Kelsea found this system fascinating. Elston murmured something, apparently satisfied, and he and Kibb laid hold of the bolts and pulled them back. It was a struggle; even from the other end of the room, Kelsea could see the veins standing out in Elston’s enormous forearms.
“A good system,” she told Mace. “Yours, I’m guessing?”
“The details are mine, but the original idea was Carroll’s. We change the knocks every day.”
“It seems a bit labor-intensive for just one visitor. Why don’t they bring him in the same way Coryn left?”
Mace gave her one of his speaking glances.
“Oh.”
“A few people know some of these passageways, Lady, but I’d be shocked if the Regent’s ever dragged himself out of bed long enough to discover even a quarter of what I know.”
“I see. Someone should shut the door to the nursery. I don’t want Marguerite to hear this.”
Mace snapped his fingers at Mhurn, who went. Kelsea would have found the constant snapping demeaning, but the guards clearly didn’t mind; they even seemed to take pride in the fact that Mace didn’t issue them specific orders. Elston and Kibb laid their shoulders into the doors now, pushing them outward, and Kelsea saw a broad tunnel, lit by many torches, which stretched downward on a gentle slope for several hundred feet before disappearing around a corner. She remembered this tunnel, but she hadn’t been walking, had she? No, that’s right; Mace had finally been forced to physically drag her up the slope. Why would anyone create an artificial hill inside a building?
For defense, of course, Carlin replied. Think, Kelsea. For the day when they come to the Keep with pitchforks to take your head.
“Cheery,” Kelsea murmured. “Thank you.”
“What, Lady?”
“Nothing.”
Through the doors came the Regent, escorted by Coryn. Kelsea read everything she needed to in the laxness of Coryn’s posture: he didn’t expect the Regent to give him any trouble. He hadn’t even put his hand to his sword.
The Regent’s face was drawn and pinched, and he wore a shirt and matching trousers of the same hideous purple as before. As he approached, Kelsea became more and more certain that she was looking at clothing that hadn’t been washed for some time; dried food was crusted on the shirt where her uncle’s puffy stomach began to slope downward, and several drops of what looked like wine were splattered across his chest. But he’d clearly taken considerable trouble with his beard, for it still bushed out in the same unnatural curls, an effect that could only have been achieved with a hot iron.
When they were fifteen feet from the armchair, Coryn reached out and grabbed the Regent’s upper arm. “Not one step closer, understand?”
The Regent nodded. Kelsea remembered suddenly that his given name was Thomas, but she couldn’t attach that name to the man who stood before her. Thomas was a name for choirs and angels, a biblical name. Not for her uncle, who had a ratty gleam in his eye. Clearly, he’d come here with a plan.
When Kelsea was fourteen, Carlin had ordered her, with no warning or explanation, to suspend her other homework and read the Bible. This surprised Kelsea; Carlin made no secret of her contempt for the Church, and there were no other religious symbols in their home. But it was a school assignment, and so Kelsea dutifully read through the thick, dusty King James volume that usually resided in the topmost corner of the last bookshelf. It took her five days to finish, and she assumed that she was done with the heavy book, but she was wrong. Carlin spent the rest of that week (forever known as Bible Week in Kelsea’s mind) quizzing her on the Bible, its characters and events and morals, and was forced to pull the thing back down from the bookshelf not just once but many times. Finally, after three or four days of solid Bible work, they were done, and Carlin told Kelsea that she could put the book away for good.
“Why do you have such a nice Bible?” Kelsea asked.
“The Bible is a book, Kelsea, a book that has influenced mankind for thousands of years. It deserves to be preserved in a good edition, just like any other important book.”
“Do you believe it’s true?”
“No.”
“Then why did I have to read it?” Kelsea demanded, feeling resentful. It hadn’t been a particularly good book, and it was heavy; she had hauled the damned thing from room to room for days. “What was the point?”
“To know your enemy, Kelsea. Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.”
