The Consort, Chapter 18

Sep 01, 2008 11:44



Author's Note: Since it's a holiday, you get a nice looooooong chapter. Also, there wasn't really a good place to break it up.

Wednesday

When DG woke, it was out of the first halfways-decent night’s sleep she’d had since Cain had left the palace four days before. This was not due to any greater peace of mind, but rather to the three belts of scotch from the bottle in Cain’s desk before bed, followed by a large glass of water to prevent hangover.

The sun was shining in her window. It looked like a beautiful day. She sat up, bitter resentment rising in her chest. How dare the sun shine? How dare it be beautiful? How did the world keep turning? Did it not know what had been lost forever? But the world didn’t care, did it? The birds sang and the flowers bloomed and her whole midsection was a hollow, echoing cavern but did it matter? Not at all, not in the grand scheme.

The Council had declared today a national day of mourning. It was a nice gesture, but she was almost tempted to laugh.

A day. And then, what? We’re done? No more mourning? If only it worked like that. She was staring down the barrel of a whole lifetime of days mourning for Cain, mourning not only the loss of the man himself but mourning the love she felt for him that she’d never been able to express, or feel returned.

She got up and showered, resolving to put herself together with some semblance of normality today. She had a lot to do. The party that had been sent to retrieve their dead should be returning.

She stopped in the middle of brushing her hair. I don’t know if I can look at his body.

You have to. It has to be real.

Isn’t it real enough already? Do I have to look at what was done to him? At his lifeless, cold…

She ran to the toilet and vomited, her nose running, eyes screwed tightly shut.

Don’t think about it.

No, think about it now. Get used to the idea and puke all you want in private. That way, when you have to look, maybe you’ll hold it together.

There was ample distraction, of course. She’d go again into Gale Square and talk to the people. There was the memorial to plan, set for Saturday. There was the continuing business of investigating the invasion attempt. Miryam suspected an insider on their staff, which was an unsettling thought. There were military tactics to discuss, ambassadors to dispatch, intelligence to gather.

And she had a small project of her own that had sprung near fully-formed into her mind during the night, it seemed. But before she could turn her attention to that, she had a very important visit to make.

They weren’t expecting her on the hospital floor. “Oh, Your Majesty!” the nurse at the main desk exclaimed. “I, uh…did you have an appointment today?”

“No. I’d just like to see Dr. Malangar, please.”

“Of course, right away.”

Another benefit of being Queen. Immediate medical attention with no waiting or paperwork.

Her doctor emerged within ten seconds, looking a little flustered at her sudden appearance, and led her back to his office. “I was going to come up and see you later,” he said, sitting her down in a chair.

“Why?”

“Well…I thought you might need something. A sedative, or something to help you sleep.”

The Scotch worked great, actually. “I’m fine, Doctor.” She folded her hands on her lap. “I don’t know if what I’m going to ask you is possible.”

“All right.”

“My period isn’t due until next week, but…can you check?”

He frowned. “Check what?”

“To see if I’m pregnant. I don’t know if you can tell this early, but…”

“Oh! Of course, yes, I can check. Come to the exam table.” She hoisted herself up and laid down. Dr. Malangar returned with a small needle and a long wand-looking thing. He ran the wand over her abdomen, then pricked her finger and took a few drops of blood into a clear pipette. “I’ll be right back, ma’am. Just a moment.”

She nodded, sitting up as he left the room. She didn’t want to get her hopes up too far; they’d been disappointed every other time they’d tried, but it had to work sooner or later, didn’t it? Especially since she was young and healthy, and there was nothing wrong with either of them? There just wasn’t any reason for it. Dr. Malangar had been just as perplexed over her seeming inability to conceive as she was.

She shut her eyes, her hands gripping the edge of the table, her stomach roiling in uneasy heaves. I have to be. I have to be. Please. If she wasn’t pregnant now then she’d never be. That was ridiculous, of course. Someday, sometime…she’d have to be. But today, she couldn’t fathom having a child with anyone else.

I’m going to have to get another Consort. Sometime.

She would have thought this idea would be repellent, but it was oddly…neutral. No different than thinking of getting a new cook in the kitchen or a new chambermaid, because any Consort she got in the future would be no more meaningful to her than that.

Dr. Malangar came back in and DG straightened up, hope filling her chest; hope that was quickly crushed when she saw his face. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. I just…wanted to know.”

