t you see? We’re at peace again and everything’s all right. The queen—oh, she wants us now!”
“Stay, she wants me,” I said, and rose to follow the queen to the high roof where we had watched the battle. Three or four times a day we did this, climbing the steep stone steps through the bell tower, just she and I and two Green guards, the same two I often saw drinking ale in the guardroom with one of Lord Solek’s captains. That savage captain had a good ear for words; he was among the best with our language. “I like to gaze at my queendom at peace,” the queen said to explain her frequent trips to the tower. I knew better.
Now she leaned on the stone parapet and called me to her. Her Green guard stood by the trapdoor to the staircase, a respectful distance away and out of earshot of whispers. She knew as well as I that her guards were Lord Solek’s spies. The queen’s hands gripped the stone hard. Wind pulled at her hair, her gown. She had lost weight, and there was a fierce desperation in her dark eyes. She said, “Roger, I have work for you.”
“Y-yes, Your Grace.”
“You will cross over and see if the country of the Dead contains a new arrival, a messenger from my brother’s bride.”
“Your Grace—I have tried to tell you . . . the country of the Dead is such a big place, to find one person—”
“Nonetheless, you will find him. He will be small, in order to ride fast, and he will be wearing yellow, the color of Isabelle’s court. You will ask him when her army will arrive here.”
“Your Grace . . . you are presuming that such a messenger was not only sent but also is now dead. ...”
“He must be dead, or he would be here. Or Isabelle’s army would.”
And she needed them. Her need was in every line of her taut figure, her tense face. Only an army that she commanded could counterbalance the one led by Lord Solek, the bedmate who was usurping her queendom. Queen Isabelle’s army, bound to Queen Caroline through Prince Rupert’s marriage, would not have the guns of Lord Solek’s men, but the Yellows had a reputation as the best soldiers in the world. If Queen Isabelle bore a daughter, that princess would be second in line for the Crown of Glory, after the sickly Princess Stephanie. Queen Caroline had a strong claim on her sister-in-law’s army, in addition to the affection of her brother. And she had sent for the Yellow army much earlier, had carefully timed their probable arrival as part of her grand design. So where were they?
Her situation was clear to me. Mine, as always, was not to her. To find one messenger in the country of the Dead—if he was even there!—would be impossible. I had lied to the queen before and gotten away with it—but what if another lie caught me out?
“You will cross over now, right here,” the queen said to me. “Not in my privy chamber—right here on the tower. I have already told my lord Solek that my fool is given to fits.”
Fits? And she did not trust her own privy chamber—were there spy holes? In her bedchamber, as well? Things were even worse for her than I had guessed.
As if to confirm my fear, the queen said in a low voice that seemed torn from her against her will, “He seeks to send Princess Stephanie to his barbaric country until her marriage. Roger—men rule there!”
My eyes grew so wide that the wind on the tower made them water. Men did not rule; they could not create life, only defend it. I—everyone at court—had assumed that Lord Solek acted on behalf of some unknown barbarian queen. But if men ruled . . . And for a future queen to be sent away—unthinkable! A princess or queen left her queendom only once, on her marriage journey, to inspect in person the dowry her husband brought her. After that, her place was in her own palace, always. Princess Stephanie was only three; she would grow up not even knowing The Queendom that she must one day rule. Her loyalty would be to the savage realm, not her own. She might even forget her mother tongue.
“I cannot make Lord Solek understand,” the queen said, still in that same low voice, although we both knew that Lord Solek understood only too well. “Go now, Roger, and find Isabelle’s messenger. Have a fit right here, right now.”
Have a fit! How did one have a fit? I had never even seen a fit. The queen’s hand brushed mine; her fingers left me with a piece of gold. What good was gold to bring on a fit? All at once I was angry, furious, at the way I was used. I was a tool, no more than her spoon or her goblet. A tool—just as she was to the savage who shared her bed and wanted her queendom.
There was no choice but to do as I was told.
I screamed and jumped up on the stone railing. The Green guards rushed forward, swords drawn, and pulled the queen away from me. I tossed the gold coin in the air, cried, “I buy the sky! Why why why!” and jumped back down from the parapet to writhe on the stone floor. My hand felt in my pocket to work my little shaving blade free of its sheath, and viciously I cut my palm. Blood filmed my hand, and I crossed over.
I did not know where I was.
I stood among huge boulders, an outcrop such as I had never seen anywhere near Glory. Among the boulders grew scrub bushes, leafless and misshapen things that sent out twisted twigs from twisted stems. I blundered into one. Its sharp thorns pricked my already bloody palm. The ground shook under my feet and the dark sky raced with clouds. My gut twisted. I had caused this devastation.
