The Crimson Crown (43 page)

“Based on what we know about King Gerard, we can’t assume that the queen would survive a surrender for very long,” Amon said. “And if we negotiate from a position of weakness, we are unlikely to get anything we want.”

Raisa smiled to herself. Amon was speaking up more in these conferences, growing into the counselor role his father had held. He’d come a long way from the solemn, quiet boy who’d returned from Oden’s Ford.

His voice broke into Raisa’s thoughts. “Your Majesty. I think it’s time we discussed evacuating you to a safer place—if that’s still possible.”

Raisa stiffened. Amon had raised this subject in private two nights before, and hadn’t liked her answer. Now he was bringing it up in public, hoping to find allies on the council. He was becoming downright devious, for a Byrne.

She brought her chin up. “You are suggesting that I run away?”

“I prefer to call it a strategic retreat, Your Majesty,” Amon said. He was
Your Majesty
ing her, meaning he was trying to keep emotion out of the conversation. But she noticed he was clenching and unclenching his right fist. “Nightwalker believes there is still time to get you and Mellony through the lines via the river. Once in the mountains, you can take refuge with Lord Averill at Demonai Camp and establish your government there. That’s the most impregnable place in the Fells. If Montaigne reaches those sanctuaries, it’s all over anyway. But even if that happens, you could escape via Westgate and the Fens.”

Nightwalker came and knelt next to Raisa’s chair, looking into her eyes. “Please consider leaving the city before the southerners arrive, Your Majesty,” he said. “I have shadowcloaks that will conceal us. I promise that this seeming exile is only temporary. We will return you to the throne, I swear it. The flatlanders will regret they ever set foot here.”

Raisa stood and walked to the window, leaning on the sill, trying to formulate an acceptable answer. She couldn’t say,
I don’t want to be under the control of the Demonai.
They were her family, after all.

She turned around, leaning back against the sill. “And what would you be doing in the meantime, Captain Byrne?” she asked. She could
Captain
to his
Your Majesty
any time.

Amon shifted his shoulders. “I would do what was best for queen and queendom,” he said. “Which is staying here to defend Fellsmarch Castle. If I come with you, it’s too likely we’ll be seen. We may still prevail in the end. But if you wait until Montaigne arrives, it will be more difficult to leave if you change your mind.”

“What happens to the rest of us, then, when King Gerard realizes that the queen has fled?” Hakkam protested.

“Lord Hakkam is right,” Raisa said, astounded to be allied with him. “I ran away before, and the Fells is still paying a price for it. How can I expect my people to suffer in my stead?”

“They are suffering already,” Amon said. “They’ll suffer whether you survive or not. But if you remain free, you and the Demonai can lead a counterinsurgency against Montaigne.”

“I am done with being a fugitive,” Raisa said. “We are in this fix because we have been splintered as a people since the Breaking. If we all worked together, we would have a chance. I intend to win this thing or die trying. If we can’t come together and defeat a flatlander army, then maybe we don’t deserve to exist as a sovereign nation.”

Someone tapped on the door of the audience chamber.

What now?
Raisa grumbled to herself, but called out, “Come!”

The door swung wide, revealing Mick and Hallie, and, behind them, a familiar tall figure. Raisa’s heart stuttered.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty,” Hallie said. “But when this one found out the council was meeting, he insisted on being announced.”

“Micah!” Raisa said, taking a step toward him.

“Bayar!” Lord Hakkam surged to his feet, visibly brightening. “Do you bring news from Gray Lady? Is the council intending to offer us any relief?” He peered past Micah as if hoping to see an army of wizards behind him.

Micah Bayar bowed low, his stoles brushing the stone floor. “Your Majesty,” he said, ignoring Hakkam’s outburst. “I meant to be here sooner, but it is more difficult than ever to get in to see you.” He straightened, his intense gaze sweeping Raisa from top to toe.

“Really?” Nightwalker said, tilting his head back so he could look down his nose at Micah. “Some of us have never left the queen’s side.”

Micah’s gaze flicked to Nightwalker. “Some of us have other roles and responsibilities,” he said.

“How did you manage to break through the perimeter?” Hakkam persisted, perhaps hoping to take the same road out.

“I used a glamour,” Micah said. “I think they are less concerned with people slipping in than slipping out. Still, I had to kill two sentries.”

