Chapter 19 Seams of Memory
Chapter nineteen
Seams of Memory
Azaleen dragged herself through the front door.
No sooner than it closed, she slumped, her body heavy as lead.
It had been a grueling day. She had assigned Dr. Hall, the kingdom’s chief physician, to catalogue the medicines and supplies, organizing them by type in the order of usability.
Some drugs with short shelf lives had long ago expired.
Still, they lucked out with wound care and malaria pills.
They’d disposed of premixed antibiotics, but had acquired several boxes of the powder forms, along with vials for mixing with water.
It made her think of Lark and her friend.
After lengthy debates over wording, Camille dispatched a pigeon with the proposal letter to Aurora, the AlgonCree high chief’s town.
She had tried to explain to Azaleen how their system worked, that they didn’t have a set central city as a seat of power, but she’d been too tired and distracted to listen.
Azaleen sank into the nearest cushioned chair with a sigh. Sabine had left the Capitol before her, busy with the Kingdom Day Festival. “Calder,” she muttered. “As if I didn’t have enough problems.”
“Oh, Your Excellency, you’re home.” Magnolia Dawes rounded the corner, an apron tied around her cotton skirt. “I thought I heard someone in here. The boys are at the ballgame. They had their dinner first, but I’m sure they’ll be ready for a sandwich slathered in gravy when they get home.”
A bright smile bloomed on her bronze face, her brunette hair secured in a single braid. Azaleen marveled at how cheerful her housekeeper always was—rain or shine, freezing or sweltering, she approached each chore with good humor.
“Can I get you something? You must be exhausted.” Maggie’s observation hit the mark. “What would you like?”
“Whatever you have prepared is fine. And a glass of wine if it’s convenient.”
Maggie’s tawny eyes sparkled, as if she lived just to make Azaleen happy. “I’ll grab a chilled bottle from the root cellar.”
“Lady Orielle? Has she eaten?”
“Sarah is taking care of her. I haven’t seen her today—busy with laundry. Shall I set your food and drink on the dining table?”
“Yes, thank you.” Azaleen pushed out of her seat and trudged to her mother’s room. Her hand on the knob, she hesitated, taking a bracing breath. She never knew what to expect. Wrapping an extra layer of protection around her heart, she opened the door.
Sarah was nowhere to be seen. Azaleen frowned, then spotted her mother, sitting in her rocker by the window, working yarn with her crochet needle. She hummed an old tune, awakening memories of her childhood. It had been one of Mama’s favorites.
“Hi, Mama, I’m home,” she said, producing the happiest sound she could. She crept across the floor as if one wrong step might shatter the fragile peace.
“Oh, Azaleen!” Twisting toward her daughter, a pleasant smile lit her pale face. She held up the piece she was working on. “Do you like it?”
Relief flooded Azaleen’s soul. “I love it,” she praised, gliding into the chair beside her mother’s.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked. “Aren will be cross with you for gallivanting all over the countryside.”
“Mama, Aren’s gone. I’m queen now.” Have been for nearly ten years. “I’ve been tending to important affairs of state, but now I’m here to spend the rest of the evening with you. Maybe we can play one of those games you like—mahjong or gin rummy.”
“You’re queen now? Then what’s your father doing? He better not have run off with that floozy Mary Jenkins.” Orielle scowled, narrowed her eyes, shook a crooked finger.
“No, he hasn’t,” Azaleen answered with a patient smile. “I wanted to ask you about your crochet work. I need something special—one of your beautiful, handcrafted wraps—to present as a gift to the AlgonCree chief. She’s about your age. It needs to have a story behind it. Can you think of something?”
Orielle’s pale blue eyes lit up, and she dropped her project into the yarn basket beside her chair. “Well, help me up, and we’ll go check in the cedar chest. Lots of my creations in there.”
Azaleen took her mother’s arm and helped her from the chair, slowly guiding her toward the trunk at the foot of Orielle’s bed, which held all her treasures.
“Don’t fuss so, Azaleen,” she scolded, giving Azaleen’s hand a swat. “I can walk across the room.”
Joy that her mother was mostly herself today stirred renewed strength in Azaleen, and her steps seemed lighter. Orielle opened the chest, taking out sweaters, scarves, shawls, and every conceivable crocheted item, placing them in piles on the neatly made bed.
Her mother’s room was surgically clean, with lots of whites, pinks, and lavenders. A handcrafted doll rested among her frilly pillows, staring in curiosity.
