Nameless Queen

by Rebecca McLaughlin

  The gallows, like the prison, is outside Seriden’s walls. It’s beside the prison, in fact. A door from the prison opens into a small, stone-filled arena. There’s a waist-high wooden railing that surrounds the gallows arena, where spectators are invited to observe.

  For the most part, executions are quiet affairs, with a smattering of people present. I attended one once. A Nameless orphan in Marcher’s crew had gotten caught stealing. She was fourteen. I was nine. She was killed the very next day.

  The Nameless don’t typically last long in prison. If they did, there would be more of us there. Who doesn’t want a free bed and meals? No, Seriden prefers we die on the streets or the gallows. It’s a testament to Glenquartz’s intervention and my threat to the council that Hat has survived there.

  That was the first and only execution I ever attended. And here I am, as queen, and it’s my job to be here. If I had my way, no one would hang from that noose ever again.

  After trying to kill Marcher four years ago, with the rope in my hands…I couldn’t do that again. It’s ghoulish and cruel to everyone involved. There’s a reason the executioner wears a hood.

  I scan the onlookers. There are a lot of Legals and Royals here to watch the Nameless heir oversee her first execution of a Nameless criminal. There are some Nameless here too. A group of them at the south end of the arena, all watching me. They don’t have auras for me to sense, but I see their anger in the tight twist of their crossed arms and the angry upward tilt of their chins. I can’t blame them. I’d hate me too. I want to rip the soft green sleeves from my arms and shout at them: Yes, I’m here. Yes, I’m Nameless. Yes, I’m every bit the monster you think I am.

  The executioner takes his place on the gallows. I expect him to move smoothly, like the shadow of death itself, but he lumbers up the stairs, and I can see that he has a bad knee and dark hair on his bare forearms. His whole outfit is black. It’s the only time a Legal or Royal wears something outside the colors of their class.

  Glenquartz touches my shoulder. It’s a gentle movement, but I flinch. He points toward the prison, but something in the audience of Nameless catches my attention: Devil. She pushes her way to the front of the crowd, and she leans onto the rail with her arms bent and tense as if she wants to grind the rail into splinters and dust. I rise from my chair, confused. If she’s not who they arrested for instigating the riot, then who?

  I look at the figure being escorted from death row who Glenquartz is pointing at. Female. Short. Black clothes: Nameless.

  She’s small, young.

  Too young. Too familiar.

  Then I see the flash of red hair and the thin, trembling arms. The chains are cuffed to her wrists, so big that they nearly fall right off. They march her toward the gallows as a stir rises in the crowd.

  “Hat,” I whisper.

  Glenquartz’s hand is on my shoulder again, gripping tightly. Through my sleeve, I can’t read his thoughts to tell if he’s trying to hold me back or urge me forward.

  They’re going to kill Hat.

  The onlookers grow quieter, and it’s not a hushed anticipation of a violent execution. Or at least, that’s not all it is. There’s a shift in the collective auras around me. Excitement wanes and discomfort rises, and I feel it like whispers on my skin.

  Hat may not be a child, but she’s certainly not the organizer of a riot, not the instigator of multiple deaths.

  I sense Belrosa as she draws closer to me.

  “The trick you used in the market won’t work again today,” she says. “There is no saving her ‘in the name of the queen.’ ” Her voice drips with acidic pride.

  I clench my fists at my sides and quickly decide that punching her in the throat won’t improve the situation.

  “The guards have been well informed that the queen doesn’t have a name and therefore doesn’t have any say in the events that transpire here today,” Belrosa says. “Your word means nothing.” The Royal guards urge Hat up the stairs of the gallows, and one of them throws a long glance at Belrosa, who gives him a firm nod. Of course they are working for her. They each keep a hand on one of Hat’s shoulders since she’s too short for them to hold at the elbows.

  “Now, my word, however,” Belrosa says, “is powerful. At my word, her life could be spared or severed. At my word, a war could start or end.”

  “What do you want?” I seethe.