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, and she saw in his eyes that he meant it for more than just today’s disappointment.

“I hoped I’d have something of him left,” she said. The doctor nodded. DG took a deep breath and drew herself up. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Azkadellia hurried after Elspeth, DG’s personal secretary, both of them half-running towards the royal suite. “I don’t know what happened, Your Highness. The dresser just asked her what she’d be wearing to the memorial so they can have it steamed and prepared.”

“And then what?”

“Well…you’ll see.” They entered the suite. Elspeth opened the door to DG’s bedroom, beyond which lay her closet. The royal dresser and Jillian, DG’s lady-of-the-bedchamber, were lurking near the bed like frightened rabbits.

What looked like every dress in the Queen’s closet had been flung out into the bedroom. They were heaped in a pile three feet deep, spilling in every direction. DG was in the closet, hurling more gowns out. “Nope! Nope!” she kept yelling, with each dress discarded.

“I see,” Azkadellia said. “It was right of you to come get me. You all run along, now. I’ll handle this.”

The three women gratefully fled. Az shut and locked the bedroom door behind her and approached the closet, gingerly picking her way through the drift of gowns, most of which DG rarely wore, being more of the formal variety. “DG?”

She stuck her head out of the closet door, her hair wild and full of static electricity. “Hi, Az.” Another dress came flying out. “Nope!”

“What’s going on?”

She stepped out and surveyed the gowns, hands on her hips. “I don’t seem to have any black dresses.”

“Of course not. It’s bad luck for the Queen to wear a black dress, you know that.”

“I can’t wear any of these.”

“You can’t wear black.”

“I have to wear black! It’s…the custom!”

“Since when?”

“Since always!”

“That’s the custom…over there?”

“It’s the custom!” She picked up a random gown, a bright canary-yellow number. “No way in hell I’m wearing any of these!” she exclaimed.

“Then what are you going to wear?”

“I don’t know! But none of these! There’s no color that’s…safe!”

“Safe in what way?”

“You know, safe! Safe so I don’t…remember stuff.”

“Remember what stuff?”

“Az! Are you trying to make this difficult?”

“No, I’m trying to help you, honey. I just don’t know what the problem is.” Az was treading lightly. She’d been waiting. Just waiting for DG to lose it. Two days now and she had been quiet, restrained, calm, and totally shut down. Every time she touched her sister she could feel her despair and her terrible grief, but no one had seen it, not even DG herself. Everyone was walking around with one eye on her, just waiting for it to finally break her in half and come spilling out the pieces. Dresses. Could this be the thing that was one thing too much?

She picked up a gown in a lovely, deep russet color. “What’s wrong with this color? I like it.”

“Are you kidding? That’s the exact color of his Tin Man vest.”

Light was dawning. “Oh, of course. Well…how about this one?”

DG held out her hands, speaking to her as if she were a particularly slow and stubborn child. “That green, it’s like the grass at Finaqua, in the field where he taught me how to play wicket-ball. This pink, it’s like the sunset we watched off my balcony last week. This silver just looks like tin suits to me and this…this one,” she hissed, holding up an ice-blue gown and shaking it at her, “Do I even need to say what I see when I look at this color? This one’s going to have to be burned,” she said. She grabbed the dress in both hands and flung it away. She looked around at the piles of dresses and abruptly sat down on the floor among them with a thump, defeated, her head in her hands.

Az knelt at her side, one hand on her arm. “Oh, DG.”

“Everything reminds me of him, Az,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “Not just the dresses. Every damned thing out there in the world, too. It’s like he’s following me around, poking me, going ‘Remember this thing we did that you didn’t appreciate at the time? Remember this awesome thing I said that should have been a clue that totally went by you? Remember that moment we had in the car that one time when you thought about kissing me and you didn’t do it because you were freaked out? Remember every single little thing and every second that we could have had together and we didn’t? It’s too late now, so remembering is all you get to do!’”

“Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Don’t do what? Be truthful?”

“No. Don’t torture yourself. We’re all so worried about you, it’s like you’re locking everything up. This is the first time you’ve talked about how you feel.”

DG sighed. “I can’t. Maybe soon. I know what I’m doing. I know you’re all worried. I just…” She leaned her head against Azkadellia’s shoulder. “If I let it get out that’ll be it. I have to keep it together for awhile. The Zone needs me to keep it together. That’s my job.”

“I know.” She put one arm around DG’s thin shoulders and sat down next to her, rubbing her arm.

