Cold, I Sipped the Snow

Chapter 3: The Inventory

I had watched Rusk's men inventory the palace for two hours before I understood what they were looking for.

They counted the silver, sealed the wine cellar, and changed the guard at the west gate. Then a clerk carried in a stack of boxes from the king's private office and set them beside the throne.

"The emergency authority is temporary," Rusk said. "The council needs to know what resources remain."

"Is that what you call taking an inventory of the royal papers?"

"It's what I call accounting for the state."

The clerk opened the first box. Inside lay letters, invoices, and folded orders bearing Alaric's seal. I knew the paper by its blue border. The king had used it for matters he wanted remembered.

I recognized several names. Harlan's. Pell's. My own.

"What are you hoping to find?" I asked.

"An answer."

"To which question?"

"Whether your husband died naturally."

I glanced at the king's papers. "You already have a physician's report."

"A physician's report isn't an answer."

The clerk lifted a bundle of correspondence. Rusk stopped him with a raised hand.

"I'll review those myself," he said.

"Afraid the papers will bite?"

"I've been bitten by worse."

I studied his face. The scar that ran from his temple to the edge of his jaw was pale against his skin. Alaric had ordered his men to hang Rusk's brother in the old prison yard after a failed rebellion. I had signed the order converting the sentence from exile to execution.

The king had dictated it. I had made the words lawful.

"Did you choose Dr. Pell?" I asked.

Rusk's hands stopped over the box.

"Why?"

"The king's last note asked who chose him."

"You found a note."

It wasn't a question.

I kept my face still. "I found the same fact you did. Dr. Pell was there."

"I asked the question first."

"Then answer it."

"Alaric chose Pell years ago."

"Did you replace him?"

"I didn't."

"Did you know he would be in the room?"

"I knew the king had been ill."

"Not an answer."

"Neither was yours."

He turned back to the box. The clerk resumed sorting, slower now.

I had kept a private ledger for six years. I had never called it a record of crimes. I called it the household ledger, then the winter ledger, after the first year I stored it behind the stonework of the old conservatory. It contained payments to prison keepers, signed orders, and the names of people removed from the capital at the king's request. I had kept it because I feared being blamed for what I had done.

That was not the same as keeping proof.

Rusk reached for a packet tied with a red thread. I recognized my handwriting on the label: COASTAL SECURITY.

"Put that down," I said.

"Why?"

"It concerns an order that has nothing to do with the king's death."

"I'll decide what concerns the king's death."

The packet held the papers from the year of the Gray Harbor arrests. I had ordered dozens of families detained after a dockside riot. The king had insisted the rebellion was real. The evidence had been weak, but I had approved the arrests anyway, hoping a show of force would stop the council from challenging us.

Rusk's brother had been among those arrested. He had died in custody three months later.

"If you open that packet," I said, "you'll find my signature."

"I already know your signature."

"You'll find the names of the people your soldiers failed to protect."

"Your soldiers."

"They were mine then."

Rusk looked up. "You want me to believe you're taking responsibility?"

"I want you to understand what you're holding."

He let the packet fall back into the box. "I know exactly what I'm holding."

"And your own orders?"

His gaze went cold. "Which ones?"

"You placed your men around the palace before the king died."

"I placed them there because the king was dying."

"On whose authority?"

"Mine."

"That's treason."

"That's why I'm using the charter."

He had answered too quickly, as though he had prepared the sentence. I realized then that his coup had not begun with the palace gates. The soldiers, the charter, and the physician were all parts of something planned well before Alaric's final night.

"You had the charter before he died," I said.

"I found it in his papers."

"Before or after?"

Rusk came around the table. "You think the answer will save you."

"I think the question matters."

"To whom?"

"To Cora."

"She'll learn the truth."

"From you?"

"From the documents."

I knew what he intended. He would reveal enough of Alaric's rule to justify his takeover, then hide his own role in the king's death. He didn't need the whole truth. He needed a story the council could repeat without choking on it.

I looked past him to the empty throne. "You can't bring the kingdom back to life by changing the name of the person holding the knife."

"I never said I could."

"You think you're different from him."

"I think I'm willing to be held accountable."

I laughed once. "By whom?"

He had no answer.

A guard appeared at the door. "Lord Marshal, Lady Cora requests the queen's presence in the registry."

Rusk looked at me. "No."

Cora had asked for me in the one room that could prove the dead king's last orders. I had no right to say no for her. I also had no freedom to go.

"Let me speak to her," I said.

"Not alone."

"I wasn't asking to be alone."

Rusk took the folded note from the table and held it toward me. "You can bring this, if it's so important."

My palm had gone damp. I opened it.

The note was gone.

Rusk watched me look at the empty hand. "You were holding something when I came in."

"I had a ring."

"Not on that hand."

He had searched the room, not me. I had kept the note through the search, then lost it in the shuffle. Someone had taken it while the guards moved the boxes.

I looked at the clerk. He kept his eyes on the papers.

Rusk called two guards to escort me to the registry. "Walk carefully," he said.

"I always do."

"No," he replied. "You walk carefully when you're afraid."

He was right. I went anyway.