~ Tasha ~

It’s the weak woman who gives up. Was it Mother who had said that? Aunt Danyer? One of her lectors at Rindehall? Whoever it was, their words had left an impression. Tash had no intention of letting the Ladies beat her. Even if she was a nobody, she would have kept trying until they got it into their stupid heads that she was just as good as they were. But she wasn’t a nobody—not now. She was the queen.

Okay, so it wasn’t official yet—but it was going to be. And that meant she was better than all the Ladies put together. So they simply had to take her seriously now.

As always, she’d had Sesi dress her in her finest, and the make-up had taken an hour. She’d even bought a new caul just for the occasion. It had been a special order from Madame Dravis—white gossamer adorned with an apple-blossom broderie. She’d also put on her mother’s gold band. It was simple and vaguely tarnished, not strictly a piece of high fashion, but then she was their queen. Why shouldn’t she set her own trend? Especially when it was such an elegant piece of jewellery. Tash would be the envy of them all, and no doubt about that. And there was already a great wide smirk on her face just in anticipation.

Mother had bought the ring from a merchant in Preco, before Tash had been born—before the war. Once, when Tash was fifteen, the family had travelled to Preco for a short stay. It was unrecognisable from the paradise it had once been. The dead outnumbered the living, even three years removed from the end of the slaughter. The hotels and eateries that lined the beaches were hollow, blackened shells. They’d found the merchant’s stall. The merchant was not there. He was dead, a victim of the bloodshed. Him and twelve thousand others.

Had the first Caerlins on Tol Manase built their home on a different spit of land, Tash might well have ended up the same way as the merchant. It was said that, in places, nobody was left alive for miles around.

Sesi must have sensed that she was dwelling on the past. The ladiesmaid squeezed her shoulder, and the old times were washed away from her mind. The air was fresh today. The sun bright. Why live in the dark times?

Tash found the Ladies in their usual gathering place, in the grove on the western bank of the river. It had changed a bit since last time. The previously-unkempt trees had been pruned back to a whisper of their full glory. Behind the trees, the Ladies’ territory was marked by a wall of hazel hurdles, and whitewashed planks had been placed along the length of the river. Because far be it for anybody of noble birth to ever get their feet wet, of course. Those were precious feet.

Sesi was right behind her as she walked into the grove. “Head up high,” she whispered—not that Tash needed the advice. Any higher and her head was like to fall off the back of her neck.

There were at least a dozen of these noble Ladies gathered, most sat beneath the shade of trees or parasols or sitting effortlessly demure on the water’s edge. Fiouhart appeared not to be here—but Tash recognised plenty of others, horse-faced Judith Sorrell and Eleonore Roberwood with her tightly coiled hair, and of course Felicity Peulion too. Just once, let me come to the grove and not have to see that big-nosed bitch.

It was Eleonore Roberwood who was first to spot Tash. A smile formed on Roberwood’s beamish face, and for just a second Tash dared to hope that at last she’d won their approval. But other heads turned to face her. Scowling faces. Peulion, Holden, Morningay, all the usual suspects. Pereneth Aster and her whore daughter Allyce glowered at Tash.

“This isn’t a place for you,” Peulion sneered. “You were told.”

“And to bring your servant with you?” Taya Morningay collapsed into phony giggles, apparently forgetting that it was her own cook who’d been stewing apples when last Tasha had been to the grove.

Sesi gripped her shoulder. “They’re testing you, Lady,” she said, softly.

“And who are they to test me?” Tash pulled Sesi’s hand free. “I am the queen.”

A couple of the Ladies raised eyebrows. Sorrell snickered into her hand.

Tash strode into the midst of them all, arms outstretched. “Did you hear me? I am the Queen of Essegena. Why, I have more right to be here than any of you.”

“Queen? You’re just a commoner’s whelp,” said Peulion.

“And what does that make you?”

Peulion shook her head. “I don’t think you understand. You’re not a queen, not even if the Governor says so. That’s not how it works. But even if you were, it would change nothing.”

“You still wouldn’t be welcome here,” said Morningay.

“We don’t like you,” said Roberwood. “And it’s not because we think we’re better than you. It’s because you’re rude, and arrogant, and downright unpleasant.”

“No.” Tash shook her head. “I’m not the unpleasant one. You thought you could kick me out because my father worked in a coal mine.”

“None of us said that,” said Peulion.

A lie, surely, but Tash couldn’t be bothered to replay the whole conversation in her mind. The highlights were more than enough. “You called me a bitch,” she said, pointing a finger at Peulion directly.

“Because of how you talked about your family. The things you said... about your parents, your husband, your sister.” Peulion shook her head slowly. “Your birth doesn’t make you better than anybody. And it doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself it does—it will never become true.”

