Flee, we are in the hands of a wolf.
—Giovanni de’ Medici, upon the ascension of Rodrigo Borgia, POPE ALEXANDER VI
Father Tyler should have been at ease. He was reading, sitting in the comfortable chair at his desk, and reading usually calmed him, reminded him that there was a world beyond this one, a better world that seemed almost tangible. But this was the rare day when reading calmed nothing. Tyler had covered the same two pages several times before he finally put down his book and gave up. The candle on his desk was covered with dried drips of wax, and without thinking, Tyler began to peel them off. His fingers worked independently of his brain, peeling and peeling, as he stared out the window.
The Holy Father had died two weeks ago, on the last day of May. Cardinal Anders had succeeded him, in a conclave so short that a few of the more distant cardinals arrived to find him already in the Holy Father’s seat. The Holy Father, recognizing a political mind as sharp as his own, had handpicked Anders as his successor years ago, and everything had proceeded as it should.
But Tyler was afraid.
The new Holy Father had attended to many things since taking the robes. He immediately fired five cardinals, men with known reformist sympathies, men who’d spoken against Anders during his tenure. Their sees went to nobles’ sons for more than a thousand pounds each. The new Holy Father had also hired sixteen new bookkeepers for the Arvath, increasing the total to forty. Some of these new bookkeepers were not even ordained men; several of them looked and sounded as though the Holy Father had plucked them right off the streets of the Gut. Tyler and his brothers had heard nothing, but the conclusion was clear: more money would be coming in.
Then there was Tyler’s own position. The old Holy Father had been too preoccupied with fighting death to take Tyler to task, but Tyler knew that he would not escape the new Holy Father’s housecleaning attentions for long. Already, last Sunday, Tyler had found Anders’s eyes seeking him out in the crowd during the convocation. Anders wanted information on Queen Kelsea, damning information, and Tyler had given him nothing. The Queen had already made several moves that presaged trouble for the Church, beginning with a proscription on the use of underage clerical aides to satisfy tithing debts. Tyler, who had been one of these aides himself, had enjoyed his childhood, but he understood the argument; not all priests were Father Alan. Now parishes would have to hire real aides, aides whose salaries would be paid from money already earmarked for the Arvath treasury.
But worse had followed: the Queen had announced that the Church’s property tax exemption would end in the coming year. Starting in January, the Church would have to pay tax on all of its holdings up and down the Tearling, including the big prize: thousands of acres of high-producing farmland in the northern Almont. For the Arvath, this was a financial cataclysm. With the help of her foulmouthed but undeniably clever Treasurer, the Queen had also preempted the Holy Father’s protests by decreeing that the Crown’s private landholdings would no longer be exempt either. The Queen would pay property tax alongside the Church, and the money would be earmarked for public works and social services.
Without enforcement, these decrees would mean nothing. But from overheard conversation in the Keep, Tyler also knew that the Queen and Arliss had begun to quietly convert a large portion of the Census Bureau over to the business of tax assessment and collection. It was a clever move. Census men were already entrenched in every village of the Tearling, tracking the population, and it would not be a stretch for them to track income as well. Arlen Thorne would have screamed bloody murder, but Thorne was nowhere to be found, and without him, the Census was a far more malleable animal. There would be plenty of Crown employees to make sure that God’s Church forked over every last pound due.
This morning, word had gone like quicksilver through the halls of the dormitory level: they were all wanted in the chapel at nine this evening. No one knew what it was about, but the Holy Father required every priest in the Arvath to be there. Such a gathering was unlike Cardinal Anders, who always worked in the shadows, meeting one-on-one so that no one else knew his plans. Tyler sensed something terrible on the horizon. It was eight thirty.
“I know that you know, priest.”
Tyler jumped to his feet, knocking over the candle. He turned, and the Mace was there, leaning against the wall beside his bookshelves.
“You know that I can’t read.”
Tyler stared at him, speechless and frightened. He had known that he was treading on thin ice the other day, jumping into the Queen’s conversation, but he had been unable to watch the Mace wriggle there, like a hooked fish. And Tyler’s move had worked, for the Queen had forgotten about the note. It was only when Tyler met the Mace’s gaze afterward that he saw fire, hell, murder.
“How did you find out?” the Mace asked.
“I guessed.”
“Who have you told?”
“No one.”
The Mace straightened, and Tyler closed his eyes, trying to pray. The Mace would kill him, and Tyler’s last, odd thought was that the man had done him a great honor by coming in person.
“I want you to teach me.”
Tyler’s eyes popped open. “Teach you what?”
“How to read.”
Tyler glanced at the closed door of his room. “How did you get in here?”
“There’s always another door.”
Before Tyler could consider this idea, the Mace darted forward, catlike and silent. Tyler tensed, pressing backward against his chair, but the Mace only grabbed the other chair from beside the bookshelves, placed it facing Tyler, and sat down, his expression truculent.
“Will you teach me?”
Tyler wondered what would happen if he refused. The Mace had not come here to kill him, perhaps, but that could always change. The Mace had joined Queen Elyssa’s Guard at the age of fourteen, and now he was at least forty years old. Illiteracy was a difficult thing for anyone to hide, but it must have been nearly impossible for a Queen’s Guard. Still, the Mace had gotten away with it all of these years.
Tyler glanced down and saw something extraordinary: the Mace’s hand, resting on the arm of the chair, was trembling, a slight flutter that was almost imperceptible. As unbelievable as the idea seemed, Tyler realized that the Mace was afraid.
Of me?
Of course not, you old fool.
Then of what?
After another moment’s thought, he knew. The Mace couldn’t bear to ask for help, not from anyone. Tyler stared, marveling, at the terrifying man sitting across from him—the courage it must have taken him to come here!—and before he knew it, the words were out.
“I’ll teach you.”
“Good.” The Mace leaned forward, businesslike. “Let’s start now.”
“I can’t,” Tyler told him, lifting apologetic hands as the Mace’s expression darkened. “All of us are supposed to attend a meeting in the chapel at nine o’clock.” He checked his watch. It was a quarter to nine. “In fact, I should go now.”
“A meeting about what?”
“I don’t know. The Holy Father demands the presence of every priest in the Arvath.”
“Have there been many of these meetings?”
“This is the only one.”
The Mace’s eyes narrowed.
“Come back tomorrow, just after supper. Seven o’clock. We can start then.”
The Mace nodded. “Which chapel is this meeting in? The main, or the Holy Father’s private?”
“The main,” Tyler replied, raising his eyebrows. “You know the Arvath very well.”
“Of course I do.” A hint of contempt crept into the Mace’s voice. “It’s my business to know of danger to my mistress.”
“What does that mean?”
The Mace went to Tyler’s clothes rack and pulled a robe from its hook. “You are not a stupid man, priest. Pope and kings make poor bedfellows.”
Tyler thought of the new appointees to the accounting office, men who looked more like criminal enforcers than priests of the Arvath. “I’m only a bookkeeper.”
“Not anymore.” The Mace put on his weekend robe. Priests’ robes were meant to fit loosely, but the material hung tight on the Mace’s huge frame. “You’re the Keep Priest, Father. You can’t avoid picking a side forever.”
Tyler stared at him, unable to reply, as the Mace ran his hand over the wall beside Tyler’s desk. His hand stilled, then pressed hard, and Tyler’s mouth dropped open as a door swung inward, a door whose edges had been cleverly concealed by the uneven mortar of the wall. The Mace stepped into the darkness, then leaned back into Tyler’s room, a twinkle of humor in his dark eyes.
“Seven o’clock tomorrow, Father. I will be here.”
A moment later, there was nothing facing Tyler but a blank stone wall.
The bell for convocation rang, and he jumped; he was going to be late. He grabbed one of his chapel robes and threw it over his head as he hurried down the hallway. The arthritis in his hip began clamoring, but Tyler ignored it, pushing himself harder. If he entered late, word would surely get back to the Holy Father.
Hurrying through the door of the chapel, Tyler found his brother priests already assembled in long, straight rows on either side of the central aisle. Up on the dais, the Holy Father stood behind the podium, his sharp eyes seeming to burn through Tyler as he stood frozen in the doorway.
“Ty.”