If Micah had swum the moat or tunneled underground to get into Fellsmarch Castle, he’d cleaned up for his appearance here. The linen shirt under his coat was pristine, his trousers freshly pressed, and his mane of hair shone under the light from the torches. And yet—Raisa squinted at him—yes. He’d taken a blow to the face. There was a bruise on his cheekbone, and his nose was slightly swollen on one side.

“I do bring news from Gray Lady—unfortunately, it is mostly bad,” Micah continued. He gestured toward the table. “May I sit?”

“Please do,” Raisa said, recovering enough to motion him to a vacant seat. She resumed her seat at the head of the table.

Micah settled into a chair. He seemed jittery, haggard, taut as a bowstring.

“I have to admit that the Wizard Council was unprepared for this sequence of events,” he said. “We should have been more alert to the possibility of General Klemath’s treachery. When the southerners invaded, we lost many of the gifted in the mountains. Some, they took captive. Others, they burned alive.”

“Montaigne will pay for that, I promise,” Raisa said. She wasn’t sure how she could bring that off, but he would pay.

Micah inclined his head in acknowledgment. “The fact that Montaigne is using captive wizards in his campaign makes the situation even more dire. Gray Lady is an armed camp.”

“The situation is dire here, too,” Lassiter exclaimed. “Will the council send help to us before it’s too late?”

“No,” Micah said flatly. “They won’t.”

Everyone began talking at once, asking questions, expressing disbelief and dismay.

“Let him finish!” Raisa shouted, and the hubbub died down. “What’s going on, Micah? Why aren’t they coming?”

With a grateful glance at Raisa, Micah pushed on. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. The council is in total disarray. The leadership—” He cleared his throat. “This is—difficult,” he said, looking down at his hands. “Some of you already know that the council had launched an internal investigation of the new High Wizard, Lord Alister, who has been implicated in the recent murders of the gifted in the city.”

“What?” Lord Hakkam glared around the table. “I was unaware of this!”

“Hunts Alone? Really?” Nightwalker leaned forward, intent. “When all along you were blaming
us
.”

Micah gazed at Nightwalker, expressionless. “Let me speak. You’ll have an opportunity soon enough.” He paused, and when no one spoke, went on. “Alister found out about the charges pending against him,” he said. “When my father and sister returned to Aerie House after the council hearing, he was waiting. He attacked and tried to murder my father.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, Raisa choked out a single word. “What?”

Micah nodded, his black eyes glittering against his chalky skin. “He nearly succeeded. As some of you know, this is the second time he has assaulted Lord Bayar.” He fixed his eyes on Raisa, as if willing her to believe him. “My father had no choice,” he said. “No choice.”

Raisa stared at Micah. In her head, a voice clamored
No-no-no-no
. She stood, gripping the edge of the table for support. When she opened her mouth, the words stopped up in her throat so that Amon Byrne had to ask the question.

“What are you saying, Bayar?” he said. “What happened?”

“Alister is dead,” Micah replied. “My father killed him.”

The room erupted into a cacophony of voices.

“Alister’s dead?” Lord Hakkam sputtered, as if offended by the inconvenience of it all. “Already?”

Amon gripped Raisa’s shoulders, holding her upright so she wouldn’t fall. “Do you have proof of this?”

Micah nodded. “We took these off of Alister’s body.” He thrust his hand into his coat, pulling out a cloth bag, and dumped two objects onto the table, their chains clanking. One was Han’s Lone Hunter amulet. The other was the copper talisman with his streetlord symbol on it—the one Dancer had made to replace the one he’d lost.

Raisa stared at them, horrified. Anguish sluiced through her, scouring everything else away.

“Alister wore two amulets,” Micah said. He poked at the Lone Hunter piece with his forefinger. “This one and another—a serpent amulet he stole from us. That one is old flash—a family heirloom. We kept that one since we’re going to need all of the old flash we can get.”

“You’re a liar, Bayar!” Cat spat. “Cuffs didn’t never try to murder you!” She lunged across the table at Micah. Micah threw himself sideways, rolling as he hit the floor. He came to his knees with one hand on his amulet, the other extended toward Cat.

“No, don’t, Micah!” Raisa cried reflexively, breaking free from Amon’s grip and flinging herself between the two of them.