  Belrosa smiles as if that’s all she wanted to hear, but she says, “Nothing. Nothing except for you to understand that you’ll give me that crown. For you to understand your place and power: you have neither. You are a vessel carrying the tether to magic, but you are otherwise empty and meaningless. Not even worth your own name: Coin. Just think what this does to you. The Nameless are about to watch as the only queen they’ve ever known lets a child hang. Crushing your bright spirit and killing your friend is a bonus. So go ahead. Try and save her. You may win the favor of the Nameless, but you’ll lose it with the Royal Council, and they will insist I take the crown from you.”

  She adjusts her posture so I can see the Royal Council sitting in their gilded chairs. Instead I scan the crowd. Devil has disappeared from their ranks, and most of the Legals and Royals are still shaking their fists, eager for the Nameless perpetrator to hang. But some of them, some of them have the same unease and fear etched on their faces that I feel raking through me.

  I can’t pick the executioner’s aura from the frenzy around me, but I see him adjust his grip again and again on the lever.

  I think about the bell that rang at East Market when the announcement caught us in its grasp. I imagine them now—bells filling the air and growing louder and louder. And I imagine a veil of black night swallowing us up.

  I know it works when everyone around me claps their hands to their ears, shouting. But the noose is already around Hat’s neck.

  Belrosa lunges blindly in my direction, but I’ve already launched myself forward. I step on a gilded chair and hurl myself over the rail and into the arena. Belrosa shouts, “Kill her! Kill her!”

  With the mad beating of my heart, I imagine bells louder than Belrosa’s shout, clanging in their chests and pounding in their heads. The guards curl over on the gallows stairs.

  The executioner’s hand is still on the lever as I race up the steps, pushing past the incapacitated guards. His grip is tight enough, strong enough. All I need him to do is hesitate. And he does.

  I charge past him to the platform. Hat’s arms are chained behind her, and she’s wild with fear. I wrench the noose forward, when I hear a heavy thud as the lever turns, and then the floor gives out beneath me.

  I throw the noose upward and off, and I pull Hat into my arms as we plummet through the trapdoor. I’m ready for the impact of a ten-foot fall, but she isn’t. We topple to the side, and it’s now that I realize the shouts have stopped from the crowd. I stagger to my feet, pulling Hat with me, and everyone in the viewing arena is staring at us. Distracted, I lose hold over the illusion of bells. We’re only three paces away in our sprint from the gallows when the shouting and gunshots begin.

  We race toward the rail where the Nameless have gathered, and, impossibly, they are jumping over the rail and running toward us. I don’t know what to expect: that they’ve seized the opportunity to come for me or that they’re after Hat. But something in my heart soars as I realize they’re rushing to protect us from the guards.

  I lift Hat as we get to the rail, and a tall, burly Nameless man in a heavy jacket and crooked cap reaches for her. Any other day, I might have been scared of this man. But he takes Hat from my arms and sets her on her feet on the other side of the rail as I clamber over myself.

  Belrosa is shouting something incoherent behind me. The crowd is surging. Legals and Royals flee the area as bullets rip through the air. I run toward the open city gates, and I don’t dare look behind me. I grip Hat’s shoulder to keep her
moving forward to the nearest building, needing to round a blind corner so that no one can get a fix on us with their rifle sights. I try to focus my thoughts enough to make Hat and myself invisible. But all I can think is run faster, run faster.

  As we careen around the corner, someone else skids around the other side. It’s Glenquartz, holding his rifle in his hands, face red from exertion. I pull Hat up to a short stop, twisting her behind my body, wishing I had a weapon, any weapon. Glenquartz’s shoulders slacken when he sees us unharmed, and he gestures for us to follow him toward the city.

  Of course, Glenquartz. Of course.

  A large stretch of empty space stands between us and the city—a lot of open ground. But we don’t have any choice. We race onward.

  One of Belrosa’s guards is gaining on us. I glance behind me. He’s pulling his pistol from his holster. A gunshot cracks, and the man collapses, blood spurting from his leg. My attention snaps forward, and I see Devil standing at the gate to the city, peering around the corner with her long rifle in her hands. The bodies of two posted guards are at her feet, and I don’t have time to ask if they’re alive or not.

