Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [74]
“Go to your chamber, my lady,” I said. She pouted and flounced off, escorted by two Greens.
The queen, barefoot, had been wearing nothing but a short shift, and her dark hair had tumbled loose around her bare shoulders.
The next day Lord Robert rode from the palace on his magnificent black charger, gone to his estate in the country, and did not return. He had gone, Queen Caroline announced to her court, at her behest, on an important mission of state.
21
“ROGER, I HAVE work for you,” the queen said.
That could mean only one thing. My spine froze.
Weeks had passed since the battle. Spring flowed into early summer, with roses budding in courtyards and crops pale green in fields. Lord Solek’s savage soldiers were everywhere—how could so few of them seem like so many? They directed the Green guards, they marched through the spider-net of villages around the palace and secured them for the queen, they supervised the barges arriving at the palace, they controlled everything that happened in Glory. A few had learned some words of our language, but most managed with gestures and demonstrations of what they wanted. They were tireless, superbly disciplined, courteous in their rough way. They were—always, everyplace—there.
The queen kept me close by her, except when she was in her privy chamber with Lord Solek. She never mentioned what I had seen the night of the battle. She didn’t have to mention it; we both knew it was worth my life to stay silent about the scene between her and Lord Robert. Much of the time, as Lord Solek received reports from his captains and directed his growing power over the capital, the queen sat with her ladies as they sewed or sang or gambled or danced. She said little, and did not join them in their forced revels. They had to be cheerful and amusing, for her sake; she did not have to cheer or amuse them, and she didn’t. She sat quiet, thoughtful. Sometimes she didn’t hear when Lady Margaret spoke to her.
Queen Caroline’s beautiful face showed nothing, but I could sense her growing fear. This had not been part of her plan. Lord Solek was swiftly, surely, securing power over The Queendom. The queen had defeated her mother’s forces only to fall before those of her lover.
“Will she marry him?” Cecilia whispered to me as she sat in a window embrasure, supposedly sewing. Her cushion cover was a tangled mess; I could have set neater stitches myself.
“Marry him?”
She giggled. “Well, they bed together, don’t they?”
“I am never in the queen’s bedchamber. Hush, my lady.” Quickly I glanced around. Cecilia had no discretion, and sometimes I thought she had no memory. Both Lady Margaret and I had warned her again not to speak of the queen and Lord Solek. But she was like a kitten: curious, wide-eyed, playful, completely adorable. The scent of her made my head float and my eyes blur.
“Maybe she should marry him,” Cecilia said. “He’s very handsome. Those blue eyes.”
“Lady Cecilia . . . please!”
“Well, he is. And Princess Stephanie is not strong. The queen is old but not that old—he could maybe give her another daughter in case—oh, all right, Roger. You cautious old thing.” She patted my shoulder. Her touch was like wine. “It’s all right now, don’t you see? We’re at peace again and everything’s all right. The queen—oh, she wants us now!”
“Stay, she wants me,” I said, and rose to follow the queen to the high roof where we had watched the battle. Three or four times a day we did this, climbing the steep stone steps through the bell tower, just she and I and two Green guards, the same two I often saw drinking ale in the guardroom with one of Lord Solek’s captains. That savage captain had a good ear for words; he was among the best with our language. “I like to gaze at my queendom at peace,” the queen said to explain her frequent trips to the tower. I knew better.
Now she leaned on the stone parapet and called me to her. Her Green guard stood by the trapdoor to the staircase, a respectful distance away and out of