The Queen's Necklace (55 page)

With an immense effort, she pulled a heavy chair over to the window, and lowered herself to the seat. She waited a moment for the ache in her bones to subside. Then she sent out her thoughts across the city—hoping that one or more of the great black birds would hear and respond.

She sat by the window for what seemed like hours, straight-backed, determined, refusing to accept defeat. The ravens
would
come, if her will was strong enough, if she kept her mind focused on her pressing desire.

At last there was a flutter of wings outside; a raven landed on the window-sill. A moment later, another bird joined him. Faint and seemingly far-off, the first raven's greeting was like a broken whisper in her mind.

<
I—Crwcrwyl—Captain—trusted spy. What does—wish of me?
> A pale blue spark flared and then disappeared.

Lady Krogan concentrated as hard as she could. <
You must tell all the other ravens. Each must pass on the word to as many others as he can. Fly north in search of Captain Blackheart and carry my message
.> She was not certain how much of this was getting through, but she must have succeeded in communicating something, because Crwcrwyl responded by projecting a clear picture of Wilrowan into her mind.

So the old woman gave her message, repeating it three times over, in the hope that in this way it might all be received—if not intact at least in intelligible fragments.

<
We will try. But the way is long—there are—miles to be—perhaps he has spoken—others of our kind in the north. Perhaps we—if so, do you—reply?
>

“No,” said Lady Krogan out loud at the same time she spoke the words in her mind. “There is no need for you to bring me any reply. Only make certain that Wilrowan learns this valuable piece of information. It could spare him much worry and grief.”

Will had been wandering in darkness for an hour or an eternity when he heard someone speaking inside his head. <
Will—Wilrowan! Breathe, Will, breathe; pull the air into your lungs and push it back out again.
>

He did as he was told. Gradually, the inky blackness turned to grey, and then to a golden glow of candlelight. A pale face was hovering over him, slightly blurred. Then his vision cleared and he recognized Lili.

“Thank goodness, he has come back!” She spoke over her shoulder, to somebody standing in the shadows by the door. “No, Will, you mustn't try to speak or move. Just lie there quietly.”

“I must be dreaming,” he managed to say. “You can't possibly be here. Lili, I—”

“Hush, Will. Be still and don't tire yourself by trying to speak. Someone poisoned you; if I had arrived even a few minutes later, you would have died. As it was, it was a very near thing.”

“Poisoned?” Will tried to sit up, to lever himself up on his elbows, but the room began to spin, all the strength went out of his arms, and he fell back again. He tried to remember where he was, what he had been doing, but the events of the last several days all jumbled together in his mind. In his confusion, he forgot to whom he was speaking, imagined he was speaking to Nick Brakeburn instead. “Was it the woman or was it the Wryneck?”

There was a brief hesitation. “The—woman, Wilrowan? And I don't understand what you mean about the Wryneck.”

“The one in Chetterly. Dash it, Nick, I must have told you—you say I was
poisoned
? Eternal Darkness! Don't ever tell my grandmother I was such a fool. If she knew I had allowed myself to drink something I shouldn't, she would never let me hear the end of it.”

“Will,” said Lili, with a slight tremor in her voice, “it very nearly
was
the end—for you. Now do as I say, close your eyes, and rest for a while. There will be time for explanations later.”

Will nodded. For some reason, he suddenly felt enormously sleepy, weary beyond all measure.

The moment he closed his eyes, a wave of sleep seemed to wash over him. He barely heard the sound of retreating footsteps, or the soft click of a closing door.

Out in the berlin again, Lili confronted Sir Bastian. “The Wryneck, sir? I knew there was a Grant killed when Will was in Chetterly. But I never heard there was a Wryneck involved in the plot—or a woman, either!”

“I was as surprised as you were. But what a fortunate stroke of luck for us. Thanks to Captain Blackheart, we now know more than we did about the people we are seeking. This is all most interesting.”