He looked down and saw that Wyde, sitting on the end of the last bench, had scooted over to make a space. Tyler gave him a grateful look as he squeezed in, bowing his head respectfully. But his unease persisted. The sight of Anders in the white robes was still a shock to Tyler; to him—and no doubt, many of the older priests—the Holy Father was, and always would be, the old, shrunken man who now lay entombed beneath the Arvath. Tyler didn’t grieve the old Holy Father, but he couldn’t deny that the man had left his mark on the place; he’d sat in the seat for too long.
Anders held up his hands for silence, and the shuffling stopped. The room was as still as stone.
“Brothers, we are not clean.”
Tyler looked up sharply. Anders gazed across the room with a benevolent smile, a smile that suited a Holy Father, but his eyes were deep and dark, filled with a righteous fury that made Tyler’s stomach tighten with anxiety.
“Disease begins with contagion. God has demanded that we root out the contagion and eradicate the disease. My predecessor tolerated it, turning a blind eye. I will not.”
Tyler and Wyde stared at each other, bewildered. The old Holy Father had tolerated many vices, certainly, but they seemed like the sort of vices that wouldn’t bother Anders at all. Anders kept two private servants, young women who had been turned over to the Arvath by their families in lieu of the tithe. When Anders had moved into the Holy Father’s lavish apartments in the pinnacle of the Arvath, the women had followed, even though the new residence came equipped with an army of acolytes ready to serve the Holy Father’s every whim. Anders might call his women servants, but everyone knew what they were. The new Holy Father was no stranger to vice, but now, as he turned and gestured to someone behind the dais, light glinted off the tiny golden hammer pinned to his white robes, and Tyler froze in sudden comprehension.
Two of the Holy Father’s aides emerged from the hallway behind the dais. Between them was Father Seth.
Tyler bit back a groan. Seth and Tyler had received their ordinations in the same year, but Tyler hadn’t seen him in a long time. Ever since Seth had been given his own parish in Burnham, out in the southern Reddick, he rarely visited the Arvath. He was a good man and a good priest, so no one ever spoke of it, but all the same, everyone knew about Seth. Even back when they were all novices, Seth had always liked men. Due to Tyler’s position as a bookkeeper, he knew that Father Seth kept a companion out in the Reddick, a man far too old to be a clerical aide, although Seth’s records listed him as such. When the clerical aide had appeared, Seth’s board expenditures had increased significantly, but Tyler had never called attention to this; priests and cardinals all over the Tear kept questionable companions and paid for them with the same contortionist’s accounting. But Seth’s aide was the wrong gender, and Anders must have found out.
“I will go through the Church and root out the backsliders!” Anders thundered. Tyler had never heard Anders preach before, and a distant part of his mind noted that the man had a wonderful speaking voice, deep and booming, reaching the farthest corners of the chapel and echoing back. “We will purge and cleanse! And we will start with this creature, a priest who has not only violated God’s law, but used Church funds to subsidize his sickness! Supporting his foul lifestyle with his parish’s tithe!”
Tyler bit his lip, wishing that he had the courage to speak. It was wrong, what was happening here, and Wyde, beside him, knew it too; he looked at Tyler with helpless, gleaming eyes. Wyde and Seth had been good friends too, all those years ago, when they had all been young together.
“God has been wronged! And for every wrong, God demands vengeance!”
At this, Wyde closed his eyes and bowed his head. Tyler wanted to shout, loud echoes that would bring the vaulted ceiling down over their heads. But he remained silent.
“Seth has forgotten his duty to God! We will remind him!” Anders’s voice dropped suddenly; he had ducked behind the table. When he straightened, he was holding a knife.
“Dear God,” Wyde muttered. Tyler merely blinked in surprise, wondering if this entire evening was a dream that had suddenly veered into nightmare . . . the Mace’s strange visit, the disturbing sight of the guard captain in clerical robes, and now this horrible torchlit scene: Seth’s pale face, alarm dawning in his eyes as he spotted the knife in Anders’s hand.
“Strip him.”
The two aides laid hold of Seth, who began to struggle. But Seth, like Tyler and Wyde, was in his seventies now, and the two younger men overpowered him easily. One pinned Seth’s arms behind his back while the other ripped his robe down the front and tore off the remains. Tyler averted his eyes, but not before he’d seen the evidence of time on Seth’s body: a narrow, sunken white chest; arms and legs that had lost all of their taut muscle and now hung with loose skin. Tyler saw much the same thing when he looked down at his own body, a body that had grown pale and slack. He recalled a summer, half a lifetime ago, when their ecclesiastical class had journeyed all the way to the coast, to New Dover, for a look at God’s Ocean. The water was a miraculous thing, vast and sparkling and endless, and when Wyde had thrown off his robes and dashed for the cliff edge, they had all followed him without thinking, leaping off the rocks and hurtling thirty feet down. The water had been brutally cold, agonizing, but the sun had been shining, a bright golden face above the limitless blue ocean, and in that moment Tyler was certain that God was looking directly at them, that He was infinitely pleased with what they were becoming.
“Our belief has grown slack,” Anders announced. His eyes glowed with a terrible fervor, and Tyler recalled a rumor he had once heard: that during his years with the Regent’s antisodomy squads, Anders had nearly killed a young homosexual, beating him with a plank of lumber until the boy was unconscious and covered in blood. The Regent’s other thugs had to haul Anders off, or he would undoubtedly have murdered the young man right there in the street. Panic slowly dawned as Tyler realized that this was no mere shaming exercise; Seth could be in real danger. Looking heavenward, he caught sight of a hulking, white-robed figure concealed in the shadows of the gallery: the Mace, his grim visage inscrutable beneath the cover of his hood, his eyes pinned on Anders, a hundred feet below.
Good, Tyler thought, almost angrily. It’s right that an outsider should see.
“Hold him.”
Anders moved in swiftly and his hands worked with almost surgical precision, so fast that Seth barely had time to make a sound before the deed was done. But Tyler and Wyde screamed together, their voices joining a chorus of cries that echoed back and forth between the stone walls of the chapel. Tyler looked down, unable to watch, and found Wyde’s hand in his, their fingers clasped in the unconscious manner of children.
When Anders straightened, his face was splattered with bright crimson. In his hand was a dripping red mass, which he flung into the corner of the chapel. Seth had gotten his breath back now, and his first scream was a mad cacophony of sound that seemed to bounce off the highest rafters of the chapel.
“Make sure he survives,” Anders ordered the aides. “His work isn’t done.”
The two acolytes took Seth between them and dragged him forward, down the stairs and then up the aisle between the rows of priests. Tyler didn’t want to look, but he had to. Red sheeted down Seth’s thighs and calves, and a crimson trail followed him up the aisle. Mercifully, Seth appeared to have lost consciousness; his eyes were closed and his head lolled against his shoulder. The acolytes staggered under his deadweight.
“Look and remember, brothers!” Anders thundered from the dais. “God’s Church has no room for panderers and sodomites! Your sin will be discovered, and God’s vengeance is swift!”
Tyler felt his dinner, barley soup, climbing up his throat, and swallowed convulsively. Many of the faces around him looked similarly ill, white and frightened, but Tyler spotted plenty of exceptions: smug faces, vindicated faces. Father Ryan, eyes bright with excitement, nodding vigorously at Anders’s words. And Tyler, who had not experienced true fury since the early, starving days of his childhood in the Almont, suddenly felt rage contract within him. In all of this, where was God? Why did He remain silent?
“Backsliders,” Anders intoned solemnly. “Repent your works.”
Tyler looked up and found the Holy Father’s gaze locked on him.
“Ty?” Wyde asked in an undertone, his voice plaintive. “Ty? What do we do?”
“We wait,” Tyler replied firmly, his eyes pinned on the river of scarlet at his feet. “We wait for God to show us the way.”
And yet even this statement sounded hollow to Tyler’s ears. He looked toward the dome of the chapel, toward heaven, waiting for some sign. But none came, and a moment later he saw that the gallery was empty. The Mace had disappeared.
When Kelsea had finished with Arliss, she dismissed Andalie and returned to her own chamber alone. She was tired of people today. Everyone seemed to have constant demands, even Arliss, who knew better than anyone how strapped the Crown was for men and money. Arliss wanted to provide armed protection for a small portion of farmers to stay out in the Almont until the eleventh hour. Kelsea could see the argument; with the Almont emptied, the entire autumn crop harvest would be lost. But she had no idea where to get the manpower. Bermond would howl if she asked for even a fraction of his soldiers, and though Kelsea disliked the old general, she knew that he was indeed stretched extremely thin. Perhaps a fourth of the Tear army was deployed in and around the Argive Pass, making sure that the Mort didn’t open it up as a potential supply line. The rest of Bermond’s men were scattered across the eastern Almont, busily moving refugees inward toward New London. Hall’s battalion was entrenched on the border. There were simply no more men to spare.
