The Hidden Queen, page 27
“Your mother walked the front lines more than you know,” Tarisa says, but she nods. “Something along the lines of the uniforms Angierian royals wear?”
I shake my head, pulling on one of Mother’s warm robes and going to her writing desk for a pen and paper. “I’ll have designs ready by morning. In the meantime, here is a list of things I will need from Rojvah’s closets.”
Tarisa takes the paper, and soon maids are scurrying in with my favorite boots and leggings, my riding gear, and other pieces I can work with. I find Mother’s sewing kit, and barely notice when Tarisa retires herself.
I work late into the night. I used to stay up all night often, when feeling inspired with the needle, but it’s been a long and draining day. When I have something to wear in the morning, and silk sleepwear I can fight in, I turn to face the ghosts in Mother’s bed.
I half expect her spirit to haunt me as I crawl into the giant, feathered monstrosity Count Thamos built to share with Mother. I wonder if Mother actually likes this bed, four-posted with thick curtains, or if she keeps it because it reminds her of the man she lost, like I keep Chadan’s armor.
Regardless, after months of sleeping on the hard ground of sharaj without so much as a blanket, I sink into the soft mattress like a pit filled with dust. It’s suffocating, and the curtains make me feel as if enemies are sneaking up on me from all sides.
I pull back the curtains, but it’s not enough. If someone attacked, I would be vulnerable, trying to fight on a floor of stuffing.
I thought it would be Mother’s ghost to drive me from the bed, but it’s sheer instinct. I take a pillow and blanket, rolling out of bed to look for a defensible corner of the floor where I can put my back to the wall and see all the windows and doorways.
But even the blanket makes me feel tangled, and I toss it aside despite the night’s chill. The pillow goes next, and I curl up on the floor, wishing for the warmth of my spear brothers as sleep takes me.
In Jardir’s palace, I hid in the minaret tower. Here in Aunt Leesha’s keep, I like the archer’s nook atop the western watchtower. Comin’ here since I was knee-high, anytime the noise of the keep got to be too much for me.
Ent much reason to come up here, unless the keep’s surrounded. Nook’s barely big enough for one person, accessible only by a steep, narrow, spiraling stair. Ent much going on this far from the gates, so there’s usually only one bored guard keeping watch downstairs. It’s the shadiest spot in the courtyard, with a good view all around.
Looked in on my usual room in the keep after I fled the party, but it was full of maids, kicking up dust and laying fresh sheets. They were readying for two, so I reckon Arick’s bunking with me again.
Took one look at that busy beehive and was out the nearest window and up the tower before anyone knew I was there. Spent the whole night here, not counting a little excursion to steal a snack from the pantry and take care of my necessaries. Everything got busy again come morning, so I’m fixin’ to spend the day here, too.
Or I was, until I see Hary Roller cross the yard, and hear him enter the tower when he leaves my line of sight. Reckon Selen or Olive must’ve told him I like to hide up here. But Hary is old, and slow, and there are a lot of steps. Maybe he won’t come looking all the way to the top.
I don’t usually need to hide all day, but everyone’s makin’ such a fuss, and as usual, I’m the only one who can’t handle it all. Olive and Selen are in their place of power, and Rojvah’s thrilled to be talk of the town. Even Arick, however dark he gets when he’s alone, can put on a party mask and chatter about nonsense when the situation calls for it.
I can still hear most anything in the keep, if I focus on it, and I’ve kept watch over my friends. Folk keep invitin’ Rojvah and Arick to things that sound all right, like “tea,” but I learned the hard way that in Hollow tea means three hours trapped in a room with fifty people I don’t know, all their scents mixed with as many perfumes, and a dozen varieties of stinky potpourri steaming in hot water. Fifty people, all talking at once, and I hear every one like they’re leaning into my ear.
I’d rather wrestle a field demon.
