The Queen's Secret Read online

  Everyone was still looking at her. Jilly sighed loudly. Margaret looked sad. Self-conscious, Anthea took a too large bite of one of her scones and nearly choked as Caesar had. Jilly helpfully moved over to the sofa beside Anthea and thumped her repeatedly on the back.

  “Perhaps I don’t have the Way after all,” Margaret said.

  “I’m sure you do,” Jilly said. “It’s just that Anthea is a prodigy.”

  “I am not,” Anthea protested faintly.

  “Of course you are, dear,” Queen Josephine said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “I don’t know how much of it is me, though,” Anthea said. “And how much of it is because my father, well, experimented on me.”

  Princess Margaret gasped. “And I thought my father was bad!” she said when they all looked at her.

  “Oh, no, I mean, my father loved me,” Anthea scrambled to explain. Her cheeks burned as she realized what she’d said. “And I’m sure your father, the king, loves you very much, too. But he, er, with Florian, there was something.”

  Jilly, who was calmly sipping her tea and watching Anthea with great amusement, finally came to her rescue. “My uncle Charles, Anthea’s late father, had a theory that the Way would be stronger if the horse and the rider were brought together at a much younger age,” she said demurely. “He had Anthea be present at Florian’s birth, had her feed him by hand as much as possible, and care for him, even though she was hardly more than a baby.

  “And he was clearly right.”

  “Fascinating,” the queen said, giving Anthea a look of great admiration. “But there’s no need for the rest of us to despair,” she added, turning to pat her daughter’s hand. “Jilly lives with horses and only just developed the Way in the last year.”

  “When the king isn’t here, spend as much time with the horses as you can,” Jilly urged the princess. “If your father says not to ride them, that’s not ideal, but can you not visit them in their pasture? Pet them? Groom them?”

  “I—I suppose I could do that,” Margaret said. “I mean, I have been doing that,” she clarified with more confidence.

  “Leave your father to me, Meg,” Queen Josephine said. “In light of this issue with the Kronenhofer ships, he will surely want to have as many people with the Way working for him as possible.”

  “What is this issue with the Kronenhofer ships?” Anthea asked, glad to not have any more talk about experiments or her being a prodigy. “You said no one was sure what happened?”

  “It is all very odd, and you may speak of it only to Captain Thornley,” the queen said. “Oh, and Finn, of course.” Unlike her husband, Queen Josephine had no problem recognizing Finn as a descendant of kings.

  “So all that we know,” Queen Josephine continued, “is that two warships appeared quite suddenly at the mouth of the Crown River. There was no record of them requesting passage down the river, which means that it was a hostile act.

  “But of course our river guard approached them in one of our small boats, and hailed the lead ship, to ask their intent. But the guard didn’t get an answer. Instead, the ship went into battle mode: all the portholes were locked up and the guns were moved into position to fire on the river guard.

  “The river guard gave another warning, and there was still no response, so they signaled to the garrison on shore, and fired a warning shot, and then the Kronenhofer ships opened fire. They turned the river guard ship into kindling and began to fire on the garrison. The garrison disabled the Kronenhofer ships. One of them sank, and the other burned almost to the waterline, and there were only a handful of survivors.”

  “And what did they say?” Anthea asked breathlessly. “Why did they come?”

  “Unfortunately, none of the survivors are very high ranking officers. All they were told was that they were to come to Coronam to discuss a great insult that was given to their emperor by my husband. But none of them knew what it was.

  “And letters that have been sent to Emperor Otto have just gotten a response, which is that he has no idea what those ships were doing there, that he knows of no insult, and did not order them to sail.”

  “But now he’s insulted,” Princess Margaret said, her voice grim. “And very, very angry that two of his newest ships are gone.”

  “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” Queen Josephine said with a sigh. “There’s been a great deal of arguing about trade agreements that are expiring this year,” she explained. “All very boring, but necessary, and then when something like this happens, it just adds a strain that makes things more complicated.”

