Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [75]
“Y-yes, Your Grace.”
“You will cross over and see if the country of the Dead contains a new arrival, a messenger from my brother’s bride.”
“Your Grace—I have tried to tell you . . . the country of the Dead is such a big place, to find one person—”
“Nonetheless, you will find him. He will be small, in order to ride fast, and he will be wearing yellow, the color of Isabelle’s court. You will ask him when her army will arrive here.”
“Your Grace . . . you are presuming that such a messenger was not only sent but also is now dead. ...”
“He must be dead, or he would be here. Or Isabelle’s army would.”
And she needed them. Her need was in every line of her taut figure, her tense face. Only an army that she commanded could counterbalance the one led by Lord Solek, the bedmate who was usurping her queendom. Queen Isabelle’s army, bound to Queen Caroline through Prince Rupert’s marriage, would not have the guns of Lord Solek’s men, but the Yellows had a reputation as the best soldiers in the world. If Queen Isabelle bore a daughter, that princess would be second in line for the Crown of Glory, after the sickly Princess Stephanie. Queen Caroline had a strong claim on her sister-in-law’s army, in addition to the affection of her brother. And she had sent for the Yellow army much earlier, had carefully timed their probable arrival as part of her grand design. So where were they?
Her situation was clear to me. Mine, as always, was not to her. To find one messenger in the country of the Dead—if he was even there!—would be impossible. I had lied to the queen before and gotten away with it—but what if another lie caught me out?
“You will cross over now, right here,” the queen said to me. “Not in my privy chamber—right here on the tower. I have already told my lord Solek that my fool is given to fits.”
Fits? And she did not trust her own privy chamber—were there spy holes? In her bedchamber, as well? Things were even worse for her than I had guessed.
As if to confirm my fear, the queen said in a low voice that seemed torn from her against her will, “He seeks to send Princess Stephanie to his barbaric country until her marriage. Roger—men rule there!”
My eyes grew so wide that the wind on the tower made them water. Men did not rule; they could not create life, only defend it. I—everyone at court—had assumed that Lord Solek acted on behalf of some unknown barbarian queen. But if men ruled . . . And for a future queen to be sent away—unthinkable! A princess or queen left her queendom only once, on her marriage journey, to inspect in person the dowry her husband brought her. After that, her place was in her own palace, always. Princess Stephanie was only three; she would grow up not even knowing The Queendom that she must one day rule. Her loyalty would be to the savage realm, not her own. She might even forget her mother tongue.
“I cannot make Lord Solek understand,” the queen said, still in that same low voice, although we both knew that Lord Solek understood only too well. “Go now, Roger, and find Isabelle’s messenger. Have a fit right here, right now.”
Have a fit! How did one have a fit? I had never even seen a fit. The queen’s hand brushed mine; her fingers left me with a piece of gold. What good was gold to bring on a fit? All at once I was angry, furious, at the way I was used. I was a tool, no more than her spoon or her goblet. A tool—just as she was to the savage who shared her bed and wanted her queendom.
There was no choice but to do as I was told.
I screamed and jumped up on the stone railing. The Green guards rushed forward, swords drawn, and pulled the queen away from me. I tossed the gold coin in the air, cried, “I buy the sky! Why why why!” and jumped back down from the parapet to writhe on the stone floor. My hand felt in my pocket to work