I’d avoided mirrors ever since. Judging by the uneasy silence of the crowd, their aghast faces as they stared at me, not much had changed. I forced down the insidious doubts, the brutal mockery of the overseers, the whispers of all the dead, my father’s lifeless and accusing gaze, my sister’s dying whimpers as the soldiers had at her.
I raised my fists, though I hardly needed to silence the defeated and suspicious gathering. They waited, braced for the worst. No matter how many times I’d given this speech, unease crawled down my spine, and not just in anticipation of the discomfort of projecting my voice and speaking so many words in a row. I cleared my throat, hoping Ambrose’s brew had done its work.
“People of Keiost.” My voice boomed out, raspy, but carrying reasonably well. “I offer you a new day, a new life, if you choose it. Though we have all passed through a long night of death, destruction, and misery, let us put that in the past and forge a new direction, together. I am the Slave King.” A murmur through the crowd at that, though surely they’d known. Perhaps they simply wondered at my audacity in owning the insult. “Your king. The ones who called themselves your imperial governors, the puppets of a distant and uncaring empire, they are dead or imprisoned. Your lives belong to me now. I grant each of you a single choice, which you must make today. Give me your allegiance—swear it by Sawehl and Ejarat—or give me your death.”
Utter silence settled at the grim words. The words of a tyrant, of an autocrat as ruthless as Anure ever was. They didn’t know I had no choice in this, either. I was a fraudulent king. One without lands, castles, dungeons, or camps in which to keep prisoners. Even if I had, I could spare no one to serve as guards, much less supplies to sustain them. We struggled to preserve the supply chain back to Vurgmun, to keep possession of it and our precious supply of vurgsten.
I couldn’t afford to have enemies at my back, as I faced entirely forward. A lethal arrow pointed at the emperor’s heart. Nothing else mattered.
I let them absorb that blow, then offered the salve. “Give your loyalty to me and I will restore your kingdom to you. If any remain with the blood of the royal family of these lands, come forward to take your rightful place, to resume guardianship of your people and your realm. I have no desire to rule. I ask for your warriors, your supplies, your ships. Make your choice. You will leave this assembly as my vassal or as a body to be burned with those already dead.”
Finished, I walked away. We’d refined the speech to the bare minimum, to spare my ravaged throat, but also because nothing more could be said. Through no fault of their own, these people faced the same choice as any prisoner. Submit or die.
5
There’s a trick to walking in the elaborate gowns of the Flower Court. The spine must be very straight, with shoulders centered over hips and chin tucked slightly so that the point of the skull aims at the sky. Imagine standing under a waterfall so that the cool torrent flows into your head, through the column of your neck and down your spine to fill your legs. My teachers made the practice into an art form that is nearly a religion, complete with the requisite philosophical mantras. That particular lovely image was meant to teach me to carry the immense weight in the legs, rather than in my fragile back.
A woman’s strength is in her legs, after all.
Also the chin tuck is critical to balancing the wig and, for me, the crown. And lest you think the brackets at hips and shoulder are simply frames to display the extra jewel-and flower-studded veils, cloaks, and trains, those work to distribute the load, too. Witness the maids of the villages carrying their yokes across their shoulders, buckets of milk or grain dangling from either end. Peasant laborer or queen, we are not so different. Except, perhaps, in the burdens we carry.
I’d never be so trite as to wish to be one of those maids, but I sometimes envied the simplicity of their burdens.
I confess I like the way court waits for me. One of my petty pleasures. When I enter a room, they fall silent in deference to my arrival. After that moment, they relax to some extent, as people familiar tend to do. Besides, I am not so exacting on such protocols. But in that first moment when I enter, they all hold their collective breath, ladies and gents alike keen to see my gown for the day.
Tertulyn has regaled me with the court theories on how my attire and choice of flowers reflect my mood and thus the prospects for the petitions I’ll review and for the state of Calanthe at large. Political forecasting based on feminine frippery. There’s an underlying truth to it that the older generations remember—that as I am, so is Calanthe—but the younger think it’s all my whims.
Courtiers even offer my ladies gifts to slip them hints ahead of time on what I plan to wear. I don’t know if they accept those gifts, as it doesn’t matter to me. I suppose it’s no more flimsy a magical theorem than casting stones or ripping open the innards of some innocent animal that deserved better than to be wasted so.
Still, those courtiers would better spend their time in the study of science. The wizards are dead and the final truth is that no one can know the future because it is fundamentally unknowable. It doesn’t exist to be known because it has not yet occurred. Simple logic. It baffles me that anyone with wit can think otherwise.
Besides, if I dressed according to my mood, today I’d be in dread gray with accents of days-old blood. Ha! Now there would be a fashion trend to set.
The buzz of court echoed down the back hall, to which I descended each day via my private stairs. I paused there before stepping through the velvet curtains on the dais. A bit of showmanship never hurts. My father, regardless of his other faults, set the bar high there, and I emulate him. My most junior lady parted the curtains, and those courtiers watching for the movement with the sensitivity of the dependent sycophant—there is no more alert or more desperate creature under Ejarat’s gaze—dropped their conversations instantly, the ripples of silence spreading faster than through any other medium. My naturalists inform me that sound travels more quickly in water than in air, because fluid is denser than gas. I, myself, have observed that the air of court is the densest by far of any other human-occupied medium.
A word. A reaction. All ricochet with blazing speed. The reverberations only catch up later, like the tardy thunder chasing after a lightning bolt long since vanished from the sky.
One by one, my ladies preceded me into the bated anticipation of the throne room, in order of seniority and my favor, which amount to the same thing as I give rank to those I trust, and whom I like. A minor exercise of my royal muscles that at least smoothes my daily life. They are my vanguard, my frame, and my first and last line of defense. Never underestimate the blossoms of the Flower Court. We all have our thorns.
I counted to three after the last of Tertulyn’s train swished through the doorway. Then I entered, pausing a moment, both to let the gossips assess my outfit—many of them actually jotting down surreptitious notes on the bound pads of paper it had become fashionable to carry and tuck in the various hidden pockets of court garb—and for me to breathe in the tenor of court.
Tense. Fearful, though not fully afraid. Anticipatory. Scanning the faces, I wondered how many had heard the news from Keiost. A few, perhaps, but not many.
Taking small steps—not mincing, never mince, glide—I moved to my throne, pausing to rest my hand on Lord Dearsley’s forearm while Tertulyn and Calla arranged my train and skirts. After a decorous moment, I lowered myself onto the hard seat. Dearsley bowed and backed off the dais, though remaining close at hand. He’d been my father’s adviser before he was mine, and I valued his experience. For his part, he valued that I actually listened to him—for the most part—as my father had not at the end.