  “It sounds like someone did it on purpose,” Jilly mused.

  “Oh, I don’t think—” the queen began, but then someone knocked softly on the double doors and entered.

  It was a maid in a crisp blue gown with a white apron. She bobbed a curtsy.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but it’s time to dress for dinner.”

  “The doors were closed,” Margaret said, under her breath.

  “Ah, thank you, Anne,” the queen said, shooting her daughter a quelling look. “But just for future reference, if the doors are closed, please just knock and someone will come out.”

  The maid turned slowly red.

  “It’s quite all right,” the queen said, rising. “You couldn’t have known. But where is Daphne? She’s usually the one trying to keep me on schedule.” The queen laughed and shook her head at Jilly and Anthea.

  “Isn’t this her week to visit her family?” Princess Margaret said, standing and brushing crumbs off her skirt.

  Anthea was glad to see she wasn’t the only one who had enjoyed her scones literally to pieces.

  “Ah, yes, she’s still in Travertine, then,” the queen said. She turned to Jilly and Anthea. “Well, you’ll join us for dinner, of course?

  “Meg, dear, will you get them some of your sister’s gowns? I’m guessing they only brought what could fit in a saddlebag.”

  “Oh, Annabel has just the thing. Things,” Margaret said, eyes lighting up. “I’m not allowed to wear them. But you could.”

  “Begging your pardon again, Your Majesty,” Anne said as they passed her going out of the sitting room. “But Daphne … she’s back from Tra’tine.”

  “Oh, is she?” Queen Josephine looked at the maid. “How odd! I haven’t seen her. Did she just get back this afternoon?”

  “She got back two days ago,” Anne said, her voice trembling. “But she, she’s real sick, Your Majesty. I wasn’t supposed to say anything unless she was still sick tomorrow, Mrs. Hodges said not to. But Daphne’s my best friend, ma’am, and … can’t we call the doctor today?”

  The queen put a hand on the girl’s thin shoulder. “Yes, yes, we can! But first, dear, you’d better take me to Daphne!”

  FLORIAN

  Florian did not like this place. The queen of men, Beloved of Holly, was kind and smelled always of good things. The house was always full of kind people, and there were many girls who liked to bring treats to the horses. It was good to see the mares he had known, too. Holly and Juniper, Blossom and Campanula were familiar to him from the Last Farm, as well as Domitian, who had been brought to this place to be their herd stallion, even though he had many years.

  But Florian did not like the big stone house where Beloved Anthea would disappear for many hours at a time. The first time they had come to this place, she had been very sick, too sick to ride him or visit him, but the Soon King had kept them in a paddock right outside the windows. He had left many of the windows open, in all weather, so that the horses could see him and he could speak to them often.

  But now other men, men who did not understand such matters, had built a paddock, away from the house. They had built a stable, and it was very nice, warm and dry. But Florian could not see the window where Beloved Anthea slept. If he called to her with his voice, she could not hear him, and if he called to her with the Way, it took her too long to leave the stone house and come to him.

&nb
sp; And Florian did not like the scents here. There was the scent of that king of men, that mate of Beloved of Holly who was loud and smelled of anger and fear, who would not touch a horse or look on them with kindness. He was not here, but his scent lingered and he might return at any time. Another smell was present, too, a smell that slid into Florian’s nostrils and brought fear with it. Florian thought he had smelled it at the camp, when the man with the box had made their pictures, but he wasn’t sure. Now he smelled it strongly, and he was sure, and he did not like it.

  It was a rank, creeping smell. A smell of sickness.

  We must go, he called out to Beloved Anthea.

  Soon, she answered. Soon.

  Florian paced the paddock and looked at his companions.

  We must go, he said to them. There is sickness.

  If you can smell it, Domitian said, it is too late.

  5

  ON THE ROAD

  “Are we being exiled?” Jilly said suddenly. She turned in her saddle to look at Anthea. Jilly appeared delighted at the idea, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “No,” Anthea said, horrified. “Of course not!”

