Destroy the Day, page 27
“I did. And I meant it.” I glance at my guardsman, then at the baby in his arms, and finally at the little girl, who’s the only one who hasn’t taken a seat at the table. She’s standing between her parents, peering across at me. “I still mean it,” I add. “None of you are trapped here.”
Leah regards me levelly. “Do you know how much money Consul Sallister is offering for information about your whereabouts?”
I wonder if that’s meant to be a threat, or if it’s just a question. “I heard it was a thousand silvers,” I say. “Do you know how little I trust that he’d actually pay it?”
“Oh, I think he would. You know how I know?”
“Tell me.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine, and her voice is cool and even. “Because he paid soldiers to stand guard at my door. He paid my neighbors to report on everything I did. Captain Huxley himself showed up to question me every day for a week. He’d have guards search the house every time. At first I didn’t know the king was missing—they just said Adam was wanted for treason, and if I didn’t help them find him, they would hang my children in front of me.”
My eyes flick to Ruby, wondering if she should be elsewhere for this conversation, but she doesn’t flinch.
Leah watches my gaze shift, and she says, “Oh, they said far worse to her, Your Majesty.”
Her husband reaches out and puts a hand over hers.
“When I had no answers to give, their questions changed. Gossip began to spread that no one had seen the king. Then announcements were made that the king had fled the palace after proof was found that he was poisoning the people. They said that you had a select group of guards assisting you, and Adam was one of them. No matter what I said, they didn’t believe me. They thought Adam would eventually return home—or that we had a secret way of signaling him. That this had been planned, and all they had to do was wait us out.”
She abruptly falls silent and looks away, and I realize Saeth’s jaw is tight. But he lifts her hand and brushes a kiss across her knuckles.
“Forgive me,” he whispers. “I had no idea.”
She looks back at him and says nothing. But she pulls his hand to her cheek and closes her eyes.
Ruby looks between her parents, then back at me. When she speaks, her voice is so small. “The soldiers took all our food.”
Leah opens her eyes again and takes a breath. “And our money. We had nothing. And the neighbors had been warned that if they helped us, they would be guilty of treason as well. They claim you’ve been poisoning the people, and using Moonflower profits to line your own pockets. Consul Sallister absolutely would pay this money, Your Majesty. All this and more.”
The weight of their emotion is weighing on my heart—but my thoughts are churning, too. Because I didn’t plan any of this, and they all well know it.
Right?
Could there be any chance that the other consuls do believe I’m poisoning the populace, that they really are protecting Kandala by working with Allisander?
That’s too complicated to figure out, and I doubt Leah knows the answer.
I glance between her and the children again. “The soldiers took your money and food,” I say quietly. “How did you survive?”
She’s quiet for a long minute, and the weight of the silence presses down on us all. Eventually Saeth leans in and says, “Do you want me to—”
“No,” she says, and her voice is softer. “I’ll do it.” She pauses. “We were left under heavy guard. They wouldn’t leave us alone. Not to dress, not to wash, not to . . .” She shudders and looks away, pulling her shawl more tightly against herself. “Not to do anything. But they had to eat. Ruby would beg for their scraps. Most of them would mock her. But sometimes they would give them to her. And sometimes she would sneak them to me.”
She’s ashamed by this; I can tell. The baby fusses in Saeth’s arms, but he bounces the infant a little and the child settles.
I look at my guardsman. “Were they still under guard when you arrived at your home?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
I look at him steadily, and he looks right back at me. I know we’re both remembering our final conversation in the wagon, before he left to fetch his family. We were worried his wife and children were being watched like the others—but not to this extent.
And I sent him off to face four armed guards alone.
“As soon as I saw them, I knew it was worse than we expected,” Saeth says, and there’s a dark tone to his words. “I had a choice to make. So I made it.”
He killed them. Saeth doesn’t need to say it. I can hear it in his voice.
I wonder if those men did more to his wife and family than what they’ve said. I consider the heavy tension in this house, the drawn shutters, the way his wife drew that shawl around herself.
I probably don’t need to wonder.
Corrick ordered a lot of terrible things as King’s Justice, but there’s a difference between execution and torture. A difference between justice and torment.
Baby William fusses again, so the guardsman taps him on the nose, then blows the wispy baby hair off his forehead. The infant startles and waves an arm, but then his face breaks out in a wide smile. Saeth smiles back at him.
I can understand now why Thorin didn’t accept his offer of relief this morning.
“Were you able to learn anything?” I say.
Saeth looks back at me. “No. But I knew if they were willing to put that many guards on my family, there was a greater chance that you and Thorin would encounter an ambush on the road.”
As we did.
And despite everything they’d been through, his starving wife and children followed him into the rain to come help us.
I lean in against the table and wish I had more to offer than words. My chest is tight. “Truly,” I say. “I am grateful for your sacrifice.”
Leah looks across the table at me. “I knew Adam wasn’t a traitor to Kandala. I’m still not sure about you.”
“I’m not poisoning my people, Mistress Saeth. I swear to you. This is treason and sedition, but it’s not from my side.”
“Who is it, then?”
