The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,91

Hansen, not feel as though we’re still too scared to show our faces. As the royal caravan passes farms and small settlements, people emerge to watch us—a child herding goats, a man hauling a sack of potatoes, women with willow brooms in their hands or babies on their hips.

Smile, I tell myself, even if they’re not smiling or waving. At least they’re not booing or running for cover. No one is muttering “witch” at me and hurrying their children indoors. Our job today is to look serene and confident, pleased that the Aphrasian threat has been destroyed at last and the scrolls returned to the Guild.

I ride alongside Hansen, with mounted guards surrounding us. Cal’s apprentice, Rhema, rides behind me. Hansen has asked her to remain close to us at all times—mainly, I think, so Cal doesn’t have to be anywhere nearby. I have yet to see him since he returned. He is somewhere here, observing and managing, alert to any perceived threats. I can’t see him, and haven’t seen him, in fact, since we set off from the castle. But that’s the way it should be, I suppose, with a Chief Assassin. He is everywhere at once, and nowhere. I know he’s riding with us because the Duke of Auvigne insisted on it. The duke must be nervous about this excursion as well, even though it was his idea. A Montrician tradition, he announced, in his pompous way, that we should observe now that the threat is gone.

He wants the people to love us again, and that means they need to see us putting on a united front.

As for Hansen—he’s barely spoken to me today. When he came to my chambers several days ago to drag me back to his, and found me in Cal’s arms, he seemed furious. But after he marched me back to the royal apartments, he let me go to bed in my own room, the one where I’d slept after being drugged. For the next few days he left me alone. I was starting to think I might keep my head on after all. This morning Varya woke me early to tell me the duke was eager to speak to both Hansen and me, and after that we had to make haste to embark on this journey. We had no time for conversation, and it is just as well.

Now we ride, side by side, swaddled in wool and fur like well-fed woodland creatures, smiling at everyone but each other.

Soon we’ll arrive in the village of Chana and dismount just long enough to be served a mug of ale in the tavern, and preside over the breaking of ice covering the community well. The duke described it in general terms, but Rhema knew more about it: Even in the mountains, she said, they talk about it, and long to see it. Children wearing wreaths of thorny heather will sing, and we’ll be presented with something made from mulberries, a local specialty. All around us, the guards will stand with spears poised, ready to skewer anyone who tries to get too close or makes any sudden movement. I’m not sure this is quite the effect intended by the duke, but we’re all still on edge.

Things have to change. Things can change, now that the Aphrasians have been flushed out and defeated. Now that the scrolls have been found at last. I have to change as well. I’m the Queen of Montrice as well as Renovia, and I must accept this country, and grow to love it as my adopted home. Beautiful and impressive as it was, Violla Ruza was always my mother’s palace, not my home. My home in Renovia was at the farm, with my aunts.

So how can I make this new life work for me, rather than against me?

It’s midmorning when we ride into Chana. It’s a pretty sort of place in the summer, I’m told, but in winter its lanes are thick with mud and the village smells of pig manure and smoke. The crowd is small, and I don’t know if that means locals have chosen to stay away or if the guards have insisted on a small and compliant group, to minimize any risk to us.

Hansen usually loathes this kind of thing, but today he almost bounces off his horse, a hard thing to do with all those layers of robe, and pulls off his leather gloves to make his tankard of ale easier to manage. My job today is to