“She’s up to something. Watch her close. You see any sign that she’s going to bolt, raise the alarm and grab her. She can’t take all four of us at once.”
Aisa didn’t know what to make of this order, or, truly, of the Queen herself. She knew from Maman and the Guard that the Queen sometimes went into a trance, but nothing could have prepared her for last night: the Queen shambling from one room to another, her eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open, as she staggered forward, holding conversations with no one, even bumping into walls. The Mace had cautioned them not to worry, to simply let her be, and left her in the care of Pen. But Aisa did worry. In her own way, the Queen reminded her of Glee, who would wander in the same manner, following things that weren’t there, tormented by some other world that none of them could see. Sometimes Glee herself wasn’t entirely there, and Aisa had thought more than once that one day Glee might simply disappear, vanishing into her unseen world. Perhaps the Mace was worried that the Queen might do the same.
“Queen Kelsea!” a man shouted, and Aisa swung that way automatically, putting her hand to her knife. But it was only an old man standing near the front of the crowd, waving at the Queen. His was the first voice they’d heard raised above the murmur of the crowd; the city seemed to be stunned, all of them staring at the Queen with wide, lost eyes. After perhaps ten minutes of riding, Aisa also noticed another anomaly: they had passed many thousands of people, but she had not seen a single glass of ale, not even when they passed the Cove, New London’s notorious run of pubs.
Why, they’re scared sober! Aisa realized. They didn’t know that the Queen was going out to parlay, but Aisa suspected that it would have made no difference. She, like everyone, had seen the massive force spread across both banks of the Caddell. What could the Queen offer to counter? Aisa thought this was a fool’s errand, but she was proud to be chosen, proud to be with them. When the Mort came, she would not stand there defenseless, her eyes lost. She would fight to the end to keep them from reaching the Queen. As the Cove ended, her heart froze; for a moment, she thought she had seen Da, his tall form and black eyes burning, in the center of the crowd. But when the people shifted again, he was gone.
The Boulevard took its final turn and the New London Bridge appeared, a long stretch of stone before them. The vast crowds of people on either side began to melt away, and Aisa finally relaxed as the five of them guided their horses onto the bridge.
Ahead reared the barricade. Aisa was no engineer, but she saw the problem immediately: the barricade was nothing more than a hastily constructed mess of furniture and what appeared to be planks of lumber piled on both sides of the bridge. A thin aisle ran down the middle, so narrow that it would allow passage only in single file. But the entire structure was unwieldy; the low walls that bordered the bridge would not support the barricade’s height. The Mace said that the Mort had brought battering rams, and from the look of things, one good blow from a ram would send half the barricade straight over the sides of the bridge and into the Caddell.
The Queen had clearly come to the same conclusion, for she chuckled darkly at the mess before them. “Not going to hold, is it?”
“Not a chance, Lady,” the Mace replied. “There’s only one way to properly defend a bridge. Hall’s done his best with what he had, but a stiff breeze will take his barricade down.”
Aisa wondered what the one way could be, but General Hall had emerged from the barricade now, and she kept quiet. Hall had been in and out of the Keep several times in the past week, and Aisa liked to hear him speak: businesslike and to the point, with no nonsense or extraneous words. The Mace said that Hall had done hero’s work to hold the Mort back until all of the refugees were inside the city. For a moment, Aisa worried that the general would ask what she was doing here with the Guard, but his eyes merely noted her before moving on to the Queen.
“Majesty.”
“General. I’ve come to open negotiations with the Mort.”
“There’s a contingent of them waiting on the far end of the bridge, but they’re not dressed for embassy. They have two rams and they’re ready to begin.”
“Is Ducarte there?”
“Yes. He commands.”
The Queen nodded for a moment, her face deep in thought, then turned and looked back over the city walls behind them. Following her gaze, Aisa saw that every available surface of the boundary wall was packed with people, all of them staring at the bridge. The Queen scanned the wall for a long moment before looking down again, and Aisa knew that she had been searching for someone, a face she did not find. The Queen sighed, her eyes full of sorrow, a sadness that Aisa recognized: she had seen it in Maman’s eyes more times than she could number.
