Chapter Sixteen

The Old Queen

My heart was pounding through me and I didn't know what to say or do.

Balduin pushed me from the room and closed the door behind him. Then he glanced at me, from head to toe.

"Go and lie down on my bed," he instructed.

I swallowed hard as he walked up to me. "I thought…"

"Do you disregard an order from the prince?" His eyes travelled up my body again. He stood close to me, and I felt his hand on my hip as it trailed down my stomach to the juncture between my thighs, delving between the folds of my dress. Owing to the state I'd been in with Nicolo, I wore nothing beneath the dress. Balduin touched me and then slid his fingers to my rear, probing between my cheeks.

"There are ways and means that would still leave you virgo intacto and Nicolo would never need to know I was inside you. The Great God designed women with more than one entrance."

My mind raced for excuses, but all I could come up with was, "Is it a risk worth taking, Highness?"

I could feel his hardness pressing against me, and it was strange how the sensation that aroused me so much when it was Nicolo could make me gag when it was Balduin.

Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door.

"Who dares bother me?" Balduin yelled as he pulled away from me and faced the door. I was quick to put my gown back in place and tried to quell the hurried beating of my heart—panic would do me no good.

"It's Nicolo," came the answer and I couldn't help the crest of relief that flowed through me.

Balduin faced me with a smile. "It seems you have him quite where we want him."

"Enter," Balduin called and Nicolo walked through the door, his eyes immediately finding me.

"I apologize, Highness," he started and I could see there was trepidation in his eyes.

"Why are you interrupting us? Unless you've come to share in my plunder?"

Nicolo breathed in deeply. "I've come to ask you to rethink this."

"Rethink the girl?" Balduin asked, motioning to me with a flick of his wrist. "How are you sure I haven't already deflowered her?"

Nicolo's concerned gaze found mine. "I am… not sure."

Balduin chuckled as he shook his head. "I have not, I'll admit." Then he brought the liquid to his mouth and downed the contents of the glass. "And, truth be told, she tires me. I don't know what you see in her."

Nicolo breathed in deeply and I was fairly sure it was relief that appeared in his eyes. "Then may I return her to her bedchamber?"

Balduin studied him with interest. "Not to your bedchamber?"

Nicolo shook his head and breathed in deeply. "I believe she's had enough surprises for one night."

Balduin paused for a moment or two before nodding. "Get her gone from here then."

It took intense self-control not to run out the door.

***

It felt to me as if I held my breath all the way down from Balduin's Chambers to the place where the Heir's Tower converged with the Prince's Tower. I could swear the fetid stink of that little room was still in my nostrils, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw that poor little boy, a prisoner simply because of his abilities to keep the prince alive. And so the prince's extreme jealousy of his old friend could be slaked without, in turn, harming himself.

Learning who I was working for ought to have changed nothing—the job remained the same. But it felt as if it had changed everything.

"Are you okay?" Nicolo asked as he walked me back to my room.

"I'm fine," I answered, but I was so lost in my thoughts, I couldn't say anything else.

"Did he… did he touch you?"

"I can't… I can't think about that at the moment," I answered truthfully. "I believe… I'm going to be sick."

As we reached my room, I ran for the chamber pot which was at the far end of the room, located behind a privacy screen. And once it was in my hands, I lost the contents of my stomach. More than once. Placing the chamber pot back on the floor, I reached for the jug of water on the table opposite my bed and was surprised to find Nicolo sitting on my bed. I had imagined he would have left while I was retching.

"Charlotte," he said as he looked up at me. "Are you alright?"

I didn't know how to answer that. No, I wasn't alright.

"I…" I breathed in deeply.

"Speak your truth," he ordered.

"I wish you would leave, Master," I answered on a small intake of breath. I needed nothing more right now than to be alone. The realization of the situation before me was so overwhelming, I almost felt handicapped by it.

