Four hundred leagues, from the distant mountains to the impossible ocean. From noble to merchant to peasant – everybody knew what it stood for.
Self-sacrifice. Righteousness. The Queen.
She was perched on Her throne, fingers struggling to curl around her throne’s arm. Her legs were too short to reach the ground, so She sat cross-legged. Her head did not reach the top of the backrest, but She held it high and proud still.
She was a queen. And She would not show weakness.
The young boy knelt before Her, pensive.
His blood dripped onto the flagstones. Drip. Drip. Each drop originating at the temple, following the curve of his nose, down over his split lip and off his chin. Clenched between his grubby fingers, bruise-tight, was the evidence of his crime.
“Don’t let him sully it.” She flicked her wrist, indicating that it should be brought to Her. A well practised gesture. “Forgery though it be, it is still worth more than he is.”
Her Captain shoved her knee into the boy’s spine. He faltered – face going tight with pain, fingers white-knucked, tightening, tightening – but a blow from the butt of a spear sent him sprawling, unconscious.
Her Herald bounded up to Her, the boy’s wares in hand. “My liege.”
She held it up to the light and inspected it. It stank of the common-folk; horse dung, sweat, other effluence.
“Do you know why I have brought you here?” She asked, in passing.
The boy didn’t answer.
She nodded, and Her Captain kicked him savagely in the ribs. He convulsed.
She let Her fingers trace over the fabric She held, and focused on it with all Her might. She’d seen how Her mother would ignore as the common folk were beaten in front of Her. Having something to grip tight, tighter, tighter with each sickening thump… it helped.
The fabric was exquisitely woven, a story embedded in every inch of fiber. Stained to perfection. A strange mirror of the tapestry that hung above Her head; Her own coat of arms, staring back at Her.
“Blasphemy.” She asserted, once the beating had concluded.
The boy said nothing. Blood trickled from his nose. His arm might have been broken.
She said nothing. She’d acted as Her mother’s shadow for years. Even if Her heart beat fast, and tears sprung to Her eyes, She knew what She had to say.
“The poor are but maggots,” She recited, voice steady and cool, rattling off words half-remembered from an endless lecture, “burrowing into the rind and rendering the flesh unusable for the merchant and upper classes. Granted, some are aged and impotent. But the rest – the thriftless and work-shy – they deserve no mercy.”
He was bleeding now, aggressively. Her throat was dry.
“...Captain?”
“Yes, my queen?”
“Is… is he dead?”
Even as the words left her mouth, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. It wasn’t regal. Her mother would never have asked about the vermin like she just had. But… before this, she’d been able to watch from behind a tapestry, clutching at her maid’s skirts and burrowing her face in them when it got to be too much. She’d known her mother, known that everything she’d done was true, and righteous, and kind.
It didn’t feel kind, right then.
“Not yet, your majesty.”
The words were like a blow to the chest. He was still breathing. She could see his chest rising, falling, rising. Good. Good.
“Good.” She exhaled, voice not-too-wobbly, and leaned back. “I’d like him to suffer.” She flicked her wrist, again. “To the dungeons with him.”
“Your Majesty.”
She inspected Her fingernails as Her captain dragged the boy away, leaving a trail of blood across the coat-of-arms adorned rug that led up to Her throne, and didn’t feel sick.
“Herald?”
“My liege.”
“Find me the merchants who would sell his wares. The dukes that bought them. Bring me everyone and everything you can find that relates to that rat.”
“Of course, my liege.”
Good. Good.
She could do this.
She would be a good Queen.