  She drew Florian alongside Caesar so that Jilly wouldn’t need to shout to be heard. Especially if she was going to shout things like that. They were plodding up the main highway to the north, having just met up with two dozen more of the brigade who were leaving their courier posts and going back to Last Farm.

  “Oh, come on! We are being sent beyond the Wall,” Jilly said, eyes gleaming. “Just like the exiles of old! Can’t we say we’ve been exiled?”

  “We’re not being sent beyond the Wall, we live beyond the Wall,” Anthea said, exasperated. “We’re not being exiled … Why would you want that?”

  “It makes us sound dangerous and exciting,” Keth said, coming up on Jilly’s other side. “Pardon me, miss,” he intoned. “Could you give a lonely exile directions?” His flirtatious air was marred by a sudden hacking cough that started on the last word and kept going for a full five minutes while he huddled over his stallion’s neck.

  “Do you still have that cough?” Jilly asked when he was done.

  “First of all,” he gasped, “yes, obviously. And secondly, does it offend your ladyship or something?”

  “No, I mean, I didn’t mean to,” Jilly said, flustered. “Sound that way. I meant, poor you …”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to sound accusatory,” Anthea chimed in. “But really, that’s a horrible cough! Are you all right?”

  “Just caught something riding back and forth and sleeping in tents for the last month,” Keth said with a shrug. He coughed again.

  “What did Nurse Shannon say?”

  He smells all right to me, Florian interjected. Anthea stroked his neck.

  “She said that as a nurse she thinks I’m fine,” Keth said. “But as a mother she wants me to go home and get plenty of rest.” He shrugged. “So here I go!”

  “She wants her own son to be exiled?” Jilly put the back of her gloved hand to her brow. “Tragic!”

  “We are not being exiled,” Anthea scolded, looking around to see if there was anyone nearby.

  She wasn’t worried about any of the other riders hearing them. They were used to Jilly’s theatrics, and some of them actually were exiles, though Anthea had never dared to ask which riders, or why. She didn’t want to find out that the grandfatherly man who carved little wooden horses for her, or the gruff but kindly one who offered to clean her saddle, was a murderer.

  There were about twenty riders, including Anthea, Jilly, and Keth, and twice that many horses heading back to the farm. They were to wait there for instructions about a new system of passing messages that the king was working on with Andrew’s help. What Anthea worried about was passing some people who weren’t riders and having them think they were some sort of dreadful mass exiling.

  “Does it actually matter?” Jilly said when she saw Anthea standing in her stirrups to try to look over a hedgerow.

  “Yes, it does,” Anthea said.

  “You know if you want to be a Rose Maiden, you can just ask the queen in person to make you one? And she probably will,” Jilly said.

  Once upon a time Anthea’s fondest wish had been to be one of the queen’s elite ladies-in-waiting. The Rose Maidens were held up as the finest, most accomplished women in all Coronam. Her mother had been one, and Anthea had thought that her mother’s career had ended with her untimely death. However, it turned out that her mother had not died, but had abandoned Anthea and gone on to be one of the king’s most trusted spies.

  Meeting her mother at long last, and finding out about Genevia Cross-Thornley’s rather sinister career, had initially cured Anthea of any desire to be a Rose Maiden. But after getting to know Queen Josephine, Anthea had begun to think that if she could be a Rose Maiden, and still be with Florian, it might be all right. There had never been a Leanan horsewoman who was also a Rose Maiden, and Anthea was secretly thrilled at the idea of being the first.

  “It’s not that,” Anthea said, blushing to think how it would have been exactly that not too long ago. “But do you think that people will want to make friends with the horses and receive messages from their riders if they believe that we’re all exiles?”

  “She has a point,” Keth said. “Especially since some of us are children.”

  “I’m not a child,” Jilly argued, then stopped. “Which I guess makes it worse.”

  “No one here is an exile,” Rogers, the rider in charge of the group, dropped back to say. “And since we are about to turn into that farmyard and ask to water our horses, I would appreciate it if you would change the subject!”