Kelsea left Pen behind in the antechamber without a word, drawing the curtains closed behind her. Andalie had made her a mug of tea, but Kelsea ignored it. Tea would only keep her awake. She brushed her hair and rearranged her desk, feeling restless and exhausted but not at all sleepy. What she really wanted to do was return to her library, to the continuing puzzle of Lily Mayhew. Who was she? Kelsea had gone through more than ten of Carlin’s history books now, looking for any reference to either Lily or Greg Mayhew, but there was nothing, not even in the books published closest to the Crossing. Whoever the Mayhews were, they seemed to have faded into obscurity, but still the riddle of Lily seemed infinitely solvable compared to the problem on the eastern border. Kelsea was certain that if she could only find the right book, the answer would present itself and Lily would become clear. But no solutions were forthcoming for the problem of the Mort.
She couldn’t go back to the library now. Pen needed his sleep. Kelsea had gone to bed early for the last three nights, but Pen still looked very ragged. She had begun to wonder whether he ever slept, or whether he simply sat there on his pallet, sword across his knees, as the night turned into morning. There was no reason for him to be so vigilant; Mace now had well over thirty Queen’s Guards under his command, and the Keep itself was more secure than ever. But still, the image of Pen sitting there, motionless, staring into the darkness, was strangely persuasive. Kelsea didn’t know how to make him sleep, when she barely slept herself.
After a moment’s thought, she tiptoed toward the mirror. She had deliberately avoided looking for the past week, and although she ascribed this to Carlin’s strictures about vanity, the real reason was much simpler: she was terrified.
Except for a few moments of rogue longing, Kelsea had more or less resigned herself to the fact that she would spend her life with a round, friendly farm girl’s face, good-natured but unremarkable. She had often wished that she were beautiful, but it simply wasn’t in the cards, and she had come to terms with her appearance as best she could.
Now she felt a deep ripple of fear as she studied her face in the mirror, remembering something Carlin had once said: “Corruption begins with a single moment of weakness.” Kelsea couldn’t remember what they had been talking about, but she seemed to remember Carlin looking at Barty, judgment in her gaze. Now, staring at herself in the mirror, Kelsea knew that Carlin was right. Corruption didn’t happen all at once; it was a gradual, insidious process. Kelsea neither felt nor saw anything occurring, but change had crept up on her back.
Her nose was transforming, that was the first thing. It had always sat in the middle of her face like a squashed mushroom, too big for its surroundings. But now, to Kelsea’s searching eyes, her nose had lengthened, become tapered, so that it emerged quite naturally and gracefully from the ridge between her eyes. The rounded, slightly piggish upturn had softened at the tip. Her eyes were still a bright cat’s green, the shape of almonds. But the pockets of flesh around them had been steadily eroding, and now the eyes themselves seemed larger, dominating Kelsea’s face in a way they never had before. Perhaps the most noticeable change was Kelsea’s mouth, which had always been full-lipped and flat, too wide for her face. Now it too had shrunk, the top lip thinning slightly so that the bottom looked fuller, a deep healthy pink. Her cheeks had dropped weight as well, so that her face was oval rather than round. Everything seemed to fit better than it had before.
She wasn’t beautiful, Kelsea thought, not by any stretch. But she was no longer plain either. She looked like a woman someone might actually remember.
At what cost?
Kelsea shrank from the question. She was no longer afraid that she might be sick, for she had plenty of energy, and the image before her was the very picture of health. But beneath the initial pleasure she felt, looking at this new woman, there was a sense of great falsity. Here was beauty blooming from nowhere, beauty that reflected no change inside.
“I’m still me,” Kelsea whispered. That was the important thing, wasn’t it? She was still fundamentally herself. And yet . . . several times lately, she had caught Mace giving her hard looks, as though trying to analyze her face. The rest of the Guard, well, who knew what they talked about once they retreated to their quarters at night? If things continued in this vein, they might well think her a sorceress, just like the Red Queen. They were still worried about the trance she’d had, that night in the library; whenever Kelsea stumbled these days, there seemed to be several guards at her arm to hold her up. She closed her eyes and saw, again, the pretty pre-Crossing woman with the sad eyes, the deep lines around her mouth. The bruises.
Who are you, Lily?
No one knew. Lily had vanished into the past with the rest of humanity. But Kelsea couldn’t be satisfied with that. Her sapphires operated outside of her control, their actions inconsistent and maddening. But they had never shown her anything she didn’t need to see.
What makes you think it’s the sapphires? They’ve been dead for weeks.
Kelsea blinked at that. True, the sapphires had done almost nothing since the Argive. But Kelsea was not like Andalie; she had no magic of her own. All of her power, everything extraordinary that she had ever done, was bedrocked on these two pieces of blue stone, both of which could fit comfortably in her pocket. Kelsea risked another look in the mirror, and almost flinched at the calmly attractive woman she saw there.
How can the jewels be dead? They’re transforming your face!
“God,” Kelsea whispered, shuddering. She whirled away from the mirror, almost as if preparing to flee, and stopped short.
A man stood in front of the fireplace, a tall black silhouette against the flames.
Kelsea opened her mouth to shout for Pen, then held back, drawing a long, shaky breath. The Fetch, of course; it was well known that no doors kept him out. She tiptoed a few steps closer, and then, as the firelight crossed his profile, she started. The man before her was not the Fetch, but all the same, she found herself physically unable to scream, or to make any sound at all.
He was beautiful. There was no other word. He reminded her of the drawings of Eros in Carlin’s books of mythology. He was tall and thin, not dissimilar to the Fetch in build, but that was where the similarity ended. This man had a sensualist’s face, slightly hollowed cheekbones tapering to a full-lipped mouth. His eyes were deep-set but somehow wide, their color indeterminate; by a trick of the firelight, the eyes seemed to gleam a deep red for a moment, before fading.
Tear heir.
Kelsea shook her head to clear it. He hadn’t spoken out loud, she was sure. But still, his voice echoed inside her head, a low hum with a clear Tear accent. Her pulse sped up and her breath shortened, as though both reactions had been set to a metronome. Her palms, dry as a bone moments before, had begun to sweat.
She opened her mouth to speak, and he put a finger to his lips.
We meet in the quiet, Tear heir.
Kelsea blinked. Behind the curtain drawn over the doorway, she could still hear Pen moving around, getting ready for bed. He hadn’t heard a thing.
Nothing to say?
She peeked down at her sapphires, but they lay dark and quiescent against the black silk of her dress, silk that now hung loosely on Kelsea’s frame. Her mind tilted dizzily, and she felt intoxicated, as though she should slap herself awake. She met the man’s eyes and a thought arrowed out of her, as cleanly as breathing.
Who are you?
A friend.
Kelsea thought not. Andalie’s warnings recurred to her, but she didn’t need Andalie to know that this man didn’t come in friendship. His gaze seemed to pin her where she stood, and she had the sense that all of his attention was focused on her, that nothing was so important to him as Kelsea Glynn at this moment. Handsome as sin, Andalie had warned, but she had failed to do him justice. Kelsea had never had any man seem utterly absorbed in her before, and it was a seductive feeling.
What do you want? she asked him.
Only to help you, Tear heir. Do you wish to know of the Mort Queen? Of the movements of her army? Where she is weak? I can tell you all of these things.
Free of charge, I suppose.
Wise child. Everything has a price.
What’s the price?
He pointed to her hand, which had crept up, almost unconsciously, to clutch her two sapphires. You hold jewels of enormous power, Tear heir. You could do me a great service.
Enormous power? After the Argive, Kelsea supposed that was true, but what good was all the power in the world if she couldn’t control it, couldn’t summon it on command? Inconsistent power would not mitigate the Mort army’s massive advantage in size and weaponry.
What power?
I have seen one jewel alter time and create miracles. But the other has the power of flesh, and you have a strong will, Tear heir. You will be able to flay skin and crush bones.
Kelsea considered this idea for a moment, darkly fascinated. She closed her eyes and saw it suddenly: the Almont, stretched between horizons, and the Mort army cowering, fleeing before her . . . was it possible?
The man in front of her smiled, as though he had read her mind, and gestured toward the fireplace. Look and see.
