The Oracle Queen

by Kendare Blake

  Bess sank back in her chair. “A member of her own Black Council.”

  Rosamund sank back as well and ran her hand roughly across her face. “And a foolish member at that. Francesca Arron will lose her head for this and for what? A good-looking boy?”

  Bess’s eyes widened. “Rosamund, you don’t think that Elsabet will have her executed?”

  “Francesca is a member of her own Black Council, as you said. The queen cannot let it stand.”

  “Unless it could be kept secret—quiet—if perhaps Francesca would beg forgiveness and swear to stay away from the king-consort—”

  “You are both missing the point!” Catherine Howe pushed away from the table, and every candle flared. “If Francesca Arron is involved, it is not about one good-looking boy! She is only using him to further her own ends!”

  “And what would those be?” Bess asked.

  “I do not know,” Catherine replied gravely.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Rosamund poured whiskey up to the rim of her cup. “Elsabet is the Queen Crowned, and there is nothing Francesca Arron or anyone else can do about that. And whatever her plans may have been, we have found her out. We’ll go to Elsabet. Surround her with loyalists. You and I, Bess and Gilbert. And I will be ready to arrest Francesca as soon as our queen gives the order.”

  Catherine looked at Rosamund curiously. “You are Elsabet’s friend. Are you not afraid?”

  Rosamund bared her teeth and snorted. “What is there to fear? She’s the queen. It’s not as if they can kill her.”

  THE VOLROY

  Francesca Arron waited in the shadows of the Volroy until the painter finally emerged from his audience with the queen. It was late, near dusk, and his serene face was lit by candles and torches. It was clear to anyone watching how besotted he was with her. How pleased he was that she was pleased with him. He was so transparent and unguarded. A poisoner ought to have a more natural ability for subterfuge.

  “Young master Denton.”

  The boy looked up and smiled, a dazzling smile in a mediocre face, beneath hair as dark as soiled straw. “Mistress Arron.”

  “I thought that was you,” she said, and stepped out. “I was almost unsure. You have spent so much time at the castle of late that you seem practically a different person. If not for the pigment stains and oils beneath your fingernails, I might have missed you completely.”

  Jonathan glanced at his fingers and hid them behind his hip. “Is there something I can do for you, mistress?”

  “Perhaps you could escort me to my carriage. It is late, and we are both leaving. . . .”

  “Of course.” He bowed and waited for her to walk a half step ahead.

  “All this time you are spending with our queen cannot leave you much time for painting.”

  “But that is why I’m here. To update the queen on my progress.”

  “And what of the night spent in her chamber?” She laughed lightly at the look upon his face. “Word travels quickly.” Francesca squared her shoulders and tossed her light blond braid. Her strides were long when she walked, and he was a bit winded by the time they neared the gates and the waiting carriages. It was a wonder he could keep pace with Elsabet, whose legs and strides were even longer.

  “Well then, good evening, Jonathan. I imagine I will be seeing much more of you, now that the queen has decided to keep you as a new pet.”

  “A new pet?”

  She watched carefully for a flash of malice in his eyes, but she could detect none. So perhaps he was more skilled at concealment than she had given him credit for.

  “Of course. Ruling is such a strain upon the queen’s person. She often seeks diversion. I hope you had not thought it something more.”

  Jonathan’s smile faltered. “Are you trying to say you would prefer I spent less time here?”

  “Not I,” she said. “Were it up to me, Queen Elsabet could take her meals with you in her lap. But some question your suitability as a queen’s companion.”

  “Mistress Arron,” he said with surprising vigor, “I am glad to know you’re not among them. No doubt you are happy that Elsabet is keeping company with another of the poisoner gift.” He drew himself up and straightened his shoulders. Francesca stifled a laugh.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “A Denton? What great thing has the Denton house ever done for the island? For the poisoners? If you hope to make a place for that name within the capital, your hopes will be dashed.” She stepped close and dragged her fingernail gently along his temple and the side of his jaw. “Arrons sit upon the Black Council. Arrons hold the political favor of the queen. And do not forget it.”

