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“I don’t imagine there’s enough left of the body to identify but check his weapons. Let me know as soon as you have something. Oh, and Wallace?” Arrabel paused, her escort pausing in perfect formation with her. “See that the mule is given a good home. Something about it reminds me of my late husband.”
“His knives are Mecadain, Majesty.” Wallace laid all four blades in a row on the table. “As were what was left of his boots.”
There was no point in asking if he were sure. He wouldn’t have told her if he wasn’t. “King Giorge again.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“I was pla
“I think that’s why he was trying to remove you, Majesty.”
“Yes, well, you’d think that someone who didn’t want me to invade would put a little more effort into making friends and a little less effort into a
“A new wardrobe, Majesty?”
“I think we should let the people of Mecada know what their king has gotten them into and the bards will be able to reach more people if they’re not so obviously mine.”
Arrabel was the sole patron of the Bardic College. It was amazing how many bards preferred to sing warm and well-fed, permitted to travel freely about the land wearing the queen’s colors. Of course, there were always a few who insisted on suffering for art’s sake-so Arrabel saw to it that they did.
The queen accompanied her army into Mecada, turned a captured border town into a well fortified command center, and stayed there.
“You won’t be riding at the front of your army, Mother?”
“No, Danyel. When the ruler rides at the front of the army, she only gets in the way.”
“And there is also the great danger you would be in, Majesty!”
She glanced across the war room at Captain Jurin standing amid a group of staff officers and sighed. “Thank you for considering that, Captain.”
He blushed.
“I’m not afraid,” Danyel declared.
Arrabel settled her shawl more securely around her shoulders and stared at her son for a long moment. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. “I’m sure you aren’t,” she said at last. “Chose then whether you stay here or ride into battle.”
“I will ride into battle!”
She sighed again. “You’re begi
“Majesty?”
“Have a captain’s uniform made for my son.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Danyel stared at her, appalled “But-”
“Billy goats butt, dear. You’ll obey your commanders because their orders come from General Palatat-”
“But, Mother, I’m a prince!”
“-and General Palatat,” Arrabel continued mildly, “speaks for me.” She took his silence for assent and smiled. “Don’t grind your teeth, dear. Of course you’ll keep the lines of communication open between the battle and this command center,” she told the general. “But I trust you and your staff to do their job.” Which went without saying really because they wouldn’t have their jobs if she didn’t.
Queen Arrabel’s army had the advantage of numbers, training, and motivation. King Giorge’s people, invaded only because they were next on the list, had only the moral high ground.
“Free bread and beer, Mother?” Danyel, back in full royal regalia, rubbed at a smudge on his vanbrace as he rode beside his mother through the conquered capital.
“It doesn’t take much to make the people like you, dear. It’s worth making a bit of an effort.”
“But you just conquered them.”
“Most people don’t care who’s in charge just as long as someone is.”
“And the people who do care?”
“Are easy enough to replace.” Arrabel stared out at the city-many of its buildings damaged by her siege engines during the final battle-and began working out the amount of stone it would take to rebuild it. And, of course, there were schools to be built. Some of the more recalcitrant nobility could start hauling blocks in as soon as possible.
She let Danyel emerge first at the palace, waiting until her escort was in place before she stepped out of the carriage. She wore her usual neat clothing over sensible shoes and was well aware that next to her more flamboyant son she looked like a sparrow next to a peacock.
People tended not to shoot at sparrows.
“Mother, why didn’t you wear your crown?” Danyel asked her as they stepped carefully over the shattered remains of the palace gate.
“Everyone who needs to know who I am, knows.” Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she stopped in the outer courtyard and glanced over at a group of Mecadian soldiers-prisoners now-huddled next to the smoking ruin of what had probably been a stable.
“Wallace.”
“Majesty?”
“Make sure they let their mothers know they survived.”
“Yes, Majesty. And the ones who didn’t survive?”
“Well, they’ll hardly be able to write home now, will they?”
General Palatat met them outside King Giorge’s throne room in front of the enormous brass-bound doors. “The door’s been spelled, Majesty, we can’t break it down. But they’re still in there-King Giorge, Queen Fleya, both princes, both princesses.”
“Personal guards?”
“They died out here, Majesty, covering the royal family’s retreat.”
“All of them?” She glanced over at the liveried bodies piled out of the way. “My, that was short-sighted.”
“Yes, Majesty. One of the princesses has been talking through the keyhole. She says her brothers want to negotiate a surrender but they’ll only speak to you. Royal to royal as it were.”
“They could speak to me,” Danyel muttered.
His mother ignored him. “Do you think the princes will negotiate in good faith?”
“They are considered to be honorable men,” the general told her. “They will do what they feel is right regardless of the consequences.”
“They take after their father then.” The queen stared at the door to the throne room. The smart thing for King Giorge to have done would have been to get his family out of the country when it became obvious he’d lost-which would have been about half an hour after the first battle had been joined. Arrabel assumed he’d refused to leave his people or some such nonsense. “Well, tell them I’m here.”
At the general’s signal, one of the Queen’s Tabards banged on the door with a spear butt.
“Is she there?” Interestingly, the girl sounded more a
“I am.”
“There’s a secret exit at the end of the hall, by a statue of my father. Do you see it?”
“The statue?” There were ankles on a plinth and rather a lot of rubble. A bit of the rubble seemed to be wearing a stone crown. “No but I can see where it was.”
“My brothers will come out, stripped to their breeches so you can see they’re weaponless. You approach them alone and they’ll give you our father’s terms of surrender.”
“I’m to approach alone?” A raised hand cut off the general’s protest. “At two to one odds?”
“We know you have archers with you. You always have archers with you!”
“True enough. Very well, given that I have archers, I will meet you at the end of the hall.” She sighed and smoothed a wrinkle out of her skirt. “Wallace?”