“No!” That cry was Daphne’s, not the Fool’s, and when Spencer turned to her he found her with her face in her hands. He couldn’t tell if it was guilt or merely horror that made her tremble, but from her cries you would have thought she was suffering through the attack along with Sansano. Lorna grabbed her sister around the middle, and Spencer pulled her hands from her face and held them.
A soft breeze touched his hair as he clasped Daphne’s hands, and he knew what it meant. “We should go,” he told Daphne. She nodded, and he could practically see her regrouping, pulling herself together, stitching up the places where her usual composure had failed her and setting her jaw so that her face wore its usual haughty expression, but in his hands, hers were as cold as ice.
“Yes,” she said, and they could still hear that soft, sickening crunching as they moved to the exit with Lorna right behind them.
There was no need for them to fetch help now. No need at all, because the Fool was gone, and because none of them really wanted to think about what had just happened, let alone answer questions about the experience. It was better to pretend that none of it had occurred. They walked as if in a dream, retracing their path through the castle until they were back in the entrance hall, back in a corridor with windows, above ground. The fatal moon glowed down at them as if it were any other night and they hadn’t just brushed lips with death in a chamber where a beast devoured a man at the bidding of a woman long dead.
Chapter 11
Frost still clung to the boots of the Hunter as he was ushered to the Queen’s audience chambers with the winter wind grasping at his heels. Arthur closed the door behind him, and stood guard stoically at the door. The Queen was ensconced in her elegant chair, with the white silk shawl about her shoulders weighed down by the blood-red ruby brooch pinned to it. Arthur knew that Tryphena had been impatient for the arrival of her assassin, but she betrayed no sign of it as she surveyed the man critically, as though confirming to herself that he would be capable of the task commanded of him.
“My lady.” The man went to one knee at once, and Arthur was struck once more by how very average the man was in appearance. There was nothing to betray him for the deadly force that he was. His eyes were clear and alert, but not overtly menacing. He was middle aged and of average height and build, the thick fabric of his tunic and cloak hiding the strength of his arms and whatever weapons were secreted about his person. The garments themselves were well made, but otherwise unremarkable. In short, there was little to distinguish him, and had he come that day on behalf of the miller’s guild or the league of merchants, Arthur would have scarce blinked an eye at the sight of him. That fact was only made more chilling given what he knew about the man and what he was capable of.
“You are well?” Arthur was unsure if the Queen was exchanging pleasantries for the sake of appearances, or because she was digging for information about how the Hunter had occupied himself these past years since he was last employed against enemies of the Crown.
“Ready and able to serve the crown, my lady. How may I be of service?” He cut right to the heart of the matter, smoothly and elegantly, sounding more like a diplomat than a man of the sword, but when the Queen gestured for the hunter to stand, Arthur caught the flash of a blade from the depths of the man’s cloak.
The Queen eyed him appraisingly for a moment longer and then stood. “There is a man, a newcomer to the city. He has been watching me, watching the castle. I will furnish you with his description and a list of places where he has been sighted, and you will kill him.”
“It is done, my lady.”
The quiet assurance in the hunter’s voice seemed to rile the Queen more than soothe her. “See to it that the body is never found, but search it first. All of his belongings are to be returned to me. Do not investigate them, just bring them to me. If you find papers on him, do not read them. You are to treat this with the utmost discretion. In particular, you are not to speak to this man. I do not want you to have any contact with him before you dispatch him. There will be no conversation, no confidences. Do not give him the opportunity for any final words. Do you understand?”
The Hunter frowned slightly, as though he too scented panic. Unlike Arthur, he was bold enough to inquire. “Who is this man?”
At first Arthur did not expect his mistress to answer, for she remained silent for several long seconds after the question was posed. Then she turned, to gaze over her shoulder at the ice-brittle forest and the snowy mountains, and he had the impression that she was remembering something, though whether it was good or bad he could not say. “A priest. A man I knew a long time ago.”
***
“I think I’ve found something.” The words, whispered by Daphne into the quiet darkness of the library, were a welcome sound. It was not the first time they had stumbled across something interesting in their long stints in the library following the death of the Fool, but so far nothing they’d turned up had aided them in their identification of the spirit or their study of the book. Spencer had his doubts about whether they would ever get anywhere, but after hours amongst the eternity of the stacks, the scent of decaying leather bindings was beginning to make his head spin, and he welcomed the idea of a break. He climbed down from his ladder and joined Daphne and Lorna at one of the great oaken reading tables.
Daphne was staring down at a volume of royal history, and one picture in particular seemed to have caught her attention. She tapped the page, indicating a portrait of a serene young woman with dark blue eyes. It was an old painting, he could tell by the strange way in which the woman’s apricot colored hair had been wound around her head, and by the old fashioned crown of golden leaves that ornamented her hair and framed her face. In one hand she held a book close to her chest, and with the other she seemed to be releasing a dove, which had been captured mid-flight in the painting, with its body still perpendicular to the ground, wings of shimmering white swept up and back. Given the stir that the dove was causing, you would have expected the young woman to look a little distracted, but she was staring evenly out at the viewer with perfect solemnity.