Can’t say Rojvah hasn’t kept her end of the deal. Kind of envious of how effortlessly she lies, making my apologies and giving out my kind words and well wishes a lot more freely than I ever have. She deflects questions about where I’m hiding, quickly making every conversation about her. Folk are giddy to gossip about us bein’ promised. Seems like everyone in Hollow wants to help plan the wedding.
Thought I might hide among Olive’s Majah brothers, but they’re so moon-eyed about their first visit to Prince Olive’s palace, the chatter from their barrack is constant. Sounds like most of them are planning to go down to see the “bazaar” in Corelings’ Graveyard.
Hary makes it to the watch guard, spinning an ale story about how he wants to see the view from the archery nook for some song he’s writing. Guard’s too busy saluting the royal herald to argue.
Hary sighs as he puts his hand on the rail of the long spiral stair. “Listen to my knees, boy. I’m too old for this, so you’d best still be up there when I get to the top.”
He ent lyin’. A lifetime of tumbling has worn away most of the cartilage in Hary’s knees. I can hear the bones grinding against each other with every step and feel a bit of an arse, putting my master through this.
Ent just his knees. Hary’s got a heart problem, too. I hear the way it gets out of rhythm when he strains himself. Asked Mam about it once, back in Tibbet’s Brook. She already knew. Said she talked to Aunt Leesha about it before Hary left Hollow to come teach me. Aunt Leesha said it was a little hole in his heart—too small to risk surgery or even magic on.
Hary was born with it, and magic only helps a body heal itself. His body “thinks” it should be that way, so there’s nothing to be done without cutting him, and it wan’t worth the risk.
Mam warned me not to push my master. Said Hary came a long way and gave up a lot to teach me music, and he deserves respect. Reckon she’s right, and this ent doing right by him. Just din’t expect him to come climbing towers to find me.
Hary is huffing when he reaches the tiny archer’s nook. Ent much space for one, much less two. I can hear the tiny hole in one side of his heart widening just a little with the more powerful beats, making a squirting sound as it leaks a bit of blood from one side of his heart to the other. It forms a little pool in the next chamber, throwing off the rhythm.
Hary peeks over the ledge at the cobbles a hundred feet below, and his heart starts racing even faster, coupled with a scent of fear.
He wobbles, and I catch his wrist to steady him as I throw my backside onto the ledge to make space. He glances at me perched on the lip and I smell his worry. “ ’Sall right, Master. Ent gonna fall and I won’t run off. Set on the floor and take your ease.”
Hary sits, taking a drink from a waterskin and breathing hard. I wait patiently, listening as his heart flushes and calms, returning to something close to its normal beat. All the excess paint and powder is gone from his face, as is the smelly fragrance. He’s still dressed a lot fancier than he did in the Brook, but to my senses, he’s my master again.
“I’m sorry about your mam, Darin.” All trace of his court accent is gone, as well. “Know I’m not your grandda, but I lived at the Bales farm a long time, and think of you as family. Cuts me, too, having her missing.”
He’s right, and it makes me feel even worse, actin’ like my pain is something special even while others are hurtin’, too.
I could tell him Mam’s still alive, but I don’t know that for sure, so it ent a lie to stay silent. Tell a Jongleur a secret, and you might as well tell the whole town. Hary’s no exception.
My master knows I don’t like to be hugged, but he reaches out, putting a hand on my foot. Just a gentle weight and warmth. “Know she’d be proud of you, boy, for going off and rescuing Olive.”
There’s a sudden lump in my throat, but I swallow it. “Had a lot of help.”
“Ay, maybe,” Hary agrees, “but I also know you never give yourself the credit you’re due.”
He wasn’t there, and I don’t want to argue, but truer is Olive did her own rescuing. We just…gave her a kick.
“Not just me in mourning,” Hary says. “Folk are wearing black and making statues of her. Pews are full in the Holy Houses, and folk in the taprooms go from toasting her honor to fear of a world without her.”
I shake my head. “Know you’re gonna tell me to go out and make folk feel better, Master, but I ent the one for the job.” Just the thought of the crowds on our way to the keep has me sick to my stomach.
