The Queen's Tower

by J. S. Mawdsley

  “Hello, darling. Thank you for coming to see your poor mother at the end of such a trying night. You must be exhausted.” She kissed him on the cheek and sat at the table in the chair closest to the fire.

  “It’s not that late,” he said, joining her. “And I’m planning to meet back up with Vadik after I leave here. We had so much we were discussing, and then suddenly Lady Hildred died. I still can’t believe it.”

  Of course he was going to meet up with his co-conspirator later to report his triumph. Would he stay until she was dead to make sure of it, or would he tuck her into bed and let her drift off, never to wake again? If it were her, she would prefer to see her victim dead. Too bad she didn’t have a choice—she couldn’t very well keep him here if he still had the ability to leave. In fact, it would be best for her if he died somewhere else.

  “Don’t stay up too late. Brandon will need the support of everyone tomorrow as funeral preparations begin.”

  “Yes, mother.” He shook his head with a knowing grin. It would have been sweet, if it had not been so heartbreaking. “But speaking of staying up too late, I have a gift for you.”

  From the pocket of his trousers, he pulled a small vial, a bottle really, about three inches long and not terribly wide, closed with a cork. The liquid inside was perfectly clear and filled to the top with almost no room for it to slosh about inside. So this was the magysk poison. How strange that it looked so harmless.

  “This,” he held it up from the bottom balanced between the tips of his fingers, “was specially made just for you by Daryna Olekovna. I can’t even remember how it came up, but I mentioned that you were having trouble sleeping, and the next thing I knew, she’d whipped this up for you.”

  He didn’t remember how it came up? How absurd. His complete inability to prevaricate with any elegance reminded her that he did have a certain amount of his father in him.

  “How kind of her. I cannot even begin to fathom the obligations of hillichmagnars and the requests that must be made of them. For her to do this for me is really...too kind.”

  “Vadik said you only need a little sip. ‘Barely enough to make your mouth wet,’ or some such. I can only imagine how much you might want it tonight, though. You must be so overwhelmed, first at getting out for the night, and then having Lady Hildred die right beside you. What a terrible welcome back to society. But this,” he waved the bottle, “will make everything better.”

  How amateurish to encourage her to take some tonight in such a clumsy way. He would have made a disastrous king. She had ended up in this tower because she had been fighting for the future of Myrcia, and it appeared as though her final act in the tower would be to the same end. Really, she was saving the country from this young fool.

  Who would rule next? If Edgar outlived Ethelred, he would, perish the thought. But if Edgar died first, then who? Some Sigor somewhere. Edgar had a legitimate daughter, but no woman had ever ruled Myrcia in her own right. So it would go to the Duke of Newshire. Poor Fransis would be the duke now, would be next in line, if he were still alive. It was too bad it couldn’t be Broderick, the fittest man for the job by a wide margin of those still living. Odd that she favored her husband’s bastard, but at least Broderick still loved her.

  “And now you’re drifting,” Maxen chuckled, and she had to struggle not to scowl. “You really are tired. Or are you too busy thinking about what you’re going to do when you get out?”

  “Oh, I know the first thing I shall do when I arrive in Formacaster. I shall demand a visit from this Rosheen you’re so fond of.”

  He laughed nervously, as well he might. “Well, maybe not the first thing. Surely there are favorite places you want to see.”

  At the moment, she couldn’t think of a one, but she smiled anyway. “Too many to count.”

  “Then you had better get some rest.” With a complete lack of subtlety or elegance, he pushed the bottle toward her.

  If he had been even a little perceptive, he would have noticed the grimace that flashed on her face before she was able to control herself again. But he was not perceptive, or subtle, or intelligent. He was a disappointment, precisely like his father. She wondered if Maxen would have turned out differently if she and Fransis had raised him. She couldn’t help but believe so.

  “Not quite yet, darling. It’s so nice to have you here, to be able to talk with you.”

