The Queen's Secret Read online

  A village looms, one of several the procession will pass this morning on its way to the town of Sancton. Cal gallops to the front, whipping a glance at Lilac as he passes. She’s smiling, but it looks strained. At least the village visit will cheer her up. During these autumn processions, in every hamlet and village, every tiny settlement and every town, Cal has seen lilac-colored ribbons tied to window latches and branches of trees. The people of Montrice are welcoming Lilac as their queen. In the towns, small girls present her with bouquets of autumn leaves and flowers. Hansen is asked to drink a symbolic draft from a horn of plenty, and he makes the same joke every time about wishing for ale rather than well water. Everyone laughs, he plants an awkward kiss on Lilac’s cheek, and then the entire royal procession moves on.

  Today should be no different, but Cal feels uneasy. He rides up alongside Jander and nods at his slight, frowning apprentice. Some people are surprised that the Chief Assassin trusts and relies on a skinny boy, but they don’t know that Jander is more than just a humble stable hand, and older than everyone in the entire kingdom.

  “It’s quiet on the road,” Jander observes in his low, rasping voice.

  “Too quiet?”

  He gives the slightest of shrugs. But Cal trusts Jander’s instincts, and his own. Something isn’t right today. Perhaps the news from Stur has already reached this village. He had urged the king not to make this trip, but Hansen insisted. Behind Cal, a few people are cheering for the king, but with less gusto than usual. The country folk lined up to watch are craning to get a glimpse of Lilac, but they’re not smiling or cheering. The village that lies ahead looks the same as so many others in this part of Montrice—while the capital city, Mont, is rich and dazzling, the countryside is full of thatched roofs, daub-and-wattle walls, penned goats and sheep, water troughs, a makeshift shelter over the well where chickens peck around in the dirt, and a donkey or two tied to a post. Cal has seen dozens of these over the past few weeks. The only difference among them is the general dirtiness of the populace, and whether the tree of life grows in the middle of the road or in an overgrown village green.

  “Long live the king!” bellows the crier from Castle Mont, in his green-and-white livery, his beard as rusty as the leaves drifting from trees. “Long live the queen!”

  “Long live the children of Stur,” a voice in the crowd says. So they do know about Stur. The speaker is a young man, maybe, but when Cal tries to single him out, it’s impossible. There’s a sour look to the people assembled here; they seem discontent, which is understandable.

  In a moment the villagers have all taken up the cry. “Long live the children of Stur! Deia bless the children of Stur! May we never forget the children of Stur!”

  Cal looks around. There are no lilac ribbons tied anywhere, not a single one.

  “Pray for the souls of the children of Stur!” shouts one old woman, her voice high-pitched and cracking. “Deia damn the evil magic that killed them!”

  Cal trots back toward Lilac and Hansen, scrutinizing their expressions. Both have heard the shouts of the villagers. Hansen looks ill at ease, as though he’s ready to turn his horse and gallop home. Lilac appears serene and untroubled: That’s her aunts’ assassin training at work, Cal thinks. Give nothing away with your face or your body language. Make no rushed gestures. Let no enemy perceive you as nervous, startled, unprepared. Afraid.

  “Deia damn the witch who killed them!” a man shouts, and Hansen’s horse rears a little, unnerved by the noise. Cal doesn’t like this. The witch—who do they mean? He glances around. They all seem to be looking in one place. At one person, anyway. The queen.

  The lilac-frosted ice.

  “Boo! Boo!” The sound is all around them, men’s and women’s voices, sour and angry.

  That’s it. Cal has to stop this, right now.

  “Your Majesty,” he says, drawing his horse close to Hansen’s. “I believe we must return to the capital.”

  “What’s going on?” Hansen asks, bewildered. “They’re upsetting my horse.”

  “The terrible news from Stur has upset our people,” Lilac says in a loud, clear voice, no doubt aware that her words will carry. “That’s to be expected. We should have canceled this visit today as I suggested. It is . . . unseemly at such a sad time.”