Wait for it.

It didn’t come. DG sat there shuddering for a few moments, her hands over her face, then straightened up a little, looking around. “God, what a mess,” she muttered.

“You still need a dress, you know,” Az said, going for a lighter tone.

DG snorted. “I was thinking I could just wear my bathrobe. Would that be unseemly?”

“Here’s what let’s do. All these dresses…well, you’ve worn all these. He saw you in all of these, right?” DG nodded. “Let’s have a new dress made just for the occasion. Not black.”

“What color, then?” DG asked, turning hopeful eyes up to her sister. I really need to BE her big sister now. I need to have the answers, I need to say the right things.

“Well…what was Cain’s favorite color?”

DG stared around at the rainbow haystacks of fine fabrics all around them. Her hand stole out and tugged at a piece of deep royal blue satin. “Blue. He liked me in blue. Like this.” She smiled a little, her eyes far away. “I wore this to a state dinner last fall. When I came out in it…well. Was the only time I can remember that he got all tongue-tied and blushy when he saw me. He had on this sash underneath his tuxedo jacket and it was the same color. It was intended to be, of course, but he acted like it was a total coincidence just so he could stop tripping over trying to tell me he liked how I looked without saying it. He came over and said ‘Look…we’re a matched set.’” She pulled the dress out of the pile and hugged it to her chest. “And we were,” she whispered.

They sat there amidst the gowns, like little girls playing in piles of raked leaves. Az held DG against her shoulder, half hoping she’d cry or scream or something, but she didn’t. After a few moments, she just pulled away, putting the blue dress from her. “I should clean this up. Not fair to make the maids do it.”

“DG, right now they’re so eager to help you they’d trim your hair with nail clippers. Leave it.”

“Can you take this to the seamstresses? Something not floofy. Simple. But this color.”

“Sure.”

DG glanced at her wristwatch. “Oh, I’ve got someone coming in a few minutes and I bet I look like the Bride of Frankenstein.”

“Who’s coming?”

“You remember Mrs. Winterset, who painted that picture of us?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I asked her here.”

“Why?”

DG hesitated. “I’m thinking of commissioning her to paint a portrait of Cain. Is that weird?”

“No, not at all. There would have been one done eventually anyway.”

“It isn’t weird to still do it?”

“No,” she said, grasping DG’s hand and smiling. “I think it’s lovely. Where will you hang it?”

“I was thinking in the office. But I’m hoping she can do it before the memorial so I can show everybody.”

“Hmm. That’s short notice.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Thelma Winterset blinked at her, a bit frozen-faced with surprise. “You want me to paint the General’s portrait?”

“I’ll pay your regular rates, of course.”

“Oh, well…I don’t really have rates, Your Majesty. I’m not a professional artist.”

DG frowned. “I thought you said you had a shop.”

Mrs. Winterset fidgeted a little. “It’s a bake shop, ma’am. Best pie in Central City. I’d love to be a professional artist, but…” She trailed off.

DG waited. “But what? You’re definitely talented enough.”

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s just difficult to break into the art world when you’re self-taught, and you have a family and a business to tend to, and all the other artists and art critics laugh at the little granny doing portraits of the neighborhood kids, which she paints in one corner of her laundry room because she doesn’t have a proper studio,” Thelma said, wryly.

“Hmm. Well, we’ll see if they’re all still laughing at you when I unveil your portrait at the General’s memorial on Saturday.”

Now Mrs. Winterset’s eyes bugged out of her skull. “Saturday?”

“Oh…um, if that’s possible. I understand it’s short notice. I still want the portrait even if you can’t…”

“Your Majesty, if I have to paint around the clock from now until then, I will finish it.”

DG smiled. “Thanks for at least being willing to give it a shot.”

“Ma’am…I don’t know what to say, or how to thank you. A Royal commission…most artists only dream of such a thing. The portraits of the royal family have been painted by some of the greatest artists of our time, and to think you want me to be one of them…” She hesitated. “My style is a bit different than the traditional portraits hanging in that gallery.”

“I’m a bit different too, Mrs. Winterset. And so is…” She caught herself. “So was the General.”

“Of course. I’m honored to accept, ma’am.” She reached into her rather large purse and pulled out a sketchpad and a pencil. “But if I’m to finish this portrait in time I’d better get started. How large do you want the portrait?”

“Oh. I’m…not sure.”