Amon seized Cat in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides, hauling her back from Micah. Talia relieved her of her knives, and Amon handed her off to Mick and Hallie. She continued to struggle in their grasp, trying to get at Micah, spewing increasingly virulent curses.

Micah scrambled to his feet, his eyes fixed on Cat. “The next time you make a move on me, it will be your last,” he said, his voice low and furious. “I’m tired of constantly having to watch my back while—”

“
You’re
tired?” Raisa shouted. “You’re
tired
, Bayar? Well, I’m sick and tired!”

They all turned to stare at her.

Raisa stood, hands fisted, tears streaming. “Maybe we deserve to be overrun by Arden,” she said, her voice ragged with despair. “You can all just…kill each other, for all I care. Don’t expect me to clean up after you. Or try and rule over you. Henceforth, you are on your own.”

Nightwalker sat frozen in his chair, his eyes shifting from Micah to Raisa and back again.

Micah took a step toward her, hands extended, his dark brows drawn together in puzzlement. “Your Majesty. Raisa. I—”

Raisa turned and stalked from the room, leaving a dead silence in her wake.

Once in the corridor, she broke into a trot, and then a flat-out run, down the walkway, through the far tower of the barbican, past the bluejackets posted at the door of her chambers. Ripping open the door, she charged through her sitting room to her bedchamber on the opposite side.

Magret looked up from her book. “Your Majesty? Is the meeting over already?”

“Don’t let anyone in,” Raisa shot over her shoulder. “No matter who it is.”

Slamming the door behind her, Raisa flung herself onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow and gripping the coverlet to either side in her fists.

Images collided in her mind—Han Alister at Southbridge Temple, bruised and bloodied by street life, debating surrender with Speaker Jemson.
I been in gaol
, he’d said, the steel of his blade grazing her throat.
Not going back.

Han at Oden’s Ford during their tutoring sessions, debating some fine point of politics or manners, asking questions, always digging deeper than Raisa wanted to go. The almost physical pressure of those blue eyes.

The day he’d spoken of the deaths of his mother and sister, his voice hoarse with rage.

Han’s long lean body sprawled in a tavern chair on Bridge Street, the heels of his clan-made boots resting on the battered wooden floor, hands laced across his middle. How he’d sent Hallie and Talia into gales of laughter with his observations of class and campus life.

The way he always sat facing the door.

The way he put words together—easily shifting from street slang to court speech at will.

Kisses and caresses—lovemaking more intoxicating than blue ruin.

His smile—crooked and cynical and too familiar with the world—and at the same time full of hope.

Finally, Han in the rooftop garden, promising that he would find a way to return and marry her, saying,
Haven’t you heard about me? I’m really a very dangerous person.

Was that his solution—killing the Bayars? Had he seen that as his only choice? Or was it one more lie about Han Alister, conjured up by Han’s enemies to cover over murders of their own?

It didn’t matter. Either way, he was gone. And all the hope drained out of Raisa, as if someone had opened a spigot in her soul.

Sobs shuddered through her, massive waves of sorrow that threatened to wash her out to sea. For a while, she resisted, but finally she surrendered to grief and despair.

Two days later, Gerard Montaigne’s army, under the command of Marin Karn, marched into the city of Fellsmarch, to join in uneasy alliance with General Klemath’s mercenaries.

There weren’t many places in the city of Fellsmarch to put so many soldiers. Its narrow, twisting, nearly vertical streets wouldn’t accommodate ranks of pitched tents. The only available space was in a burnt-over slum down the hill from the castle close, up against the cursed river.

Klemath’s army surrendered the city to Karn’s fresh troops, taking up positions outside of the city walls. The striper mercenaries seemed more than happy to depart the inner city.

Karn soon found out why they had been so eager to leave. As soon as his troops were in place, the harassment began, by unknown persons who emerged from the ruins in the night like so many cockroaches. Like cockroaches, they came and went through the army encampments at will. Food, weapons, and other supplies disappeared as if by magic.

Even worse, soldiers themselves disappeared, their dead bodies surfacing days later, bound with briars and dangling from the walls of heathenish temples, or piled in back alleys. Before long, the soldiers of the army of Arden envied the stripers outside the walls, bivouacked in relative safety.