The Queen's Necklace (56 page)

Now it was Madame's turn to shoot up from her chair, to speak in a voice of suppressed passion. “I kept you
alive
. Do you think that was easy, with our own kind hunting you? I protected you, nurtured you, taught you—not satisfied with that, I placed you in the exalted position you occupy now.” The words hissed between her teeth with her rapid breathing. “I suppose it would be too much to expect a little gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” Ys gave an angry laugh. “Why should I feel gratitude for anything you've done? You were the royal governess. It was nothing more than your simple duty.”

“My duty, yes.” The word seemed to calm Madame, rather than enrage her. She stood with her eyes closed for a moment, apparently gathering some inner strength. When she opened them again, when she spoke to Ys, her voice barely shook. “Some might say I had discharged that duty by rearing Sophie. Some might say I would have been wiser to put her where you are now. She would have made—a conformable empress. But I had to go looking for Chimena's brat and begin the whole process again. It has all been duty for me and never a moment's pleasure. Have I been ruthless in sacrificing others? Yes. But always more ruthless in sacrificing myself. I am a woman with strong feelings, but I have never indulged them. And I never will.”

She smiled, completely in control again. “So don't think you can provoke me into saying more than I mean to, or that you can wheedle the information out of me. You will never succeed.”

But by now, Ys was growing reckless. “I have not come here to beg or to tease you. I have come to demand what is rightfully mine.” Part of her was horrified by what she had already said; part of her was thrilled by her own daring. “I am not helpless. If you have access to poisons, then so have I. If you have followers willing to do whatever you tell them without asking questions, then I have also.”

Much to Ys's surprise, Madame only resumed her seat with a laugh and a shake of her head. “One or two, perhaps. Zmaj and possibly Jmel, while they remain under the spell of Chimena's necklace and your sexual favors. But the rest are accustomed to obeying
me
; you will find it difficult to shift their allegiance.”

She turned her back on Ys, took up a silver sand-caster and sprinkled her letter to set the ink. “Take that fool Vif for a deplorable example of what the Maglore have become. He agonizes for weeks over anything as trivial as a new waistcoat. To consider switching his allegiance from me to you—that could take him years.”

Ys bent down and retrieved her muff. Every nerve in her body cried out for revenge on this woman who had dominated her so completely for so many years. Yet angry as she was, she could see that Madame was quite immovable. “So you refuse to do what I ask?”

Madame dusted off her letter, and folded the paper in half. “To refuse you out of hand would be—impulsive. And I am never impulsive, no matter how sorely I am tempted. I will think the matter over and tell you my answer, but in my own good time.”

Preparations for the Midwinter Ball threw the palace into a ferment. The queen, it was said, had determined the event should surpass all others for beauty and splendor. The major-domos and the Master of Ceremonies bustled about looking important, exchanging
lists of wines and orders of march. In a vast chamber set aside for the purpose, an army of seamstresses was hard at work on the queen's new ballgown.

In all this activity, one person was largely forgotten. The king remained all day in his bedchamber, growing weaker and weaker as the days and weeks passed.

He was sitting propped up in bed one morning, when Francis Purcell dropped in for a visit. Though the room was but dimly lit, with only the smallest of fires burning on the hearth, the old man was forcibly struck by Jarred's pasty complexion and his lank dark hair.

“If I may say so, sir, I think you should consult yet another physician. One that may finally discover the cause of your condition.”

Jarred passed a frail white hand over his eyes. “My dear Francis, I have seen so very many doctors already. I feel as though I have been physicked nearly to death.”

“And do none of their remedies provide relief?”

The king heaved a weary sigh. “The better ones do me no harm. The worst—well, I have been purged and bled until I feel like an empty shell.” He groaned and slipped further down on the pillows. “I believe my ailment goes deeper than anyone guesses. I believe there is something inherently wrong in the way I am made, some hidden defect, some hereditary taint. Something—something like the disease that killed Zelene.”

