A Treason of Thorns

by Laura E. Weymouth

  I reach across the table on an impulse and take the princess’s hand.

  “I got by the same way I’m sure you’re doing,” I tell her. “I woke up each morning and just kept going. I found something to do. I knew it was what Papa would have wanted, more than anything else. For me to carry on. He never gave up, you see, not until the bitter end.”

  Esperanza nods. I squeeze her hand, and decide to take a leap of faith.

  “We’re in this together, then?” I ask.

  The princess shuts her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, any trace of grief and fear has been carefully tucked away, replaced by a fierce determination. “We are indeed. Let’s finish your father’s treason. Confound the king. Unbind Burleigh House.”

  12

  TWO IN THE MORNING HAS COME AND GONE BY THE TIME I make it home from my first shift at the Shilling. Wyn’s asleep in the hall outside my bedroom, and there’s a faint smell of sawdust and plaster as I slip past him. I bite back a smile. It’s equal parts irritating and endearing that he’s so convinced I need looking after. He turns over without waking, and I remember that about him—he’s always been a restless sleeper.

  Shutting myself up in my bedroom, I sink wearily into a chair next to the cold and empty hearth. A few sparks play among the waiting firewood and I shake my head.

  “Don’t, Burleigh. Save your strength—I want to talk to you.”

  A handful of white petals fall from the air and settle softly on my lap. I gather them up and hold them to my face, breathing in their honey-sweet fragrance.

  “I met someone in town today,” I tell the House. “The king’s daughter. Have the two of you ever met before?”

  A breeze rattles at the windows.

  “Can you show me?”

  This time, I’m prepared for the sudden darkness Burleigh draws around me like a curtain. When it fades, a watery version of the front entry has been superimposed over my bedroom.

  Esperanza stands near the front door. There are brambles everywhere and mortar weeps from the window frames and the doorposts. I’ve never seen the House so—even in memory, a wave of its wild grief hits me.

  “Oh, Burleigh,” Esperanza says quietly. “I’m so sorry. You poor thing.”

  “Who are you?” Wyn’s voice says from behind me, and he sounds as if Burleigh’s agonized thorns and mortar run beneath his skin. I turn, and there he is, just coming down the last stair from the second floor. There’s an ill look about him—he’s winter-pale, and shadows like bruises spread below his eyes.

  “I’m the princess of Wales,” she says. “Esperanza will do. And you must be Wyn.”

  He scowls at her. “Did you come to gloat over your father’s handiwork?”

  “No,” Esperanza answers, her voice still low, as if she’s speaking to some frightened, feral creature. And truly, Wyn seems ready to bolt or lash out at any moment. He’s filthy and ragged, fists clenched at his sides, something dark and broken in his eyes. My heart aches fiercely at the sight, and I press a hand to my chest.

  “I’m here to look after George’s remains, if they haven’t been seen to yet,” Esperanza continues. “I’ve brought gravediggers, and a coffin. I know no one likes to think about that side of things, but it has to be done.”

  For a moment, I think Wyn will snap at her, and refuse the offer of help. But then his shoulders slump.

  “I just left him, and shut the door,” he admits. “I couldn’t . . .”

  Esperanza steps forward and rests a gloved hand on Wyn’s arm. “No one expected you to. That’s why I’ve come.”

  A booted step rings in the hall, and a gentleman appears from the maze of Burleigh’s corridors. He’s dressed in riding clothes, his profile severe, and he looks old enough to be my father.

  “Esperanza,” the gentleman says sharply. “Who is this mongrel?”

  She flinches at the man’s words, but Wyn stays motionless.

  “This is Haelwyn of Taunton, Lord Falmouth,” Esperanza answers. “The boy who stayed behind with George Sterling. We’re just making funeral arrangements.”

  Falmouth’s mouth draws down into a frown. “You mean the body hasn’t been dealt with yet? They’re practically barbarians, these West Country rustics. Don’t spend too long on it, Esperanza—I’ll expect you for dinner at the Green Lion in Taunton.”

