The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,21
and say hello to Aunt Mesha. There’s far too much on my mind. So I wander off to browse the marketplace flower stands instead, still fuming over what happened earlier that morning with Ma. I’d slipped into the palace to tell her what happened at Baer Abbey, but all we did was argue about the summons. No, of course you must do your duty. You will take your place at court.
My mother is as unmoving as my aunts, and once I am settled at Violla Ruza, it is clear that I’ll be monitored night and day. There’ll be no running off when there are guards and courtiers—spies—everywhere at all times.
How can you not want this? she asked. My mother assumes I am like other girls. She doesn’t know me. Even if she did, it’s clear she doesn’t particularly care what my wishes are. I don’t want to be a courtier, no matter how prestigious the position. I want to hone my magical powers, become as deadly and dangerous as she used to be, before she settled down to oversee and placate the nest of vipers at court. I want to train. If I go to the palace, it will be as an assassin. Not as a doll. Or a pawn.
The justice bell begins to toll from the palace tower and the sudden clang jolts me from my thoughts. I turn to look up the road. All around me townsfolk are abandoning their wares, their shops, their friendly chatter, and they swarm into the streets. Even though I’m as curious as they are, I roll my eyes. They’re vying for a glimpse of the prison transport so they can be one of the first to view the offender. They’ll exchange stories about it for days: Oh yes, I was there. I saw the murderer with my own eyes. I was shocked. Well, I wasn’t surprised whatsoever. Even the kindly shopkeeper, who just moments before was carefully arranging fresh-cut blooms in his wife’s elaborately hand-painted ceramic pots and vases, turns his attention toward the main thoroughfare instead. I purchase one from the old woman, a small plant pot in white, decorated with lush grapevines, purposely trying to seem indifferent to the commotion around me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed a transfer. It never seems to matter who appears in the cart when it emerges, either; the crowd is always ready to condemn. It’s alarming, really, how quickly nice people become ravenous, bloodthirsty. Children young enough to hide in their mother’s skirts throw half-eaten food or handfuls of dirt at the prisoners; they spit toward the rickety cart as it rolls down the main thoroughfare.
The mob prefers to see justice administered swiftly rather than fairly. When I was younger, their furious scowls and screaming frightened me. I would cling to Aunt Mesha and close my eyes. She told me the people want to see someone punished, because order comforts them more than justice. They need to believe that the good are always good and the bad are always bad, and that they themselves err on the side of good. Few understand that there’s a wide space between the two, where nearly all of us fall.
My aunts warned me of this many times—be wary of the sway of others, they told me. Find your own path and stay upon it. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled in another direction, even if you must walk alone. “Do the most good” is their favorite saying. The most good. I like that because it allows for, well, some of the not-so-good too. Sometimes a bit of that is necessary.
But this—the angry horde—is not doing any good at all. Did no one wonder if they could be wrong? Question the lack of public trial? My eyes fall on a tiny girl who can’t be more than three or four years old. She watches silently, wide-eyed, one thumb in her mouth, her other hand grasping her father’s. He’s paying little attention to her; his focus is on the spectacle around him. Raucous laughter drifts through the air, somehow adding an even more sinister edge to the hisses and taunts. She looks terrified. But in a few more years, she’ll likely be throwing dirt alongside all the others.