Kelsea found a wide mirage in front of the flames, a broad vista of salt flats and black water that could only be western Mortmesne. Lake Karczmar, it must be, where the Mort army lay massed at the base of the Border Hills. But now the hillside was in chaos, treetops aflame and men in black uniforms fighting wildly. A pall of smoke covered the trees.
Here are your soldiers, Tear heir. They will fall.
The Tear were being pressed back now, overwhelmed by superior numbers and forced back up the hillside. Hall’s battalion, Kelsea realized, and they were going to die. Pain sliced through her, and she reached out toward the mirage, wanting to grasp them, to carry them away.
The man snapped his fingers and the mirage winked out, leaving only firelight. She thought of calling for Pen, but the stranger’s gaze seemed to hold her frozen.
The Mort Queen has vulnerabilities. They are exploitable. And the service I ask in return is very small.
Thinking of Andalie’s warning, Kelsea shook her head. I want no part of you.
Ah, but that’s not true, Tear heir. I have watched you for some time. You long to be an adult, but those around you often treat you like a child. Is it not so?
Kelsea didn’t reply. The man stepped forward, giving her every chance to back away, and placed a hand around her waist. His hand was warm, and Kelsea immediately felt the skin beneath turn hot and feverish. Pressure echoed deep in the pit of her stomach.
I will never treat you as a child, Tear heir. I have never cared whether you were pretty or plain. I have known myriad women, but I will treat you as unique.
Kelsea believed him. It was the voice, its hollow tones so smoothly confident that they seemed to weave certainty out of thin air. She met his eyes and found them understanding, full of some sort of dark knowledge of Kelsea that he had no business having. For a moment she was tempted, so strong was the pull of being an adult with a life of her own, of making terrible mistakes the way everyone else was allowed to. And this man would be a good choice, for he had been the ruination of many women, she had no doubt.
But weaker women than me, a voice spoke up quietly inside her. I’m not one to be taken in.
Carefully, she removed his hand from her waist. His skin was oddly dry, but even this was exciting in its own way; she couldn’t help wondering what such dry hands would feel like between her legs, whether they would elicit the same sensations as her own. She backed away from him, trying to regain some control of herself, some equilibrium.
What do you want? she demanded. Be explicit.
Freedom.
Who imprisons you?
Mine is not a dungeon of walls, Tear heir.
Speak more plainly or get out.
Admiration sparked in the man’s eyes. He moved closer, but stopped when Kelsea held up a hand.
I am imprisoned, Tear heir. And you have the power to set me free.
In exchange for what?
I offer you a chance to defeat the Mort Queen and achieve greatness. You will sit on your throne long after all you know has crumbled into dust.
Did you promise her the same thing?
This time it was his turn to blink. A stab in the dark, but a good one. The Red Queen’s extraordinary age had never been explained. And it stood to reason that a man—is he a man? Kelsea wondered for the first time—who would try this with one queen would certainly try it with another.
I have no wish to emulate the Red Queen.
You will say so, he replied, until the moment when her legions smash your army into rubble. The words were so close to what Kelsea had seen in her mind that she shivered, and saw that this gave him pleasure somehow. You’ll beg for the opportunity to be cruel.
I will not, she replied. And if you seek cruelty in me, you won’t find it.
Cruelty is in everyone, Tear heir. It takes only the right application of pressure to coax it out.
Leave, now, or I will call my guard.
I have no fear of your guard. I could wring his neck with little effort.
The words froze Kelsea, but she merely repeated, Leave. I am not interested.
He smiled. But you are, Tear heir. And I will be waiting when you call.
The man’s form dissolved suddenly, coalescing into a black mass that seemed to hover in the air. Kelsea stumbled backward, her heart thudding. The mass streamed like shadow into the fireplace, falling on the flames like a curtain, dimming them and then putting them out entirely, leaving the room cold and dark. In the sudden blackness, Kelsea lost her balance and landed against her bedside table, knocking it over.
“Shit,” she muttered, feeling her way around on the floor.
“Lady?” Pen asked from the doorway, and she gasped; for a moment she had forgotten the existence of anyone but her visitor, and that seemed the most dangerous development of all. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Pen. Just stupid.”
“What happened to your fire?”
“A draft.”
Even in the dark, she could hear Pen’s silent skepticism. His soft, catlike tread moved across the chamber toward the fireplace.
“Don’t bother.” She fumbled on the floor among the items that had fallen off the bedside table. “I’ll just light a candle.”
“Have you been practicing sorcery, Lady?”
Kelsea paused in the act of striking a match. “Why do you ask?”
“We’re not blind. We see what’s happening to you. Mace has forbidden us to speak of it.”
“Then perhaps you’d better not.” Kelsea lit the candle and found Pen a few feet away, concern in his face. “I’m not practicing sorcery.”
“You’ve become quite pretty.”
Kelsea scowled. Pleasure welled up in her, that Pen thought her pretty, but the pleasure was quickly subsumed under anger: she had not been pretty enough before! She felt as though she couldn’t win. Her heart rate was still elevated and her body felt frazzled. Pen’s handsome face was open, filled with the same honest concern as ever, but then Pen had always been good to her, all the way back to the Reddick Forest, when most of the Guard would probably have been just as happy to leave her behind. As Pen helped her up, Kelsea couldn’t help noticing other things. Pen was muscular; he had that whipcord body, well developed on top and lithe on the bottom, that Venner extolled as an absolute necessity for a top-notch swordsman. Pen was quick and strong and intelligent. And, perhaps even more important, he was trustworthy, exceptionally so, even in a cadre of guards chosen for their ability to keep their mouths shut. Anything that happened in this room would stay here.
“Pen?”
“Lady?”
“You think I’m pretty.”
He blinked in surprise. “I always found you so, Lady. But it’s true that your face has changed.”
“You always found me pretty?”
Pen shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Lady. Some women are defined by their appearance, but you have never been one of them.”
Kelsea didn’t know how to take that. Pen had begun to look uncomfortable now, and she wondered if he was being deliberately obtuse. “But do you—”
“You seem tired, Lady. I should let you sleep.” Pen turned away and headed for the door.
“Pen.”
He turned back, though he seemed unwilling to meet her eyes.
“You could sleep in here. With me.”
Pen’s eyes snapped to hers, and his face suddenly seemed to drain of all color, as though Kelsea had slapped him. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away. “Lady, I’m a Queen’s Guard. I can’t.”
This was an outright lie, one that made blood darken Kelsea’s cheeks. Her mother’s entire Guard had tumbled in and out of bed with the Queen. If Arliss was to be believed, even Mace himself had done so.
Pretty, indeed, Kelsea thought. So pretty that even with no cost attached, he wants no part of me. Blood roared in her ears, and she felt a terrible realization creeping up on her: the knowledge of how badly she had just humiliated herself. It took only a moment for humiliation to ignite into anger.
“You’re full of shit, Pen. You could. You just don’t want to.”
“Lady, I’m off to bed. In the morning—” Pen swallowed again, convulsively, and Kelsea felt a moment of grim satisfaction; at least he was embarrassed as well. “In the morning, we’ll forget about all of this. Sleep well.”
Kelsea smiled at him, but the smile felt bitter and frozen. She had made the worst possible choice for this little experiment: the one guard she would have to see constantly, day in and day out. Pen went back into his antechamber and prepared to pull the curtain.
“Pen?”
He paused.
“Despite your active social life, I’ll need you at your best in the coming weeks. Whoever she is, tell her to let you get more sleep.”
Pen’s face froze. He jerked the curtain shut, and she heard the distinctive thump of his body falling onto the mattress, then silence. A deep, wounded part of her mind hoped that he would lie awake for hours, but within a few minutes he began to snore.
Kelsea had never felt further from sleep. She stared at the lit candle on her bedside table, willing herself to blow it out, but she couldn’t seem to work up the energy. The entire odd evening seemed to beg for analysis, but she didn’t even have the energy for that. Her body was still a mess of involuntary reactions. She rolled over and punched the pillow, hating the frenzy inside her. She reached down to touch herself, then realized it would be no good right now. She was too angry, too ashamed. What she really wanted was to hurt someone, to—
Flay skin and crush bones.
The handsome man’s words echoed inside her head. He had offered immortality, but that was only a word. Immortality for Kelsea would not solve the problems of the Tearling. He was imprisoned, the man had said, a prison without walls. He wanted Kelsea to set him free.
