"LADY QUEEN?"
The sun was setting and a light snowfall had begun. Bitterblue looked up from her desk into the familiar, sharp, and weary face of Death.
"Death," Bitterblue said. "How are you?"
"Lady Queen," said Death, "a boy named Immiker was born on a riverside estate in northern Monsea fifty-nine years ago, to a game warden named Larch and a woman named Mikra who died in childbirth."
"Fifty-nine," Bitterblue said. "That's the correct age. Is it him?"
"I don't know, Lady Queen," Death said. "Possibly. There are other records of similarly named people that I must consider."
"Could this mean I'm Monsean?"
"It matches some of the particulars, Lady Queen, and we can go on looking for clues. But I can't imagine us ever being certain that this is him. Regardless," Death said crisply, "I don't see that there's any question of whether or not you are Monsean. You are our queen, are you not?"
Death dropped a small sheaf of papers onto her desk, turned sharply on his heel, and left.
Bitterblue rubbed her neck, sighing. Then she pulled Death's papers closer.
I have completed the translation of the first journal, Lady Queen, she read. It is, as I'd already surmised, the last journal he ever wrote. It ends with your mother's death and with your father's subsequent search of the forest for you. It also ends with the details of his punishment of Thiel, Lady Queen, for on the day you escaped with your mother, it seems that one of Leck's knives went missing. Leck decided that Thiel had stolen it and passed it to your mother. I will spare you the details.
At her desk, Bitterblue hugged herself, feeling very high in the sky, and very alone. A memory, like a door opening onto light, unlocked itself. Thiel bursting into her mother's rooms, where Ashen had been engaged in the insane enterprise of tying sheets together and lowering them out the window. Bitterblue had been shaking with fright, for what she knew they were about to do.
Thiel's face had been running with tears and blood. "Go," he'd said, rushing to Ashen and handing her a knife that was longer than Bitterblue's forearm. "You must go now." He'd embraced Ashen, said, "Now!" in a forceful voice, then dropped on his knees before Bitterblue. He had pulled her into his arms and stopped her shaking with his tight grip. "Don't you worry," he'd said to her. "Your mother will keep you from harm, Bitterblue. Believe what she says, you understand? Believe every word she says. Go now, and be safe." Then he'd kissed her forehead and run out of the room.
Bitterblue found a fresh sheet of paper and wrote the memory down, to capture it, because it was part of her story.
A WHO'S WHO OF THE WORLD
AS WE KNOW IT
SPECIOUS, ARBITRARY, AND ALTOGETHER OF DOUBTFUL PURPOSE
Recorded by Death, the Royal Librarian of Monsea, who would merely like to note that he does not have time for this.
BEWARE: THE FOLLOWING RECORD IS AN INCOMPLETE DRAFT.
THE ANNALIST IS OBLIGED TO FOLLOW ORDERS AND CAN
ONLY WORK WITH WHAT HE IS GIVEN.
ANNA (MONSEA): Head baker in the castle kitchens. Of questionable relevance to this record.
ASHEN (LIENID, MONSEA): First a Lienid princess, then Queen of Monsea, now deceased. Sister of King Ror of Lienid. Mother of Queen Bitterblue of Monsea. Murdered by King Leck of Monsea, her husband. This annalist remembers her as kind, highly educated, and trapped in an impossible situation. It is to be noted that she saved Queen Bitterblue's life.
BANN (MIDDLUNS): Medicine maker and reputed Council leader. Frequent traveling companion of Prince Raffin of the Middluns.
BELLAMEW (MONSEA): Sculptor, King Leck's especial favorite, murdered by him. Completed perhaps fifty or fifty-five sculptures of human transformations. Sister of Holt and mother of Hava.
BIRN (WESTER): King of Wester. Contemptible scoundrel.
BITTERBLUE (MONSEA): The Queen of Monsea and this annalist's most excellent employer. Daughter of King Leck and Queen Ashen. Niece of King Ror and Queen Zinnober of Lienid. Indubitably the finest monarch ruling in the known world today, though it is to be noted that even the finest monarchs waste their librarians' time with surprising frequency.
BREN (MONSEA): Teacher and printer in the east city; sister of Sapphire Birch. Family instrumental in the resistance. Assisting in the restoration of the castle library collection. Efficient, accurate, and highly responsible, unlike the brother she closely resembles.
DANZHOL (MONSEA): A dastardly lord from central Monsea, of questionable sanity. Grace: performing an outrage upon his own face which this annalist prefers neither to consider nor describe.
DARBY (MONSEA): Adviser to Queen Bitterblue in the years following King Leck's death. Grace: never sleeping.
DEATH (MONSEA) (PRONOUNCED TO RHYME WITH "TEETH"): This annalist, and the Royal Librarian of Monsea. Grace: speed of reading and perfect memory of all that is read.
DROWDEN (NANDER): King of Nander, now deposed. Insufferable blackguard.
DYAN (MONSEA): Head gardener to Queen Bitterblue. Of questionable relevance to this record.
EEMKERR (UNKNOWN): The childhood name of the person who would later become King Leck of Monsea. Born somewhere in the seven kingdoms. See entries for "Immiker" and "Leck."
FIRE (DELLS) (DELLIAN NAME: BIR, MORE OR LESS): A Dellian lady and what is called, in the Dells, a "monster." Most alarming woman.
FOX (MONSEA, LIENID, MONSEA): Castle servant in the years following King Leck's death. Grace: fearlessness.
FROGGATT (MONSEA): A clerk of the queen.
GADD (MONSEA): King Leck's favored creator of decorative wallhangings. Murdered by King Leck.
GIDDON (MIDDLUNS): Once a Middluns lord, now disennobled. Reputed Council leader and frequent traveling companion of Prince Po of Lienid. It is to be noted that he saved this annalist's life.
GOLDIE (MONSEA, LIENID, MONSEA): Queen Bitterblue's new Master of Prisons. Once the master of the navy prison in Ror City, Lienid. Grace: singing.
GREENING GRANDEMALION (LIENID): Lienid prince known as Po. Reputed Council leader. Seventh son of King Ror and Queen Zinnober of Lienid and cousin of Queen Bitterblue. Famous swain of Lady Katsa of the Middluns. Grace: hand-fighting (he says). Good with cats.
GRELLA (MONSEA): A legendary Monsean mountain explorer who kept bombastic and overblown journals of his adventures and died in the pass that bears his name.
HAVA (MONSEA): Daughter of Bellamew, niece of Holt. Grace: hiding/disguise.
HELDA (MIDDLUNS, MONSEA): Queen Bitterblue's housekeeper, ladyservant, and spymaster. Formerly ladyservant to Lady Katsa of the Middluns. A person of unsurpassed dignity, though opinionated.
HOLT (MONSEA): A member of the Queen's Guard. Brother of Bellamew and uncle of Hava. Grace: strength.
IMMIKER (MONSEA): A child born in Monsea in the year we believe King Leck to have been born. Possibly the Eemkerr who grew up to be King Leck, though this annalist can not confirm.
IVAN (MONSEA): King Leck's favored engineer. Built the three city bridges.
JASS (MONSEA): A kitchen hand of questionable relevance to this record. Grace: determining, by sight and smell, what meal would be most satisfying for a given person to eat.
KATSA (MIDDLUNS): A lady of the Middluns, banished and declared fortuneless by her uncle, King Randa of the Middluns, though this does not seem to stop her from entering the kingdom when she pleases. Reputed Council leader and that organization's founder. Cousin of Prince Raffin of the Middluns. Famous paramour of Prince Po of Lienid. Assassinated King Leck. Grace: survival, with an extreme capacity for any kind of fighting.