“I’m sorry.”
The Mace jerked at his horse’s reins with one hand, reaching out for the Queen with the other, but then they both froze, horse and rider. A moment later Aisa felt her own muscles seize, an odd, sick feeling, as though a mild cramp had spread across her entire body. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Pen and Elston too had frozen, Pen already off his horse and in the very act of charging forward. Aisa had been part of late-night discussions among the Guard, had heard their recountings of the strange power the Queen wielded; each guard seemed to have his own conjecture on what the Queen’s magic meant, how far it could go. But Aisa had never heard of anything like this. She tried to speak, found that her throat would not even allow her to make a sound.
“I’m sorry,” the Queen repeated. “But none of you can protect me where I’m going.”
She dismounted, walked over to Mace, and looped the reins of her mare around his outstretched hand. The Mace stared down at her, immobile, but his eyes were terrible, twin pools of hurt and fury.
“Forgive me.” The Queen grasped the Mace’s motionless hand for a moment, smiling sadly. “I’m the Queen, you see.”
The Mace’s mouth twitched, but nothing came out.
“You’re my Regent, Lazarus. It’s been arranged. I trust you to look after these people and keep them safe.”
The Queen stared at the Mace for another long moment, then turned to the three of them, Aisa and Elston and Pen. “You can’t guard me any longer. So do this for me: guard my Regent.”
Aisa stared at her, bewildered, for the idea of anyone guarding the Mace seemed laughable. The Queen moved over to General Hall, and for a moment Aisa thought that the general might be able to stop her, but then she spotted the cords standing out on his throat and understood that he was held immobile as well.
“Retreat from the bridge immediately, General, and prepare for siege. If the Mort don’t come, you will know that I succeeded.”
Now she moved toward Pen, whose pleasant face had frozen in a rictus of agony. The Queen placed a light hand against his cheek for a moment; Aisa saw her shoulders heave with a single deep breath, and then she turned and darted into the shadows of the barricade.
In the Queen’s wake, the guards could do nothing but stare at each other. Aisa thought that she was the only one who remained calm; the eyes of the other three were wide with panic. Pen appeared to be the worst of all; he would have followed the Queen anywhere, Aisa knew, and the Queen had known too. There were other soldiers in the barricade; surely they would be able to stop her . . . but then, staring at the maze of debris, Aisa realized how foolish that hope was. The Queen was powerful, more powerful than Maman, maybe even as powerful as the Red Queen herself. No one would stop her, not if she didn’t want to be stopped.
Beneath Aisa’s feet, the ground began to shake. A moment later, she realized that she could move again, that the strange hold on her muscles had released. But the ground was now heaving so violently that she lost control of Sam and fell from his back, landing with a painful thud on the cobbles.
“We can still catch her up!” the Mace shouted. “Come on!”
Pen was already gone; he had left his horse behind and charged into the barricade. Aisa pushed herself up from the ground, aware now of a deep, distant cracking,
like thunder, to the east. She followed the Mace and Elston into the barricade, trying to keep up with the grey of their cloaks, pulling her knife as she went. As always, the knife was a cold comfort in her hand, and only now, in her extremity, did Aisa realize where that comfort sprang from: the hope that she would meet Da. She hated Da, and she loved him, but someday, somehow, she hoped to meet him with a knife in her hand.
Another deep roll of thunder slammed the bridge, jarring the stone beneath Aisa’s feet. She passed soldiers, tucked into crevices in the debris, but there was no time to really see them. They were not important, not in the way the Queen was important. Aisa pushed through, dodging the outthrust points of wood and chair legs. At last she emerged from the shadowy overhang of the eastern end of the barricade to find Mace, Pen, and Elston standing at a flat halt. Aisa drew up beside them and gasped.