Kelsea took her sapphires in her palm and stared at them for a thoughtful moment. Perhaps the man didn’t know that they barely worked anymore, that Kelsea didn’t truly command them. Flay skin and crush bones . . . but whose skin? Whose bones? She hated Pen in this moment, but she knew that he had not done anything wrong. Pen did not deserve her hatred. There was no one to harm but herself.
Kelsea raised her left arm, staring at it. She had already endured terrible pain . . . the knife in her shoulder, the wound from the hawk . . . but what her mind dug up instead was Lily Mayhew. Lily’s life was relatively comfortable for her times, but even in that brief moment of memory, Kelsea had sensed something terrible in Lily’s future, an oncoming trial by fire. She studied the smooth white skin of her forearm, trying to focus, imagining the layers of flesh beneath. Just a scratch . . . it would barely hurt, but Kelsea sensed her subconscious mind revolting at the idea, all the same.
Flay skin and crush bones.
“Just the skin,” Kelsea whispered, staring at her arm, focusing all of her will on a tiny inch of flesh. She had borne worse; surely she could handle this. “Just a scratch.”
A shallow line of red appeared on her forearm. Kelsea bore down, watching the line deepen, her breath hissing through her teeth as the skin parted with a sting, allowing a thin line of blood to well up and hold. At the sight of the blood, Kelsea smiled wide. She felt connected to her body, to each nerve. Pain was not pleasant, certainly, but it was good to feel something more than helplessness. She blotted her arm on the sheet and turned on her side, barely feeling the sting of the wound, not hearing the rumble of Pen snoring in the next room at all. She was too busy staring at the fireplace, thinking of Mortmesne.
Lady?”
Kelsea looked up and found Mace standing in the doorway. Andalie gave her hair a hard tug, and Kelsea winced.
“The Holy Father is here.”
Andalie set down the brush. “It will do, Lady. I could’ve done a better job with more time.”
“His Holiness won’t appreciate it anyway,” Kelsea muttered, her voice petulant. She had been dreading this dinner all week, but her discomfort in this moment had nothing to do with the Holy Father. What she saw in the mirror was beyond belief. Mace had said nothing about it, and neither had Pen, but Andalie, who did her hair every day, could hardly fail to notice. Kelsea’s hair had grown at least eight inches in the past week, and it was now below her shoulders. She was no longer worried about being ill, but even illness would have been something definite, something known. Andalie must have seen some of Kelsea’s upset, for she put a firm hand on Kelsea’s shoulder and murmured, “It will be all right.”
“I’ve had an interesting report from Mortmesne, Lady,” Mace continued.
“The army?”
“No, the people. Mort discontent has been spreading ever since you stopped the shipment, and now there’s apparently a protest movement afoot. Right now, it’s concentrated primarily in Cite Marche and the northern market villages, but cells are already spreading south toward Demesne.”
“Led by whom?”
“A man no one has ever seen, named Levieux. Apparently, he’s very anxious to conceal his face.”
“The Fetch?”
“Possible, Lady. We’ve heard nothing from the Fetch since he left that little bit of decor on the Keep Lawn. Arliss has received many tax payments from noble estates in the past month, but we’ve had no complaints of robbery or harassment. Something keeps him busy.”
Kelsea took a deep breath that she hoped was unobtrusive. “Well, if it keeps him from stealing my taxes, so much the better.”
“Also, the Red Queen has given an odd set of orders. No one, throughout the entire Palais, is allowed to light a fire in any fireplace.”
Kelsea’s mind went immediately to the handsome man who had appeared in her chamber. Given the loyalty of her Guard—and despite the mistakes of the past, Kelsea did consider that a given—there was certainly no way for a stranger to simply waltz into the Queen’s Wing. The man had departed via the fire; it seemed a reasonable assumption that he had come from the fire as well. The handsome man had mentioned the Red Queen, hadn’t he? Kelsea struggled to remember his exact words. If the Red Queen was afraid of this creature, he must be dangerous indeed.
You already knew he was dangerous, her mind mocked gently. Ten minutes of conversation and he nearly had your dress off.
“Does this mean anything to you, Lady?” Mace asked. Kelsea had not been as careful as she should have been; Mace had always had a gift for reading her face, even in the mirror.
“No. As you say, it’s odd.”
Mace watched her for another moment. When Kelsea said nothing, he moved on, but she knew that she hadn’t deceived him. “Be careful with the Holy Father, Lady. He’s nothing but trouble.”
“You can’t be concerned about violence.”
Mace opened his mouth and then closed it. “Not tonight.”
He was going to say something else. Kelsea thanked Andalie and headed for the door, Mace and Pen trailing behind her. For the past two days she had done her best to make no eye contact with Pen, and he seemed just as happy to have it so. But this state of affairs could not hold for long. Kelsea wished she could think of a way to punish Pen, to make him feel as much regret as she did. And then she realized that her appearance wasn’t the only thing that had changed. She was different now. The handsome man’s words about cruelty recurred: It takes only the right application of pressure to coax it out.
I’m not cruel, Kelsea insisted. But she didn’t know whom she was trying to convince.
“God’s Church holds a vast amount of sway in this kingdom, Lady, like it or not,” Mace continued as they headed down the hallway. “Watch your temper tonight.”
“Telling me to watch my temper is the first and best way to wake it up, Lazarus.”
“Well, I’ve put Father Tyler between you. At least have a care for him.”
They entered the audience chamber to find Father Tyler waiting with his usual timid smile. But tonight the smile betrayed anxiety as well, an anxiety that Kelsea read easily. Father Tyler’s two worlds were colliding, and Kelsea, who had long suspected that she saw a different man than the one who lived in the Arvath, wondered if he dreaded the evening as much as she did. She needed the resources of the Arvath now, but she didn’t like the idea of going to the Holy Father with hat in hand.
I’m not, she reminded herself. We’re here to trade.
“Hello, Father.”
“Good evening, Majesty. May I introduce His Holiness?”
Kelsea turned her attention to the new Holy Father. She had pictured an old man, shrunken and shriveled, but this man was no older than Mace. He didn’t radiate Mace’s vitality; rather, Kelsea got no impression from him at all. His features were thick and heavy, the eyes dark, opaque pits, and upon seeing her, his face remained immobile. Kelsea had never received such an impression of blank nothingness from anyone. After a few seconds, she realized that God’s mouthpiece was not going to bow; rather, he expected her to bow to him.
“Your Holiness.”
Seeing that Kelsea would not bow either, the Holy Father smiled, a functional lifting of the corners of his mouth that did nothing to change the lifelessness of his face. “Queen Kelsea.”
“Thank you for coming.” She gestured toward the enormous dining table, which had been laid out for ten people. “Have a seat.”
Two acolytes, one tall and one short, followed at the Holy Father’s elbow. The tall one had the pointed face of a weasel, and he seemed vaguely familiar to Kelsea. He was clearly the favored assistant; it was he who drew the chair out, then pushed it back in after the Holy Father had seated himself. Both acolytes stationed themselves behind the Holy Father’s chair; they would not be eating, were clearly meant to fade into the landscape, but Kelsea’s attention returned to the tall acolyte several times over the course of dinner. She had seen him before, but where?
“No guards?” she whispered to Pen as they sat down.
“The Holy Father always travels with a complement of four armed guards, Lady,” he whispered back. “But the Captain insisted they remain outside.”
Father Tyler was seated on Pen’s other side, only one seat from Kelsea. The Holy Father blinked in surprise when he took his place.
“Do you always eat with so many of your Guard, Majesty?”
“Usually.”
“Are security concerns so great?”
“Not at all. I prefer to eat with my Guard.”
“Perhaps when you begin a family, that will change.”
Kelsea narrowed her eyes as Milla began to ladle soup into her bowl. “My Guard are my family.”
“But surely, Majesty, one of your first duties is the production of an heir?”
“I have more pressing concerns right now, Your Holiness.”
“And I have many worried parishioners, Majesty. They would have both heir and spare as soon as possible. Uncertainty is bad for morale.”
“You would have me get pregnant as my mother did, then, under the table?”
“Certainly not, Majesty. We don’t preach wanton sexuality, though it’s undeniable that your mother was guilty of such. We would have you married and settled.”
Pen nudged her with his foot, and Kelsea realized that the entire table was waiting for her to begin eating. She shook her head. “Forgive me. Please start.”
