Hot blood pounded in my hands, feet, and head. “I didn’t. I would never—”
“I know that,” she said crisply. “Many of us know that and will speak to it when asked. Certainly Antonia herself cannot bear too close an investigation. But the truth might come too late for you.” She heaved a deep sigh. “Obey her directive and naught will come of this. Now go. The queen will not be harmed while I draw breath. I’ve enlisted Roussel to push this scheme to get Eugenie away from Castelle Escalon. Though he’s common, he has a respectful manner and intelligent approach. The king will listen to a man of science. The very air here is poison.”
“Thank you. Honestly, lady, thank you. Did everyone on the queen’s watch hear this? Eleanor, Arabella . . . Lord Ilario?” Ilario had to know the danger before prompting the king to summon me.
“She announced it to all the inner circle. In
confidence
, naturally.” Patrice’s sarcasm reflected my own feeling. Confidentiality did not exist at court. But at least Ilario had wind of Antonia’s intent.
Though a seething morass inside, I left the royal apartments without further argument. If anyone breathed the words
poison
and
Anne de Vernase
in the king’s hearing, I would be dead before the day was out. The poisoned salts I’d saved from the broken vial were tucked away in my locked drawer, but they could more easily be deemed evidence against me than in my favor. I could prove nothing.
IN MY BRIEF ABSENCE, A folded letter, sealed with an unfamiliar device, had been left on my bedchamber table. I ripped it open, sinking to the bed as I read.
The Honorable Derwin de Scero-Gurmeddion will depart Castelle Escalon for Palazzo Gurmedd at seventh hour of the morning watch on 27 Ocet. He asserts his betrothal rights and commands his affianced bride, Anne de Vernase ney Cazar, prepare herself to accompany him. From this hour, she is to have no physical or verbal communication with any male unless in the presence of, and with the permission of, her betrothed husband. Appropriate garments for the barone’s maiden bride will be delivered beforetime.
I flung open my window and gulped the sultry air, rejecting one panicked solution after another. Eventually, hands shaking like a palsied elder, I mixed an additional supply of Lianelle’s potion. I would become a ghost myself before submitting to the Honorable Derwin.
With time and forceful discipline I gathered my wits. The timing of Derwin’s assertion of rights could be no accident. Antonia’s doing, certainly.
Think, Anne.
Duplais believed the conspirators needed me at Voilline. Dante had sworn to ensure my presence. Derwin was Antonia’s tool, and the ducessa would never jeopardize her triumph for spite. Rather, I should read this development as a good sign. Antonia was nervous. More chances for mistakes. My purpose here was to throw them off balance, and surely that was her own purpose—distraction, so I’d not suspect their true plan for me. Or, even more likely, Derwin had agreed to transport me to Voilline in return for Antonia’s connivance in my betrothal.
The more I thought of it, the more it made sense.
Keep the girl away from the king. Ship her through Castelle Escalon’s gates with her contracted husband.
No one would question.
My efforts did not reduce my dread at the events to come, or my revulsion at yielding to Derwin of Gurmeddion even for a few hours’ ride to Mont Voilline, but at least I could think again.
I sat by my window, quieted my unruly thoughts, and opened myself to the aether.
Friend?
No response. No island of quiet. No solid anchor.
I needed to tell Dante that Derwin was charged with transporting me. I needed to ask where he imagined we would find the breaking point in the Mondragon ritual. Even if we upended the Aspirant’s plan, might it not be too late for Duplais or Papa, Ambrose or Eugenie? Was Dante’s power enough to protect the innocent as well as thwart the wicked . . . and would he care? His method of protecting the innocent was to ravage minds. Indeed, I needed to hear my friend of the aether and be reassured I had not been a naive fool all those hours ago.
I tried again. Searched. Listened. After a while, desperate and worried, I opened all barriers as I had never done. Swept up by the mindstorm, I hurtled through the anarchy of grief and anxiety, excitement and fear, one autumn leaf amid millions in the heart of a hurricane.
Friend, are you here?
A touch. Distant, faint.
Not now . . .