“Life size? Most of the royal portraits are life-size.”

“All right.”

“Do you want full-figure, waist-up or head-and-shoulders?”

DG hadn’t been ready for all these questions. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Thelma nodded. “Well, you’ve had a lot on your mind, ma’am. Where do you plan to hang it?”

“In our private office. Oh, why don’t I just show you?” She got up and beckoned Mrs. Winterset to follow her. She led her down the hall and around to the office. “This is the General’s desk, and…” Mrs. Winterset was no longer behind her. DG turned to see the woman hovering in the doorway, looking around as if expecting an attack to come at any moment. “Thelma?”

“Oh…sorry, ma’am,” she said, inching forward. “It’s just…these aren’t the for-show rooms they take you to on the tour. These are the real rooms, aren’t they?”

DG smiled. “Yes, they sure are.” She looked at Cain’s desk. A portrait of one of her ancestor’s Consorts hung above it. “There, that’s where I’d like to hang it.”

Thelma was nodding. “All right. Close your eyes, ma’am, and imagine the General how you’d like to remember him.”

DG did as she was bid.

“What do you see?”

“I see…I’m not sure what I see. There’s too much.”

“Do you see all of him, or just his face?”

“All.”

“What’s he wearing, ma’am?”

“His Tin Man clothes. How I first met him.”

“Is he smiling?”

“Well…kinda. He had this way of smiling but not smiling.”

DG could hear Thelma’s pencil scratching. “What’s the first thing you noticed about him?”

“His eyes. Always. Even when he came out of the tin suit and had hair down to everywhere, I saw his eyes.”

More scratching. “Do you see him posed? Like in a portrait?”

“No, he’d never do that.”

“Is he outside or inside?”

“Outside.” She hesitated. “Inside. I don’t know…”

“Hmm.” More scratchings. DG waited, eyes closed, for the next question. “Like this, Your Majesty?”

DG opened her eyes and looked at the sketch Thelma was holding out. It was rough, just outlined forms and a mere suggestion of features, but… “Oh my God,” she breathed.

“Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…” DG shook her head. “It’s like you reached into my head and plucked it out.” The figure in the sketch was head-to-toe, leaning against a wall with one shoulder, feet crossed one over the other at the ankle. He had one hand hooked in his belt and the other on his gun, as he’d so often stood when he still carried one, his face in three-quarter profile but his eyes facing front, like he was keeping an eye on things.

Thelma smiled. “Good.”

“How did you…I didn’t even describe this.”

“I’ve spent a lot of years listening to people talk about how they want their portraits to look, ma’am. What they don’t say is just as telling. And where they want it hung is telling, too.” She smiled. “The fact that you wanted him clothed how he was when you met him told me you wanted to see the everyday man, not the larger-than-life figure. That you want him hung here means you want to see him every day, which means you’d like to see him as you knew his private self. That you want him above his own desk, looking at you…and anyone else who might sit there…says you want him to keep watching out for you.”

DG nodded. “This is just what I want. Exactly.”

“Then I’ll get started right away.”

DG went to the door and beckoned Alex inside. “Mrs. Winterset, this is Alexander. He’s…” She stopped again. Dammit. “He was General Cain’s private secretary. I’ve asked him to help you with anything you need. If you’d prefer to work at home that’s fine, but if you’d like to work here we will provide you with space and whatever materials you need.”

Thelma was nodding. “I don’t really have the space at home, so…”

“Then you’ll work here.” She reached out and clasped Mrs. Winterset’s hand, relieved that this task was done. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

The woman’s kindly face creased in a smile, and DG wished she could hug her again. “It’s my honor, Your Majesty. I hope…it brings you some peace.”

DG sighed. “I don’t expect miracles. Please, excuse me.” She nodded to Alexander and left the room.

She’d walked a good way down the hall before realizing she had no destination in mind, so she just kept walking until she found herself looking at Ambrose’s door.

The page opened the door for her. Glitch was sitting on the couch, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, surrounded by paperwork. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie loosened. She flapped a hand to keep him from getting up when he saw her. She stood there, shifting her weight, until he just cleared away a stack of folders and patted the couch at his side.

DG flopped down next to him, tucked her legs beneath her and let her head fall to his shoulder. “You okay, doll?” he asked.

“Next question, please.”

“Did that painter lady say yes?”

