He Drank, and Saw the Spider

by Alex Bledsoe

  I hated to do it, but I said, “And how long has Izzy been having those fainting spells?”

  “She told you about that?” Beatrice almost gasped.

  “No, she had one in front of us.”

  “Oh, God,” Beatrice sighed. “I guess it’s been about a year since they started. They’ve been gradually getting worse. Now it’s like she’s a machine that locks up.”

  “Anyone else in your family have the same condition?”

  “No.”

  I didn’t pursue this. Until we knew more about Izzy’s real birth family, there was no way to tell if it was hereditary. “Well, thanks again.” I watched her leave the room, the gown swirling to reveal her smooth thigh and calf.

  Liz slapped me on the back of the head. It made my pickled brain painfully slosh against my skull. “Ow! What was that for!”

  “You joust for the lady you came with, hotshot.”

  I pulled her into my lap. “I’m sorry, you’re right. That was rude.”

  “Yes.” She scratched my beard under my chin. “But you made me jealous. Do you like that?”

  “What happens if I say, ‘a little’?”

  “You get a little of this.” She kissed me. I began to forget about my headache. Then, of course, there was yet another knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I said as Liz got back to her feet.

  Owen Glendower entered, in the same ornate robe he’d worn for the shearing competition earlier. He carried a small wooden bowl filled with three apples. “I thought you might need these,” he said to me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Cassandra said you got dosed with Devil’s Dew. We give apples to the rams after we use it on them, to help shake off its effects.”

  I put the bowl on the table beside the glass beads. “I’ll take that under advisement. Thanks.”

  “I understand you have some questions for me,” he said.

  “Yeah. Do you have any of the gold I gave you back when I left Isadora?”

  “I told you, I put it all back, she’s got a dowry—”

  “No, I mean the actual coins. I want to see where they came from.”

  He thought about it, the way you do when you’re considering giving away a big secret. Then he said, “Yes, I kept one. For luck.”

  He reached under his robe and pulled out a thin chain, on which a coin hung as a medallion. He took it off and handed it to me.

  I recognized it at once. We had some just like it: the currency of Mahnoma, with Crazy Jerry’s profile on it.

  That wasn’t necessarily a clue, of course. Gold from anywhere worked pretty much everywhere. If it didn’t, it could be melted down and recast with ease. But it was a big coincidence.

  And finally, at long last, I also recalled the glowing glass Opulora the sorceress used. These were direct ties to Mahnoma; even more, direct ties to the royal household. Yet even if Isadora was somehow the illegitimate offspring of Crazy Jerry, sent away all those years ago, it wouldn’t matter. A bastard son might ascend to the throne, but not a daughter, not in this part of the world. She was less than a threat; she was a nonentity, politically speaking.

  So if she was the secret love child of Crazy Jerry and someone else, it explained why she was sent away. It did not explain why anyone wanted to kill her badly enough to send troops after her back then, and just forget about her ever since.

  I handed it back to him. “Thanks.”

  “Did it tell you anything useful?”

  “That I gave up a fortune?”

  “It wasn’t a ‘fortune.’ But it did get all this started.” He put the medallion back around his neck and tucked it under his robe. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Just a question. In all this time, has anyone else come around looking for her?”

  “People show up every so often claiming to be her father. They usually have some elaborate story about how they met Beatrice one night and had a tryst with her while they were both drunk. They clearly don’t know Beatrice. We send them packing.”

  “You said usually.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said that usually they have some elaborate story. That implies that sometimes they don’t.”

  He thought again, although this time he seemed to be lining up his facts before revealing them. “About five years after Isadora came to us, a man visited in the middle of winter. I didn’t actually meet him, because when the snows come, no one leaves home if they can help it. But I heard that he seemed to be military, and Audrey—she used to run the Head Boar— said he was asking about a baby found hereabouts. Most men ask for Beatrice, and try to convince her that she knew them way back when. But this one didn’t, like he didn’t know about her. Audrey sent him on his way, but for a while I expected him to come back with more troops. You can waste a lot of your life watching the horizon for bad things, you know. But it never happened.”

  There was a pattern here, all right, and although I didn’t know the specifics yet, I was seeing the outline. “Thanks, Mr. Glendower. I’ve got a lot to mull over now.”

  He left, and I picked up one of the apples. I turned it in my hand, examining the entire surface for any telltale signs of manipulation: a disguised puncture where something had been injected into it, or the kind of shimmer that came from an unnatural coating. Then I carefully sniffed every bit of it. When I looked up, Liz stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “I saw somebody poisoned with an apple once,” I said. “He spit up black foam and his body swelled so much, he nearly popped the seams on his armor.”

  “I know. You told me that story. That was a long way from here, and a long time ago.”

  “You think I’m being too cautious?”

  She just grinned and shook her head. “You tickle me sometimes, Eddie.”

  I took one bite, made myself chew it thoroughly, then swallowed. I waited for my stomach to roil, but nothing happened. If anything, it began to settle.

  “Is it working?” Liz asked.

  “It is,” I said, and took another bite.

  She began undressing.

  I said, “I don’t know if it’s working that well.”