  “I don’t know why they’re angry with us,” Hansen complains, frowning at Lilac. “Hang this. We’re in the dark like everyone else, and news of Stur arrived just this morning. I saw no reason to change course. This is still my kingdom.”

  “Quite,” says Cal, keen to end the conversation. The booing intensifies, the crowd growing more brazen. He holds up an arm to summon the assassins, and they gallop up, circling the monarchs.

  “Rally to the king and queen,” he mutters. “Follow me.”

  “What on earth is going on here?”

  It’s the Duke of Auvigne, his face even ruddier than usual. “What is all this to-do? These subjects need a good thrashing, if you ask me. I’ve never heard such disrespectful nonsense.”

  “We’re returning to the castle, Your Grace,” Cal tells him. “At once.”

  “Very well, but the guards should arrest some of these louts and make an example of them.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Once again, Lilac sounds calm and firm, though Cal knows that she must be in turmoil. When he looks into her dark eyes, there’s no sparkle. “We should make haste.”

  At a nod from Cal, Jander takes off toward the back of the procession, to spread the word of an about-face. In an instant, they’re on their way, retracing their progress along the road to Mont. The city is visible on its hilltop in the distance, and Cal wants to set a quicker pace than their journey out.

  The countryside isn’t a happy place anymore, and it’s not a safe place. Deia damn the witch who killed them.

  In the minds of the people of Montrice—so adoring last week—has everything changed so utterly? Is Lilac the “witch” they fear? Cal is troubled, but for now he needs to get Lilac back behind the city wall and into the castle, where she will be safe from her people.

  Chapter Two

  Lilac

  It’s been three days since our last attempted journey, and for the time being no one is allowed out of the royal castle. People here in Mont call it a palace, but it’s more like a fortress, the moat a weed-infested gully strewn with iron spikes to deter invaders. At nightfall the heavy portcullis clangs shut and the drawbridge rises. We’re all trapped in here, for our own safety. These are dangerous times, and I fear the danger will only grow.

  Aside from an emergency meeting of the Small Council, I haven’t seen Hansen. He has always had the love of his people, and I don’t think he’s taken our recent reception well. Maybe he thinks it’s my fault. In fact, I’m sure he thinks it’s my fault.

  The weather has turned chilly and wintry, and it’s been decided that we should suspend further excursions around Montrice until . . . until what? Until spring? No. Until the rumors die down, and the anger.

  The day drags, and then at last, night falls. I sink into my vast bed, its brocade curtains drawn around me before my ladies depart, fussing with their candles and competing to be the last to wish me good night.

  “Sleep well, Your Majesty,” they say, though their faces are anxious, and I doubt any of us are sleeping well right now. All the talk is of the terrible news from Stur and the people who died there. The children who died there. My ladies are careful not to say anything directly to me, but the men in the Small Council are less circumspect. Anyway, I knew—as soon as I saw their faces and heard their displeasure when Hansen and I rode out the other day. They hate me. They blame me.

  The lilac-colored frost over the pond. A curse from the Renovian witch. It is easier to blame the devil they know—the foreign queen—than the one they don’t, the demons who walk among us once more. The King of Stavin is convinced the Aphrasians have returne
d, and who am I to dispute this? Stavin is right: We have been slow to act. The problem is that the king does not even know where to start looking for perpetrators. The Aphrasians seem to have disappeared into thin air. I have pushed Hansen to send soldiers to Baer Abbey, but the king does not listen to me. And my mother is still, for all intents and purposes, the leader of Renovia.

  I lie in my vast bed, propped up on my pillows, listening to the soft night sounds of the castle, waiting.

  Hansen, in his own apartments at the far end of the hall keep, may be hosting his usual revelries—drinking, gambling—games that might be raucous or debauched. All with his favorites and his dogs. I actually have no idea. He could be brushing up on the scrolls and drinking tea, but I doubt it.