  He steps outside and shuts the front door behind him, still grumbling under his breath as he goes. Esperanza turns back to Wyn.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll have my men come in and sort things out.” It’s not so much a statement as a question, and Wyn nods. He’s about to head up the stairs once more when Espie stops him.

  “Wait,” she says, her voice soft with pity. “Can I find you a room in Burleigh Halt, or Taunton perhaps? I’ll pay up front for as long you’d like to stay—a few weeks, half a year even. And leave some money for personal effects, a new wardrobe. You ought to have a fresh start after this.”

  Wyn fixes her with a long and searching look.

  “No,” he says at last. “I’m staying here. I promised George I would, till Violet gets back.”

  “It’s been a long time.” If Esperanza’s voice was gentle before, it’s a whisper now. “She might—she might not come.”

  “You don’t know Violet. She’ll come,” Wyn says with absolute certainty, and starts up the stairs.

  Darkness folds around me as the memory fades. Only once it’s gone do I hear a faint knocking at the door.

  “Vi, are you alright in there?” Wyn’s voice is rough with sleep. I get up at once, crossing the room and opening the door for him. He stands on the threshold in a nightshirt and loose linen trousers, blinking like a peevish owl. “I could hear myself talking. Bit of an unnerving way to wake up. Is Burleigh behaving?”

  “It was remembering something,” I say quickly, to hide the fierce wave of relief that hits me at the sight of Wyn’s present self. I’m overcome by a sudden and irrational urge to stuff him into my airing cupboard in the hope that nothing dreadful will ever happen to him again. “I asked it to.”

  Wyn shuts his mouth, swallowing a yawn. “You asked it to?”

  I suppose it’s time to come clean. “Yes. That’s how I’m hoping to find the deed. Mira said both Burleigh and Papa knew where it was, so instead of asking about it outright, I’m looking through Papa’s ledger for hints as to where he’d gone looking for it, and then asking the House if it remembers anything coming up in conversation about those journeys. It’s easier on Burleigh.”

  The floor rumbles under our feet, but no House magic nips at me. I watch as the last remnants of sleep-dullness vanish from Wyn’s eyes.

  “That’s very clever, Violet,” he says. “And it’s working?”

  I shrug. “So far. That’s what I’m doing now. I just wish I knew this isn’t a fool’s errand, though—who’s to say the king hasn’t moved Burleigh’s deed since Papa found where he’d hidden it?”

  Three things happen at once as I ask the question. Everything goes dark. The crushing weight of the House’s full attention fixes on us. And mortar freezes my fingertips.

  “Oh, Burleigh, no,” I beg. “I wasn’t asking you to show me anything, I was just wondering out loud.”

  But the House, eager to please now it’s found a way to communicate with me, plunges us into a wavering version of Papa’s study. The only solid things in the world are Wyn and me.

  “Vi, give me your hands,” Wyn says, sounding half panicked.

  “Not yet,” I say, and step forward, because my father is sitting in one of the study’s wingback chairs, with shackles around his ankles. It must be the night before his House arrest began—the traveling court arrived at midmorning, and Papa had been found guilty of treason by early afternoon. Now all that remains is for His Majesty to carry out the sentence.

  A few days’ stubble shadows my father’s jaw and there’s a pale, haggard look about him. I cross this ghostly version of the study, barely noticing the silent guards standing by the do
or.

  “Papa,” I whisper, kneeling at his side. “I’m here. Look at me.”

  But he can’t hear a word I say. That is, perhaps, the cruelest cut of all—knowing my father can be remembered so perfectly by the House, yet never live again. I will never have a chance to tell him what I couldn’t the day I left—that I loved him. That he was, in spite of the distance between us, everything I’ve ever wanted to be.

  “A game, George?” the king’s laconic voice asks, and it’s only then that I notice him sitting in the shadows behind Papa’s desk. “Something to while away the hours until dawn, and the beginning of your sentence?”

  My father says nothing, only keeps his eyes fixed on the floor, and the spark of fear in his gaze puts a dreadful tightness in my throat, even as mortar creeps through my veins.