“Yeah. She says she can finish by Saturday.” She rubbed her eyes. “Can I just hide in here for awhile?”

“Sure. But you know, people do come and see me, too. You’ll be discovered sooner or later.”

“I know. I’ll tell them I was looking for my pen and just fell asleep here.”

“Hmm. Good cover story. Maybe we should have you working counterintelligence.”

She sat there for some time, not speaking, while Ambrose kept reading whatever reports he was reading. She could see that they had something to do with Longcoats and the invasion attempt, but knew if anything required her attention he’d bring it up.

He’ll tell me the truth. “Glitch?”

“Mmm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“You can ask me anything you want.”

She took a deep breath. “Do you think Cain loved me? I mean, like that?”

She felt him go still. He put aside the report he was reading and folded his hands in his lap. “Do you really need to ask me that?”

“I’m afraid I’m over-romanticizing. Making too much of stuff. I mean, what do I have? He kissed me once. One vague sentence on the back of a dispatch. Raw said he was missing me. But…that doesn’t mean…”

“DG,” Ambrose said, cutting her off. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you that no, I don’t think he loved you, not like that, he was just a good friend who was fond of you, thought of you like family. Nothing more. Do you think that if I say that, then maybe the same is true about you, and it won’t hurt as much?”

“No,” she said. And by ‘no’ I mean ‘yes.’ “Just…you’re usually right about everything.”

“Usually?”

She smacked his arm. “Shut up.”

He sighed. “DG, I have no family of my own. Your family is all I have. My whole life is about helping you, and looking out for you, and caring for you.”

“Is that an answer?”

“I don’t think Cain loved you. I know he did. Deeply, and profoundly. I knew it before he knew it. Just like I knew you loved him before you did.”

She lifted her head and met his eyes. “Seriously?”

He smiled, a slight, sad smile. “I wish you both could have seen yourselves when you were together. I don’t mean to imply that you gave off some kind of cheesy glow or wore longing looks when you thought yourself unobserved. Nothing so…literal. It was more than that, it was deeper. A wise person once said that being in love isn’t about two people looking at each other, but about them looking together in the same direction.”

She nodded. “That is wise. You didn’t say it, by any chance, did you?”

He chuckled. “No. I don’t remember who did. But that was you. It was like it was automatic, you just linked hands and fell into step, like you’d been made to fit each other.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you can talk so calmly about all this.”

She shrugged. “What choice do I have?”

He watched her for a moment. “You’re just numb, aren’t you?”

She played with a tassel on one of the couch cushions. “It’s like I’m watching everything from far away,” she murmured. “Down a long tunnel, like looking into the wrong end of a telescope. It gets close enough for me to see it, but not close enough to touch. I hear my own voice and it’s all echoey and hollow, like talking in a big empty room.”

“You can’t go on like that forever.”

“I know. But I don’t know how to stop. And I’m sick of talking about it now.”

“Okay.”

She looked at Ambrose’s face. “How are you?”

He sighed. “I miss him. I miss my friend. I miss you, too. Because this?” he said, drawing circles in the air before her face with his index finger, “this isn’t you.”

There was a knock at the door, and Ambrose’s secretary entered. “Sir? They’re back.”

DG met Glitch’s eyes. The bodies. Here we go.

DG didn’t expect such a flurry of activity when they arrived on the hospital floor. “What’s going on?” she said, grabbing one of the officers who’d gone on the retrieval party.

“We found a survivor. Captain Armagnac.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s in pretty bad shape.”

She and Ambrose hovered in the background while the doctors gathered around Danny, barking orders and doing things. Cutting his clothes off, hooking up IV drips, wheeling up trays of instruments. She felt another hand on her arm and turned to see Azkadellia at her side. “Who’s that? Is that Danny?”

“Yeah.”

“He looks…bad.”

DG could only nod. “Yeah.”

General Showalter approached. “Your Majesty?”

She was startled away from watching Danny. “Yes, General?”

“I’m afraid the team had to rush things a bit; they were under sniper attack by Longcoats. I’ve sent several squads of recon patrols to clean out the area.”

“Good.” She swallowed hard. “But they…accomplished their mission.”

He hesitated. “In a manner of speaking, ma’am.”

“What manner of speaking?”

“Your Majesty, General Cain’s body was not in the basecamp.”

For a moment, DG’s brain felt like it had vapor-locked. What? What’d he say? No body? Luckily, she had Ambrose with her to ask for the clarification. “Are you certain, General?”

