Bitterblue

'Until tonight,' Thiel whispered. 'He told me that you'd made friends with the wrong sorts of people, Lady Queen. Do not ask me to explain it beyond that, because all I can think is that he was mad.'

'Madness is such a convenient explanation,' Bitterblue said sarcastically, rising to her feet again. 'Where is he, Thiel?'

'Truly, I don't know, Lady Queen,' Thiel said, beginning to rise. 'I didn't see him again after I left him in the passage.'

'Sit down,' Bitterblue snapped, wanting to be taller than him, wanting to be able to look down on him. He sat abruptly. 'Why did you send no one after him? You let him go!'

'I was thinking of you, Lady Queen,' he cried. 'Not him!'

'You let him go!' she said again in frustration.

'I'll find out where he is, Lady Queen. I'll find out about all these things you've said, all these crimes you think he's been committing.'

'No,' she said. 'Someone else will find out for me. You're no longer in my employ, Thiel.'

'What?' he exclaimed. 'Lady Queen, please. You can't!'

'Can't I? Can't I really? Do you understand what you've done? How can I trust you if you shield me from the atrocities of my own advisers? I'm trying to be a queen here, Thiel. A queen, not a child to be protected from the truth!' Her voice, rough and broken, forced its way out of her injured throat. He'd hurt her with this thing, more than she'd thought it possible for a stiff, emotionless old man to do. 'You lied to me,' she said. 'You led me to believe that I could count on you to help me be a righteous queen.'

'You are a righteous queen, Lady Queen,' he said. 'Your mother would be—'

'Don't you dare,' she hissed, talking over him. 'Don't you dare use the memory of my mother to call on my mercy.'

There was a moment of silence. He hung his head, seeming to understand. 'You must consider, Lady Queen,' he whispered, 'that we were students together. He was my friend long before Leck. We suffered a great deal together. You must also consider that you were ten years old. Then before I knew it you were a woman of eighteen, going around on your own, discovering perilous truths, and, apparently, running through the streets at night. You must allow me time to adjust.'

'I'm going to allow you plenty of time,' she said. 'Stay away until you've decided to make a habit of the truth.'

'I decide it now, Lady Queen,' he said, blinking back his shocked tears. 'I will not lie to you again. I swear it.'

'I'm afraid I don't believe you.'

'Lady Queen,' he said, 'I beg you. Now that you're injured, you'll have even greater need of help.'

'Then I shall only wish to be surrounded by those who are helpful,' she said to the man who kept everything running. 'Get out,' she said. 'Go to your rooms and think things through. When you suddenly remember where Runnemood went, send us a note.'

He pushed himself to his feet, not looking at her. Quietly, he left the room.

'WHILE I HAVE this horrible cast on my arm,' she said that night to Helda, 'I need to be able to dress and undress without this rigmarole.'

'Yes,' Helda said, breaking the seam of Bitterblue's sleeve and easing the garment over the cast. She'd had to sew Bitterblue into her dress that morning. 'I've a few ideas, Lady Queen, to do with open sleeves and buttons. Sit down, my dear. Don't even move; I'll untie this scarf and deal with all these underthings. I'll put you into your shift.'

'No,' Bitterblue said. 'No shift.'

'Far be it from me, Lady Queen, to stop you if you wish to sleep with nothing on, but you have a small fever. I do believe you'll be more comfortable with an extra layer of warmth.'

She wasn't going to fight with Helda about the shift, because she didn't want Helda to suspect her reason for not wanting it. But, oh, how much she ached, and how wearying to add removing the rutting shift to the list of impossible tasks she was going to have to complete in order to sneak out tonight. When Helda began to pull her hairpins out and unravel her hair, Bitterblue stopped herself again from arguing, and said, 'Would you braid it in one long braid for me, please, Helda?'

Finally, Helda was gone, the lamps were extinguished, and Bitterblue lay on her right side in bed, throbbing so mightily that she wondered if it was possible for one small queen in one big bed to start an earthquake.

Well. No point in delaying.

Sometime later, with gasping breath and a pounding head, Bitterblue left her rooms and began the long trek through corridors and down stairways. She wouldn't think about her one-armedness, or the lack of knives in her sleeves. There were a great many things she wouldn't think about tonight; she would trust to luck and hope she encountered no one.

Then, in the great courtyard, a person stepped out of the shad ows and stood in her path. He let off gleams of light, softly visible in the torches, as he always did.

'Please don't make me stop you,' Po said. It wasn't a joke or a warning. It was a true plea. 'I will if I have to, but it'll only make both of us more sick.'

'Oh, Po,' she said, then went to him and hugged him with her one good arm.

He put his arm around her uninjured side, held her tight, and sighed, slowly, into her hair, balancing himself against her. When she rested her ear against his chest, she could hear his flying heartbeat. Slowly, it calmed. He said, 'Are you determined to go out?'

'I want to tell Saf and Teddy about Runnemood,' she said. 'I want to ask if anything's changed with the crown, and I need to tell Saf again that I'm sorry.'

'Will you wait until tomorrow, and let me send someone to bring them to you?'

It was bliss, the very idea of being allowed to turn around and go back to her bed. 'Will you do it early?'

'Yes. Will you sleep, so that when they come, it won't exhaust you to talk to them?'

'Yes,' she said. 'All right.'

'All right,' he said, sighing again above her. 'When Madlen stepped out for a moment today, Beetle, I followed the tunnel under the east wall.'

'What? Po, you'll never get healthy!'

Po snorted. 'Yes, we should all take your advice on such matters. It starts at a door behind a hanging, in an east corridor on the ground floor. It lets out into a teeny, dark alleyway in the east city, near the base of Winged Bridge.'

'Do you think he escaped into the east city, then?'

'I suppose so,' Po said. 'I'm sorry my range doesn't extend that far. And I'm sorry I never took time to talk to him and pick up that something was wrong. I haven't been much use to you since I got here.'

'Po. You've been ill, and before that, you were busy. We'll find him, and then you can talk to him.'

He didn't respond, just rested his head on her hair.

She asked, once, whispering, 'Have you heard anything from Katsa?'

He shook his head no.

'Are you ready for her to come back?'

'I'm not ready for anything,' he said. 'But that doesn't mean I don't want things to happen.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'I want her to come back. Is that a good enough answer?'

Yes.

'To bed?' he said.

Yes, all right.

BEFORE FALLING ASLEEP, she read a fragment of embroidery.

Thiel reaches his limit every day yet goes on. Perhaps only because I beg him. Most would rather forget and obey unthinking than face truth of mad world Leck tries to create.

Tries and, I think, sometimes fails. He destroyed sculptures in his rooms today. Why? Also took his favorite sculptor Bellamew away. We'll never see her again. Success at destruction. But failure at something, for he cannot be satisfied. Fits of temper.