Rae Carson: The King's Guard

“I need you, Hector.”

“You don’t!” My voice is getting too loud. I glance at the queen, who is exchanging an alarmed look with Miria. In a softer voice, I add, “You have a thousand men you could send to Puerto Verde instead of me.”

Alejandro rubs at his chin. He hasn’t been shaved yet today.

“I’ve sent numerous messages through regular channels, and received no response. I had Enrico send members of my Guard, but they also returned without replies. Then, last week I finally sent my own squire. I received word this morning that he was murdered on the highway.”

My stomach clenches. “Raúl is dead?”

“I’ve seen his body.”

He was only thirteen, an eager boy and an excellent horseman. I helped to train him. “A squire bearing his king’s colors should be safe on the road.”

“Precisely,” Alejandro says. “He was murdered in his sleep. It was made to look like the work of a bandit, but the wounds were too clean. Too perfect. Nothing was taken. I have to assume foul play. You’re the only one I can turn to. You are my army of one.”

He has called me that since I came to Brisadulce to be a royal page, for I was the first person he was given charge of who was not merely a servant. “My first command,” he used to joke.

“I’m yours to command, now and always.” Isn’t that what being a Royal Guard is all about anyway? “What do you need me to do?”

He slumps in relief, but he gets straight to the point. “You may remember a certain ring, a ruby as large and red as a cherry, set in a bed of tiny pearls.”

“I remember it,” I say carefully.

I glance at the queen, who gazes out the window with Miria and carefully pretends not to hear us, and I wonder if we ought to be discussing this in private, for the ruby ring was a gift from Alejandro to the beautiful Isadora de Flurendi, one of his paramours—the lady many assumed would be queen, right up until the moment Alejandro announced his betrothal to Rosaura, her older cousin.

The Flurendi family controls several ports, and Alejandro needed an alliance with one branch or the other to solidify his position. Many times as squire, I helped bring Isadora and Alejandro together, the last time only a few nights before his wedding. Honestly, I had not expected their relationship to end, not even after the marriage to Rosaura. But when the royal couple returned from their honeymoon, they walked around the palace in a state of baffled happiness, genuinely in love with each other. I did not observe what happened between them during the early weeks of their marriage, for I spent that time with my brother Felix, aboard his merchant ship. But I know that the only one more surprised and pleased than me was Alejandro.

The king looks over at his wife, and his gaze softens. “We would very much like to have the one who bears that ring with us at court again. Our many letters have gone unanswered. Rosaura misses her and worries about her deeply.”

This doesn’t explain the lengths to which he is going to contact the girl. “May I ask why she is wanted?”

Alejandro’s face flushes red, and he looks ashamed, an expression I never thought possible for him until he married Rosaura. “I cannot tell you, not in advance, in case anything should happen. Go and tell her personally that the queen and I both request the presence of our beloved cousin at court. Collect your answer from her personally .”

“And if I encounter obstacles?”

“Then use your judgment,” Alejandro says. “You’ve always had excellent judgment. I want you to leave without fanfare. And do not wear my colors. Just in case . . .” Just in case the squire’s murder was no coincidence.

An idea hits me. Maybe there’s still a way to preserve my chance at making the Guard. “You must let me take someone along to stand watch while I sleep. Two would be better than one.”

“Not possible,” Alejandro says. Again, that look of shame.

“If I’m murdered like Raúl, your message will never find its recipient.”

Alejandro considers. “You cannot take them with you into her father’s fortress, not to deliver our message or to receive her reply. You may tell them nothing.”

“Agreed,” I say. “I’d like to take two of the other recruits. Their names are Tomás and Marlo—they’re experienced soldiers. You will need to authorize their absences. All our absences.”

“I’ll send two of my Guards with you instead,” he says.

“That would draw more attention to your mission,” I say. “And Guards would never follow my lead. Better if we are all recruits.”

Also, three absent recruits—two of them Enrico’s favorites—will make it harder for the commander to single me out for punishment. He’ll be hard-pressed not to take me back.

Alejandro considers. His gaze switches back and forth between Rosaura and me. Finally, he says, “I don’t think I could bear to lose you too, Hector.” He sounds more tired than I feel, which is saying something.

He’ll lose me someday, if I’m to be a Royal Guard. It’s what we sign up for. But I hold my tongue on that count.

“I’ll draft the order, and you can leave immediately,” he says. “Come with me.”

“Let him stay and keep us company in your absence, love,” the queen says from across the room. She has, of course, been listening the whole time, which doesn’t seem to bother Alejandro one bit. Perhaps being truly in love means not having secrets from each other.

Alejandro nods, worry etched on his features. To me, he says, “I’ll return in a moment.”

I go to the queen.

“PREGNANCY suits you, Your Majesty,” I say to her, and then wince at yet another awkward compliment.

It’s a stretch. She was beautiful when she first became pregnant, glowing like the dawn, as happy as the song of a lark. But as the months have passed, it has worn her down. She still smiles with unrelenting cheer, but there is a heaviness to her, as though she has borne a painful wound for a long time.

“Thank you,” she says. “But you are a terrible liar, and I think you always will be.”

I start to protest, but she rests her hand on my wrist, and I feel how clammy her skin is. I say lightly, “My incapacity for dishonesty troubles you?”

I mean it as a joke, but she nods. “If you want to serve your king well, then you must learn not to speak at all. It may be the only thing that will prevent you from revealing your secrets.”

“I can keep—”

She interrupts my protest with a deep frown.

One does not ignore one’s queen’s admonition. I pause, and then, finally—wisely, I hope—nod wordlessly.

“Quickly, now, before you go, I must tell you a secret,” the queen says. “I must know first if you have the will to stay silent about it, because it could mean your life—or Alejandro’s—if you do not.”

“I’ll not say a word,” I promise earnestly.

She removes her hand from my arm and places it on her belly. “My pregnancy does not go well. The child inside me is weak. Doctor Enzo says my own life is in danger.”

With those words, something inside me shrivels. Everything suddenly makes sense: Dr. Enzo’s false cheer, Alejandro’s worry, the queen’s pallor. I glance up at Miria, hoping for a denial, but I see my own anguish mirrored in her face.

“Can’t Doctor Enzo do something?”

“He is doing everything he can, and it may yet turn out well. Many difficult pregnancies do. But I wish to have my beloved cousin Isadora at my side in this time of distress.”

Of the two monarchs, Rosaura is the better strategist—we all know it. She is older than Alejandro, wiser. She understands politics and power and secret deals better than Alejandro ever will. And I am not fool enough to believe they’re going to all this trouble to bring in a new lady-in-waiting.