Spencer nodded excitedly, wiping the dust from his brow with a sleeve. “This could be her.” It was hard, too hard, to exactly transpose the visage of the spirit onto the portrait of a woman who was depicted as flesh and blood, but the two seemed a close enough match. His gaze passed over her serious expression and delicate fingers. “Who is she?”
“This is Lavinia Lucretius. She lived over two hundred years ago. I think the timing matches the date that our book was bound and painted.”
“I think I’ve seen her picture in the Portrait Hall.” Lorna put in. “We’ll have to take you there sometime; it’s a strange place.” She told Spencer.
“Thanks.” He responded uncertainly.
“Was she a Queen?” Lorna asked.
“No.” Daphne stared down at the page, smoothing one finger over the face of her ancestor. “Her mother was, and her sister was, but not Lavinia. She would have been, but she died too young. The year before the book was bound, actually. This portrait was commissioned the same year the book was completed.”
“This was painted after her death?” Spencer couldn’t help flinching.
“It was commissioned to commemorate her memory.” Daphne confirmed. She took in his faintly unnerved expression and rolled her eyes. “It’s quite common, Spencer. A portrait in the Hall is the most fitting way to remember someone.”
Perhaps, but he still found it eerie. Perhaps that was why the artist had drawn such pallor in her cheek, such an otherworldly gravity in her eyes. Something about the dove’s swift flight from her fingers gave him chills.
“It’s beautiful.” Lorna murmured.
“I hate it.” Spencer said, almost in the same breath. Daphne seemed offended. “What happened to her?” He asked before Daphne could argue.
“That was the hard part,” Daphne told him with great self-satisfaction. “I had to check three different books. Most of them just liste
d the day she died, but this one quotes her mother’s announcement. The Queen addressed the court the following day and told them that Lavinia had died of a fever in the night. She was buried nine days later.”
“A fever?” Spencer would have expected something a little more sordid if Lavinia was indeed the woman who stalked the halls at night.
“There was a plague outbreak at the time— for much of the century, in fact.”
“So she’s back to haunt us over a plague?” Lorna frowned.
“Probably not.” Daphne conceded.
“No, probably not. And the book has to figure into this somehow,” Spencer reminded them.
“I’m still researching,” Daphne snipped. “Go back to your work and I’ll try to piece more together about her.”
“I don’t have any work,” Lorna answered. “I haven’t been able to find anything.” Spencer nodded his agreement.
“Well, then why don’t you research Lavinia’s family? Her youngest sister was crowned Queen Pomponia many years later.” Spencer nodded. He remembered learning about Queen Pom in school. She was one of Wulfyddia’s most successful queens, having reigned long and peacefully for over fifty years. She sounded vastly preferable to Queen Tryphena, honestly. “There was a middle sister, Cornelia,” Daphne told him, “but she was infirm— mad as a hatter, it sounds like. They must have skipped her in the line of succession in favor of the youngest sister, who wasn’t crazy.” Spencer nodded. It made sense. It was a pity that the line of succession hadn’t skipped Daphne’s grandmother, for he couldn’t imagine a Queen crazier than Tryphena. “Lorna, why don’t you research Cornelia and Pomponia, and Spencer, you research their mother, Queen Domitia.”
They went back to work, but this time they didn’t spread out all over the library, but rather brought their books back to the reading table to peruse next to Daphne. Spencer paged through a number of tomes restlessly before he found one that discussed the Queen in question at any great length. Her early life sounded largely unremarkable, and he found it difficult to focus through page after page describing her childhood, education, politically motivated marriage, and the births and deaths of her daughters. It was only when he reached the end of her life that an anomaly presented itself to him. The Queen was the only member of her immediate family who was not buried in the same royal crypt. Instead, she was buried, not at sea, but in a lake.
The Lady’s Lake.
Spencer blinked down at the page beneath him. It seemed an insignificant detail, so why did it disturb him so? It wasn’t as if he believed any of the rumors about the rapidly rising lake or the spirit who was said to haunt it, and yet… was it a coincidence, for Lavinia’s spirit to wander the castle, at the same time that the lake her mother was buried in rose?
He was just opening his mouth to share his unexpected finding with the sisters, when Daphne broke the silence. “That’s odd.” Daphne scowled down at the book she studied as if it had done her a personal affront.
“What?”
“Lavinia.” Daphne cocked her head.
“What about her?”
“She was buried nine days after she died.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Daphne rubbed her nose, leaving a smudge of dust on her cheek. “Everything. She was buried nine days after she died because they were observing a nine-night vigil.”
“Isn’t there always a vigil?”
“Not for plague victims. Never for plague victims.” Daphne reached across the desk and pulled another book towards her. “Lavinia died in 7765. They were in the grips of their third plague outbreak of the century. They were burning diseased corpses— Immediately. But they kept hers around for nine days and then buried it. The Queen herself was by the body the entire time. They would never have risked the life of the Queen like that. And they shouldn’t have buried her. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if she didn’t die of a fever.” Spencer contributed.
“Maybe they weren’t sure how she died,” Lorna suggested.
“I don’t think they would have risked it.” Daphne said.
