The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

her, anyway. If they were valuable, it said, of course they should be rescued—high profile, uniquely skilled, etc. Lower workers, however—expendable.

Was it responsible for her to disagree with that? If complete war was at stake, couldn’t she sacrifice a few laborers, even merchants? Aliez was nobility, but her brother was still free.

Beau-Sang had clout in this city. He had clout in La Chaise, as well. He and his son knew El-Wast and its people better than she did.

Luca stabbed her cane into the rug, gouging the ornate diamond-shaped weave. She swallowed.

“Put him in charge and you’ll never bring the Qazāli back to your side.”

“I know! I know that.” She flushed and paced again. “I know you’re a sympathizer, Gillett. Sky above and earth below, even I sympathize with them. I’ve eaten their food; I’ve danced with them. Only, I made one mistake.” She had trusted Touraine. She had wanted her. “Am I supposed to send Balladairans to slaughter for it?”

The old soldier sucked in his cheeks, then puffed them back out. “You’re the queen of Balladaire first, Luca. Even I can’t argue with that.” Shaking his head, he added, “I didn’t expect the rebel council to resort to this method.”

“I didn’t, either. It’s probably the Jackal.” Luca dug her cane in again, feeling the satisfying give as the rug’s threads split.

Fuck Touraine. This was all her fault. And Luca should have known better.

“I’m not even queen yet. That’s part of the problem. If I could do whatever I wanted—”

“May I be frank, Luca?” Gil never interrupted her, and he asked permission only when he was irritated.

“By all means.” She braced herself.

“If you were queen and had all the power of the realm to do with this country what you will, would you leave Qazāl?”

Luca scoffed. “That would be impossible. Our commerce is too finely wedded. They depend on us for wood and metalwork, and we depend on their goods to sell in the north.”

Gil nodded impatiently. “Yes, but if it were possible, would you?”

Luca frowned down at the carpet. There was so much she still wanted to know. An entire library she hadn’t searched. “They have the magic here. We could still find a cure for the Withering.”

The plague sounded like a thin excuse, even to her. Her breath escaped in a whistle as she understood Gil’s insinuations. If she was unwilling to leave, there would be no peace short of physically crushing the rebellion. Otherwise, the Jackal and the Apostate and everyone else would fight Balladaire, fight her until they had what they wanted or died for it.

She would have to kill them all or scare them so badly they surrendered.

“What do you think my father would have done?”

Gil scrubbed his cheeks. “I’m sure my memory colors him in rose.”

As much as he loved the king, Gil wasn’t prepared to say her father would have made the right decision. Whatever that meant.

She wanted her throne, and to get it, she needed to end the rebellion. To do that, she needed power. Maybe it could have come from the Qazāli and their magic, but that would never happen now. So she needed her people’s power. The nobles’ support. The army’s support. And none of them would support her while citizens were held hostage and the princess was a Sand lover.

“I’ll send for Beau-Sang,” she said, more to herself than Gil.

Gillett scrubbed wearily at the scruffy beard growing on his cheeks. “You’re sure?”

“I instated a curfew. I’ve disbanded the magistrate. There’s just the governor-general’s position now.”

It was time to shift that mantle to someone else so she could wear the one she was meant to.

She turned back to the ransom note. There was a brown stain on the bottom. She threw the letter onto the table and went to a basin to wash her hands.

The comte de Beau-Sang strode into Luca’s office—the governor-general’s office—as if it were a room in his own home. Luca bristled and sat up straighter. Beau-Sang bowed quickly but carefully within the boundaries of propriety. He spared a sharp glance for Gil and Lanquette and a more disparaging look at Cheminade’s effects covered in their thin layer of dust.

“Your Highness,” he said smoothly.

The sandstone walls had come from Beau-Sang’s own quarries. Building this compound alone had probably lined his pockets thick with the crown’s money. Maybe Luca could promise him more arrangements like that to secure his cooperation.

Luca acknowledged his bow with a nod. She retained some of her court aloofness, but she diminished her casual imperiousness, offering him a slight smile. She didn’t need her spectacles to see the smug look on his face, but they made her look more earnest. Cantic appreciated strength and decisiveness; Beau-Sang would be more malleable if he thought Luca was warming up to him.

“I have a proposal for you,” she started.

This was her best choice. Without Touraine, she didn’t even have an emissary she could trust. Whatever friendship they had kindled with the rebels over the last few months was an illusion. Friends did not send human pieces carved like roast pigs, nor threaten to torture innocents to coerce each other. Of course she had no other option.

“When we spoke at Lord Governor Cheminade’s dinner, you had several ideas for the appropriate governance of the peoples here.”

“Yes, Your Highness, of course.”

“I was overhopeful and thus overlenient on the Qazāli when I arrived.” She rubbed her eyes under her glasses.

Her calculations were simple.

She would give Beau-Sang a touch of power that answered to her alone. He would tighten her grip on Qazāl by working with Cantic to root out the rebels, and he would assure the nobles and merchants kept to the new workers’ laws (those agreements at least, were still right; they would slow the Qazāli’s need for rebellion—Luca knew it).

And if necessary—she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary—this would lead to support for the throne, if her uncle regent refused to cede it. Whether Luca failed or didn’t fail in the colony. The throne was hers. The more of