The Consort, Chapter 12
Everyone was leaving her alone. With each minute, DG alternated between wishing someone would come and talk to her, and being glad they were staying away.
She’d walked calmly into the palace after Cain’s truck was gone, her family watching her in rapt surprise. She hadn’t spoken to anyone, just taken the lift to her residential floor and gone to her room. Now she was in her favorite spot, her window seat, looking out the window at the view of the towers of Central City, floating among them as she was in one of the highest floors of the Spire. The sun had set and a brackish rainfall was slicking the buildings and spattering against her window. It suited her mood.
She sensed Azkadellia outside the door before she knocked. It’s okay, Az. Come on in, she thought at her.
The bedroom door opened and she heard her sister’s light footsteps cross the room, then she was clambering up into the window seat, putting her back to the wall opposite DG and drawing up her knees, mimicing DG’s posture. She didn’t ask any question, she didn’t say anything, she just sat there.
A half hour must have gone by before DG finally spoke. “On the other side,” she said, “they have these optical illusion puzzle pictures. They don’t look like anything at first. Just a big mess of dots and splotches of all different colors. You can stare at them for hours and never see the picture. It’s right there. You just can’t see it if you look directly at it, or if you think too hard about trying to see it.”
Az was watching her face. “How do you see the picture, then?”
“The trick is not to look at it. You have to kind of look through it, and not think about it, and let your eyes go lazy and unfocused. You have to relax and let go of what you think you’re supposed to be seeing. Then all of a sudden, it pops out and there’s a horse, or a boat, or whatever. Then you can’t not see it.”
Azkadellia nodded.
DG watched the rain trace meandering rivulets on the outside of her window.
“I’m in love with my husband, Az.”
Az reached across and took DG’s hand. “I know.”
“When did that happen?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“What do you think I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out?”
“Come to any conclusions?”
DG let her chin rest on her knees. “Only that there isn’t a much worse time to realize this than when he’s going off on some insanely dangerous mission and he might…” She trailed off. She stared at her dim reflection in the window glass. She couldn’t look at Az right now. The sight of her understanding face would push her right over the edge.
“I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered.
She saw Az turn to look at her out of the corner of her eye. “Do your job. Go about your business. Run the kingdom. And wait.”
“What am I waiting for?”
“For him to come back, so you can tell him, and so he can tell you.”
Cain sat in the back seat of the truck and didn’t say much during their trip south. Danny was driving, but he and Damien got into arguments every half hour or so about how he was doing it, and how much better Damien would be doing.
“You gotta hit every damn pothole?”
“They’re kinda hard to miss.”
“I think you’re swerving to hit them on purpose. You know I strained my back last week.”
“Oh yeah? How’d you do that?”
“Screwing your sister, asshole.”
“Boys,” Cain grumbled. “Do I have to separate you two?”
“Sorry, Cain,” Danny said, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. Danny and Damien had been on Cain’s staff for a very long time, well before he’d merited that dreaded Your Highness title, and when they were away from the palace they didn’t stand much on ceremony.
He slumped down in his seat and let his eyes close. They’d rendezvous with the Army Infiltration unit and likely make camp for the night before heading to the border the next day. Anyway, he had plenty to think about.
Much as he tried to refocus on the mission at hand, and think of Jeb, his mind was spinning with thoughts of DG. He was still dumbstruck at himself that he’d done what he’d done. It hadn’t been planned. Just…inescapable. Walking away from her after that polite kiss, he’d felt like he was trying to walk during an earthquake, as the ground shifted beneath his feet. He couldn’t maintain his straight course, he had to weave and duck with the heaving earth and follow where it led him. A thousand images and thoughts of her had flashed through his mind, tumbling over and over each other and overlaid with the single truism that he might not return from this mission, and he’d never see her again. Every excuse he’d ever made, every feeling he’d ever rationalized away, ever impulse he’d ever quashed and every stray thought he’d written off as meaningless was revisited upon him tenfold, and the only thing to come from it was the absolute imperative that he couldn’t just leave it like that.
So he’d gone back and done what he’d absolutely never thought of doing before, what he’d never even considered, what he’d certainly never dreamt of alone in his bed at night, and when he’d taken her into his arms she’d felt just as he had never, ever imagined.
She had responded to him so readily, too. Far from being repulsed or shocked, as he’d feared, it was as if she’d just been waiting for him to make the first move. She had clutched at him and kissed him back like she’d rehearsed it in her mind a thousand times. If he let his mind drift he could almost still feel her there, in his arms.
