A hiss drew out of the crowd. In Above, mutiny and treason were punishable by death, but rape and torture were often overlooked. Tollan didn’t know if he would ever understand Under, but he realized that he felt safer here than he ever had in the palace, surrounded by guards and his father.
“We have little in Under,” Gemma said. “We have each other, our pride, our sharp blades and sharper tongues. And we have a code. When we kill, we kill quickly. We do not bask in another’s pain, and we do not cause it unnecessarily. That is the monstrous horseshit that festers in Above. We are liars and thieves and whores and killers, but we are not evil!” Her eyes flashed in the torchlight.
The crown erupted in cheers. Tollan found himself cheering, too.
Gemma raised her hand to quiet them. “I have a bit of a conundrum, my friends. A part of me wants to make Riquin’s screams last, but the goddess tells us to be merciful. So, while I could gut him—spill his innards here on the docks for the gulls to feast on—I don’t want our seabirds poisoned with his bile. I could strap him to an iron weight and drop him below the waves, but then I risk polluting the entire Hadriak.”
A few cheers were raised and quickly quashed, as she went on.
“What I really itch to do is hand over some blades to our brother and sister in there and let them cut him until he isn’t capable of raping anyone ever again.”
The paramours shouted with a single voice.
“But we are of Under, and we are better than that.”
Next to Tollan, Isbit stepped forward. “Excuse me, Regency,” she said. “I believe I have a solution.”
Gemma nodded for Isbit to continue.
“You all know my story. I was not born in Under. I became one of you because I fell in love with Jamis. But now that he’s gone, now that Abram is gone, my place is in the palace. I’ve decided to pass on the Heart’s Desire to my son, if he’ll have it.” She looked at Tollan, and he found himself nodding. He was stunned by her offer, but he realized immediately how right it felt. The only place he’d every truly been happy was at sea. He was nodding and smiling before he’d even collected his thoughts.
His mother smiled back, flashing a golden tooth that hadn’t been there when he was a boy. Then she turned back to Gemma. “I believe I have a solution to your”—she waved her hand at Riquin, disgust clear—“little rapist problem. I am of Above, and you’re right. We are evil, sadistic pricks. I have no problem doing what should be done to this animal.”
Gemma nodded. “It is done then. Let us leave this monster to her work.”
The crowds cleared out. Tollan felt sick as he watched his mother take the knife from Gemma, but then he spotted Elam by the tavern stairs. Tollan ran to him, covering his ears. But the screaming had already begun.
Gemma’s legs trembled as the crowd followed her instructions, and she made her way back inside the Belly Up.
“What I did out there,” she said, resting her head in her hands upon the sticky table, “was wrong.” She could still hear Riquin’s screams, and her stomach twisted.
Devery reached out to put a hand on her arm but then didn’t, his hand hanging in midair and then settling again on the table. Elam clicked his tongue as if he were going to say something, but then he stopped himself, too. Tollan and Wince stared off blankly, as if at any moment, they would ask how they had gotten here.
She told herself it had been necessary, that unless she wanted a civil war, she had to excise Riquin’s poison, but his screams only pierced that argument full of holes. “Goddess above,” she growled. “That woman is merciless.”
Tollan chuckled, and Gemma turned her attention to him. “I’m sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze. “She’s your mother …”
He shook his head. “No apology needed. My entire life I loathed my father and thought my mother was a being of mercy and warmth. But it strikes me tonight that at least I can say I actually knew my father. That woman”—he gestured toward the door—“is a complete stranger to me.”
Wince looked as if he wanted to comfort his friend but didn’t know how. So it was Elam who reached out and took Tollan’s hand. His thumb caressed the former king’s hand gently, and Gemma caught herself staring at the bare honesty of the moment. It was unlike Elam to be so open. A gurgling scream found its way in through the closed door.
“Maybe that’s the last,” Devery said, just as another, higher-pitched keen began anew.
“Prick this,” Gemma said, pushing away from the table and getting to her feet. “It’s over.” She stormed out into the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DOCKSIDE
When Gemma reached Isbit, she couldn’t believe that Riquin was still alive. “Enough!” she growled, snatching the knife from Isbit’s hand.
The Queen of Above turned her gaze upon her and said, “Come to finish the deed?”
Gemma was surprised to see that Isbit’s eyes were wet with tears.
Gemma placed the blade to what was left of Riquin’s throat. “I can’t say you deserved this, you prick, but neither did Jost and Becka.” He stared at her with blank eyes, and she drew the blade across his throat.
“Is this not what you wanted?” Isbit asked softly.
Gemma felt ill. Her legs and arms trembled. She turned and slid down to sit on the dock, putting the pulp and bone that had once been Riquin Hawkbeard behind her.
Isbit sat down beside her.
“How can you …” Gemma wasn’t sure how to ask the woman how she could live with herself.
Isbit sighed and wiped her bloodied hands on her breeches. She was silent for a long moment before she said, “For much of my life, I was someone’s property. Have you ever known that feeling? To know that you have no value?”
Gemma shook her head, which was beginning to throb.
Isbit went on. “No, I suppose you haven’t. I look at you, and I see what I might have been. If you walk through the halls of the noble houses, you would never think that a woman might choose a low birth. It makes no sense. But I can tell you from experience that I would have done so in a heartbeat had I known what it was like in Under.”
She sighed. “In Above, daughters are sold to the highest bidder. Their own choices and desires mean nothing. I had no say in whether or not I married the king. My friends had no choices. We were first our father’s property, and then our husband’s. If we did not please our husband, we could be beaten lawfully. If we did not satisfy our husband, he could take as many mistresses as he liked. If we dared to question our husband, we could be declared a whore, humiliated, used and broken until we learned our place. Every girl’s mother warned her. We were raised on horror stories. Every girl grew up knowing how to lay still and take it.”
Bile rose in Gemma’s throat.
After a moment, Isbit continued. “When Jamis washed up on Whitebeach, he was terribly ill and injured, yet he spoke to me kindly. It wasn’t respect for my station or fear that he would break some silly rule. It was actual kindness. I ran headlong into him, and in our years together, he never once treated me as his possession. In Above, that is rarer than you can imagine.
“Had I known that the world could be other than it was, I’d have left before my father signed the nuptial agreement with Abram. I’d have come to Melnora and offered myself as a maid or a thief or a whore. I’d have done so willingly and with a smile on my face.
“Because, as I discovered much too late, I was always a whore. I let Abram prick me and get me with child because I was paid to do so with plush carpets and silver platters, with a torn slit and bruises and a hatred of myself that was only eclipsed by my loathing of him.”
Gemma couldn’t help but be moved by Isbit’s story, and she reached out and silently took the other woman’s bloodstained hand. After several long moments, the queen went on.