“Yes, sir. We made a thorough search. All the dead are accounted for except General Cain. Captain Armagnac, before he lost consciousness, reported that he saw the General’s body removed from the basecamp by some of the Longcoats, but he was in no position to do anything about it.”

DG couldn’t feel her legs. “They…they took him?” She sounded all wheezy to herself.

General Showalter looked pale and shaken. “I’m afraid that’s not without precedent, ma’am. Longcoats were known to…take the bodies of their fallen enemies, especially ones of high standing. For morale, one would guess, or…as trophies…”

“General!” Azkadellia snapped. “I think that’s quite enough!”

“I’m sorry…so sorry, Your Majesty…” He backed away.

Azkadellia’s voice was coming to her from a great distance. “DG…DG? Oh God…Ambrose, her face!”

She saw Glitch’s face directly in front of her, his brow furrowed, his eyes sharp. “DG, you’ve gone white as a sheet. Listen to my voice, okay?”

She blinked and the world swam back into focus. Az and Glitch each had one of her arms tightly in their hands, half supporting her. “Az, get me out of here,” she rasped. “Better hurry.”

“Okay. We’re going.”

They started walking towards the door but her knees weren’t really functioning. Ambrose let go of her arm and picked her up, and things started moving a lot more quickly. A brief flash of the elevator and some hallways and they were in her sitting room and there was a couch underneath her. Az was crouching before her, holding both of her hands, her magic strong and pearlescent while DG’s was sputtery and wan. “DG, I need you to take some deep breaths for me, okay? Look at me, look at my face. Breathe deep and watch my eyes.”

She focused on Az’s voice. The rest of the room grayed away. Az’s eyes were huge, they filled her whole field of vision. She hung onto her hands and did as she was told. Deep and slow. Deep and slow. Az was nodding.

“Ambrose, fetch the doctor,” Az was saying.

“No,” DG said. Her voice sounded normal again. “I’m okay.”

Ambrose returned and leaned over her. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll do for now.” She let go of Az’s hands and stood up. Her legs held her. “I just…had a bad moment.”

“Great Gale, DG. After days of bad moments I’m not surprised. Have you eaten today?”

“God, I can’t remember.” She walked in aimless little tracks around the room, letting her senses return. “Maybe…a sandwich or something?”

Azkadellia looked relieved that she was suggesting it. “I’ll have something brought up.” She got up and went to the door.

DG kept walking, her hands on her hips, breathing. Don’t think about it. Take action. It’ll be okay.

Okay?

Yeah. I think I’m okay.

Azkadellia had the guard go to the kitchen and fetch a sandwich and some tea for the Queen, then went back into the sitting room. DG was still very pale, but she was walking and talking and breathing. She’d almost passed out. On hearing that Cain’s body was missing she’d gone alarmingly pale. Her eyes had lost focus and began to roll back in her head before Ambrose jerked her back.

She can’t go on like this. She’s got this house of straw around herself and the wind keeps blowing and one more stiff breeze will blow the whole thing away and leave her sitting there naked and unprotected in the hurricane.

“Honey, why don’t you take an afternoon nap after you’ve eaten?” she suggested, sitting down on the couch. “You’ve barely slept.”

DG flapped an impatient hand. “I can’t sleep. I was thinking I’d go outside for awhile.”

Az and Ambrose exchanged a glance. “I know you like doing that, DG, but I’m worried that it’s wearing you down. You’ve got enough on you with your own grief, let alone shouldering anyone else’s.”

“Are you handling me, Az?” DG said, smirking.

“No. But I can start.”

“I don’t need to be handled. And seeing the people…well, it helps.” The door opened and the guard entered with a tray. “Thanks,” she said. The guard blinked at her, looking amazed to have been addressed, then bowed and left.

DG picked up the sandwich and took a bite. She chewed…and chewed…and chewed…and finally swallowed. She stared down at the sandwich in her hand like she’d forgotten what it was. “What do you think they’re doing to him?” she said, her voice thin and dreamlike.

Azkadellia rose to her feet and went to stand next to her. Oh, great and powerful, give me strength to get my sister through this. “It won’t do any good to think about that.”

“Someone has to.” DG looked up at her. “And we all know what they’re doing to him. No one wants to say it out loud. Nobody wants to say that they’ve probably got his head on a pike so the birds can peck out his beautiful eyes while we’re here painting portraits and having sandwiches.” She stared at the tray, expressionless. Without warning, DG swept the tray and everything on it off the table with enough force that it crashed into the neighboring wall and clattered to the floor. Az and Ambrose both jumped.