Kelsea hadn’t understood what Carlin meant at the time, but after getting a look at the golden cross on top of the Arvath, she was starting to form a better picture. She doubted her uncle had ever read a Bible in his life, but as she stared at him now, she remembered something else from Bible Week: Thomas was not only Thomas the Apostle but also Thomas the Doubter. Perhaps Queen Arla had looked at him when they first put him into her hands and seen exactly what Kelsea saw now: weakness, all the more dangerous for being combined with a sense of entitlement.
He’s your last living relative, a voice protested inside. But the voice was swept aside by a sudden wave of fury that dwarfed family loyalty, dwarfed curiosity. Kelsea had done the math. Her mother had died sixteen years ago, and her uncle had been in charge ever since. Sixteen years times three thousand equaled forty-eight thousand Tear citizens that her uncle had shipped off to save his own hide. She saw no remorse in his face, no lingering regret of any kind, only the bewildered look of a man wronged. He was worth so little, but he was certain that the world owed it to him to make up the slack.
How can I see so much? Kelsea wondered. As if in response, her sapphire gave a tremor, a tiny throb of heat that seemed to ripple through her chest. Kelsea was startled, but much less jolted than she had been on the Keep Lawn the other day. Perhaps she was only deluding herself, but she felt that she was coming to understand the jewel, if only a little bit. Several times now, she had noticed it responding to her moods, but sometimes it also seemed to demand her attention as well. Now, she could have sworn the thing was telling her to keep her mind on business.
“What do you want, Uncle?”
“I come to petition Your Majesty to let me remain in the Keep,” the Regent replied, his nasal voice echoing around the chamber in what was clearly a prepared speech. The four guards, though they still held their positions against the wall, were no longer looking away; Mhurn in particular was watching the Regent with the narrow, waiting expression of a hungry dog. “I feel that my banishment was both unfair and ill advised. Furthermore, the confiscation of my belongings was carried out in a clandestine manner, so that I had no chance to present my case.”
Kelsea raised her eyebrows, surprised at his vocabulary, and leaned toward Mace. “How do I handle this?”
“However you like, Lady. God knows I need the entertainment.”
She turned back to her uncle. “What’s your case?”
“What?”
“You said you had no chance to present your case. What is your case?”
“Many of the items your guard removed from my quarters were gifts. Personal gifts.”
“So?”
“So they weren’t Crown property. The Crown had no right to them.”
Mace interrupted. “The Crown has a right to confiscate anything that comes into the Keep.”
Kelsea nodded in agreement, though this rule was news to her. “He’s right, Uncle. That includes your trinkets from Mortmesne.”
“They weren’t just trinkets, niece. You took my best woman as well.”
“Marguerite’s under my protection now.”
“She was a gift, and a valuable one.”
“I agree,” Kelsea replied, widening her smile. “She’s very valuable. I’m sure she’ll serve me fine.”
Red began to creep up the Regent’s neck now, working its way steadily toward his chin. Carlin always said that most men were dogs, and Kelsea had never taken her seriously; there were too many good books written
by men. But now she saw that Carlin hadn’t been entirely wrong either. “Perhaps when I tire of Marguerite, I’ll set her free. But at the moment she’s happy here.”
The Regent looked up, his face incredulous. “Bullshit!”
“I assure you, she’s quite content,” Kelsea replied blithely. “Why, I don’t even need to keep her tied up!”
Elston and Kibb snickered on their adjacent walls.
“That bitch wouldn’t be happy anywhere!” the Regent snarled, tiny darts of spittle spraying from his lips.
“Watch your language in front of the Queen,” Mace growled. “Or I’ll tie a big red bow around you and throw you out of the Keep right now. The Fetch can use your bones for silverware.”
Kelsea cut him off. “I assume that Marguerite’s the only issue you came here to raise? Because no one would be willing to argue over that pile of spectacularly bad art.”
The Regent’s mouth dropped open. “My paintings are by Powell!”
“Who’s Powell?” Kelsea asked, throwing the question out to the room.
No one answered.
