Kelsea gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to hassle him, but she wanted Barty, wanted to see his crinkle-eyed smile more than ever. The urge to see Carlin was even more urgent somehow. “Did you search the village?”
“There has been a lot to do, Majesty. I will move on it shortly.”
Kelsea narrowed her eyes. “Lazarus, you’re lying to me.”
Mace stared at her without expression.
“Why are you lying?”
“Lady!” Venner called to her from the hallway. “Your armor is ready!”
Kelsea turned, irritated. “Why are you telling me this, Venner?”
“Fell’s been down sick.”
Another lie. She imagined that Venner had finally been forced to procure the armor himself. But her appetite for conflict was dwindling apace with her growing desire for whatever Milla was preparing in the kitchen. “We’ll take a look at it during tomorrow’s shaming exercise.”
Venner’s mouth twitched, and he went on to the kitchen. Kelsea turned back to continue with Mace and found him gone, vanished from the audience chamber like smoke.
“Sneaky bastard,” she muttered. What had happened to Barty and Carlin? Had they fallen ill? It was a long journey south for two old people during the winter. Had the Caden found them? No, Barty knew how to cover his tracks. But something was wrong. She could see it on Mace’s face.
She descended the dais, Pen in tow. The smell of garlic made her stomach rumble, and Kelsea fought back a giggle of bitter amusement; even anxiety couldn’t dull her appetite. She looked for Mace in the hallway, but he’d hidden himself somewhere. Kelsea thought about demanding his whereabouts from Coryn, who was on duty at the balcony room, but that seemed childish, so she went on down the hallway with a heavy tread.
At the door of her chamber, Kelsea heard Andalie speak her name in the next room over and halted automatically, Pen following suit behind.
“I assure you, the Queen is afraid.”
“She doesn’t look afraid.” That was Andalie’s oldest girl, Aisa, her voice easily recognizable, right on the cusp of deepening and full of discontent.
“But she is, love,” Andalie replied. “She hides her fear in order to lessen ours.”
Kelsea leaned against the wall, knowing that eavesdropping was rude but unable to walk away. Andalie remained a mystery. Even Mace could find nothing of her ancestry or history beyond the fact that she was half Mort, and Andalie had disclosed that fact herself. It was as if she’d dropped from the sky at the age of fifteen and married her worthless husband; all before that was dark.
“This kingdom hasn’t seen anything extraordinary, or even particularly good, in a long time,” Andalie continued. “The Tearling needs a queen. A True Queen. And if she lives, Queen Kelsea will be exactly that. Maybe even a queen of legend.”
Kelsea’s eyes widened and she turned to Pen, who placed a finger to his lips.
“I’d like to be part of a legend, Maman.”
“That’s why we stay.” Andalie’s voice shifted, moving closer now. Kelsea crooked a finger at Pen and they slipped into Kelsea’s chamber. Pen closed the door behind them, muttering, “I told you she had the sight.”
“And I agreed with you. Still, it’s a mistake to put too much stock in visions.”
Here in the antechamber, Pen had set up his own bed, a messy affair of thrown-together sheets and blankets that didn’t match. Dirty clothes were strewn across the floor, and Pen did his best to kick them under the bed. A knock came at the door, and he opened it to admit Milla, carrying two trays of what looked like beef stew. Milla had already staked out her right to bring Kelsea’s food personally; according to Mace, she also tasted every dish of Kelsea’s food before it left the kitchen. This was something of an empty gesture, since so many poisons came with a time delay, but Kelsea had been moved nonetheless.
“Want to eat with me?” she asked Pen.
“All right.” He followed her through the archway into her chamber, where Mace had set up a small table for the nights when Kelsea wanted to eat alone. Milla set the two trays on the table, bowed to Kelsea, and vanished.
Kelsea dug into the stew. It was as good as everything Milla cooked, but tonight Kelsea ate automatically, her mind on Andalie’s oldest girl. If she understood right, some or all of Andalie’s children had been subjected to abuse, and such treatment always left scars. The girl was also entering adolescence, and Kelsea remembered that transition well enough: the feeling of helplessness, and most of all the quick anger at adults’ failure to understand what was important. One day, when Kelsea was perhaps twelve or thirteen, she had found herself screaming at Barty for moving something on her desk.
She looked up and found Pen watching her, his gaze speculative. “What?”
“I enjoy watching you think. It’s like watching two dogs fight in a pen.”
“You watch dogfighting?”
“Not by choice. It’s a vile sport. But my father ran dogpen fights when I was growing up. That’s how I got my name.”
“Where was this?”
Pen shook his head. “When we join the Queen’s Guard, we earn the right to leave our past behind. Besides, you’re just crusader enough to imprison my father.”
“Maybe I should. He sounds like a butcher.”
Kelsea regretted the statement as soon as it came out of her mouth. But Pen only considered her words for a moment before replying mildly, “Perhaps he was once. But now he’s only a blind old man, unable to harm anyone. There’s danger in a system of justice that makes no allowance for circumstance.”
“I agree.”
Pen went back to his stew, and Kelsea to hers. But after another moment, she put down her spoon. “I’m worried about that girl.”
“Andalie’s oldest?”
“Yes.”
“She’s troubled, Lady. We found no information on Andalie before her marriage, and believe me, Mace and I looked hard. But their family life was a different matter.”
“Different how?”
Pen paused for a moment, and Kelsea could see him framing his answer. “Lady, it was common knowledge in their neighborhood that Andalie’s husband had a taste for young girls. His daughters were the worst case, but not the only ones.”
Kelsea swallowed her revulsion, striving for a businesslike tone. “Carlin told me that with no real courts, communities typically take care of these problems themselves. Why didn’t they deal with him?”
“Because Andalie forbade it.”
“That makes no sense. I would expect Andalie to kill her husband herself, before anyone else had a chance.”
“Me as well, Lady, but for that riddle I could find no answer. The neighbors were happy enough to talk about Borwen, but not about Andalie. They thought her a witch.”
“Why?”
“No one would say. Perhaps it’s just her way of looking through you. I fear Andalie, Lady, for all that I fear no man with a sword.”
“I do too.”
Pen took another spoonful of his stew, and his lack of curiosity allowed Kelsea to bring out the heart of her fear. “Andalie should have been the Queen, Pen. Not me. She looks like a queen and talks like a queen, and she inspires dread.”
Pen thought for a minute before answering. This quality of pensiveness was something Kelsea liked about him, that he didn’t seek to fill empty silence with meaningless words. He swallowed two more mouthfuls of stew before replying. “What you’ve just given, Lady, is a perfect description of the Queen of Mortmesne. Andalie may be part Tear, but the essential core of her is Mort. She’d make an ideal queen in that kingdom. But you seek to create another type of queenship entirely, one not built on fear.”
“What’s mine built on?”
“Justice, Lady. Listening. Whether it’ll succeed, none of us know; it’s certainly easier to hold power through fear. But there’s something hard in Andalie, something without mercy, and while it might create a certain advantage, I don’t know that I’d call it strength.”
Kelsea smiled as she turned back to her stew. Justice and listening. Even Carlin would have to be pleased with that.