“Profit is where we find it, Majesty.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No one is threatening Your Majesty!” Lord Williams cried. He looked around to the group behind him, and several of them nodded frantically. “Lady Andrews does not speak for all of us, Majesty. We simply wish to minimize the damage to our lands.”
Lady Andrews rounded on him. “If you had any balls at all, Williams, I would not have needed to attend this farce!”
“Keep it civil!” Mace barked. But the admonishment sounded automatic, and Kelsea suspected that Mace was enjoying himself.
“At some point, Majesty,” Lady Andrews continued, “the Mort will have to cross my lands. I can make it difficult for them, or I can stand aside.”
Kelsea stared at her. “Did you just tell me you mean to commit treason? Here, in front of thirty witnesses?”
“I have no such intention, Majesty. Not unless I am forced to it.”
“Forced to it,” Kelsea repeated, grimacing. “I know how you conduct yourself in wartime, Lady Andrews. You’ll probably greet General Genot himself with a glass of whisky and a free fuck.”
“Lady!” Mace pleaded.
“Majesty, I beg you!” Lord Williams interrupted. “Please do not take Lady Andrews’s words as representative of–”
“Be quiet, Williams,” Kelsea replied. “I understand what Lady Andrews is about here.”
Lady Andrews had begun to examine her nails, as though she found Kelsea uninteresting.
“You all have property rights, for certain. But property rights are not inviolate, not in my Tear. These people must be evacuated, and their safety is more important than your profit. Try to stand on your rights in this matter, and watch me bring out the principle of eminent domain.”
Several of the nobles gasped, but Lady Andrews merely looked up at Kelsea, bewildered. Lord Williams grabbed Lady Andrews’s arm and began to hiss in her ear. She shook him off.
“I will do my best to curtail the looting,” Kelsea continued. “But if any of you”–she looked around the group of nobles–“any of you hinder the evacuation in any way, I will not even think twice before I seize your lands for the greater good. Do you understand me?”
“We understand, Majesty!” Lord Williams bleated. “Believe me. Thank you for doing what you can.”
He tugged Lady Andrews away from the throne, but she shook him off again, staring up at Kelsea with eyes like daggers. “She’s bluffing, Williams. She wouldn’t dare. Without the support of the nobles, she has nothing.”
Kelsea smiled. “What do I care for your support?”
“If we abandon the monarchy, Kelsea Raleigh–”
“My name is Glynn.”
“If we abandon you, then you have no money, no protection, no structure. Even your army is shaky. Without us, what do you have?”
“The people.”
“The people!” Lady Andrews mimicked. “They’d as soon kill any highborn as look at us. Without force or arms or gold, you’re as vulnerable as the rest.”
“My heart flutters.”
“You’re taking my threat lightly. That’s an error.”
“No, your threat is real enough,” Kelsea admitted, after a moment’s thought. “But your overestimation of your own importance is staggering. I knew it the first moment I ever laid eyes on you.”
She returned her attention to the rest of them. “I am sorry for the inevitable impact on your profits. You will simply have to content yourself with a bit less gold on your clothing this year, and hope the strain doesn’t become too much. Get out.”
The nobles turned and moved off toward the doors. Some of their faces betrayed anger, but most of them only looked a bit bewildered, as though the ground had shifted beneath their feet. Kelsea gave a great sigh of impatience, and that seemed to hurry them onward.
“Wondrous diplomacy, Lady,” Mace muttered. “You realize you only make my job more difficult.”
“I am truly sorry for that, Lazarus.”
“You need the support of your nobles.”
“I disagree.”
“They keep the public in line, Lady. The people blame the nobles and their overseers for their problems. Remove that buffer, and they might start looking higher up the chain.”
“And if their eyes come to rest on me, I will deserve that.”
Mace shook his head. “You’re too absolutist for power politics, Lady. Who cares if your nobles are hypocrites? They serve a function for you, and a useful one.”
“Parasites,” Kelsea remarked, but the retreating group had reminded her, again, of Lily Mayhew. Lily had lived in a town with walls, high walls built to keep out the poor. And yet both she and her husband still had to be afraid of the world outside. Was Kelsea any better? Mace and Arliss had ordered the construction of an enormous temporary camp just outside of New London’s walls to house the refugees, but if the Mort came, these refugees would have to be moved inside the city, probably into the Keep itself, since New London was already stuffed to bursting. Would Kelsea mind having them there? She thought for a moment and realized, with some relief, that she would not.
“Now I’ll have to keep an eye on all of these fops,” Mace continued, looking troubled. “I doubt any of them would open direct negotiations with Mortmesne, but they could do so through an intermediary.”
“What intermediary?”
“Most nobles are churchgoing folk, Lady. The Andrews woman is a regular guest in the Arvath, and the new Holy Father is no admirer of yours.”
“Are you spying on the Church?”
“I keep myself informed, Lady. The new Holy Father has already sent several messages to Demesne.”
“For what purpose?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That Andrews bitch is no more devout than I am, Lazarus.”
“And when has that ever stopped anyone from being a pillar of the Church?”
Kelsea had no answer.
AISA?”
Marguerite was teaching them fractions, and Aisa was bored. School was harder to get through on the days when she hadn’t had enough sleep the night before. The air of the schoolroom always seemed too warm, and it put Aisa into a semi-doze, awake and asleep at the same time.
“Two-fifths,” Aisa answered, feeling smug. Marguerite had been trying to catch her napping. Marguerite, who liked all children, didn’t like Aisa at all. Aisa seemed to create instinctive distrust in adults, as though they could sense that she was watching them, looking for errors and inconsistencies. But it was frustratingly hard to find mistakes in Marguerite. She was too pretty, and Aisa gathered from overheard conversations that she had been the Regent’s concubine, but even Aisa had to admit that neither of these things was Marguerite’s fault.
Something prodded Aisa sharply in the ribs: Matthew, sitting behind her, nudging with his foot where Marguerite couldn’t see. After a few more pokes, Aisa turned around, baring her teeth.
Matthew smiled wide, a malicious smile that spoke volumes: he had achieved his objective, broken Aisa out of her head. Her brother was the worst sort of bully: one who couldn’t stand the sight of other people sitting quietly and contentedly, one who simply had to ruin things. Maman made allowances for Matthew, said that Da had been hard on him and he wasn’t equipped to handle it well. Aisa thought that was nonsense. She had taken the worst from Da, even Wen admitted that, but it hadn’t turned her into a little prick who couldn’t leave other people alone.
Matthew’s foot nudged her again, digging right into the space between her ribs. Something struck inside Aisa, a thick, deep, gonglike reverberation, and before she could think, she whipped around and flung herself on Matthew, punching and kicking. He shook her off and ran, and without thinking Aisa got up and ran after him, out the door and into the hallway. Matthew was a year older and much bigger, but Aisa was quicker, and just as Matthew reached the end of the hallway, she launched herself at him and brought him down. They fell to the stone floor together, Matthew screaming and Aisa snarling. She got a fist up into Matthew’s throat, making him cough and gag, then bloodied his nose with a good, hard slap from the heel of her hand. She loved the sight of the blood against Matthew’s white, frightened face, but then a man’s hands were locked beneath her arms, hauling her backward. Aisa kicked her heels, but she could get no leverage on the smooth stone of the floor. None of this seemed real; even when Aisa looked up and saw Maman, the Queen, the rest of the Guard, the wide eyes of the crowd assembled in the audience chamber, it seemed only another phase of the insomnia, the hours before sleep that caught Aisa like a long, continuous fever dream. Any moment now she would sit up in the dark, mouth dry and heart pounding, and be pleased that nothing truly terrible had happened before she jerked awake.