DG whirled around and stalked to the fireplace. She put both hands on the mantel and leaned against it, her head sagging down, her shoulders rolling restlessly.

Nothing happened for a few interminable seconds.

Azkadellia felt the shattering through her bond with DG. Like needles on her skin, a smooth surface peppered with buckshot. She hurried to DG’s side and bent down so she could see her sister’s face. Her eyes were screwed shut, her mouth open like she was screaming at the top of her lungs, but eerily silent.

Az grabbed her and just managed to get her arms tight around her before DG was able to suck in a breath and give her grief its anguished voice at last.

…three hours later…

Ambrose poked his head into DG’s bedroom. “You guys okay?”

Azkadellia nodded. “We’re okay.”

“I’m going down to talk to General Showalter. You ring if you need me.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks, Ambrose.”

Az was sitting up against the headboard of DG’s bed with her sister’s limp, exhausted body curled in her lap. She stroked her hair and rubbed her back and felt DG’s tremors and hiccups in her own body through their contact. Her arms ached from holding her. Her dress was wet with DG’s tears. Her throat was sore from murmuring and humming. Even given all that, what she felt the most at this moment was relief.

DG sighed, then slowly sat up. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose for the hundredth time, the skin around it red from repetitions of this. She looked like ten kinds of hell. Her eyes were puffed nearly shut, her lips swollen, her face splotchy and her nose raw. But she looked clear-eyed, and she looked there in a way she hadn’t in days. She met Az’s eyes and nodded. “Thanks.”

“What are sisters for?”

“That was above and beyond.”

Azkadellia tucked a sheaf of DG’s hair back over her shoulder. “How do you feel?”

She blew air through her teeth. “Hoo boy. Drained. No, more like…purged. Of something poisonous inside. The only thing is…”

Az waited. “What?”

DG looked at her, eyes welling up again. “Now I have to feel it all the time. I can’t put it away anymore.”

It was nearly eleven. The halls were quiet, but DG was restless. She was tired, through to her bones, and she could sense that sleep would come to her that night at last, but first she had to take herself out on a test drive.

She’d gone to the hospital floor to see Danny, but the doctors told her he was sleeping and ought not to be disturbed. So she found herself back on the residential floor, walking the halls in her dressing-gown, hanging onto her latest handkerchief.

Jillian rounded the corner ahead and threw her hands up when she saw DG. “Oh there you are, ma’am. You are going to drive me to distraction. What are you doing?”

“Just having a little stroll. But I’ll go to bed soon.”

“I’ve had the maids put fresh linens on, ma’am. Yours were a bit…tousled.”

“Thanks.” DG glanced around. “Do you know where Alexander put Mrs. Winterset?”

“He set her up in the little blue room, ma’am. I believe she’s there now.”

DG nodded. “I’m going to go look in on her, then I’ll go to sleep, all right?”

“I’ll hold you to that, Your Majesty.”

She smiled and let Jillian go on by, then walked off with renewed purpose.

The little blue room was a rarely-used sitting room that was tucked out of the way in a corner, which was why no one ever used it. DG knocked quietly. “Come in!” said a distracted-sounding voice.

She eased into the room and shut the door behind her. Half of it had been draped in sheets and a mock-up wall set up, with bright lights illuminating the model space. DG blinked at the sight of a man in Tin Man clothes like Cain’s standing in the same posture Thelma had shown her in the sketch.

“Oh, Your Majesty!” Thelma exclaimed. She emerged from behind an impossibly large canvas, wearing a sail-like smock covered in blotches of paint. Her curly hair was twisted into a bun and she was holding a brush. “I didn’t expect you’d be dropping by!”

“Just on my way to bed, Thelma.”

The model snapped to attention. “Ma’am!” he exclaimed, surprised.

“Didn’t I tell you not to move?” Thelma scolded him. “Oh, now I’ll have to re-set you. Take a break and sit down for a bit if you wish.” The man moved gratefully away from the mock-up wall and flopped into a chair. “He’s not an artist’s model,” Thelma murmured, confidentially. “We just found somebody of the General’s height and size. I’ll use photographs and video for the face and hands.” DG was nodding. It was a little disconcerting to see another man wearing that coat and that hat.