At least a hundred feet of the New London Bridge had vanished, leaving a cracked lip of rock, then nothing. Peering over the edge of the precipice, Aisa saw several massive chunks of white stone far below, partially submerged in the rich blue waters of the Caddell. Their edges were ragged, as though a giant had torn the stone off in pieces with his bare hands. There was now an enormous gap in the bridge, stretching from the jagged edge at their feet all the way to the last column of support.
Aisa spotted the Queen, standing on the eastern edge of the precipice. Aisa had good vision, and even from here, she could see that the Queen’s face was bone-white, that she looked ready to faint. The sun was just beginning to rise behind her, a nimbus of light playing around her head, and the Queen seemed very small. Aisa wasn’t a real Queen’s Guard yet, but she thought she could understand, if only dimly, how the other three must feel. She hated seeing the Queen standing across that gulf, unprotected and alone.
“Damn you, Lady!” Pen shouted. Aisa gasped, but the Mace didn’t say anything, so she knew she was supposed to pretend that she had not heard.
“I am damned, Pen!” the Queen shouted back.
Aisa snuck a cautious glance at the Mace, and winced at his expression. For the first time she thought he looked old, old and used up. Only three days ago he had taught her how to take a sword to an attacker’s knees, and applauded when she got it right. How could everything change so quickly?
“I had no options, Lazarus!” the Queen called across the chasm. “I never had any! You know that!”
She splayed her hands, then turned and walked away toward the eastern toll gate, beyond which a wave of black uniforms stood motionless and waiting. The Queen strode into the middle of them, as though into a hive of bees, and was engulfed. The four of them could do nothing but watch silently, and a few minutes later, when the Mort lines reformed, the Queen was gone.
Chapter 14
The Red Queen
Fortune favors the bold, history tells us. Therefore, it behooves us to be as bold as possible.
—The Glynn Queen’s Words, AS COMPILED BY FATHER TYLER
Ever since they had left the Keep, Kelsea had been fighting Lily off with a stick. She would begin going over her lines, what she would say to the Mort at the far end of the bridge . . . and then Lily would intrude, her grasping fingers of memory weaving through Kelsea’s thoughts until the two seemed indistinguishable. Distant pops of gunfire. Visions of a burning skyline and the screams of the dying. But despite these things, Kelsea wished she could simply sink back into Lily’s life. It was a troubled time that Lily lived in, troubled and terrible, but her choices were not Kelsea’s. Lily’s life demanded nothing but endurance. Kelsea looked up and saw white sails, riggings . . . a ship, people standing at the helm. She shook her head, but the vision remained in front of her, blurred slightly, as though overlaid with a veil of the thinnest material. For a moment, Kelsea felt as though she could reach out and tear that veil away, step through the centuries to stand beside Lily. To become Lily.
Could I do that? she wondered, blinking up at the ship, its billowing sails, white shadows in the night. Could I simply cross, and not come back?
For a moment, this idea was so seductive that Kelsea had to battle it, the way she would have battled an opponent with a knife. She looked down at her sapphires, feeling as though she were really seeing them for the first time. For months she had operated under the assumption that her sapphires were dead, but why? The dreams, the steady transformation of her own appearance, the cuts on her body, Lily’s pain, Lily’s life . . . these things had not come out of a vacuum. Kelsea took her jewels, one in each hand, and held them up to the light. Physically, they were identical, but she sensed great difference between them. If she only had time to sort it out! The sun was rising, but still she hesitated.
“You’re not dead,” she marveled, staring at the jewels in her hands. Lily’s world pulled at her again, demanding that she return, that she watch the end of the story, but Kelsea dropped her jewels and began walking. The vision of the sails finally dimmed as she reached the toll gate at the eastern end of the bridge. The toll tables were all empty now; no one had entered or left New London via the bridge since the army took it over. Kelsea should have been exhausted, but she felt wide awake.
The knoll beyond the toll gate was covered with Mort soldiers, all of them armed for battle, with swords and several knives at the belt. Even now, the sight of all of that good steel hurt Kelsea deep inside. Her army—what remained of it, anyway—had so few good weapons. At the head of the Mort column stood a man in full armor, partially balding, with sleepy eyes that threw Kelsea off for a moment. But the eyes behind the drooping lids were shrewd and pitiless, just as she remembered them through her spyglass. She greeted him in Mort.