Milla’s tomato soup was usually quite good, but tonight Kelsea could barely taste it. The remark about her mother had been too crude, too overt. The Holy Father was trying to goad her, but to what end? His two acolytes stood behind him, motionless, but their eyes were constantly moving, clocking the room. The entire evening already felt wrong. Father Tyler was taking careful spoonfuls of soup, but Kelsea saw that he was eating nothing, that each spoonful went right back into the bowl. Father Tyler never ate much; he was an ascetic. But now his eyes were sunken in dark pockets of flesh, as though bruised, and Kelsea wondered, again, what had happened to him.
The Holy Father hadn’t even picked up his spoon. He merely stared at his soup bowl, his eyes empty, as the others ate. This was so rude—particularly since Milla hovered anxiously ten feet from the table—that Kelsea was finally forced to ask, “Is there something else we can bring you, Your Holiness?”
“Not at all, Majesty. I simply don’t like tomato.”
Kelsea shrugged. A man who didn’t like tomato was to be more pitied than despised. She ate mechanically for a few minutes, breathing slowly in and out between spoonfuls, but she was unable to ignore the Holy Father, who seemed to be lurking in wait across the table. Since he clearly wished to make her angry, Kelsea tried to smooth her temper, a mental exercise akin to laying a velvet carpet across a field of spikes. She didn’t want to ask this old liar for help, at least not outright, not as a supplicant. But she couldn’t wait all night for an opening to come up in the conversation.
Movement over Elston’s shoulder distracted her. Her Guard had just admitted the magician, a sandy-haired man of medium build. The last time Kelsea had seen him, she had been a frightened girl riding through the city, but she had not forgotten, and at her request, Mace had tracked the magician down. His name was Bradshaw, and until now he had been strictly a street performer; an engagement at the Keep would be quite an opportunity for him. Kelsea’s attention was drawn to his fingers, which were long and clever, even in the quotidian acts of removing hat and cloak. Mace didn’t rate the magician as a particular threat to Kelsea’s person, but as always, he remained wary of all things magical, and had warned Kelsea that security might tighten in odd ways over the course of the evening.
Kelsea’s instincts had been right. When she finally finished her soup and set down her spoon, the Holy Father pounced.
“Majesty, at the request of my congregation, I must bring up several unpleasant matters.”
“Your congregation? You still give sermons?”
“All of humanity is my congregation.”
“Even those who want no part of it?”
“Those who want no part of God’s kingdom are the most in need, Majesty.”
“What’s the first unpleasant matter?”
“The destruction of the Graham castle some months ago.”
“I understand it was gutted by an accidental fire.”
“Many of my congregation believe that fire to be no accident, Majesty. Indeed, the prevailing belief is that the fire was set by one of your own guards.”
“Prevailing belief is very convenient. Have you any proof?”
“I do.”
Kelsea drew a sharp breath. Mace, on her right, had frozen, but the Holy Father only continued to stare blandly at Kelsea; he seemed to have no fear of Mace at all. Kelsea considered asking the Holy Father to produce his proof, but discarded the idea. If he really did have something linking Mace to the fire, there was nowhere else to go. She shifted ground.
“An assassination attempt on the Queen is treachery. I believe the common law states that treachery renders the traitor’s lands forfeit.”
“So it does.”
“Lord Graham put a knife to my throat, Your Holiness. Even in the unlikely event that one of my Guard was involved with that fire, his property was mine to burn.”
“But not the people inside, Majesty.”
“If they were on my property, they were trespassing.”
“But your ownership of that property depends entirely on your own accusations of treachery.”
“My accusations,” Kelsea repeated. “What else would you call Lord Graham’s actions?”
“I don’t know, Majesty. As you say, there’s so little proof. What do we know? Only that you had a young, attractive lord in your chamber in the early evening, and you killed him.”
Kelsea’s mouth dropped open.
“Perhaps you had your eye on his lands all along.”
Pen pushed back from the table, but Kelsea grabbed his arm and whispered, “No.”
“Lady—”
“Do nothing.” Meeting Pen’s gaze was a mistake; in that moment, Kelsea seemed to live her humiliation all over again. This was her oldest friend, the guard who had been kind to her long before any of the others, but all Kelsea could see was the man who had turned her down. How could they ever get back to where they had been before? She turned back to the Holy Father and found him watching her and Pen with an interested gaze.
“So this is the story your priests tell from the pulpit, Your Holiness? Young Lord Graham was a victim of my wanton sexuality?”
Elston and Dyer began sniggering.
“Majesty, you misunderstand me. I am only a mouthpiece for my congregation’s concerns.”
“I thought you were the mouthpiece for God.”
The shorter acolyte gasped.
“Such a statement would be blasphemous, Majesty,” the Holy Father replied, his tone gently reproving. “No man can speak for God.”
“I see.”
She didn’t see, but at least she had gotten him off the subject of Mace and the fire. Milla took the pause in conversation as an opportunity to bring the main course: roast chicken with potatoes. Kelsea snuck a glance at Pen and found him staring with cold fury at the Holy Father. All of her Guard were angry now, even Mace, whose mouth had tightened. Kelsea tapped her nails on the table, and they returned their attention to the food, though some of them appeared to have difficulty swallowing.
“Have you heard the reports from the Fairwitch, Majesty?” the Holy Father asked.
“I have. Children disappearing and some invisible murderer that stalks in the night.”
“How do you plan to address the matter?”
“Difficult to say, until I get some hard evidence of what’s going on.”
“While you wait, Majesty, the problem grows worse. Cardinal Penney tells me that several families have disappeared in the foothills. The Cardinal himself has seen dark shadows in the night around his castle. It’s the devil’s work, for certain.”
“And how would you suggest that I fight the devil?”
“Prayer, Majesty. Devotion. Have you never considered that this might be God’s vengeance on the Tearling?”
“For what?”
“For laxity of faith. For backsliding.”
Father Tyler dropped his fork. It hit the ground with a clatter, and he crawled under the table to retrieve it.
“Prayer will not save us from a serial killer, Your Holiness.”
“Then what will?”
“Action. Judicious action, taken after all the consequences are weighed.”
“Your faith is weak, Majesty.”
Kelsea put down her fork. “You will not goad me.”
“I had no thought to goad, only to offer spiritual advice. Many of your actions subvert God’s will.”
Kelsea saw where this was going now, and she leaned her chin on both hands. “Do tell, Your Holiness.”
The Holy Father raised his eyebrows. “You wish me to list your transgressions?”
“Why not?”
“Fine, Majesty. I will. Three heretics and two homosexuals were in Crown custody at the start of your reign, and you have freed them all. Worse, you tolerate open homosexuality in your own Guard.”
What was this? Kelsea fought down the urge to look at Mace, or at any other member of her Guard. She had never heard a whisper of any such thing.
“Your own failure to marry sets a terrible example for young women everywhere. I have heard speculation that you may have homosexual sympathies yourself.”
“Indeed, Your Holiness, the sexual freedom of consenting adults is the greatest threat this kingdom has ever faced,” Kelsea replied acidly. “God knows how we’ve lasted so long.”
The Holy Father was not derailed. “And most recently, Majesty, I have been informed that you mean to tax the Arvath, like any secular body, on its landholdings. But surely this must be a mistake.”
“Ah, so we finally come to it. No mistake, Your Holiness. God’s Church is a landholder like any other. Beginning in February, I will expect monthly payments on all of your property.”
“The Church has always been exempt from taxation, Majesty, all the way back to David Raleigh. The exemption encourages good works and selflessness on the part of our brothers.”
“You reap profit from your land, Your Holiness, and despite your mandate, you’re not a charitable institution. I don’t see the vast bulk of your income flowing back to the public.”
“We distribute bread to the poor, Majesty!”
“Well done. Saint Simone herself could hardly do more.” Kelsea leaned forward, trying to soften the edge in her voice. “However, since you bring up the point, I have an offer for you.”
“What is that?”
“If my estimates are correct, by the end of July, most of the Tearling will be housed at the Caddell Camp outside the walls. When the Mort come, all of the displaced will need to be brought into the city.”
“That will make New London terribly crowded, Majesty.”
“Indeed, and since you claim to be a charitable institution, I thought you could show some of that Christian spirit by providing food and housing as well.”
“Housing?”
“I will be opening the Keep to refugees, but you have the second largest building in New London, Your Holiness. Nine floors, and I’m told that only two of them are actually used for housing.”