  Then she turned, unaffected by the shade of red he turned. Or the way his eyes bulged in impotent fury.

  “You speak of it as though it is a permanent appointment,” he said. “But members of the Black Council can be replaced. Perhaps the queen will be moved to have more poisoners in her circle now that she fears the tonic she takes for her health may have been unduly tainted.”

  She froze but as always was unshakable. Instead, she stared at the boy, stared and stared until he lost his nerve and turned away, cursing, and she watched him go, ascertaining just what to do with Jonathan Denton. Whether he could be bought. Whether he could be threatened.

  INDRID DOWN

  By the time Sonia Beaulin received her summons and met Francesca at the inn, it was the middle of the night. Which suited Francesca just fine. It meant that the inn was empty, except for the woman who ran it, and she was bought and paid for by Arron bribes. And it meant that Sonia was not likely to be seen walking through the central square, where it was always difficult not to be noticed. Warriors were like that. Brutal. Imposing. They liked to be noticed. A strange sort of people all around, in Francesca’s opinion, moving things with their minds and always intent on blood. And unlike poisoners, who all appeared to be cut of the same cloth—thin, willowy people with a stern countenance and fair hair—warriors varied in shape and feature. Some were behemoths like the Commander of the Queensguard, Rosamund Antere. Others were so small and quick they could pass for very deadly children. Sonia fell somewhere in between, a slim-hipped, even-featured young woman with large observant eyes and hair nearly as dark as a queen’s. Francesca preferred Sonia’s more average size, as it made it easier to blend in, and she valued the possibility of underestimation. But Sonia envied Rosamund her height. It was yet another source of animosity between them.

  Sonia slid into the secluded table where Francesca sat near the back of the inn and signaled to the innkeeper. “Whiskey,” she ordered.

  Francesca shook her head. “Ale. Keep your wits about you.”

  Sonia changed her request and sighed. “What’s happened?”

  “Less important than what has happened is what we must do.” Francesca was drinking tea and dropped a sugar cube tainted with arsenic into her cup. The cube had been dyed bright green, to keep any non-poisoner customers from falling over dead. The presence of poisoner fare on the menu—even before the bribes started—was the reason she had chosen to patronize the inn on Highborne Street in the first place. It was one of the few establishments in the capital to consistently offer poisoned food.

  “Queen Elsabet may soon come to suspect us.”

  “How? Have her visions returned? Is she not taking the tonic?”

  “She may no longer trust the tonic.”

  “Then you must administer it some other way. Sneak it into her food. Aren’t you poisoners good at that?”

  “Terribly good. But the dosage is important. Too little and it will have no effect at all. Too much and it will kill her.”

  The innkeeper arrived with Sonia’s ale and also a loaf of bread and some cheese. Sonia thanked her sullenly. “Well,” she said, “she’ll find no evidence. Her suspicion will cost us, though, of that you can be sure. This queen is vindictive. One or both of us are sure to lose our council seats.”

  Francesca’s jaw tightened as she watched Sonia pout and eat, stuffing
bread and cheese into her cheeks like a squirrel. It made her want to douse her in poisoned tea, force arsenic sugar down her throat. And she would have, if she did not have need of Sonia’s might.

  “Is that the way a warrior speaks? So easily of defeat?”

  Sonia stopped chewing and spat bread onto the floor. “What, then, would you have me say? What would you have me do?”

  “Nothing that you lack the nerve for.”

  Sonia sat for a moment. Then she laughed. “Stop goading me. There’s no need. The Beaulins tied their fortune to the Arron carriage long before you and I. Say what it is that you have the nerve to do.”

  “I have grown up around enough snakes to know,” Francesca said, “that the one who survives is the one who strikes first. So we will strike first. And perhaps we can put an end to this before word of our involvement ever reaches the queen.”