“He’s a well-known painter in Jenner,” the Regent insisted. “I had to collect those paintings.”
“Well, perhaps we’ll allow you to bid on the ones we can’t sell.”
“What about my statues?”
Coryn spoke up. “The statues will sell, Majesty. Most of them are pretty bad, but the materials are costly. I suspect someone could melt them down.”
The Regent looked injured. “I was assured that those statues would only appreciate in value.”
“Assured by whom?” Kelsea asked. “The seller?”
The Regent opened his mouth, and nothing came out. Kelsea shifted impatiently; there was no sport in this anymore, and she was getting tired again. Still, it had amused her guard for a while, and that was something. Elston and Kibb were grinning broadly, Coryn was trying to hide a smirk, and even Mhurn looked wide-awake for the first time.
“I’m keeping your pile of junk, Uncle. I can’t imagine what argument you’d raise on being banished, but if you have one, I’m listening.”
“I can be very useful to you, niece,” the Regent replied, shifting gears so quickly that Kelsea had to wonder if he’d only been dancing around the real matter all along.
“Useful how?”
“I know a lot of things you’d like to know.”
“This is getting tedious, Majesty,” Mace interrupted. “Just let me throw him out of the Keep.”
“Wait.” Kelsea held up a hand. “What do you know, Uncle?”
“I know who your father is.”
“He knows nothing, Lady,” Mace growled.
“Of course I know, niece. And I know plenty more about your mother that would interest you. This lot won’t tell you. They took vows. But I’m not a Queen’s Guard. I know everything about Queen Elyssa that you’d ever want to know, and I can tell it all to you.”
Had her guards’ eyes been swords, her uncle would have been run through. Kelsea turned to Mace and found his face stricken, a terrible sight.
I do want to know. She desperately wanted to know which of her mother’s apparently infinite men had actually fathered her; she wanted to know what her mother had really been like. Perhaps everything was not as it appeared. She grasped at the idea, wondering if there were redeeming qualities in her mother, things that no one else knew. But there were hidden dangers as well. Kelsea gave her uncle a cold stare. “What exactly are you asking for, Scheherazade? Asylum in the Keep?”
“No, I want to be involved. I want to contribute and govern. I also have considerable information on the Red Queen.”
“Are we really going to play this game? You tried to have me killed, Uncle. It didn’t work, so I forgive you, but it doesn’t incline me toward you either.”
“Where’s the proof?”
Mace stepped forward. “Two of your own guard already confessed and implicated you, jackass.”
The Regent’s eyes widened, but Mace wasn’t done. “That doesn’t even include the Caden you engaged to hunt the Queen down three months ago.”
“The Caden never reveal their employers.”
“Of course they do, you miserable whelp. You just have to catch the right one in the right mood and feed him enough ale. I have all the proof I need. Consider yourself fortunate that you’re still standing here.”
“Why am I standing here, then?”
Mace began to answer, but Kelsea waved him to silence, her heart sinking. No matter how badly she wanted her uncle’s knowledge, she couldn’t take his offer. He would never stop trying to take back what he’d lost; it was clear in the way he darted glances around the room. She didn’t know the man at all, but she recognized his character well. He would never stop plotting. He could never be trusted.
“The truth is, Uncle, I don’t consider you important enough to imprison.” Kelsea pointed at Coryn. “Take Coryn here.”
The Regent turned to Coryn in surprise, as though he’d forgotten that Coryn was standing beside him. Coryn himself looked taken aback.
“I could take away everything Coryn owns, clothing and money and weapons and any women he might have stashed somewhere—”
“Plenty,” Coryn remarked cheerfully.
Kelsea smiled indulgently before continuing. “And he would still be Coryn, an extremely honorable and useful man.” She paused. “But look at you, Uncle. Divested of your clothing and women and guard, you’re just a traitor with his crimes laid bare for the world to see. Putting you in my dungeons would be a waste of a cell. You’re nothing.”
