“I bring Your Majesty a gift, a gown of Callaen silk.”
The gown was beautiful, made of a bright royal blue silk that gleamed in the torchlight. But when Lady Andrews held it up, Kelsea saw that it was perhaps three sizes too small, tailored for a tall, slender woman like Lady Andrews herself. After considering it for a moment, Kelsea decided that the woman had sized the gown deliberately out of spite, just for the joy of having it be too small when Kelsea tried it on.
“Thank you,” Kelsea replied, feeling a small smile play on her lips. “How kind.”
Arliss took the dress and placed it among the steadily growing stack of gifts. Some of them were truly dreadful, given by people who apparently had the same taste in art as the Regent. But all of the gifts were at least valuable in materials; no one was quite brave enough to give Kelsea something that was junk. She had already decided to sell most of them, but Arliss was well ahead of her. He eyed the blue gown with a calculating gaze for a moment before making a note in his little book.
“I’ve also come to ask what Your Majesty means to do about Mortmesne.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Lady Andrews smiled, that deceptively sweet smile that seemed built to hide gnashing teeth. “You’ve violated the Mort Treaty, Majesty. I own lands toward the end of the Crithe, in the eastern Almont. I have much to lose.”
Kelsea snuck a glance at Mace and found him staring out across the crowd. “I have more to lose than you, Lady Andrews. More land, and my life as well. So why don’t you let me worry about it?”
“My tenants are alarmed, Majesty. I can’t say I blame them. They stand right in the path to New London, and they suffered cruelly in the last invasion.”
“I’m sure you cared deeply then as well,” Kelsea murmured. Her sapphire gave a sharp burn against her chest, and she suddenly saw a picture in her mind: a tall tower, its doors closed, its gates barricaded. “Did you and your guard go out to defend them?”
Lady Andrews opened her mouth, then paused.
“You didn’t, did you? You remained in your tower and left them to their own devices.”
The older woman’s face stiffened. “I saw no point in dying with them.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
“What is your grievance with the shipment, Majesty?”
“My grievance?”
“It’s a fair system. We owe Mortmesne.”
Kelsea leaned forward. “Do you have children, Lady Andrews?”
“No, Majesty.”
Of course not, Kelsea thought. Children conceived by this woman would only be cannibalized by her womb. She raised her voice. “Then you don’t risk much in the lottery, do you? You have no children, you don’t look strong enough for labor, and you’re really too old to appeal to anyone for sex.”
Lady Andrews’s eyes widened in fury. Several feminine giggles echoed across the hall behind her.
“I’ll listen to complaints about Mortmesne and the lottery from people who actually have something to lose,” Kelsea announced to the hall. “People with a stake in the shipment can come and raise this issue with me any time I hold audience.”
She turned back to Lady Andrews. “But not you.”
Lady Andrews’s hands had clutched into claws. The nails were long hooks, manicured a bright purple. Deep pockets of red had emerged in the fleshless crescents beneath her eyes. Kelsea wondered if the woman would actually try to strike with her bare hands; it seemed unlikely, but Kelsea wasn’t sure. Neither was Mace; he’d moved a few inches closer, and now he stared at Lady Andrews with his most forbidding expression.
What does she see when she looks in the mirror? Kelsea wondered. How could a woman who looked so old still place so much importance on being attractive? She had read about this particular delusion in books many times, but it was different to see it in practice. And for all the anguish that Kelsea’s own reflection had caused her lately, she saw now that there was something far worse than being ugly: being ugly and thinking you were beautiful.
Lady Andrews recovered quickly, though her low voice still shook with anger. “And what have you to lose, Majesty? You spent your childhood in hiding. Has your name ever gone into the lot?”
Kelsea flushed, surprised into silence; this was something she’d never even considered. Of course her Glynn name had never been in the lottery, since no one knew that Kelsea Glynn existed. But was there even a lottery marker for Kelsea Raleigh? Of course not, no more than there had been a marker for Elyssa Raleigh or Thomas Raleigh or any of the countless parade of nobles who could afford to buy their way free of the lot.
Lady Andrews took another step forward now, undaunted by the proximity of Mace, her smile pure spite. “In fact, Majesty, you risk less than any of us, don’t you? If she invades again, you merely barricade yourself in your own tower, just as I did. Only your tower is even taller.”
Kelsea colored, thinking of the several rooms down the hallway filled with siege supplies: provisions and weapons, torches and barrels of oil. What could she do, promise to fight alongside the populace of New London? Seconds passed, and the people in the hall began to whisper. She looked to Mace and Pen, but found them stumped as well. Lady Andrews was grinning, the grin of a hunter with cornered prey, all perfectly shaped fangs. The thought of being cornered by this woman made Kelsea die inside, in some deep, dark place where none of Carlin’s lessons had penetrated.
In desperation, Kelsea grabbed her necklace and drew the sapphire out, clutching it tightly in one hand. She would take any answer it had, but the jewel gave her nothing, not even a hint of heat. The murmuring grew louder, echoing off the walls. Any moment now, someone would begin to laugh, and this creature would win.
“I was one of your villagers, Lady.”
Kelsea looked past Lady Andrews and saw that Mhurn had stepped forward. His face was white as ever, his bloodshot eyes pinned on Lady Andrews, but for once, his pallor was not from sleeplessness. It was from fury.
“Who the fuck are you?” Lady Andrews snarled at him. “A guard who dares to address a noble direct? You’d be whipped for that in my audience chamber.”
