Long May She Reign(49)

I’d been so wrong. Everything I thought I knew was shattering away. I’d thought all the old courtiers were callous and selfish and shallow, but just a few days had taught me how unfair and judgmental I’d been. And then I’d thought that a ruler’s job was to lead the court, with barely a thought for the kingdom beyond. Perhaps King Jorgen hadn’t thought about the kingdom, either, but that was why he had been a bad king, wasteful and ridiculous and wrong. This job was far more than learning how to speak in front of crowds and perfecting my smiles. I held everyone’s fates in my hands. And I’d made things worse for them. I’d been so blind.

When the so-called feast ended, we had more entertainment, more forced conversations, before we finally, finally retired for the day. Naomi was asleep when I found her, curled in a ball in bed with her back to the door. I tried to sit in my chair with Dagny, to rest and recover now that the funerals were finally over, but my head was too full of thoughts to sit still. The moment I stopped moving, all the day’s discoveries crawled through me, the horror of the funerals, the number of the dead, the pain I’d caused because I hadn’t been paying attention. My eyes ached with exhaustion, but I couldn’t possibly sleep. Things were so confused now.

So, once again, I headed down to my laboratory, desperate to do something productive.

And once again, Fitzroy was already there. My chest tightened at the sight of him, the way his presence filled the room. “You couldn’t sleep?” I asked, as I closed the door behind me.

“No.”

“Me either.”

He had said good-bye to his father today. He had said good-bye to everything he knew. And then he had come here.

He didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“All right,” I said softly. “Where shall we begin?”





SIXTEEN


THE TESTS DID NOT GO WELL. THE ARSENIC STUBBORNLY refused to dissolve in most acids. It did vanish, with a little nudging, in spirit of niter, and with no nudging at all in spirits of salt, but I couldn’t smell or see anything to identify it. It might have had a detectable taste, but I wasn’t so far gone that I would willingly put arsenic and acid in my mouth, not even for answers.

Yet despite the lack of progress, despite my exhaustion, the evening felt like a success. Fitzroy’s presence was soothing, even as it set my nerves on edge, and I found myself trusting him again, letting all my worries spill into the air between us.

“You didn’t know,” he told me, as I shared my fears. “But you do now. That’s what matters.”

And maybe I was just desperate for comfort, but I believed him.

When the council meeting began the following morning, I was ready. Drained from lack of sleep, heart stuttering with nerves, but resolved.

“Every new law must go through me,” I said. My voice only slightly shook. “I need to approve every tax, and every big expenditure.”

“But Your Majesty,” Thorn said. “That will be incredibly time consuming. That’s why you have us as advisers.”

“I have advisers to advise me,” I said. “Not to rule for me. And these secret changes are unacceptable.”

“They were not secret, Freya,” my father said. “You knew what we were doing. We just did not inform you of the how.”

“So now you will. Taxing the people for the court’s funerals? Arresting them when they can’t pay? And I heard something about a curfew?”

“Necessary, Your Majesty,” Norling said, “while we investigate the murders. We need to ensure that people remain in their homes, so they cannot scheme at night.”

“Then people will just scheme during the day!”

They were all looking at me like I was a spoiled child, throwing a tantrum because I didn’t want a nap. All except Holt. He watched me with steady eyes, nodding slightly. He did not speak.

“All the how will go through me from now on,” I said. “And we have to repay the funeral fee. Say it was a mistake.”

“Your Majesty—”

“I told you, Freya,” my father said. “That will be impossible. We must pay for the funerals somehow, and they were incredibly expensive, as is our investigation of the murder. We do not have the money.”

“Then dredge the river,” I said. “Hunt down the funeral boats. There were enough jewels there to pay for everything else a hundred times over. If we are poor, we shouldn’t be throwing jewels away.”

“Your Majesty,” Holt said slowly, “I am not sure that is wise. It may be seen as an insult to the court. Those jewels were sent off in honor of the dead. It may be wasteful, but—”

“The dead can’t use jewels. We can.”

The more I spoke, the more irrational I felt, as they watched me with raised eyebrows and poorly disguised disbelief. But no matter how they spun things, they couldn’t charge the city’s poor to pay for a funeral where hundreds of gemstones were thrown away. I wouldn’t let that be how my rule began.

“Your Majesty,” Norling said, leaning forward slightly. “May I make a suggestion? There is distrust in the city for you, as you have seen. And if you do this, there will be distrust in the nobles, as well. It might be best to organize a distraction. An open trial, for those who tried to poison you, and other criminals we have apprehended recently. Show people that justice still rules in this city.”