I know so little of the People’s Republic, and here are two people who lived through the whole thing. I have a hundred questions that maybe they can answer. “Sometimes I wonder why it took people so long to rebel against Varga, if he was such a tyrant.”
“They were scared of him,” Mrs. Polkis whispers, “Terrified. Once he was dead, people felt braver. It was like a chain reaction. That’s how it went the first time, too.”
I sit forward eagerly. I don’t know anything about that time, and Daddy won’t say anything that isn’t praise for the old King and Queen. “When Paravel fell to Varga, you mean? Why weren’t people happy then?”
“We shouldn’t like to say, Lady Aubrey,” Mrs. Polkis says furtively. She stresses the Lady. She doesn’t want to speak ill of the people who ruled Paravel before Varga, because they were my people.
Muriel’s mouth is twitching like she’s struggling to keep her mouth shut. The seconds tick by, and she can’t seem to hold it in any longer. “Varga promised the people that he’d make Paravel all about them, for them, and they’d be safe and prosperous if they only followed him. In the end, he was just the same as your—as the old ruling class.” She sniffs dismissively. “Only in it for what he could get. Making other people do his dirty work for him,” she adds bitterly.
“What was it like back then, during that first revolution?”
Muriel hesitates. “It depends on who you were. My master was an important soldier. I was protected.”
I cringe a little at the word master, instead of employer. “For Varga, you mean?”
Another hesitation. “Both.”
I sit back with a thump. General Lungren wasn’t only a murderer, he was a traitor, too. A soldier who turned on his own King. I stay silent, watching Muriel, hoping that she might tell more of the story.
“After the revolution, General Lungren was sent to quell the uprising in the southern provinces. Sorry, Commander Lungren, as he was then. He took me with him. I hated it down south. Here in the capital, the bodies of those who opposed Varga were cleaned up quickly.” Muriel’s eyes are fixed on the opposite wall and grow glassy with remembrance. “In the south, they were heaped in piles to burn or simply left by the roadside to rot. I was so relieved the day the master’s work was done, and he brought me back.”
Bodies heaped in piles. Soldiers of Paravel slaughtering their own citizens for being loyal to a dead King. I don’t think I want to know the answer to my next question, but morbid curiosity spurs me onward. “What was Cassian’s mother like?”
Muriel’s silent for a long time, and then takes a sip of tea. “Unwise. She would have been better off staying in the southern provinces.”
“She didn’t want to give up the child,” Mrs. Polkis insists.
“She should have,” Muriel snaps, “she should have known that it wasn’t safe for her to come to Ivera.”
I think of my own mother, and everything she sacrificed to get me to safety. I imagine someone trying to make me give up my baby if I was pregnant, because the father and I are from different worlds. My heart aches for Aimee and how she must have suffered.
He shot himself once, and he shot Aimee twice.
“Lady Aubrey?” Mrs. Polkis says tentatively.
I realize I’ve lapsed into silence and turn to the two women. “I was just thinking about Aimee, and—”
My attention is caught by movement out of the corner of my eye, and I realize Cassian is watching me from the doorway with an expression of narrow-eyed fury.13Cassian“Hunting for gossip, Lady Aubrey?” I say through my teeth.
We’re in the stables, and Aster, Cinnamon and Onyx peer over their stalls at us, their ears pricking back and forth. Aubrey’s face burns as she looks at me. I feel the urge to push her up against the wall and kiss her until she’s gasping that she’s sorry.
“I wasn’t gossiping. We got to talking about the old days.”
“Why? Determined to unearth secrets so you can spread them around Court?”
She folds her arms, looks unimpressed. “I’m not like that and you know it. It’s not my fault that Rasmussen dropped the bombshell of who your father was in front of everyone. He humiliated me, too, if you remember.”
I sigh and scrub a hand through my hair. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Her expression becomes sympathetic, and she steps toward me. “I know it’s hard for you to hear about them, but I promise I’m on your side. Do you believe that?”
“I do.”
“Where were you, anyway? I went looking for you.”
“I don’t know. Around the property. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
Aubrey slides her hands up my chest. There’s an anguished expression in her eyes, like she’s worried for me. The nasty, defensive part of me wants to mock her for her concern, telling her she’s amusing herself with my real-world problems before skipping back to her big house and wardrobe full of expensive dresses. Maybe a few weeks ago, that’s what I would have said to her, but all I feel when I look at her now is gratitude that this woman knows all the worst things about me and steps willingly into my arms.