  “Ha. You wish. No, I’m going to try on this dress and make sure it fits.”

  More clothes hit the floor as the apples nullified the Devil’s Dew. I stood, and my head did not wobble. She reached for the dress, but I grabbed her wrist.

  She looked at me. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Check for yourself.”

  “Oh, you are sure.” She slid into my arms. “But is it a good idea?”

  “It’s best idea I’ve had all day.”

  “I’ll grant you that.”

  “Besides, don’t you want to show me how jealous you are? Make sure I know what I’d be giving up?”

  “If I did that, you might not leave this room alive.”

  “If I’ve got to go, that’s how I want to do it.”

  And then more clothes hit the floor, this time mine. She ran and bolted the door, drew the drapes, and then very emphatically showed me what I’d be missing.

  Chapter

  SIXTEEN

  It wasn’t a marathon battle, and I did little but lie back and enjoy it, but it certainly helped me shake off the last of the hangover. And as Liz rose back into my field of vision, hair tousled and with a knowing half smile, I felt the kind of assurance in her affection that allowed me to relax and think about my erstwhile case.

  “You’re already working again, aren’t you?” she said.

  “It’s no reflection on you, I promise. Two minutes ago, you had my full attention.”

  “Uh-huh. Any ideas?”

  “Not yet. Still mulling.”

  She climbed off the bed. “Well, I’m going to get ready while you mull. It takes a lady longer to get beautiful than it does a man to get dashing.” She opened the curtain, and what I saw revealed in the late-afternoon light completely refuted her argument.

  I tried to focus on the
case, on Isadora’s mysterious origin, but my brain wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, for whatever reason— maybe it was seeing Beatrice’s ferocious maternal loyalty, or lying in a bed so reminiscent of those in my own childhood home—I thought about my mom, Lady Caroline, the Baroness LaCrosse.

  Like Beatrice, she’d been the oldest daughter of a rich Arentian, and thus knew both the value of money, and its ultimate worthlessness. She never worried about what things cost, but she did insist on value for the gold, and woe to anyone, merchant or noble, who tried to cheat or shortchange her. As her only child, I absorbed a lot of her attitudes toward things, and even the rigorous training my father insisted on was unable to change what had become my core values. As I approached middle age, I became more and more thankful for that.

  She was the steady wind to my dad’s raging gales, and the one person he never tried to bully or impress. Tall, spare, elegant, and very intelligent, she ran the day-to-day workings of our estate with an ease that belied its complexity.

  She had dark brown hair that, as soon as she could each day, came out of its elaborate public coif and fell in brushed waves around her shoulders. When she saw me, her face would light up, even if I was being dragged by the ear after doing something ill-advised. Old Wentrobe, the king’s chamberlain and principal bane of my existence back then, considered me a lost cause before I’d gotten out of diapers. He bemoaned my influence on my best friend, the crown prince Philip, and when I got older made no secret of his disapproval after I started courting Phil’s sister Janet.

  When Mom learned about the relationship, she took me aside for a walk in the family orchards. It was a beautiful spring day, and the white blossoms glowed in the sunlight. Backlit bees swarmed the flowers, but they seemed to know better than to pester Mom.

  “So you have a girlfriend,” she said.

  “Uh . . .”

  “It’s okay, son, you don’t have to pretend. You’re fourteen, it’s normal to start liking girls at this age. Certainly I can’t fault your taste; Princess Janet is a beautiful and intelligent girl.”

  My faced burned with the shame only a teen boy can feel in such a situation. I was terrified she’d try to tell me about sex. “Yeah, she is,” I muttered.

  “ ‘Yes,’ not ‘yeah.’ We’re not in the stables.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “She’s not heir to the throne, so that simplifies some things. But socially she is above your station. Have you thought about that?”

  “She’s not that far above. I’m not a commoner.” I scuffed the dirt with my boot.

  “No, you’re not. You will be the Baron LaCrosse one day, but she will never be the Baroness. She will always be Princess Janet.”

  “Gee, Mom, I’m not gonna marry her,” I said petulantly.

  “ ‘Going to,’ son, not ‘gonna.’ ”

  “I’m not going to marry her,” I repeated with even more petulance.

  “Not if you don’t learn to speak correctly.”

  “So are you telling me you want me to break up with her?”

  “What? No, not at all. I like Janet, and I think she’s a good match for you. I just want you to be sure you’re dating her for the right reasons, and not because she’s a princess.”

  “I don’t care if she’s a princess,” I said with the kind of righteous anger you stop feeling at about age twenty.

  She smiled and tousled my hair. I usually hated that, but not this time. “That’s my boy,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

  A year later, after my mother’s death, I told Janet about this conversation. We were in one of the castle’s lavish guest rooms where we usually met, reclined on the bed but still fully dressed. She said, “I’m glad she liked me. I don’t think your father does.”

  “He doesn’t like anybody. What does your mom think about me?”

  “That you’re after just one thing, like all boys.”

  Despite my sadness, or maybe because of it, I said, “Not just. But it’s on the list.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Baroness Rossington sent her son Vincent to court me, but his heart definitely wasn’t in it. Nor any other body parts.”