“Don’t know there’s anyone else,” Hary says. “Your mam hated this sort of thing, too, but even she knew to show her face sometimes, because if she didn’t, people start using her name to justify whatever they want.”
Hary leans in, seeing me unconvinced. “Know you ent a people person, Darin, but you can pretend to be. Just a stage role, like any other. You want to be a Jongleur, you’ll need to learn to play them.”
Olive’s words return to me, unbidden. We both know you’re never going to be a Jongleur, Dar. Night, you can’t even stand in a crowd without having a fit.
She ent wrong, but does that make her right? “Don’t rightly know if I want that anymore,” I confess. “Going from town to town, seeing all the places my da wrote about, it was a simpler dream from a simpler time. The pipes still have me, but the rest…Hunting for Mam doesn’t leave a lot of time to practice juggling and mummery.”
Hary sighs. I can smell his doubt. He thinks there ent much point in hunting. “Not every Jongleur does it all, Darin. Some just pick a focus, like you with your pipes. But all need to know how to work a crowd. You used to do it with me, at festivals back in Tibbet’s Brook. How can you handle that, but not going to tea?”
“You worked the crowd,” I say, “I just repeated what you said and passed the hat. And we always played outside, so I could set myself upwind and have the breeze wash most of the crowd’s stink away.”
Hary laughs, but I ent joking. “When you’re performing, folk keep their distance. Whether it’s a stage or just the tumbling zone, people keep back, like demons at a warded circle. But more, you manipulate the crowd with your performance. They laugh when you want them to laugh, cheer when you want them to cheer, cry when you want them to cry. Same as charming a demon. A shrieking crowd I can’t predict or control is like a knife in my brain, but when it comes at my command, it’s like a warm bath.”
“Ay, that I understand,” Hary says. “It’s the trick that Rojer struggled so hard to teach. Only a Jongleur at heart can even see those levers, much less pull them with any consistency.”
“I can see the levers with corelings,” I say. “People are still a bit of a mystery.”
“Sometimes,” Hary says, “pretending to do a thing is the same as doing it. I was a street performer who worked his way up to guildhouse music teacher before I was sent to Hollow during the war. Creator knows I’m not a trained herald. But I’ve been faking it for years, and no one has figured it out.”
I smile at that. “Nice to know I ent the only one who feels like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Far from it,” Hary laughs. “There must be some way for you to fake your way through this, Darin. Some way to let yourself be seen, some person you need to visit anyway, some ceremony you can attend so folk can see you, even if there’s wards to keep them from getting too close.”
That gives me an idea. A way to help a friend, and let myself be seen. “Ay, maybe.”
* * *
—
After I make sure Hary gets back down all right, I head over to Olive’s old rooms just as Arick and Rojvah return from some luncheon that went on far too long. It’s close to Solstice, and the sun is already close to setting.
“Intended.” Rojvah doesn’t seem put out at all to find me lurking in her chambers. She smells pleased.
“Thought you’d made your escape and were halfway back to Tibbet’s Brook,” Arick says.
“Ay, there’s a sunny thought,” I say.
“I never doubted your return.” Rojvah curls up like a cat on one of Olive’s divans, relaying in a few sentences the handful of interesting things she must have sifted from hours of meaningless chatter. She gives me greetings from lords and ladies I’ve never even heard of, and asks a few follow-up questions she can no doubt spin into an endless conversation with anyone who asks after me.
“Don’t be cross,” Rojvah’s smile is disarming, “but I did promise the three of us would perform in Hollow’s famous sound shell for the Solstice Festival next week.”
“All right,” I say. That stage is a good buffer to the crowd.
“Then we’ll need to start practicing again.” Arick turns, reaching for his kamanj.
“Ay, but not tonight,” I say. “Let’s go see our das, instead.”
Tarisa throws open the curtains, and we both startle. Me at the sudden sound and light, her at the sight of me leaping to my feet, hands up in a sharusahk stance.