  As we rush through the gates, Devil abandons her post and joins us. “I knew you’d escape. You care about that one too much.” She gestures at Hat. “I thought I’d give you some cover.” She grins.

  I smile back.

  Together, we run.

  CHAPTER 11

  Once we’re inside the city, my first instinct is to run to the abandoned library at the western edge of the Inner Ring. Instead, I follow Glenquartz. He leads us through West Market and into the Royal Court. Everything in my bones burns at the idea of returning to the palace, but it’s the last place they’d search for us. Yet Glenquartz leads us to a collection of simple brick houses on the outskirts of the Royal Court. I hold Hat close as we walk. Glenquartz has draped his jacket over her shoulders so that no one can see her shackled wrists behind her. As soon as we find a concealed alley, Glenquartz fumbles through his pockets until he finds his keys. He frees her and throws the shackles angrily down the alley. I take quick note that even the alleys in the Royal Court are cleaner. Neat, tidy drains that funnel water into the sewers.

  Glenquartz leads us down another couple of streets before he opens the door to a small house. He ushers us into a bright living space. Devil stays outside, saying that she’ll keep watch on the streets for a while to make sure no one is following us. As soon as Glenquartz shuts the door, he rushes to close the curtains. Dim shade fills the room like silence.

  He checks the bruises on Hat’s wrists. “You’re all right?” he says, more a sigh of relief than a question.

  She nods, choking back tears. She’s been in Seriden’s prison longer than most Nameless. I raise an eyebrow in concern, and she won’t meet my gaze.

  My heart tightens, and I pat Glenquartz’s arm. “Can you bring her some water and food?”

  He doesn’t want to leave her side, but Hat’s hand flutters to her stomach, and the hungry pinch of her lips sends him fumbling his way into the kitchen.

  I sit beside Hat and gently put my hand on her shoulder. “Tell me.”

  Instead she shows me.

  Her ribs. Her ankle. The back of her neck. Cracked, twisted, and bruised. She tells me about her cell, the food she could hardly eat, the water she was scarcely given, and the fight with another prisoner that she barely survived.

  At last, she looks up. I can tell she wants to wrap her arms around me, but I hold off for a moment.

  “Don’t look down,” I say, and my voice cracks. “When you tell the truth, don’t ever look down. Don’t be ashamed and don’t be afraid. The truth isn’t something you control. It’s something you live with, and if you want to let it make you stronger, it has to be something you own.”

  Silently, tears slip down Hat’s cheeks. She looks up at me and nods. I pull her against me, breathing the scent of sweat and dirt from her hair.

  “Things happen to us,” I say, “things we can’t control and things we don’t want. But we are more than what happens to us.” I say it as much to myself as to her.

  She sniffs, pulling out of the embrace. “There’s something else. It didn’t happen to me. It was someone else.” She takes a moment to steady her hands. “There was a Nameless boy in a cell near mine. Not quite across. I couldn’t see his face. I could see his arm if he reached out, but…he was arrested sometime before I was brought in, and three nights later he was taken.”

  “To the gallows?” I ask gently. “Or…”

  “No. Some kind of soldier took him in the middle of the night. They kept it very quiet, and I saw it because I couldn’t sleep anyway. They took him, and they walked out and never came back. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “Was it the Royal guards?” I ask.

  I sense Glenquartz’s aura sharpening in the kitchen, and I know he’s listening. I ignore him.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “They had weapons like the ones I’ve seen the guards carry. Rifles or muskets, I’m not sure which. They were wearing similar clothes, but it was too dark, and I couldn’t see whether it was the Royal Guard uniform or not. I don’t think they were, though.”

  I pat her shoulder. “Everything will be okay.” It feels like a lie, but it’s the best I can do.

  The soldiers she’s talking about could be foreign soldiers from another city. But if I had to guess, it makes the most sense for them to be Royal guards, which means they’re probably answering to General Belrosa.

  Glenquartz returns into the doorway. “I’ve warmed up some vegetables and corn bread for you.” He brings a plate to Hat and then me.