Purcell bent forward, the better to study his face. “I know of no such defect in your family line. It is true that neither of your parents lived very long, but fevers and hunting accidents are scarcely hereditary.”

He hesitated before he went on. “Your Majesty—might it not be possible that it is only your own state of mind that is making you ill?”

Jarred looked up at him with haunted eyes. “My state of mind? Do you mean, Francis, that I am—finally going mad?”

“Nothing of the sort, sir, nothing of the sort.” The philosopher
was appalled that he had spoken so carelessly. “I was speaking of—of a melancholy conviction, which you seem to hold, that you will never be well again. I am not a physician, of course, but it seems to me that you may be suffering from nothing more serious than nervous excitation, a wasting anxiety. One I hope you will soon overcome, and rally sufficiently—”

“To do what?” said Jarred, as Purcell's voice died off.

The old man hesitated again. He was reluctant to say anything that might worry the king. Yet perhaps the truth might have a tonic effect, might force him to bestir himself.

“I believe, sir, that it is very important for you to be seen in public. The people are distressed by what they hear of your condition. Then too, they remain unreconciled to your recent marriage. Many are convinced that the queen exerts a malign influence. They call her—” Purcell decided against telling Jarred the worst of it. “But if they saw you again, if they were reminded how much you love them, how deeply their welfare has always—”

He was interrupted by the opening of a door and the unexpected entrance of the queen herself. At the sight of her, Purcell closed his lips, folded his arms, and determined not to say anything more while she was present.

Yet there was nothing in her appearance to inspire distrust, as she tripped lightly across the room, made a dutiful curtsy beside the bed, and dropped a wifely kiss on Jarred's pale forehead. “Are you bored, sir? Would you like me to sit with you and read for a while?”

The king made a listless movement. “No, I thank you, though it's kind of you to ask. The truth is, my head aches, and I want nothing so much as quiet.”

“Of course,” she said sweetly. “We will leave you in peace.” And she gave Purcell a significant look across the bedclothes.

Taking the hint, he bowed to the king. With a last uneasy glance
over his shoulder, the philosopher followed the queen out of the room, through the antechamber, and into the corridor outside.

“It is good that we met,” said Ys, as Purcell closed the door softly behind him. “There is something I particularly wanted to say to you. We can be private, I take it, up in your laboratory?”

“Indeed,” said the old man, leading the way. They climbed a short flight of stairs, traversed a long gallery, passed through a number of rooms and doors, and at last arrived in the philosopher's clock-tower workshop.

Ys came immediately to the point. “When I found you with the king, you were speaking of the rumors abroad in the town?”

Purcell nodded reluctantly.

“And because the people are restless and disaffected you are inclined to blame me?”

“Not at all,” said the old man. “I was telling the king that the
public
blames you. Perhaps with some cause, considering the changes you have made here. The entire Perys family dismissed, beginning with Jarred's coachman. Thrown out into the streets, when they were born right here in the palace! The older ones, too, after a lifetime of service. Do you wonder they retaliate by blackening your name? Yet what have the people to complain of, really? There is neither famine, disease, nor any other thing abroad in the land to disturb their peace, and they are hardly touched by the changes here.”

Ys gave him a calculating look. “You don't think that your own presence here at the palace contributes something to the public apprehension?”

Purcell was bewildered, this was so unexpected. “
My
presence? How should my presence ‘contribute to the public apprehension'? I am the most innocuous of men. No one has ever—”

“
That
was before a certain report was recently published, before it was handed out in the form of broadsheets on every street corner
in the town.” With a triumphant smile, Ys reached into the front of her gown and pulled out a roll of papers, which she handed over to the astonished philosopher.

Purcell unrolled them; a quick glance was enough to tell him exactly what he was looking at. He felt all the blood drain out of his face. “May I ask, Your Majesty, how you came by these? I thought I kept them in—a private place, known only to myself.”

“I obtained them, after considerable persuasion, from the very same printer who is publishing the broadsheets. How he came by them, I never learned. But these papers, I take it, are truly yours? And the invention they describe, that is yours as well?”

