“Well, rest assured, it’s not a mistake I’ll make again,” Thorne replied, in a tone that precluded further discussion. “At any rate, it’s pointless to hash over the past. What matters is the future.”
“The past is the future, Thorne,” the priest disagreed quietly. “What guarantee does my master have that you won’t fumble the next attempt as well?”
Javel was impressed. Few men, nobles aside, would dare to speak so to Thorne, even with the might of the Arvath behind them. And the priest had expressed Javel’s own doubts precisely. Looking forward, he could see an endless corridor of failed attempts on the Queen’s life. He couldn’t face that, not even for Allie; his own courage didn’t stretch so far. He wanted to be out of this, his life no longer beholden to secret plots and the constant fear that each fist hammering on the door would be the Mace, come to take him for interrogation.
“I guarantee nothing,” Thorne replied coldly. “I never have. And while killing the Queen would solve many problems, I concede that it may simply be beyond our capacity at the moment.”
“What of your Queen’s Guard?” Lord Tare asked. “Can’t he simply do the job?”
“What Queen’s Guard?” the scruffy blond man asked.
Thorne shook his head. “He’s unwilling to risk his neck so far. The Mace is already aware of a traitor; he’s tightened security around the Queen and installed Pen Alcott as her close guard. My man is frightened, and I can’t say I blame him. Even if he succeeded, there’s no corner of the New World in which the Mace wouldn’t find him.”
Or us, Javel murmured to himself.
“You’ve turned a Queen’s Guard?” the blond man asked again.
“Not your concern, little one,” Thorne replied. “Remember your place here.”
The pickpocket shrank back into his chair, and Javel shook his head. How had Thorne managed to suborn a Queen’s Guard? They were unflinchingly loyal, even more steeped in their pride and traditions than the Caden were. So far as Javel knew, no royal guard had ever gone traitor.
But if anyone could do it, he thought in disgust, it would be Thorne.
“Pen Alcott is a gifted swordsman,” Hugo Baedencourt remarked, staring thoughtfully into the fire. “Few of us would dare to challenge him. Merritt perhaps, but you’ll never get him to come in on this business.”
“No matter,” Thorne said. “I’ve had a better idea, one that serves all of our purposes. Alain, here”—he gestured toward the pickpocket—“has given me information vital to its success.”
The scruffy pickpocket smiled wide, happy as a dog that had pleased its master. Javel began to wonder if he was right in the head.
“I would say that we can’t fail,” Thorne continued, “but such arrogance would be unproductive.”
“Fail at what?” Hugo asked.
“In one form or another, you all need money.”
Javel opened his mouth to disagree, then thought better of it.
“Money will no longer come to you from the Keep. The Queen will not support the shipment, not now and not ever.”
“You’ve had conference with her?” Lord Tare asked.
“No need. The signs are clear. She met with General Bermond three days ago, and they’ve begun plans for initial deployment of more than half of the Tear army to the Mort border. The Queen’s Wing is stocked with siege supplies. I tell you, she prepares for war, and without swift action on our part, the Mort will be coming.”
Javel’s mouth dropped open in horror. A Mort invasion . . . he had never seriously considered it. Even after the Queen had set the cages on fire, he’d always assumed that they would sign a new treaty, or that Thorne would sort it out, that something else would intervene. He thought of the wise, sad woman he’d seen on the Keep Lawn . . . despite Thorne’s maneuverings, Javel had been certain that she would somehow save them all.
“God help us,” Alain murmured.
“I assume that you would all like to avoid such an invasion. My plan will kill two birds with one stone.”
Without warning, Thorne popped to his feet. Javel recoiled as he passed, not wanting to feel even the brush of those skeletal limbs. Thorne’s tone was positively enthusiastic. “Come with me!”
They followed him through a door that led farther into the warehouse, into what had once been an office. Desks and chairs stood empty, coated with a thick layer of dust. Wall-mounted torches provided the light, since the windows had been blocked with black paint. Above one desk, a portrait of a dumpy-looking woman had been stuck to the plaster. Beyond the office wall, Javel could hear thudding blows, the muted sounds of someone hammering. Sawing as well; these were the sounds of serious construction, but this lumber company had gone out of business long since.
They reached the end of the offices, and Thorne led them through another door into the warehouse itself. It was a dank, cavernous space, lit by only the dimmest torchlight. The smell of old, dry sawdust made Javel’s nostrils twitch. All around were enormous rectangular piles of ancient lumber, some nearly twenty feet high, covered with thick green canvas. Like all such abandoned buildings, the warehouse struck Javel as ghostly, dead space haunted by activity that had long since ceased.
“Come along,” Thorne commanded, and the men followed him toward the far end of the huge space. The hammering grew louder as they neared, and when they rounded the last corner Javel saw a man stationed between two sawhorses, busily sawing oakwood. Planks of the stuff, each about ten feet long, were piled neatly and symmetrically beside him.
“Liam!” Thorne shouted.
“Aye!” A voice echoed from behind one of the lumber piles.
