her allotment of the land, and so they rode in to take it back. The tenants could have fled, but they fought. In the end, all of them were slaughtered.”
“How many tenants?”
“Two hundred and ninety-eight souls.”
“Well, there you are! We have nearly five thousand now, and more coming in every day.”
“Numbers are not as important as you think they are, Aislinn. This kingdom has a vested interest in the tenancy system. Too many of the powerful profit from it, from the meanest lord all the way up to Elyssa herself. They cannot let it fail.”
“I thought Elyssa was your True Queen,” Aislinn replied acidly. “The one who saves us all.”
The Fetch was silent for a long moment.
“We were mistaken,” he said finally. “Elyssa has changed, become a greater tyrant than her mother ever was, and a viper sits on her shoulder. They will not be swayed by kindness and light.”
“I’m not a simpleton!” Aislinn snapped. “I know she won’t bend willingly.”
“Then what is the leverage to make her bend?”
Look at us! Aislinn wanted to shout at him. Look how many people we have! But she didn’t, for his question had disturbed her. What would she really do if Elyssa said no . . . if she refused to open the storehouses, let alone redistribute the land? Aislinn knew nothing of what moved such people. She would not know how to wheedle the Princess Regent, or even what more to say.
“Do you counsel me to retreat, then?” she asked. “Tuck tail and run back into the deep Almont, where there’s no water and even less food?”
“Of course not. I do not counsel anything, for this is your rebellion. But if you are set on going to New London, you should go with your eyes open. You are true of heart, but heart will not win the Keep.”
“Why not?”
The Fetch paused, clearly surprised by the question. But he did not dismiss it, or answer with one of those smooth witticisms that irritated Aislinn no end.
“There is no ultimate hope in revolution, Aislinn. The power of money is too great. And even in the handful of historical moments when a revolution initially succeeded, the revolutionaries invariably cannibalized their great achievement by turning into what they had once despised.”
For a moment Aislinn could not reply, for his words had hit their mark, making her feel cold and hopeless. Then she thought of the full castle around her, and rallied. Their cause was different, for they were neither greedy nor corrupt. They wanted only what was just and right: each man owning his own land, his own efforts.
“I would have expected the leader of the Blue Horizon to be less of a cynic.”
“Who says I’m the leader of the Blue Horizon?”
Aislinn stared at him. “But you are! All the stories . . .”
“Ah yes, stories. Always true.” The derision in his voice made her flush. “As a matter of fact, I am not the leader of the Blue Horizon. Our leader is dead.”
Aislinn blinked. “Why do you tell me this?”
“Because I want you to understand just how ruthless this new Elyssa Raleigh can be. Not so long ago, our leader was her lover, perhaps even her beloved. But when the time came, that did not prevent her from cutting his throat.”
“I never heard of any such—”
“You did not, and you will not. This is one of the most tightly guarded secrets in Elyssa’s Keep.”
“Then how do you know it?”
“Because I can walk through walls.”
She stared at him, unsure whether he was joking. She had heard the rumors about the Fetch, as they all had: that he was a magician, able to vanish from New London and reappear in the Almont, able to slip free of a noose around his neck. In the few months Aislinn had known him, she had never seen the Fetch do any magic, but he was not wholly ordinary either. The entire kingdom knew that he had burned to death in the Gadds Fire that had decimated a large section of New London, but here he sat. And Aislinn could not deny that there was something odd about him, an impression that he came of another world . . . or perhaps another time. The Fetch was not moved by the events of each new day. If rebellion was a game to him—and Aislinn often thought it was—then it was a very long game indeed.
“We must go to the city,” she told him. “That’s where the food is.”