The Queen's Necklace (51 page)

“Until he threatened to throw her out into the streets to make her own way?” Luke's fingers on the head of the walking-stick clenched and unclenched.

“He did threaten, but the girl stood firm, even when he tried to assert his authority by claiming she was his natural daughter. She said she would rather starve in the gutter; she said she would rather die. So he cast her out, and she spent two weeks living on the streets, begging for her bread in the dead of winter, fending off the violent approaches of the men that she met there. At the end of a fortnight, she decided there were worse fates than death or dishonor, and she returned to her uncle's house.”

Luke glanced up at him. “You sound sympathetic.” His own sympathies were most thoroughly engaged, but he had expected something quite different from Raith. “Surely you, with your high moral standards—”

“You forget,” said Raith, “that I know too well what it is to be
young and friendless, entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Had I not been taken in by good people, what should
I
be now?”

The five children had left the fountain and moved on to the boxwood maze, so Raith and Luke moved on, too. “That Mademoiselle Brouillard resisted evil so long as she did, I think remarkable. Yet sin is sin. Someday, she will be called to account before a wiser judge than I am. He will know how far to condemn her—I do not.”

There was a long pause. “But do you think—do you think she is leading that sort of life now? That she is, as they say, the king's mistress?”

“Mr. Guilian, I do not think anything of the sort. The girl and King Izaiah are like two children together. I am happy to think that she has, for a time, been allowed to reclaim some part of that childhood she lost too soon. I do
not
like to think what will become of her, should she ever be forced to return to her old way of life.”

Luke winced inwardly, for that was another question he had avoided thinking about. “Surely so long as she remains with the king she is safe, surely so long as she enjoys his protection—”

“I think that you cannot have visited the asylum in some time. We hear that the king's condition continues to deteriorate. He has good days and bad days, but the bad days come with increasing frequency, and his dementia has taken a frightening turn.”

Luke felt his heart sink. “But this is terrible. I mean, it's a terrible thing in itself, that excellent old gentleman losing his way—but what becomes of Tremeur if the king turns dangerous to himself and others?”

“That,” said the Leveller, “remains to be seen. But I cannot help thinking the results would be disastrous—for Mademoiselle certainly, and possibly for the rest of us.”

S
pring came to Luden. The ice broke on the canals, the brackish water warmed, and for many weeks it was impossible to smell anything but canal anywhere in the town. Gradually, however, noses adjusted.

Luke was occupied, just at that time, exploring graveyards. His deciphering of books at home had given rise to the notion that additional messages might be hidden, in the form of anagrams, on tombs and cenotaphs throughout the city. Unfortunately, he had no idea
which
tombs and inscriptions might be involved, so he had set out to copy every potentially interesting epitaph he happened to find.

He was kneeling, one day, in a Proto-deist cemetery, in the bright new grass at the foot of a tilted gravestone, scribbling in a leather pocket-book. When he chanced to look up, he discovered, much to his surprise, a small female in a long scarlet cloak and a broad straw hat liberally embellished with feathers and satin butterflies, regarding him pensively from a low marble monument.

“Tremeur,” he said, rising quickly to his feet, brushing off his knees. He had never addressed her by her name before—it was always “Duchess” or “Your Hereditary Grace” —but the word seemed to slip out naturally.

“Did I disturb you? I am very sorry. I didn't mean to.”

“No, no,” he said. “I—I have been meaning to call on you, but this nonsense of mine, I'm afraid it distracted me.”

Her face was unusually pale under the brim of her straw hat; the ostrich plumes quivered in the breeze. “Please don't think that you need to explain. I do understand. You have heard too much about me and my scandalous past.”

Luke drew in his breath sharply. Somehow, he had never thought she might view his prolonged absence in that particular light. “You are entirely wrong. I
care
too much about you. And I flatter myself that you are beginning to care for me—a situation which can only lead to pain for both of us.” He slid his pencil and his book into a coat pocket, took two short steps in her direction. “Were it not for that and that alone! But you must know if you know me at all, that I care very little for what other people think.”