Oh, DG. We are so stupid.
Nightfall found them in tents set up by the very efficient soldiers in the infiltration unit, who’d met up with them right on schedule. The lieutenant in charge had come up to Cain, saluted, and informed him that his men had scouted the area, declared it safe, located a suitable clearing, and set up a temporary overnight camp.
To that, Cain could do little more than say “Good work, Lieutenant” and be led to their camp. They’d designated one tent for his sole use. He’d objected that he could surely share with Danny and Damien, it wouldn’t be the first time, and if he took a tent for his own then the soldiers would be crowded.
The Lieutenant had seemed surprised that this was a consideration to Cain, but had agreed, so Cain moved his bag and some grateful-looking soldiers had relocated into the tent he’d abandoned.
Now he was sitting near the fire on a collapsible camp chair between Danny and Damien. The soldiers were much occupied with various tasks involving weapons, and cleaning things, and repacking things. These men were highly trained, much more than Cain himself had ever been. He would have liked to talk to them, but they all seemed to be avoiding him like the plague.
“Why won’t any of them talk to me?” he said to Damien, under his breath.
Damien shot him a look that clearly said are you kidding? “You’re the Consort, Cain. They’re a little…you know.”
“Why is it always about that? I’m no different than they are.”
“Uh, the fact that you’re married to the Queen kinda means that you are.”
“You guys don’t treat me any differently.”
“That’s because we knew you when you were just a pain in the ass and not a royal pain in the ass,” Danny said, grinning through a mouthful of biscuit, pleased at his own joke.
Cain stared at the flames, unable to muster up any further feelings or opinions on this subject. I wonder what she’s doing right now.
After a few moments of silence, he became aware that Danny was staring at him. “Something I can help you with?”
“You’re thinking about the Queen, aren’t you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Eh. You got that look. And, uh…” He hesitated. “That was some goodbye kiss you gave her.”
Cain flushed. “Saw that, did you?”
“Kinda hard not to.”
He didn’t respond. Danny’s words had made him remember that kiss, and just when he’d almost gotten it out of his head.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Danny said. He was speaking quietly now, so that they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Shoot.”
“I thought that you married the Queen as…well…” He fidgeted. “For political reasons, let’s say.”
Cain sighed. “You’re not wrong.”
“Oh. Okay.” Danny was frowning.
“What’s the problem?”
“I just didn’t realize that you loved her, is all.” Danny met his eyes, and Cain saw sympathy there.
He turned back toward the fire. “Neither did I, Danny. Not until today.”
She’d only been in bed for an hour or so before it was clear that sleep was not going to be an easy achievement. Her mind was twirling in restless circles of worry and confusion and fear and frustration. She tossed restlessly, got up and paced, sat in her window seat, to no avail.
Finally, she walked out of her bedroom and crossed the sitting room to his bedroom doors. She hesitated; she’d actually never been in his room. He’d always come to her.
She opened the door and slipped inside. It was virtually the same room as hers, just flipped the other way. He had more tables and chairs and workspaces than she did, and the colors were different, more masculine. She wandered into his bathroom, squashing the fear that she was snooping. She’d imagined finding his razor or his toothbrush, but of course he’d taken those things with him.
The bed was neatly made, and everything was spotless and tidy. The maids had been in during the day and he wasn’t here to mess it up again.
DG went to the bed and drew down the covers. She slid between them and buried her head in his pillow. It didn’t smell like him. The linens were changed daily, a practice she’d never had occasion to find fault with until now. She hugged the pillow to her stomach anyway and curled up in his bed, hoping she’d be able to sleep but fearing the dreams that might chase her there.
DG jerked awake, the shreds of a frightening nightmare falling from around her. She looked around, disoriented. The sun’s on the wrong side of the bed. Oh…I’m in Cain’s room.
She sat up and looked around, both arms still wrapped around his pillow. The sun was also higher in the sky than it would normally have been. She’d overslept. She rubbed her eyes and got up, glancing back at the rumpled sheets. More gossip for the chambermaids.
Breakfast was waiting for her in the sitting room. Breakfast for one. She went around the table to her own chair, glancing at the empty place opposite, and poured a glass of orange juice.
She was still sitting there, the full glass of juice in front of her, when Azkadellia entered a few minutes later. She didn’t look happy. “You need to see this,” she said, without preamble, and dropped a copy of the Central City Register in front of DG. It wasn’t the most reputable of newspapers, prone to gossip and outright fabrication, but it was very popular.
