The Empire I Built for My Murderer

Lysandra found the error in the third line of her death warrant. She stood accused of withholding grain from the northern garrisons. During the week in question, one of those garrisons had not yet existed. Whoever had prepared the charge had used an old map. For nearly eight years of marriage, she had corrected the dates, accounts, and orders that passed through the palace. Now she wanted to raise her head and tell the clerk. For a moment, she truly did. She could almost see his pen hesitate, his eyes lift to hers, waiting for the correction. Then the rope tightened around her wrists. The clerk continued reading. Secret correspondence with a foreign sovereign. Misappropriation of Crown revenues. Conspiracy against the throne. Rain had washed the square clean, though mud remained between the paving stones. They had built a low platform where she was to kneel, so the crowd would have an unobstructed view. She looked toward the royal gallery. Adrian wore his mulberry cloak. Even from below, she recognized its silver clasp. Three winters earlier, before leaving for the northern campaign, he had fumbled with it and turned impatiently to her. His scarf had caught between her fingers as she fastened the clasp. Afterward, he had kissed her forehead. His hands rested on the stone balustrade now. His honey-blond hair was immaculate beneath the circlet; the shadows under his blue eyes were visible even at this distance. Once, she would have worried about how little he was sleeping. As the clerk described the seals on the incriminating letters, Adrian folded his right thumb into his palm. He knew. She had seen that small movement over war maps, during tax negotiations, while promises were made that could never be kept. He closed his hand that way when he knew a lie would serve him. He knew she had not written the letters. An attendant touched her elbow. She bent her knees, feeling cold stone through her skirt. An older slab had been set into the center of the platform. Its worn grooves bore little resemblance to the polished paving of the palace. The priest of the House of Witnesses began the final oath. “To the truth spoken, and the judgment given—” The stone warmed beneath her palms. Lysandra tried to lift her hands. The attendant pressed down on her shoulder. In the gallery, Adrian turned his head away. It hurt more than she had expected, that he would not watch. Metal scraped behind her. She opened her mouth to breathe. The breath burned her throat. She tried to sit up and caught herself in something. Rope. She pulled until thin linen tore, then fell from the edge of the bed and struck her knees against the floor. For a while, she stayed there. There was no stone beneath her hands. There was a carpet embroidered with faded flowers. One corner curled upward, the same corner her mother used to flatten so she would not trip over it as a child. Lysandra touched her throat. Skin. A pulse. Breaths arriving too quickly to be of use. No blood. The door opened. “My lady?” Mara stood on the threshold with a brown ledger beneath one arm and a half-eaten apple in her other hand. Lysandra stared at her. Black curls had escaped the pins at Mara's nape and gathered around her temples. There was no gray among them. No fine crease beside her dark brown eyes. Her broad mouth had gone still, the apple forgotten. Instead of the brown jacket she had worn the day she left the palace, she wore a blue one with newly patched elbows. “Shall I fetch someone?” Lysandra wanted to move her head. She could not decide whether to nod or shake it. Mara put the apple and ledger on the table. Short and sturdily built, she crouched beside Lysandra without fuss, looking into her face before offering her arm. “Can you stand?” It took Lysandra some time to find her voice. “What is the date?” “The eighteenth of Spring.” “The year?” Mara's hand stopped. “Six hundred and twelve.” Eight years. Lysandra looked at the window. A branch of the walnut tree reached toward the glass. They had cut it down the summer she married, because it obstructed the carriages taking her trunks to the palace. “My lady, I'm sending for a physician.” “Wait.” She gripped Mara's arm too hard as she rose. At the tightening of the other woman's mouth, she loosened her fingers. She meant to apologize. Instead, she touched her throat again. Mara brought her water. The first mouthful ran down her chin and onto her nightdress. She managed to swallow the second. The date was written in the open ledger. She knew Mara's figures. She knew the c***k in the corner of the window, the faded ribbon on the lavender sachet, the small mirror that had belonged to her mother. She picked up the mirror. Her hair had come loose in sleep, thick chestnut strands falling across her shoulders. She pushed them back. The face beneath them was familiar in ways she had forgotten: a little more fullness below the high cheekbones, warmth in her olive skin where the prison had left it sallow. The mouth was hers, its lower lip fuller than the upper. So were the straight dark brows and the hazel eyes, brown until the window caught the green in them. She turned her head, searching beneath her jaw. Nothing. The woman in the glass was twenty-four. Lysandra laid the mirror facedown. “We are going to the palace this morning.” “Yes.” Mara watched her closely. “Your father ordered the carriage for eight. You said you wanted to read the papers once more before breakfast.” The papers. The marriage settlement. White leather. A blank space beneath the royal arms. And the fourth schedule. “Bring me the granary ledger.” Mara retrieved the brown book from the table. “That's why I came. The steward at Derenk wrote again yesterday. The transport permit still hasn't arrived.” Lysandra put down the glass. Rain. The sluices. Swollen sacks of wheat. This memory came first as a smell: the sour warmth of grain that had stood in water for days. She had visited the granaries after the flood. The steward's wife had stood beside the door and refused to curtsy when someone reminded her who Lysandra was about to become. She could not remember the woman's son's name. Heat crept into her face. She opened the ledger and found the entry for the lowest granary. Read it twice. The quantity differed from the number she remembered. That number, she realized, had come from the count taken after the losses. “Is the storehouse on the eastern slope empty?” “Partly. They want a deposit before they'll let it.” “Pay it. Send a rider to the steward. Have the families living at the granaries moved to the upper quarter. Put the grain on the upper floors, starting with the sacks at ground level. Hire more hands if he needs them.” Mara turned the ledger toward herself. “Extra labor will need extra money.” “Take it from the clothing account.” “That's been set aside for your court gown.” Lysandra looked at the embroidered fabric at the foot of the bed. White thread marked the places where pearls would be sewn. “The gown can wait.” Mara wrote several lines, then lifted her pen. “Why are we moving the families?” Lysandra was accustomed to giving orders that required no explanation. It would have been easy to say, Do as I ask. Once, those had been the last words she spoke to Mara. The following week, Mara had been removed from the palace accounts. Lysandra had waited for the right time to put things right. The time had never come. “I don't believe the sluices are safe.” “According to whose report?” Lysandra looked out of the window. Sunlight filtered through the walnut leaves. From here, there was no sign of the rain that had been falling upriver for days. “Information I still need to verify.” Mara did not lower her pen. “If I'm wrong, we will have spent money on unnecessary work,” Lysandra said. “If I'm right, we cannot afford to be late. Put in the ledger that the expense was incurred on my instructions.” Mara wrote it down. Lysandra watched her sign beneath the entry. An ink stain darkened one of her short fingers against her brown skin. For six years, she had seen that handwriting and taken its reliability as much for granted as a sound chair or a roof that did not leak. “Mara.” “Yes?” “You may disagree with me.” For the first time, Mara frowned. “I already have. Three times this morning.” A small, startled laugh escaped Lysandra. It hurt her chest. She let it happen anyway.