“Out here, please!”
A gnome of a man emerged from behind the tarp, wiping his hands on his trousers. He was covered from head to foot in a thin layer of sawdust, and Javel was suddenly assaulted by the certainty that he was having the most vivid yet of his Allie nightmares; any moment now, the warehouse around him would disappear and he would be standing at the edge of the Argive Pass, watching her disappear over the Pike Hill.
“This is Liam Bannaker,” Thorne introduced the gnome. “I assume you’ve heard of him.”
Indeed Javel had. Liam Bannaker was one of the best carpenters in the Tearling, and good with brick and stone as well. The wealthy of New London often engaged him to build their houses, and even nobles had been known to hire him from time to time, when they had broken stonework or foundations on their castles. But the man didn’t look like a builder; he was short and skinny, with delicate-looking arms. The other carpenter, the man with the saw, was ignoring them entirely; Javel began to wonder if he was deaf.
“You’ll be wanting a demonstration, I suppose?” Bannaker asked Thorne. His voice was also gnome-like, high and tinny, buzzing unpleasantly in Javel’s ears.
“It would help.”
“Lucky for you, three of them are all ready to go.” Bannaker shoved through the group and hurried over to one of the covered piles of lumber. “A quick demonstration only, though. We’re a bit behind schedule since Philip got the flu.”
He grabbed one end of the green canvas tarp and gave it a jerk. Even as the tarp fell, Javel was assailed by a premonition of horror, something even worse than his nightmares, and he wanted to close his eyes. But it was too late, the tarp had already fallen, and his first thought was I should have known.
It was a cage, wide and squat, some thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. A door stood at one end, just tall enough to admit a single man. The bars weren’t steel; the entire cage, floors and bars and wheels, looked to be Tearling oak. It was not as well built as the cages Javel had seen once a month for his entire adult life, but it looked sturdy, sturdy enough to do the job.
“I sure as hell didn’t sign on for this,” Arne Baedencourt grumbled, and Javel nodded numbly. Looking to his right, he found Thorne staring raptly at the cage, the way a loving parent would gaze at his child.
Thorne shrugged. “What you signed on for is a moot point. You’re all implicated now. Each of us is a danger to the other. But cheer up! I’ve already completed negotiations with Mortmesne. Each of you will get his original reward, as promised.”
“And what’s your reward, Arlen?” the priest asked, his weasel’s eyes fixed distrustfully on Thorne. “What is it that you hope to gain from this?”
“That’s no concern of yours.” Thorne continued to stare at his cage with bright eyes. “Your master will be content when he gets his price.”
“How many to each cage?”
“Twenty-five, perhaps thirty. More if they’re children.”
The priest bowed his head, his lips moving soundlessly. Javel thought he understood: the priest feared damnation. So did Javel. He looked around the enormous warehouse, the tarp-covered piles that he had assumed were lumber, and counted a total of eight. He had never been good at math, but it took him only a moment to estimate this particular product.
At least two hundred people, he thought, his skin crawling. Maybe as many as three. Eight cages, and Allie’s face seemed to peer through the bars of each one.
For perhaps the hundredth time since leaving the Keep, Thomas cursed the rain. The skies had opened as he crossed the New London Bridge, and now it had been pouring steadily for three days. It was March, the season for rain, but Thomas still felt as though the rainstorm had been sent to torment him. Perhaps the girl had conjured a storm on purpose with her damned jewel, or perhaps it was God’s punishment. Either way, he was soaked through. He hadn’t ridden a horse in at least a year, and his riding outfit turned out to be much too small; the wet fabric of the trousers had already rubbed his thighs raw, causing pain with every stride. The world had become nothing but these things: the cold, the wet, the chafing, and the endless splash of the horses’ hooves through puddles and mud.
His men weren’t complaining, but they weren’t exactly cheerful either. Only three had agreed to come along; he’d promised them rewards once they reached Mortmesne, and these three had been stupid enough to believe him. He had never found Pine, a fact he regretted bitterly. Worse, not one of the Caden had agreed to come with him, not even after he promised to pay them double once they reached Mortmesne. One couldn’t expect loyalty from mercenaries, certainly, but he had believed he might convince at least one.
But he had managed to grab Keever, and that was something. Keever had the brains of a block of stone, but he’d been in his family’s business of shipping produce to Mortmesne, and he knew the Mort Road. The plan had been to leave the road once New London was behind them, but the weather precluded that idea, and perhaps it was for the best. On the road, superior skill in the wild would count for less, and Thomas didn’t deceive himself; when it came to navigating the woods, Keever was outmatched. They all were.