“Not unless they knew that however she died, it definitely wasn’t a fever.” Spencer felt an odd foreboding in the pit of his stomach.
“But why lie about it?” Lorna asked. Spencer turned to Daphne. She knew far more about the lies and secrets of the aristocracy than he.
“Scandal.” Daphne answered at once. “Something they didn’t want getting out.”
“What kind of scandal?”
Daphne shrugged. “Maybe she died in childbirth? She was unmarried; that would have been a terrible scandal. Maybe she had a lover who murdered her?”
“Murder.” Lorna shivered.
“We don’t know for sure,” Daphne said, unusually sensibly. “We don’t even know if she is the ghost. And even if she is, it doesn’t mean that she had to be murdered. There are plenty of ghosts who weren’t murdered.”
“I think she’s the one,” Spencer said. “I think it’s Lavinia.”
“We’ll see. Lorna, what did you learn about Cornelia?”
“She died.”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously.”
“No, I mean young. She died young. They didn’t skip her in the line of succession at all. She was already dead by the time Pomponia took the throne.”
“How did she die?” Spencer asked, but Lorna’s answer was interrupted by the chiming of a large clock somewhere in the depths of the stacks.
“It’s late.” Daphne observed.
“Daph, we have to go.” Lorna reminded her sister.
“Oh.” Daphne seemed subdued. “There’s a midwinter’s feast tonight. We have to go prepare.”
“Oh.” Spencer’s response was simple because he had nothing else to say on the matter, but the sisters seemed to take his monosyllabic reaction as something else because they both hurried to assure him.
“We would invite you, but we’re not allowed to bring any guests to this feast.” Lorna said quickly.
“It’s only for members of Court,” Daphne explained almost apologetically.
At first Spencer felt oddly gratified that they had thought to explain themselves to him. Then he felt insulted to have been excluded. “I understand,” he said stiffly, and suddenly an affair that had been perfectly simple was strangely awkward.
“Wait for us to do anymore research,” Daphne said, sliding off the stool and closing her book reluctantly. “We’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“Okay,” Spencer agreed, but even after the sisters had melted away into the shadows he remained, lingering over the pages that were all that remained of Lavinia’s life.
***
Rathbone sighed in satisfaction as he leaned low over the fire, warming his hands until the skin was singed. He had done well today. His newly concocted poison was perfectly potent, and he had a new specimen to experiment on. Stifling a little snicker, he turned and shot a glance over his shoulder at the creature spread on his autopsy table. It was an odd little thing. The face was vaguely draconic, but the body was sort of reminiscent of a… newt. It was startlingly large though, the size of the Landlady’s dog, and he had found it preying on cats in the alley.
At any rate, what mattered was that it was a creature. The species was irrelevant. It was some sort of beast, and as he had just proved, it could be killed. If it could be killed, then, maybe, he could kill the other beast, and perhaps he would be able to sleep at night again.
***
Cicely wondered if any of them had stopped to listen to the words. They danced madly, the spirit flowing freely in their veins. A dancer’s head was thrown back, eyes closed, the face a mask of disoriented pleasure, powdered white with wine red lips. A courtier lifted a lady to his shoulders and her skirt flew into his face. They laughed until they could not breathe, until they began to weave back and forth, unsteady in their mirth. They laughed until they sounded like they were choking. The music soared over it all. It lent rhythm t
o their movement and grandeur to their revelry. But, she wondered, had any of them listened to the words?
It was an ancient song, older than the Lucretius family itself. It told of a hunt, and not the hunt of an animal, but the hunt of a man, an old King, too long on the throne, too vicious in his rule, stalked by a bastard son seeking to murder his father and seize power himself. Because the King and his son were not of the Lucretius line, Queen Tryphena overlooked the treason, the regicide, perhaps believing that it had nothing to do with her. She, too, must not have listened to the words. Even the tone of the bard was a warning. Anselmore was his name, and of all the bards, his voice was the richest. He was the only one besides the Queen not dizzy with wine, and his face was grave, almost stricken as he used words to paint a portrait of murder and misery.
Cicely looked deeper, peering into the hearts of the courtiers, seeking to understand how they could twirl to a song that told of tragedy, but their minds had always been a mystery to her. They moved in time to a rhythm that she could not understand, and while she could see all that there was to see, she could not make sense of their sickly adoration or their thirst for royal approval. Then there was something else, trespassing on the edges of her mind, plucking at her consciousness like a child tugging on her skirts. It touched her shyly at first, but then with ever growing boldness, drawing her away from the foolish courtiers and the grave-voiced bard.
And Cicely turned her eye outward, letting the crowns and the curtsies and the great smoking fire and the wine-soaked sycophants all fade. The music hung in the air longest, unsettlingly so, as if it sought to imprint itself on her, to press close against her chest and warn her. Indeed, there was a prickling at the base of her spine, as though a shadow had pressed alongside her. Cicely flung her attention outside the walls of the castle, where a bitter wind set the frozen trees swaying, where the snow had fallen so thickly and drifted so high that it seemed to protect the world against human incursion, creating a realm inhabited only by the beasts of the forest and the frost faeries of winter.
Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) Page 12