The Invasion of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling #2)(9)
“Once a week,” the Queen continued, “you’ll come upstairs and give me a report on all three of your prisoners. If you need to, take notes.”
Ewen nodded, pleased that she assumed he could read and write. Most people thought he couldn’t, but Da had taught him, so that he could keep the book.
“Do you know what suffering is, Ewen?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Behind your three prisoners there is another man, a tall starving-thin man with bright blue eyes. This man is an agent of suffering, and I want him alive. Should you ever see him, you send word to Lazarus immediately. Do you understand?”
Ewen nodded again, his mind already full of the picture she had put there. He could see the man now: a looming scarecrow figure with eyes like great blue lamps. He longed to try to paint him.
The Queen reached out, and after a moment Ewen realized that she wanted to shake his hand. Her guards tensed, several of them placing hands on their swords, so Ewen offered his hand, very carefully, and allowed her to shake it. The Queen didn’t wear any rings, and Ewen wondered at this. He wondered what Da would say when Ewen told him that he’d met the Queen, that she wasn’t at all how Ewen had thought she would be. He stood by his cells, keeping an eye on all of the prisoners, but also peeking at the Queen as the five guards surrounded her and seemed to carry her in a wave, down the hallway and up the stairs, out of his dungeon.
Kelsea Glynn had a temper.
She was not proud of this fact. Kelsea hated herself when she was angry, for even with her heart thumping and a thick veil of fury obscuring her vision, she could still see, clearly, the straight path from unchecked anger to self-destruction. Anger clouded judgment, precipitated bad decisions. Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen. Carlin had impressed these facts upon her, many times, and Kelsea had listened. But even Carlin’s words had no weight when fury washed over Kelsea; it was a tide that cleared all obstacles. And Kelsea knew that although her anger was destructive, it was also pure, the closest she would ever get to the girl she really was deep down, beneath all of the controls that had been instilled in her since birth. She had been born angry, and she often wondered what it would be like to release her rage, to drop all pretense and let her true self out.
Kelsea was working very hard to contain her anger now, but every word from the man across the table made the dark wave behind the dam swell a bit further. Mace and Pen were beside her, Arliss and Father Tyler in seats farther down the table. But Kelsea saw nothing but General Bermond, seated down at the other end. On the table before him lay an iron helmet topped with a ridiculous blue plume. Bermond was dressed in full armor, for he had just ridden in from the front.
“We don’t want to stretch the army too thin, Majesty. It’s a poor use of resources, this plan.”
“Must everything be a fight with you, General?”
He shook his head, clinging doggedly to his point. “You can defend your kingdom, or you can defend your people, Majesty. You don’t have the manpower to do both at once.”
“People are more important than land.”
“An admirable statement, Majesty, but poor military strategy.”
“You know what these people suffered in the last invasion.”
“Better than you do, Majesty, for you weren’t even born yet. The Caddell ran red. It was wholesale murder.”
“And mass rape.”
“Rape’s a weapon of war. The women got over it.”
“Oh Christ,” Mace breathed, and put a restraining hand on Kelsea’s arm. She started guiltily, for Mace had caught her. General Bermond might be old and lame, but she had still been thinking of dragging him from his chair and giving him several good, hard kicks. She took a deep breath and spoke carefully. “Men were raped along with the women, General.”
Bermond frowned, annoyed. “That is apocryphal, Majesty.”
Kelsea met Father Tyler’s eye, saw him give a slight shake of the head. No one wanted to talk about this facet of the last invasion, not even twenty years later, but the Arvath had received many consistent reports from local parish priests, the only observers to really chronicle the invasion. Rape was a weapon of war, and the Mort did not discriminate by gender.
Kelsea suddenly wished that Colonel Hall could have attended this council. He didn’t always agree with her, but he was at least willing to look at all sides of a thing, unlike the General, whose mind had hardened long ago. But the Mort army had reached the border several days ago, and Hall could not be spared.
“We’re wandering from the subject, Majesty,” Arliss remarked.
“Agreed.” Kelsea turned back to Bermond. “We have to protect these people.”
“By all means, Majesty, build a refugee camp and take in every stray. But don’t sidetrack my soldiers from more important business. Those who want your protection can find a way to the city by themselves.”
“That’s a dangerous journey to make alone, particularly with small children. The first wave of refugees is barely out of the hills, and we’ve already had reports of harassment and violence along the way. If that’s the only option we offer, many of them will choose to stay in their villages, even when the Mort draw near.”
“Then that’s their choice, Majesty.”
The dam in Kelsea’s mind shuddered, its foundations weakening. “Do you honestly not know the right thing to do, General, or do you just pretend not to know because it’s easier that way?”