Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [58]
I had begun this conversation; I must finish it. “Not our Greens against the Blues; we have not enough soldiers. So—”
“Yes?” We entered the outer chamber and the queen’s ladies sank to the floor in puddles of green silk.
“—so we must have allies to fight with us?”
“You are waking up, Roger. Lucy! Catherine! I want you!”
The ladies of the bedchamber shot to their feet and followed the queen into her privy chamber. As soon as the door closed, the rest of the women seized upon me. Cecilia cried, “Roger! What’s happening?”
“There is a battle being fought,” I said.
“Is the palace being attacked? ” Cecilia’s green eyes were so big there seemed no room in her face for anything else. She looked drawn, even gaunt, and the clutch of her little hand on mine was icy cold.
“Not yet, my lady.”
“Cecilia,” Lady Margaret said, “come at once. This fool can tell us nothing, and we have our orders.”
I said, “What—”
“We are to get dressed in our best gowns and go to the throne room,” Cecilia told me as Lady Margaret turned stern with the other young ladies. “A page ran to tell us so but he did not say why. Is the queen going to surrender? Will we all be taken prisoners by the Blues?”
“No, my lady.” Would we?
“Cecilia! Come!”
They bustled away. The outer chamber was empty, except for two Green guards who looked as uneasy as I. I waited, as I had done so often before. Sometimes my whole life in the palace seemed to consist of either waiting or fear. Or both together.
If the queen did indeed have allies arriving, it could only be the army of her sister-in-law, Queen Isabelle. Isabelle’s mother had died shortly after the wedding, and Isabelle had been crowned. How many soldiers would she send? If the Blues defeated them and took the palace, what would happen to me—would they think it worthwhile to hang a fool? And what would they do to the queen? They could murder her and put Princess Stephanie on the throne, with a loyal Blue advisor to rule for the child. If there were any loyal Blue advisors left alive. And what would happen to Lady Cecilia? Surely soldiers wouldn’t press charges of treason against a girl as foolish, as innocent, as lovable as my lady. . . . It would be like killing a kitten.
People killed unwanted kittens all the time.
The privy chamber opened. The queen wore the green-jeweled gown she had worn six nights ago to receive the oaths of fealty. But this time she had on her head the Crown of Glory, broken out of Osprey’s iron keeping-box. Heavy beaten gold, the crown was set with jewels of every hue, a rainbow of the colors of every queen who had ruled The Queendom. Emeralds, sapphires, rubies, amethysts, diamonds. Onyx, beryl, opal, topaz. Jewels I could not name, neither the stone nor the color. How could the queen’s slender neck even hold up such heaviness? But it did, and she swept past me, her ladies scrambling to hold up her long velvet train, her guard falling into step before and after her. She looked as if neither defeat nor surrender could ever be possible.
“Come, Roger,” she threw at me over her shoulder. “It won’t be long now.”
We waited in the throne room, and from the faces it was clear who knew what we waited for, and who only conjectured.
The advisors knew. They stood in their long green robes to the right of the throne, a group of old men with carefully blank faces and apprehensive eyes. The courtiers and ladies did not know. Grouped at the left, the young men and women in all their finery looked like a flock of alert peacocks. Loveliest among them was Cecilia, in a robe of green silk that exposed most of her small firm breasts. She shivered, but not with cold. The vast throne room was chill as ever, but braziers must have been lit under the dais. Heat radiated from the throne as if the queen herself had fire within her. She sat straight-backed, head held high, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I grew stiff, crouched on the dais steps. Cecilia’s gown rustled and swayed; she was shifting from one small foot to the other. Finally the door was flung open and Lord Robert,