  “But pretty soon you’ll be able to talk to me all the time. You’ll probably get sick of seeing me.”

  “Unless Formacaster has changed drastically in the past seventeen years, there are innumerable distractions for a young man, and you will never make time for your poor mother once she isn’t locked away. When I leave here, I’ll probably see you less.”

  “Only you could think that being free would lead to us seeing less of each other.”

  “That...is true.” Truer than he would ever know, in fact. “But your mother yearns for a little more company tonight. I have gotten a taste for being around people again, and I’ve been promised more. I’m afraid I have no patience to wait. Besides, you will still have plenty of time to talk to Vadik. Young men never listen to their mothers. You and he will stay up obscenely late, no matter when you leave here.”

  Maxen frowned. “You know, I’m so happy that you’re going back to Formacaster, but it’s still a shame to miss out on going to Loshadnarod. I was going to go with you and get you settled in before returning to Formacaster. Vadik made it sound incredible, and he has such plans for the country. I know I just met him, but I feel like we were always meant to meet and work together. Does that sound crazy?”

  “Not crazy at all, darling.” Perhaps a touch homicidal, but she saw no reason to add that out loud.

  A swift, light knock Merewyn knew well came on her door. Haley entered with a small decanter and two glasses on a tray. Good girl, thinking to bring two glasses.

  “Now you simply must stay,” Merewyn said. “It would be shockingly rude to leave a lady without having a drink first, even if said lady is only your mother.”

  “There’s no ‘only’ about you,” Maxen said.

  Haley came to the table and set down the tray, moving with her usual efficiency—not suspiciously fast or hesitatingly slow. She removed the decanter and glasses, then slipped the tray under her arm. After a curtsy, she asked, “Is there anything else you need tonight, my lady?”

  “I believe I have all that is necessary, thank you. Get some rest. We must begin packing in the morning.”

  Haley curtsied again to Merewyn, then to Maxen before exiting. A brilliant performance. The girl had given no hint that anything was amiss. Merewyn ought to have told her son long ago to study Haley to learn how to maneuver at court. But there was no point now. It was just her and Maxen, alone. Only one of them would leave this room alive, and it simply must be her.

  “Let me pour you a glass,” she offered.

  He leaned back, stretching his legs, happy to have her wait on him. This would be the last time she did. Why hadn’t he turned out better, loved her as a son should, not betrayed her? Her hand holding the decanter quivered ever so slightly, and it forced her to put the wine down a bit more emphatically than she’d intended.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked, leaning forward and clasping her shaking hand. She stared at his fingers wrapped around her trembling fist, and she realized for the first time that his long, slender fingers looked precisely like Fransis’s.

  Would they have liked each other? They were cousins and Maxen had called him uncle. The two of them were great chums, or at least as great as was possible between a grown man and a 3-year-old. Would Fransis have been able to teach Maxen the things Ethelred clearly had not? Or was there something fundamentally wrong with Maxen that no amount of instruction could have corrected? Perhaps her son had been destined to turn against her. This moment might have been fated, and nothing could have prevented it.

  “Oh, darling,” she said, “don’t worry. It’s simply been a long day.”<
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  He nudged the bottle toward her again. “Then you should take some of this and go to bed.”

  Poor boy was delusional if he thought he stood a chance against her in a battle of wills over who would drink first. “Not yet. I need to unwind a bit. You don’t mind chatting with your silly, old mother, do you?”

  “Never,” he answered, but the corners of his mouth failed to turn up when he tried to smile. Clearly he longed to be elsewhere. “What should we talk about? Your exciting future? Certainly not about the feast.”

  Discussing her future with him held no appeal. And he was right about the present—the vision of blood pouring from Hildred’s mouth still had her shivering. The past then. “Do you have any regrets?”

  “Well, that’s certainly a topic.”

  “Tonight has made me nostalgic, what can I say. So, do you? Have any regrets, that is.”

  “Not freeing you sooner.”

