Moving quickly, her escort falling into place around her, she arrived at the gate in time to hear a second protest.
“But I’m from all the way out in New Bella! How would I have heard that Her Majesty wants all hay delivered in tight bales?”
“Are you suggesting that my word has not reached New Bella?” she asked in turn, stepping out of the shadows. “Because if that’s the case, I can repeat it more emphatically.”
Very early on in her rule, she’d discovered that nothing spoke with quite so much emphasis as a troop of light cavalry armed primarily with torches and accelerant.
The carter paled as the pair of gate guards clanged to attention. “I’m sure I was the only one who didn’t hear, Majesty!”
“Good. Unharness your…” She raised a brow at the animal, which rolled its eyes so that the whites showed all the way around and fought the reins trying to shy away from her.
“Mule, Majesty.”
“Is it? Well, get it away from the cart, I’d hate for it to be injured.”
To his credit, the carter had the mule away from the cart in record time.
“Burn it.”
One of the gate guards dropped a lit torch into the hay, which burst into flames and ejected a medium-size nondescript man who leaped toward her, smoldering slightly. The six arrows that suddenly pounded into his torso knocked him back into the fire.
“Mercy, Majesty!” The carter dropped to his knees at her feet and laced rough, work-reddened fingers together. “He threatened my family, said he’d slit their throats in the dark if I didn’t help him.”
The queen sighed, ignoring the screaming as the wounded assassin burned. “How could he slit their throats if he was hiding in the back of your cart?”
“Majesty?”
“Once you took him away from your family, he couldn’t slit their throats and all you had to do was drive up to anyone in a Queen’s Tabard and tell them what you had hidden in the hay. Since you didn’t do that, I can only assume one of two situations apply. The first is that you were delivering him of your own free will. The second is that you are too stupid to live.” Twitching her skirts aside, she raised her hand. “Since the end result is the same for either,” she told the body as it fell, bristling with arrows. “It’s not particularly relevant which applies. Now then…” She turned to the gate guards. “… this is exactly why we don’t allow carts filled with loose hay into the city. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Majesty!”
“I’m pleased to hear that. We’ll let this incident stand as an object lesson…” The assassin had finally stopped screaming, “… but I’m disappointed in both of you-a rule is a rule and although you didn’t allow the cart through the palace gate, you did let the carter argue. That might have given the assassin time to slip inside and then how would you have felt?”
“Terrible, Majesty,” admitted the guard on the left.
“Terrible,” agreed the guard on the right, his eyes watering a little from the smoke.
“I certainly hope so. If you want to make it up to me, you can find out who let this cart into the city because I’m very disappointed in them. Wallace!”
“Majesty!” Her aide stepped over a bit of burning wheel.
“I don’t imagine there’s enough left of the body to identify but check his weapons. Let me know as soon as you have something. Oh, and Wallace?” Arrabel paused, her escort pausing in perfect formation with her. “See that the mule is given a good home. Something about it reminds me of my late husband.”
“His knives are Mecadain, Majesty.” Wallace laid all four blades in a row on the table. “As were what was left of his boots.”
There was no point in asking if he were sure. He wouldn’t have told her if he wasn’t. “King Giorge again.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“I was planning to invade Mecada next spring.”
“I think that’s why he was trying to remove you, Majesty.”
“Yes, well, you’d think that someone who didn’t want me to invade would put a little more effort into making friends and a little less effort into annoying me.” The queen walked around the table slowly, her heels rapping out a piqued beat against the parquet floor. She stared down at the knives and shook her head. “When I look at these, I’m very annoyed.” A slight, almost inaudible sound drew her attention to her aide. “Oh, not at you, Wallace. At King Giorge. Tell General Palatat that I’d like to see him and his senior staff. And then find me a few bards who wouldn’t mind a new wardrobe and an all expense paid trip to Mecada.”
“A new wardrobe, Majesty?”
“I think we should let the people of Mecada know what their king has gotten them into and the bards will be able to reach more people if they’re not so obviously mine.”
Arrabel was the sole patron of the Bardic College. It was amazing how many bards preferred to sing warm and well-fed, permitted to travel freely about the land wearing the queen’s colors. Of course, there were always a few who insisted on suffering for art’s sake-so Arrabel saw to it that they did.
The queen accompanied her army into Mecada, turned a captured border town into a well fortified command center, and stayed there.
“You won’t be riding at the front of your army, Mother?”
“No, Danyel. When the ruler rides at the front of the army, she only gets in the way.”
“And there is also the great danger you would be in, Majesty!”
She glanced across the war room at Captain Jurin standing amid a group of staff officers and sighed. “Thank you for considering that, Captain.”
He blushed.
“I’m not afraid,” Danyel declared.
Arrabel settled her shawl more securely around her shoulders and stared at her son for a long moment. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. “I’m sure you aren’t,” she said at last. “Chose then whether you stay here or ride into battle.”
“I will ride into battle!”
She sighed again. “You’re beginning to remind me so much of your father. You’ll be treated as nothing more than a junior officer, say…” Her eyes fell on Captain Jurin, “… a captain. Wallace.”
“Majesty?”
“Have a captain’s uniform made for my son.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Danyel stared at her, appalled “But-”
“Billy goats butt, dear. You’ll obey your commanders because their orders come from General Palatat-”
“But, Mother, I’m a prince!”
“-and General Palatat,” Arrabel continued mildly, “speaks for me.” She took his silence for assent and smiled. “Don’t grind your teeth, dear. Of course you’ll keep the lines of communication open between the battle and this command center,” she told the general. “But I trust you and your staff to do their job.” Which went without saying really because they wouldn’t have their jobs if she didn’t.
Queen Arrabel’s army had the advantage of numbers, training, and motivation. King Giorge’s people, invaded only because they were next on the list, had only the moral high ground.
“Free bread and beer, Mother?” Danyel, back in full royal regalia, rubbed at a smudge on his vanbrace as he rode beside his mother through the conquered capital.
“It doesn’t take much to make the people like you, dear. It’s worth making a bit of an effort.”
“But you just conquered them.”
“Most people don’t care who’s in charge just as long as someone is.”
“And the people who do care?”
“Are easy enough to replace.” Arrabel stared out at the city-many of its buildings damaged by her siege engines during the final battle-and began working out the amount of stone it would take to rebuild it. And, of course, there were schools to be built. Some of the more recalcitrant nobility could start hauling blocks in as soon as possible.