The Regent whirled away, a movement so sudden that Mace sprang in front of Kelsea, his hand going to his sword. But the Regent only stood there for a moment with his back to them, his shoulders heaving.
“My judgment stands, Uncle. You now have twenty-five days to clear the Keep. Coryn, escort him back.”
“I don’t need your escort!” the Regent snarled, turning around to face her. His eyes were wide with fury, but there was pain there too, deeper pain than Kelsea had intended. She felt a sudden, absurd urge to apologize, but it faded quickly as he continued. “You’re adrift in deep waters, girl. I don’t think even your Mace understands how deep they are. The Red Queen knows what you’ve done; I sent the messenger myself. You’ve interfered with the Mort slave trade, and believe me, she’s going to come and gut this country like a hog at slaughter.”
He glanced behind Kelsea and fell suddenly silent, eyes wide and terrified.
Kelsea turned and saw Marguerite standing behind her. Her neck hadn’t healed; the welts had faded to a deep purple, visible even in torchlight. She wore a shapeless brown dress, but here was indisputable proof that clothes didn’t make the woman: Marguerite was Helen of Troy, tall and imposing, her hair deep flame in the torchlight, staring at the Regent in a way that made Kelsea’s skin prickle in gooseflesh.
“Marguerite?” the Regent asked. All of his previous bluster was gone; he gazed at Marguerite with a stark longing that made him look like a calf. “I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t know how you have the balls to speak to her,” Kelsea snapped, “but you certainly won’t do it again without my permission.”
The Regent’s face darkened, but he held silent, his eyes pinned on Marguerite. She stared back at him for a moment longer, then darted forward, prompting both Mace and Coryn to put hands on their swords. But Marguerite ignored them entirely, walked right up to Kelsea’s armchair, and sat down at Kelsea’s feet.
The Regent stared at this development for a moment, his face frozen in shock. Then it contorted with hatred. “What did you give her?”
“Nothing.”
“How did you buy her?”
“For starters, I don’t keep a rope around her neck.”
“Well, enjoy it. That bitch would as soon cut your throat as smile at you.” He glared at Marguerite. “Damn you, you Mort whore.”
“No one fears your curses, Tearling pig,” Marguerite replied in M
ort. “You have damned yourself.”
The Regent stared at Marguerite with a bewildered expression, and Kelsea shook her head, disgusted; he didn’t even speak Mort. “We have nothing further to say, Uncle. Get out, and best of luck in your trek across the countryside.”
The Regent gave Marguerite one final, agonized look, then turned and stormed away, Coryn right behind him. Elston and Kibb opened the doors just wide enough for the Regent to pass through, and Marguerite waited until they closed before she scrambled up, speaking in rapid Mort. “I must get back to the children, Majesty.”
Kelsea nodded. She had questions for Marguerite, but this wasn’t the time; she watched the woman retreat down the hallway before relaxing into her armchair. “Tell me that’s everything.”
“Your Treasurer, Lady.” Mace reminded her. “You promised to meet him.”
“You’re quite the taskmaster, Lazarus.”
“Fetch Arliss!” Mace called. “Just for a few minutes, Majesty. It’s important. Personal connections create loyalty, you know.”
“How can we trust my uncle’s Treasurer?”
“Please, Lady. Your uncle never had a Treasurer, just a bunch of vault-keepers who were usually drunk on their own watch.”
“So who’s this Arliss?”
“I picked him for the job.”
“Who is he?”
Mace’s eyes shifted away from her. “A local businessman, very good with money.”
“What kind of businessman?”
Mace crossed his arms, a fairly prissy gesture for him. “If you must know, Lady, he’s a bookmaker.”
“A bookmaker?” Kelsea was momentarily bewildered, but her confusion quickly gave way to excitement. “But you said there was no printing press. How does he make books? By hand?”
Mace stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. Kelsea knew now why he didn’t laugh often: it was a hyena sound, the screech of an animal. Mace clapped a hand over his mouth, but the damage was done, and Kelsea felt a hot blush spreading over her cheeks.