The Queen reached out, and after a moment Ewen realized that she wanted to shake his hand. Her guards tensed, several of them placing hands on their swords, so Ewen offered his hand, very carefully, and allowed her to shake it. The Queen didn’t wear any rings, and Ewen wondered at this. He wondered what Da would say when Ewen told him that he’d met the Queen, that she wasn’t at all how Ewen had thought she would be. He stood by his cells, keeping an eye on all of the prisoners, but also peeking at the Queen as the five guards surrounded her and seemed to carry her in a wave, down the hallway and up the stairs, out of his dungeon.
KELSEA GLYNN HAD a temper.
She was not proud of this fact. Kelsea hated herself when she was angry, for even with her heart thumping and a thick veil of fury obscuring her vision, she could still see, clearly, the straight path from unchecked anger to self-destruction. Anger clouded judgment, precipitated bad decisions. Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen. Carlin had impressed these facts upon her, many times, and Kelsea had listened. But even Carlin’s words had no weight when fury washed over Kelsea; it was a tide that cleared all obstacles. And Kelsea knew that although her anger was destructive, it was also pure, the closest she would ever get to the girl she really was deep down, beneath all of the controls that had been instilled in her since birth. She had been born angry, and she often wondered what it would be like to release her rage, to drop all pretense and let her true self out.
Kelsea was working very hard to contain her anger now, but every word from the man across the table made the dark wave behind the dam swell a bit further. Mace and Pen were beside her, Arliss and Father Tyler in seats farther down the table. But Kelsea saw nothing but General Bermond, seated down at the other end. On the table before him lay an iron helmet topped with a ridiculous blue plume. Bermond was dressed in full armor, for he had just ridden in from the front.
“We don’t want to stretch the army too thin, Majesty. It’s a poor use of resources, this plan.”
“Must everything be a fight with you, General?”
He shook his head, clinging doggedly to his point. “You can defend your kingdom, or you can defend your people, Majesty. You don’t have the manpower to do both at once.”
“People are more important than land.”
“An admirable statement, Majesty, but poor military strategy.”
“You know what these people suffered in the last invasion.”
“Better than you do, Majesty, for you weren’t even born yet. The Caddell ran red. It was wholesale murder.”
“And mass rape.”
“Rape’s a weapon of war. The women got over it.”
“Oh Christ,” Mace breathed, and put a restraining hand on Kelsea’s arm. She started guiltily, for Mace had caught her. General Bermond might be old and lame, but she had still been thinking of dragging him from his chair and giving him several good, hard kicks. She took a deep breath and spoke carefully. “Men were raped along with the women, General.”
Bermond frowned, annoyed. “That is apocryphal, Majesty.”
Kelsea met Father Tyler’s eye, saw him give a slight shake of the head. No one wanted to talk about this facet of the last invasion, not even twenty years later, but the Arvath had received many consistent reports from local parish priests, the only observers to really chronicle the invasion. Rape was a weapon of war, and the Mort did not discriminate by gender.
Kelsea suddenly wished that Colonel Hall could have attended this council. He didn’t always agree with her, but he was at least willing to look at all sides of a thing, unlike the General, whose mind had hardened long ago. But the Mort army had reached the border several days ago, and Hall could not be spared.
“We’re wandering from the subject, Majesty,” Arliss remarked.
“Agreed.” Kelsea turned back to Bermond. “We have to protect these people.”
“By all means, Majesty, build a refugee camp and take in every stray. But don’t sidetrack my soldiers from more important business. Those who want your protection can find a way to the city by themselves.”
“That’s a dangerous journey to make alone, particularly with small children. The first wave of refugees is barely out of the hills, and we’ve already had reports of harassment and violence along the way. If that’s the only option we offer, many of them will choose to stay in their villages, even when the Mort draw near.”
“Then that’s their choice, Majesty.”
The dam in Kelsea’s mind shuddered, its foundations weakening. “Do you honestly not know the right thing to do, General, or do you just pretend not to know because it’s easier that way?”
Bermond’s cheeks reddened. “There’s more than one right here.”
“I don’t think there is. Here we have men, women, and children who have never done anything but farm. Their weapons are wood, if they have weapons at all. Invasion will be a bloodbath.”
“Precisely, and the best way to protect them is to make sure that the Mort never invade this kingdom.”
“Do you really believe that the Tear army can hold the border?”
“Of course I do, Majesty. To believe otherwise is treasonous.”
Kelsea clamped her teeth down on the inside of her cheek, unable to believe the cognitive dissonance implied in such a statement. Hall’s reports came from the border, regular as clockwork and grim as doom, but Kelsea didn’t need Hall to tell her the true state of affairs. The Tear army would never hold against what was coming. In the past week, a vision had begun to grow on Kelsea: the western Almont, covered over with a sea of black tents and soldiers. The girl who had been raised by Carlin Glynn would never have trusted in visions, but Kelsea’s world had broadened well beyond the width of Carlin’s library. The Mort would come, and the Tear army wouldn’t be able to stop them. All they could hope to do was slow them down.
Arliss spoke up again. “The Tear infantry are out of training, Majesty. We already have reports of tin weapons breaking under impact due to improper storage. And there is a serious morale problem.”
Bermond turned to him, furious. “You have spies in my army?”
“I have no need of spies,” Arliss replied coolly. “These problems are common knowledge.”
Bermond swallowed his anger with poor grace. “Then all the more reason, Majesty, for us to spend the limited time we have in training and supply.”
“No, General.” Kelsea came to a decision suddenly, as she so often did: because it seemed the only thing that would allow her to sleep at night. “We’re going to use resources where they’ll do the most good: in evacuation.”
“I refuse, Majesty.”
“Indeed?” Kelsea’s anger crested, breaking like a wave. It was a wonderful feeling, but as always, damnable reason intruded. She could not lose Bermond; too many of the old guard in her army had a misplaced faith in his leadership. She forced a pleasant smile. “Then I will remove you from command.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Of course I can. You have a colonel who’s ready to lead. He’s more than capable, and certainly more of a realist than you.”
“My army will not follow Hall. Not yet.”
“But they will follow me.”
“Nonsense.” But Bermond’s eyes edged away from hers. He had heard the rumors too, then. Less than a month had elapsed since Kelsea and her Guard had returned from the Argive Pass, but prevailing wisdom now held that Kelsea had unleashed a titanic flood on Arlen Thorne’s traitors and washed them all away. It was a favorite tale, demanded constantly from storytellers in New London’s pubs and markets, and it had done wonders for security. No one even tried to sneak into the Keep anymore, Mace had informed Kelsea, in a tone of near-regret. The incident in the Argive had drastically altered the political landscape, and Bermond knew it. Kelsea leaned forward, scenting blood.
“Do you really believe that your army will defy me, Bermond? For your sake?”