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Queen Quackity leapt off her horse, sprinting the last few feet to the doors. She doubted Schlatt’s armsmen were behind her— what armsmen did he even have at this point, Fundy? — but she wanted to find out after she’d thrown herself across the border of the sanctuary of the Cathedral of St Paul’s at Pogtopia.
She stumbled over a paving stone in the dark. The moon kissed the horizon behind her, and the grey light of the near-dawn sun silhouetted the church, turning it into a dark monument. Fog rolled off the banks of the river, hiding the foot of the church even as she got a finger’s breadth from the double doors.
She threw them open, with a peal like thunder that echoed through the quiet church.
The cry of ‘sanctuary!’ died on her lips as she entered. It felt wrong to break the quiet any more than she had. The only light was the amber glow of candles, that reflected and crazed off the stained glass and gilt work. The rest sunk into the ink-black shadows.
The soft sound of her shoes against the polished floor sounded too loud. It was almost as if the church was empty.
But she knew better.
A rhythmic half-snore— and that would be Tommy. He lay on a pew, wrapped up in several cloaks. The window of Saint Nicholas watched over him, wearing a cloak as red as one of Tommy’s.
And there, to the east, up in the choir, nearly drowned out by the snores and the footsteps, the click-click-click of a rosary.
Wilbur knelt before the altar, Christ on the cross staring down above him, and the body of Christ clothed in the tabernacle across from him.
She almost didn’t recognize him at first. His hair had grown and grown tangled, and a trace of beard fought its way onto his cheeks. He looked more like a wild man, like a stylite or barbarian, than the lord and prince she’d seen him as last.
Wilbur’s hands stilled. He didn’t turn to face her. “Have you come to seek sanctuary, or just the company of a sinner?”
— Hopefully it wouldn’t come to actually needing sanctuary . Quackity stood in the transept. It just made sense to keep your distance from men with swords at their hip, doubly so when you’d turned them down and gotten them exiled in the bargain as well. The statue of the Blessed Virgin loomed behind her, making the back of her neck itch. “I came here to offer you help.”
Wilbur smiled with half his mouth. “What, destroying Manburg?”
…what? “Making you king.”
The smile reached the other side of his face. “And here I thought you and Schlatt were a happy couple. Matched in majesty and matrimony and looove—”
She cut him off. “Schlatt’s lost it. Like, completely. And I made mistake choosing him— I’ll admit it! Willingly!— But I’m here to fix it for Manburg, for us.” She squared her shoulders. “Kill Schlatt. Marry me. Rule Manburg.”
Wilbur said nothing, still staring straight at the host.
“Look, you know there’s been no heir. No one can prove anything. No one can call Leviticus on us if we get married. It’s a win-win.”
Wilbur stood up. “What if I don’t want to be king anymore?”
“Wil, Wilbur, I saw you fight for that throne. I saw how bad you wanted it. I saw you court me , and I know I’ve got vast tracts of land , but I know that’s not what you wanted—”
“I wanted your vast tracts of actual land,” Wilbur said.
“You wanted that . But what could you possibly want, now, more than being king?”
“What if I wanted to be legendary.” He cast his arms out wide, taking in the sweep of saints and angels and saviors in this cathedral. “What if I wanted to strike down those who betrayed me, destroy them utterly—”
“Is that really what you want! You want to destroy Manburg more than you want to rule ?”
“YES! ”
The sound bounced off all the little tricks of acoustics built into the ceiling to let you hear the gospel.
Tommy shifted.
Wilbur closed his eyes and breathed. When he opened his mouth again, he spoke quieter, so quiet it was almost lost, even with the short distance between him and Quackity. “And what do you really want?”
“I meant what I said. Schlatt’s lost it, he’s not a fit king—”
“You wouldn’t come all the way to Pogtopia for that.”
“I came all the way here because you’re the only one who can help. He’s tearing down Domum Meretricum, after all the work we— All the work I— put into building it, to make another fucking hunting forest.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Like we need another one of those more than a defendable castle.”
Wilbur raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“We may have had a disagreement about that. That may have ended with him choking on a distaff.” Still with the fleece on it, too. It’s what he deserved.
“ Nice . —but he’s not dead.”
“No, not yet.”
“You’re just planning to murder him. In a church.” He gestured towards the tabernacle. “Under the eyes of Christ, no less.”
“Wil, you’re plotting to destroy Manburg, plotting to destroy a city, kill thousands of people, in the same place—”
That same fiery energy burst out of him again, as quick as it first came up. “I will bring judgment down on them, like God brought down judgment on Nineveh!”
“You think this is what God wants you to do?” She gestured at the rosary hanging limp in Wilbur’s hand. “Is that what you’re hearing?”
Wilbur turned away, looking down the nave towards the door. He smiled bitterly. “That’s not who’s going to take my soul,” he murmured.
Then why are you in a church? Wilbur had not worn all the diplomacy out of her yet. “What if God—” She forced the words out like they were foul, like they were the poison they were. “—What if either of them— wanted you to be king, instead? You’d make a good king.”
“Would I?”
“Better than Schlatt.”
He exhaled doubtfully. “If you couldn’t stand Schlatt a moment more, if you needed sanctuary, why here? Why with me? Why not a nunnery? They’d take you.”
The Blessed Virgin stared down at Quackity, infant savior at her hip. Most would say her gaze was filled with love, and wasn’t the sculptor so skilled to be able to bring that out.
Quackity knew what it really was. It was the kind of piercing judgement only a mother could dish out and still call love. “I’d make an awful nun, and Wilbur— you know it.”
“No, no, you’d be great. You’d have all the sisters twisted around your pinky finger by supper time.”
“Well, I don’t want that.” Not consecrated virginity, not vows and sacrifice and holiness and staying in one building for the rest of her life. “I want Manburg! Half of that land is my land! Passed through my family to me! Mine! The Domum Meretricum was my morning gift. It’s not Schlatt’s, it’s not even Manburg’s, it’s mine! And you can join me and have the land, the kingdom! You fought for the throne, you wanted it!”
Wilbur shook his head. “I can’t, not anymore. I’ve been planning this too long, I can’t turn back now. History will ring with the names of those foes I have slain, Manburg’s blood will pour out up to my horse’s knees—”
“Paint your horse’s knees in Schlatt’s blood then! Be a legendary king! Bring Manburg back to its glory.”
Wilbur looked her dead in the eyes. (The virgin’s eyes stayed fixed at the back of her head.) “By killing Schlatt and marrying you.”
Tommy stirred again, rolling over and nearly off the pew.
There were a thousand reasons she hadn’t chosen Wilbur, all the reasons he’d be a bad husband and a bad king, and now he was worse, but… the alternative was Schlatt. “Yes.”
Wilbur turned back towards the altar. “I need to pray on it.”