Of Beast and Beauty - Jay Stacey (читать хорошую книгу txt) 📗

to marry her. She’s lovely in her happiness. So lovely it makes me ill to

know this moment isn’t what she thinks it is. I know my father hasn’t been

won over so easily. I know, even before he puts a hand on my shoulder and

says, “Bo, would you join me in my chamber? I have some business I’d like

you to attend to while I draft the amendments Isra and I discussed.” He

shifts his attention to Isra with another kindly smile. “If that’s acceptable,

my lady? If you’d rather Bo escort you back to your rooms first, then—”

“No, no, don’t worry about me,” Isra says, her smile still lighting her

face. “I have my guards, and Needle is waiting for me.” She watches with a

satisfied expression as Father and I bow. “Until later.”

And then she turns and glides away, the confidence in her new walk

making her seem like a different person from the girl who scurried across

the field to her tower rooms a week ago. I watch her greet her guards, with

a hint of guilt worming its way into my heart. I told myself I didn’t care

about the queen anymore, but I can’t help but feel bad for her, to fear for

her.

She’s barely out of sight when my fears are confirmed.

“We’ll have the wedding tomorrow,” Father whispers. “Prepare

yourself. It might be an unpleasant ceremony.”

“But her period of mourning isn’t over.” Mourning rituals are strictly

observed in our city. It’s bad luck to go against them, such bad luck that the

advisors decided it was better to leave Isra unmarried for several months

rather than go against the grieving customs.

“I know, and it may bring dark days to Yuan to have her married

while still wearing green, but there’s no help for it. The girl is out of her

mind.” Father waves a weary hand through the air. “The other advisors

were listening in on my conversation with Isra. They sent this just before

the conclusion of our meeting.” He hands me a note on parchment paper,

written in the unmistakable cramped, slanted hand of Tai, the late king’s

oldest advisor and the man second in power only to my father.

The girl has fallen prey to her mother’s weakness. She is no longer fit

to rule. Arrange for the marriage to your son to take place tomorrow

morning. We’ll compel the union if we must. The law allows it in cases like

these. We must secure the safety of our city first. Once a new king sits on

the throne, we’ll decide how best to keep Isra safe from herself.

“They think she’s mad?” I ask, shocked, though I shouldn’t be. I’ve

had similar thoughts all day, but when the word “insane” flitted through my

head, I didn’t mean it. Not really. Isra is odd and stubborn and strange, no

doubt, but she’s not out of her mind. At least not in a dangerous way. “But,

Father, I don’t—”

“You should have heard her, Son,” Father says with a sigh, plucking

the parchment from my fingers. “She wants to put an end to the Banished

camp and bring those pitiful creatures into the city center to live with our

people.”

I lean in, certain I’ve heard him wrong. “But she saw them. They’re

animals. They barely speak our language, they lack the sense to keep their

waste in the assigned trench, and ran from us every—”

“She thinks they’re afraid.” Father sighs again before shuffling over

to the bench and easing himself down. He looks older than he ever has

before, as if the meeting with Isra has aged him ten years. More. “She saw

bruises on their bodies. She thinks the guards beat them, and that’s why

they run from whole citizens.”

“They beat them because they attack each other,” I say, pacing in

front of the bench. “They’d tear each other apart if the guards didn’t keep

them in line.”

Father lifts his hands in the air. “I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t

listen to reason. She thinks the Banished could learn to speak our language

and behave properly if they received different treatment.”

“She’s stubborn.” I curse myself for not making the facts clearer to

her. I’m willing to go against her wishes once we’re married, but I wanted

our marriage to be her decision. I know Isra well enough now to realize that

marriage to her won’t be pleasant if she’s forced into it. “Let me talk to her.

Maybe I can convince her to change her mind.”

“It isn’t only the Banished,” Father says. “She wants to improve

conditions for the commoners in the city center as well. She wants to build

more housing and provide nurses for those with the worst deformities and

no family to care for them.”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Where will we get the resources to build?

We can’t cut down trees. We need them to refresh the air.”

Father shakes his head. “She thinks we should tear down the king’s

cottage and a number of the other noble cottages and use those

materials.”

“What?” I laugh. The idea is ridiculous. “And where would the nobles

without homes live? In the barns with their horses?”

“She thinks the noble families can learn to be comfortable sharing a

home with another family.”

“She what? She’s out—” I almost say “out of her mind,” but bite my

tongue at the last moment. “She doesn’t understand. She’s been kept

separate from our people. She doesn’t know how things work or that no

one is bothered by it but her. At least give me one day to make her see

reason.”

Father’s head stays down when his eyes lift, emphasizing the brown

shadows beneath his eyes. He’s exhausted, and I can’t help but feel

responsible. If I hadn’t told Isra to stop drinking her tea, all of this could

have been avoided. “She also wants to send food into the desert,” Father

says. “To the Monstrous tribes.”

It’s as if he’s struck me. “She … she doesn’t. She can’t.”

“She says she’ll send the Monstrous boy with a wagon. She believes

he’ll come back if he’s released.”

Exhaustion settles in my bones, and I wish Father would ask me to sit

beside him. There’s no hope, then. Isra might not be mad, but she’s

wandered too far outside the realm of what even I will tolerate. The

Monstrous deserve nothing from our city. Isra’s ideas are too radical, and

she herself is too different to be good for Yuan.

“I’m sorry,” Father says as he rises from the bench to stand beside

me. “I know you had hopes for a different sort of marriage, but I was

prepared for this from the beginning. Your mother and I will help you

through the ceremony, and everything that comes after.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can’t be allowed her freedom,” he says, regret clear in his eyes.

“She’s a danger to herself and to the people. To the city itself. We’ll have to

keep her contained in the tower.”

I nod, but my stomach roils inside me. I threatened to lock her away

myself, but I didn’t really mean it. I don’t want my wife to be a prisoner. If

only Isra could see reason. If only she could be less … Isra.

“It won’t be too terrible for her,” Father says, as if sensing how much

I loathe the idea. “She’s spent most of her life there. She’ll have her

entertainments and her maid as her companion, and you may visit her

anytime you wish.”

“She won’t want me to visit her. She’ll hate me.”

“No, she’ll hate me.” Father grips my shoulder. “Let me bear this

burden. I’ll make it clear this is my decision, not yours.”

“No, it’s my fault. All of it. If I hadn’t told her—”

“If you hadn’t given her sight, we would have had more time,” Father

says. “But the end would have been the same. I knew that, Bo. I knew it the