“I don’t know for sure.” I glance at my guardsman, and I hate that I’m going to have to ask him to leave his family. But Thorin truly does need to rest, and I don’t want to do this next part alone. “I have one other man to question,” I say, “so I intend to find out.”
More people are out and about when we stride through the Wilds to fetch Quint before we question Sommer. Stares and whispers follow me, a stark reminder of everyone we lost last night—but no one approaches.
Saeth is quiet at my side, which isn’t unusual, but the silence feels too heavy. Nothing I can say to him seems adequate, however. There’s nothing I can offer. It’s not just everything he and his wife revealed. It’s the weight of our failures pressing down, with no promise of relief. The day before we were attacked, he ran for miles, leading a pack of the night patrol out of the Wilds away from me. There’s a chance he’ll have to do it again. I wonder if I’ll be looking at an exhausted Saeth tonight, begging him to take leave, replacing him with a barely refreshed Thorin—a revolving cycle of guarding and fighting and sleeping with no end in sight.
“I’m sorry I made you leave your family,” I finally say.
He blinks and looks at me like I apologized for there being air to breathe. “You didn’t make me leave them. Thorin needed to rest. I offered to relieve him twice, and he refused both times.”
I frown. “I didn’t know it was twice.”
Saeth nods. “He’s so angry that they’ve turned on us.” His voice takes on an edge. “I want to hear what Sommer says, too.”
“I hope he actually has information.” A short distance away, a man stops splitting wood to watch us pass, and I scowl. I lower my voice and glance at Saeth. “Everyone keeps staring and whispering. I’m worried news of the bounty has spread and they’re readying to turn us in. Or perhaps they’re looking to retaliate after our failures.” I glance around again, thinking of those men who showed up on the porch with Francis, armed with farm tools. “Should we prepare to move? Advise.”
His eyebrows go up. “No, Your Majesty. That’s not what they’re whispering about.”
“Then . . . why?”
“Because that ambush killed off most of our traveling party, and you retaliated. That boy Nook has been telling everyone that you called a guard off him so he could escape. You stood with the people in the Wilds against men who were once loyal to you.” His voice turns solemn. “Everyone who was there saw how much it cost you.”
I stare at him. I want to say that it’s not at all what happened—but it is.
He hesitates, then runs a hand over the back of his neck. “At the risk of being too bold—”
“Trust me, Saeth, I’m growing immune to boldness.”
“Well, you even tugged at Leah’s heartstrings, because the whole walk through the rain she kept telling me she was going to shoot you herself when we met up with the wagon—and then the first thing she said when we were alone was that she understood why I stayed.”
I swallow and run a hand across my jaw. That’s very different from the woman who just sat in front of me and challenged me at every turn—but I believe him.
Saeth nods at my reaction. “Nook knocked on my door at daybreak to ask if Thorin and I would be training today.” He scoffs. “Leah loved that, let me tell you.”
That makes my chest clench. “No matter how much training you give them, they’re not an army, Saeth. A few guards almost killed them all.”
“I know.”
“Then why on earth don’t you sound more bleak about all this?”
“Because you’ve won them over.” He nods at the man splitting wood, and the man looks startled at the acknowledgment, then nods back. “None of these people are turning us in now. We’re safer than we ever were. I wouldn’t leave Leah and the kids alone if I were worried.”
As if to prove his words, the man sets down his ax, then drops to one knee and puts a hand over his heart.
It’s the first time anyone has done that in the Wilds, and I almost stop short.
“It’s not just that,” Saeth is saying.
“What else?” I say, because I’m not sure my heart can take much more.
“If you threw yourself in front of a guard to protect a boy—as the story goes—then no one here is ever going to be convinced you were poisoning the people. No matter what the consuls say, you’ve won over the Wilds.”
I’ve won over the Wilds. My heart pounds.
Now I just need to win over the sectors.
By the time we find Francis, Quint has joined us. They did keep Sommer locked in the cellar, and when Saeth tells some of the men to bring him out, they all but throw him at my feet. He’s more crouching than kneeling, and he looks like a gust of wind might knock him over. The cloak is gone, but he’s still in the sodden, mud-soaked clothes he was wearing last night, and his hands are bound with twine behind his back. It’s a warm morning, but it must have been cold in the cellar, because he’s shivering, blinking in the sunlight. He’s pale, with blood crusted in his blond hair and down the side of his face, along with impressive bruising that would rival Thorin’s.
He definitely didn’t have that last night.
I look at Francis sharply. “What happened? Did he give you trouble?”
Sommer looks up at that, and he shakes his head violently. “No. No, Your Majesty.”
Another man coughs. “We might have had a little fun before we put him down there.”
There are a few low snickers from the others. I notice Nook is among them, and he looks a little uncertain, but one of the men claps him on the shoulder, and he smiles. I wonder if they let him “help” with whatever fun they were having.
My chest clenches at the thought. Much like last night, I hate this.
The worst part is that I understand why they did it, the same way I understood the dark note in Saeth’s voice when he said he had a choice to make. But it’s the first time I’ve felt pulled in both directions like this. Sommer might have betrayed us—but he was still one of my guards. And he wouldn’t have done this if he hadn’t been driven to it.
