For Bitterblue, it was creating holes, holes in her ability to feel. Great, blank spaces where something existed that she couldn't process, because to process it would make her know too much, or make her certain she was going mad. When she stood in the lower offices now and watched the empty-eyed bustle of clerks and guards, Darby, Thiel, and Rood, she understood a thing Runnemood had said one time when she'd pushed too hard. Was the truth worth losing one's sanity?
"I don't want to do this anymore," Bitterblue said one night to Giddon, still shivering. "You have a beautiful voice, do you know that? If we continue with this, your voice'll be ruined for me. I must either read his words myself, or hear them from someone who's not my friend."
Giddon hesitated. "I do it because I'm your friend, Lady Queen."
"I know," Bitterblue said. "But I hate it, and I know you do too, and I don't like that we've developed a nightly routine of doing something hateful together."
"I won't agree to you doing it alone," Giddon said stubbornly.
"Then it's a good thing I don't need your permission."
"Take a break from it, Lady Queen," said Bann, coming to sit on her other side. "Please. Read a bigger pile once a week, instead of small, torturous bits every day. We'll continue to read it with you."
This seemed a promising idea—until the week had passed, and the day came to read seven days' worth of accumulated translation. After two pages, Bitterblue couldn't go on.
"Stop," Giddon said. "Just stop reading. It's making you sick."
"I believe he preferred female victims," Bitterblue said, "because in addition to the other mad experiments he forced them to endure, he was performing experiments that related to pregnancy and babies."
"This is not for you to read," Giddon said. "This is for some other person who wasn't one of the players in this tale to read, and then tell you the things a queen needs to know. Death can do it as he's translating."
"I believe he raped them," Bitterblue said, alone, cold, not listening, "all of them in his hospital. I believe he raped my mother."
Giddon yanked the papers from her hands and threw them across the room. Jumping at the unexpectedness of this, Bitterblue saw him clearly as she hadn't before, saw him towering over her, mouth hard, eyes flashing, and realized he was furious. Her vision came into focus and the room filled itself in around her. She heard the fire crackling, the silence of Bann and Helda, at the table, watching, tense, unhappy. The room smelled like wood fires. She pulled a blanket around herself. She was not alone.
"Call me by my name," she said quietly to Giddon.
"Bitterblue," he said just as quietly, "I beg you. Please stop reading the psychotic ramblings of your father. They are doing you harm."
She looked to the table again, where Bann and Helda watched with quiet eyes. "You're not eating enough, Lady Queen," said Helda. "You've lost your appetite, and if I may say so, Lord Giddon has too."
"What?" she cried. "Giddon, why didn't you tell me?"
"He's also been asking me for headache remedies," Bann said.
"Stop it, you two," said Giddon in annoyance. "Lady Queen, you've been walking around with this horrible, trapped look in your eyes. The smallest things make you flinch."
"I understand now," she said. "I understand all of them now. And I've been pushing them. I've been forcing them to remember."
"It's not your fault," Giddon said. "A queen needs people around her who aren't afraid of her necessary questions."
"I don't know what to do," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't know what to do."
"You need to build some criteria," said Bann, "to give to Death.
The facts you need to know now, in order to address the immediate needs of your kingdom, and only those facts."
"Will you all help me?"
"Of course we will," said Bann.
"I've already worked out what the criteria should be," said Helda with a firm nod, while Giddon collapsed onto the sofa in relief.
It was a process that involved a fair deal of argument, argument that was a comfort to Bitterblue, because it was logical, and it made the world solid around her again. Afterwards, they went to the library to look for Death. The endless, slow, silent winter snowfall continued. In the great courtyard, Bitterblue turned her face to the glass ceilings. The snow drifted down. Grief began to touch her. The edges of grief; a grief too large for her to accept all at once just now.
She would pretend she was up there in the sky, above the snow clouds, looking down on Monsea, like the moon or the stars. She would pretend she was watching the snowfall cover Monsea, like bandages from Madlen's gentle hands, so that underneath that warm, soft covering, Monsea could begin to heal.
36
THE NEXT MORNING, Thiel stood at his stand, straight and efficient, flipping through papers.
"I won't ask you any more questions about Leck's time," Bitterblue said to him.
Thiel turned, peering at her in confusion. "You—you won't, Lady Queen?"
"I'm sorry for every time I've forced you to remember a thing you wish to forget," she said. "As far as I'm able, I'll try never to do that again."
"Thank you, Lady Queen," he said, still confused. "Why? Has something happened?"
"I'll ask other people instead," she said. "I'm going to be seeking out some new people, Thiel, to help me with matters that are too painful for those of you who worked with Leck to address. And maybe some city people to inform me about city matters specifically, and help me solve some of these mysteries."
Thiel stared back at her, clutching his pen in both hands. He looked so lonely somehow, and so unhappy. "Thiel!" she hastened to add. "You'll still be my number one man, of course. But I find myself wanting a greater range of advice and ideas, you understand?"
"Of course I understand, Lady Queen."
"I'm going to meet with a few of them now," she said, rising from her chair, "in the library. I've asked them to come. Oh, please, Thiel," she added, wanting to touch him. "Don't look like that. I can't do without you, I promise, and you're breaking my heart."
IN HER LIBRARY alcove, Tilda and Teddy stood together, brother and sister, gazing at the endless rows of books. Their faces glowed with appreciation.
"Did Bren stay at the shop?" asked Bitterblue.
"We thought it unwise to leave it unguarded, Lady Queen," said Tilda.
"And my Lienid Guard?"
"One stayed to guard Bren, Lady Queen, and the other accompanied us."
"It makes me nervous for them to split up," Bitterblue said. "I'm going to see if we can spare another man or two for you. What news can you give me?"
"Bad news, Lady Queen," said Teddy grimly. "Early this morning, a story room burned. It was empty, so no one was hurt, but no one saw how it started either."
"I suppose we're meant to think it was random," said Bitterblue in frustration. "A coincidence. And naturally, it wasn't in my morning report. And I really don't know what to do," she added, a bit hopelessly, "beyond send the Monsean Guard to patrol the streets more, except that ever since Captain Smit disappeared, I've been leery of trusting the Monsean Guard. Smit's been gone a month and a half, you know. I keep getting reports on his proceedings at the refineries that I cannot get myself to believe. Darby says they're in Smit's handwriting, but Darby hasn't been inspiring confidence of late. Oh," she said, rubbing her forehead. "Perhaps I'm just crazy."
"We could find out whether Captain Smit's truly at the refineries, Lady Queen," said Tilda, elbowing her brother, "couldn't we, Teddy? Through our own contacts?"