“I remember this one,” Orielle said, smiling at a well-worn winter scarf. “My mother made it for me to wrap around my neck and face during the harsh, long winter before you were born.” She clutched it close to her nose, sniffing the yarn with a wistful smile.
A folded piece in the trunk caught Azaleen’s eye, and she lifted it out. “This looks familiar.” The large diamond-shaped drape with scalloped edges sewn in delicate stitches bore alternating rows of Verdancia green and gold, Arctic blue and deep teal, held together and edged in snowy white.
“Oh, that one.” Her mother sat on the foot of the bed beside the trunk, among the stacks of crochet.
Smiling, she took it from Azaleen and draped it around her daughter’s shoulders.
“I made it for you the winter you were pregnant with Eldrin. We had quite the cold snap, and you refused to wear a coat. You couldn’t decide if blue or green was your favorite color—it changed practically daily—so I used the green, a medium blue, and the teal, combining them, along with gold and white for contrast.”
The stripes were somewhat diagonal, the points coming together on the seam down the back. It was open in the front for easy draping. “Now I remember. I always liked how it felt to the touch and admired the pretty stitch pattern.”
“That’s a seashell stitch—not too tight or too loose—and I used alpaca wool. Remember that alpaca ranch we visited in Troy?”
Images trickled through Azaleen’s mind—her small child hand holding out alfalfa cubes, velvety lips taking them from. It tickled. A smell like freshly popped popcorn, stale hay, and manure. A curious humming sound. She hadn’t thought of the visit to the Troy farm in decades.
“Yes, Mama,” she answered, her azure eyes bright. “I remember.”
“I loaded up on yarn. Your father thought I’d lost my mind, but who knew when I’d come across that quality again? Maybe half the pieces in this chest were made from that wool. Such a shame the animals all drowned in the Big Creek flood of ’99.”
Azaleen was overtaken by a profound sadness.
She hadn’t known or didn’t remember the tragedy.
Suddenly, all the woes of the day crashed down on her at once—Lark’s grief, Lord Calder plotting against her, the protestors, the hoops she had to jump through to impress a potential ally. Ally. The AlgonCree.
“Mama, this would be perfect,” she blurted out excitedly.
“Look.” She took hold of an edge of the shawl.
“This blends the colors on our flag with the colors on theirs. Surely the chief will see the symbolism. I’m trying to build an alliance, and the yarn you chose seventeen years ago blends our two nations’ banners together beautifully.
” She kissed her mother’s cheek. “You might have saved our future, Mama.”
Orielle laughed. “All I did was keep my fingers busy. Speaking of busy, your father’s meeting with the secretaries must have run late.
When will he get home? You should go finish your homework.
You know Edric expects nothing but the highest marks from you.
But before you go.” She squeezed bony fingers around Azaleen’s arm and winked. “Tell me about the girl.”
Azaleen’s expression went blank. “What girl?”
“Oh, honey.” Her mother giggled bashfully, pink rising in her pallid cheeks. “With Azaleen Winnifred Frost, there’s always a girl.”
Lark’s face flashed across her mind, hot tears stinging her tawny eyes, carving jagged paths through the dirt and soot clinging to her tan face. I hate you! spewing from her chapped lips. Yeah. There was always a girl—one Azaleen would never hold.
Two days later
“My queen?” Sabine eased open the door to Azaleen’s office. A gentle rain chased away the afternoon heat as the queen met with Treasury Secretary Vera Sutherland, studying ledgers and recapping the economic forecast.
Azaleen glanced up from her desk, thankful for the interruption. The numbers were making her head spin.
“I don’t see how you can afford the Kingdom Day Festival Ms. Fontaine,” Vera pronounced loudly between gritted teeth, flashing a glare at the interruption, “has planned. It’s a preposterous misappropriation of funds.”
“Hold that thought,” Azaleen articulated, shifting her focus to Sabine. “Yes?”
“Captain Moreau and his team are back, and Secretary Shaw is here to see you.” As usual, her soft-spoken Jill-of-all-trades ignored Vera’s dig, the picture of professionalism.
“Have them meet me in the War Room,” Azaleen decreed.
“Secretary Sutherland, it is vital to kingdom security that next month’s festival is grander than any before it.
You’re a creative woman. Shuffle some funds around.
Cut costs on other projects. Make it happen.
Come back to see me when you’ve solved it.
” With a regal air, Azaleen glided to her feet.
Vera, wearing the mortified expression of one asked to juggle lit sticks of dynamite, stood also.
