Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(71)
Author: Kristin Cashore

"Do you understand that?"

Stricken faces looked back at her. Some of them nodded.

"I'll help each of you through it, however I can," she said. "If there are trials, I'll testify on your behalf, for I understand that few of you were at the top of this chain of command, and I understand that you were forced for years, some of you for decades, by my father, to be obedient. Perhaps some of you don't know now how to be anything but obedient. That's not your fault.

"One more thing," she said. "I've said that I won't make you revisit the time of King Leck, and I meant that. But there are people—lots of people—who see value in doing so. There are people who need to do so in order to recover. I don't begrudge you your own need to heal in your own way, but you will not interfere with other people's healing. I understand that what they do interferes with yours. I see the conundrum. But I will not tolerate any of you compounding Leck's crimes with more crimes. Anyone who continues with this suppression will lose every bit of my loyalty. Do you understand?"

Bitterblue looked into every face, waiting for an acknowledgment. How she'd worked with these men for so many years and never seen how much was in their faces was beyond her, and it shamed her; and now they were depending on her. It was in their eyes; and they didn't know that she was all talk, that the teams she talked about building had no foundation and no plan, nothing but her words. Her words were empty. She might as wel have told them that they were all going to build a castle out of air.

Wel . She had better start somewhere. Demonstrating trust was, perhaps, more important than actual y feeling it. "Holt,"

she said.

"Yes, Lady Queen," he said gruffly.

"Holt, look into my face," she said. "I have a job for you and any men in the Queen's Guard that you choose."

This brought Holt's eyes to hers. "I'll do anything, Lady Queen."

Bitterblue nodded. "There is a cave on the other side of Winter Bridge," she said. "Your niece knows how to find it.

It's the lair of a thief known as Spook and her granddaughter, Gray, whom you may know as my servant Fox. Late tonight, when both Spook and Fox are inside, I want you to raid the cave, arrest them and their guards, and seize any items inside. Talk to Giddon," she said, for Giddon was the man pegged to talk next to Saf. "He has access to information about the cave. He may be able to tell you how it's guarded and where the entrances are."

"Thank you, Lady Queen," said Holt, tears streaming down his face. "Thank you for trusting me with this."

Then Bitterblue looked into the faces of her two remaining advisers, Rood and Darby, and knew that she was about to make things just a little bit worse for herself.

"Come upstairs with me," she said to the two.

"SIT DOWN," BITTERBLUE said.

Darby and Rood slumped into chairs like defeated men.

Rood was still crying, Darby sweaty and shaking. They were grieving, as she was, and Bitterblue hated that she had to do this.

"I said below that I believed very few people were at the top of this chain of command," she said. "But both of you were, weren't you?"

Neither answered. Bitterblue was beginning to get a little tired of not being answered. "You set it up from the beginning, didn't you? Forward-thinkingness actual y meant suppression of the past. Danzhol, before I kill ed him, intimated that the town charters were intended to keep me from digging into the truth of what happened in my towns, and I laughed at him, but that's exactly what they were meant to do, isn't it? Push the past under the rug and pretend it's possible to make a fresh start. The blanket pardons for all crimes committed in Leck's time too. The lack of education in the schools, because it's easier to control what's known when people can't read. And, worst of all , the specific targeting of anyone working against you.

Right?" she said. "Gentlemen? Does that about cover it? Answer me," she commanded sharply.

"Yes, Lady Queen," Rood whispered. "That, and flooding you with paper so that you'd stay in your tower and be too overwhelmed to be curious."

Bitterblue stared at him in astonishment. "You will tell me how it worked," she said, "and who else was involved besides the men downstairs. And you'll tell me if anyone else was in charge."

"We were the ones in charge, Lady Queen," Rood whispered again. "Your four advisers. We passed down the orders.

But others have been deeply involved."

"Thiel and Runnemood were more culpable than we were,"

said Darby. "It was their idea. Lady Queen, you said you forgave us. You said you would testify on our behalves if there were trials, but now you're so angry."

"Darby!" she cried in exasperation. "Of course I'm angry! You lied to me and manipulated me! My own friends were singled out for kill ing! One is il because you tried to burn her printing shop!"

"We did not want to hurt her, Lady Queen," said Rood desperately. "She was printing books and teaching people to read. She had papers and strange letter molds that frightened and confused us."

"And so you set it all on fire? Is that part of your method too? Destroy anything you don't understand?"

Neither man spoke. Neither man seemed entirely present in his chair. "Captain Smit?" she snapped. "Am I likely ever to see him again?"

"He wanted to tell you the truth, Lady Queen," Rood whispered. "It was a great strain on him to lie to your face.

Thiel thought he'd made himself too much of a liability, you see?"

"How could you be so careless with people?" she said, furious.

"It is easier than you might think, Lady Queen," said Rood.

