The Invasion of the Tearling

“But there is something, Majesty,” Tyler remarked, after a moment’s thought. “Father Timpany used to tell stories about a portrait gallery somewhere in the lower floors of the Keep. The Regent would visit the gallery from time to time, and Timpany said there’s a portrait of William Tear down there.”


“Why on earth would my uncle visit a portrait gallery?”

“It’s a gallery of your ancestors, Majesty. Timpany said that when the Regent was drunk, he liked to go down and scream at your grandmother’s portrait.”

It turned out that Mace knew exactly where the gallery was: two floors down, on the laundry level. As they descended a twisting staircase, Kelsea could hear many people speaking through the walls. Although she had her own private laundry—Mace, who worried about contact poisons, had insisted on it—Kelsea had kept the Keep laundry open, sending the rest of the Queen’s Wing’s linen down there. Her uncle’s Keep had been stuffed with unnecessary services, but Kelsea couldn’t bring herself to put so many people out of work. She had fired the worst of the Keep servants, the masseuses and escorts, those she simply wouldn’t have on her payroll. But she tried to make use of everyone else. At the bottom of the staircase, she could see no farther than the tiny, dim circle of torchlight that surrounded them, but she had the sense of a vast, hollow space above her head.

“Who built all these tunnels?”

“They’re part of the original architecture, Lady. There are hidden ways all the way from the top of the Keep down to the dungeons. Several passages extend out into the city as well.”

Mention of dungeons made Kelsea think of Thorne, who now sat in his own specially constructed cell several floors up. Kelsea didn’t trust him in the Keep’s dungeons, not even with Elston standing guard over him at all times. She also had a vague idea that Thorne should remain separated from the albino, Brenna. So he remained in isolation, save for a gloating Elston just outside the bars of his cell. Kelsea didn’t know what to do about Thorne. Should she put him to trial? For the past six weeks Kelsea and Arliss had been quietly converting the Census Bureau into a tax collection agency, but they had also been pulling the honest men from the Bureau and moving them back into the judiciary. Creation of a justice system was slow going; the Tearling had few laws, and none of them were codified anywhere. Since the Mort had reached the border, Kelsea had found little time to devote to this endeavor, but at her request, Arliss had kept at it, and now New London had five public courts, where anyone could petition a judge for redress of grievances. The Crown could try Arlen Thorne in a public court, but what if he was acquitted? Judge or jury, either one could be bought. Conversely, even if Thorne’s guilt was not beyond question, many jurors would condemn him regardless of the evidence. After the Regent, Thorne was the most hated figure in the Tear. There was no real purpose to a trial, and yet Kelsea felt there should be one, all the same.

Mace wanted to simply put Thorne to death. The man was so universally hated that no one would protest a quick execution, particularly not if Kelsea made the execution public. She saw the wisdom of Mace’s advice; such a move would gain her throne the diehard support of anyone who had ever watched a loved one put into the cage. Even the Arvath didn’t protest against capital punishment these days, and Kelsea certainly had no problem with it. Yet something in her demanded a trial, even a show trial, something to legitimize the act. But there was legal precedent for summary executions: if Father Tyler’s folklore was to be believed, William Tear had practiced them, had even carried one out with his own hands.

And so have I, Kelsea thought, suddenly cold. In her mind she saw blood, thick and warm, spurting over her right hand and dripping down her forearm. The outside world assumed that Mhurn had simply been a casualty of the Battle of the Argive. Mace had allowed that belief to flourish, but Kelsea and the rest of her Guard knew better, and no matter how she tried to dismiss the matter from her mind, the image kept recurring to her: her knife hand, bathed in blood. It seemed so important for Thorne to have a trial.

“Cover your eyes, Lady.”

Kelsea shielded her eyes as daylight bloomed in the darkness ahead. She passed through one of Mace’s hidden doors and found herself in a long, narrow room with a high ceiling. The light came from a bank of windows on the far wall. Looking out these windows, Kelsea saw that they were at the extreme western end of the Keep; outside, she saw first the rolling foothills of the city and then the tan backdrop of the Clayton Mountains.