“May I see?” she said, motioning to the canvas.

“Oh, certainly. Not much to see yet.” Thelma led her around to the other side of the canvas. She was right. The figure was roughed in, the background was sketched. It looked like she was starting on the shading for the clothing. “It’s coming along. They’re bringing me lots of coffee.”

“Please get some sleep yourself, Mrs. Winterset. This portrait’s not worth your health.”

“I’m fine, dear.” Thelma peered at her. “Are you all right, ma’am? Pardon me for saying so, but you look…well, awful.”

DG nodded. “I think I’m okay. I’ve just…well…” She made a vague motion with her handkerchief.

Thelma smiled. “Finally had yourself a good cry, have you? Good.”

DG stepped closer to the painting, her eyes tracing the outlines of Cain’s form…because it was definitely recognizable as such. She didn’t know how that was possible at this early stage but she could already see that the man being painted was not the model but Cain. She reached up and touched the empty space where his face would go, and she could almost see it there. Thelma stood at her side, watching her.

DG sighed. “I loved him, Mrs. Winterset,” she whispered. “But too late for him to know. That’s what haunts me now.”

“We who’ve known love are still the lucky ones, ma’am, no matter how brief our acquaintance with it.”

“I don’t feel so lucky right now.”

“Give it time, dear.”

“I’m just afraid.”

“That you’ll never get over it?”

“No.” DG looked at her. “I’m afraid someday I will.”

Thursday

DG woke up the next morning and didn’t waste a minute before her feet hit the floor and she was headed for the bathroom. She felt like a new person. She’d slept ten hours straight, dreamless coma-like sleep, and now the sun was arrowing into her eyes like an express telegram from the heavens telling her to get her ass in gear.

She dressed, put on slacks and a blazer over a camisole, and put her hair up in a businesslike bun.

Her first stop was the hospital wing, where Danny Armagnac was awake and sitting up. She went to his side and clasped his hand, smiling. “Danny, we’re so glad you’re all right.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.”

“You have got nothing to be sorry for, Captain. You stow that, you hear?”

He nodded. “Just feels wrong I’m here and they’re all…” Tears welled in his eyes.

“If it makes you feel any better, they’re going to answer for this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sounding more determined.

“Good. You rest up and get better, because I’ll be needing you back at work.” She winked at him, and left.

Second stop was a briefing with her top advisors. They all entered the room, hats in hands, walking quietly. They’re expecting the ghost-me from the last few days. “Good morning, everyone,” she said, trying to sound as crisp and in-control as possible.

Ambrose sat on her right, as usual. General Showalter, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary sat before her. “Your Majesty, we’ve rounded up several dozen Longcoats from the woods and roads between here and the Flornish border,” Showalter said. “They’re being brought here for trial.”

“Good. What about the Longcoats inside Flornistan?”

The Foreign Secretary shook her head. “The Prime Minister still denies any knowledge of them, and giving them any aid.”

“But we know he’s lying.”

“Oh, yes. The Longcoats we’ve captured have told us all about it.”

DG pursed her lips. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. I want to speak to the Prime Minister this afternoon, by viewscreen. I want to look into the bastard’s eyes and have him look in mine. I intend to inform him that if he does not deliver all the Longcoats residing within his borders and I mean right goddamn now, I will sever all diplomatic ties to his country and cut off his coal and oil supply lines from the Zone. Then I will have Nobbeland do the same. Their President owes me a favor, and once he learns what the Flornish are trying to pull on us I’m sure he’ll be anxious to make sure his country isn’t next. I’ll make it clear that I am fully prepared to back this up with military force. Are we prepared to back this up with military force, General?”

“Prepared? Absolutely, Your Majesty. The soldiers of your army are champing at the bit to fight under your banner. They require only an objective.”

“Grand. Furthermore, if he does not locate and return my husband’s body immediately I will come and get it personally. And I will bring not only my sister, who can be an impressive weapon herself, but an armored tank division just in case she and I aren’t scary enough.”

The Foreign Secretary was nodding. “This is decisive action, Your Majesty. Frankly, I…” She seemed to remember herself and abruptly stopped talking.

DG arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t expect me to be capable of taking it? It’s all right.” She pushed back from her desk and got up. “A man where I come from once said that the world ends when you’re dead, and before then there’s just more punishment to be had, so stand it like a man, and give some back.”

the consort

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