Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

“I’m the captain of the queen’s guard,” said the cut man— Dareus , the lady-in-waiting had called him. His gray eyes were still thoughtful, almost bored. “I don’t carry my weapons where Nest brats can see and steal them. Watch your tongue and your talk of real men.”

“Why don’t you watch your tongue and your talk of Nest brats?” Yvain snapped.

He jackknifed in the dirt and out from under the guard’s heel, only to find himself rolled again, this time with the guard kneeling beside him, a hand fastened at his throat.

Dareus’s eyes were still bored, but he was smiling slightly. “I might,” he said. “If you could make me.”

He released Yvain and got up, brushing his hands off, then made a slight bow to the lady.

“Forgive me for intruding,” he said. “I’ll leave you to your conversation.”

Yvain had somewhat expected him to walk off with the lady on his arm. That was the usual outcome when you bested someone in a fight over a woman—but then, what would a cut man want with a woman?

Yvain had a natural advantage here.

He used another of his natural advantages, his smile, as he used the fruit stall to help him stand.

“Now, about convincing you,” he began.

The lady-in-waiting’s warm brown eyes were, he noticed a little late, absolutely furious.

“He’s ten times the man you are,” she informed him, and turned sharply to hurry away after the guard.

“Am I missing something here?” Yvain asked the empty air.

“Only the same thing you’ve been missing all your life,” said the stall owner, a kind-faced woman who had given him and Persie apples when they were young. “Which is that you’re a bit of an idiot.”

She looked like she’d rather enjoyed the entertainment of Yvain being beaten up by yet another of Rosamond’s people.

“I thought girls liked this sort of thing,” Yvain added, making a small gesture to his trousers.

“Many of us find them completely irrelevant.”

“Even mine?” Yvain asked, making a face of mock horror.

The woman laughed. “Especially yours, lad.”

Yvain laughed too. He was getting the last laugh, after all, no matter how battered he was by the queen’s men. He had the gold statue at the small of his back, and he could melt that down too. It would fetch enough to buy every man in the Nests a drink, the night before the Trials.

And if the money wasn’t quite worth the trouble, it still pleased Yvain to spite the queen, even in some small way.

He played with the idea of winning the Trials for a moment, and telling Rosamond the truth she’d probably never heard in all her spoiled lifetimes. That the only worth she would have to him was the gold.

You would see a lot of gold, though, being Rosamond’s king. Why anyone tried to pretend the girl herself was the thing to fight for, Yvain couldn’t say.

“I hear you were being terribly brave and impressive in the marketplace today,” Roz whispered as Dareus escorted her through the marble halls of her palace to the stateroom, where the First Minister sat waiting. “Miri was so impressed.”

“It wasn’t impressive,” Dareus said. “I was up against a boy who had no training, and I let myself get angry. It would have been much more impressive if I’d kept my temper.”

“But where,” said Roz, “is the fun in that? Miri said you were great.”

“The lady Miri always assumes the best of people,” Dareus said. “Which does credit to her but little to them.”

Roz slowed her step before they reached the doors of the stateroom.

“If you like her,” she began.

“My queen,” Dareus said, “just because the lady Miri is allowed to go out on market days does not mean she has experienced life. Both of you have grown up with the palace walls as the border to your world. Neither of you has walked the city, neither of you has ever had the chance to talk to men. Once you are married, you and the lady Miri can mix freely with the Court. You are going to marry a champion. She should at least find a whole man.”

“She should get to choose who she wants,” Roz murmured. “ Someone should.”

Roz didn’t suggest that she herself should. But it was close enough to speaking blasphemy that Dareus gave her a reproachful look as he leaned forward and opened the door.

“Her Majesty the new Queen Rosamond, flower of the world,” he said, and gave her a tiny shove the First Minister would not see.

“Deeply honored, Your Majesty,” said the First Minister, without glancing up or rising.

Rosamond went and found herself a chair. The First Minister, she saw, was looking at lists, at rows and rows of men’s names.

Men who would be forced to participate in the Trials.

“You must be very excited, Your Majesty,” said the First Minister. “Not long now until your wedding day.”

Just a few more days of funerals until your wedding day.

Roz had read the records of past Rosamonds, the Rosamond who would not eat, the Rosamond who cut lines down her perfect arms, the Rosamond who kept to her bed for three years, as well as the Rosamonds who seemed absolutely fine, to all appearances. It wouldn’t matter what one Rosamond felt, there would always be another.

The First Minister looked surprised at Rosamond’s lack of enthusiasm.

“It is men for you, isn’t it?” the First Minister inquired. “We’ve had a Rosamond who wanted a female champion once or twice, but I am afraid it is unlikely to happen. Women have to volunteer, and very few do.”

“I think it’s men,” Rosamond whispered.

It was hard to know. She really had not met many people, and it was not as if anyone would have responded to her desire if she had felt it. She was not meant to want anyone. Even the idea of desiring someone seemed like murdering them.

What she wanted was to run to the Hall of Mirrors and do the forbidden, do what no other Rosamond had done before—fight.

“Isn’t that nice,” said the First Minister. “So who do you think will win you, Your Majesty: one of those dedicated knights, or perhaps a more worldly city man?”

What did it matter? Either way, she was what she was: a Rosamond. The goal, the prize, the symbol.

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, more to the table and the list than to the First Minister.

“Ah,” said the First Minister. “My guess is that it will probably be one of the Temple boys again. Most suitable. It’s what they’re raised for, of course. To win, not to question—and to make you happy, Your Majesty, of course.”

“Of course,” Roz said.

“More important, are you word perfect in your speech?”

More important than Roz’s happiness or her desires, or who would win her. The most important thing was that she be perfect.

“That’s what everything’s based on, isn’t it?” Miri asked later, as Roz raged and Miri brushed her hair. “For the Court. What things look like.”

“Especially,” Roz snapped, “when things look like me.”

“And when you look perfect,” said Miri. “When you stay perfectly within the rules. When the Court proclaims you to the whole city as perfect, that’s your opening.”

Like the way Miri took an opening when Dareus was distracted.

But what opening was there if she could not stop the Trials? Roz heard the First Minister’s voice in her head, saying, Who do you think will win you, Your Majesty?

She was a prize to be won. She did not know how to fight that.

The first day of the Trials, the day when Tor would see her, the sky was a deep particular blue. The color of Rosamond’s eyes, he thought, or perhaps a few shades lighter.