“How do you know that?” the Holy Father asked angrily, and Kelsea was dismayed to see him shoot a glare at Father Tyler. “The Arvath is sacrosanct.”
“Seven empty floors, Your Holiness,” she pressed on. “Think how many displaced people you could house and feed.”
“There is no extra space in the Arvath, Majesty.”
“In return,” Kelsea continued, as though he had not spoken, “I would be willing to consider all of the Church’s New London property as charitable, and forgive the tax on those landholdings.”
“Only New London?” The Holy Father burst out laughing, an unexpected sound from his mirthless face. “New London constitutes only a tiny fraction of our property, Majesty. Now, if you were willing to throw in our holdings in the northern Almont, there might be an arrangement to make.”
“Ah, yes . . . your farmlands. Where the poor work for pennies a day and their children start in the fields at the age of five. Charitable property indeed.”
“These people would otherwise have no employment at all.”
Kelsea stared at him. “And that allows you to sleep at night?”
“I sleep well enough, Majesty.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Majesty!” Father Tyler stood up abruptly, his face panic-stricken. “I must use the restroom. Excuse me.”
Somewhere during the argument, Milla had slid a dessert plate in front of Kelsea: cheesecake dotted with strawberries. Kelsea made quick work of it; it wasn’t one of Milla’s best efforts, but there really was no bad cheesecake, and even Kelsea’s temper was not enough to blunt her appetite. Mace gave her a pleading glance, but Kelsea shook her head. While she chewed, she cast surreptitious glances at her guards, wondering for whom that remark about homosexuality had been meant. Perhaps, like so many things in God’s Church, the Holy Father had simply produced it from thin air, but Kelsea didn’t think so; it was too odd a claim. And was it any of her business anyway? According to Carlin, the institutionalized homophobia of the pre-Crossing had wasted vast amounts of time and resources. Barty, with characteristic practicality, always said that God had better things to worry about than what happened between the sheets.
No, Kelsea decided, it’s not my business. She wished she could simply tell the Holy Father to go fuck himself—it would feel wonderful—but where would she house all of those remaining refugees, if not in the Arvath? Bedding, sanitation, medical care . . . without the Church, it would be a disaster. Briefly, Kelsea considered threatening to seize the Arvath itself under eminent domain, just as she had threatened that group of idiot nobles a few weeks ago. But no, that would be a disastrous move. A direct attack on the Arvath would only confirm every dire warning the Holy Father’s people recounted in the pulpit, and too many people believed the Church’s nonsense. The Holy Father had been trying to make her angry, Kelsea realized now, and he had succeeded. Anger made Kelsea strong, but it weakened her as well; she saw no route to wend her way back into negotiation now, not without losing ground.
“I think His Holiness and I have provided enough entertainment for one evening,” she announced, standing up. “Shall we move on to the real performance?”
The Holy Father smiled, though the smile did not meet his eyes. He hadn’t touched his cheesecake either, and Kelsea cast her mind back, trying to remember if he’d eaten anything at all. Was he worried about poison? Surely this man would not scruple at making one of his acolytes taste the food.
You’re wandering. Focus on the Arvath. The Mort.
Kelsea tried, but she didn’t see what could be done to repair the situation now. And wasn’t this all academic anyway? The Mort would be here long before the new tax year, and New London would never stand up to a prolonged siege. Debating next year’s taxes was like painting a house that lay right in the path of a hurricane. Perhaps she should just relent, but at the mere thought of it, Kelsea’s mind conjured the Arvath steeple: pure gold, worth many thousands of pounds. She could not give in.
As the group moved toward the throne, Father Tyler reappeared beside Kelsea, speaking in a low voice. “Lady, I beg you not to antagonize him further.”
“He can take care of himself.” But Kelsea paused, seeing anew the priest’s pale face, the weight that had dropped from his already thin frame. “What is it you’re frightened of, Father?”
Father Tyler shook his head stubbornly. “Nothing, Majesty. My concern is for you.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I do plan to be on my best behavior for the rest of the night.”
“And yet that plan so often fails.”
Kelsea laughed, clapping him on the back. Tyler’s grimace became more pronounced, and she bit her lip; she had forgotten that she wasn’t supposed to touch a member of God’s Church. “Sorry, Father.”
He shrugged, then grinned mischievously, a rare occurrence for Father Tyler. “It’s fine, Lady. Unlike His Holiness, I’m not concerned about your wanton sexuality.”
Kelsea chuckled, and gestured for him to come with her to the top of the dais, where two armchairs had been set up. The Holy Father was already seated, and he gave Kelsea one of those disturbingly bland smiles as she sat down. His acolytes remained standing at the foot of the dais; Mace gestured for Elston to stay with them. So Mace, too, was worried about the tall acolyte with the weasel’s face. Memory tugged at Kelsea for a moment before letting go.
Mace snapped his fingers at the magician, Bradshaw, who came forward and made a shallow bow. He didn’t wear the brightly colored clothing Kelsea had seen on so many street performers; rather, he was dressed very simply, in black. A table had been set up nearby to hold his props: an assortment of objects, including two small cabinets placed perhaps two feet apart. Bradshaw opened the cabinets, lifted each to show that there was no false bottom, then took a cup from the dinner table and placed it in one cabinet, shutting the door tightly. When he opened the door of the other cabinet, the cup was there.
Kelsea clapped, pleased, though she had no idea how the trick was done. Not magic, surely, but it had the appearance of magic, and that was good enough. Bradshaw made a quick succession of objects appear in each cabinet: one of Dyer’s gloves, a bowl from the table, two daggers, and finally, Mace’s mace. This last caught Mace out with a bewildered expression that turned momentarily to anger, then back to bewilderment as Bradshaw took the mace from the cabinet and presented it to him with a smile.
Kelsea clapped loudly; few people could put one over on Mace, and even fewer would have dared to try. Mace inspected his favorite weapon for a moment, as a jeweler would inspect diamonds, and finally appeared to conclude that it was indeed the same mace. In a low voice, Kelsea told Elston to give the magician a fifty percent tip.
The Holy Father was clearly unimpressed; he had watched the entire performance with an increasingly sour expression and had not clapped once.
“Not a fan of illusions, Your Holiness?”
“Not really, Majesty. All magicians are con artists, deceiving the common people into belief in pagan magic.”
Kelsea nearly rolled her eyes, but stopped herself. Her window of opportunity was closing here; once the Holy Father walked out the door, he was never coming back. And perhaps he would be more amenable to reason now, when there were fewer people to overhear. Bradshaw was waving his hands in a performative fashion below; Kelsea waited until he produced a mouse from nowhere before asking quietly, “What would tempt you to accept my offer?”
“Perhaps we could reach a compromise, Majesty. Forgive the taxes on both our New London holdings and half of our acreage in the Almont, and the Church will happily feed and house four floors’ worth of the displaced.”
Kelsea looked up at Mace. “How much tax money is that?”
“Only Arliss would know for certain, Lady. But you’re talking at least a thousand square miles of producing farmland. A year’s taxes would be a good sum.”
“Not just a year,” the Holy Father interjected. “In perpetuity.”
“In perpetuity?” Kelsea repeated in an incredulous whisper. “I could build my own damned Arvath with the money the Tearling would lose over five years alone.”
“You could build it, Majesty, but you don’t have the time.” The Holy Father grinned, and for the first time his eyes showed a glimmer of light . . . but it wasn’t a good sort of light at all. “The Mort will be here by autumn, and you’re over a barrel. That’s why we’re having this conversation.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you’re anything more than a convenience to me, Your Holiness. I don’t need your pile of gold.”
“Then don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m frightened of your tax collector, Majesty. By the time the New Year rolls around, you’ll be in no position to tax anyone.”
Kelsea had been thinking the same thing not five minutes before, but this fact only made her angrier. She turned fully toward him, no longer even pretending to take interest in the magic show. “And what good is all that gold doing you, Your Holiness? Who is it you’re trying to impress with that steeple of yours? God?”
“God is not interested in such trifles.”
“My point exactly.”
“Devout parishioners donated that gold, Majesty, as a matter of repentance and good works. Your uncle was one of them.”
“My uncle had seven concubines and no marriage in sight. How devout could he be?”
“Your uncle confessed those sins to Father Timpany, Majesty, and was absolved.”
“A fascinating system. Children of four are subjected to more discipline.”
The Holy Father’s voice tightened in anger. “You have criminal laws for secular punishment, Majesty. My concern is simply salvation of the soul.”
