The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(54)
Dinah rested her hands on her lap. She didn’t want to appear too pushy, and yet she could already feel the rising tension in the room as the Spades’ demands went unmentioned. The Spade commander was playing a game with her, waiting to see how long she would go before addressing them. She would play her own game then. “How is it, Starey Belft, that you came to be in this tent today bearing the weight of the palace on your shoulders? It must be an incredible load to bear alone.”
“It is, my Lady.” Starey took a long sip of the ale the Spades had brought with them. After all, who went to war without libations? She stared unflinchingly at him until he shrugged sheepishly. “What do you know about the life of a Spade, my Lady?”
“I know that living the life of a Spade is an honor.”
Starey jumped to his feet, his face flushed with anger and inches from hers. Everyone in the tent held their breath until he seemed to think better of his actions and turned away. When Dinah opened her mouth to speak, Starey Belft turned and spit, spraying the ale from his mouth all over Dinah. She coughed and wiped her eyes, willing the churning rage inside of her to dissipate. He should not have done that. Sir Gorrann stepped in front of her, his sword drawn and trembling as he pointed it at his old commander, a man Dinah knew he deeply respected.
“Yeh forget yerself, Commander! Sir, this is the future Queen of Wonderland and yeh will respect her as such.”
Starey Belft laughed. “Sit back down, Gorrann. I could skin you for treason you know, you traitorous letch.”
The men stared at each other as Dinah wiped the ale off of her chest with her sleeve. Finally, Cheshire’s voice boomed out from behind the wooden Black Towers, the height of the spires amplifying his disembodied voice over the tiny palace. “Both of you sit down. There will be no fighting in this tent, no skinning of anyone. Starey, tell us your story. But if you are here, you must respect the Queen. She understands that you’ve had a very long journey and that you weren’t in your right mind when you happened to spill your ale near her feet.”
“Spilled it out of his mouth,” mumbled Wardley.
“It’s fine,” murmured Dinah, patting her hair with her sleeve. “I’ve had much worse.”
Starey Belft’s anger turned quickly to shame. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. It’s just that, if you think the Spades live a life of honor, you are mistaken. I should have expected that the daughter of the King of Hearts would never know the truth of our lives.” Starey collapsed back into his chair. “In between birth and death, the life of a Spade is one of misery and sacrifice. We are considered the lowest ranking of the Cards, and are treated with disdain by the rest.” He gave Wardley an accusatory glance. Spades had no love for Heart Cards. “As you know, Spades are not allowed to marry or bear children. When we take our oaths, we are sworn to live for Wonderland Palace, so why would we have a need for women, love, or comfort? Spades live in the freezing barracks that lie just behind the Black Towers, stacked one on top of the other, so that you never know whose piss you’ll be standing in when you wake up. We have a place to sleep and food to eat, but nothing more. When Hearts, Clubs, or Diamonds go home, what do they return to? A room in the palace? A wife, a son? We return to nothing but the cold and the darkness.” Starey gave a shiver.
“And I don’t care what the official stance of the Palace is, but there is something that permeates the ground near the Black Towers. The black roots run through our sleeping quarters. It makes men angry, makes men mad. And just when we seem to have unity, the prisoners come. Straight from the Black Towers, released to the Spades to serve the realm. Murderers, thieves, liars, rapists—that’s who the King sends to make up his army. How are we ever to rise above our rank, when our barracks are constantly being filled with the dregs of society? We cannot, which is just how the King likes it.”
He took a breath and sat back on his wooden stool, taking a long sip of the swirling golden ale. “The life of the Spade, my Lady, is not ‘honorable’ as you say; no, it’s filled with fighting and bickering amongst ourselves, for we have nothing to do but the King of Hearts’s dirty work. It is a miserable existence. We are asked to live in this constantly changing darkness, and yet, if the King needs someone assassinated, who does he come to?” Starey beat his breast with a gloved fist. “He comes to me, comes to me to murder his enemies, to seek out Yurkei spies, to dispose of his mistresses when he grows tired of them. I have thrown men in prison that simply looked at the man in a way he did not like. I do these things, and for what? To see my men treated like sewage, discarded like day-old tarts?”
He brought his fist down onto the wooden palace and the stables crumpled beneath his hand. “Tell me, Your Highness, what will my legacy be? A legacy of death and sorrow, a life of cold waste, praying that war will come, just so we may take leave of our sorry quarters? I tell you, no! If it is the last thing I do in this sorry world, I will leave the Spades in a better position than they are in now. My men deserve better than this excuse for an existence, for we are the ones who fight and die for this kingdom.”
Bah-kan spoke up from the corner of the room, where he softly ran a dagger across his giant cheek. “You fight and die for unjust wars. The Yurkei have done nothing to deserve your raids. Your men are brutish and cruel—they are monsters.”
“I will not listen to a coward speak,” replied Starey Belft, his face stoic.