They drove to Thornyhill, but there was nobody there. The stock-pot that had been simmering on the stove since the night Annie first arrived had vanished; many of the rarer herbs, the bottles and jars of mysterious spices, the handwritten cookbooks sallow with age—all had been removed. There was no sign of Hoover.
Pobjoy said he would make inquiries, but his time was fully taken up with the discovery of a corpse on the top of Chizzledown, a John Doe with no papers or ID, stabbed through the heart apparently with a sword. The body was over seven feet tall, of unspecified racial origin, estimated to be in his forties or fifties though in superb physical condition. Pobjoy told the assistant chief constable, in confidence, that he had information from an illicit source that the man had been a people trafficker, operating mainly abroad, killed here because it was neutral territory, probably by Oriental gangsters—hence the sword—who had already left the country. In short, the investigation was going to go nowhere and wouldn’t merit the expenditure of time and manpower.
“The path lab says the sword could be a samurai weapon,” the ACC said knowledgeably. “Might have been one of those ritual killings. He looked a pretty distinctive character. Someone’s bound to identify him soon.”
“I don’t think so,” Pobjoy said.
A few days later Annie received a communication from a firm of lawyers in London, telling her Bartlemy had deeded Thornyhill to her, and enclosing a letter from him, and an accompanying parcel. He wrote:
I suggest you sell the house. I doubt if you would want to live in such an isolated location, but the proceeds from the sale will ensure you and Nathan financial security for some time to come. The bookshop with its adjoining property is already in your name, and I have arranged a fund that will continue to pay your salary for another two years. Without wishing to be premature, perhaps this may be considered a wedding present.
“Very premature,” Annie muttered.
I shall miss you very much. However, the death of the Grandir and the defeat of his plans
How did he know about that? she wondered.
makes it clear you can look after yourselves far better than I ever could. You do not need me anymore, and I have injuries that require treatment—treatment I cannot obtain in Eade. It seems the right moment to move on. I would ask you to take the Grail, the Sword, and the Crown and bury them in the woods, well away from any paths. They have no purpose anymore but there may still be a vestige of power left in them, so dig deep, too deep for fox or badger to unearth them again.
Tell Hazel I expect her to pass all her exams and have sent her some books and other materials so she may continue her study of magic, and learn, as I know she will, how not to use her Gift.
For Nathan and yourself, I include a few recipes; make use of the spices and seasonings I left behind, and enjoy the wine. Think of me whenever you bake a coffee cake or prepare a stew!
I will think of you always.
Meanwhile, let us say not adieu, but au revoir.
Barty
Annie cried a little when she finished the letter, though Pobjoy said, “I’m sure he’ll be back,” and Hazel suggested he might return looking completely different, like Dr. Who.
“I can’t imagine Bartlemy looking like anyone but himself,” Annie said.
They buried the relics the week after. It was an exhausting job, for the ground was hard, but Nathan and Pobjoy managed it between them. Hazel considered putting a spell of concealment on the place but decided it would only draw attention to it.
Afterward, Nathan told his mother: “If you do want to marry James, I suppose it’s okay with me. Any father’s better than the Grandir, after all.”
“Premature,” Annie reiterated.
The Grandir was eventually interred in the abandoned churchyard, after a special dispensation from the ecclesiastical authorities. It seemed appropriate. His murder was put in the cold-case file, where no one ever bothered to resurrect it. Nathan would visit the grave from time to time, more because he felt he should than because he wished to, and lay bunches of herbs on the ground: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Nothing was ever heard of Halmé.
THE NIGHT before his sixteenth birthday, he climbed up to the roof to think things over. The star had vanished, and he knew in his heart that the world of Eos was ended—ended long ago—a dead universe suspended forever in a void of Time. Only Eric survived, growing slightly older, as people do, drinking lots of coffee, reading poetry, and still half believing every film he watched, especially those with the most dramatic special effects. Nathan searched for the portal in his mind, but it was no longer there—he had chosen his world, the world in which he would grow up, grow old, and although the multiverse was only a dream away, those dreams would not come again. Wilderslee and Widewater had disappeared into the cosmic labyrinth, never to return. Already they seemed dim and distant as the fantasies of childhood, visions that would remain with him as things more imagined than actually seen. The sun on the many-colored leaves in the Deepwoods, orange and gold and scarlet and pink—sharing wild strawberries with Nell beside the chatter of a stream—stroking the tiny dragonet under the Dragon’s Reef—flying with Ezroc over the endless curve of the sea … the green of Denaero’s eyes … the tangle of Nellwyn’s hair … Hazel had taken to putting her hair up, though some of it still fell over her face. She was looking different now, more a woman than a child; it didn’t occur to him that she had grown an inch or two. She even appeared quite pretty sometimes, which was worrying: it would attract all the wrong boys.
He was glad they would be together in the sixth form—he felt he owed it to Bartlemy, as well as Hazel, to make sure she got there. That way, he would be able to keep her clear of Damian Wicks and others like him.
He went to bed thinking not of the past but the future—an ordinary future, comfortable in its smallness …
On the evening of his birthday, they had a party at the Happy Huntsman. Everyone considered Annie was being very extravagant holding it there, but the only people who minded were those who weren’t invited. Hazel came as a matter of course, and James, George Fawn, all the Rayburns, Ned Gable from Ffylde, Eric and Rowena Thorn, Lily and Franco, other teenagers from the village with dependent parents. They had champagne, and George was sick—it was practically a reflex with him—and Nathan and Hazel went out on the terrace together, shivering under the stars, for a moment of quality time on the way to adulthood.
“My star’s gone,” Nathan said, and: “Do you think anything magical will ever happen to us again?” He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted it to, after the events on Chizzledown.
“Of course it will,” Hazel replied, glancing at her ring. “Like Uncle Barty always said, we have infinity and eternity. That gives us space and time for anything.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
On an impulse, he kissed her. “That kind of anything?”
“That wasn’t magical,” Hazel said matter-of-factly. She wasn’t going to tell him it felt magical, not for a long time yet. Maybe not for years and years …
The next day, against all the odds, it was spring.
AMANDA HEMINGWAY has already lived through one lifetime—during which she traveled the world and supported herself through a variety of professions, including that of actress, barmaid, garage hand, laboratory assistant, journalist, and model. Her new life is devoted to her writing.
The Poisoned Crown is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Amanda Hemingway
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., in 2006.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-54254-0
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