With an unsteady gait, Doctor Purcell crossed the room, put the papers down on the smooth marble top of his workbench. “It is my invention. But the machine does nothing,
nothing
that should cause anyone the least concern. It is—a mere plaything, like all of these others.” He indicated with a sweep of his hand the dancing dolls and the other mechanical toys that littered the table.

“So harmless that you kept the plans hidden away? So innocent that for eighteen years you have been afraid to complete your ‘Celestial Clock,' which has been standing unfinished in that corner over there, all of this time?”

The philosopher put a suddenly clammy hand to his forehead. “I admit that some of the principles involved might cause apprehension in—certain quarters.”

Ys laughed sarcastically. “Apprehension, you say, in certain quarters? A
perpetual motion
machine? Surely, Doctor, you vastly understate the case. And the design of the engine so very sophisticated. In some ways even more sophisticated than the Goblin Jewels. The very existence of these plans argues a reckless curiosity, a meddling in things you had far, far better have left alone—as you must have known when you suppressed them yourself.”

“The engine itself is perfectly harmless. If I kept it a secret, it was
only because I feared the plans might someday be modified in ways I could never anticipate.” Purcell picked up the papers, impulsively tore them in half, a futile gesture, but one that relieved some of his feelings. “Whoever has stolen these, whoever has published them, he is the one who has behaved irresponsibly.”

“So you say now,” replied Ys, with a toss of her head. “But you should have destroyed them a long time since. In any case, your secret is out. And considering the present state of unrest in the city, surely you must see what irreparable harm you may do, merely by remaining at Jarred's side?”

Purcell stared at her in growing dismay. “You are suggesting that I leave Lindenhoff—desert the king in his weakened condition? But what if he wants me, what if he calls for me?” The old man tottered over to a chair, and without asking leave, he sat down. “Surely,
he
would understand that my motives were harmless. He would never—”

“That may be. But the king needs quiet, he can't endure the least excitement. And there is going to
be
excitement if you remain here, as soon as word of your disgrace spreads through the palace.”

The philosopher struggled with the conflicting dictates of his heart and his head. Then he made a helpless gesture. “I am afraid, Your Majesty, that you speak the truth. I will pack up my personal effects at once, and leave Lindenhoff tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you,” said Ys, not quite able to suppress her satisfied smile. “Your loyalty is commendable. I believe you will spare the king considerable grief by this noble sacrifice.”

S
pring came early to Voirdemare in Château-Rouge. The city was located on the shores of a jewel-like bay, warmed by breezes blowing in from the south. Trees leafed out, flowers bloomed, weeks before the season was anything more than a rumor inland
.

Yet the city was dirty, haphazard, and populous. Her high old houses of pink stucco—the palaces and the tenements alike—were often so wretched inside, that with the first hint of spring her population spilled into the streets. There, they cooked their meals and roasted their coffee over communal fires, ate, laughed, danced, duelled, made music—and generally conducted their business, their love affairs, and their family quarrels out in the open air
.

To enter Voirdemare from the south during certain months was like attending a weeks-long festival. Great vats of boiling grease were set up in her tiny flagstone squares, for the making of fritters and other delicacies. Butchers gilded their meat with egg-yolks and gold leaf; fishmongers displayed their freshest wares in baskets lined with green leaves. Orange-blossoms, roses, and clove gilly-flowers scented the air. Those who lacked occupation the rest of the year found it now: running errands, arranging assignations, showing visitors the sights of the city. Street musicians, puppet shows, parades—oh yes, life could be very pleasant in Voirdemare, during certain months of the year—if you entered by way of the south
.

Entering from the north, it was another matter. In the crowded neighborhoods
there,
sea breezes never entered. And the poverty was so acute, the misery so intense, the heat and the smoke and the dust and the stench from the brickyards, the tanneries, the potteries, the slaughter-house, and the prison so unremitting—it was like spending a season in an Anti-demonist's Hell
.