Her face lit momentarily. Yet the smile was fleeting and her violet eyes soon went dark again. “I should have known, Luke, that your reasons for doing
anything
would not be the ordinary ones.”

For his part, Luke gave a mirthless laugh. “I wish I
were
an ordinary man, and not the King of Winterscar's foster-brother. If I were, believe me, I would know what to do.” But then, remembering what the Leveller had told him, he added very quickly: “King Izaiah—how is he now? I heard he was not very well.”

“He is so very, very far from well, he sometimes frightens me.” As Tremeur slipped down from her marble perch, Luke was struck anew by her tiny size.

And when he thought of all the ambitious would-be brides, the scheming mothers, who had laid their traps for him over the years—not because of any personal attractions he might possess, but for the sake of his fortune and his birth—it was bitter, bitter irony to reflect how his fancy had chanced to alight on this pretty, wounded, delicate little female.

“Luke, he doesn't even know me. Whatever games we used to play at, whatever titles he gave me in fancy, there was always a—a kind of recognition between us. But now he acts as though I were a stranger. And even worse than that—”

“Yes?” Luke prompted, as she continued to hesitate.

She lowered her voice, averted her face. “They all blame
me
, the doctors and the rest. They say the most horrible things. That he would be well if I—if I pleased him better. And they want to know how many times a day—how many times we—”

“Intolerable!” Luke reached out impulsively; his hand hovered for a moment in the air, then he clenched it into a fist and brought it back to his side. “It's bad enough they are willing to use you as they
think
they have, but that you should also be subjected to their gross speculations, their intrusive questions!” He struggled to master his outrage and revulsion. “I have no right to tell you what you should do, but I think you should leave the asylum at once.”

She slipped out of his reach, retreated to the other side of the monument, putting the low square block of white marble between them. “If I left the madhouse, if I left Luden, Lord Flinx would only send men to bring me back. As my legal guardian, he has that right.”

“But why? I have never understood. King Izaiah is a sick old man, utterly powerless. What does Lord Flinx gain by keeping you near him?”

Tremeur made a deprecating gesture with a small gloved hand. “Izaiah is powerless. I am powerless. But another woman close to the king might do much. A respectable woman from an ambitious family. She could even claim to be the king's wife—which I never can be. It's bad enough for my uncle with the princess opposing him, but if a third party arose, who knows which faction would win in the end?”

“Then why not find such a woman himself, and put her in your place? I suppose that's not beyond your uncle's ability,” Luke said with a sneer. “Or beneath his morals?”

“But would another woman be his creature and his tool in the same way I am? He could never trust her, as he trusts me, having no such power over her. Besides,” she added with a sad little smile, “I am the companion the king prefers, and I can be useful in a hundred small ways.”

A faint blush was rising beneath her skin. “A spy of his own, living in the madhouse, do you not see the value? The most important people gather there to discuss their affairs. They speak very freely before the inmates, and the inmates, in turn, speak freely to me. Though perhaps,” she added, with a touch of defiance, “I pass less of this on to Lord Flinx than I might. Perhaps I know things I don't choose to tell him!”

Though they were alone in the graveyard, she lowered her voice even further. “Just before the king was moved to the madhouse, a number of things disappeared from the palace, and it's thought that Izaiah hid them away. You have heard him speak of his emerald pocket-watch? It's true what he says, that the princess and Lord Flinx are simply wild to recover it. I can't even guess why they regard it so highly. But Marjote's people tore up her father's rooms as soon as he left them. They dug in the palace gardens all summer long, and during the winter pulled up the floors.
That's
why nobody lives there.”

She stood staring down at the short green grass at her feet, with a small, perplexed frown growing between her eyes. “If I could—if I was willing to betray him, perhaps I could use the watch to bargain my way out of the madhouse. I never thought to do so before, because I was happy to stay there. But now—the way that the king looks at me sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable.”