Noise came from my left. Careful to avoid the thorny bushes, I picked my way among the boulders until I emerged onto the plain beside the river, but a plain changed and misshapen as the bushes. Rocks were strewn everywhere, some small enough to kick, some as big as I was. More of the scrub bushes spiked the ground, which rumbled under my feet. Amid this chaos the Dead sat or lay in their usual oblivion—but not all of them.
The noise came from two sources. The river ran more swiftly now, breaking and swirling against new rocks, sending up spray and sound. But most of the noise came from across the river. Blue soldiers, hundreds of them, dead in the recent battle with the savage warriors. The Blues were being drilled by their captains. They marched, shouted, brandished swords, stamped their boots. None of them acted even remotely as if he was Dead. One of them ca
ught sight of me across the water. He cupped his hand to shout across the river.
“Witched fool! What news, boy?”
I could not have answered to save my life. When I stood, dumb as one of the inexplicable boulders, he yelled even louder. “What news?”
When I still did not answer, the soldier and the man next to him stepped onto the river and walked across its surface to the other side.
Dizziness took me and everything swirled and swooped. When I could see again, one of them had hold of my arm.
“His wits are returning, Lucius,” his friend said. “Boy, ye be all right?”
“Of course he not be all right, he’s witched, you idiot!”
“No worse than us, stuck here in Witchland. . . . Fool? Ye be all right?”
“Y-yes.” Their boots were not even wet.
Lucius said, “What news, then? Does the whore-queen still hold the palace?”
“Y-yes.” I fought to master myself. “But Lord Solek—”
Lucius let loose with a string of violent oaths. I had not heard such language since Hartah. “The savage holds the palace for her?”
“Yes.” The truth was too complicated to explain, even if I had wanted to.
Lucius shook my arm, not gently. “What, then? How do we escape from Witchland? Have you nothing good to tell us?”
“Leave off, Lucius,” his friend said. “Don’t shake the fool like that. He’s on our side. He tried to get the young witch’s amulet for us, remember?”
Cat Starling. What had happened to her after I left? I said, “Have you taken the amulet from her since I was last witched here?”
“No one has so much as seen her. Is that what will send us back—the amulet?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But the . . . the witch-queen keeps me close, and I hope to learn how to undo my own ensorcellment, and so yours. I work for that night and day. Meanwhile ...” I tried to fake a sob, and discovered it was not fake. There are many kinds of witching.
“Don’t cry, fool,” Lucius said with disgust. “You’re nearly a man.”
“He’s not crying—are you, boy? What can we do mean-times? We drill, you see, to prepare for the battle. When we go back, that savage will not beat us, no matter how many fire-sticks he brings against us, nor how the witch-queen deforms Witchland to frighten us. We will defeat her and her savages. We fight for The Queendom.”
They all believed still that they were in Witchland, all the Blues whom Lord Solek’s army had killed. I had said so to the first ones, who told the others as they arrived, and so none at all believed that he was dead.
The second soldier grew impatient. “I asked you, fool, what can we do to aid our own freedom from Witchland?”
“You can . . . you can continue to prepare for battle.” They expected more from me. Lucius’s eyes darkened with anger. At the same moment, the sky rumbled and lightning flashed from one glowering cloud to another. I invented wildly: “And you can make amulets that will be useful on your return. Each amulet should consist of five of the thorns on the new bushes that have appeared—you have noticed the new bushes?”
They nodded, listening carefully, anxious to miss nothing that might save them. My stomach clenched, but I went on. “Wrap the five thorns—and they must be five perfect thorns, not blemished—in a bit of cloth and wear it around your neck. The thorns will not hurt you in this place”—truer words were never spoken, since nothing could hurt them in this place—“but once out of Witchland, they will impart a little of the witch-power to each of you. This have I learned by stealth, and as a result of my own ensorcellment.”
Lucius nodded. “I will tell the captain. Thank you, boy. We are in your debt.”
“Then you can help me now. I seek a messenger from Queen Isabelle, who married our Prince Rupert. The messenger was . . . was witched here. He will be a small man, a rider, dressed in yellow. He may be under the same spell as Queen Eleanor. Have you seen him?”
Both soldiers shook their heads. They thanked me again, and I watched as they walked on the surface of the water back across the swift river. Then I set out to find the messenger in yellow.
It was hopeless. The land had become so much more difficult to walk across, let alone to scan. Boulders, thorn scrub, groves of trees thicker than before, and somehow menacing. Beneath my feet, the ground rumbled. I scrambled away from the riverbank and toward the north, the direction of Queen Isabelle’s queendom, frantically searching. I looked for a long time, becoming dirty and exhausted. Although even if he were here, I didn’t see how I could find the messenger.
