He smiled bitterly as the horror and guilt dawned in her, then turned his back upon her and stepped away, giving her time to realize the breadth of her betrayal. He heard a long-drawn, shuddering breath behind him; Brom rushed past him to aid his Queen. He heard a chair creak as Brom made her sit.
Looking up, he saw the Lord Mayor staring past him wide-eyed. Rod cleared his throat; the burgher's eyes shifted to him. Rod jerked his head toward the door. The Mayor glanced back at the Queen, hesitating. Rod toyed with the hilt of his dagger. The Mayor saw, blanched, and fled.
Rod turned back to the stricken girl.
Brom, at her elbow, threw Rod a glance of withering hatred and growled, "Ha' done! Have you not cut deep enough?"
"Not yet." Rod's lips thinned. He stepped up to the Queen again, his voice cold. "This good nobleman, the Duke Loguire, your own uncle, out of love for you stood against the whole of your nobility, even his own son!" His voice crackled. Her eyes jerked up to him, filling with dread. "And it is your doing, by your high-handed lawmaking and utter lack of diplomacy, that Anselm turned against his father. He had two sons, and you have robbed him of both!"
She shook her head, faster and faster, lips shaping silent denials.
"Yet still he is loyal!" Rod murmured. "Still he is loyal, though they would have slain him for it—and damn near did!"
She stared in horror.
Rod tapped his shoulder. "This took the dagger that would have pierced his heart. And even at that, 'twas only by a miracle, and the help of one of the witches whom you scarce acknowledge, that I managed to bring him out alive!"
Brom's head snapped up, searching Rod's face for something. Rod frowned, and went on.
"But bring him out I did, at peril of my life, and brought him safely back. And what do I find? He is to be held a prisoner! And not even as befits a royal prisoner! No, not to be treated with due courtesy and deference, but as a common cutpurse, in a lightless, damp, dank dungeon!"
He paused for effect, rather proud of the Tast bit of alliteration.
But he had overdone it a bit; she rallied. Her chin came up, and she sniffled back some tears. "Before my laws, sirrah, all are equal!"
"Yes," Rod agreed, "but that should mean you treat a peasant like a lord, not that you treat a lord like a peasant!"
He leaned over her, his face an inch from hers. "Tell me, Queen: why is it that Catharine must treat all with contempt?"
It was a lie; she didn't treat all with contempt, just the noblemen; but anguish and sudden self-doubt showed in her eyes.
Still she tilted her chin a fraction of an inch higher, and declaimed, "I am the Queen, and all must bow to my power!"
"Oh, they bow, they bow! Until you slap them in the face; then they slap back!"
He turned away, glowering at the hearth. "And I can't say I blame them, when you deprive them of liberty."
Catharine stared. "Liberty? What talk is this, sirrah? I seek to give the serfs greater liberty!"
"Aye, so you seek." Rod smiled sourly. "But how do you go about giving it? You gather all ever more tightly unto you. You deprive them today, that you may give them more later!"
He slammed his fist onto the arm of her chair. "But later will never come, don't you see that? There is too much ill in the land, there will always be another evil to fight, and the Queen's word must be law unquestioned to command the army against the evil."
He drew his hand back slowly, eyes burning. "And so it will never come, the day that you set them free; in your land, none will have liberty, save the Queen."
He locked his hands behind his back and paced the room. "There is only just so much of it to go around, you know—this liberty. If one man is to have more, another must needs have less; for if one is to command, another must obey."
He held his hand before her, slowly tightening it into a fist. "So little by little, you steal it away, till your slightest whim is obeyed. You will have complete freedom, to do whatever you wish, but you alone will be free. There will be none of this liberty left over for your people. All, all, will be gathered unto Catharine."
His hand loosened and clasped her throat lightly. She stared and swallowed, pressing against the back of the chair.
"But a man cannot live without at least a little liberty," he said softly. "They must have it, or die." His hand tightened slowly. "They will rise up against you, made one by their common enemy—you. And then will squeeze their liberties out of you again, slowly, slowly."
Catharine tore at his hand, fighting for breath. Brom leaped to free her, But Rod loosed her first.
"They will hang you from your castle gates," he murmured, "and the nobles will rule in your stead; your work will all be undone. And of this you may be certain, for thus was it ever with tyrants."
Her head jerked up, hurt deep in her eyes. She gasped for breath to speak, shaking her head in ever harder denial.
"No, not I," she finally rasped. "Not that, no! Never a tyrant!"
"Always a tyrant," Rod corrected gently, "from your birth. Always a tyrant to those about you, though you never knew it till now."
He turned away, hands locked behind his back. "But now you know, and know also that you have none to blame but yourself for rebellion. You pushed them and pushed them, harder and harder, your nobles— for the good of your people, you said."
He looked back over his shoulder. "But was it not also to see which among them would dare say you nay? To see which among them were men?"
Contempt curdled her face. "Men!" The word was obscenity. "There are no men in Gramarye any more, only boys, content to be a woman's playpretties!"
He smiled, one-sided. "Oh, there be men still. Men in the South, and men in the House of Clovis—or one, at least, there. Men, my Queen, but gentle men, loving their Queen, and loath to strike at her."
Her lids lowered, the contempt playing over her lips in a smile. "It is as I have said: there are no men in Gramarye more."
"They are men," Rod answered, very quietly, "and they march north to prove it."
She stared.
Then slowly sat back. "Well, then, they march north, and I shall meet them on Breden Plain. Yet still there is none among them I would call man. Beasts, every one."
"Oh, you shall meet them." Rod gave her a syrupy, mocking smile. "And what shall you use for an army? And who will command it?"
"I will command," she replied hautily, "I and Brom. And there be five hundred of the Queen's Guard, and seven hundred of the Queen's Army, and threescore knights at my manors."
"Sixty knights!" Rod's lips tightened, pulling down at the corners. "Not even enough to give the Southern knights entertainment for one full charge! Sixty knights out of how many hundreds in your kingdom? And all the rest arrayed there against you! And twelve hundred footmen against the rebels's thousands!"
Her hands seized the arms of the chair in a spasm, to hide their trembling; fear drained her face of its color.
"We shall win, for the honor of Plantagenet or Gramarye, or die nobly."
"I have yet," Rod said tightly, "to see a noble death in battle. They're all just a little on the messy side."
"Be still!" she snapped, then closed her eyes and bowed her head, knuckles whitening on the chair arms.
She rose, proud and calm again, and Rod couldn't help a brief, admiring thought for her spunk.
She sat at the table, drew up parchment and quill, scribbled a moment, then folded the parchment and held it out to Rod. "Bear this to my Uncle Loguire," she said. " Tis a command that he appear here before me, and a warrant of safe-conduct; for I bethink me that I shall need all loyal to me by my side ere greatly long."
Rod took the parchment and crumpled it slowly in his fist.
He flung it into the fire without taking his eyes from Catharine. "You shall write a letter to the Duke, and I shall bear it," he said in an antarctic voice; "but in it you shall beg of him the courtesy of an audience."