Mhurn ignored her. “We tried, you know. My wife had never learned to ride, and my daughter was ill. We had no chance to outrun the Mort on the horizon. We went to the gate of the castle and begged for shelter, and I saw you up at the window, staring down at us. You had all those rooms, yet you refused to give us even a single one.”
Kelsea was suddenly overcome with memory: the day in the Almont, the farmers working in the fields and the tall tower of brick. Lady Andrews had begun to back away, but Mhurn advanced, and Kelsea saw the glint of tears in his eyes. “I’ve known the Queen barely a month, but I promise you, when the Mort come, she will try to cram the entire Tearling into this Keep, and she won’t care how recently they’ve bathed or how poor they are. She’ll make room for all.”
Lady Andrews stared at him, her mouth open wide, utterly speechless. Mace went to Mhurn and spoke to him in a low voice. Mhurn nodded and walked quickly behind the throne toward the guard quarters. Kelsea remembered the day, earlier this week, when she had passed Mhurn to go out on the balcony and been overwhelmed by suspicion. She looked around at the other guards stationed on the chamber, nineteen of them now, their faces hard. Did they all have similar stories? She felt suddenly wretched. Even if one of them was guilty, how could she suspect any of them?
“I demand punishment, Majesty!” Lady Andrews had recovered her voice. “Give me that guard!”
Kelsea burst out laughing, true laughter that rang across the audience chamber. It felt wonderful, more so as Lady Andrews’s face turned a bright, choleric purple.
“I’ll tell you what you do, Lady Andrews. You take your dress and get the hell out of my Keep.”
Lady Andrews opened her mouth, but for a moment nothing came out. In the space of seconds, a thousand tiny lines seemed to have sprung up in the taut skin of her face. Arliss had produced the dress and now offered it to Lady Andrews, though his lowered brows told Kelsea that they’d be discussing it later.
Lady Andrews snatched the dress back and stomped away with her neck hunched into her shoulders, her gait showing her age. As she went up the aisle, many in the crowd gave her disgusted glances, but Kelsea was unimpressed; they’d likely behaved no better during the last invasion. As on the day of her crowning, there were no poor here. She would have to change that. Next week when she held audience, she would tell Mace to throw the doors open to the first few hundred who came.
“Are there any more?” she asked Mace.
“Don’t think so, Lady.” Mace raised his eyebrows toward the herald, who shook his head. Mace made a cutting motion, and the herald announced, “This audience is concluded! Please proceed in an orderly fashion through the doors!”
“He’s good, that herald,” Kelsea remarked. “Hard to believe that much sound could come from such a slight boy.”
“Thin men always make the best heralds, Lady, don’t ask me why. I’ll let him know you were pleased.”
Kelsea sank back against the throne, wishing again that it were her armchair. Leaning back in this thing was like reclining against a rock. She decided to pile it with cushions when there was no one around.
Orderly fashion was a bit much to hope for; the crowd had bottlenecked at the door, each of them apparently feeling that he deserved to go through first.
“God, what a scrum,” Pen remarked, chuckling. Kelsea took the opportunity to scratch her nose, which had been itching madly for some time, then beckoned Andalie. “I’m fine for the night, Andalie. You’re off duty.”
“Thank you, Lady,” Andalie replied, and left the dais.
When the crowd had finally disappeared and her guard had begun to bolt the doors, Kelsea asked, “So what do you think Lady Andrews was trying to do?”
“Ah, she was set up to it,” Mace replied. “Just making trouble.”
Arliss, who’d been listening from his place at the foot of the dais, nodded. “Scene had Thorne all over it, but he wasn’t stupid enough to show up today.”
Kelsea frowned. Thanks to Mace and Arliss, she now understood much more about Thorne’s Census Bureau. Although it had originally been created as a tool of the Crown, it had taken on a terrible life of its own, becoming such a power in the Tearling that it rivaled God’s Church. The Census was too big to be shut down wholesale; it would need to be dismantled piece by piece, and the biggest piece was Thorne himself. “I won’t have Thorne sabotage what we build. He needs to go, with a decent pension.”
“The Census Bureau has most of the educated men in the kingdom, Lady,” Mace cautioned. “If you try to break it up, you’ll have to find them all gainful employment.”
“Perhaps they could become teachers. Or tax collectors, I don’t know.”
She would have to wait to see what they thought of this idea, for Wellmer’s stomach suddenly gurgled quite loudly in the silence, prompting muted laughter from the group of guards. Milla was cooking dinner now, and the scent of garlic permeated the hall. Wellmer turned tomato-red, but Kelsea smiled and said, “We’re done. I’ll eat in my chamber tonight; you’re welcome to the table. Someone bring Mhurn some food and force him to eat.”
They bowed in unison, and several guards headed off to the kitchen while the rest disappeared down the corridor to their families and the guard quarters. Milla had put her foot down and declared that she wouldn’t have twenty guards invade her kitchen every mealtime, so now several of the guards worked as servers for the rest of the families at each meal. They’d created some sort of system very diplomatically among themselves, and Mace hadn’t needed to intervene. A minor detail, but Kelsea felt that it was a positive note, a sign of community.
“Lazarus, wait a moment.”
Mace leaned down to her. “Lady?”
“Any progress on locating Barty and Carlin?”
Mace straightened. “Not yet, Lady.”