Tash could only laugh. “I think you’re a jealous bitch,” she said. “Here’s the truth: you don’t like me, you’ve never liked me, and now you’re trying to think of ways to discredit me, because you know I’m better than you are. And I am better. I’m the Queen.”

“What if we don’t accept it? Nobody asked me if you should be queen,” said Roberwood.

“You have to accept it. It’s a fact.” Tash folded her arms, satisfied. Peulion’s lies had been a miscalculation. She’d overplayed her hand, and the other Ladies were turning on her. Tash could feel them coming round.

A couple of the Ladies shared glances, Peulion among them. Then Peulion looked to Tash. “If we’re to accept you as queen,” she said, “then you must be gracious enough to let us observe the traditions.”

“You can kiss my feet if you’d like,” said Tash, confused.

Peulion pulled a face. “Those disgusting things? No, I don’t think so. Let us raise you aloft.”

“Yes, let us,” added Allyce Aster, bringing the chorus.

“High in the air, to show we are beneath you,” said Judith Sorrell.

Tash had never heard of the tradition. She turned to Sesi for confirmation, but found one of the Ladies right behind her. They closed on her from all directions. Each had an evil grin on her face, each had reaching arms, and Tash didn’t even have time to hope for escape. They grabbed hold of her—and held her high in the air. And it was as if she was flying. She bounced on their raised hands and basked in their grovelling proclamations.

“Queen Tasha,” they said, almost as one. And she felt thoroughly stupid for ever thinking that they meant to harm her.

And all of a sudden she was flying through the air. She had barely a second to react before she hit the water and plunged beneath the surface. It was like ice—and like a fool, she gasped and inhaled it. Her feet touched the silt at the bottom of the river, felt the probing fingers of weeds that thought to grip her. She pushed and kicked.

And then, at last, she was on the surface again. At once she set to coughing and spluttering, bobbing up and down and letting in as much water as she was getting out. Her arms splashed feebly at her sides. On the shoreline, the Ladies laughed. Briefly, she caught a glimpse of Sesi pushing to get past them.

But they were all getting further away.

She’d never given much thought to the river’s current before, but from where she was she had no alternative. It was far stronger than she’d anticipated. She’d learned to swim—Father had insisted. But even appropriately dressed she’d have struggled. Imprisoned by petticoats and fabrics made heavy by the water, she didn’t stand a chance. It was all she could do just to keep her head above.

And all the while, her only hopes of salvation laughed at her from a safe distance.

The river only seemed to get wider the further it pulled her. More weeds came to cuddle her feet with every passing minute, and so she kicked at them and hoped they wouldn’t grab hold of her. There was nobody to see her from the shore here. If she slipped below she’d be dead.

At places, its meandering path suddenly changed direction. On three or four occasions, she was buffeted hard against the shoreline by the current—but before she had chance to reach for something solid to grab onto, she’d been whisked away again.

“Help me!” It was unbecoming of a queen to scream so helplessly, but it would be more unbecoming of a queen to drown. She screamed it a few times, until the water poured into her open mouth and set her on another fit of coughing. If anybody heard, they didn’t show themselves.

Tash was getting tired now. Her arms burned. Even if she somehow stayed afloat, rode the river until it broke out to a sea, what would she do? Rivers ran for miles, often hundreds of miles. She couldn’t walk that far, even if she knew the way.

And there was nobody else. Not on this whole planet. If she couldn’t find her way to the valley, she would never see human life again. And if by some miracle she lived long enough to bring Jem to term, what then? She’d have to give birth to him alone. Face all the pain. And then raise him, alone. She wasn’t ready for that.

She tipped her head back and caught a glimpse of the sky. This early in the afternoon, the faint shapes of Essegena’s moons had barely made themselves visible. The stars would be hidden for hours to come. Hours she probably didn’t have.

She’d never realised before just how lonely this world was.

And now she had, just in time to die. She splashed gamely towards the shoreline, making no progress as the current kept pulling her on. It wasn’t with illusions of somehow fighting the current. It was just something to do. She had to try to fight. Even if the river was destined to win.

Mercifully, a jutting rock split the river in two, and a fallen tree lay across one half of the surface. Tash kicked as best she could, kicked and hoped. And the currents were kind. She drifted that way, into the welcoming arms of that dead tree. It was half-rotted, and its branches jabbed her painfully, but it was at least a stop. She reached for it with her hands. The first branch she grabbed snapped away as she pulled on it. The second held firm.

Here, the river bank was shallow, and grass rather than rock. If she could just get over there, she could probably lever herself out of the water and onto dry land. If she could get over there. Through some contortion, she was able to pull her feet up onto the outcropping rock without letting go of the branch. It had her sideways, her ear just a fraction above the surface. The rushing water sounded from such a close vantage point somehow even scarier than when she was fully submerged.

