The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
“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.
“Majesty, I apologize!”
Maman, apologizing for her. She had embarrassed Maman. The Queen merely shook her head, but Aisa could sense irritation in the gesture, and this was almost as bad. Marguerite had arrived in the audience chamber now, and she bent over Matthew, shooting Aisa a venomous look as she did so. Whoever had laid hold of Aisa was now dragging her backward, toward the hallway, and Aisa’s mind conjured up a rogue memory of Da, who always pulled and tugged.
“Let go!”
“Shut up, brat.”
The Mace, Aisa realized, and that brought home the seriousness of what she had just done. She planted her heels on the ground, but that was no help; the Mace simply took one of Aisa’s arms and swung her around, clamping her wrist in an iron grip and dragging her down the hallway. Where was Maman? Aisa wondered frantically. Memory was growing stronger and stronger, overtaking fact; the Mace even smelled like Da at the end of the day, sweat and iron, and Aisa couldn’t go with him. She dug her heels in again, and when the Mace turned, she brought her foot up and around, launching a kick into his stomach. It caught him squarely, and even in her fright, Aisa felt a brief moment of satisfaction; it was no small thing to sneak a move on the Captain of Guard. The Mace coughed and bent double, but his other arm snapped forward and flung Aisa against the wall. She hit, hard on her shoulder, bounced off, and staggered to the ground, black spots in front of her eyes.
It took her a few seconds to recover, but Aisa came up ready, prepared to kick and scratch. But the Mace was leaning against the opposite wall, one hand on his stomach, watching her with that same speculative gaze.
“You have a great deal of anger in you, girl.”
“So?”
“Anger is a liability for a fighter. I’ve seen it many times. If he doesn’t let the anger go, or at least harness and drive it, it brings him down.”
“What do I care?”
“See here.” The Mace detached himself from the wall, his bulky frame towering over hers, and Aisa tensed, preparing. But he merely pointed to her foot. “A kick in the guts is good. But you didn’t plan it well, and so I wasn’t disabled. In a real fight, you’d be dead now. What you want to do is point your toe, catch me with the tip rather than the arch or ankle, knock the wind out of me. It’s very few men who can keep fighting without breath. P
Aisa considered this for a moment, sneaking a glance at her own feet. She never planned anything; it just happened, actions exploding out of her. “Still, I hurt you.”
“And what of that? Any man in this wing can keep fighting through much worse. I watched the Queen finish her crowning with a knife stuck in her back. Pain only disables the weak.”
Pain only disables the weak. The words struck a chord inside Aisa, making her think of all those years under Da’s roof. Wen and Matthew each had broken bones, and Wen’s shoulder had never healed properly, giving him a strange, slightly hunched appearance when he tried to stand up straight. Maman had taken so many beatings that some of her bruises never went away. And Aisa and Morryn . . .
Pain only disables the weak.
“Come along, hellcat.” The Mace resumed his course down the corridor, rubbing his stomach. “I want to show you something.”
Aisa followed him cautiously, a few feet behind. She had never been so far down the hall; it was mostly the guards and their families down here. Near the end, the Mace opened one of the doors and swung it wide.
“Have a look.”
Warily, keeping an eye on him, Aisa peeked around the doorway and blinked in surprise. She had never seen so much metal in one place before. The entire room gleamed in the torchlight.
“The arms room,” she breathed, her eyes wide.
“Welcome to my domain.” A tall, lanky man with a hooked nose emerged from behind a table on the other side of the room. Aisa recognized him: Venner, the arms master. Even on the rare occasions when he emerged into the audience chamber, he always had a weapon in his hands, sword or knife or bow, fine-tuning them as though they were musical instruments. “Come inside, child.”
Aisa only hesitated for a moment. Children were never allowed in the arms room. Wen would be so jealous. Even Matthew would be jealous, though he would try to hide it with scorn. Swords and knives covered the tables; armory sets hung on the walls; there were even some long, twisted metal weapons, taller than a man, which rested against the wall, pointing toward the sky. Several maces, a rack of bows, their wood a deep, polished bronze, and bundles of tied sticks that Aisa eventually recognized as arrows, hundreds and hundreds of them, piled in the corner. So much weaponry! And then Aisa realized what this stockpile was for: siege. Maman had explained siege, but only to Aisa and Wen. Maman thought the Mort army would reach New London by autumn.
The Mace had followed her into the room, and now he paused beside a table that held row after row of knives. “You can’t keep starting brawls with the other children. It’s a distraction we don’t need.”
“It only distracts Marguerite.”
“Today it distracted everyone. Your little squabbles are both noisy and dangerous.”
Aisa flushed. She added up the number of fights she’d been in since they’d come to the Keep, and her cheeks burned brighter. Did they all think she was a brat? The Mace’s gaze was hard, almost contemptuous; he was waiting for her to make an excuse. She would surprise him, just as she had caught him off guard with a kick to the stomach.
“Sometimes the anger runs me, and I can’t control it. I hit and kick before I know what I’m doing.”
The Mace settled back on his heels, his mouth crimping in a small smile. “That’s a strong admission. Many men refuse to face the fact of their anger.”
“Maybe it helps that I’m not a man.”
“In this room it won’t matter,” Venner interrupted, striding forward. “It’s a lesson I learned from the Queen. Here you’re a fighter, and I will treat you like one.”
Aisa looked up, instantly suspicious, and found Venner holding out a knife on one palm, offering her the hilt.
“What do you say, hellcat?” the Mace asked. “Want to learn?”
