Mistress Aganimi the housekeeper had survived, though, and she set to work restoring order in the pigpen that the jotnar had made of the castle.
With her unending supply of gold, Inos hired men and women by the hundreds. There was normally little to do in winter, but she put the idle hands to work. Her money began to surge through the town, and that helped, also. Clothiers and carpenters and tradesmen of all descriptions suddenly found themselves doing business on a scale they had never dreamed of. Prices soared and she had to issue decrees against profiteering.
She named a new council, expanding it from the eight or so her father had preferred to twenty-four, bringing in some women and even including a few youngsters of her own generation, like Kratharkran, the high-pitched, exuberant smith. The elders scowled at her innovations and she faced them down with the assurance of an adept and with the queenly glamour that Rap eventually admitted having cast on her. Her deadly green stare became legendary, deflecting query or argument like a steel shield.
She demanded an inventory of food supplies, and the records were found to be in a hopeless muddle.
That was partly due to Rap, who was quietly going around filling warehouses and storerooms when no one was looking. Foronod was driven almost to distraction, and Inos was very happy to have the old factor distracted; at least he could not then be stirring up trouble. Apparently the beating that had lamed him had been done by the jotnar, not by imps, but he was obviously not the man he had been, and she began to ponder a replacement for him.
No one knew how many had died, nor how many mouths remained to consume the foodstocks, so she ordered a census taken, the first in the history of Krasnegar.
Jotnar could always be counted on to let celebrations get out of hand. Inos was delighted to discover that Corporal Oopari had repented of his desertion—or wearied of his fiancee, perhaps—and had returned by ship during the summer. She promoted him to sergeant and put him in charge of the guard and the militia. He moved fast, but the aftermath of a riot was a full jail. King Holindarn had acted as his own chief justice. Unable to see herself in that role, Inos appointed an independent judiciary.
Many houses had been deliberately burned in the Terror, and often the flames had spread to adjoining buildings. Timber was almost nonexistent, because in the past it had always been imported.
At her first council meeting, the queen pointed out that there was unlimited wood a few days’ trek to the south.
But no way to transport it, Foronod told her snappily.
Why couldn’t we bring it in on sledges?
Goblins . . . causeway . . . weather . . . horse fodder . . . Objections rolled out from the elders like smoke from wet peat. Inos looked at the grinning younger faces around the table and put the matter to a vote. The council promptly decreed that the Royal Krasnegarian Militia be expanded from eighteen to eighty, armed with Inos’s swords, and trained as soon as possible in ways of defending lumberjacks from goblin attacks.
The expedition would need horses, and moving them across the causeway in winter had never even been attempted before. She ordered it done, and stabling made ready on the mainland.
She wanted a special service of thanksgiving, and there must be funerals for the eight men who had died in the ephemeral war of liberation. Her former tutor, dull old Master Poraganu, was horrified when she appointed him acting bishop. She knew he was conscientious and would do a good job, but she wondered guiltily how much she was spiting him for uncounted hours of boredom.
Almost every woman of bearing years in Krasnegar was pregnant, either by an imp legionary or a jotunn raider, and many were near their time. The medical facilities were hopelessly inadequate, so Inos ordered a whole wing of the castle converted to a maternity ward. That led her thoughts to a midwifery school and also a public child care organization for the summer, when the women would be needed to work.
Half the fishing fleet had fled during the troubles, so she had to think about boat building and manpower.
All these things pretty well took care of the first three days of her reign.
3
“And now you’re going to go and have a good night’s rest,” Mistress Aganimi said firmly.
“Oh, I’d love to, but—”
“No buts. Your bedroom’s ready at least, and I’ve had a good fire going in there to take the chill off. Off with you now! Can’t have our dear queen working herself to death . . .”
As a child, Inos had disliked the bleak old housekeeper, who had often stolen her friends away to put them to work, while laying down laws that came from no statute book Inos had ever discovered. These last three days, though, the formidable Aganimi had been almost as indispensable as Rap.
She tried to find some better arguments in her fatigue—softened head, and saw that there weren’t any. Gods, if the kingdom couldn’t last a night without her, what good was it?
Was this really bedtime? The sky was a bright smear above the hills to the south, and that meant either sunrise or sunset, but noon for certain. There was enough light dribbling in the windows that she didn’t even need a lantern, for once.
As she began dragging her feet up the stairs from the Throne Room, she wondered if she had the strength even to reach her bed. The kings of Krasnegar had always slept at the top of Inisso’s Tower. That was holy writ, although no one had known that the reason was to guard the other chamber, above the bedroom. Well, everyone must know about that now.
She crossed the Presence Chamber, smiling at the boys there trying to bow to her while encumbered with shovels and buckets. The cleaning up was going well now.
She crossed the Robing Room, and here girls were working with mops and rags. Why would Aganimi have kept boys and girls apart? Efficiency, probably. Less fun, though. Remember to change it.
She crossed the empty Antechamber. Timber needed sledges and sledges needed runners and runners needed iron; so she had been informed. Iron was in short supply. To melt down dwarvish steel swords for such a purpose was unthinkable, the smiths had told her. Don’t think, then, just do it, she had replied.
She crossed the Withdrawing Room, also barren now. If they could build boats, they ought to be able to make furniture that didn’t look as if it had been thrown away by trolls. Of course she could always slip down to Kinford through Rap’s magic portal, then order what she wanted shipped north in the spring.
She crossed the Dressing Room; slowly, puffing hard. She could steal timber from the goblins, but nails didn’t grow on trees. Rap could make nails, but she would rather not ask Rap for help, except when she had to. It felt like cheating. She wondered how many nails she could smuggle in through the magic portal before people became suspicious, and why that didn’t feel like cheating.
She dragged herself up the last stair and into her bedroom, and shot the bolt. Peace!
As the housekeeper had said, there was a cheerful fire glowing in the grate. The temperature was almost comfortable close to the fireplace. The only furnishings were a faded old rug and a small bed that Inos had not seen before. It was piled high with furs and quilts and Rap.
He was lying on top with his hands behind his head, watching her without expression. He was still wearing the same garments as before, but he was clean and fresh shaven and his goblin tattoos had disappeared. She wondered when that had happened.
She went over to him, and he raised eyebrows in welcome.
“Not tonight, I’m too tired,” she said. He pulled a face at such off-color humor.
“Of course you could fix that,” she added hopefully.
“I want to show you something—upstairs.”
Inos shook her head quickly. “No! Not now!” She was so tired that even the thought of . . .
Rap nodded. “Good, it works!”
“What does?”
“The aversion spell. I restored it.”
Inos looked at the sinister, forbidding door. “I don’t care. I’m not going up there right now. Maybe tomorrow, when I’m not so tired.”
“Use the same password.”
“Holindarn? Oh . . . see what you mean.” Her apprehension and dislike vanished, being replaced by normal curiosity as to what a sorcerer might have to show.
Rap swung his legs down from the bed. “Come on! I’ve also repaired the shielding round the castle, so no one can spy on you from outside except when you’re in the topmost chamber.” He opened the door for her and she began dragging her feet up yet another narrow staircase.