“No more of that stuff. Let me go, dammit.”
But Davyon just shook his head, and the doctor’s assistants held Tzsayn’s shoulders while Savage poured the medicine down his throat. Tzsayn spat and swore but eventually fell back into his pillows, still clutching Catherine’s hand.
When the king was still again, Savage pulled back the sheets to check Tzsayn’s wounded leg. Whenever he did this, Catherine usually focused on the good side of Tzsayn’s face—his smooth cheekbone and arching eyebrow—but this time she made herself glance down as Savage unwound the bandages.
A glimpse was all she could stand. Below the knee, Tzsayn’s leg was a raw length of bloody meat and pus, his foot swollen like a pumpkin.
She turned to Savage and Davyon.
“What’s happening to him? It’s getting worse!”
Savage shook his head. “The childhood burns mean the new burns take longer to heal.”
Immediately after the battle of Hawks Field, Tzsayn had seemed to recover, but after only two days, an infection had swollen his leg and delirium swamped his mind. Catherine had recovered quickly from her own ordeals before and during the battle. She had a deep scar on her hand from the metal skewer that had held her in chains, but the demon smoke she’d inhaled had healed her instantly.
If only it worked for Tzsayn, she thought. But he was too old for the purple smoke to have any useful effect.
Catherine had physical scars but few mental ones. She had come to terms with her actions—she had killed her own brother. She wasn’t proud of it, but neither was she ashamed. It was a fact, a necessity. Men killed all the time, with little thought, but she had examined her actions with all the logic of a judge and had no doubt that what she had done was right.
Boris was evil, and their father had made him that way. Aloysius himself had probably been made that way by his own father, and no doubt his father could also be blamed in turn, and on back through the royal line. But the rot had to stop. And if the men couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it themselves, Catherine would do it. She had begun by killing Boris, but she had to do more. This was now her certainty. She would do all she could to stop her father from causing more death, destruction, and misery. That was her grand ambition, and it didn’t weigh her down but carried her on.
And “on” meant acting—no, being—a queen: Queen Catherine of Pitoria. She’d lied about being married to Tzsayn while he was a prisoner of Aloysius, but he’d gone along with the lie upon his release. So had Davyon, Tanya, and even Ambrose, so now, for all intents and purposes, she was queen—with all the responsibilities that brought.
Thankfully everyone who had been involved in the treacherous plan to hand Catherine over to her father in exchange for Tzsayn had been swiftly dealt with. Lord Farrow, along with his generals and supporters, had been arrested and imprisoned immediately after the battle. In the few days that Tzsayn was lucid, he had made it clear that Lord Farrow would be tried for his treason, and few doubted he would be found guilty and executed.
But then Tzsayn’s fever had taken hold and the responsibility for running the army, and indeed, the country, had fallen to his queen. These responsibilities—some small, some huge—filled Catherine’s mind. Decisions needed to be made over the army, the navy, the food, the horses, the weapons, and the money.
The money . . .
Most of Pitoria’s wealth had gone to paying Tzsayn’s ransom, which was now in the hands of the Brigantines. The people had already been taxed to the hilt. Money—or lack of it—was a serious threat; money and war.
Not enough of one and far too much of the other.
Catherine stroked Tzsayn’s forehead. He was sleeping now, and looked peaceful, but Catherine knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again. She could take some demon smoke, which had the wonderful ability to make her both more relaxed and stronger, but Tanya was awake too, and would make her displeasure felt if she saw her mistress taking smoke. Being a queen, Catherine had discovered, meant even less privacy than being a princess. The idea of time to herself, unobserved, seemed an unimaginable luxury. She went outside, shadowed by Tanya. Davyon, grim-faced as ever, was there, staring into the distance. The sky was clear and beginning to lighten in the east.
“At least the rain has stopped,” Catherine said.
“Yes, we have that,” Davyon replied.
Catherine thought of the piles of papers she had on her desk. But she couldn’t quite face them yet.
“I want to go for a walk.”
“Of course, Your Majesty. Within the royal compound? Or—”
“No, a real walk—in the fresh air, among trees.”
In the past, Catherine would have happily ridden out with only Ambrose as her guard, and she’d have loved to do that now. But what she wanted to do and what she was able to do were very different things. The last thing she needed was to rekindle the rumors about her relationship with her bodyguard, and besides that, Ambrose was still recovering from wounds received in the battle. At the thought of that, she felt guilty. Many of her soldiers had been wounded; she should support them. “I’ll go through the camp; I’d like to see my soldiers.”
Davyon frowned. “You’ll need some of the Royal Guard to accompany you.”
“In my own army’s camp?”
“You’re the queen. There might be assassins,” Tanya muttered loudly, as only Tanya could. “And in case you’ve forgotten, there is definitely a hostile army just over that hillside.”
“Very well,” Catherine said. “Summon the Royal Guard.”
Davyon bowed. “I too will accompany you, Your Majesty.”
“Will you require your armor, Your Majesty?” asked Tanya.
“Why not?” Catherine sighed. “I’m sure the extra protection will please Davyon. Let’s dazzle.”
Though she felt not at all dazzling.
As the sun rose over the camp, Catherine, in a white dress under her shining armor, part of her hair plaited round her crown and the rest loose down her back, set out with Davyon (a fixed smile on his face), Tanya (dark-eyed, wearing a blue dress with a white fitted jacket that Catherine hadn’t seen before), and ten of the Royal Guard, all with dyed white hair.
Catherine felt her mood brighten as she greeted the guards by name and stopped to ask one, “How’s your brother, Gaspar?”
“Improving, Your Majesty. Thank you for sending the doctor to him.”
“I’m glad he was of help.”
Catherine hadn’t set foot outside the protected enclosure since the battle of Hawks Field. She’d been in meetings, nursing Tzsayn, or sleeping. Now, as she stepped out past the high wall of royal tents, she saw the Pitorian army. Her army.