The captain gave a short laugh of disbelief, but he seemed amused all the same, and then Perri joined in.
'He would,' Perri agreed. 'I believe him.'
Froi felt ashamed, but Perri flicked him under the chin with his thumb. 'So would have I, Froi. At your age.'
'I don't understand,' Moss said. 'Finnikin's lads from the village are begging us to let them train with the Guard.'
'Climb up on my horse,' the captain said with a sigh, his arm still extended.
Froi didn't dare disobey, and with a heavy heart he held on as they rode toward the palace. As he took in the Flatlands on both sides of the road, he realized that it scared him, all these people and all this work they had to do and the way some of the villagers who had worked around him would drop their planting tools and just cry. Men, too, not just women, and it was a different crying from what Lady Celie had done in Belegonia. It was the type of crying that gave him tears and most times he pretended there was dirt in his eyes. Deep down, Froi wanted it to go back to the time when it was just them hiding in the woods and there weren't so many people to feel sad for.
The captain slowed down at a Flatland village where everyone seemed to be working, and he could see the towers over the trees in the close distance and he knew they were almost entering the palace village.
'It's Lord August's estate,' the captain explained. 'Here is the deal, Froi. You can work the land, but we choose whose land. You continue your lessons with the priest-king. You make the queen happy.'
Froi looked at him, not understanding.
'Perhaps you are right. You've not known this kingdom long. It takes time to love a land and a people and want to protect it, especially when those around you have eyes full of mistrust. It would be wrong for us to expect more from you now.'
'But one day we will ask you again,' Perri continued.
Froi stared at them. 'But if I am the enemy?'
'Enemy to whom, Froi? To our queen?' Perri asked.
'Then that is a start, Froi.'
*** and then looked at the village of Sayles. 'As long as I don't have to live inside the big house with Lord Augie and Lady Abian,' he said. 'Because if they're going to spend every night screwing—'
'Froi!'
The captain laughed for the second time that day, and Froi liked the sound of it.
'Queen's orders that you stay close,' Perri said. 'Do us a favor, Froi. Do not defy the queen's orders. She is frightful these days up in those mountains.'
Froi nodded. 'I'll stay. But you're wrong about the queen,' he said, swinging off the captain's horse, looking out at the village he was to be a part of.
'About her being frightful these days?'
'No. About her being in the mountains. I saw her. This morning, but I kept my distance. Didn't want to shame her. She was wif the Monts and everyone around me ran to the road to greet her. She was off to help in some village. Bal... Bal... ?'
'Balconio,' the captain said. He cursed as he exchanged looks with the others. 'I'll go,' he said. 'Perri, can you go back to the palace and escort Sir Topher to the village of Balconio?'
Froi looked up at the captain, confused. 'Everyone wants Finnikin to bond with her and not that prince from Osteria. Why is Finnikin not wif her?'
The captain sighed. 'Same reason as you, Froi.'
'Because he's not worvy?'
The captain placed a hand on Froi's shoulder as they made their way down the path toward Lord August's house. Froi liked the feel of it and understood why Finnikin always puffed out his chest when his father was around.
'He is in the queen's eyes,' the captain said, 'and she measures worth better than anyone I know.'
Trevanion saw the queen the instant he arrived. She was dressed in peasant clothing like those around her, and she was hacking at the earth with the same determination he had seen when she walked ahead of them on their journey to Lumatere. One of the villagers with her pointed to Trevanion, and she turned and watched as he dismounted and strode toward her. He saw the slump in her shoulders as if she knew the time had come. Her guards appeared beside her, and Trevanion grabbed hold of them both in anger.
'You said they weren't to let me out of their sight, Captain Trevanion, and they haven't,' the queen said calmly.
'They do not need defending, Your Highness,' he said, glaring at the two guards before letting them go.
She handed the hoe to the worker alongside her. 'Can you continue without me, Naill?'
'Of course, my queen.'
She followed Trevanion to the manor house. 'There's much work to be done here,' she said.
'Yes,' he acknowledged, 'but not by you. We still have the borders closed for fear of reprisal from those kingdoms who have not yet acknowledged your reign,' he explained. 'There are collaborators of the impostor king who are yet to be rounded up. The Forest Dwellers have not come out of hiding.'
'If I return to the palace, you'll lock me up like you and Sir Topher did that time in Pietrodore,' she accused. 'Or have me surrounded by at least ten of the Guard.'
'Yes,' he said truthfully. 'Because if something happens to you, my queen, I don't think we would survive.'
'Then I must teach our people how to survive,' she said. 'Because they can't keep giving up every time something happens to their king or queen.'
'Sir Topher's on his way,' he said, and the sadness in her eyes stopped him from saying any more.
Later, when the sun began to disappear and the wind felt fierce on their skin, Sir Topher sat on the hill alongside the queen, watching the workers below.
'Next summer we will have a surplus of grain and barley and oats, and all the kingdoms around us will be keen to import our produce,' she said. 'The ambassador has also managed to secure interest from the Belegonians for produce from the river, and the export from the mines will please those kingdoms who no longer want to deal with the Sorelians for tin. And we have enough in the treasury to keep our people from starving until then. Within two years, Sir Topher, we will be on the road to some kind of prosperity.'
'And perhaps at war,' he said soberly.
'I walked through the meadow in the village of Gadros,' she continued as if he had not spoken, 'and I imagined that it could look like the one near the crossroads where I took ill with the priest-king. So I'm going to plant hollyhocks and wild strawberries and daffodils and daises and calendula and columbine.' Despite her words, she was weeping and he forgot all protocol and placed his arm around her.
'I've crossed this kingdom many times over the last few weeks, Sir Topher,' she whispered through her tears. 'So many people. So many sad stories. To be responsible for so many souls. How did my father do it?'
'With the same expression on his face each day as you have now, my queen. With fear and with hope.'
She wiped away her tears.
'Isaboe,' he said gently. 'These people do not need another peasant to help plow their fields. They want their queen. They want her in the palace, leading them.'
'And a king?' she sniffed.
'I believe you have already chosen a king,' he said quietly.
She rolled her eyes. 'When I'm with the Monts, he hides himself in the Rock Village, when I'm in the Rock Village, he's in the Flatlands, and when I return to the palace, he'll hide himself with the Monts. I've become accustomed to passing him by.'
'While he's been... traveling around the kingdom, he has written the constitution of the new Lumatere, which he wants you to look over, and I think he has convinced the king of Sarnak to try those who were responsible for the massacre of our people.'
'In the Sarnak royal court or here?'
'Negotiations are taking place as we speak. Last correspondence I received from Finnikin had the king of