The picture screamed at her; hell, it practically leapt up and slapped her across the face. It took up the entire front page. The editor had clearly wanted to show off his exclusive.
It was herself and Cain in the portico, kissing. Not just kissing. Locked in a passionate clinch that made DG blush to look at it and she’d been there.
God, is that what we looked like? It’s like “Gone With the Wind.” He had one arm around her waist and the other hand in her hair. Her upper body was bent slightly backwards, her head tilted at what she had to admit was a flattering angle, one hand on his jaw and the other arm around his shoulders. The kiss itself was…intense, and embarrassing. She wasn’t embarrassed to have kissed her husband like this, but it wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge, and it was a graphic cold-water dousing of reality over the rose-colored recollection of their parting. It was one thing for DG to remember having her tongue in his mouth but it was quite another to see it splashed across the front page of the local bin-liner. It was a pretty clear shot. It hadn’t been taken from any great distance. “Jesus,” she said, her brain struggling to catch up.
The headline said “Royal Goodbye.” She felt her blood pressure rising as she scanned the brief article.
“’Common perception that the royal marriage is a political arrangement was contradicted by this dramatic photograph taken in the Spire yesterday,’” she read aloud while Azkadellia sat down in Cain’s chair, “’General Cain, departing for an undisclosed military engagement, shared a heartfelt goodbye kiss with the Queen. Sources speculate that romance has bloomed between the Queen and her Consort, a theory bolstered by this image of an emotional parting yesterday morning.’” Her voice rose steadily as she read. “Undisclosed military engagement?” she repeated.
“They must have been drawing conclusions from his clothes, and you can just see the truck in the background.”
“Who the fuck took this?” DG demanded.
“I don’t know. Ambrose is looking into it.”
She jumped up and paced back and forth, fury blocking her rational centers. “And what editor printed that? God! Aren’t there laws against giving away military secrets?”
“Yes, and the Register would be liable under those laws, if they’d actually given anything away. They just said it was an ‘undisclosed military engagement.’”
“Undisclosed, sure! What, they think the Longcoats don’t get the paper? And it’ll only take them about half a second to deduce that Cain’s coming after Jeb! The paper might as well have sent them a telegram telling them to fortify their positions and set up ambushes along all the routes south!” DG picked up the paper again, shaking her head. “I can’t believe this.”
The door opened after a perfunctory knock and Ambrose came in. “Oh…you’ve seen it.”
DG shook the paper in his face. “I want to know who took this picture, Glitch. Now.”
“I’m not sure that ought to be our priority right now, DG. You see, we…”
“Ambrose!” DG snapped, holding up a finger. She saw him recoil slightly; she wasn’t in the habit of barking out orders, nor was he accustomed to being on the receiving end.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, quietly.
“And we have to find a way to get a message to Cain. Let him know that the Longcoats likely know he’s coming.”
“Maybe he’ll abort the mission,” Azkadellia said.
DG snorted. “If you think so, you don’t know him very well. Can we get him a message?”
“They’ve gone radio silent for their approach. We could send a messenger but they’d be looking for that. He’ll be sending back stealth hounds with dispatches for us, we could use one of them to take a message back, but we don’t know when they’ll arrive…it might be too late.”
“Don’t we have our own stealth hounds here?”
“Yes, of course, but they won’t know where to go. A hound that Cain sends here will be able to return to him.”
“I’m counting on you to find a way, Ambrose.”
He nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He bowed slightly and left.
DG sat back down, trying to ignore Azkadellia’s raised eyebrow. “What?” she finally said.
“You were a little…imperious with him, weren’t you?”
“I’ll apologize later. Right now, I don’t give a shit.” She stared at the picture.
“That was quite a kiss, DG,” Az said.
DG sighed. “Glad you liked it. It was our first.”
“What’s her name?” DG asked, her voice tight. She stared in at the young woman through the one-way glass, trying to control her temper.
“Mary Alice ,” Miryam murmured. Miryam was head of Spire internal security. She was Amazonian and tough but baked the best sugar cookies in the universe. DG was perpetually in awe of her, a fact she tried to hide. It wasn’t Queenly to go about awestruck by your staff.
By analyzing the photograph and comparing the sight-lines, Ambrose had determined that the photo of her and Cain had been taken from a window in the east wing servant’s passageway, used by chambermaids and footmen, mostly. Miryam had narrowed the list of people who might have been in that passageway at the time Cain was leaving to four, and it had taken her only a few minutes and several well-phrased questions to determine who had taken the photo. “Who is she?” DG asked.