Both relieved and disappointed, exhausted from lack of sleep, I struggled to retreat from chaos and reassemble my defenses. One step to suppress desire, another for each sense . . . A brick at a time, I must rebuild the wall. Only on that afternoon, I could not. I buried my head in my pillows and let chaos drive me into storm-racked dreams.
“DAMOSELLE. WAKE UP, DAMOSELLE. GRACIOUS, you’re all askew.” Ella’s insistent politeness dragged me out of a black stupor. I fought off sleep, blinking, focusing on the girl’s face swimming in the candlelight.
“What’s the time?” I said, gripping her arm, overcome with a horrified certainty that it was seventh hour of the morning watch and Derwin of Gurmeddion had come to claim me.
“It’s gone eleventh hour of the evening watch. I’ve brought a message from Heurot.”
That meant Ilario! “Yes, yes, all right. Where is it?”
“It’s not writ this time. Heurot says you’re to meet the gentleman in the portrait gallery at middle-night exactly. You’ll know which gallery, he says. And whatever you do, you mustn’t be seen. Though I’m not sure at all how you might do that. There’s the most awful two fellows out in the passage. None passes them that they don’t question and . . . ogle . . . in the crudest way. It’s enough to make me want a wash right there and then.”
Derwin’s men. No mistaking.
“Thank you, Ella. I’ll manage. The men in the passage . . . they didn’t know you were coming to me?”
“I told them that
all
my ladies charge me to empty the slops jars before middle-night so they wouldn’t have nasty dreams in the late dark. Didn’t think they’d know the habits of a fine house.”
“You are exceptional, Ella,” I said, hugging her with a fierce pride. “We could all do with fewer nasty dreams. And don’t worry. I’ll be all right with this.”
With a sidewise grin, she dipped her knee and scurried away with my night jar.
Refreshed by the sleep, veins coursing with excitement, I dressed carefully, donning the elegant brocade jacket Melusina had made for my last visit to Merona. The wardstone ring gleamed on my finger, and Lianelle’s nireal hung from my neck. Vials of the potion were tucked inside my bodice, in my skirt waist, and in the spall pouch tied to my belt. The zahkri sheath on my thigh was snug; my rambunctious hair tidied. Lady Patrice, Lianelle, and my Cazar uncles would all approve my turnout.
As the bells struck half past eleventh hour, I took exactly two drops of the potion. Thus the two ruffians in the passage had no one to ogle as I slipped past and began the long trek to the west wing. I kept to the public rooms of the palace. A quiet drizzle yet owned the skies, and I needed to present myself to my goodfather fairly, not a draggled mess. On this occasion,
portrait gallery
could only mean the Kings’ Gallery.
Ilario was talking to the air when I arrived. Every few moments he would duck his head and whisper, “Damoselle? Damoselle?”
I had mercy and called out softly. “Here, lord.”
To his credit, he blew a long, slow exhale and scanned the gallery, only a bit wild in the eye. “Saints . . . come along, then.
“Thought I’d never get the chance,” he said as soon as we’d entered his warren of closets and passages. “Philippe spent two hours with Geni and another interrogating the physician. Poor Roussel was a stammering wreck, but I think he came off well. Told Philippe this was not another miscarried child, but more likely a reaction to the strain of her position and the herbs she’d been taking to help with . . . you know . . . these things. Conceiving. Philippe approved the idea of sending her to the country. The rest of the night he’s spent with the Privy Council and then Lord Baldwin alone, and only just now run them off. He’s expecting us.” He—the King of Sabria.
We ducked out of a niche behind a statue, darted across a wide passage, and into a storage room that contained one of his ubiquitous wall panels. “Believe me—he was not at all happy to hear about you being here. When I told him all you’d done for Geni, he didn’t quite boot me out. I didn’t say anything about the rest. Thought I’d leave that to you.”
My sudden reappearance just then caused only an abrupt, “Hah. Well, then . . .”
A narrow passage sloped gently downhill for a few metres, a draft carrying the scent of old leather. I pressed my handkerchief to my nose, hoping to prevent yet another bout of sneezing.