  “Thank you.” I scan the room quizzically as Hat scarfs down her food. “This is your home.”

  “Yes?” he says, confused by my confusion.

  I shake my head. “I knew you lived somewhere, but I didn’t think of you as actually having a home. Like, these are your walls.”

  He smiles. “You thought I lived in the barracks?”

  “No,” I say. “I just…I’ve never had one of these before. An actual home, I mean.” I place a hand on the wall behind the couch and gesture with the other hand at the mantel, the hat rack, and the bookshelf. “These are your walls. This is your space. It all belongs to you.”

  Glenquartz softens, and suddenly he’s as exhausted as I feel. “Coin?” he says. “You will always have a place here. A home. Wherever I am, whatever happens to us, consider my home to be yours.”

  For once, I’m honestly speechless.

  “And for you, too,” Glenquartz says to Hat. “You never have to leave these walls again if you don’t want to.”

  Hat bites her lip.

  Glenquartz pinches the bridge of his nose. “I…I wish that I had a house big enough for everyone who needs one.”

  I think maybe I’m starting to understand what this crown tattoo really means, and why King Fallow gave it to me in the first place. I think Seriden is supposed to be my home. If I can find the strength to be as brave as Glenquartz, then my home can be big enough to fit everyone.

  Glenquartz takes some food outside to Devil, and when he comes back in, he sits in an old chair. Hat is getting drowsier by the minute, and she keeps squirming in her clothes as if she wants to burn everything she’s wearing. I show Hat to the water closet, and from my time in the palace, I show her how to use the bath. There won’t be any hot water, but as the tub fills, Glenquartz heats some water on his stove and pours it into the bath to raise its temperature.

  I lean against the rough, gray-brown cupboard as Glenquartz washes the dishes. He’s very careful and precise about it.

  “I thought you’d have a shower,” I say. “Don’t most of the Royal homes have them now?”

  He lifts a single shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe the Royals do.”

  I frown. “But…you’re
a Royal guard and you’re living in the Royal Court. Are you not a Royal?”

  “I’m a Legal,” he says. “Like most Royal guards. It’s one of the only ways a Legal can live in the Royal Court without actually being a Royal. Us and the doctors—the Royals like having us close at hand.”

  “Is that difficult? Living here, but not belonging here?”

  “It is. I’ll never advance past my current station. As a Legal, the highest I can rise is lieutenant. The ones who outrank me are all Royals, and it’s not that they don’t deserve it. They’re more trained than I am and have more experience. They attended the military academy in Tuvo. So it’s not that I’m more qualified. It’s just that…I can’t become more qualified. I know I shouldn’t complain. With all the things I take for granted in my life, to complain about not getting enough privilege must sound like I’m comparing luxuries.” He gestures toward the running water at his fingertips.

  He’s not wrong, except the problems he’s facing are similar to what the Nameless face. We aren’t afforded things like homes or jobs or legal rights, and so—by and large—we are criminals. In a similar way, we can’t rise above our stations. “So…does your family visit you here?” I search for any sign that his wife and Flannery visit: toys or shawls or shoes. Surprisingly, though, I don’t find any.

  His aura grows uneasy and fragile, like a brittle piece of driftwood being bent and ready to snap at the slightest pressure.

  He shifts and turns his gaze to me. “Ah, you sensed that, didn’t you? You’re getting better. When we first met, you didn’t quite pick up on it.” He does little to stop the tears from building. “When I talked about Flannery—that beautiful sweet girl—and when you saw my memory of her, you sensed my fear of forgetting her. You picked up on the fear, but you misinterpreted it. I told you my wife had left me with our daughter, but that’s a lie I wanted to believe. My wife was taking Flannery to visit the orchards of Lindragore for the summer.” He clears his throat and turns off the running water, and the dish trembles in his hands. “I was supposed to see them off at the harbor. It was storming. The sailors told me that my wife slipped on the docks, hit her head, and fell into the water. Flannery—that precious girl of ours—jumped in after her. They both died.” With the sleeve of his shirt, he wipes his eyes.