Lili looked down at her hands, which were still shaking from the recent excitement. “Interesting?” she said, on a faint, interrogatory note. “I suppose you might say so. But just how many
other
vital details
might we be missing, simply because we failed to make an ally of Wilrowan, as I suggested at the very beginning?”

“You did suggest that,” said Sir Bastian mildly. “And perhaps I was wrong not to listen to you. Still, there was no harm done. We have this new information in spite of everything—and it is much too late to reconsider now. We Could not possibly stay behind and wait for the captain to recover.”

The coach swayed as it rounded a corner. The old gentleman gave her a searching look under the brim of his round black hat. “Perhaps, Lilliana, you would like to tell me just how you knew your husband was dying. That was really—quite extraordinary.”

Lili looked down at her hands again, weaving her fingers together. She had not really had time to think before, but it
was
extraordinary. As she realized the truth, she blushed to the roots of her hair. “Before I left Hawkesbridge—the night before—Will and I were in sympathy, I matched our heartbeats. I must have forgotten to break our communion when everything happened so quickly in the morning.”

A suspicious note came into Sir Bastian's voice. “Captain Blackheart was ill? He must have made a very swift recovery, since he left the city the very next day.”

Lili blushed even more furiously than before. “Will was not—sick. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to see—I wanted to know—” As memories of that night crowded into her thoughts, she continued to blush and to stammer. “I was curious to find out what would—”

“You did it as an erotic experiment,” Sir Bastian finished for her. Though he spoke quietly, he sounded disappointed.

Lili nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

“I do not know what to say to you, Lilliana. Others have experimented in much the same way, and almost always with disastrous results. It is a very dangerous practice. I confess that I had thought better of you.”

There was a long uncomfortable silence, punctuated by the creaking of the coach. “After all,” said Sir Bastian at last, “I should not be surprised. Miss Brakeburn did warn me that Captain Blackheart exerted a regrettable influence.”

Lili forced herself to look up at him. “But you mustn't blame Will. Truly, sir, you must not. He could hardly have put me up to anything like that. He had no idea I could even—” Her voice trailed off, as she saw that Sir Bastian was shaking his head.

“Do not distress yourself. One must remember, after all, that you married Captain Blackheart when you were still very young. Your husband having so few morals himself, how could you possibly look to him for guidance?”

Lili sat up a little straighter. It was enough that Will should be held to account for his own sins, without adding hers as well. “Wilrowan was scarcely more than a boy himself,” she said indignantly. “Why should I have looked to him for guidance on
anything
?”

“Precisely.” The old gentleman reached across the coach and touched her hand reassuringly. “Let us speak no more about it. You acted in ignorance, and I am sure that a word of caution is all that is needed.” He settled back in his seat, and smiled at her benignly.

Lili leaned her head back against the lining of the coach, with a sigh of resignation. She was much too tired to argue, and besides, the damage had already been done. Thanks to her own reckless behavior, Sir Bastian was more convinced than ever that Will was a wicked and unprincipled man, whose marriage to Lili could only be deplored, whose influence over her ought to be minimized.

And like her Aunt Allora, Sir Bastian was going to do everything in his power to keep Lili and Wilrowan apart.

Tarnburgh, Winterscar—Five Months Earlier

14 Frimair, 6537

A
t Lindenhoff, the winter days were tediously long, made worse by the endless rituals of life at court. Ys was expected to leave her bed at eight precisely, to breakfast for an hour on spice cakes and coffee, then spend the bulk of the morning dressing. Afternoons were reserved for official visits, military reviews (conducted by torchlight in the castle courtyard), and embassy teas. She dressed for the evening at five-thirty. After that, there
should
have been card-parties, elegant suppers, and dancing by candlelight, but these were forbidden with the king so ill. Evenings dragged in the Silver Salon, with dull conversation, bored flirtation, and stifled yawns.