“She’s just a chambermaid, Your Majesty.”
“She isn’t some kind of Longcoat infiltrator?”
“If she is, she’s the stupidest Longcoat I’ve ever met. She didn’t even bother to conceal the money the paper paid her for the photo.” Miryam sighed. “I don’t think she meant any harm, ma’am.”
“I’d like to speak to her.”
“As you wish.”
DG left the observation room and went around the corner into the small interrogation room Miryam kept in the security offices. The guards nearby all stared at her, but she paid them no mind. She just opened the door and went in.
The young woman, Mary Alice, jumped as if she’d seen a ghost, then leapt to her feet. “Oh…Y-Y-Your Majesty!” she exclaimed, dropping a clumsy curtsey.
DG looked at her, drawing herself up to her full height, pulling her most intimidating regal bearing around her. “Sit,” she said.
Mary Alice sat. “I didn’t…didn’t think you’d…”
“What? Didn’t think I’d respond?”
The young woman was clearly terrified. She was wringing her hands and her eyes were misting over with tears. “I’m s-s-sorry, ma’am,” she wailed. “I didn’t mean no intrusion, I swear!”
“Intrusion?”
“I was j-j-just walking in the passage and happened t’look out the window and seen you and the General, and…”
“And you just happened to have a camera?”
Mary Alice sniffed. “I carry it round with me cause I train the new maids, ma’am. When they miss something or make a mistake I take a picture so’s I can show ‘em, and they can’t fool me by goin back later and sayin it was done proper the first time.”
DG had to admit that was believable. And a pretty good idea. “All right, so you had a camera.”
She nodded miserably. “Didn’t think much bout it, just snapped off a few. Was just so…” She glanced at DG, flushing. “Was real emotional, ma’am. Got a lump in my throat lookin at you, saying goodbye to the General.” She wiped her eyes with a damp handkerchief. “But then I told my friend, and she said the paper’d likely pay me a fair bit for the photo, and I sure can use the money, ma’am. I’m sorry! Was a terrible invasion a your privacy, I know that now…”
DG sat down opposite her. “Mary Alice , right now I don’t care about the privacy so much.”
Mary Alice looked at her with wide, confused eyes. “Y…you don’t?”
“Do you understand what you’ve done? General Cain left on a secret mission. The paper’s published a photo of him leaving. Now his enemies will know he’s coming.”
Confusion gave way to abject horror on Mary Alice’s face. The expression was so genuine that DG couldn’t help but be moved by it. Her anger began bleeding away, much as she wanted to hang onto it. “Oh…oh no, ma’am! I didn’t have no idea it’d be like that!”
“Clearly not.”
The girl sobbed into her handkerchief. “I’m so sorry, ma’am!” she repeated.
“It’s too late for apologies, Mary Alice . You may not have known what you were doing, but it’s done just the same. If anything happens to General Cain, or the men with him, it will be on your head.”
DG watched the girl cry, doing her best to stay unmoved.
You’re being cruel, DG. That isn’t like you.
I don’t care. If Wyatt dies because of this stupid girl’s thoughtless action…I’ll be a good deal more than cruel. Miryam may have to hold me back from tearing her limb from limb with my bare hands.
Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Mother always said that. Ambrose says it, too. So does Cain. Come to think of it, everybody says that. Better listen.
She sighed. “Don’t take on so, Mary Alice . You may not have known what that photo would do, but the newspaper certainly should have. They’re just as much at fault here, perhaps more.”
Mary Alice looked up at her through puffy eyes. “Y-y-you aren’t going to fire me, then?”
“Oh no, you’re definitely fired.”
The girl sighed, resigned, and stared at her handkerchief. “I sure wouldn’t want nothing bad to happen to the General, ma’am. He’s a real nice man.”
DG frowned. “I wasn’t aware you were acquainted.”
“Oh, I’m not acquainted. But he’s always real civil and fair to all the staff. Everyone says so. You know Lily, the chambermaid assigned to his room? Well, last year sometime her little boy got real sick. Lily’s husband’s a terrible layabout, don’t bring in no money, and Lily didn’t have enough for her boy to have an operation. The General, when he found out, he had the boy brought here to the palace so the royal doctors could fix him up.”
DG smiled. She had no idea Cain had done such a thing. “He did?”
Mary Alice nodded. “And when one of the footmen’s wives got laid off from the engineworks, the General got her a job here, in the laundry. He’s real kind, ma’am.”
