Coryn spoke up. “I know his father a little. The old Jailor, retired now. I can ask.”
“Do that. I don’t want the reward to be meaningless. They gave us a great gift, both Ewen and Javel.”
“And what will you do with the gift?” Pen asked. It was the first full sentence Kelsea had gotten in days, but she wished that she could just ignore him. “What about Thorne?”
“I don’t know.”
“Better decide soon, Lady,” Dyer cut in. “The entire kingdom is screaming for his blood.”
“Yes, but they scream for the wrong reasons. They want him to suffer because of his years as Overseer of the Census. Yet that was a government position, and as terrible as they were, Thorne’s actions as Overseer were legal under the Regency. I can’t have a rule of law that bows under public pressure. If I execute Thorne, it must be for his crimes.”
“He’s guilty of treason, Lady.”
“And yet that’s not the reason the entire kingdom will line up to watch him hang.”
The five guards stared at her, and Kelsea felt more than ever that she was on a chessboard, a pawn facing five power pieces. “You all agree? That I should execute him?”
They all nodded, even Pen, who Kelsea had thought might be a secret holdout.
“I’ll make a decision soon, but not yet. I did promise Elston his fun, you know.”
Leaving them chuckling behind her, Kelsea moved back down the gallery to have another look at the man from the fireplace. He was even more striking in daylight, and although the portrait was clearly very old, he had not aged a day since. His eyes followed her as she came closer, and although Kelsea knew it was silly, she felt as though he really could see her from a distance.
“Take this one down as well,” she said finally. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s not a monarch. He doesn’t belong on this wall.”
“Should we get rid of it?”
“No. Bring it upstairs.” She peered around her guards until she found Father Tyler, staring out the window. “Thank you, Father. Most interesting, this place.”
“Yes, Lady,” the priest replied absently. But his bleak gaze remained fixed on the mountains.
What have they done to him? Kelsea wondered again. Her eyes strayed to the cast on his knee. She was surprised by her own protective instinct toward the priest. He was an old man, one who wanted only to sit and read books and think about the past; it seemed a crime for anyone to harm him. On several mornings lately, Kelsea had found Father Tyler asleep on his favorite sofa in the library, as though he no longer wished to spend his nights in the Arvath. Had the Holy Father done something else to him? If he had—
Stop, Kelsea told herself. She couldn’t try to assert authority over the inner workings of the Arvath. That path would only lead to disaster. She pushed God’s Church from her mind, and as it went, she suddenly had an idea, a possible solution … not to Father Tyler, but to another problem.
“Lazarus? Can any of the Guard speak Mort?”
Mace blinked in surprise. “Kibb, Dyer, and Galen, Lady. And myself.”
“Do any of them speak it well enough to pass for Mort?”
“Only Galen, really.” Mace’s brow furrowed. “What’s on your mind?”
“We’re going back upstairs now, but not everyone. Two of you go down to the dungeon and bring me Javel. Try to wake him up a bit.”
But an hour later, when Javel entered the Queen’s Wing, Kelsea was disappointed to see that his earlier apathy had not changed. He looked around without interest as Coryn escorted him to the foot of the dais, then simply stood staring at the ground. Where was the man who had attacked the burning cage, all alone, with an axe? Kelsea wondered whether she would have seen the real Javel on the day Thorne had broken into the dungeon. Ewen had been very cagey about what had happened down there, but Mace finally got the whole truth from him: if Ewen hadn’t intervened, Javel would have beaten Thorne to death with his bare hands. That was the man Kelsea wanted to see.
She was pleased to notice that Ewen had at least left off Javel’s manacles. There was no need for restraint; Javel merely stood there, straight and beaten, as though waiting for his own execution.
“Javel.”
He didn’t look up, only replied hollowly, “Majesty.”
“You’ve done me a great service in the capture of Arlen Thorne.”
“Yes, Majesty. Thank you.”
“I have pardoned you. You’re free to leave the Keep now, at any time, and go your own way. But I would ask you to stay and listen to a proposal.”
“What proposal?”
“I’m told that your wife went to Mortmesne in the shipment six years ago. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“Is she still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Javel replied listlessly. “Thorne said so. He said he could get her back. But now I think it was all lies, and she’s dead.”
“Why?”
“She was a pretty woman, my Allie. They don’t last long.”
Kelsea winced, but plowed forward. “Was your Allie pretty and weak, Javel? Or was she pretty and tough?”
“A damned sight tougher than me, Lady, though that doesn’t say much.”
“And yet you think she couldn’t have survived six years in a Mort knockhouse?”
Javel looked up, and Kelsea was pleased to see a hint of anger in his eyes. “Why say this to me, Lady? Do you wish to make it worse?”
“I wish to see whether you still care about anything at all. Do you think your wife would be happy to see you here now, like this?”
“That’s between her and me.” Javel looked around him, seeming to notice Coryn for the first time. “You said I was free to leave.”
“So you are. The door is behind you.”
Javel turned and walked away. Kelsea sensed Mace bridling beside her, but to his credit, he kept quiet.
“What will you do now, Javel?” she called after him.
“Find the nearest pub.”
“Is that what your wife would have wanted?”
“She’s dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
Javel kept walking.
“Don’t you want to find out?”
He halted, perhaps ten feet from the doors.
“I have ended the lottery, Javel,” Kelsea continued, staring at his back, willing him to stay still. “No shipment will ever leave this country under my Crown. But that doesn’t redress the wrongs of the past, the Tear already in Mortmesne. What do I do about all of them, all of those slaves? The answer is clear: I have to get them out.”
Javel remained in place, but Kelsea saw his shoulders heave, once, an involuntary movement.
“Lazarus is thinking that I have other things to worry about,” she continued, with a nod to Mace, “and he’s right. My people are starving and uneducated. We have no true medicine. On the eastern border is an army that will crush us into dust. These are real problems, and so for a time I’ve let the others lie. But here is where Lazarus and I differ a bit. He believes that avoiding the wrongs of the future is more important than righting the wrongs of the past.”
“So it is, Lady,” Mace muttered, and Kelsea threw him a quick, pained grin. She wished that Father Tyler were still here; he would have understood. But he had already gone back to the Arvath.
“Lazarus means well, but he’s mistaken. The wrongs of the past are not less significant, they’re just harder to fix. And the longer you ignore them in favor of more pressing issues, the worse the harm, until the problems of the past actually create the problems of the future. And that brings us back to your Allie.”
Javel turned around, and Kelsea saw that his eyes were wet.
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that your wife is alive, Javel. Let’s say that the very worst has happened to her in Mortmesne, the most terrible thing that your imagination can conjure. Would you still want her back?”