Occasionally, Ys rebelled, spent an entire evening locked in her room, or a morning walking in the snowy gardens. Yet in the end she was always restored to a sense of duty by Lord Wittlesbeck's scolding. His growing influence surprised even Ys, who as a general rule thought little of Humans. But the truth was very simple: for all the servants, guards, and officials she had succeeded in dismissing on one pretext or another, replacing them all with her own choices—people who
ought
to have showered her with gratitude, but who somehow remained curiously aloof—the Master of Ceremonies was her only friend at the palace.

Besides, she needed him to organize the Midwinter Ball. It was the only event all season long that she planned to enjoy, having determined in advance to dance just as often as she liked with Zmaj. Let people make what they would of that! He was her kinsman and it was perfectly proper, though she had an idea that tongues would wag.

But I am entitled to a
little
pleasure
, she told herself, midway through a particularly tiresome afternoon spent leaning on the arm of her silver chair, chin in hand, watching two elderly duchesses build card-castles and argue precedence.
Yes, and I deserve a great deal more than that!

After another hour spent brooding on her various entitlements, she suddenly rose from her seat and proclaimed a desire to visit her aunt. There was a buzz of protest.

“If you wish to send for Madame Debrûle,” said the wife of a Parliament minister, “no doubt she will be pleased to visit you here.”

“No,” said Ys. She wanted privacy and more than anything she wanted
out
: out of Lindenhoff, away from the whispers and the hostile eyes, away from the candles and the open fires.

She rode to the old Maglore mansion in a glass carriage, under a fringed silk canopy. Wherever she was recognized, crowds assembled, waving their fists and cursing her name; without an escort, she would have been terrified. Once she entered the house, however, Ys dismissed her guards and climbed the long staircase up to the second floor alone.

The house looked deserted. Everything was in its place, exactly the way that she remembered it, but as she walked through the echoing halls of the upper floor, as she moved from one empty chamber to the next, she encountered no one, not even a single Goblin servant.

It was only when she reached Madame Solange's private apartments and found Madame sitting with a pen in her hand and a sheet
of closely written paper on the desk before her, that Ys found someone she might talk to.

“Have you dismissed
all
the servants?

Her sometime governess glanced up from her letter-writing. “It is no longer necessary to keep up the pretense of wealth. There are a few scullions left down in the kitchen, a groom or two down in the stables, but that is all.”

Ys took a seat, arranging her skirts, smoothing out the fur on her new ermine muff. She hardly knew what to think—after all, what had their efforts been
for
, if not to make the illusion of affluence into reality?

Remembering why she had come, she said briskly: “As you are interested in simplifying your life, I suppose this is as good a time as any to broach the subject. I want to know what you have done with the Jewels from Nordfjall, Tholia, and all the rest.”

Madame put down her pen and covered her silver inkwell. “I thought we had settled this. They are near enough if we should ever need them. One is in the city of Tronstadt, another in Dahlmark, a third in Vallerhoven. They do no harm where they are—there is some advantage, after all, to living in a kingdom which verges on the Polar Waste. But to bring them any closer together than they are at this moment would be disastrous. To say nothing of their effect on the Winterscar Jewel.” She turned in her chair, favored her former pupil with a sardonic glance. “Or would it amuse you to find yourself sitting on top of an erupting volcano?”

“I did not ask you to
give
me the Jewels. I merely want to know exactly where they are. I know you have taken Aunt Sophie into your confidence—so why not me?”

Madame smiled that vastly superior smile. “Sophie has played and will continue to play a very large part in obtaining the Jewels, so naturally she must be familiar with the plan. When I believe there is an equally good reason for telling you—then I will do so.”

Ys threw down her muff, sprang up from her chair, and began to pace the floor. “I think you need to remember to whom the Jewels really belong. And I am not a schoolgirl anymore, to do your bidding, not some meek little nobody. I am the Queen of Winterscar, after all.”

Madame continued to regard her with delicate contempt. “How arrogant you have become. And to think that Sophie used to fear I might break your spirit.”

Ys turned on her defiantly. “Break my spirit? No. You have bruised it, battered it, ground it under your heel, but you could never break it. When I think of the years that I endured your abuse—”