Aisa looked at the room around her, the weapons piled everywhere, the walls hung with metal. She used to spend days of her childhood fearing that Da’s shadow would appear on the ground beside her, and when she looked up to find him standing there, her stomach would fall to pieces. Staring at Venner and the Mace, Aisa saw that their faces were hard, yes, and grim . . . but she saw none of Da’s meanness there, none of his taking.
She reached out and grasped the knife.
Chapter 3
Ducarte
In an era rife with butchery, we must still make special mention of Benin Ducarte.
—The Tearling as a Military Nation, CALLOW THE MARTYR
Where is he?”
The Queen heard the peevish edge in her own voice. That was bad, but she couldn’t help it.
“He’ll be here, Majesty,” Lieutenant Vallee replied in a quiet voice. The lieutenant was new to her Security Council, a replacement after the death of Jean Dowell, and he always seemed to be on the edge of things, afraid to speak up. The Queen, who usually valued restraint, found the new lieutenant’s tiptoeing manner irritating, and signaled him to be silent. “I wasn’t speaking to you. Martin?”
Lieutenant Martin nodded in agreement. “He’ll be here shortly, Majesty. The message said that urgent business delayed him.”
The Queen frowned. Ten men were seated in a semicircle in front of her throne. All of them looked exhausted, and none more so than Martin. For the past month, he’d been in the north, putting down unrest in Cite Marche. Hundreds of people had planted themselves in front of the Auctioneer’s Office and refused to move until the Crown addressed the economic conditions in the city. It was irritating, but nothing to really contend with. They had no leader, these radicals, and rebellion without a leader was like a tidal wave; it went like hell until it met a cliff wall. The rebellion in Callae had failed in a similar fashion when its momentum simply petered out. But the fighting in Cite Marche had been hard, with several soldiers killed. There was no doubt that many of these men could use some rest. After this meeting, she would give some of them a few days off.
But the meeting couldn’t begin without Ducarte. Her Chief of Internal Security was no doubt more exhausted than any of them. His men had spent weeks trying to figure out who was organizing the protests in Cite Marche, with no answers yet. But Ducarte would get results eventually; he always did. Physically, he was beginning to show his age, but there wasn’t a more skilled interrogator in Mortmesne. The Queen tapped her nails on the arm of her throne, her fingers going automatically to her breastbone. They seemed to go there all the time, of their own accord. It had, in fact, become a tic, and the Queen of Mortmesne had no tics. Such things were for the weak and mindless.
The invasion of the Tearling had begun in disaster. Word had reached the Palais a week earlier: her army had been taken by surprise and scattered throughout the Mort Flats. It would take weeks to reassemble the soldiers and clear the camp. The entire thing was a catastrophe, but there was no one on whom the Queen could unleash her fury; General Genot had simply disappeared. More than a thousand Mort soldiers had died on the Flats, but Genot’s body hadn’t been among the corpses.
He’d better pray he’s dead. If I find him—
Movement to her right drew her attention. A slave was kneeling in front of the fireplace, lining the base with paper.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The slave looked up, her eyes wide, terrified yet resentful. Tear, there could be no doubt of it; although she was dark-haired and quite beautiful, she had the sullen, stupid expression of a Tear peasant. The Queen switched languages. “No fireplace is to be used within this building.”
The girl swallowed and replied in Tear, “I’m sorry, Majesty. I didn’t know.”
Was that possible? The Queen had given a blanket order about fires. She would have to speak to Beryll about it. “What’s your name, slave?”
“Emily.” She even pronounced it in the Tear fashion, without accent.
“Be the last to know again, Emily, and you’ll find yourself for sale on the streets.”
The slave nodded, gathered up the paper from the fireplace, and stuffed it back in the bucket, then stood waiting with a bewildered expression that only irritated the Queen further.
“Get out.”
The girl left. The Queen sensed her Security Council’s eyes on her, questioning. The throne room was cold this morning; no doubt many of them wondered why there was no fire. But the only fires the Queen allowed now were torches and the ovens in the Palais kitchens, some twenty floors below. Not even to Beryll could she admit the truth: she was frightened. In the past two months, disturbing rumors had begun to trickle in from the Fairwitch: miners taken, children disappearing, even an entire family that had simply vanished from a home at the base of the foothills. The dark thing was always hungry; the Queen knew that better than anyone, but something had changed. It had always been satisfied with explorers and fortune hunters, those foolish enough to venture into the Fairwitch proper. Now it was expanding its hunting grounds.
But how?
That was the real question. The Queen didn’t know the whole of the dark thing’s strange history, but there was no doubt that it was bound to the Fairwitch, enspelled there in some way. It could only travel by fire, and even that effort could exhaust its abilities. So how had it managed to take an entire family in Arc Nord without leaving a trace?
Has it gotten free?
The Queen quailed at the thought. The dark thing had forbidden her to invade the Tearling, and by now it would know that she had disobeyed. But what choice did she have? Left unpunished, the delinquent Tear shipment was an incitement to every revolutionary in the New World. The riots in Cite Marche were only the latest example. The last Cadarese shipment had contained goods of markedly diminished quality: poorly insulated glass, defective horses, second-rate gems whose surfaces revealed multiple flaws. In Callae, silk production had dropped to such a low level that it could only mean deliberate sabotage. These signs were easy to interpret: fear, that powerful engine that drove the Mort economy, was waning. The Queen had to invade the Tearling, if for no other reason than demonstration. An object lesson, as Thorne would say. But she had disobeyed the dark thing, and by now it had surely found her out. Damping the fireplaces was a temporary measure, one that could not work forever.