  That night, just before sunrise, Jonathan was wakened by a rap at his door. Groggy, he got out of bed and wrapped himself in a robe. He tried to light a candle, but his drowsy fingers made a mess of the match, and after the insistent knock sounded again, he gave up and went to answer in the dark.

  He had no idea who it could be. He had few acquaintances in town who knew the location of his small apartment, and none who would call at such an hour. And the knock came not from the main door that led downstairs to the bakery owned by his landlord but from the side entrance in the alley.

  Had he been more fully awake he might have used more caution when opening the door. He might have first asked who it was. But he was not, and so he turned the lock and threw up the latch. The word “who” had barely passed his lips before the hooded figure shoved past him into his drafty hall.

  “Who are you? What is this?” he demanded, and his hand searched the table near the entry for something, anything to use as a weapon.

  “Quiet, Jonathan. I come on behalf of the queen! I am her maid Bess.”

  In the dim light, he could not make out her face, but he detected the movement of her cloak hood lowering.

  “Bess?” he asked. They had not spoken often, but he had seen her at the Volroy, a near-constant presence at Queen Elsabet’s side.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing here?” He stepped carefully past her and went back to retrieve the candle, which he lit easily enough now that he had been startled alert. He turned with it and saw Bess, dressed in a long, brown traveling cloak that was just a bit too large for her. She seemed agitated, out of breath and pacing. “Do you . . . bear a message?” He held out his hand.

  “If I did, it would not be written,” she said, and slapped it gently away.

  “Of course.” He wiped his face roughly with both hands, trying to quicken his wits. “Is the queen all right?”

  “Do you have reason to think she would not be?”

  “No. Only you here, pacing back and forth and looking like a wolf is on your trail.”

  Bess stopped pacing. She took a deep breath. Then she smiled at him, such a warm and fetching smile that he could not help but return it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have frightened you like this. I shouldn’t have even come here. But—”

  “But what?”

  “The night you spent in the queen’s chamber.” Bess spoke in a rush. Color rose into her cheeks before she could get all her words out. “Did you . . . have you . . . are you as they say? Are you the queen’s lover?”

  “No—no! I swear it!”

  “I am her closest friend and confidante. You must tell me the truth.”

  “It is the truth, Bess. That night we talked. And she . . . I have come to care for her. As more than just my queen. But we didn’t—she wouldn’t—”

  Somehow, his declaration seemed to make things worse. Bess’s hands flew to her face, and she began to moan. “I wish that she had! My poor queen! And you are only her painter! Not a lover at all!”

  “No, not a—” he said, and placed his hands on her arms to calm her, “not that. But I would like to think I am not only a painter. I would like to think that I too am her friend.”

  “You may need to prove that.” Bess wiped at her eyes. “Elsabet does not have easy days ahead. She will need us. All of us.” Morning was beginning to creep over the city, and her eyes widened at the sight of his nightclothes. “I shouldn’t have come. Forgive me.” She made to reach for the door, and he stopped her and instead drew her farther inside.

  “Bess, wait. Please stay a moment and sit. Tell me what you meant about the queen. Why will she suffer? What’s the matter?” Bess nodded, and let herself be led to his table and two lonely chairs. “Your hands are like ice.”

  “There was a chill in the air tonight, from the water. And I haven’t slept. I hope the queen is sleeping now. . . .”

  Jonathan stoked his small fire back to life and swung a pot of water over it to heat for tea. “A warm cup will put you to rights.” He searched his cupboard. “I don’t know if I have untainted sugar. I have untainted honey; will that do?”

  After the tea had steeped, he got it into her hands and waited as she sipped.

  “You and I and Rosamund,” she whispered. “Catherine Howe. Gilbert Lermont. We may be the only loyalists the queen has left. I don’t want to believe that, but—”

  “Why do you think so, Bess?”

  She shook her head. “To tell you would be to place you in danger.”

  “Then let me place myself there.” He took her by the hand. “I suspect that Francesca Arron has somehow been poisoning the queen’s tonic.”