I'd judged Nicolo for being friends with Balduin, but I was working for the awful man. And the truth was that if I accomplished Balduin's deed, I'd be helping him gain even greater power, because without Nicolo, his actions would be completely unchecked.

"Very well," Nicolo said as he stood and started for the door. When he reached it, he paused and turned back to face me. "I will give you your solitude this evening but tomorrow, I want to discuss the events of this evening."

I didn't respond other than to look at him and nod. He nodded in return and then closed the door behind him, leaving me alone.

I immediately fell on my bed as sobs began to wrack me and I cried into the bed linens, feeling hopelessly and completely useless.

The Guild always claimed that client identities were kept secret out of professional courtesy, but they were also kept secret to stop assassins from growing a conscience and starting to think; does this man deserve to die? Whether or not Nicolo deserved to die was a question I couldn't answer, but doing Balduin's bidding stuck in my throat after what I'd seen.

That poor little boy.

***

A few hours later and I still couldn't sleep. I'd been tossing and turning all evening. And when I finally decided sleep was going to elude me for good, I decided to return to Nicolo's room—I didn't want to wait to talk to him in the morning. I needed to tell him nothing had passed between Balduin and me because it was clear he believed something had.

The Guards were already there when I arrived.

"He's not in," said one of them when I went to knock. "He was summoned by the queen."

I nodded, said goodnight and walked away casually before breaking into a run. Even for Master Nicolo, a royal summons was a rarity. The Old Queen saw few people, marshalling her strength in what surely had to be the last years of her long life. Thus, to have called for Nicolo in the dead of night? That was stranger still.

Back in my room I changed into my blacks, clambered out through the window and set off across the roofs in the direction of the King's Tower.

***

The queen's bedroom chamber was a large room on the third floor, but what mattered about it, from my perspective, was that it had a convenient window, hung with ivy, at which a person could perch and listen in on all that was being said within.

"… and most enjoyable." I caught the end of the queen's sentence. "However, it would be remiss of me on a night of celebration not to give credit where it was deserved. It is not the first time you have saved Balduin, and I am as grateful as ever, Nicky."

‘ Nicky ?!' It was akin to someone calling a werewolf ‘Fido'.

"I live to serve, your Majesty," replied Nicolo, kneeling before the monarch with his head bowed.

The queen approached the master, walking with the aid of a stick, and laid a hand on his shoulder. She was dressed in her evening wear, her long gray hair pulled back into a simple braid that ran down the middle length of her back.

"Can you not even look at me anymore?"

Nicolo looked up and I was surprised to see what looked like a genuine smile on his face.

"It's just us, Nicky," the Old Queen smiled back. "And I apologize for summoning you from your slumber."

"I wasn't sleeping, Majesty."

She chuckled at that. "It seems you and I suffer the same maladies, do we not? Sleeplessness."

"How have you been?" asked Nicolo, as he stood up and took the queen's hand to help her walk back to her bed.

"I survive," the elderly monarch replied. "No one is more surprised by this than I."

"You'll outlive us all."

"I rather doubt that." With Nicolo's help, the queen sat upon her bed and Nicolo arranged the blankets across her lap. "The aches and pains get worse. I remember my own grandfather losing his mind at the end. I remember thinking: what a horror that must be. Now I wonder. My mind stays sharp yet trapped in this deteriorating body. Old age can be cruel, little Nicky." She shook her head as she looked at him with a sweet expression. She cared about Nicolo, truly. "I'm twenty years older than my grandfather was when his mind went. Now… there's a thing."

"Well, I hope we've got you for a while longer yet." There was such affection in his voice, as if he were speaking to his own grandmother.

"You were always a sweet child." The Old Queen reached up to rub his cheek. "I suppose none of us know when the end will come. I'm surprised to wake up every morning. But I know it cannot be long now." She paused.

"Your Majesty?"

"I did ask you here to thank you for your recent service," the queen began. "Then I realized I had more to say and should say it while I still can." Her eyes were small and red rimmed but still sharp as pinpricks as she turned them on Nicolo.