“But the gold helps, right?”
“How dare you—”
“Your Majesty!” Bradshaw gave another elaborate bow at the foot of the dais. “For my final trick, may I ask one of your Guard to volunteer?”
Kelsea produced a wilted smile. “Kibb.”
Kibb headed down the steps, to the chuckles of the other guards, but Kelsea barely paid attention. Her hands were clenched tightly on the arms of her chair. It was all she could do not to throttle the man sitting next to her.
All that room, she thought, staring at the Holy Father, her temples throbbing. All that room and all that gold. You don’t use it, you don’t need it, but it’s not to be shared. If we live through the invasion, my friend, I am going to tax you until you scream for mercy.
The Holy Father stared back at her with the supreme arrogance of one who had nothing to fear. Kelsea remembered a remark Mace had made, weeks ago: that the Holy Father wasn’t above dealing with Demesne under the table. If the Holy Father had already made his deal, then of course he wouldn’t be threatened by Kelsea; he need only sit and wait until the Mort army rolled in, sparing the Arvath and laying waste to everything else. And now Kelsea felt the first seeds of despair take root in her heart. She had spent the last month running back and forth, moving frantically from one option to the next, trying to find a solution, and now she looked up and found herself surrounded by cannibals.
“In honor of your holy guests, Majesty!” Bradshaw produced the cup he’d used earlier and filled it with water from a small canteen, then handed it to Kibb. “Have a sip, sir, and please confirm that it’s water.”
Kibb sipped gently at the cup. “Water indeed.”
The magician brought the cup to the front of the dais and held it up for Kelsea’s inspection, waiting until she nodded to continue. With a small, polite bow to the Holy Father, Bradshaw covered the mouth of the cup with one hand and snapped the fingers of the other. A small flash of light appeared between his fingers, and then Bradshaw held the cup up to Kelsea again, removing his hand. The water in the goblet was now a deep, dark red.
“For her Majesty’s pleasure!” Bradshaw announced. “Where’s my able assistant?”
Kibb raised his hand, and the magician danced over to him, holding out the cup. “Taste it, sir. It will do you no harm.”
Kibb, smiling with a touch of anxiety, took a small sip from the cup. An astonished look came over his face, and he took a second, larger sip. Turning to Kelsea, he announced in an amazed voice, “Majesty, it’s wine.”
Kelsea chuckled, then giggled, and finally could not stop herself from roaring with laughter. She didn’t miss the look of fury on the Holy Father’s darkening face, but that only made her laugh harder. Below the dais, Bradshaw smiled, his face flushing with triumph.
“Get up, get up!”
The shorter acolyte had fainted dead away, and the taller one was shaking him, hissing commands. But the young man was out cold.
The Holy Father rose from his seat, his face a deep, rich red that pleased Kelsea no end. Father Tyler was murmuring gently in his ear, but the Holy Father shoved him away. He showed no concern for the unconscious boy on the floor.
“I see no humor in an insult offered to guests,” the Holy Father snarled. “That was a blasphemous joke, Majesty, in poor taste.”
“Don’t look at me, Your Holiness. I don’t keep court performers. His tricks are his own.”
“I want an apology!” he snapped, and Kelsea, who had assumed that this sort of ludicrous outrage was part of a Holy Father’s job description, found herself hesitating, because his anger was clearly genuine. But even if Bradshaw had produced Mary the Virgin from a hat, no one could possibly take a magic trick seriously. The smart move was conciliation, but Kelsea was long past that now. She tapped her nails on the arm of the chair and asked sweetly, “An apology from whom?”
“From this impostor, Majesty.”
“Impostor? I’m quite sure he didn’t mean to represent himself as the actual Christ, Your Holiness.”
“I demand an apology.”
“Did you just give the Queen an order?” Mace asked, his voice deadly soft.
“I certainly did.”
“Refused!” Kelsea snapped. “What kind of fool takes offense at an illusion?”
“Majesty, please!” Father Tyler had moved up to stand beside the Holy Father, his thin face blanched nearly white now. “This is hardly constructive.”
“Shut up, Tyler!” the Holy Father hissed. “All magicians are charlatans! They promise quick solutions and undermine faith in the straight and righteous path.”
Kelsea narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even think about playing the devout card with me, Your Holiness. I’ve heard all about you. What of those two women you keep in the Arvath? Do they kneel down before the Holy Spirit every night?”
At this, the Holy Father’s face turned an apoplectic purple, and Kelsea suddenly wished that he would simply have a heart attack and keel over right in front of her throne, consequences be damned.
“Have a care, Majesty. You have no idea how delicate your position is.”
“Threaten me again, you greedy fraud, and I will end you.”
“I’m sure he meant nothing of the kind, Majesty!” Father Tyler exclaimed in a high, panicky voice. “It was no threat, only—”
“Tyler, stay out of this!” the Holy Father roared. He turned and lashed out with one arm, catching Father Tyler in the chest. Tyler momentarily pinwheeled for balance, then fell backward, down the stairs of the dais. Kelsea heard the dry, crisp snap of a breaking bone, and all thought ceased, the voice of reason in her head falling mercifully silent. She jumped to her feet, pushed past Pen, and slapped the Holy Father across the face.
Mace and Pen moved very quickly, and the rest of the Guard was right behind them. Within a few seconds, more than ten men stood between Kelsea and the Holy Father. The guards obscured her view, but not before she had seen and memorized the white mark of her handprint against the Holy Father’s red cheek, wrapped it in her mind like a gift.
“Sacrilege!” the taller acolyte hissed from the bottom of the stairs. “No one can lay hands on the Holy Father!”
“If you value that hypocrite, get him out of my Keep right now.”
The acolyte scrambled up the steps to assist the Holy Father. Kelsea turned back to her armchair, determined to ignore them, but then she heard gasping breaths below her, behind the wall of guards.
“Father, are you all right?”
“Fine, Majesty.”
But Father Tyler’s voice was hoarse with pain.
“Stay there. We’ll get you a doctor.”
“Tyler will come with us!” the Holy Father snarled. But Mace had already pushed his way down the steps and positioned himself between Father Tyler and the priests.
“The Queen says he stays.”
“My own doctors will attend him.”
“I think not, Your Holiness. I’ve seen the work of your doctors.”
The Holy Father’s eyes widened, full of surprise and something else . . . guilt? Before Kelsea could decipher his reaction, Mace sprang across the room and laid hold of the taller acolyte, grabbing him by the neck. “We’ll be keeping this one as well. Brother Matthew, is it?”
“On what charge?” the Holy Father demanded, enraged.
“Treason,” Mace announced flatly. “The Thorne conspiracy.”
The Holy Father’s mouth worked for a moment. “We came here under promise of safe conduct!”
“I promised safe conduct to you, Your Holiness,” Kelsea snapped, though inwardly she cursed Mace; he never told her anything. Now she placed Brother Matthew easily: one of the men from the Argive, crouched around Thorne’s campfire in the middle of the night. “You’re free to go. But your toadies came at their own risk.”
“I suggest you leave now,” Mace told the Holy Father, tightening his grip on the struggling priest’s neck. “Before I have a chance to ask your weasel any questions.”
The Holy Father’s eyes narrowed, and he kicked the shorter acolyte, who was still unconscious on the floor. “You! Wake up! We’re leaving!”
Somehow or other, they got the young man to unsteady feet. Mace handed Brother Matthew off to Elston and followed the two Arvath men to the doors. The second acolyte, his face white as milk, cast several appalled glances over his shoulder, but the Holy Father, walking stiffly at his side, never looked back.
Kelsea hurried down the stairs to crouch beside Father Tyler, whose left leg was twisted at a dreadful angle. He was breathing in shallow pants, enormous beads of sweat rolling down his pale cheeks. Kelsea gathered the hem of her dress to wipe his forehead, but when Coryn tried to examine the leg, Father Tyler groaned and begged him to stop.
“Broken in multiple places, Lady. We’re going to have to put him out to reset the bone.”
“We’ll wait for the doctor,” Kelsea ordered, casting a murderous glance toward the Holy Father’s retreating back. “God’s good work, I suppose.”
Father Tyler giggled, a wild, disconnected sound. “I got off light, Majesty. Seth will tell you so.”
“Who’s Seth?”
But Father Tyler gritted his teeth, and although Kelsea asked her question several more times before the doctor arrived, he refused to answer.