  The king sits forward. Lamplight picks out the lean contours of his face. “Perhaps you need the right stakes to stir your enthusiasm. We could play for . . . your freedom?”

  When Papa glances up, there’s vain hope written across every line of him.

  “Don’t let him bait you,” I say, tears pricking at my eyes.

  “Vi, please.” Wyn’s two steps behind me, holding out his hands. “Don’t let Burleigh hurt you.”

  “You and Violet,” the king offers my father, “safe together on a ship to anywhere you’d like to go, so long as you leave England behind. I can’t very well have a treasonous Caretaker running around the island, now can I? But you could make a new life for yourself and your daughter.”

  Papa nods. “Deal the cards.”

  They play écarté, as there’s only two of them, and my heart sinks. It’s never been Papa’s best game. The Sterlings have always been stronger on sacrifice than strategy. But Papa’s attention is fixed on the game and he takes several tricks when the king’s focus drifts. I can’t look away, even as I feel Wyn take my hands in his own, and the mortar running into me turns toward him.

  And then, though I can hardly credit it, my father has won. He looks down at the cards with the same disbelief I feel.

  “Well, there you have it.” The king is genial, as if he’d just lost a sovereign or a meaningless trinket. “We’ll pack you up come morning light and get you to a port. Where will it be? Spain? Portugal? Or Sweden, perhaps. Hot or cold?”

  Papa hesitates. The fire crackling in the grate flares blue, the way it always did for him. His shoulders droop.

  “Once more,” he rasps. “For a pardon. So Violet and I can stay with Burleigh.”

  His Majesty’s face remains carefully neutral, but I know him, the devil, and the way his attention suddenly fixes on my father when before it seemed to wander can mean only one thing.

  He knew their game would come to this. He knew George Sterling could never resist grasping at any straw that might let us remain with our House.

  “Are you certain, George?” the king asks, and the feigned kindness in his voice is like splinters inside me. I hate him worse than anyone else in all this world, I think. Most wicked men are at least straightforward—unwieldy clubs that bludgeon you with their ill will and brute strength. But His Majesty the king is a dagger in the night, wielded with a smile.

  From that point on it’s like watching a cat toy with its prey, as the king languidly lets Papa take a few tricks before soundly beating him. My father just sits afterward. He’s very quiet, and when I look down, his hands are trembling.

  I glance over at Wyn beside me, too. He seems alright, but that vacant look I saw last time he did House magic has clouded his eyes. I gnaw at my lower lip, torn between wanting to end this memory for Wyn’s sake, and needing to see it through till the end.

  “Burleigh, are you sure about showing me this?” I whisper. A wave of insistence hits me. “Very well, but hurry, please.”

  “I would have let you go, if you hadn’t wanted what isn’t yours,” the king tells Papa. “I’m good for my word, and we both know it.”

  “Yet I am who I am, and we both know that as well,” Papa answers. “I can never help but try for this House.”

  His Majesty holds out his hand. “The key, if you will, George. They call me a game player, but you’re the one who staked what you most value on something larger, only to lose in the end. Pity about that. I thought you might actually get the best of me and unbind the old place.”

  Papa pulls the Caretaker’s key from his pocket and looks down at it. The greyish-brown bowstone gleams dully in the firelight. At last he surrenders it to the king, and a great, muttering groan of stone and timber rises from the House.

  I can feel Burleigh’s bereavement, even in memory, creeping through the soles of my feet and into my lungs with the air I breathe. Though my father still sits across from the king, the House knows—this is the beginning of the end.

  From our present time I sense Burleigh struggling to see the memory through to its conclusion. The force of its attention is oppressive, and Wyn’s eyes aren’t just blank now, they’re opaque and grey, marked by the mortar that doesn’t show beneath his skin. I can’t stand to see him so.

  “Burleigh, that’s enough!” I snap, but the House pays me no mind, pushing through to the end of this memory.

  “I’m curious, George—how far did you get?” His Majesty asks offhandedly. “How close did you actually come to laying hold of the deed?”

  “I stood exactly where Falmouth told me to,” Papa says, and his eyes never leave the key. “And I couldn’t find it. But I suppose, if Falmouth played me false, you sent me on a fool’s errand in the first place.”