Again, I feel the fool. Throwing open the curtains was Tarisa’s favorite way of passive-aggressively waking a body attempting to sleep past the eighth hour, no matter if it be your born day or the morning after the Solstice Festival. She’s done it to me—and Mother herself, I have no doubt—a thousand times. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t wake at the sound of her entering.
“Olive Paper, did you spend the night on the floor?!” Tarisa gasps.
“Bed was too soft,” I mumble, knowing how I must look. Hollowers have felt safe for so long, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to leap at shadows.
Tarisa huffs over to the pull rope and gives it a yank. “That’s why you have this, Your Grace.” In seconds, there is a butler at the door. “Have a team remove Duchess Leesha’s bed to storage,” she tells him. The man nods and vanishes.
“What kind of bed do you want,” Tarisa asks, “or did your time in the south train you to sleep on a pile of pillows?”
“Creator, no,” I say. “They shift around and you fall into the crevices.”
“Then what?” Tarisa asks. “I won’t have you sleeping on the floor in your own chambers.”
She calls them mine and gives orders in the same breath. I would protest, but truer is this is the most normal part of the entire homecoming. “Low to the ground. Narrow. Flat stiff mattress. One pillow. No curtains. Set in a corner where the head and one side are against a wall.”
The answer doesn’t please her, but Tarisa dips slightly. “I’ll see it done.”
“One other thing,” I say, with not a little guilt. But soon after I am in my second hot bath in a dozen hours, and it is worth it as Tarisa lays out my schedule for the day while I soak.
Mother’s powder kit is as equipped as mine ever was, though she always kept the paints and powders to a minimum. I follow her example, adding just a bit of color to hide the lack of sleep, and subtle highlights.
After that I dress in the riding gear I spent the night modifying. I originally designed it to give freedom of movement while being as feminine as possible—back when that meant everything to me. The leggings were soft, flexible suede, with a fine cotton blouse that flared into a short overskirt, open in front, to accent my hips. The long tails of my stiff wool riding coat flared around me like a dress when I dismounted, embroidered wardwork running along the seams.
I’ve removed Mother’s crest and replaced it with my own. I hadn’t fully realized just how much muscle I put on in recent months until I had to let out the arms and shoulders of the coat. The leggings are tight, but they will stretch with a little use.
I sling my herb pouch and hanzhar from the belt, and admire myself in the mirror. It feels strange but familiar to be in my own clothes again. The person looking back at me isn’t the Princess Olive of old, but neither do I see Prince Olive of Krasia. I am someone new. Both, and neither.
I look up at a knock on the door, but Selen doesn’t wait for a response, coming right in and closing the door behind her. “Well that was a mistake.”
“What was?” I ask.
“Slept at Da’s to avoid Rojvah’s fashion show, and got a show of my own. Da and the baroness had a shouting match that everyone in the manse heard.”
“I’m sorry.” Selen’s always hated her stepmother, and with fair cause. The woman has always been awful to her and Gared, both.
“Ent the worst of it.” Selen looks ill. “Once they were good and worked up, they were on each other like rabbits, and everyone heard that, too.”
Tarisa sniffs and glides out of the room without another word. Selen, who hadn’t noticed her at first, snorts, and we both laugh as the door shuts behind her.
* * *
—
All too soon, Selen and I finish breakfast, and Lord Arther appears at the door to escort me to our meeting.
“Baroness Cutter is waiting for us in your office,” Arther says, causing Selen to look up from her third breakfast plate.
“I had thought we were meeting alone,” I say.
“I would like to begin with financial reports to provide context for some of the issues of the day,” Arther said. “Baroness Cutter—”
I feel Selen’s eyes on my back. Mother may have tolerated the way Baroness Emelia treated Gared and Selen, but I will not. “Get someone else to give the reports.”
Arther clears his throat uncomfortably, taken aback at the sudden force in my voice.
“I beg pardon, Highness, but on matters of finance, there is no one else. Your mother and the baroness built the Hollow’s economy together. I can advise you and verify her tallies, but I cannot present the picture she does. If you prefer a written report, I will have it made, but…”