  Bess’s eyes widened. He knew by the expression on her face that Francesca Arron was also the one whom she suspected.

  “I was near to the queen when she took her nightly dose,” he explained. “And I am a poisoner and curious about healing. I asked her if I could take a sip, and she consented. And instantly, I knew that something was amiss.”

  “Are . . . are you sure?”

  “The Dentons have little to recommend them, but we are excellent apothecaries. I am certain. I even took a sample to my family in Prynn.”

  Bess stood and set down her teacup hurriedly, sloshing tea over the rim. “I must go and tell the queen of this. I must tell Gilbert.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said, and looked down at his nightclothes. “Just let me get dressed.”

  Bess put her hand on his chest. “No. You must stay here. This will all move very quickly, Jonathan, and if what you say is true and what we believe is true, then it is better if no one see us together yet. Rosamund—Commander Antere—does not want to alert Francesca to our suspicions.”

  Jonathan thought of his conversation with Francesca the night before. “She may already suspect me.”

  “All the more reason for you to stay away. The queen will send for you soon, I am sure. She will send for you when it is over and Francesca has been arrested.”

  “Bess,” he said when her hand was on the door. “Tell the queen . . . tell the queen I am thinking of her.”

  “I will, Jonathan.” Bess glanced toward the windows in his bedroom. “It’s later than I thought. I should go.” She stepped out as he held the door for her; she took his hand and squeezed it. “It will be all right.”

  He closed the door and wandered back into his room. Not knowing what else to do, he cleaned up the tea and dressed, readying himself for the day. But time had never moved so slowly. He could not stop thinking of what was happening at the Volroy. Of Elsabet and how he might be of help to her. “Blast,” he said, and stood. “I cannot just wait.”

  He threw open his door and went down the steps, hurrying up the alley toward the square. Bess might frown when she saw him, but Elsabet would not be angry. And besides, if it was as Bess said, Elsabet needed all the friends around her that could be summoned.

  When he turned the corner into the square, he stopped short. A crowd was gathering across the street. People, standing around and staring at something on the ground. His heart thumped as he walked clos
er and elbowed his way through. Then he saw the edge of her brown cloak.

  Bess lay on the stone street, facedown, her arms at her sides. The arrow that had killed her stuck straight out of the back of her head, pinioning her cloak hood to her skull.

  “Bess!” He fell to her side and turned her over. Her face was broken and bleeding from striking the stones when she fell. Her pretty eyes stared at the sky, and as he held her, blood soaked through her red-gold hair and into the hood. He drew the cloak hood back slightly and moaned. Whoever had done it had been a fine shot.

  “Poor girl,” the woman muttered. “Such a lovely thing. Who would think to do it on such a morning?” She looked at Jonathan sadly as he wept. “Was she with you, young man?”

  “Elsabet,” Jonathan croaked. Then he set Bess gently down. He got to his feet and ran for the Volroy, wiping her blood onto his tunic.

  “Wonderful,” Sonia said sarcastically to Francesca as they watched the Denton boy fuss over the dead maid. “We’ve killed the wrong commoner.”

  “You killed the wrong commoner,” Francesca corrected.

  “What was she doing, leaving his apartment at this hour?” Sonia asked, and Francesca wanted to slap her. That did not matter. The girl was dead. The queen’s dear friend. And someone would have to pay. “What do we do now?”

  “Now,” Francesca whispered angrily, “we use it.”

  Stepping out of the morning shadows, she drew her hood down nearly completely over her face. She walked lightly and quickly, moving through the back of the crowd, slipping between people in that way that was natural to all poisoners, that way that made it easy for them to sink a poisoned dagger into a thigh or drop a poison-coated berry into a drink. But that morning, it was poison of a different sort that needed to be spread.

  “Oh,” she murmured in a gentle voice. “That is one of the queen’s girls. One of the queen’s maids! And she was coming from the queen’s lover’s apartment!”