“All of you Blue Horizon fools are alike. You will not be reasoned with. Very well, you leave us no choice. Culp!”
Culp came forward. He was a tall, hatchet-faced man, eternally devoid of expression. Technically, Culp was a member of the Queen’s Guard, but he did not wear a grey cloak, and Elyssa knew that the other guards were glad of it. Culp didn’t sleep in the guard quarters; he made his home in the dungeons, and though the reason was ostensibly one of efficiency, Elyssa was fairly sure that in the guard quarters, Culp would have had to sleep with one eye open.
“Majesty?” Culp asked.
“Take him back downstairs,” the Queen said dismissively. “Let him find his better world in the dungeon.”
“Yes, Majesty.” Culp grabbed Gareth’s shoulder roughly, clearly hoping to make him cry out. But Gareth didn’t so much as wince, and this, too, made Elyssa think of William Tear . . . William Tear, who had feared nothing, who had been strong enough to lead two thousand utopians across the ocean in search of a perfect society. There was strength in the man who stood before the throne, great strength, and in the face of that strength Elyssa felt suddenly ashamed that she had ever been cowed by a night in the dungeons, that she had ever feared her mother’s glare.
I have never risked anything, she thought unhappily. I have lived in a castle all of my life, and I have never put myself on the line. When I take the throne, how brave will I be?
“We renew our condemnation of the rabble known as the Blue Horizon,” Queen Arla announced. “Further, we raise the existing bounty. The Crown will now pay seventy-five pounds for any member brought in alive.”
Foolish, Elyssa thought, and she heard confirmation a moment later, low muttering from several corners of the hall. Queen Arla’s audience was dominated by nobles, but a handful of people from the lower classes—entrepreneurs, mostly, but even some of the poor—always managed to get in, and they would make up an even greater proportion now, when so many nobles had returned to their local seats. The poor had embraced the Blue Horizon without reservation, particularly in the two years since the drought began; hardly surprising, but they weren’t the only ones. According to Givens, her mother’s Captain of Guard, a surprising number of merchants were clearly covering for the movement: providing weapons, storing and moving stolen goods, even providing safe houses for fugitives. Raising the bounty would only further alienate such people from the throne.
Culp hauled Gareth away, jerking him up the aisle that divided the crowd in two. Now Gareth finally stumbled, falling to one knee, and Culp kicked him in the ribs. The man was not made of iron, after all; he groaned loudly, the sound echoing across the room. Several of Elyssa’s guard muttered low curses behind her, and Niya drew a short, wounded breath. Elyssa’s stomach took a slow roll. She decided that the very first thing she would do upon taking the throne would be to sack and then imprison Welwyn Culp . . . but a moment later she realized that wouldn’t be good enough.
All of these people, she thought, watching the crowd . . . but the eye of her mind was looking much farther, beyond this room, out over the city below the Keep, the thousands of miles of tenanted farmland surrounding. More than three million people lived in the Tear, and one day they would all look to Elyssa, just as they now looked to her mother. Queen Arla was not popular, but she was feared, and the kingdom scurried under her gaze like ants . . . all except the Blue Horizon.
“The better world!” Gareth shouted now, heedless of Culp’s attempts to clap a hand over his mouth. “I see it! Circumstances of birth don’t matter! Kindness and humanity are everything!”
“Yes, yes,” the Queen murmured. “And golden unicorns shall fly out of William Tear’s ass.”
Laughter echoed across the room. Culp finally succeeding in muffling Gareth’s words, locking his head and dragging him forcibly up the aisle. But Gareth was still trying to speak, and he must have bitten Culp’s hand, for Culp uttered a low curse, then hauled back and slapped him.
“Mother!”
Elyssa’s mouth had spoken of its own accord. The eyes of the room were suddenly upon her, and she swallowed hard, feeling something thick and starchy blocking her throat.
“Yes, Elyssa?”
Her mother’s voice was cold; she might not know what was coming, but she knew she wouldn’t like it. She did not turn toward Elyssa, but that was not surprising; Queen Arla did not turn her head in public for anyone. People were expected to present themselves before her, and after a moment’s hesitation, Elyssa did so. The Queen’s Guard parted before her, allowing her to move in front of her mother and drop to her knees.
“I would petition you, Mother, for this man’s life.”
“What?”
“His life, Mother. I ask you to grant the prisoner clemency and release him.”
The Queen went white with anger. For a moment she seemed to have lost the ability to speak, and Elyssa had time to think that she might well be facing a worse punishment than a night in the dungeons, but then the room exploded with shouting, several voices echoing across the vast expanse.
“True Queen! True Queen!”
“The moon falls!”
“She comes!”
“Muzzle that!” Givens shouted angrily, snapping his fingers at several guards who stood at the bottom of the dais. Elyssa heard them go, but she couldn’t see them. She didn’t dare break her mother’s gaze. The Queen stared down at her, furious, but beneath the anger Elyssa sensed impatience and deep frustration. Before the Queen banished her from court, Lady Glynn had often remarked that Queen Arla was like every parent of a teenager in history, and though Elyssa was twenty-one now, well out of her teens, the dynamic she shared with her mother had not matured. Out of the corner of her eye, Elyssa saw her younger brother, Thomas, smirking; he loved to see her in trouble.
Go ahead and smirk, you filthy little rapist. When I take the throne, I’ll imprison you too.
“This man is a terrorist,” the Queen said slowly, clearly choosing her words. “A danger to the kingdom. Why should we release him?”
“Because he knows nothing. If he did, Culp would have gotten it out of him. Welwyn Culp is, after all, the most feared interrogator in the New World . . . after Benin Ducarte, of course,” Elyssa added sweetly. The whole Keep knew that Culp hated being rated second against the Mort inquisitor.
The Queen’s eyes narrowed. Elyssa could have made many humanitarian pleas on behalf of Gareth, but she hadn’t bothered, for her mother only recognized and responded to coercion. The Queen couldn’t very well admit in open court that Culp hadn’t been able to flip a single real member of the Blue Horizon; such an admission would only add to the mystique around the movement, a mystique that was already causing Queen Arla considerable trouble. The Blue Horizon’s leader, the man they called the Fetch, was rumored to be either a magician or a shade. The mask he wore was said to have magical powers, the ability to turn men to stone, but it was his skills as a tactician that gave the Queen headaches. Nobles constantly came to court to complain of being robbed. Blue Horizon agents liked to travel the Almont periodically, distributing food and goods like Father Christmas himself, before disappearing like smoke. The Blue Horizon had stolen more than thirty thousand pounds’ worth of gold and arms in the past year alone.