"Mine has been a long reign, and an eventful one. There are things I have achieved of which I am proud and some which I regret but which I would do again because they were the right thing to do. There are things I would have done which remain undone and now, I fear, will not be accomplished within my lifetime—that is the way of life, you will learn; it always feels incomplete. But there are also things of which I am ashamed, Nicolo, things I did for the wrong reasons or things I just got wrong."

"We all make mistakes," he started but she shook her head and exhaled a wistful breath.

"I like to hope that I always had in mind the best interests of the kingdom, of the Gath and of the royal family, but sometimes my focus on those concerns, or even on myself, led me to make mistakes, and I'm now powerless to change those mistakes, so can only regret them. And apologize." She leaned forward. "You are the worst of those mistakes."

Nicolo frowned. "I… don't understand, Majesty."

She nodded. "I feel a dagger to my heart whenever I look at you, Nicolo. And I am glad of it, because I should suffer for what I did."

"Majesty?"

The queen sighed. "I took you from your mother, and though I did so to save another child, my grandson, it was a cruel and selfish act. I could have brought your mother along as well, but I feared because I didn't understand what she was. Not that I understand it any better today, mind."

"What she was?" Nicolo repeated, shaking his head in obvious misunderstanding.

The Old Queen nodded. "I wanted and needed you to be under my control, Nicolo." A faint and wistful smile moved her face. "Perhaps I liked you too well. You were a bright boy even then, running in the sunshine. And you seemed to bring the sunshine with you. I was never a good mother to my own children, but I never felt more maternal than watching you play in the gardens." Her head dropped. "But I robbed your mother of that joy, and I robbed you of her." She breathed out deeply. "And I robbed you of the understanding of what you are."

"What I am?" he shook his head. "You keep referring to such a subject and I must admit, Majesty, I don't understand."

"Of course, you don't because you don't know. And I will get to that part… in just a moment."

Was it my imagination or were there tears in her eyes?

"First, I must get the rest of this off my chest. I must make you understand how sorry I am for the mistakes I have made."

Nicolo knelt beside her. "I always loved you."

The Old Queen shook her head. "No. You will not remember now, but you hated me when you first arrived and cried yourself to sleep each night. You came around, forced yourself to forget. And then you made yourself over in the image of your new friend." She stared at Nicolo, almost distraught. "By the Great God, what did we turn you into?"

"Turn me into?"

"I did it for the succession," the queen continued, almost talking to herself now. "It seemed the only way. Now I wonder if it would have been better to let that boy die."

"You don't mean that."

The queen half-smiled. "You don't see it now. I hope you will before it's too late. Or perhaps there isn't enough of that sweet young boy left to see so clearly." Again, the head dropped. "What did we make you into? How did we turn that loving child into what you are now?"

Nicolo looked hurt, an expression I'd never seen on his face before. "Majesty, have I done something to…"

"It's not you, Nicolo. It's this place. It's this life. You are not what you should have been. Simply by being here, you became like us—unlike what you were meant to be. Our contamination, in turn, contaminated you. We were your only role models and you modelled yourself to survive in the only world you knew. I only hope a pocket of the boy you were still remains."

"I am happy with the man I am," said Nicolo, sounding almost broken. "It pains me to think you are not."

The queen smiled. "I love you, Nicolo, as much as a mother ever loved a child. And I am proud of you, no matter what. But that's not what I set out to say."

"Then?"

"Two things: firstly; I am sorry. I am sorry for the childhood I took from you. Secondly…" Suddenly the queen seemed almost overcome, sinking back into her chair.

"Majesty?" Nicolo leaned forward solicitously, but the queen rallied and sat up again.

"I should have told you years ago but I was afraid. Now… Now I am not sure I can save the succession no matter what I do, so you should know the truth." She edged closer. "Nicolo, your mother is still alive, and I know where she is."

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