  She laughed and found herself wondering for the first time if he had ever really attempted to win her freedom, or if it had all been lies. She had no one’s word for it but his own. Maybe his plan had always been to kill her if Ethelred decided to end her captivity. Perhaps she should be grateful he hadn’t tried to murder her long ago.

  “You’re such a sweet boy, but I’ll be free soon enough. Really though, is there anything? Regrets are odd beasts that live under the bed and come out to haunt us at night.”

  “But you always promised me there was nothing under the bed.”

  “Oh, when you’re little, there isn’t anything lurking under the bed. You have to live awhile before you gather monsters to keep you up at night.”

  Maxen nodded and wrapped his Fransis-like fingers around the wine glass. “You’re right about it taking some time before you’ve lived enough to regret something. If we’d had this conversation when I was here a year ago, I wouldn’t have had anything to talk about. But, yes, I’ve got a regret now. A big, scary monster, you could say.”

  He placed the glass to his lips and sipped.

  “I lied to you, mother.”

  She already knew that, but she wondered which lie he intended to confess. Something about his new, all-consuming friend, Vadik, or perhaps how he’d never fought for her. Anticipation gripped her. She drummed her fingers on the table, waiting. Waiting for the confession. Waiting for him to die.

  He took a longer drink before continuing. “Well, I didn’t so much lie as fail to mention several things about Rosheen.”

  So, now at the end he would tell her the truth about the girl. How thoughtful. How selfish, pointless, and cruel.

  “She isn’t some random earl’s daughter. Well, the Earl of Clogwyn really did raise her because he was friends with her parents, both of whom she lost when she was young.”

  “What a terrible thing for a child to suffer. So, who were her parents?” She spoke slowly and clearly, giving no hint that she already knew. “And why would you feel it necessary to lie to me about her origins?”

  “Because she’s Averill Rosheen Howard, daughter of General and Lady Howard, and she and her mother publicly blamed you for the general’s death.” He drank nearly half the glass in a single gulp.

  She clenched her teeth, wanting to scream all the things she had been thinking since discovering this information from his father. Wanting to tell him how much he had hurt her. But seeing how little of his wine remained, she restrained herself. She didn’t want her last conversation with her only boy to turn into an argument.

  “I would ask what you could possibly be thinking, but you’re young and she’s probably pretty—both of her parents were. I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed, though.”

  He stared into the wine glass he clutched between his hands. “I understand why you feel that way, and when I first met her, I hated her for your sake.” He lifted his eyes to lock onto hers. “But she’s disavowed her mother’s statements against you. She’s wonderful, mother. All I’ve done the past several days is harass father to let you free. You see, we’re getting married, and I want you there.”

  He drank again, and Merewyn smiled, glad the little minx would never be able to get her revenge through Maxen now. In fact, once she was free, and Maxen was buried, she would give Averill Howard a masterclass in revenge. That bitch had turned her son against her, and she would pay for it. Now that Merewyn thought about it, Averill was the real murderer here tonight. She would suffer for taking away Merewyn’s darling boy.

  “Why precisely are you so determined to marry this girl?” she demanded.

  “She’s having my child.”

  “Pardon?”

  “She’s having my child.”

  The way he said the words, the warmth and joy in them, the complete sincerity—it stunned Merewyn into silence. Of all the cards he could have played, that was the very last one she would have ever expected. She shook her head. A child? Maxen was having a child with this woman? Had he been right somehow? Had the Howard girl really had a complete change of heart? Or was this baby simply the most fiendish part of her plan? Yes. That must be the case, because otherwise....

  “You’re going to love her, and you’re going to love our child. That was what finally decided father—this child will only have one grandmother, and you should be there.”

  “Are you certain, darling? Certain this girl loves you for yourself? That she has no other agenda?”