She kicked hard from the rock and reached her free arm towards the bank. And reached it. The damp earth was unpleasant as it seeped between her fingers, but at least it was solid ground.

At least today wasn’t the day she died.

She scrambled up onto the riverbank, soaked through from head to toe, and lay in the grass for a bit. She must have looked a mess. Her make-up was surely washed off—and Sesi had put so much effort into it.

Sesi. No doubt the poor woman was frantic right now, racing downstream to try and find Tash. The scene as she fell was etched into her brain, and only Sesi hadn’t been laughing. All the Ladies had been in fits. They wouldn’t have found it so funny if Tash had drowned. A life imprisoned beneath the Lord Constable’s tower was nothing to laugh at. But Tash would have laughed, or at least her ghost would have.

As it was, she hadn’t drowned, so the point was moot. And she certainly wasn’t laughing. She was panting, and she was shivering, and she was absolutely drenched.

She’d grasped shore on the narrowest strip of sandy grass, with water on one side and thickets of thorn and bramble on the other three. These spiteful bushes whispered in the day’s gentle breeze. A bird sung sweetly from somewhere nearby. And there was another sound, too. Voices.

Tash tensed. She’d been carried quite a ways downriver. This bit of the valley was a fair step beyond the edge of town, and it wasn’t even a pleasant place to sit—certainly not from her vantage point. Why come here to talk?

She crawled as close as she dared to the thorn-bushes. They were just sparse enough that she could make out bits and pieces through the gaps. On the other side was a field of wild grasses and knobbly trees, the ground uneven and carpeted with gorse. Two men stood in the shade of one of the trees. One was a head taller than the other, and both were just obscured enough by various bits of branch and leaf that Tash couldn’t make out a single identifying feature.

Still, a voice in the back of her head told her it was best not to make herself known.

“The incident at the hospital is unfortunate,” the tall man was saying. “The loss of life is of course regrettable, but so is the delay.”

“I figured the incident had somehow been orchestrated,” said the other, a man with a gruff voice.

“No. Not by us, in any case. It’s something of a headache for the Ealdor.”

“I see. And the bottle—?”

“It’s too soon to say for sure,” said the tall man. “Though it’s certainly not of local origin. Fitzlionel all but confirmed it.”

“So it’s definitely come from off-world?”

“That’s the implication. Though I daresay the vast majority of items on this planet came from off-world.”

“I bet it’s come from that reeve, the one who’s always following the Governor around.” Tash’s mind couldn’t help but jump to Oliver. She tensed. “I don’t trust him one bit, I—”

“Enough about that,” the tall man snapped. “Your focus is the girl. Her continued safety is imperative.”

“Well...”

“Well, what?”

“There have been unforeseen complications,” said the gruff man. “The girl is safely under observation, and much too scared to speak out—the Ealdor need not fear in that regard. But the sister’s here too. That was not expected.”

“No doubt the Ealdor has planned for this,” said the tall man.

“How could he plan for this? There was no warning. If they were to come into contact—”

“Have they? Already?”

“I’m not aware of it,” said the gruff man. “But it can’t be ruled out.”

There was a brief pause. Tash tried to shift across a little, to better see the two men. The sodden dress caught on a twig as she crawled and rode up, exposing her midriff. Her bare belly brushed a nettle. Ouch. She stifled the exclamation, just barely.

“I’ll make sure the Ealdor is aware,” said the tall man. “We shouldn’t act without his approval.”

“I can’t be certain,” said the gruff man, “but the sister has struck up a friendship with Caroline Ballard. At least, that’s what my sources are telling me.”

“There’s no need to worry on that front. Caroline Ballard is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Or dying. What does it matter who’s befriended some moribund physician?”

“If you’re sure,” said the gruff man, though he himself sounded uncertain. “But is it not at least worth mentioning?”

The tall man scoffed. “The sister is ancillary at best. There are enough moving parts in this already, there’s no need focusing on her any more than we have to. Who she’s friends with is irrelevant.”

“Even the Governor’s wife?”

“Even the Governor’s wife. Forget about the sister. Just try to keep them apart, at least until the Ealdor can make a decision.”

The two men moved away from the trees, and Tash ducked down in case either of them chanced to look her way. From her new position flat against the floor she could only see their legs.

“You’ll wait a good while before starting back,” said the tall man. “It’s important we arrive separately in town. And don’t seek me out, unless it’s an emergency. We’ll be in touch with you.”

“What about the farm?”

“Keep on as you have been. The game should be payment enough.”

“I just worry. My wife is getting suspicious, I fear,” said the gruff man.

“Then make her unsuspicious. Feed her some cock-and-bull story, lie low for a few days, whatever you have to do. I’m sure you can figure something out.” The tall man strode away, disappearing quickly from view. Tash became acutely aware of a pressure in her bladder—but she dared not move, not until the other man was gone too. And he took ages going.