“General Ducarte.”
“The Queen of the Tearling, I presume.” His eyes darted over her shoulder, toward the bridge. “Have you come to beg my mistress for leniency? You will not get it.”
“I’ve come to speak to . . . your mistress.” It was a strange term to use, and Kelsea realized that Carlin’s Mort lessons, good as they had been, might have skipped something in the way of idiom.
Ducarte’s heavy-lidded eyes blinked toward the fallen bridge again and then blinked away. “She will not see you.”
“I think she will.” Kelsea stepped closer, and was astonished when he took a half step back, several of the soldiers behind him doing the same. Could it be possible that they were afraid of her? It seemed ludicrous, with the might of the Mort army lying just over the hill.
Ducarte shouted in rapid-fire Mort. “Andrew! Run and tell the Queen what goes on here!”
One of the men in the line turned and sprinted away, over the crest of the hill, where the sky was rapidly turning from pink to orange. Dawn was here, and Kelsea suddenly found this delay intolerable, worse than the idea of her own death. Ducarte did not want negotiation, she saw now, not even if it would benefit Mortmesne or his mistress. Ducarte wanted to march into New London, wanted to lay waste to all he found there. He was looking forward to the sack, looking forward to—
Carnival.
That was the right word. The man in front of her might as well have been Parker, anticipating the fall of the world. William Tear had said something about men like Parker—that they were built for this, built to spoil things. And Kelsea suddenly saw that, at all costs, she must keep this man out of her city. She had broken the bridge, but that was not enough. On the other side of the hill were siege towers, rams. New London was not built to withstand assault, and the Mort army was hungry for plunder. Once they started, they would not stop.
“You want to let me pass, General.”
“That’s for my mistress to decide.”
But Kelsea could not wait. She had already begun to probe at Ducarte, browsing through him, in the same way she would have looked through Carlin’s library. Here was a man who was not afraid to die, like Mace, but nothing else was similar. This man was cold, not one to be swayed by pleas or pity. Only pain and self-preservation would buy him, Kelsea decided, so she found the soft meat of his groin and dug in, har
d.
Ducarte cried out. Several of the men behind him stepped forward, but Kelsea shook her head. “Don’t even think about it. Not unless you want a piece of the same.”
They backed away, and Kelsea saw that they were indeed afraid. She turned back to Ducarte, loosening her hold for a moment. “The longer you make me wait here, General, the more I feel a need for such diversions.”
Ducarte stared at her, wide-eyed. Kelsea suspected that he had never been held powerless before. A famous interrogator, Ducarte . . . and that made her think of Langer, the accountant. Such people did not do well on the other side of the table.
“I have business with your mistress. Let me pass.”
“She will not negotiate,” he gasped. “Even I won’t defy her. She is terrible.”
“Let me tell you a secret, General. I am worse.”
She gave his testes another hard squeeze, and Ducarte screamed, a high, womanish sound. Kelsea was almost enjoying herself now, a low, dirty sort of pleasure, just as she had felt during Thorne’s execution. How easy and pleasant it was, to punish those who deserved punishment. She could reduce this man to meat, and her own death would almost be worth it.
Kelsea, Carlin whispered behind her. The voice was so close that Kelsea turned her head, half expecting to see Carlin standing just over her shoulder. But nothing was there . . . only her city, standing behind her, wide open, in the blue light of early dawn. The sight shook Kelsea, reminded her that she did not belong to herself. Even the magic she used now, magic that she had essentially taught herself, was not hers. It belonged to William Tear, and Tear would never have allowed anything to divert his attention from the main prize . . . the better world.
“Take me to her, General, and I will stop.”
All of the blood had drained from Ducarte’s face now. He looked up and over the hillside behind him, his gaze frustrated, at the battering rams that stood ready. Kelsea saw the tenor of Ducarte’s thoughts now, his ambitions, and she had to stomp down her anger, to leash it as one would a dog.