“Yes, my queen,” said the guard with the halberd, and they dragged Fenris away.
Kania did not watch. She turned to Marra, and Marra recognized the look in her eyes. It was the look that she had as a child, when she had been doing something she should not have done. It said, Don’t you dare tell on me, or I will end you.
It settled Marra’s nerves as hardly anything else could. Suddenly they were both children, both in this together, and the awareness of her sister’s hate, the one that had been under her breastbone since she was a child, fell away. She took a step forward.
“You tried to warn us, Sister,” said Kania. Throwing her the lie, waiting for her to catch it.
“I did,” she said in her best nun’s voice. “I’m sorry. I was late and the … the false godmother was behind me. I could tell something was wrong. I only wish I’d realized what she had planned.”
Kania nodded. “Your warning might have spared us much worse. This was a cunning trap, well laid,” she said, and somehow, because she said it like a queen, it became true. All the courtiers had seen Agnes run away and Fenris was just one man with a sword, and yet Marra could practically hear the story shift inside their heads.
“My son is the rightful king,” said Kania. “But he is not a week old and already he has been cursed by this kingdom’s enemies.” Her gaze swept the room. “I will stand as his regent, but I will not stand alone. I will require loyal advisors to stand with me, men who will put the kingdom first, above power or personal gain.” She turned to the fox-bearded man. “Lord Marlin, I would have you be first among those. Will you accept?”
Lord Marlin inclined his head gravely. Marra suspected that he had begun planning the moment that the king had died, but he let the silence draw out, to give the question appropriate gravity. “Yes, my queen,” he said. “For the young king.”
“And General Takise,” said Kania, sweeping in the other direction. “You were his grandfather’s closest confidant. Will you stand with the young king, also?”
General Takise had iron hair and an iron bearing. He put his fist over his heart. “For the young king,” he said gruffly.
“Then we are agreed,” said Kania. She reached into the cradle and lifted her son. “We three shall serve as regents, until my son reaches his majority. And now…” For the first time, her voice filled with emotion, with sorrow so finely feigned that Marra marveled at it. “Now I must mourn my husband and make arrangements for his funeral. And his murderer. I beg you, my fellow regents, to bring me proposals for my son’s safety. It seems that we are at war with someone, and we must learn who. And quickly.”
And she swept out of the room, her head held high, carrying her son, while the courtiers erupted into amazement behind her.
* * *
“That was astoundingly well done,” said Marra’s mother, less than an hour later. “You got the two biggest rivals to the throne backing you.”
“They had to back me, or risk the other one gaining ascendancy. Takise is a good sort, anyway. Marlin you can’t trust any farther than you can throw him, but he is at least predictably power hungry.” Kania held her son to her breast, gazing at him with a kind of baffled astonishment. “Mother … what the hell do I do now?”
“Exactly what you’ve been doing. You seized control at the moment when it was all up in the air. If one of the others had acted like they were in charge first, you would have lost everything, but you moved first and that matters.”
Marra shook her head. She was beyond exhausted and she could hardly think. “Fenris…” she began.
Kania looked around. She had dismissed the servants and they were all in the tiny chapel again, ostensibly praying for the soul of Vorling. “I’ll do what I can,” she said, half in a whisper. “But I don’t know if I can spare his life. He murdered the king in front of everyone. I don’t know.”
Marra’s stomach clenched. She rested her forehead on the rail that separated mourners from coffins. There was no coffin yet. Would there be a coffin for Fenris?
I thought we had a better plan. I thought it was going to make more sense. I thought that Agnes would give the curse and then magic would make Vorling trip on the stairs or choke on a fish bone or something. I didn’t realized Fenris would just … just …
But of course he had. He was a man who got things done. He had been willing to die and he had seen a way to end the matter. Agnes had gotten away. Kania was free. A tyrant was dead. Fenris would have thought it was a fair trade, his life for Vorling’s death, but all Marra could think was that it was not fair, it was one more cruelty, as if Vorling had reached out from the grave and struck a final blow.