Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [65]
“Your Grace—”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “This is important, Roger. The most important thing I have ever asked you to do. The fate of The Queendom may depend upon it. In a few more days, more help will arrive for us, but meanwhile this will help me so much now. Can I rely on you?”
This was the queen at her warmest, her most persuasive. The threat and the warmth, all mixed together. I nodded, too frightened to find words. But she went on gazing at me, and so words were necessary. I tried to say, “Yes, Your Grace,” but what came out was, “What other help?”
She frowned, withdrew her hand, and then laughed. “Why not? It isn’t really a secret. I’m sure conjectures are rife about the court. My brother’s bride, Queen Isabelle, sends troops to reinforce Lord Solek’s army. They are on their way already.”
Queen Isabelle. I had been right after all, or at least partially right. Queen Caroline had remained so calm during the siege because she had not one but two armies to oppose the Blues rising against her. And then I saw something else. Queen Isabelle’s army, loyal to Queen Caroline through the marriage tie, would also ensure that Lord Solek could not take the throne for himself. She was not trusting in Lord Solek completely; she had other insurance. The Queendom did not really depend upon my report from the country of the Dead. However, she did not believe that either the savage chieftain—who, after all, did not know our language—or I would realize this.
It was the first time that I had ever thought, for so much as a second, that I had the upper hand with her.
“Are you ready, Roger? Then go now.”
She handed me the jeweled scissors. I thrust it into my soft underarm, just above the yellow velvet of my parti-colored sleeve, and I crossed over.
Dirt in my mouth—
Worms in my eyes—
Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—
Then I was over, and something was very wrong.
19
AS EVER, THE DEAD still sat, or lay, gazing at nothing. But the ground was wrong. I was used to the way the country of the Dead stretched or shrank, so that what was close by in the land of the living might here be miles off. But always the ground was the same, covered with low, dense grass. Always the sky was an even, featureless gray. Always the river meandered placidly, flat and slow.
Not now. The grass stood in uneven patches: some places high weeds, some low grass, some bare ground. The river had rocks in it and the water, flowing faster, eddied around the rocks in tiny bursts of white foam. The sky seemed darker. And beneath my feet, the ground rumbled softly. What was happening in this place, where nothing ever happened?
Dazed, I began walking along the river. I saw no one I recognized. After a while the trees grew denser, making small groves and then patches of woods. The land grew wilder and I had to veer away from the water. I could not find the two dead savage warriors, and even if I had, they would have been sitting tranquilly, as unreachable as the rest of the Dead. In the land of the living, the queen waited for my answer. What was I going to do?
All at once, a man jumped out at me from behind a thicket of bushes. I hit out at him and he hit back, his blow landing on my jaw, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to knock me down. It was a Blue soldier. As I lay panting for breath, he grabbed me by the arm and hauled me over to another soldier, who recognized me.
“Boy! Did the witch-queen, that whore, send you back here again?”
It was the same soldier I’d spoken to on my last crossing. I stammered, “Y-yes. She told me . . . she told me to see how all goes in Witchland, until she herself can return.”
He spat, and his saliva made a little wet spot in the dirt. Had the Dead always been able to do that? But clearly this man still did not believe he was dead. The country of the Dead was filling up with people who, like Bat, did not believe they inhabited it.