Luke stiffened. “Do you have any reason to fear he might harm you?”

“I don't know. I honestly don't know what he might do.” She looked up at Luke with a wistful smile. “And I was so happy. It was
like living in a pleasant dream. Sometimes I think I would do any desperate thing, rather than abandon that dream and live in the world again.”

Luke felt a chill. Forgetting his resolution not to touch her, he reached out across the monument, took one of her hands in both of his, and clasped it tightly. Even through the white kidskin glove, he could feel a shiver pass over her skin, an instinctive shrinking of the slight hand with its tiny bird-like bones.

“Promise me this: If at any time you begin to believe that you are
not
safe, send me a message at once. I will—I really don't know what I can do, but I will come to you and we will think of something.”

A message arrived at his house on the canal the very next day, just as Luke was settling down by a comfortable fire after a long, cold walk. The spry young footman came in with a letter on a chased silver salver. Recognizing the writing at once, Luke snatched it up, broke open the seal, and read through it quickly.

He threw the letter into the fire, then rang the bell for Perys. “My coat, if you please. I am going back out again.”

Out on the street, he signaled a passing hack, and instructed the driver to take him to the madhouse with all possible haste. Ten minutes later, he was striding purposefully through the marble corridors, nodding curtly to everyone he met along the way.

He took the steps up to the attic two at a time, but paused outside the king's rooms, in order to regain his composure. The door flew open just as he was raising his fist to knock. One of the doctors stood on the threshold, blocking his view of the room beyond.

“Mademoiselle Brouillard?”

“I believe you will find her walking in the gardens. The king is not well,” said the physician. “He will not be allowed any outside visitors until his condition improves.”

Luke turned away with a sharp sense of misgiving. If Izaiah had
deteriorated so far that his doctors were hiding him from the public—

Down in the gardens, he found Tremeur, very simply and soberly dressed, pacing a stone-flagged walk with a dejected air. At the sight of Luke, she brightened, and came to meet him with both hands outstretched.

“What has happened?” he asked, taking her hands and pressing them to his heart. “You haven't—you haven't suffered any insult, from the king or anyone else?”

“An insult? Is it possible to insult a woman like me?” He felt her tremble in his eager clasp. “Yet it was unpleasant enough, for all that. He kissed me, Luke, not as grandfather kisses his granddaughter, but as a man kisses a woman. And when I tried to pull away, he squeezed me so hard, I could scarcely breathe. A moment later, he seemed to come back to himself, but I can't help fearing the next time it happens, I won't be so fortunate!”

Luke stood staring blindly before him, his mind reeling with all of the sickening possibilities. It had only been a kiss this time, but what would it be another day? And no one would try to help her, no one would intervene. The girl was nothing to the king's doctors—nothing but a plaything for the old man, to be used or misused as part of his so-called cure—and it was more than likely the doctors themselves had encouraged his outrageous behavior.

Luke came to a sudden, a dangerous decision. If he was ever going to retain even a shred of self-respect, it was for him to step in and take decisive action. “There will
be
no next time. You will leave this place today and never come back.”

Tremeur made a small noise in her throat. “You know I can never leave. If I tried, Lord Flinx—”

“Lord Flinx can do nothing if you disappear. If you travel far and you travel fast, then fade completely out of sight in some foreign city.”

“But how—how could I?” she faltered. “A woman travelling alone, with no money, no friends to go to? Even if I disappeared as you say, how would I live? I only know the one way to—”

“You won't be travelling alone. And I can assure you: I have money enough to take us both a very long way and to keep us in comfort for a very long time.” He felt her recoil. “No, don't think that. My intentions are honorable. We will be married as soon as we cross the border.”

Her face worked; she looked as though she would burst into tears. “Luke, Luke, this is very noble—but you must know that we can do no such thing.”