"It only requires a lack of thought, an avoidance of feeling, and the realization, when one does think or feel, that being careless with people is all one is good for."

Thirty-five years. Bitterblue wasn't certain she'd ever be able to comprehend what it had been like for them. It wasn't fair that nearly a decade after his death, Leck was still kill ing people. Leck was still tormenting the same people he'd tormented; people were committing appal ing acts in order to erase the appal ing acts they'd already committed.

"Ivan?" she said. "The mad engineer? What happened to him?"

"Runnemood thought he was cal ing too much attention to himself and, hence, to the state of the city, Lady Queen,"

whispered Rood. "You yourself complained of his incompetence."

"And Danzhol?"

"Oh," Rood said, taking a breath. "We don't know what went wrong with Danzhol, Lady Queen. Leck did have a few special friends who would visit and find themselves drawn into his hospital; Danzhol was one. We knew this, of course, but we didn't know he'd gone mad and intended to kidnap you for money. Thiel was so ashamed afterwards, for Danzhol had asked him beforehand how highly your administration valued you, Lady Queen, and Thiel thought, in retrospect, that perhaps he should've guessed the purpose of the question."

"Danzhol was planning to ransom me back to you?"

"We think so, Lady Queen. No other party in the world would have paid so much for your return."

"But how can you say that," Bitterblue cried, "when you'd made a point of making me useless?"

"You would not have been useless, Lady Queen," Rood said, "once we'd eradicated all that had happened! You were our hope! Perhaps we should've kept Danzhol closer and involved him more in the suppression. We could have made him a judge or a minister. Perhaps then, he wouldn't have lost his mind."

"That doesn't seem likely," Bitterblue said in disbelief.

"Nothing you say is logical. I was right when I thought Runnemood was the most sane of you all ; at least he understood that your plan couldn't work while I was alive. I will testify on your behalves," she continued. "I will testify as to the injury Leck did to you, and the ways in which Thiel and Runnemood may have coerced you. I'll do whatever I can, and I'll make absolutely sure that you're treated fairly.

But," she said, "you both know that in your cases, it's not a matter of 'if ' there will be a trial. Both of you must go on trial. People have been murdered. I myself was almost choked to death."

"That was all Runnemood," Darby said, frantic. "He went too far."

"You have all gone too far," said Bitterblue. "Darby, see reason. You have all gone too far, and you know that I can't let you go free. How would that be? The queen protecting advisers who conspired to murder innocent Monseans and who used all the parts of her administration to see it done? you'll be imprisoned, both of you, as will anyone else who was deeply involved. you'll stay in prison until I've isolated people who can be trusted to investigate your crimes, and judges who can be trusted to try them justly and with an appreciation for all you've suffered. If you're found innocent and returned to me, I'll honor the court's ruling. But I will not pardon you myself."

Rood was breathing into his hands. He whispered, "I don't know how we all became trapped in this. I can't understand it. I still cannot fathom what happened."

Bitterblue felt as if her words were coming from a deep, hol ow, unkind, and stupid core, but she pushed them out nonetheless. "Now," she said, "I want you both to write down for me how it worked, what was done, and who else was involved. Rood, you stay here at my desk," she said, handing him paper and pen. "Darby," she said, pointing to Thiel's stand. "You work over there. Separate reports. Take care that they match."

There was no comfort in making her distrust so obvious.

There was no joy in depriving herself of two people whose minds and bodies she needed, depended on, to run these offices. And how horrible to send them to the prisons. One man who had a family and, somewhere deep inside him, a gentle soul, and another man who couldn't even cal upon the escape of sleep.

When they were through, she arranged for members of the Queen's Guard to escort them to prison.

NEXT, SHE SENT for Giddon.

"Lady Queen," he said as he entered, "you don't look good.

Bitterblue," he said, crossing the room in two strides, dropping down beside her, taking her arms.

"If you touch me," Bitterblue said, eyes closed, teeth clenched, "I'll lose my head, and they can't see me losing my head."

"Hold on to me," he said, "and breathe slowly. You're not losing your head, you're just under a massive amount of strain. tell me what's going on."

"I'm facing," she said, then stopped. She wrapped her hands around his forearms and took a slow breath. "I'm facing a rather catastrophic staff shortage. I just put Darby and Rood in prison, and look at these papers."

She indicated the papers on her desk, covered with the scribbles of Darby and Rood. Four of the eight judges on her High Court had been involved in the suppression, convicting innocent people and people who needed to be silenced. So had Smit, of course, and the Master of Prisons. So had her Minister of Roads and Maps, her Minister of Taxes, various lords, and the head of the Monsean Guard in Monport. So many members of the Monsean Guard had learned to turn a blind eye that it had been impossible for Rood and Darby to list them individual y. And then there were the lowest of the low, the criminals and the lost individuals in the city, who'd been paid, or compel ed, to carry out the actual acts of violence.