At last, just when she thought she might burst, the gruff man decided he’d left it long enough, and followed the other away. North, that must be. Towards the town.

Tash relieved herself in the cover of the undergrowth, her mind going at a million miles an hour. She’d definitely heard them talking about her husband. If Oliver was in danger... But then the men had mentioned someone called the Ealdor. The name was unnervingly familiar. Where had she heard it? A memory stirred in the bottom of her mind, but it stubbornly refused to rise to the surface. All she had was the certainty that she’d heard something she very definitely wasn’t supposed to hear.

When her bladder was empty, she started home, and she ran the whole way there.

Millington was on the front gate when she arrived, idly tapping on the butt of his rifle. He looked her over, wide-eyed. “Lady Tasha. We were so worried. Lieutenant Sharp’s been searching for you all over.” Millington turned back to the house. “She’s here,” he yelled.

His yell had alerted the household. Tash was greeted at the front door by Eva, who jumped up to hug her, and Emmy, who didn’t. She smiled and wriggled free of Eva’s grip, only to find Goodwife Mabeth stood in the hallway. “You don’t all need to rush to me,” she said.

“Don’t be so daft,” said Goodwife Mabeth. “Of course we did. Sesi said you’d fallen into the river—”

“I was pushed.”

Goodwife Mabeth nodded. “Well, Master Wrack has been apoplectic. He’s been out with half the household guard, searching the riverbank for you. And if I may say, we were beginning to fear the worst.” Goodwife Mabeth’s fussing lasted for the best part of ten minutes. Maybe she’d never married Aunt Danyer, but she’d certainly learnt all of Aunt Danyer’s favourite grandmothering tactics. Tash was grateful when she could finally get away. Even if it did mean pretending she needed a nap.

She did lie down on her bed, when she had at last clambered up the stairs to her chambers. And she changed into her nightdress too—not because she was sleepy, but because her clothes were soaked through and it seemed silly to put on a nice outfit just to lie down. Millington had sent Quant to fetch Oliver. Her husband would be here soon, and she could tell him everything. And that would make it better. Telling him always made it better.

She dared not go to the Constabulary. The Lord Constable would laugh at her for wasting his time again—all while Stini was rotting in a filthy cell somewhere far beneath his feet. There’d be no help from the Constabulary, none at all, and she’d only end up angry again. But Oliver would know what to do.

What was taking so long? Tash stared up at the ceiling, the dull white ceiling. It had been a habit when she was a little girl—whenever Tema had cheated at their game, or cried foul and got Tash sent to her room, she’d lie on her back and gaze up at the plaster sky. But the ceiling back home was more interesting. It was hundreds of gilded roundels, all overlapping each other. She always used to try and work out which was the top roundel. She’d never figured it out. They all seemed to underlap another at some point.

At last, perhaps half an hour later, she heard footsteps on the landing. Oliver. He would be happy to see her safe and well, and she would just melt in his arms.

The door creaked as it opened.

“Lady, they said you were home safe.” That wasn’t Oliver’s voice. That was Sesi. Tash looked away from the ceiling, turning her head to the door. Sweat had clearly covered Sesi’s face, smearing her make-up and making her look about as hideous as Tash felt. Strands of copper hair stuck to Sesi’s cheeks. And yet she still looked elegant as ever. “I’m so sorry, Lady, I should have jumped in after you.”

“It’s fine,” said Tash.

Sesi shook her head. “No. No, it isn’t fine. You might have been hurt, and I wasn’t there, because I did not learn to swim. And I was raised beside the sea—I should be a fine swimmer.”

Tash smiled weakly. “You’re hard on yourself, Sesi, and I love you for it. Why don’t you talk to Nickie? Have her bake some biscuits?” Anything to get Sesi to leave her for two minutes. She just wanted to be alone—because what if Oliver were to come back now? He mightn’t realise just how much Tash needed him. Needed to talk to him.

Where was Oliver anyway? Why did it always have to be Sesi who was on hand? Tash felt her lip quivering. No, I will not show weakness. Not in front of my ladiesmaid.

She could never have hoped to hide it. Sesi saw. “What is it, Lady? What’s the matter?”

“Oh Sesi... I heard some things.” Despite herself, Tash found herself reaching out for Sesi, and the ever-faithful maid was there to offer the consoling hug. And that was it. Everything came spilling out then, in a disgusting mix of talk and tears. Tash told her all about the riverbank, and the two men, and Sesi listened tentatively. And she held onto Tash all the time. It didn’t seem to matter that Tash was a thorough embarrassment not worthy of calling herself ‘queen’.

Eventually Tash fell asleep, still being cradled by Sesi, and it was like she was a little girl again. Oh, but why couldn’t things be as easy?