  “I suppose,” Jilly said, giving a pained sigh. “Though I don’t know why you have to rob us of our one pleasure on this dreary march toward our exile.”

  Rogers looked helplessly at Anthea.

  “I’ll stuff my handkerchief in her mouth,” Anthea told him.

  “Thank you, Miss Thea,” he said.

  He urged his stallion to the front of the group as they turned down a short lane that led to a farmhouse and outbuildings. The other riders drew their horses into ranks behind him, putting the strings of riderless horses in the middle. Anthea was leading her two charges, Leonidas and Bluebell, and she gave their leading line a tug so that Bluebell was right next to Florian and Leonidas just behind. He started to crowd Florian, who laid his ears back, so Anthea turned in the saddle and gave the other stallion a dire look along with a mental warning, and he dropped back. Bluebell complained about the stallions jostling her, and Anthea reached over and rubbed the mare’s neck as she reassured her with the Way.

  Jilly moved her horses back and around so that Buttercup was beside Bluebell, the two mares greeting each other with flickering ears and little whickers, and Caesar was on the other side of them. Buttercup and Bluebell, longtime herd-mates, were the first horses that Jilly or Anthea had ridden, and Anthea often felt guilty that so much of her time in the saddle was now spent on Florian.

  Anthea had to remind herself that it was actually Florian she had ridden first, sitting on his back as a small child, her father holding her in place so that they would have a feel for each other. She had no memories of this, but Florian had shared his impression with her, so she had some strange images from time to time, almost as if she had once been a horse. She had tentatively asked her uncle if such a thing was possible, and he had reassured her that she had been born human, and would stay human, though he did sound a little wistful about it.

  Anthea felt the jealousy coming from Leonidas and turned around again, this time to assure him that he was being very, very good and she also loved him. She did it entirely through the Way, however, without adding any patting or tugs at his mane, since they were now drawing up in the farmyard, near the well, scattering chickens and geese as they did so. A black-and-white collie dog came out to bark at them, but the tabby cat lounging on the side of the well barely looked up before returning to grooming her paw
s.

  The combination of the collie barking and the commotion that resulted from dozens of hooves stamping on hard-packed dirt brought the farmwife running. She stopped short in the doorway, apron clenched in her fists and dishcloth forgotten on one shoulder. After goggling for a full minute, she yelled at the dog.

  “Jyp! Get in here!” There was a rising note of panic in her voice.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Rogers called out to her. “Please don’t be alarmed! We need your help!”

  The woman grabbed the dog by the collar and started to drag him into the house, never taking her eyes off the nearest horse, and Anthea didn’t blame her. The nearest horse was Rogers’s stallion, who was very tall and imposing.

  “Hold them,” Anthea said, handing Jilly the leads for Bluebell and Leonidas.

  She nudged Florian with her mind and he edged forward through the herd until they were at the front. Luckily the farmwife hadn’t been able to close the door yet; the dog was trying to make sure that the horses knew exactly whose farm they were invading.

  “Good afternoon,” Anthea called out over the barking. “Ma’am? Can you help us, please?”

  The woman’s eyes slowly took in Anthea’s long hair hanging over her shoulder, the high-necked, pleated front of her white blouse under her army coat, and then the rose pinned to her lapel. The farmwife made a perfect O with her mouth and then, grasping the dog firmly by the collar to make sure he didn’t get free, she stepped back out of the house and closed the door behind her.

  “Are you … are you a Rose Maiden?”

  My Own Jilly says to say yes, came from Caesar.

  “We are friends of the queen,” Anthea said primly.

  “Under orders from the Crown,” Rogers threw in, but he had moved aside to give Anthea more room.

  “Friends of the queen?” the woman said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Anthea said. “Well, my cousin and I are.” She waved a hand over her shoulder in Jilly’s general direction. “But all of the horses and their riders work for the Crown. We’re called the Horse Brigade.”