“I’ll get to work on it immediately.” The fifty-plus-year-old accounting specialist pushed up her glasses and clipped away on her black heels.
Sabine graciously stepped aside, ignoring Vera’s pointed glare, then winked at Azaleen. “I’ll go fetch them.”
Azaleen was anxious to receive the full briefing.
She’d thought about just getting it from Lark but decided to give her space.
Besides, what she really wanted was a report about the newest member of the team.
She walked down the second-floor hallway, taking a moment to admire the art.
Over breakfast, Caelen had enthused about an art project his class was doing at school.
The arts were vital to maintaining civilization, and artistic expression was valuable to the individual.
Physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
We need them all to live happy, productive lives.
The queen had taken her seat in proximity to the expansive map table and sipped a dandelion tea when Sabine showed the others in.
Desmond Shaw moseyed to his seat like an entitled cattle baron.
Captain Moreau and his team followed with confident but humble strides, taking seats around the table.
Naturally, Shaw secured the chair closest to Azaleen.
“Your Excellency,” he said, sweeping his hat from his head. He propped an ankle on his knee, dropped the hat into his lap. “You all need to hear my report,” he stated, glancing at the VERT team, “but I s’pose Moreau should go first.”
Azaleen regarded the tall Black man from Appalachia with disapproval. Sabine assured her he checked out. His wife, former employers, and clients for whom he’d scavenged swore to his legitimacy and competency. Still.
“More respect, less bravado, Secretary Shaw,” she adjured. Changing focus to Luke, she simply stated, “Report.”
He filled her in on the details of the mission, the condition of the forest they encountered, and the close calls. Azaleen noted the edge of a clean bandage protruding from Diego Marín’s sleeve. Skye Navarro boasted a fresh cut on her forehead … Harlan McCrae’s sunburned face.
“I need the solid T on Sutter.” Azaleen’s impenetrable gaze swept across the team.
“She’s mag,” Wes answered with a shrug.
“Had my back,” Skye affirmed.
“Lark’s a little green, but I can’t recall a rookie ever doing better,” Diego reported.
“She climbed that wall like a spider,” Harlan testified. “Cool under pressure.”
“And she obeyed orders?” Azaleen asked.
Luke nodded, folded his hands between his knees. He met Azaleen’s gaze. “Lark has excellent reflexes. She’s quick, smart, and curious. Fearless. The only thing that gave her pause was attacking the wildlings who took up in the hospital.”
Azaleen leaned back, scrutinizing Luke in confusion. “She wasn’t afraid of a mutant bear, radiation poisoning, or a pack of warg, but she was scared of Neanderthals?”
“No, Your Excellency,” he corrected. “She wasn’t afraid of them. She didn’t want to kill them. They had kids.” He sighed and shook his head. “You know they can’t be reasoned with, and they were holding the hospital. It was the only way.”
A fine, firm body, an innocent charm, passionate emotions, mad skills, and she has a heart—not just for her friend Tommy, but even for primitive strangers who might have eaten her given the chance. That was enough thinking about Lark Sutter.
“Thank you, Captain, team. Now, Secretary Shaw.” She raised a speculative brow at him. “What do you have to share?”
Desmond rolled his neck, a sly grin on his thick lips.
“I got word from a friend who knows a traveling merchant who happened upon what could be a tremendous find. Over in the neighborhood of Tupelo, he stumbled upon a sealed, underground vault, like your famous grandfather’s, I suppose.
I had him mark the exact spot on a map. Now the fellow tried to open it and couldn’t.
I suspect your elite team here could pop that lid like a Champagne cork.
” He shot a challenging glance at Diego.
“It could be empty,” Skye alleged. “That’s a long trip.”
“I’m sending a commodities shipment, including some medical supplies, out that way regardless,” Azaleen declared.
“You should go along as an escort for the cargo and investigate the vault while you’re there.
Two birds, one stone. Like Skye said, it could have been raided decades ago—nothing but spiderwebs and skeletons.
Then again, if the vault owner was anything like Grandpa Wynn Frost, we’ll be in high cotton for a while.
Luke, you’ll need to swear in Ms. Sutter. She’s chosen to stay.”
“What about her friend?” Skye asked with concern. “I thought she’d already be back at Saltmarsh Reach with her antibiotics.”
Azaleen swallowed a lump, pushing down sentiment. No place for weakness. “Young Mr. Tommy no longer requires the medicine.” Nobody questioned her reply. They all understood its meaning.