The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22), Christopher Nuttall [books to read romance TXT] 📗

but the queen slapped her hand hard enough to hurt before she could touch the fabric. The carriage was quivering, as if someone was beating their fists against it... Constance started back as the door shook, then came free. A grim-faced man stared at her, his gaze swiftly turning into a leer. Behind him, the city burned.

“Look,” he shouted. “We’ve captured the royal whores!”

Before she could pull back, his hand snapped hold of Constance’s wrist and yanked her forward. She tumbled out of the carriage, hitting the paving stone before she could catch herself. Pain shot through her as strong arms jerked her to her feet, holding her so firmly she couldn’t pull free. The queen was dragged out too, to hoots and hollers from the rabble. Her eyes were wide with fear. Constance struggled against her captor, but she couldn’t break free. He was just too strong.

She felt horror, numb horror, sinking into her as she looked past the carriage. The king’s carriage was ahead of her, the king himself being manhandled away by a group of men in red shirts. They were on the embankment, too close to the river to escape... she wondered, suddenly, if that had been deliberate. She couldn’t see Councilor Triune anywhere. The king’s man had vanished...

A commanding voice cut through the crowd. “Take the whores to the Final Prison!”

Constance shuddered as her captor started to push her forward. She’d heard all the stories about the Final Prison, about how it was the last port of call for men sentenced to death. If someone went in a prisoner, they didn’t come out again. Panic gave her strength: she stamped on her captor’s foot as hard as she could, then ran to the embankment. The river had dwindled over the last few months, as summer had started to bite, but if she could get into the water she could swim down to the distant lands beyond the walls. They wouldn’t expect her to be able to swim. Countrywomen learnt as a matter of course, but cityfolk regarded the idea of women swimming as perverse. It was...

“Stop,” someone shouted. “Now!”

Constance jumped... and realized, too late, that she’d misjudged. The river had shrunk too far. She was plummeting towards jagged rocks and the remains of sunken ships, not waters that might hide her long enough to let her escape. She thought, suddenly, of her parents. Would they ever know what had happened to her?

In truth, she feared they would never know.

Prologue II

WHEN SHE’D BECOME QUEEN, ALASSA HAD instituted a very simple rule.

She was not to be disturbed, she’d told her courtiers, between dinner and supper. Not unless the matter was urgent. Truly urgent. She’d made it clear, and backed it up, that anyone who disturbed her without very good reason would be spending the next week as a frog in the royal frog pond. It wasn’t something she was proud of, and she was uncomfortably aware she might miss something important because the messenger was reluctant to interrupt her, but it was vitally important for her sanity. A reigning monarch had so little time to herself that she had to do whatever it took to make sure she got it.

It irked her, more than she would willingly admit to anyone, that she hadn’t realized just how much her father had to do until she’d inherited his throne. The king had risen early and worked from dawn till dusk, the men of his bedchamber - his inner councilors - feeling free to interrupt him whenever they pleased. The one advantage of being a Ruling Queen, Alassa had discovered, was that she didn’t have to keep her inner council so close, but it hadn’t taken long for her courtiers to reason out that they could send their wives, sisters and daughters instead. Alassa would have preferred to banish them permanently, but there was no way to send them away without causing massive offense. The last thing she needed was their husbands, brothers, and sons plotting revenge. She had enough troubles already.

She kept her face under tight control until she stepped into her inner bedchamber, then allowed herself to relax as the wards shimmered around her. It was hard, very hard, not to sag as she leaned against the door. Winning the war had been easy. Winning the peace, it seemed, was a great deal harder. She had to find a balancing point between factions that detested each other, factions that would hate and detest her if she showed the slightest hint of favoritism to their enemies. It felt as if she were stirring an unstable cauldron, the brew within permanently on the verge of exploding. There were times when she was tempted to grab her husband and daughter, empty the royal treasury and go into exile. In hindsight, she wondered how different her life would have been if she’d stayed at Whitehall instead of returning to Zangaria.

Gathering herself, she walked past her year-old daughter’s bedchamber - Princess Emily was sleeping, her nursemaid sitting beside the cot - and into her bedroom. Jade was seated at the desk, reading the reports from the royal spies. They’d made sure to pick up the remnants of King Randor’s spy network and build their own, in hopes of preventing another coup or another aristocratic uprising. Alassa thought she understood, now, why her father had gone mad. There was never any shortage of disturbing reports, but how many of them were anything more serious than a slighted aristocrat venting to his friends? She didn’t know.

Jade stood and gave her a hug. “Bad day?”

“I had Lord Hardin, again,” Alassa said. It was hard to hide her disgust. “He wants to marry his ward.”

“Bastard,” Jade agreed. “Want me to kill him?”

Alassa was tempted. Lord Hardin had played his cards very well, somehow managing to remain on King Randor’s good side without alienating either the Noblest or Alassa herself. He’d certainly not taken any part in the civil war, ensuring that he evaded the sanctions Alassa