Long May She Reign(67)

TWENTY-ONE


RAIN HAD DRIZZLED ALL MORNING, LEAVING PUDDLES on the roads and a light mist in the air. My carriage moved slowly through the streets. The two gray horses had looked pure and regal when I’d stepped out of the Fort, but they were probably covered in mud now.

The rest of the city seemed to have decided to stay inside, out of the rain. I peered around the curtains, but I couldn’t see any passersby. The sky was a gray canvas above us.

“Where is everybody? Did they not want to come out to see me?” The words sounded arrogant, but that had been the point, hadn’t it? I couldn’t convince people to like me if they couldn’t see me.

“We didn’t announce that you were heading here today,” Norling said. “It wouldn’t be safe. We’ll go to the orphanage, but we’ll do it quietly.”

“We can’t do it quietly.” Without an audience, the whole exercise was useless. I wasn’t putting my life at risk and my nerves to the test if it wouldn’t help me. I had to make people like me. “Stop the carriage.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Stop the carriage. I want to walk.”

“But, Your Majesty—”

“I need to be seen.” My father had pushed for aloofness, but he wasn’t here anymore. I only had Holt, and Norling, and my own wits, and I couldn’t be aloof now. Acting like the old king, when half the people seemed to have hated him, when people wanted to get rid of the nobility altogether . . . what good would that do? I needed to prove that I wasn’t like them, that I wasn’t snobby and corrupt. That perhaps I was a person the Forgotten could approve of after all.

And for that, I would need to walk.

I stepped out the moment the carriage stopped, and Madeleine and Naomi slipped out behind me. Once I got past the narrow vantage point of the carriage window, I saw that there were people farther down the street—a few shoppers, striding along with baskets over their arms, a gang of teenagers on the corner, merchants and traders and other distracted figures hurrying about their business.

Holt and Norling climbed out of the carriage, too. Holt smiled slightly, but Norling was looking about in frustration. “All right,” she said. “All right. Guards, lead the way. We will be proceeding on foot.”

“Make way!” one of the guards shouted, as he marched ahead. “Make way for Queen Freya!”

That got people to look. I forced my spine straight, rotating my shoulders back, trying to remember everything my father had taught me about being queen.

Except that wasn’t what I was doing now. Good posture might help, but otherwise, those displays hadn’t benefited me yet. Holt and Madeleine had told me to be different, to be myself, and . . . well, that had to be easier than these shows of royalty. I smiled at the group of shoppers, a little weakly perhaps, but still a smile. One of them curtsied.

Another of them stared me down. She didn’t shout anything, gave no other sign of aggression, but I could see it in her eyes. She’d heard I was a murderer, and she was assessing what she saw.

One of the merchants tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, Your Majesty. What brings you out into the city?” It was bold, greeting the queen like that. Would King Jorgen have accepted it? Would he have laughed and replied, or had the man arrested for rudeness?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was what I wanted to do. “Good afternoon,” I said. My voice shook slightly, but it wasn’t too bad. “We’re traveling to the Stonegate Orphanage, on the northern side of the city.”

Another man laughed. “And you care about things like that, now you’ve been accused of being a murderer?”

A guard strode toward him, but I held out my hand. “I always cared. I just realized I should be doing more to show it.”

The man frowned at me, and I took the opportunity to walk on again. The shoppers bobbed into curtsies as I passed.

“Your Majesty,” Norling hissed, as we walked on. “That was not appropriate.”

I knew. But lying or ignoring people wouldn’t help me. Maybe this would.

We passed more people as we walked farther into the city, and other carts clattered past us. I could feel myself shrinking inward, trying to increase the space between me and the crowds, but I kept my back straight, and counted the length of my breaths. I tried to focus on the details as we walked—the moody gray of the sky, the splash of water under my feet, the way the streetlights were reflected in the shop windows. Be present, I told myself. Don’t panic.

As we turned toward the poorer neighborhoods on the north side of the city, a woman stumbled toward us. She must have been in her fifties, with a gaunt face and an eager expression. My guards moved to intercept her.

“Your Majesty,” she said. “Please. Let me have your blessing.”

“My blessing?” I stepped around the guards and moved closer. “What do you mean?”

“My business is in trouble, Your Majesty. Too many debts. I don’t want your charity, Your Majesty, but I hoped—perhaps if you could bless me, in the name of the Forgotten, I mean . . . that might help.”

It was the strangest request I’d ever heard. “I can’t do that,” I said. “I can’t bless you.”

“But you’re the Forgotten’s chosen, Your Majesty. Please.”