“What did you feed him?” I say, and I keep my tone level, without censure.
“I threw some hay down there,” says another man.
A woman nearby offers a dark laugh. “I offered some of my chicken feed.”
“Did you peck for some food, soldier?” taunts the first. There are flecks of grain stuck to the blood on Sommer’s face, which make me think that he did.
One of the other men makes clucking noises, and they all laugh.
“Enough,” I snap.
They’re all jolted into silence.
I look at Francis. “I asked you to feed him a meal.”
He glares right back at me. “Yeah, well he killed half our people.”
“No. The others may have, but he didn’t. He was trying to capture me. He was desperate for food, just as you were all desperate for medicine. We will not stoop to these means.” I look at the man who made the mocking chicken sounds. “You will fetch him a proper meal. Now.”
He’s an older man with an impressive beard and an even more impressive glower, and he doesn’t move. If he thinks he can intimidate me, he’s wrong. I stand my ground, and after a moment, he gives me a half-hearted nod and mumbles, “Yes, Your Majesty,” then turns away.
I glance at Saeth. “Cut his hands free.”
When he does, Sommer makes a small sound, and I see that the twine sliced into his skin in several places. He must have been bound all night because he moves gingerly, rubbing at his wrists, wincing. His eyes are fixed on my boots, his breathing still hitching a bit.
I’ve never really questioned anyone. That was always my brother’s purview. If I had occasion to speak with a prisoner, it was rare.
Honestly, the last time I faced a prisoner, it was Corrick himself, bruised and bleeding and starving, just like this.
I force thoughts of my brother out of my head. They won’t help me now.
The bearded man has returned with a basket of food and a water skin, and he practically thrusts them at me, but Saeth takes them. There must be cinnamon bread fresh from someone’s oven, because I can smell it. Quint has asked someone else to bring me a chair, so I sit.
Sommer’s head has lifted a bit, and there’s a new tightness to his shoulders, as if he wants to lunge for the food, but he doesn’t dare risk it. His throat jerks as he swallows.
“Sit,” I say. “You can eat.”
He looks up, his eyes meeting mine for the first time this morning, but he doesn’t move. I wonder if he expects me to trick him, just like the others did.
“We may not have a long history together,” I say to him, “but you spent enough time in my personal guard to know I’m rarely anything other than forthright.” I take the basket from Saeth and set it in front of him. “Eat or not, Sommer. The choice is yours.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he sits back on his heels and tugs at the cloth wrapping the food. His voice is low and rough. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” Then he takes a swig from the water skin, barely setting it down before he shoves a slice of cinnamon bread into his mouth.
The men and women of the Wilds are still nearby, surrounding us, and while I want to send them away, I keep thinking about what Saeth said, how I’ve finally won them over. They lost people, too. Their curiosity is valid. And unlike what happened to Saeth’s family, Sommer has no expectation of privacy here.
So I ignore their looming and focus on the guard in front of me. Unlike Thorin and Saeth, whom I’ve known since before I was crowned king, I don’t know Sommer well. I remember choosing him, and I remember hearing his oath. Until last night, he never gave me a reason to doubt it.
It’s terrifying to consider how fragile loyalty is. My father taught me so many things about being a king, but never this.
“Start at the beginning,” I say to him, and I realize Quint has taken a seat nearby, his book and pencil ready. “Tell me what happened on the day I disappeared from the palace.”
Sommer hesitates, then nods. He keeps his eyes on the food. “I didn’t come on duty until midday. By then, it was already known that you were missing. Master Quint was gone, and so were Thorin and Saeth. The rumors were outrageous, because everyone had a different story. Someone said a girl had sung ridiculous songs on the palace steps all night, trying to convince a footman to find Master Quint.”
He says this like it makes no sense at all, but it’s probably the truest of all the rumors. I’d been desperate, and I’d given Violet my signet ring so she could convince the footman to summon Quint—but he didn’t believe her. So she started doing anything she could think of to annoy him into acquiescence.
Sommer tears another piece of bread free and continues. “The consuls were the ones saying you’d fled the palace, and because it was coming from them, a lot of the staff began to believe it. But those of us in your personal guard suspected a kidnapping plot of some sort.” He swallows. “We knew you didn’t trust Sallister after what happened with the Benefactors—so we didn’t either. Wadestrom and Granger started talking about a search party. We thought something had happened to you, and we’d begun to close ranks against Captain Huxley anyway.” He falters, then glances at Saeth, then at me. “I . . . I don’t know if you know that—”
“I know it now,” I say. “Continue.”
He nods. “Sallister was ahead of us, though. Or maybe the captain was. Huxley told the palace staff and the general guard that there were several among us who were assisting you to deceive the people. He and Sallister offered payment for anyone who would report a guard for acting outside orders. I still don’t know if someone actually reported Granger or if they just needed someone to take the fall, but he was hung in the courtyard the next morning.”
I inhale sharply. At my back, Saeth swears.
Sommer looks up at him and nods. “It sent a message, and quick. No one knew who’d turned him in, so we all became suspicious of each other. When days passed without word from any of you, we all began to think maybe the consuls were telling the truth—especially when they cut our pay and froze our accounts.”