Instead, a dead Blue found me. He jumped out from behind a boulder several yards away. Unlike the other Blues I had seen here, he had lost the discipline of soldiers. His eyes were crazed and wild. He shouted something incoherent. Thinking himself in Witchland had unsettled his wits, perhaps never strong to begin with. Or perhaps dying had deranged him. He carried what he must have brought with him, seized from the enemy in battle: a gun.
He shrieked again, raised the thing, and fired at me.
Something hard and hot—so hot!—struck my left arm, sending me falling backward against the rocks. The sky gave a great crack! of lightning. I screamed; the pain was pure agony, searing my flesh like flames.
And then I lay on the stone roof of the tower, it was night, and I had other questions to torment me. I already knew I could be hurt in the country of the Dead, by the Dead. But what would happen to me if I were killed there? Would I return to my body in the land of the living, or would I lapse into the unknowing tranquility of the Dead?
Now I had not one but two places where I could die.
The pain continued. It was too dark to see my arm, but when I made myself flex it, I could tell that the bones were not broken. This was a flesh wound only, but I had seen men die of flesh wounds that turned black and rancid. And the pain did not diminish, burning like acid along skin and nerves.
Cradling my left arm in my right, I forced myself to my feet. Where was the queen, her guard, anyone at all? How much time had passed? My eyes adjusted to the night, and I peered over the parapet. Most, although not all, of the courtyards were dark. So was most, but not all, of the narrow ring of the tent city. Above, the stars shone brightly, without a moon. Summer had barely begun; the night air was cold and sharp.
I tried the trapdoor that led from the tower roof. It was bolted from below.
Something must be happening in the palace, something that had drawn the queen away from the tower. She had forgotten me before, but never while I was on a mission for her to the country of the Dead. What if she had been murdered, as she had murdered her mother? What if no one came to the tower before morning? The courtyard was many stories below, too far to jump. I didn’t think I would freeze to death here, but I needed to clean the wound in my arm, bandage it . . .
Why did everyone always abandon me?
I leaned over the parapet and screamed, “I’m here! I’m here!”
And then, “I’m here, you bastards! I AM HERE!”
Nothing.
I don’t know how long I stood there, clinging to the stone railing, shivering and cursing, my arm pure agony. Stars moved overhead, I know that. I grew light-headed, maybe feverish. And then, on a rooftop below the tower, two figures emerged. It was forbidden to all but soldiers to go onto the roofs at night. These were not Greens. In the starlight I could see their silhouettes clearly: a soldier of the savages and a woman. They embraced.
My voice was hoarse, but I called down, “Help me, please! I am Roger, the queen’s fool, and I am trapped on the tower by mistake! Please, send for help!”
Instantly the woman vanished, perhaps unwilling to be identified. The savage came to the edge of his roof, peering upward at me. He looked a tiny figure, no more dangerous than a small pet dog that stands on two legs. Distance deceives, promising safety where there is none.
The savage called something that I of course did not understand, and then disappeared from the roof. Several
minutes later—it seemed like hours—the door to the tower roof opened and a man emerged.
Lord Solek himself.
Behind him was Eammons, the translator, who said, “What are you doing here?”
“I was forgotten! The queen—” I gasped as a wave of dizziness hit me.
Eammons said sharply, “What about the queen? What did she say to you?”
There was something wrong with his tone. It held not only sharpness but fear. Of what? Something was wrong here, very wrong. With every last shred of strength in me, I summoned what wits I had. They were all that had kept me alive until now. They counseled caution, counseled evasion, counseled lies.
“Nothing. I . . . Her Grace left and . . . I wanted . . . I wanted to be alone. So I came here. But I fell asleep and the tower was locked at dusk; I guess that is the usual way. And by now the queen must be looking for me. ...” I tried to look befuddled, foolish, out of my depth. It was not hard.
Lord Solek said something, and Eammons replied. Translating my words, I guessed. The savage chieftain gazed at me from cold blue eyes. Up close, he was even more terrifying: huge, hard, full of suppressed energy, like an enormous boulder about to fall and crush me. Then he shrugged, turned, and strode off.
“Go back to where you belong,” Eammons said irritably. “If you do this again you will be flogged, queen’s fool or no. If she doesn’t order it, I will.”
He will? Did Eammons, who now trailed Lord Solek and not the queen, have that much power? It was clear that Solek did; he now kept as close a watch throughout the palace as Queen Caroline had once done.
I, on the other hand, had no power, not even to stay upright. I staggered down the tower steps, far behind Eammons, who had hurried after his master. Every few steps I stopped and rested against the stone wall. Then, at the bottom, I collapsed.