DG nodded, her eyes faraway. “General Cain’s had a lot of sadness in his life,” she said, half to herself. “I guess he wants to spare other people having it in theirs.” She jerked herself a little. “I believe you wouldn’t want to hurt him, Mary Alice . But that doesn’t change the facts.”
“I know, ma’am. I ought to’ve known better.” Tears were still trickling down her cheeks. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” She glanced up at DG’s face. “I guess…you feel real strong on him, huh?”
It was a rather impertinent question to ask one’s Queen, but DG didn’t much care about propriety at this moment. “Yes, I do,” she whispered.
There was a knock at the door, and Miryam poked her head in. “Your Majesty, word’s come down from upstairs. A dispatch has come from the General.”
DG jumped up and left the room without so much as a glance back at Mary Alice . Miryam followed her down the hall. “What do you want me to do with her?”
“Escort her out of the Spire, and make sure you confiscate any photos she took of us.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ambrose barely got a word out before DG snatched the dispatch out of his hands. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t opened it,” he said, pointing to the seal. “It’s eyes only. You have to open it.”
DG cracked the wax seal and unfolded the letter, her eyes jumping ahead; she had to force herself to read it word by word.
DGR
Trip uneventful. Rendezvous ok. Set out for southern border early a.m. First task is to locate intel on location of LC base. Situation normal.
WC
DG was a little disappointed. That was all? She read it again, then turned it over, whereupon she saw a very small line of writing at the bottom.
i can’t stop thinking about you.
She smiled, then turned her attention back to the problem at hand. “How did this arrive?”
“Stealth hound, like we thought.”
She went to her desk and grabbed a piece of paper. “Get the dog ready to return.”
WC,
Be advised mission compromised. Register published news of departure, likely that LC aware of your approach. Use extreme caution; may be necessary to abort.
DGR
She thought for a moment, then flipped the paper and wrote a more personal message, as he’d done for her, her fingers cramping as she tried to form the letters as small as possible.
i slept in your bed last night, wishing you were there with me.
She stared at what she’d written, wondering if it was too much, too soon.
To hell with too much. Screw too soon. I’m all in.
Cain bandaged Damien’s arm, the young man wincing as he tied it tight. “You okay?”
“I’ll live.”
“Goddammit,” Cain hissed, peering out at the road, which was littered with bodies. Most of them were Longcoats, but a few were their own men. “They can’t be patrolling this far north of the Flornish border to set up an ambush.”
Damien nodded. “They knew we were coming.”
“How?”
“Does it matter?”
Lt. Andrews, the officer in charge of the Army unit, joined them in their concealed position in the underbrush. “The last three retreated down the road. I sent five men to retrieve them. We can’t let them get back to their camp and tell the rest of them that the ambush was not successful. Better to let them hear nothing; it’ll buy us time.”
“We can’t continue south along the road.”
Damien whipped out a map. “We should head for this Scout squadron camp. It’s out of our way, significantly west of the road. We’ll be making a big semicircle. But if we still want to strike the Longcoat base we’ll have to do it from some direction other than north, because they’ll be expecting us to come from that direction.”
“The Scouts may be able to help us.”
“If they haven’t been captured, too,” Cain said grimly.
A slight rustling sent all four men diving for cover, weapons raised. They waited, holding their breath, but the rustling just grew closer and closer and then just…stopped. “What the hell?” Danny said.
Cain felt a rough tongue lick his hand. “Oh damn, it’s the hound.” He reached out and blindly felt for the dog’s collar. He twisted the dial and the dog shimmered into visibility. He unbuckled the dog’s vest, withdrew the letter and read it. He sniffed. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Oh, just a dispatch from the Queen warning us that the Register somehow published the fact that we were leaving on a secret assignment and that our mission might be compromised.”
“You think?” Damien exclaimed. “How the hell did the Register…”
Cain cut him off with a sharp hand motion. “There’s no point worrying about it. We’ll find out when we get back.” He looked down at the letter again. DG’s handwriting looked a little rushed.
He turned the letter over, hoping he wasn’t being foolish, but was rewarded by the sight of a line of tiny letters at the bottom. He held the letter close and read them, warmth blooming in his chest. He smiled, folded the letter and tucked it inside his uniform.
“What was that?” Damien said.
“Nothing. It’s personal.”
“A dispatch is personal?”
“The front was a dispatch from the Queen. The back was…” He hesitated. “The back was a note from my wife.”