  “No.” The king toys with the key, passing it from hand to hand, and the bowstone glimmers as it moves. “Joss Falmouth may be loyal to the crown, but he told you the deed’s location. You were an arm’s length from your heart’s desire, George, and didn’t have the wit to find it.”

  Papa says nothing. He tears his gaze away from the key and fixes it on the floor, as the king leans forward with an infuriating smile.

  “Do you know how little you’ve truly accomplished?” His Majesty asks my father. “Nothing’s changed for the better because of you, George. I don’t even plan to move the deed—it’s safe enough where it is. And your House is worse off having had you as a Caretaker than it was when you took charge.”

  Pitch-colored brambles snake up the arms of the king’s chair, crumbling in places and weeping mortar. They’re not part of the memory, though—they’re a piece of my present time. The House trembles, an earth-deep sense of unease, of anguish, and darkness falls.

  When it clears, I’m sitting on the rug in my room. Blighted vines tangle around my crossed legs, and around Wyn’s, but he has his hands to the floor and his eyes are still that unseeing grey. Sweat beads on his forehead and his mouth moves soundlessly. I wait, jittering with nerves and impatience, until I feel the House’s attention finally shift away from us. Even as the sickly vines loosen and burst into radiant flowers, and a rain of petals falls from the ceiling, I snatch Wyn’s hands and chafe them between both of my own.

  “That’s enough,” I tell him. “You can stop now.”

  Wyn’s mouth moves, near soundlessly, and I lean forward to try and catch what it is he’s saying over and over.

  Blood in the mortar. Breath in the walls. Blood in the mortar. Breath in the walls.

  It gives me an unpleasant, creeping sensation, hearing him speak the words when the rest of him seems to have gone somewhere else entirely.

  “Wyn,” I whisper. “Haelwyn of Taunton, come back to me.”

  He blinks. Suddenly he’s there again, within himself once more. I draw in a shaking breath and throw my arms around him, because fear has turned my heart to a wild thing.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I tell Wyn. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “It’s alright,” he says, the words warm and comforting. “No harm done. And better me than you, eh?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Not better.”

  I let go of him and sit back, pressing bot
h hands to my face. They’re pink-skinned and perfect, no trace of the mortar Wyn drew out of me left behind.

  “Wyn, I’m afraid,” I tell him.

  “Of what?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.” There are too many things to name, and I can’t bring myself to say that I’m afraid of Burleigh House. Afraid of its magic, afraid of its power, afraid of its future without a proper Caretaker.

  “I’ll meet you on the roof,” Wyn says practically. “Bring up some blankets. I’ll go fix us a flask of tea.”

  It’s cold outside, at the top of my world in the silent, empty hour before dawn. I wrap a woolen blanket around my shoulders and shiver, but the stars are already working their own particular magic. The fear that endlessly swims in my veins is calmer, quieter, and I can think past it.

  There’s a little whine of hinges as the attic window swings open and Wyn scrambles out onto the slate tiles.

  “Here.” He hands me a warm flask of tea and settles in, so that we’re side by side with our backs to the brick chimney. I steal a glance at him, and I can almost see who he was, his child-self superimposed over this sullen, half-familiar boy, like one of Burleigh’s memories.

  “Well then,” Wyn says with the ghost of a smile. “What seems to be the problem, Violet Sterling?”

  I’m not even sure I know. I just feel, by turns, like the only person who can possibly save Burleigh, and like I’m abjectly, woefully inadequate for the job. But instead, what comes out of my mouth is this:

  “You’re the problem,” I answer, wrinkling my nose. “What are you doing with the House magic, Wyn? I don’t like it—it’s dangerous, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  I pass him the flask, and he takes a mouthful of tea before answering.

  “Would you believe me if I said I know exactly what I’m doing?”

  “Oh, I believe you,” I answer. “But knowing what you’re doing and not deliberately putting yourself in harm’s way are two entirely different things.”

  “Canny,” Wyn says with a shake of his head. “Just like you’ve always been. A canny and relentless creature.”