  “Absolutely positive. Father and Uncle Edgar both like her. And I know the weight you put on Brandon’s opinion, so the last time he was in Formacaster, I insisted they be introduced. He said he had no doubts she will make me happy. So, to happiness!” He raised his glass and finished it.

  A whimper she could not contain escaped her. Dear Earstien, she’d just killed her darling boy, and he didn’t even know it yet. And he hadn’t been feigning innocence, he really was innocent. He loved this girl, this woman who was having his child, and who loved him in return. And if Maxen was right about the girl, and Averill was sincere, then perhaps Maxen had never knowingly been part of Vadik’s plot against Merewyn.

  Earstien, he hadn’t been trying to kill her after all.

  She snatched up the hillichmagnar’s bottle of potion, ripped out the cork, and dumped the entirety of its contents down her throat.

  “Mother!” He flung the empty bottle away in an equally empty gesture. “Why did you do that? I must go for help.”

  But he only managed a few quick steps toward the door before he stumbled and fell. He howled in agony before a fit of coughing wracked his body. She ran to him, throwing herself to her knees at his head. He was vomiting red, so reminiscent of Hildred, but she couldn’t tell if it was wine or blood. Cradling his head, she placed a hand on his stomach. Her poor boy! So much pain, and it was her fault, she had done this. And there was nothing she could do to alter it.

  “Mother?” He turned to look up as she cradled his head in her lap. A red stream trickled down his chin, and his eyes were wide and unfocused. “Mother, what’s happening?”

  And that was when she began to weep, the enormity of what she had done crushing her. She wanted to say something to him, to comfort him, to make his final moments in this world somehow less awful, but she couldn’t speak. Words choked in her throat, her sobs shaking her.

  “Mother?”

  Her breath wouldn’t come either, and she gasped for air that would not enter her lungs. Then his face blurred, and she bent lower. Mere inches from him, she stared into his vacant eyes. He was gone, already gone. She pressed her forehead against Maxen’s, her tears streaking his face, until oblivion took her.

  Chapter 36

  THE SOUND OF...VOICES...came through the fog. And she was shaking again, uncontrollably, along the entirety of her body. Whatever moved her would not stop, and in her mind, that unnamed force was somehow connected with the voices. But there should be no one to touch her and no voices to hear, for she had killed her darling boy, and she was in the Void.

  No one, not even the hillichmagnars, knew for ce
rtain what came after death. She had been taught there was a hell, and beyond that was the Void, the prison of Koarthak, who had defied Earstien and nearly broken the world. Only the very worst men were sent there, forever cut off from Earstien’s Light. Were mothers who murdered their own children as bad as Koarthak in Earstien’s sight? She felt as though the Void would only be just.

  “If she’s still alive, she needs to vomit so she can remain that way.”

  Who was that? The Odelanders said there were ghouls in the afterlife. Perhaps one of the ghouls was cruelly attempting to give her hope, to make her dream that she still lived. The ghoul didn’t know that she had no desire to live at all. She deserved death; she had earned it.

  The force shaking her rolled her onto her side. The surface beneath froze her, it was so cold, which made sense. Everyone knew the Void was freezing. A voice, a different one from before, whispered soft, unfamiliar words that felt as though they had tangible weight. As he spoke, her stomach roiled and she became even colder until, without warning, she spewed liquid from her mouth.

  Violent coughing became her whole world, the cold and the hopelessness lost in the burning of her throat and pain that continued into her chest and down to her stomach. Earstien, why couldn’t she be in the Void? Why couldn’t there be nothingness? The preosts all said it was unendurable in the long term, but in this moment, she prayed for it. The words came again, and more flowed from her mouth, followed once more by agony and hacking. When she heard the words for the third time, she mumbled, “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Merewyn? Merewyn? Earstien, please tell me you can hear me. Tell me you’re alive.”

  It was yet another voice, but this one she knew. She rolled her head back, eyes fluttering open. Ethelred. What was Ethelred doing in the Void or hell or wherever it was she had been sent? Why was she aware of anything?