  He’s kept his distance from me since our marriage, which is a great relief.

  He hasn’t insisted on my presence at any of his evening entertainments or once tried to join me in my bed, or summon me to his. This is a marriage of political expedience for both of us, after all. A political disaster right now, especially since the people blame or suspect me for the terrible things that have happened lately.

  The guards call to one another across the battlements, and an owl hoots from a distant perch. Sometimes, if there’s no wind, I think I can hear whinnying from the stables, when the horses board for the night, though maybe this is my imagination. I’m longing for the castle to settle, and for the business of the day to be over.

  Because that is when Cal will come to me, through the secret door in the hall’s cellars, all the way up the narrow stone staircase, to the tiny antechamber we call the Queen’s Secret. I’m waiting for his knock on the door. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

  It has been three days since the ill-fated trip to the village, three days since he has visited. I can never acknowledge our friendship in public, but I saw the alarm in his eyes when the crowd turned ugly. I want to tell him I’m all right, that I can take care of myself, that he doesn’t need to worry so. But I also, selfishly, just want to be with him.

  The fire in the grate is low now, no longer spitting and hissing. The taper by my bed is still lit, but it throws little light, and I can’t see into the recesses of the large room. I just need to wait, and to listen.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  I fling myself out of bed and snatch the key from its hiding place, inside the bound edition of Renovian legends that I keep on a high table, within arm’s reach of my pillow. Then I scamper into the room’s darkest corner, not bothering to fetch the taper. I know the path by heart, know every chair and footstool to avoid. Cal will have made his way up the stairs in darkness as well, slipping through the recesses of the cellars in stealth to make his way here. To reveal the door, I must pull aside the tapestry and trace the oak panel down to the lock.

  With a click it’s open, and just knowing he’s there is intoxicating. I can sense his tall, broad form before me, even before he says a word. All I have to do is reach out a hand and touch his chest, so firm and broad, and I am weak at the knees, swooning.

  “Lilac,” he says, his voice low and soft, loving, and he steps into the room, swallowing me in an embrace before we close the door. I don’t want to let him go. I burrow into his neck, breathing in his particular scent that’s impossible to describe. There’s a musk to it, and the subtle hawthorn aroma of the soap we make in Renovia. Cal smells like home to me, in every way.

  “I missed you.” I hadn’t realized the strain of keeping up a false front all day. “Where have you been?”

  “Interrogating the messenger from Stur, and sending our own people down there to ask more questions,” Cal says, and he draws my head back and kisses me gently. “I need to know what’s true and what is just fear and rumor.”

  “And did the messenger tell you anything we didn’t know?” I ask. Cal shakes his head, and I see how tired he looks—the dark rims under his eyes, his hollow cheeks, rough with stubble. It’s no surprise that he’s exhausted: Since the parade, the capital has swarmed with spies from Argonia and Stavin, their embassies merely public fronts, the ambassadors entertaining the rich and mighty of Montrice while their spies sneak and snoop behind our backs.

  “Too many stories,” he says. “Half of it from legends and old crones’ tales.”

  I put my hands on his temples and massage. If I could take his burden, I would. He is more husband to me than my own.

  He leans back, his olive skin against the crisp white linen sheets, his eyes glinting in the flickering light of the taper. “The villagers swear the pond went black with dark magic, and then lilac. And news has leaked of the letter from Stavin—”

  “Which no one cared about until now,” I interrupt. “Even Hansen thought Goran was merely a warmonger looking for an excuse to invade us. But now it’s different. People are scared.”

  Cal sighs, tracing a hand over my hair. His touch is pure comfort and I have to resist the urge to close my eyes. “Fear is contagious,” he says, “especially where the Aphrasians are concerned. But we need to know more. It’s possible the story is exaggerated.”