  “Really? When was this?”

  “Not too long ago. Jealous?”

  “Not of Vinnie Rossington. So your mom doesn’t like me?”

  “I’m teasing. She likes you fine. She thinks you’re very handsome, and have the makings of a fine nobleman.”

  I felt strangely comforted by that. I kissed her, and it led into something more heated without any effort. She looked into my eyes and said, “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “It isn’t because my mom died, is it? Because if—”

  “No, you moron, it’s because I want to. I’ve wanted to for months.”

  “Have you ever—?”

  “If you complete that sentence, I’m leaving.”

  “No, I just meant . . . neither have I.”

  “Really? The way you talked—”

  “I know, it was just . . . I wanted you to think I was more experienced than I was. Am.”

  She grinned and kissed me. “You’re adorable.”

  “I love you.”

  “You better. Okay, so we’re a couple of virgins alone in a big comfy bed. Think we can figure out what happens next?”

  “We’re reasonably intelligent people, we should be able to.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought.” And she began unlacing her gown.

  I snapped back to the moment before the recollection got any more vivid. It should have been a beautiful memory, and it was, but the events of a year later—the things that drove me from home, from my castle, from Arentia itself—overshadowed it. And always would.

  Liz looked positively magnificent in her borrowed finery. I washed up and changed into my clothes, which would have been stylish five years earlier; in most courts, the ruffles and bits of lace that stuck out at the sleeves and collar had since been replaced by severe cuffs and elaborate links. But I doubted anyone here would know that. The simple jacket and trousers made it bad form to carry my sword, and the dress slippers had nowhere to hide my boot knife. I’d have to approach dinner unarmed except for the tableware.

  Liz checked the ruffles at my collar and brushed lint from my lapels. I didn’t have to do anything to her; she was perfect. The gown’s slit revealed the straight red scar of a knife cut across her thigh, inflicted by a vicious man who ultimately became the last person to be killed by a real fire-breathing dragon. She had no self-consciousness about it at all. “How’s your head?” she asked as we prepared to leave the room.

  “Almost back to normal,” I said. “I’m getting rather hungry, too.”

  She kissed me. “Good. I was a little worried. What do you think is going to happen to night?”

  “Well, if the crown prince announces his betrothal to a commoner, I imagine there’ll be lots of gossip.”

  “And what about figuring out where Isadora really came from?”

  “If she goes from shepherdess to future queen, it’s kind of pointless. That’s both ends of the spectrum. And I’m pretty sure Prince Jack couldn’t care less.” I offered my arm. “Shall we mingle?”

  “You look very handsome,” she said. “And you look beautiful.”

  She grinned. “Let’s dazzle the fuckers, then.”

  We found the courtyard and foyer packed with people in various shades of finery. Most of it was as outdated as my suit, and a few extreme cases seemed to have come from some fever dream involving brightly colored birds and piles of jewelry. The kids looked especially uncomfortable in clothes either too little or big for them, heirloom outfits passed down from older to younger siblings and worn only once a year, if they were lucky. The adults were no more comfortable, but at least they could drink.

  As before, the main topic seemed to be sheep. At one level I felt like I’d dodged a spear by not giving in to Beatrice all those years ago, because really, how many sheep jokes can you
hear before you want to jump onto the business end of a pitchfork?

  I looked around for a familiar face, but didn’t see any. I guess the Glendowers were all busy preparing for the feast itself. I glanced toward the door, though, and happened to catch a glimpse of Billy Cudgel’s bulk as he quickly ducked into the house.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Liz, who also saw him.

  She grabbed my arm. “This isn’t the place.”

  “This is exactly the place.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m only going to talk to him. I’m not even armed.”

  “Remember we’re guests.”

  “I promise.”

  I sidled through the garden crowd and into the house. The foyer was hot with the press of bodies, but I saw no sign of Cudgel. His bulk should have left a wake like a ship. I snagged one of the twins and said, “Mopsa, I need your help.”

  She smiled in surprise. “You guessed right.”

  “Not a guess. You have an eyebrow that arches differently from your sister.”

  “And you noticed that? No one notices that. What can I do for you, sir?” Then she added, “if it doesn’t take me away from my duties here, of course.”

  “I’m looking for a big guy named Billy Cudgel. Have you seen him?”

  “Aye, I’ve got a bruise on my bottom from a pinch of his.”

  “That’s him, all right.”

  “He scurried into the dining room a moment ago. Looked as if someone was after him.”

  “And he’d be right.”

  “Oho. Will there be a duel, then? He’s always talking about his duels.”

  “I wouldn’t believe a word he said, even if he told you the sun rose in the east. But no, there won’t be a duel. I just want to talk to him. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, sir,” she said with a curtsy. So far, I observed professionally, all the Mummerset women have great legs.

  I made my way into the dining hall. Under a high ceiling, an immensely long table stretched the length of the room. At least fifty place settings were arranged along it. Men and women milled about, drinking and chatting. I put one foot on the bench that ran along the table and hefted myself above the crowd. I spotted Cudgel nestled into a corner, with three young ladies hanging on his every word.