But the road brought its own problems. The mud was so thick that Thomas could feel his horse panting with the effort of hauling its hooves from the mire. Every time they heard a party larger than their own approaching, they had to leave the road and hide in the undergrowth until it was clear. Thomas had planned to make the journey to Demesne in a straight three days, but that was never going to happen now. It would take five days, perhaps six, and the longer he was in the open, the more he could sense death near him, closing in. His guards gave him uncertain glances from time to time, and in these glances Thomas could feel the heavy hand of history. The girl had called him nothing, and somehow he knew that nothing was what he would become. Dimly, from the years when he was still in school, he remembered the tiny star and the note at the bottom of a book’s page. A footnote . . . that’s what he would become. In the stories, the mythology that the Tearling passed down from generation to generation, he would be an afterthought. Even if he reached the Mort border alive, the Red Queen would likely kill him for his failure.
It wasn’t my fault.
She wouldn’t care.
“Let’s stop for the night,” he suggested.
“We don’t want to stop here,” Keever replied. “Much too open. We should keep going until dark.”
Thomas nodded and looked resentfully at the dusky grey sky. Although it was darkening fast, they hadn’t even reached the end of the Caddell. Even if the weather cleared, it would take at least two more days of hard riding to reach the border. His thighs felt as though they had no skin left at all, and with each of his horse’s strides, he felt fluid ooze from the raw flesh. His men must be suffering similar pains, but of course they never said anything, and the more furiously he wished for them to complain, the more certain he became that they wouldn’t.
Thomas heard something.
He drew his horse to a halt and turned around, listening. But he couldn’t hear anything over the rain. An enormous boulder hid the road behind them.
“What is it?” asked Keever. He’d taken on the role of unofficial leader on this journey, though the old Regent’s Guard wouldn’t have let Keever lead an expedition to the market.
“Quiet!” Thomas snapped. He’d always liked the way his voice sounded when he gave commands; it brooked no refusal, and Keever fell obediently silent.
Now he heard the sound again, even over the rain: hooves, perhaps a hundred meters back, around the bend.
“Riders,” Arvis announced.
Keever listened for a moment. “They’re moving at a good clip. Let’s get into the woods over there.”
Thomas nodded, and the four men picked their way off the road and into the woods, which were so shadowed that Thomas could barely guide his stallion. They moved far enough into the trees to block the view of the road, halting in a tiny copse. A steady hiss of rain fell on the leaves over their heads, but Thomas could still hear the approaching horses. Sudden dread coiled around his heart. Perhaps it was only a party returning from a hunt, or a gang of black marketeers who didn’t want their doings observed, but the noose tightening inside Thomas didn’t think so. He sensed eyes on him, deep black eyes that somehow saw every dreadful thing he’d ever done.
When the hoofbeats were perhaps fifty yards away, they ceased.
Thomas looked around at his men, and they looked blankly back at him, their eyes seeking answers, but Thomas had none. Riding farther into the woods was out of the question; it was nearly black in there, and being caught in darkness by what was after him would be even worse than being caught in this half-light.
Thomas was arrested suddenly by an old memory, a game he used to play with himself when he was a child: Queen’s Guard. Perhaps once a month, he would wake up feeling inexplicably brave. There was never any particular reason, just a mood he woke up in; the world would seem a brighter, better place, and for that entire day, he would try to live life as a Queen’s Guard, doing honorable deeds. He wouldn’t pull Elyssa’s hair or steal her dolls or lie to the governess about nicking things from the kitchen. He would make his bed and clean up his toys in the nursery and even do his homework. And oddly enough, either Mum or the governess would usually notice, giving him a compliment and something extra at bedtime, a small piece of chocolate or a new toy. But those days became fewer and fewer as time went on, as he realized that he would never be anything but a younger son, a spare. Sometime around thirteen, the Queen’s Guard days vanished for good.
If only I had woken up that way every morning, Thomas thought, the idea awakening a deep and hopeless longing. If I could have been a Queen’s Guard every day of my life, things might have turned out so differently.
Now the sound of rain was broken by singing, a man’s sonorous baritone echoing through the woods behind them. The tone was mocking, but carried such an undercurrent of violence that Thomas’s stomach clenched. He heard this voice often in dreams, and each time he woke before its owner could kill him. But now he was wide-awake.
The shipment nears, the cages fill,
A voice rings out across the Tear,
The cages burn, the Keep Lawn still,
The Tearling weeps, the Queen is here.
The singing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Thomas squinted into the dusk. He could see nothing, but he didn’t deceive himself that the blindness was mutual; that bastard had cat’s eyes. Thomas’s guards surrounded him, each of them peering into the foliage, swords drawn. He thought of telling them to save the effort, but remained silent. If they wanted to die bravely, it wasn’t his business to tell them otherwise. They knew the identity of the singer, of course they did. The rain poured down even harder, the world narrowing to all of them standing there into the stillness. Thomas called out, “Let my men pass!”
Laughter echoed from multiple directions.
“These men who follow you to swear allegiance to the Mort bitch?” the Fetch called from his invisible vantage. “I’d sooner allow a pack of rogue dogs to live. Cowards and traitors, all of you!”
He broke into song again.
The Queen concealed now reappears,
The knife is thrown, the girl struck down,
Still she rises, eighteen long years,
Our Queen, and we care not which crown.