  “Tell that to the people booing me in the countryside. Maybe Hansen is right for a change, and we can’t trust Goran. Stavin has never been one to shy from a conflict or a chance to expand its borders.”

  “Part of the issue,” Cal says in a deliberate way, choosing his words carefully, “is that this happened in Montrice, not Renovia. It reminds everyone that you’re Renovian.”

  I lean against him, trying to draw on his strength. “But why would I do something so cruel, and then leave a sign that blatant?”

  “No one who knew you would ever believe it,” says Cal.

  “But they don’t know me at all,” I say in despair. It suddenly dawns on me that my position here is as flimsy as my marriage.

  “I will never let anything happen to you,” says Cal, his gaze steady. He puts his arms around me and I feel my heartbeat slowing.

  “The Montricians associate the Aphrasians and their dark magic with Renovia,” I say. “It’s only fair, I suppose. The Aphrasian king ruled Renovia, and since that time our kingdom has failed to defeat or contain his followers. And now here I am, married to the King of Montrice.”

  Cal winces, as he often does at the mention of my marriage and my husband. He would rather we had run away than see me as another man’s wife. The life we have eked for ourselves in secret, in shadow, wears on him. I begged him to make this sacrifice, but it does not come without heartache.

  For now, however, we both must push our feelings aside. I clear my throat. “So I’m the evil queen,” I say, my voice low. “They believe I’m in league with the Aphrasians. But why?”

  “With Aphrasian magic at your disposal,” Cal reasons, “you plague Stavin until it’s weak enough to annex. Then you undermine Montrice in a campaign of magical terror. Next target is Argonia, I suppose. Everywhere would be subject to the Kingdom of Renovia and its Dellafiore queen. The Avantine Empire intact once more.”

  “All hail Avantine,” I say, unable to suppress my bitterness.

  “All hail the queen,” Cal says, with a raised eyebrow. I know he’s teasing, trying to make me feel better about this absurd theory. This plan I would never want. I never wanted to be a princess, let alone a queen. That is my mother’s plan, my mother’s wish, but it is not mine.

  “Just last week they loved us,” I tell him, pulling away from his embrace. “Hansen and me, I mean. They all wanted us to visit their manor houses and villages and harvest festivals. The groveling, the declarations of fealty. How quickly things change.”

  “The kingdoms may be united in name,” Cal says, “but suspicion persists toward Renovia. Everything about this situation is new for the people here. Montrician queens are meant to be consorts, not joint rulers.”

  “I may as well be a consort,” I say, unable to shake my dark mood. “No one listens to me in court. And my mother doesn’t
seem to need my help back at home.”

  “You’ll never be a consort.” Cal’s face softens and he smiles at me. “You’re a born leader. And a wild Renovian. That’s why they’re scared of you.”

  He’s right. When they think that I can’t hear, Hansen’s courtiers speak of Renovia as a haven for animals, criminals, and the very darkest magic. They probably consider me half savage myself.

  “They have long memories when it comes to old gossip about Renovian royals poisoning one another,” I tell Cal. “But short ones when it comes to how much my father—and your father—sacrificed while trying to break the Aphrasians.”

  “The worst rumors have a way of lingering,” he says. “If people believe that your father poisoned his own brother, they’re ready to believe the worst of his daughter as well.”

  “Especially with a lilac-colored pond full of dead children,” I say, shuddering. All the village’s children were taken in one fell swoop. Of course they would hate me. I hate myself right now, for being helpless against such violence. I should have protected them. I should have done more about the stories from the borders, warned them, shielded them. They are my people too. Perhaps it is my fault that they were so vulnerable.

  Cal reaches over and lays a warm hand on my back. “It’s a message, isn’t it?”

  “Not from me, it isn’t.”

  “Not from you. But to you, and about you.”

  I see what he is saying. “They want people to blame me. Hansen already blames me, I think, though he hasn’t said it out loud.”

  “What do you care what Hansen thinks?” Cal’s tone is impatient.