The sound of a metal catch and the solid movement of a wall panel, and we crowded into a dim room crammed with bags, boxes, and trunks. The walls were lined with shelves of folded linen and wooden racks hung with old-fashioned robes of scarlet, purple, and green. Illumination was supplied by two slivers of light, the exact size to frame another panel doorway.
Ilario opened a tiny slot in the panel. The lights beyond the door were muted, and two quiet voices could be heard, though I couldn’t make out the words. Moments ticked away. I brushed cobwebs from my shoulders and tried not to fidget.
The voices quieted. A solid
snick
sounded like a door closing. Moments later, Ilario tapped lightly on the door in a short, rhythmic pattern.
“Come,” said a voice that I remembered.
Only firelight and a single small lamp illuminated the room, which was not at all what one might expect for a king’s bedchamber. No gilt, brocades, or velvets. Simple furnishings polished to a dull glow. Brass lamps free of tarnish. A shelf of well-thumbed books. A carpet of solid maroon, figured in black. The windows were open, drawing in the scent of the rain . . . pleasant tonight. My goodfather sat in a padded leather chair next the fire, a glass of wine sparkling like a giant ruby in his hand, his stockinged feet propped on a stool.
For a moment I felt very small. Though he had dandled me on his knee and listened with serious good humor to my first forays into adult conversation, Philippe de Savin-Journia had forever been a dashing young god to me. He was a man who led armies, ruled cities, and dispensed justice to the most powerful kingdom in the world. And here was I, a woman of little experience and no sophistication, setting out to tell him of a monumental event that aimed to bring him to his knees. I was grateful for the dim light to hide my flush of embarrassment.
Ilario perched on the arm of a chair away from the fire. I dipped a knee, bowed my head, and waited.
“Ani Sophia Madeleine.” A brisk movement of his hand brought me to standing. “The years are cruel to pass so quickly. You were but a wide-eyed child full of literary enchantments last time we had a visit. I recall you were ready to embark on a voyage of exploration to Atlas’s Pillars, and wished to know if your king would provide you a ship.”
After all the misery of the past five years, why was it at such a moment that my tears began to flow? Was it that he sounded so like my father, or that his words brought back those happy times so vividly? I was furious at myself—it was such a “girlish” thing to do, just when I needed to be serious and convincing. The last time Philippe had
seen
me was at my father’s trial, when he thrust the damning letters in my face and demanded I say again whose hand had written them. Tonight
I
was on trial.
“I would still like to take that voyage, sire, but the Creator’s servants have plotted a different course.”
“Indeed. I heard you were here and fully intended to find the time for a chat. I never considered inviting you at middle-night, and me not even in boots. But our friend here seems to believe you have a tale that must be told before I’ve picked the dirt of the road from my beard. So tell what you will. We’ve hours yet until daylight.”
“I’d wait if I could, sire, but the matters are of utmost urgency, and I’m to be taken from Castelle Escalon at seventh hour of the morning watch, betrothed to a man your wife’s foster mother has selected for me.”
His chin popped up. “Betrothed? To
Antonia’s
choice? I thought I had some say in that particular matter. Who is it?”
Tempting though it was, I would not begin with Derwin. So much had changed since I’d left my appeal in Simon’s hands.
“That’s only one piece of a very long story. I ask your indulgence to hear it entire. I understand you’ll receive everything I say with skepticism, but I beg you to believe that I wish only your good.”
“So you give me the most difficult part to swallow right at the beginning.” He tilted his head and propped it on a curled fist. But there was nothing casual in his manner. “I hear reports that young Ambrose has slipped his bonds and murdered his lawful jailer. I hear reports that my cousin Duplais has mysteriously vanished from the palace after open hostilities with you, and that you were the last to see him. I hear reports that you serve in my wife’s bedchamber—powers of night, in her
bedchamber
—and she lies in this stupor that no one seems to understand. I hear tales of poisoning and murder in this house—the widow of my noble friend Blasencourt, my wife’s physician, a kitchen girl—all since your arrival. I know you, Anne Sophia Madeleine de Vernase ney Cazar, and I know the bond you shared with the man I entrusted with everything precious to me, the friend who betrayed his every oath. Why in the name of Heaven should I imagine you wish my
good
? Why should I not have you thrown into the Spindle or into the sea this night?”